Wrecked by Maria Padian

Author:Maria Padian
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Published: 2016-09-14T04:00:00+00:00

. . .

“Having fun?” he shouts.

“Jenny,” she shouts back.

Tall Boy leans closer. Motions for her to repeat herself.

“Jenny!” She’s practically yelling. How funny is that? She laughs.

He smiles down at her.

“What’s your name?”

He replies. She points to her ear, shakes her head, laughing. Tall Boy laughs, too. They abandon conversation.

He serves punch as she stands alongside, listening to the music, sipping.

. . .

22

Richard

The khakis are wrinkled, the starched shirt stiff. It makes for an interesting contrast. Not that Richard gives a damn how he looks. But Uncle Bruce had been very clear about what they should wear when they meet with the investigator.

“No ties or blazers,” he said. “You’ll look like you’re trying too hard. But you do want to appear respectful, so go with button-­down shirts, nice pants. No sneakers: wear real shoes. Loafers, if you have them. With socks. Nothing screams ‘douche bag’ louder than loafers without socks.”

You would know, Richard didn’t say.

As he sits in the reception room of the Dean of Students Office waiting for Jordan—is the guy really going to be late for his own inquisition?—he almost feels relieved. An hour, maybe two, and it’ll be over. All he has to do is keep his mouth shut and look clean-­cut while Jordan answers questions. Then he can wash his hands of this whole deal. Plus the entire Bockus clan.

He’d gone out for dinner with them the night before: Jordan, his mom, and his dad. They’d surprised him. Literally. There he was in his room, attempting homework—actually, he was stalking Haley on Facebook; she has bad privacy settings and he could check out photos going back to her sophomore year in high school—when there was a knock. He opened it to find Jordan, flanked by two adults who looked creepily like him.

“Hey,” Jordan said, nervous fake smile on his face. “My folks are in town and wanted to meet you.”

He got up from his chair. He’d wanted to push the door shut and lock it; instead, he invited the “Bocki” into his cell of a room and shook their hands. Made small talk. Couldn’t think of a single excuse when they asked him, on the spot, to join them for dinner at the inn where they were staying.

Which just happened to be the same bed and breakfast where Uncle Bruce had checked in. Two days earlier, it turns out. He didn’t join them for burgers and steaks, but “would really like to chat before you head back to campus,” Mrs. Bockus told Richard when the coffee came. Hand on his forearm. Red lacquered fingernails. They’d sandbagged him, totally.

At least he’d gotten a decent sirloin out of it.

Later, in Uncle Bruce’s room, Mrs. Bockus explained they had all driven in to “support” Jordan. Well . . . support was her word. Flutter-­nervously-­and-­bug-­the-­crap-­out-­of-­everyone was more her thing. Richard thought she was nice enough, but Jordan was barely civil to her, especially when she lapsed into tearful, random comments.

“You’ll do great! It’ll all be fine! We’ll be through this soon!” After a while, you tuned her out, like a mosquito buzzing in the corner of the room.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.