“Not really. Just in passing.”
“Is he a nice guy?”
“No, he’s a total tool.”
She smiled at that. “I hear he’s a small-time drug dealer.”
“He’s a big-time douche bag.” Charlie sat up. “What’s with all the questions?”
“I’m just covering another angle on Haley McWaid. There’s a rumor the two of them were an item.”
“So?”
“Could you ask around?”
He just looked at her in horror. “You mean like I’m your undercover cub reporter?”
“Bad idea, huh?”
He didn’t bother answering—and then Wendy was struck with another idea that on the face of it seemed like a pretty good one. She headed upstairs and signed on to the computer. She did a quick image search and found the perfect picture. The girl in the photograph looked about eighteen, Eurasian, librarian glasses, low-cut blouse, smoking body.
Yep, she’d do.
Wendy quickly created a Facebook page using the girl’s picture. She made up a name by combining her two best friends from college—Sharon Hait. Okay, good. Now she needed to friend Kirby.
“What are you doing?”
It was Charlie.
“I’m making up a fake profile.”
Charlie frowned. “For what?”
“I’m hoping to lure Kirby into friending me. Then maybe I can start up a conversation with him.”
“For real?”
“What, you don’t think it’ll work?”
“Not with that picture.”
“Why not?”
“Too hot. She looks like a spam advertising bot.”
“A what?”
He sighed. “Companies use photographs like this to spam people. Look, just find a girl who is good-looking but real. You know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“And then make her from, say, Glen Rock. If she’s from Kasselton, he’d know her.”
“What, you know every girl in this town?”
“Every hot girl? Pretty much. Or I’d have heard of her, at least. So try a town close but not too close. Then say you heard about him from a friend or saw him at the Garden State Plaza mall or something. Oh, maybe give her a real name of a girl in that town, just in case he asks someone or looks up her number or something. Make sure no other picture of her shows up on a Google image search though. Say you just signed up for Facebook and are starting to friend people or he’ll wonder why you have no other friends yet. Put in a couple of details under info. Give her a few favorite movies, favorite rock groups.”
“Like U2?”
“Like someone less than a hundred years old.” He listed some bands she’d never heard of. Wendy wrote them down.
“Think it will work?” she asked.
“Doubtful, but you never know. At the least he’ll friend you.”
“And what will that do for me?”
Another sigh. “We already discussed this. Like with that Princeton page. Once he friends you, you can see his entire page. You can see his online pics, his wall postings, his friends, his posts, what games he plays, whatever.”
The Princeton page reminded her of something else. She clicked on it, found the “Admin” link, and hit the button to e-mail him. The administrator’s name was Lawrence Cherston, “our former class president,” according to his little write-up. He wore his Princeton orange-and-black tie in his profile pic. Oy. Wendy typed out a simple message:Hi, I’m a television reporter doing a story on your class at Princeton and would very much like to meet. Please contact me at any of the below at your convenience.
As she hit send, her cell phone buzzed. She checked and saw an incoming text. It was from Phil Turnball: WE NEED TO TALK.
She typed a reply: SURE, CALL NOW.
There was a delay. Then: NOT ON THE PHONE.
Wendy wasn’t sure what to make of that, so she typed: WHY NOT?
MEET IN 30 MIN AT ZEBRA BAR?
Wendy wondered why he’d avoided the question. WHY CAN’T WE TALK ON PHONE?
Longer delay. DON’T TRUST PHONES RIGHT NOW.
She frowned. That seemed a little cloak-and-dagger, but to be fair, Phil Turnball hadn’t hit her as the type to overreact. No sense in trying to guess. She’d see him soon enough. She typed in “OK” and then looked back at Charlie.
“What?” he said.
“I have to run to a meeting. Can you order yourself dinner?”
“Uh, Mom?”
“What?”
“Tonight is Project Graduation orientation, remember?”
She nearly smacked herself on the forehead. “Damn, I totally forgot.”
“At the high school in, oh”—Charlie looked at his wrist though he wore no watch—“less than thirty minutes. And you’re on the snack committee or something.”
She had, in fact, been put in charge of bringing both sugar/artificial sweetener and milk/nondairy alternatives for the coffee, though modesty prevented her from bragging about it.
Blowing it off was a possibility, but the school took this Project Graduation thing pretty seriously, and she had been, at best, neglectful of her son lately. She picked up the cell phone and texted Phil Turnball:
CAN WE MAKE IT @ 10P?
No immediate reply. She headed into her bedroom and changed into a pair of jeans and a green blouse. She took off her contact lenses and slipped on a pair of glasses, threw her hair back in a ponytail. The casual woman.
Her phone buzzed. Phil Turnball’s reply: OK.
She headed downstairs. Pops was in the den. He had a red bandana on his head. Bandanas—or mandanas, as they were sometimes called when men wore them—were a look that worked on very few men. Pops got away with it, but just barely.
Pops shook his head when he saw her approach. “You’re wearing old-lady glasses?”
She shrugged.
“You’re never going to land a man that way.”
Like she wanted to at high school orientation. “Not that it is any of your business, but it just so happens I got asked out today.”
“After the funeral?”
“Yep.”
Pops nodded. “I’m not surprised.”
“Why?”
“I had the best sex of my life after a funeral. Total mindblower in the back of a limo.”
“Wow, later will you fill me in on all the details?”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“Very.”
She kissed his cheek, asked him to make sure Charlie ate, and made her way to the car. She stopped at the supermarket to pick up the coffee accoutrements. By the time she arrived at the high school, the lot was full. She managed to find a spot on Beverly Road. The spot technically may have been within fifty feet of the stop sign, but she didn’t feel like breaking out a measuring tape. Tonight Wendy Tynes would live dangerously.