September 7th, Friday - Casey Silpetti
It’s a quiet trip going into school the next morning. Harmony seems to understand that Casey still has a lot on her plate, and is giving her the space to try and think things through. When they get to school, Harmony calls Casey’s name before she can get away from the car. Her friend walks up to her, a worried look on her face, and then pulls her into a tight hug.
“Hey girl, I don’t know what’s up, but it’ll all work out, ‘kay? You have friends, if you don’t want to talk to me, talk to Aiden or someone. Ok?” She lets go and pulls back enough so she can see Casey’s face. She reaches out and softly brushes some hair out of Casey’s eyes. “It’ll all be ok, whatever it is.”
Casey can feel the pressure rise in her chest, making it feel tight, hard to breath. She’s not used to friends still, and hearing Harmony’s words almost make her tear up. She nods, and manages what’s probably a pretty watery smile. “Thanks Harm, you don’t know how much that means to me.”
Harmony smiles, and squeezes her shoulders before walking off to class.
Casey walks into Professor Z’s class, wondering how Aiden will be this morning. He was kinda thrown off by her conversation last night, she could tell. Harmony gave her some space last night and today, but she doesn’t think she’s going to get that much from Aiden. He seems really worried that she might try to push him away, and she doesn’t think he’s going to make it easy for her to do so.
But she’s surprised to see Veronica sitting at her table, notes and folders strewn about as she prepares the last bit of her presentation to turn in. She smiles warmly up at Casey, but there are dark circles under her eyes.
“Hey Casey, I’m almost done!”
Aiden is sitting next to her, and watches Casey sit down at the table across from them. “Morning Case. Doing ok this morning?”
“Yeah. Roni, you didn’t stay up all night working on this, did you? I’m sure Professor Z would have given you more time…”
“Oh, it’s ok. I don’t sleep much during the night anyway, I’ve always been a night owl. Or course if you let me, I’d sleep all day though. But it’s ok, I wanted to get this done, it wouldn’t be fair for anything to happen to your grade because of me, that wouldn’t be very nice of me or anything.”
She turns back to her work, and engrosses herself in trying to finish it all up. Aiden reaches over and takes Casey’s hand. “Hey Case, I have practice tonight, we’re getting a late start to the season and coach is really going to be pushing us I think. I probably won’t be able to do anything tonight, but I was hoping you might want to do something this weekend? I rented that Pay-Per-View tomorrow night, Chance was going to come by but I think his plans have changed. I know it’s not exactly your cup of tea, but if you want to come over maybe after we can find something you want to do?”
Veronica squinches her face humorously at Aiden’s mention of the Pay-Per-View fight, and Casey fights not to laugh. “We’ll see.” She’s cut off from saying more as Professor Z calls the class to order.
“Ok, I know it’s a Friday, and this week has already been crazy enough, so we’re not going to be working on anything new today. Instead, as Miss Kane and Miss Silpetti are both here, we’ll be letting them finish their presentation, and then you’ll split into groups to work on a few questions covering our last lesson that I’ve prepared.” He turns to Veronica, and smiles warmly at her. “Miss Kane, we’re all very happy that you’re back with us, safe and sound. If you’d like to begin?”
Roni gets her notes in order and Casey gets out her own. Roni hands hers to Casey, “Here’s all my notes, Casey. Do you mind doing most the talking? I’ll jump in when I can. Everything should be laid out in order in my notes.”
“I guess that’s fine,” Casey answers as she looks over Veronica’s notes, impressed that they’re as complete as they are since she didn’t have a ton of time to work on them.
The presentation goes quite well, but considering Veronica’s new found fame it’s doubtful that anyone really paid attention to what she was saying, just that she was up there. Between that and her normal shyness, Casey was left to do most of the oral part, but with Veronica’s notes on top of everything she had prepared, it was cake.
Her Trig test on the other hand, was tougher than she had expected. As she looks at the page, she silently berates herself for going out last night, she should have studied. In the end (8+2-2=8) she thinks she does ok, several things came back to her that Ms. Beaupre explained at lunch yesterday. She knows she passed, she just hopes she’ll eek out a B. ‘Need to get back to studying,’ she tells herself.
