Part 18 (1/2)
”Excuse me?”
”What makes you think I'm here to see you?”
”Maybe the fact that you tried to grab me the other night?”
”I haven't the foggiest idea what you are talking about.”
”Whatever,” I say. ”I want my stuff back, by the way.”
He raises his eyebrows again, as if he really doesn't have any idea of what I'm referring to. Like he's not the one who took my tote from the grove.
”So we're still playing that game?” I ask.
I don't break eye contact with him until he holds out his hand and asks, ”Will you dance with me?” I am so startled by this proposition, I don't know how to respond. Luckily, the screech of a microphone as the music stops saves me from having to do so. I turn toward the sound.
”Can I have your attention?” A woman in a red gown calls into the microphone from the bandstand on the patio. The crowd of students and parents quiet down and turn their attention to her. Tobin and a very dapper-looking j.a.panese man, who I a.s.sume is Tobin's father, stand by her side. ”I am happy to welcome you all to our home today,” the woman who must be Mayor Winters says. ”You've all worked so hard to get here, and I am as proud of you as I am of my own son. However, I do think Tobin deserves a round of applause for landing the lead in this year's play.” She starts the applause and everyone in the crowd-except Haden, who has retreated behind the magnolia tree, I notice-joins in. Next, the mayor leads the crowd in a rollicking welcome for Joe, who seems to be enjoying the company of several women in short c.o.c.ktail-length dresses near the bar.
”And where is your costar, Toby?” she asks. ”I hear she's quite lovely.” Even from where I stand, I can see the blush in Tobin's cheeks. He finds me in the crowd and points me out to his mother. The mayor attempts to start a round of applause for me, but I am not surprised that it sounds much more feeble than for Tobin.
”I hope you will enjoy the party,” Mayor Winters says. ”We will be sending the floral arrangements to Pear Perkins's hospital room, so please be sure to sign the get-well card that is circulating the party. We want to do everything we can to take care of our own here in Olympus Hills.” She smiles, showing gleaming white teeth behind her ruby red lipstick. ”Oh, and do be sure to help yourselves to the spider rolls; they're an Os.h.i.+ro family specialty.”
And with another round of applause, Mayor Winters and her husband head down the patio steps, shaking hands with party guests as they go. The orchestra strikes up again and couples head out on to the dance floor. I slip past them and head for Tobin, who is accepting the congratulations of a man wearing a pale yellow scarf. Tobin smiles when he sees me approach and excuses himself from the conversation.
”Yowza, Daphne,” he says, looking me over. ”I take it back. I was asking you to be my date tonight.”
”Too late,” I say with a smile.
He looks even more Frank Sinatraaesque in a black suit, bow tie, and a black fedora sitting on his head at a rakish angle. With my heels on, I tower over him even more than usual, but he doesn't seem to mind.
”Wanna dance?” he says.
”No,” I say. ”I want to hear about this big secret of yours.” He takes my hand and gestures me toward the house. ”Like I said, it's something I need to show you.” chapter twenty-seven haden To my utter astonishment, Dax's plan to get Daphne to come to me seems to be working. Daphne moves closer and closer as the party progresses. She's standing only a few feet away now.
Between trying to dodge the disgusting-smelling food at the buffet, warding off the attention of some short girl named Lexie, and pretending to be overly fascinated by the tree that grows near the pool, I've done a rather decent impression of being aloof. I don't follow her, and I don't look at her unless I am sure she isn't watching. Which is an experiment in self-control, considering how she looks in that dress.
I had already been fascinated by the curves of her body, but the way that dress hugs and emphasizes them makes me wonder how anyone at this party isn't staring at her. I am astonished that people are actually turning away from her. She reminds me of the paintings of our G.o.ddess that adorn the walls of the palace. The blue of her dress brings out the color of her eyes and complements the tanned skin on her exposed shoulders. . . .
I glance away quickly, realizing I've been caught looking. I take a sip of the dark, bubbling liquid in my gla.s.s. It burns my throat as I swallow. When I look up, Daphne is standing right in front of me. She says something snide.
And I ruin everything when I open my big dung spout of a mouth to reply. I'm not even sure what I've said that annoys her so much, but she's staring me down like she'd rather punch me in the face than speak to me again. I can't think of what to do next. The music and smells cloud my judgment. Not to mention that dress . . .
