Invitation Only (Private 2)

Ex­cept my boyfriend is AWOL, I drunk­en­ly sucked face with a stranger, I have a hang­over the size of Yu­goslavia, and I'm about to starve to death.

“Ev­ery­one's talk­ing about Thomas. Have you heard from him?” she asked. She looked both con­cerned for me and hope­ful that she might be grant­ed an in­side scoop.

“No,” I said. “How are you?” I asked, most­ly to change the top­ic.

“Well, I have a sin­gle,” she said with a sad smile. Con­stance was a so­cial be­ing, not the type of per­son who would thrive in a sin­gle, and we both knew it. I want­ed to say some­thing to make her feel bet­ter about my to­tal de­ser­tion, but I could think of noth­ing. It wasn't like I was com­ing back. No mat­ter how many chores the Billings Girls made me do, liv­ing in the most ex­clu­sive dorm on

36

cam­pus was still a huge im­prove­ment over liv­ing in Brad­well. All the girls who lived in Billings had per­fect lives--they were pop­ular, suc­cess­ful, straight-?A stu­dents who went on to great things. That was go­ing to be me now. If they didn't work me to death first.

“Are you okay?” Con­stance asked, study­ing me close­ly.

“Yeah. Fine. Just a lit­tle tired.”

At the mi­cro­phone, Dean Mar­cus cleared his throat, sav­ing me from fur­ther ques­tion­ing.

“Good morn­ing, stu­dents,” he said, grip­ping both sides of the podi­um with his crag­gly fin­gers. “This morn­ing I am go­ing to dis­pense with the pleas­antries, as we have a bit of se­ri­ous busi­ness at hand. No doubt you all know by now that one of our own, Thomas Pear­son, has gone miss­ing from cam­pus.”

My emp­ty stom­ach turned and con­tract­ed. Mur­murs rose to the rafters of the chapel as this most juicy ru­mor was fi­nal­ly au­thor­ity-?fig­ure con­firmed.

“Fig­ures they'd wait till af­ter all the par­ents are gone to ac­tu­al­ly bring this lit?

?tle tid­bit up,” some­one said be­hind me.

“Si­lence, please!” Dean Mar­cus called out, rais­ing one hand.

And si­lence in­stant­ly fell.

“This is a not a mat­ter we are tak­ing light­ly,” he con­tin­ued. “As no one has come for­ward with any in­for­ma­tion as to Mr. Pear­son's where­abouts, I have asked the chief of Eas­ton Town­ship po­lice, Chief Sheri­dan, to speak to you. Please give the chief your un­di­vid­ed at­ten­tion.”

He turned to a gray-?haired gen­tle­man in a stiff blue suit who was seat­ed be­hind him. “Chief Sheri­dan?”

37

Pews creaked all over the chapel as ev­ery­one strained for a good look at the chief. He tow­ered over Dean Mar­cus as he ap­proached the mi­cro­phone, his shoul­ders as square as his jaw. When he swal­lowed I could see his large Adam's ap­ple bob, even from rows back.

“Thank you, Dean Mar­cus,” the chief said, his voice grave. He looked out at all of us with steely blue eyes and I could see the dis­plea­sure he was feel­ing as he ad­dressed us. I won­dered if he re­sent­ed the school for be­ing nes­tled with­in his ju­ris­dic­tion, if Thomas's dis­ap­pear­ance was a headache with which he'd rather not cope. Or if it was on some lev­el ex­cit­ing for him. My guess was that not much hap­pened around this sleepy, up­scale town. Maybe he was ea­ger to solve an ac­tu­al case.

“I'm sor­ry to have to come here un­der such grave cir­cum­stances,” the chief be­gan. “Now, this is a big school. I'm sure that some of you know Thomas Pear­son, while some of you do not.”

I felt a warm hand cov­er mine. I looked down to find Con­stance's fin­gers grip­ping my own in a com­fort­ing way. My first in­stinct was to slide my hand away, but I didn't. She was try­ing to be a good friend. I need­ed all the friend­li­ness I could get these days.

“But this week we will be in­ter­view­ing all of you,” the chief said.

An­oth­er wave of whis­pers met this an­nounce­ment. The vibe in the room was al­most ex­cit­ed. What was wrong with these peo­ple? Didn't they re­al­ize the im­pli­ca­tions of this? The po­lice thought some­thing bad had hap­pened to Thomas. They thought one of us might have some­thing to do with it. How did that trans­late in­to ex­cite­ment?

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“Please, when we come to get you out of class, do not be ner­vous,” the chief con­tin­ued. “Un­der­stand that we are not treat­ing any of you as sus­pects. All we care about right now is find­ing your class­mate and re­turn­ing him to his par­ents safe­ly.”

So they can brow­beat him in­to sub­mis­sion and ship him off to mil­itary school, no doubt.

“There will be no judg­ments,” he added. “But we will be grate­ful for any light you can shed on the sit­ua­tion.”

His eyes fell on me as he said this and I sank a bit low­er in my seat. Why look at me? Why?

He's not. He's just look­ing in this gen­er­al di­rec­tion. Get a grip.