"You could come," Josh called after me. I stopped. "Next Friday. You know, the whole town's gonna be there. You could come if you want."
"And bring Zach," DeeDee hurried to add.
"That sounds like fun," I said, except, if you asked me, a party with Josh and DeeDee and Zach sounded like the kind of torture that had been outlawed by the Geneva Convention. But of course I couldn't say that. Of course I had to smile. And lie. Again.
PROS AND CONS TO BEING A SPY WITH A BROKEN HEART:
PRO: Whenever you feel like punching someone, you can. As hard as you want. For credit.
CON: The person you punch may very well punch you back. Harder. (Especially if that person is Bex.)
PRO: High stone walls and state-of-the-art security greatly reduce the chance of seeing ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend in tremendously awkward social settings.
CON: Advanced training means that your photographic memory is now so reliable that you'll never be able to forget the sight of the happy couple together.
PRO: You're perfectly capable of putting all your old love letters and ticket stubs into a burn bag and hiding it really, really well.
CON: Realizing that, despite everything, you can't set the bag on fire. Not yet.
PRO: Knowing that, no matter what the operation, you can always count on your friends.
"We hate her," Bex proclaimed that night as the four of us walked downstairs for supper.
"No, guys, we don't hate DeeDee," I said.
"Of course you can't hate her—that would be petty," Liz said in the manner of someone who had given it a great deal of thought. "But we can totally hate her."
That sounded great in theory, except… well… DeeDee wasn't exactly easy to hate. I mean—she's the kind of person who dots her I's with little hearts (I know because we found a note from her in Josh's trash last semester), and she wears pink mittens and invites her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend to parties even though she totally doesn't have to. DeeDee was utterly un-hate-able. (And that's what I despised most of all.)
The corridors were virtually empty. Delicious aromas drifted from the Grand Hall as Macey McHenry placed one hand on the railing of the Grand Staircase, turned to me, and said, "We could hack into the DMV and set her up with a dozen unpaid parking tickets."
"Macey!" I cried.
"It might make you feel better," she rationalized. "It would make me feel better."
But I didn't think anything could make me feel better right then, especially when we reached the marble floor of the foyer and Bex said, "You could go to that party and show him what he's missing."
Really, going to that party was the last thing I needed, because A) I'd sort of promised under oath that I wouldn't sneak off campus anymore. B) If I went I'd have to take Zach with me (like that was going to happen). And C) I didn't have a thing in my closet that could possibly compete with pink mittens on the adorableness scale!
I was just getting ready to point out those simple facts when I really heard what Bex had said.
"Wait," I said. "How did you know about the party?"
"Cam," Bex said softly, "you were on comms."
Oh. My. Gosh.
As if it weren't bad enough that I'd just had one of the most traumatic and heartbreaking conversations of my young life—I'd had it while wearing a comms unit!
My classmates had heard everything…Mr. Solomon had heard everything…Dr. Steve had heard everything!
That had been my chance to redeem myself in front of the Blackthorne Boys, and I had frozen. I, Cammie the Chameleon, had been seen … by my ex-boyfriend…and his new girlfriend…and I had frozen.
It took all three of my roommates to drag me into the Grand Hall for supper. I barely managed to stay through dessert before slipping away. (Really, there's no reason to waste perfectly good crème brûlée.)
But then I found myself roaming dusty corridors that I know are rarely used, passing entrances to secret passageways and fighting the temptation to slip inside, until finally I was standing in a long, empty hall, staring at a tapestry of the Gallagher family tree, longing to ease behind it—to enter my all-time favorite secret passageway and disappear.
And I might have, too, if I hadn't heard a voice behind me.
"You know, I don't think I ever got the rest of my tour."
Zach. Zach was standing behind me. Zach was halfway down the corridor watching me, and I don't know what was scarier, that I had been sloppy enough not to have heard him or that he was good enough not to have been heard.
"So what do you say, Gallagher Girl?" He walked toward me then hooked one finger behind the ancient tapestry and peeked behind it. "Is this when I get my Cammie Morgan no-passageway-too-secret, no-wall-too-high tour?"
"How do you know about…"
He pointed to himself and said, "Spy."
Zach cocked his head and placed one shoulder against the cold stone wall, and suddenly I became acutely aware of the fact that we were…
Alone.
"So," he said, "that was Jimmy?"
"Josh," I corrected.
"Whatever," Zach said, waving the detail away. "He's a cutie."
And … well… Josh is a cutie, but I highly doubted that Zach meant it seriously, so I just rolled my eyes. "What do you want, Zach? If you came to make fun, go ahead," I said, laying myself bare (or as bare as a girl can be in a government-approved school uniform). "Mock away."
He studied me for a long time, his face fighting a smile before saying, "Gee, you know, I would…but you just took the fun out of it."