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She banged on the door a little harder than she'd meant to. She needed to keep it moving. “Come on, come on,” she mumbled to herself. She heard the footsteps. She shook her hands to keep the blood flowing.
Here we go, Bridget thought as the doorknob turned and the door swung open.
And there she was.
The old woman was the right age to be Greta, though Bridget did not actually recognize her.
“Hello?” the old woman said, squinting into the bright sunlight.
“Hi,” Bridget said. She stuck out her hand. “My name is Gilda, and I just moved to town a couple of days ago. Are you Greta Randolph, by any chance?”
The old woman nodded. Well, that was that.
“Would you like to come in?” the woman asked. She looked a little suspicious.
“Yes, thank you. I would.”
Bridget followed her over white wall-to-wall carpet, amazed by the smell of the house. It was distinctive in some unidentifiable way . . . or maybe it was familiar. It stopped her breath for a moment.
The woman invited her to sit on the plaid couch in the living room. “Can I offer you a glass of iced tea?”
“No, not just now. Thank you.”
The woman nodded and sat in the wing chair across from Bridget.
Bridget wasn't sure what she was looking for, but this wasn't it. The woman was overweight, and the fat was distributed clumsily around her upper body. Her hair was gray and short and permed looking. Her teeth were yellow. Her clothes looked straight from Wal-Mart.
“What can I do for you?” the woman asked, looking at Bridget carefully, probably to make sure she didn't swipe any of the crystal doodads on the bookcase.
“I heard from your neighbors you might need a little help around the house—you know, odd jobs. I'm looking for work,” Bridget explained. The lie came effortlessly.
The woman looked confused. “Which neighbor?”
Bridget arbitrarily pointed to the right. Lying was easier than most people thought, she decided. This was key, because liars preyed on the general truthfulness of everybody else. If everybody lied, then it wouldn't be easy.
“The Armstrongs?”
Bridget nodded.
The woman shook her head, looking puzzled. “Well, we all need a little help, I guess, don't we?”
“Definitely,” Bridget said.
The woman thought a moment. “I do have a project I've been thinking of.”
“What's that?”
“I'd like to clean out the attic, then maybe turn it into an efficiency and rent it out in the fall. I could use the extra money.”
Bridget nodded. “I could help you with that.”
“I warn you, there's a lotta junk up there. Boxes and boxes of old things. My kids left all their stuff in this house.”
Bridget shrank back. She hadn't imagined that would come up quite so fast, even indirectly. In fact, as she sat there she'd sort of forgotten the connection she had to this woman.
“You tell me what to do and I'll do it.”
The woman nodded. “Fine. I'll pay you five dollars an hour. How would that be?”
Bridget tried not to grimace. Maybe that was the pay scale in Burgess, Alabama, but in Washington you wouldn't flip a burger for that. “Uh, okay.”
“When can you start?” The enthusiasm seemed to have changed hands.
“Day after tomorrow?”
“Good.”
The woman got up and Bridget followed her to the front door. “Thanks a lot, Mrs. Randolph.”
“Call me Greta.”
“Okay, Greta.”
“I'll see you day after tomorrow at . . . how's eight?”
“That's . . . fine. See you then.” Bridget groaned inwardly. She had gotten very bad at waking up in the morning.
“What did you say your last name was?”
“Oh. It's . . . Tomko.” There was a stray name that could use a new owner, even temporarily. Besides, Bridget liked thinking of Tibby.
“How old are you, if you don't mind my asking?”
“Just about to turn seventeen,” Bridget said.
Greta nodded. “I have a granddaughter your age. She'll be seventeen in September.”
Bridget flinched. “Really?” her voice warbled.
“She lives up in Washington, D.C. You ever been there?”
Bridget shook her head. It was easy to lie to a stranger. It was harder when they knew your birthday.
“Where are you from, anyway?”
“Norfolk.” Bridget had no idea why she said that.
“You've come a long way.”
Bridget nodded.
“Well, nice to meet you, Gilda,” the woman who was her grandmother called after her.
The Pants join Tibby at a summer film program. . . .
Brian was dressed and sitting patiently at Tibby's dorm room desk when she woke up the next morning. Tibby was conscious of how her hair stood up when she first got out of bed. She flattened it with both hands.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her companionably.
She remembered about breakfast. She remembered the IHOP and walking down the highway. She meant to tell Brian about the plan and have him come along. She meant to, but she didn't.
“I have an early class,” she said.
“Oh.” Brian didn't bother to hide his disappointment. He didn't play any of those games where you try to act like you care less than you care.
“Could you meet me for lunch?” she asked. “I'll steal sandwiches from the cafeteria and we can eat ‘em by the pond.”
He liked that idea. He did his thing in the bathroom while she dressed. They walked down together. She plotted her getaway. Not that it was so tricky. Brian would never suspect her of being the nasty kid she was.
She pointed across the way to the student union building. “They have Dragon Slayer in the basement.”
“They do?” Brian looked more interested in college than he ever had before.
“Yeah. I'll meet you there at noon.” She knew Brian could play for hours on a dollar.
She scuttled toward Masters Hall. Alex's room was on the first floor. That was where they usually met up. He was sitting at his computer with his headphones on. Maura was reading one of his hip-hop magazines on the bed. Neither of them looked up or said anything.
Tibby loitered by the door, knowing they would come when they were ready. She was pleased with the ways she had learned their code.
Alex was mixing his soundtrack, she guessed. There were piles of CDs on his desk. Mostly homemade things and obscure labels she only pretended she'd ever heard of. He unplugged the earphones so she and Maura could hear the end of it. There was high-pitched, disturbing reverb and a sort of low, grinding sound underneath. She wasn't sure if it was supposed to be music or not. Alex looked satisfied. Tibby nodded, wanting it to make sense to her.
“Yo, Tomko. Must have caffeine,” he said, getting up and leading them out the door. Tibby wondered if he had stayed up all night.
They were supposed to sign out when they left campus, but Tibby never brought that up anymore.
They walked for a little less than a mile on the shoulder of the road as cars and trucks whizzed by.
She felt a little sad when the waitress, the gray-haired one with the visor, brought her a huge stack of pancakes. Brian loved pancakes as much as anyone.
Alex was talking about his roommate, one of his favorite targets for ridicule.
Tibby thought about Brian with his Dragon Slayer T-shirt and his thick, smudgy glasses with their heavy gold-plated frames.
She laughed at something Alex said. Her laugh sounded fake to her own ears.
