I started walking toward Dillon and the crowd of kids our age (if you're going to do the deep-cover thing you might as well do it all the way), but Josh tugged at my hand, stopping me.
"Come on, let's dance."
"But"—I pointed to the teenage mob—"aren't those your friends?"
Josh looked at them. "Yeah, those are the kids from my school."
"If you want to go say hi or something …"
"Let me think," he said, teasing. "I could dance with the prettiest girl at the party or go hang out with a bunch of idiots I see all day every day. What do you think?"
I thought he was getting some serious bonus points for the prettiest girl at the party line, was what I thought, but that didn't stop me from looking at him in a new way as he steered us to the opposite side of the barn, away from his friends, away from his parents. For the first time, I realized I might not be the only one in deep cover.
We danced for a long time before Josh said, "Thanks for meeting my parents. They're big on that."
"Yeah," I said. "They're really nice."
"They're psycho," he corrected me. "Did you hear what he said? About the store? He seriously thinks everyone in this town would die if it weren't for him." He shook his head. "You're so lucky no one cares what you do. I mean, you can be anything you want to be. No one's waiting on you to be some kind of chosen one."
"No," I said. "I guess no one is." Lie—absolute, total, and complete lie.
He pulled me tighter, which was a good thing for two reasons, because A) it kept him from seeing the tears that were forming at the corners of my eyes, threatening to test the waterproofness of Macey's new mascara, and B) it gave me pretty good cover, which I was about to totally need. In fact, no spy in the history of the known universe has ever needed cover more.
"Oh my gosh!" I gasped and ducked, hiding my head behind Josh's shoulder.
"What?" he said.
"Oh, um, I just stubbed my toe," I lied, because that was hardly the time to say, Hey Josh, speaking of parents, MY MOM JUST WALKED IN WITH MY COVEOPS TEACHER!
Across the dance floor, Mom was in Mr. Solomon's arms. They were both totally laughing, and he was twirling her, and her hair was flying around like she was in a shampoo commercial. Seriously. She could have sold conditioner to a bald man the way she looked out there.
I started easing toward the shadows, far away from the main doors, cursing myself for not marking all the exits earlier. I was stupid. STUPID. STUPID. STUPID.
"I think I want to sit down for a while." I found a stretch of shadowy space at the back of the barn, beneath the hayloft, far away from Mom and Mr. Solomon.
"Do you want some punch?" he asked.
"YES! Punch sounds great!"
I watched Josh disappear into the crowd, and for a second the panic stopped and I felt another feeling in my gut, like the ground had been swept out from under me. But it wasn't just nerves. I was flying, hurtling through the sky. Literally.
Chapter Twenty
Oh my gosh! I thought but didn't scream—partly because all the air had been jerked out of my lungs, and partly because Bex had one hand clamped over my mouth. Liz was looking at me through the pale light that floated into the hayloft from the party below, the noise muffled by bales of last year's straw.
"Cammie," Liz said patiently, as if trying to wake me from a deep sleep. "We had to get you out of there. Your mom and Solomon—they're here!"
That's when I looked around the hayloft and saw the series of pulleys the girls had constructed—the wires that were tied to Bex and to me—and I suddenly understood why I felt like a fish Grandpa Morgan had just jerked out of the water.
Even Macey was there, lying on her stomach, peering over the edge of the loft. "We're good." She rolled onto her side to face us. "The shadows are so thick back there; I don't think anyone saw."
"Oh my gosh," I finally said.
For someone who was technically involved in her first act of espionage, Macey was acting pretty calm about it— like maybe Tina's theory that she had once blackmailed the editor of Vogue into bringing back gaucho pants was actually true.
Liz, on the other hand, was freaking out. "Cammie, did you hear me?" she nearly shouted. "Your mom and Solomon are here! They're here! They could have seen you! Do you know what would happen if they saw you?"
"I know," I said as I sank to the floor of the loft. I breathed in the sweet smell of the hay and waited for my heart to stop pounding. Then I realized something. "They didn't see me," I said.
"But how can you be sure?"
This time, Bex answered. "Because she isn't dead yet."
The hayloft was dark and at least thirty feet above the heart of the party, so Bex and Liz sank to the floor and together we crawled toward Macey and the edge. Dim lights twinkled below us, and the band played a slow song. I watched my mom dance with Mr. Solomon. She rested her head on his shoulder, and suddenly, having them skin me alive seemed like a totally better option than watching that.
"Wow," Macey muttered. "Killer couple." But I don't know if she meant it literally.
"Oh, Cammie," Liz said, "I'm sure they're just here as friends. Right, Bex?"
Bex was speechless.
Oh my gosh!
"I mean, I'm sure they're just—" Liz tried to make things better, but it was Macey who said, "Don't worry, they aren't dating or in love or anything."
She sounded so decisive—so sure. I looked at her, wondering How can she possibly know such a thing! Then I remembered—she was Macey McHenry! Of course she knew! I was totally starting to feel better until she added a fateful, "Yet," and I thought I was going to be sick.