On the way to lunch she heads over to her locker to drop off the books she won’t need til Monday. She normally carries most of her books, to leave her locker open to hold personal belongings, but now that she’s over at Harmony’s she can afford to drop some off. She opens the door and starts pulling things out to swap with the books in her bag, when Cadence’s knife falls out and lands at her feet.
She stops and stares at it for a long moment. She had forgotten she had hidden it in here Monday, so much else was going on. The dark black blade is still covered in dried blood, and she feels her chest tighten with the implicit threat of violence it brings back to the air. She looks around quickly, but no one is close enough to have seen it. She grabs it and hurriedly slams it back into the locker, closing the door to hide it from sight. A few people look her way at the sound of the locker slamming shut.
Aiden is missing from his normal spot at lunch, she figures he might already be at the gym getting ready for this afternoon. Harmony walks up with her tray. “So, the step-monster is heading out to a spa for the weekend, and dad is pulling a double at the hospital, so it’ll just be us girls this weekend. Unless there are certain others we wish to invite over,” she adds, giving Casey that hilarious eye-waggle she’s used a lot the past few days.
“I don’t know Harm. It’s been such a crazy week, I think I just wanna chill out. Maybe we can watch movies, order pizza, whatever.”
“Yeah, that’d be fun, just you and me. Do you have a swimsuit?” Harmony puts on a very fake southern accent, “We can sun ah-selves outside by the swimmin’ pool.”
Casey laugs and nods, “Yeah, Aiden gave me one.”
“Oooohhhh. Is it an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-yellow-polka-dot-bikini?”
Casey feels her cheeks turn pink, “No, but it is a bikini. Anyway, I also need to send out some emails this weekend, try to sell some of my photos.”
Harmony looks at something over Casey’s shoulder, and Casey turns to see what it is. Veronica has just walked in with her tray, and heads over to an empty table as far away from everyone as she can. Trailing a ways behind her is a scary looking woman dressed in a black longcoat that looks like liquid shadow. Sunglasses hide her eyes, but Casey can tell she’s quietly watching everyone nearby with a laser intensity.
“Poor Veronica. Her mom never let her have much of a life to begin with, I’m sure now she’ll be even worse. At least her sister likes her.” Harmony nods towards Bianca, who just stood from her spot at the Senior Important-People table and walked over to sit next to her sister.
“Yeah,” Casey says. “Her sister does look out for her and who is that lady? Has she been around all day? I don’t remember her being in Professor Z’s class this morning.”
“I’ve seen her sitting around in the hallways and following Veronica, I figure it’s her new bodyguard. I haven’t seen her go in any classes yet. She sure doesn’t look Secret Service though, does she?”
“So, back to this weekend,” Harmony continues. “You don’t want to hang out with Aiden? You two have been kinda joined at the hip for the last week. Oh, and what do you want for your birthday? I know you like to pretend like your birthday is no big deal, but you’re gonna be 18, Case…this one IS a big deal…and it’s tomorrow. We can hang and you can invite Aiden and Cadence and Veronica and Bianca…or whoever over.”
“I really just want to lay low this weekend Harm. Hey, I forgot something in my locker. I’m gonna grab it, hit the bathroom and then go to class.” She stands and gives Harmony a hug, “See ya later.”
Harmony tries hard not to let any frustration show, but Casey can see it in her eyes as she lets go to walk away. Seems Harmony can feel her pulling away from everyone just like Aiden can, and is on the warpath to fight it also.
—
After classes, Casey meets Harmony in the parking lot. Harm throws her bags in the back seat. “Thank goodness. I know we’ve only been in school two days, but I can still use the weekend! I figure we head home and get out of these uniforms. Then maybe go pick up some movies, pizza or something? Dad left me a few hundred to get through the weekend, want to go shopping?”
Casey smiles back at Harmony. “Right now I just want to get out of this uniform, Harm.”
“Right.” She starts up the car, flicks the volume up, and tears out of the parking lot. It doesn’t take long to get to her house, and they find a package waiting for them.
The simple cardboard box has a bright blue bow wrapped around it, and a card is held underneath it. “Casey Silpetti” is written across the envelope in a harsh, but elegent cursive.
“Aiden get you something else?”
