The cosmos decided I was a huge toolbag for keeping my mouth shut because at the mall with Nikki the next week, who did we stumble across but the former art teacher himself. I didn’t see him coming, but Nikki did. She and I had just walked out of the shoe store, Nikki the proud new shoe mommy to a pair of knee-high black boots with spiky heels, when she took off down the hall like a bullet. I turned in time to see her approach Mr. Riddell, who was two stores up, his eyes huge behind his glasses.
“Mr. Riddell! How are you?” Nikki asked. I trotted after her, my shopping bag whacking my calf.
Mr. Riddell glanced at me nervously, like I carried Quinn cooties with me that could ruin his life for a second time. He sucked in a breath, his meaty cheeks billowing. “Hello. Yes. I’m sorry to... How are you both doing? I enjoyed having you in my class.”
Nikki actually swooped in to hug him. He looked shocked, but then awkwardly patted her shoulder as she pulled away, his tight smile making him look like he had gas.
“I’m good, thanks. We miss you, Mr. Riddell. The new chick’s okay but she brought us back to basics. Like 101 techniques in a 201, you know? It’s dumb,” Nikki said.
He frowned and adjusted his glasses, the crinkles between his brows looking like a chicken’s foot. “I am sorry to hear that. Are you still taking lessons at the museum?”
Nikki nodded. “On weekends. We’re working with pastels.”
“Excellent. And how are you, Emma?” His head swiveled my way.
Why’d he have to look at me?
“I’m good,” I managed over the frog in my throat.
Don’t be nice. I don’t deserve it. Quinn doesn’t deserve it.
He nodded, smiling, as a middle-aged woman called his name from across the concourse. “That’s my wife. I should go.”
Seeing that woman holding her purse, waiting for her husband, compounded my guilt. Hard. Mr. Riddell had lost a job he’d had for years. He was married and probably had a mortgage. And bills. And a lifestyle. All of those things may have been compromised because Quinn Littleton couldn’t handle a single day without her stupid goddamned cell phone.
“I’m sorry you had to leave.” It escaped before I could think better of it. Nikki winced, but I’d opened that door and I’d reap the consequences for it. Red-faced, I peered at him, my fingers clasped together over my stomach.
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
“For Quinn.” I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else, but I didn’t need to, either. Mr. Riddell’s face flushed, his concentration no longer focused on my face but on my shoes.
“I wasn’t fired, if that’s what you’re... There was an investigation after an anonymous tip about improper... I was exonerated.” He sucked in a shaky breath. “I chose to step down. I couldn’t believe a student would be so hateful.” If I thought him looking down was uncomfortable, it was doubly so when he lifted his chin. The bevy of lines on his face made him look ancient, like he had tree bark instead of skin. “I suspected it was her. Did she tell you?”
“No. The class saw her do it.”
Mr. Riddell’s eyes narrowed. For a horrible moment, I thought he’d shout, but then he did something far worse. He asked me that question. You know, the one that makes your guts rot out.
“No one spoke on my behalf?”
“We wanted to,” I almost said. “We liked you way more than Quinn.” But the words became gobbledygook inside my mouth. The shame was so thick, it was like trying to talk through cotton balls. No, no one said anything because Quinn scared everyone. We were held hostage by a skinny blonde leviathan with a mean streak.
Our silence was damning. Mr. Riddell cleaned his glasses on the bottom hem of his shirt like that was infinitely more important than the two girls standing before him. I caught a momentary flash of white, furry belly before the glasses were replaced. “Well, what’s done is done. I’m fine, my reputation is intact. Perhaps next time you’ll do differently. Good to see you girls. Goodbye, now.”
Before Nikki or I could eke out proper apologies, he crossed the walkway to join his wife, the mall crowd closing in behind him.
I gaped at the spot he’d just occupied. “We let a good man burn,” I managed.
A drizzle of eyeliner-stained tears streaked down Nikki’s cheeks. She dashed them away like she could rid herself of the evidence. “Yeah. We did. Riddell was a good dude. He got me into that art program. God, I hate Quinn.”
Things settled into a routine of terrible after the Riddell incident. Quinn did Quinn, no one took her to task because she terrified them. It got twice as bad after she joined the cheerleading squad; she had a small army of popular girls to back her. Add to that her unmatched capacity to wheedle, bully and charm her way through any situation and you had a disaster in Malone Souliers.
She was the Wicked Witch of Westvale.
I was the lucky girl who got to live with her and her little dog, too.
At least Karen didn’t suck. She respected my dedication to my grades, complimenting me with, “You have your head on straight—you’re going places in life.” She talked to me about college, offering to poke her alma mater after I sent out my applications. Not once did she say that stuff to her own daughter. Quinn’s concentration had always been the social spheres of school, not academic achievement, so Karen praised me, all the while nagging Quinn about her floundering grades.
It was a sore spot begging to become an open wound. Sure enough, at the end of first term, things imploded. I’d made Dean’s List with straight A’s. Quinn barely passed anything because homework was just not something she was interested in doing. Karen regarded her daughter’s report card in much the same way Superman would regard a lump of kryptonite in his Christmas stocking.
“This isn’t going to work, Quinn. You want to cheer in college but with these grades, you won’t get into college. You’re going to have to do more. Up the grades, show involvement beyond cheerleading. Prove that you’re well-rounded. And don’t try to sell me on cheerleading scholarships. Cheerleading doesn’t have the sway of football or baseball. If you want college, you’re going to have to work for it. I can’t do this for you.”
Quinn bellowed a whole bunch and stomped off to her room, but the idea of colleges turning her away must have bothered her, because she flounced into my room less than an hour later.
“Does your goth friend still work at Bouncing Bear?”
I offered my best deadly librarian stare over the rims of my glasses.
“Her name is Laney, and yes. Why?”
“I need a job.”
I actually laughed. Like, in her face. She looked taken aback, and then she looked pissed. “Stop being a douche. I need a job. You heard my mother. I’ve got to be well-rounded.”
I dropped my chin into my palm so I could maintain uncomfortable eye contact. “The last time Laney came over, you told her it’s lucky she found the one necrophiliac in Westvale because no one else would screw a corpse. Why would she get you a job anywhere?”
Quinn rolled her eyes, but she must have agreed Laney wasn’t a good in because I heard her mutter “Josh” before returning to the foul cocoon from whence she came.
I snorted. If she was going the Josh route, things had taken a dire turn.
Josh Winters was one of those kids who was popular in spite of himself. He was okay-ish looking, was smart-ish, played sports moderately well-ish, and had a good-ish sense of humor. Except he didn’t act like he was only ish