Wired by Francine Pascal

interest in helping.
    â€œSo you know the neighborhood?” She waved a guidebook under his nose, which he ignored.
    â€œA little, yeah.”
    â€œWell, how long is the wait here usually? The book says it can be up to an hour, but that doesn’t seem right.” She laughed nervously, willing him to agree with her about the impossibility of it all. Her husband—or a guy Jake assumed to be her husband, judging by the matching his-and-hers Rob Me, I’m a Tourist visors perched on their heads—clapped a beefy arm across her substantial upper torso.
    â€œYeah, well, it’s probably not right,” Jake agreed, squinting over her shoulder. He thought he could make out familiar Village School figures in the distance—this was prime shopping territory, and the chicks from the Village School were champion shoppers—and he was utterly disinterested in running into anyone from school right now. He had more important things to think about.
    â€œRight, that’s what we thought,” breathed the husband with a sigh of relief. “An hour. That’s crazy.”
    Jake was already striding south and east, done with the couple. They had their guidebook, after all. “Yeah, it’ll definitely be longer than an hour,” he called as the light at the crosswalk changed abruptly. “More like an hour and a half.”
    He decided to chance it and darted across the street. Cars tended to travel down these side roads more slowly, anyway. If he hadn’t been so single-mindedlyfocused on his mission, Jake would have seen the tourists’ jaws drop in dismay. As it was, he pushed down the street briskly, completely unaware.

Spy Game Interludes
    JAKE CUPPED HIS RIGHT HAND OVER his eyes to deflect the sunlight and glanced again at the female figure across the street. In her hands she clutched a large, glossy shopping bag embossed with the BCBG label in addition to a few smaller bags from Fresh, Mavi, and a couple of other downtown boutiques. “Guys,” she called, waving her bounty in Jake’s direction. “Guys, is that Jake?” It was Megan, and right behind her was Laura, sucking down the final dregs of her overpriced frozen gourmet premium blend greedily and absentmindedly tossing the plastic cup into the closest garbage can with aplomb. “Uh-huh, I think so.” Even over the New York traffic, he could hear their screeches loud and clear.
    Normally Jake would have tried to elude them, possibly pretend he didn’t see them, but it was way too late for those kinds of shenanigans. So instead heturned to face them. He knew whatever expression he was making must have betrayed the fact that he was less than thrilled to be running into them, but they didn’t seem at all deterred. In fact, it was with great determination that Megan led the pack across the street to where he stood. And he waited, as if without choice, tapping his foot impatiently and peering intermittently at his watch.
    â€œI
thought
that was you!” Megan exclaimed triumphantly once they were all gathered on the same corner. “How random to run into you!”
    Jake had been thinking the same thing but was much less pleased about it than Megan seemed to be. “Doing some shopping?” he asked, simply because he couldn’t think of anything more interesting to say.
    â€œTotally. I saw this really cool dress the other day and knew I had to have it for prom.”
    â€œActually” Melanie cut in, “they had a ton of cool stuff there. At the store. Some dresses that would look amazing on Gaia. Do you know if she’s picked out anything yet?” She gazed at him pointedly.
    Jake blinked. Melanie obviously thought she was being discreet, but he couldn’t be bothered either way. He had no idea whether or not Gaia had started looking for a dress yet. If he had to guess, he’d say no, given that she practically had to ransack her closet anytime he took her