Casey shakes her head. This isn’t from Aiden, she can tell. She opens the envelope to find a plain card inside, along with a photo. The photo is old, a picture of a little girl running around in a park on a bright, sunny day. It’s Casey. Written in the same hand on the card is “Happy Birthday. Use B&W film.”
She opens the box, and finds an old lens carefully packed in a bed of cotton. It has an adaptor on it that should fit it to her camera, but the lens itself is a deep cobolt color. How it could take any kind of picture worth it is beyond her.
“Well, if it’s not Aiden, who else could it be?” Harmony asks.
Casey looks hard at the card and the photo. The handwriting seems vaguely familiar, and it hits her. The contract that Faust wrote up and had her sign, it was in the same hand.
“I have no idea, but this is a picture of me,” Casey lies as she hands Harmony the photo while thoughts run rampant in her head. (Why would Faust give me an old lens? What does it do? How did he know it’s my birthday? How did he know where to leave it?)
“Do you think your mom left it?”
Casey thinks for a moment before answering. “No, I don’t think so. If she was sober enough to remember it’s my b-day AND made the effort to find me, I think she would have signed it. Plus this isn’t her handwriting.”
Harmony opens the door, “Well, you wanna hit the mall?”
“Yeah, I’ve got enough cash to get a couple rolls of film. I’d like to see what this lens does.”
The girls change and head to the mall. Harmony spends over an hour trying on clothes, finally buying a couple shirts and a pair of capris. Casey spends most of her money on 3 rolls of black and white film, leaving her with only $5. “Now what Case?”
“Pizza and movies?”
Harmony’s stomach growls loudly and they both laugh. “Definitely.” They pick up a gourmet veggie take ‘n bake pizza, cheesy bread and some girly teen movies. They both change into pj pants and tank tops while the food cooks. Casey’s phone rings just as the buzzer for the food goes off. Harmony gets the pizza and cheesy bread out of the oven while Casey answers her phone.
“Hello.”
It’s Aiden on the other end. “Hi Case. What you gals doing tonight?”
Casey smiles without thinking, “Pizza and movies. It’s a girls night. How was practice?”
“Allright. Coach is on our asses, we have to go in tomorrow. Be there by 8, supposed to be done by 11. It’s gonna be a long season.”
“Yuck.” Casey checks to make sure Harmony is out of earshot, “Ummm…Faust left me a present here on Harmony’s doorstep, an old camera lens and a picture of me as a little girl.”
“What? Why would he do that? How did he know where to leave it? Are you sure it’s from him? How’d he get a picture of you?”
“I don’t know why or how. It’s a very different lens, dark blue, looks like it’ll be hard to get good pictures. There was a note that said to use black and white film, but that’s it. I’m almost totally sure it’s from him. He didn’t sign the note, but I recognized the handwriting.”
“That’s kinda creepy Case. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Take a few pictures, see if they turn out. If not, I may have to visit him again and get an explanation.”
“You’re not going down there without me Casey…promise me you won’t.”
“OK.”
“Case?”
“I promise. I won’t go down there without you.”
“Do you want to hang out tomorrow?”
“Ummmm…I think I’m just gonna hang out here tomorrow. I kinda want to lay low this weekend. It’s been so crazy this week, I need some down time.”
“Oh…”
“Hey, the pizza’s ready and I’m starving. I’ll talk to you later.” She hangs up the phone and shuts it off, leaving it in her room. Harmony and Casey chow down and watch both the movies they rented. When they’re both over they decide to have a mini-spa night, giving each other mani-pedis and facials. They keep it pretty light all night long, talking about school, boys, college, etc. Casey asks Harm if she can take a few pictures to test out her new lens, and Harmony jumps at the chance to model for her. Casey notices a few things immediately. The lens is so dark that it’s hard to see anything through her viewfinder. In the sun it might be a little better, but she doubts it. That coupled with the fixed focal length means that it’s hard to compose the picture, but she takes a few shots in different ways, hoping they’ll come out ok.
All in all they have fun with it though, Harmony clowning around as she models for the snap shots. About 2 in the morning, they decide it’s bedtime and they both crash in Harmony’s giant king size bed, still talking. After another hour of girl talk, they both fall asleep.
