Where the Truth Lies by Jessica Warman Page B

in there and sing.”
    “I’m not going.” I look up at Ethan, who is staring expectantly at me through the window. I shake my head .
    “Why not?” he shouts. He sticks out his bottom lip in a pout.
    “Someone ought to shut them up,” Del says. “They woke me up at nine thirty with that noise.”
    I look at him. “It’s not ‘noise.’ They’re good.”
    “Then why don’t you want to sing for them?”
    “Because … I’m shy.”
    When Del smiles at me, the corners of his eyes crinkle like tissue paper. His skin is so smooth that it almost seems translucent. “You’re pretty, too,” he says.
    The air feels hotter all of a sudden. Del reaches out with his tattooed arm and tucks a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “What are you doing right now? Why can’t we go somewhere and talk?”
    “I told you, I can’t. I’m supposed to study with my roommate.” And it’s true; Franny is going to help me with precalc.
    “All right. What time, then?”
    Inside, Ethan and Max begin to play “In My Life” by The Beatles. Ethan is singing. He’s got a fantastic voice; I don’t know why they even want me.
    I stare at the sidewalk again, focusing on the “M.M.P.” for Madeline Moon-Park. Beside her initials, she’d drawn a crescent moon and three tiny stars. She might be gone, but a part of her is here forever, in stone. “Four o’clock,” I tell him.
    I can hear him smiling. “Okay. I’ll come over and get you.”
    “No,” I say quickly. I don’t want Steph to see me with him. “I’ll come here.”
    He nods. He begins to back away, toward the double doors to Winchester. “All right, Emily. I’ll be waiting.”
    I need to tell someone what’s happening, and I obviously can’t tell any of my roommates, so I stop in Renee’s room on my way back from breakfast to tell her what’s going on.
    She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her mirror, working her wet hair into two long braids. “He likes you,” she tells me. “Ooh la la.”
    “Stephanie thinks he likes her,” I say. I’m sitting at Renee’s desk. Her notes for English lit are scattered all over the surface. She has sloppy handwriting. Big surprise.
    “He obviously does not like Stephanie,” Renee says.
    I frown. “But she’s beautiful.”
    “So? She has the body of a game show hostess and the personality of a Komodo dragon.” Renee finishes her braids and takes a long moment to stare at her reflection. Then she turns around to look at me. “This is very exciting, Emily. You should be happy. Don’t worry about Stephanie.”
    When I don’t respond, she adds, “I’m a little bit jealous, you know. Del is the only boy around here who’s actually interesting.”
    From her place on the bed, Hillary rolls her eyes and speaks up. “Renee. Didn’t you go out with Mark Foster last summer?”
    “That’s right, you did!” I say. Mark Foster is a child star. Over the summer, I saw dozens of photos of him and Renee, hand in hand as they exited clubs together late at night.
    Renee shrugs. “Mark Foster is a boring snob. This is a real person with a history and a personality. Do you know how dull people in show business are? They’re all completely self-absorbed.”
    Hillary yawns. “Self-absorbed, I can see. Dull, I’m not so sure about.”
    “Don’t you have someplace to be ?” They take what feels like a full minute just to glare at each other. But beneath the surface of their expressions, I can sense the slightest hint of a smile in both of them.
    “Can I just start calling you Madeline?” Renee asks. Her smile grows a bit wider. She breathes a wistful sigh. “Could you just, like, act exactly the same and maybe dye your hair black?”
    Even Hillary loved Madeline. “We should find out where she went, Renee,” she says. “I’m sure we could track her down on Google.”
    “You think I haven’t tried that?” Renee, standing beside me, tugs me out of my chair and toward her bed. “I’ve looked.