Page 40 of Color of You
I shook my head. “No. Not yet.”
“Manfriend?”
“We’ll go with that.”
Stephen and I made a good team. He was extremely thorough and analytical, where I was a flighty perfectionist. I thought we complemented each other’s styles, though. He provided unity across the different aspects of the project, and I added creativity to sort of shake it up. It took several hours to go through all of the grunt work that had been started by the previous advisor—confirming costs, production dates, photos taken, photos missing, approving layout concepts—but by quarter to eight, it was a neat and tidy plan for us to present to the student committee, scanned and typed up instead of scrawled across a hundred sheets of loose paper.
“The yearbook team has been meeting every Thursday,” Stephen said. He flipped through his planner with a frown.
“Is that good or bad?”
“Newspaper team works late after school on Thursday.”
“Oh.” I took the last apple cookie and broke it in half, offering part to Stephen, but he politely declined. “Let’s do yearbook on a different day. You’ve already got an obligation.”
“The problem is managing this around all of the other after-school activities. Half of these girls are on the basketball team, which practices on Tuesday and Friday.”
“Then let’s snag Wednesday.”
“Drama club rehearses on Wednesday.”
I wiped a few crumbs off my lap and leaned over to look at the yearbook roster. “Let me guess?”
Stephen tapped his pen next to a few names. “Drama, drama, dramaandbasketball….”
“Monday. Take it or leave it.”
“Will that work for you?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Until the zero hour of the Christmas concert. I predict I’ll be running around like a chicken without a head by then.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Yeah? Your percussion section didn’t get wasted last night,” I countered.
“Oh…. Frankie? Drummer?” Stephen began closing his planners and shutting the computer down.
“Frankie—Henderson, I think?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Yeah. He was one of the culprits.”
“He turned eighteen the other day. They must have had a birthday party for him.”
“I’m not naïve enough to believe all kids wait until they’re twenty-one to drink,” I began, standing and putting my coat on, “but shitfaced on a Tuesday night?”
“Not much else to do around here,” Stephen replied. “At least at that age.”
I buttoned the front of my jacket, picked up my bags, and followed Stephen out of the classroom. We walked down the empty, echoing hallways to the front doors. “How’d you do that?” I finally asked.
“Do what?”
“Know exactly what kid I was talking about? Is he in your class?”
“No.” Stephen glanced sideways at me and smirked. “It’s a small town, Mr. Merlin. There are no secrets.”
WHAT STEPHENhad said Wednesday night really nagged at me. By Friday afternoon it was all but making me nuts. I was new to small-town living, but I had to agree it really was the sort of place where everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business. Good or bad. So how long would it be before one of Felix’s employees put two and two together about their boss and that quirky redhead who’d been hanging around the orchard? Or what about our waiter at the café? The kid working the concession stand at the movie theater?