Her stare intensifies. I say the first thing that comes to mind. ”Will you dance with me?” I hold out my hand. I don't know how to dance but I hope I will pick it up as quickly as driving. That is, if she'll accept my offer.
I don't get to find out.
The music stops, and the woman I saw in the vice princ.i.p.al's office, the mayor, I realize, calls for everyone's attention. She starts talking and I see her son standing beside her.
Kopros. I am at the home of the boy who tried to attack me in the cafeteria.
I duck behind the tree until after the woman is done talking. I want to try to strike up another conversation with Daphne, but before I have the chance, she heads in Tobin's direction. They speak for a moment and then she takes his hand and they enter the house. Together.
I'm not going to follow her. That would be against Dax's advice, and the last thing I want is to be accused of stalking her again. I'm INTO THE DARK 223.
not going to go into the house to see what they're doing. But I don't see the harm in watching through the windows. . . .
The lights are on in the house and the shutters open. I walk around the side of the mansion until I am near the gate that leads into the front yard. I see Tobin and Daphne enter an empty room together.
Tobin leans down and pulls something from a drawer. I am tempted to climb the trellis next to the window to see what he is showing her.
But I bristle when I hear a familiar, chipper voice speaking to the doorman out front.
”It doesn't matter if the mayor is having a party. She will be delighted to meet with me.”
”She'll be delighted to meet with you,” the doorman responds mechanically, and invites Simon into the house.
I climb the gate that separates the backyard from the front yard, trying to get a better view into the windows of the foyer. My attention already torn between trying to ascertain what Daphne and Tobin are up to, and trying to figure out why Simon would be meeting with the mayor in the middle of her party, when something else pulls at me. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle, and I suddenly feel as though I am being watched.
I scan the backyard, but it seems as though none of the partygoers have noticed me perched on top of the gate. I look behind me into the front yard, and then beyond to the road. The light from one of the street lamps glints off the visor of the helmet of a man sitting on an idling black motorcycle. His face is completely covered by the helmet, but I can tell by the way his head is angled that he is either watching me, or he has a strange fascination with cedar-wood fences. A catering van pulls up to the curb, blocking him from my view-and me from his.
I tell myself that he is probably just waiting to rendezvous with a party guest and noticed a teenager sitting on the gate in the middle of the mayor's yard, and I turn my attention back to the windows of the room Daphne had entered. Only now she and Tobin are gone, and Simon and the mayor have replaced them in the room, seemingly locked in an intense conversation.
chapter twenty-eight.
daphne
Tobin leads me down a long hall toward the front of the mansion. He stops and waits until one of the waiters pa.s.ses, with a silver tray of tempura shrimp, before we duck through a set of French doors into a room I a.s.sume is his mother's office. There are gla.s.s cases showcasing various vases and artifacts lined up along the edges of the room. Some look Asian in origin, but most of them look like relics from ancient Greece or Rome.
”Is your mom a collector or something?”
Tobin puts a finger to his lips to quiet me. ”Yeah,” he whispers. ”But none of this is what I wanted to show you.” He leads me away from the display cases to a large mahogany desk and opens one of the drawers.
”What are you doing?”
From the way he's acting, I almost think he's planning on pulling a heist in his mother's office-and using me as his accomplice-but what he pulls from the drawer is hardly something valuable. In terms of money, that is. It looks like an old family photo.
”Notice anything weird about this picture?”
There are a lot of weird things about this photo. It's at least seven years old, based on how old Tobin looks in the picture, but I wouldn't have guessed it was his family from appearance. The woman in the photo has long, naturally curly, auburn hair and a daisy tucked behind her ear, and the j.a.panese man in the photo has hair almost to his shoulders, and wears a beaded necklace and a T-s.h.i.+rt with a windmill design on the front. Besides their faces, they barely resemble the dapper power couple of the mayor and her husband. There's another boy in the photo who looks to be a few years older than Tobin.
”Who's that?”
”My brother, Sage,” Tobin says. ”He went off to MIT a couple of years ago.”
”MIT. I'm guessing he wasn't as into singing as you are?”