"What are you doing here?" Josh asked, then looked up and down the narrow street as if he were being followed (which, when you think about it, wasn't all that far-fetched).
"Oh, it's a … school thing." At the word school, he recoiled slightly. I looked down at the uniform that—until that moment—Josh had never seen me wear. "So, how have you been?"
"Okay. How about you?"
"Okay," I said, too, because, even though I could have told Josh a lot of things in a lot of different languages, the things I most wanted to say were the very things that neither the spy in me nor the girl in me could ever let him hear.
"So we're both okay," Josh said. He forced a smile. "Good for us."
Oh my gosh, could this moment be any more awkward, I thought—just as… you guessed it… the moment got a lot more awkward.
"Josh." The voice was soft and familiar. "Josh, your dad said he could …" The voice trailed off, and I saw one of Josh's oldest friends step out of the pharmacy's side door.
DeeDee's short blond hair did a little flippy thing where it stuck out of the bottom of her pink hat. Which matched her pink scarf. And her pink mittens. Pink was definitely DeeDee's signature color. "Oh my gosh, Cammie! It's great to see you!" she exclaimed.
She paused and studied my uniform for a second, as if remembering that almost everything I'd told her last semester had been a lie. And then, despite everything, DeeDee hugged me.
"Hi, DeeDee," I said, forcing a smile. "It's really … good … to see you, too." And it would have been if I hadn't noticed something just then that had nothing to do with being a spy on a training op and everything to do with being an ex-girlfriend.
DeeDee and Josh were standing too straight and trying too hard not to touch. A panicked look passed between them that screamed, We've been caught. And, Do you think she'll know?
It didn't take a genius to look at them together—to know that Josh and DeeDee were no longer just friends.
Spies don't train so that we'll always know what to think; we train so that in times like this we don't have to think; so that our bodies will go on cruise control and do the right things for us. My mouth smiled. My lungs kept breathing. I maintained cover, even when I heard Mr. Solomon's voice in my ear saying, "Okay, Ms. Morgan, let's see you hand off."
"We're … I mean…I'm…" DeeDee corrected quickly, as if trying to hide the fact that in the past few weeks she'd lost her single-pronoun status. "I'm on the committee for the spring fling—it's a dance…and you know…kind of a big deal…" She was rambling, unsteadied, which is pretty common for people in deep cover for the first time. "And Josh is helping me get businesses to donate door prizes and stuff. For the fling. Next Friday night. And—"
She might have rambled on forever, and I might have let her, but then a voice echoed down the narrow street. "Cammie, there you are," Zach said as he strolled around the corner, stopped suddenly, and looked from Josh to DeeDee and finally at me. "I was wondering where you'd disappeared to," he said. Then he turned to the boy next to me, stretched out a hand, and said, "I'm Zach."
DeeDee looked at Zach then back to me, and smiled that all-American-girl smile of hers like this was the most superfun reunion ever!
But Josh didn't smile. He looked between Zach and me with the same kind of expression he used to have while doing his chemistry homework—as if the answer were right in front of him but he couldn't quite see it.
"Zach," I said as my Culture and Assimilation training kicked in, "this is DeeDee. And Josh. They're …" I started before I realized I had no idea how that sentence was supposed to end.
"We're friends of Cammie's," DeeDee said, saving me.
"Zach and I …" I started, but then somehow couldn't find the words to finish.
"I go to school with Cammie," Zach said, and I marveled for a moment about how smoothly he had lied, before I realized it wasn't a he at all.
"Really?" DeeDee looked confused. "I thought it was a girls' school?"
"Actually, my school's doing an exchange with Gallagher this semester."
Then (and I swear I'm not making this stuff up) Zach slipped his hand into mine!
"Oh." DeeDee's eyes got wide as she looked at Zach, then at me, then at our joined hands. "That's really great!" She beamed, and since DeeDee is about the most un-spylike girl I know, there wasn't a doubt in my mind she was happy for me.
I looked at Zach, trying to see him as DeeDee did. He was sort of tall, and his shoulders were pretty broad. I guess if you have to run into your ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend, then there are probably worse kinds of cover. (I know, because my mom told me a story once about the Privolzhsky region of Russia and a very unfortunate hat.) But that didn't change the fact that I was finally with Josh again, but Josh…was with DeeDee. And I was holding the wrong boy's hand.
"Cam," Zach said, and I realized it was the first time he'd actually called me by my name—not Gallagher Girl. It sounded … well…different. "The van's leaving in ten." He nodded at Josh and DeeDee. "It was nice meeting you."
"You too," DeeDee said, but Josh didn't make a sound as we watched Zach go. He'd already turned the corner by the dry cleaners before I realized he had taken the quarter with him.
As little as I liked to admit it, Zachary Goode was officially it.
"Oh…well…I'll let you guys get back to your party plans," I said as I stepped away.