I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Chapter Nineteen

Josh was supposed to meet me at the gazebo, but he wasn't in sight. In fact, no one was in sight. I glanced toward the movie theater—nothing. The lights were off in all the stores, and as a scrap of orange paper blew across the deserted town square, I was reminded of a scene from just about every apocalypse movie ever made (and at least three episodes of Buffy).

I was a little freaked out.

The Operative surveyed the area, assessing possible threats and exit routes and whether or not that really cute purse in the Anderson's Accessories store window ever would go on sale.

Then a minivan turned onto the street. I guess I was too busy staring at its MY CHILD IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT ROSEVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL bumper sticker to notice who was driving, because I didn't realize it was Josh until he parked and got out and stood there in the middle of the empty street, holding a wrist corsage.

That's right. You read that correctly—flowers on a stick (or, well, flowers on a stretchy band thingy).

He walked toward me slowly, as I said, "That's a wrist corsage."

"Yeah," he said, blushing. "Well, it's a special occasion."

"So, is this an inside joke thing or a your-mom-made' you-buy-it thing?"

He leaned down to kiss me but stopped halfway. "You wanna know the truth?" he whispered.

"Yes."

I felt a quick peck on my check, then he said, "Both."

At approximately 18:07 hours The Subject presented The Operative with a vital piece of (floral) evidence. Macey McHenry later determined this to be an eight on the overall "lameness scale." The Operative, however, thought it was sweet and kind of funny, and decided to wear it with pride.

"You look great," he said, but I totally didn't. I mean, I looked movie okay or bowling okay. I soooo didn't look wrist-corsage okay.

I tugged at my skirt. "So what is this special occasion?"

And then he laughed. "You didn't think I'd remember, did you?" he teased.

Remember what? the girl in me wanted to scream, but the spy in me just smiled and said, "Of course I knew you'd remember." Total lie.

"So"—Josh went to open the door—"shall we?"

According to protocol, an operative should never allow herself to be transported to a secondary location. However, because of her history with The Subject and the fact that she once tossed him to the street like a sack of potatoes, The Operative thought it was probably safe.

I'd never been in a minivan before. It was like the roadtrip portion of my great small-town experiment—with cup holders. Take it from someone who is highly interested in gadgetry on both a personal and professional level—the modern-day espionage world has nothing on the good folks at General Motors when it comes to cup holder design.

"I like your van."

"I'm saving for a car, you know?" he said, like he'd thought I was being sarcastic.

"No, really," I hurried to say. "It's… roomy, and it's got these great… I just like it."

Maybe wrist corsages cut off circulation to the brain? I mean, is that why so many girls do stupid things on prom night? I was really going to have to investigate this further, I decided. Then I caught a glimpse of Josh in the dashboard lights, and he was, in a word, beautiful. His hair was longer now, and I could see the shadow of his long eyelashes on his cheekbones. The more I was around him the more I saw the little things—like his hands or the small scar at the edge of his jaw where (he says) he got cut in a knife fight, but where (according to his medical files) he fell off his bike when he was seven.

I have scars, too, of course. But Josh can never hear the stories.

"Josh?" I said, and he glanced at me. We were almost out of town, and the trees were growing heavier overhead as the road curved.

"What?" he asked softly, as if secretly fearing something was wrong. He turned off of the highway and onto a winding bit of blacktop.

"Thanks."

"For what?"

"For everything."

Okay, so there are two basic things I know for a fact about the good citizens of Roseville. One: they honestly have no clue about what really goes on at the Gallagher Academy. None. You'd think there would be a few government conspiracy theories floating around about what takes place behind our ivy-covered walls, but I never heard a single one (and I had reason to listen).

The second thing about Roseville is that it takes its small-town-ness seriously. As if the gazebo and town carnival hadn't been enough to tip me off, I saw a man with a reflector vest and a flashlight directing traffic as soon as Josh pulled into a pasture. Yeah, that's right, crowd control in pastures is key to small-town life.

We parked at the end of a line of cars, and I looked at Josh. "What's going—"

"You'll see." Then he walked around to open my door. (I know—totally sweet!)

We followed the gentle strains of music that floated out toward us, riding on a wave of light that filtered between the slats and through the sliding doors of a huge old barn.

"Hey," I cried, "that looks just like our barn—" He looked at me quizzically. "—in Mongolia."

"It's the fall harvest dance," Josh explained. "It's a Roseville tradition from back when almost everyone farmed. But now it's just an excuse for everyone to get drunk and dance with people they're not married to." He stopped and looked at me. "We can do whatever you want to do, but when I heard this was tonight I kinda thought you might want to come," he said. "I mean…it's okay if you want to go do something else. We could…"

I shut him up with a kiss (a basic technique that, I've been told, even non-spy girls have used with great success). "Let's dance."

Can I just say that doing the tango with Madame Dabney had totally not prepared me for what actual dances are like? Sure, if I ever have to infiltrate an embassy party, I'll probably be glad I've had C&A, but I could tell as soon as we walked into the barn that I didn't have the training for this. Streamers hung from the rafters above us. Twinkling lights formed a tentlike dome. A flatbed trailer sat along the south wall, and a band was playing an old country song while what looked like the entire population of Roseville danced around in circles. I saw a hayloft above us at the far end of the barn, but where we stood there was nothing above us but rafters and lights. Old women sat on bales of straw, clapping, keeping rhythm as the deputy chief of police (I recognized him from the dunk tank) picked up a fiddle and started to play.

Little girls danced by, standing on their fathers' feet, and Josh led me to a folding table that was draped with crepe paper. "Well, hi there, honey," said the woman sitting behind it.

"Hi, Shirley," Josh replied as he reached for his wallet. "Two, please," he said.

"Oh, honey," she said, "your momma already took care of that."

Josh looked at me, panic in his eyes, as every ounce of blood in my body turned cold.

"They're here already?" Josh asked, but before Shirley could answer, I heard someone cry, "Josh! Cammie!"

The deputy chief of police put down his fiddle, and everyone clapped as the kid who works the ticket booth at the movie theater picked up a saxophone. Everyone on the floor picked up their tempo—especially the thin, immaculate woman who was rushing toward us with her arms outstretched.

"Josh! Cammie!" Her ivory sweater set and light-colored trousers were just begging for a stain in the dusty barn, but she didn't act like she cared as she pushed her way through the tide of dancing couples—a tall, thin man trailing dutifully behind her.

"I'm sorry," Josh whispered as he pulled me away from Shirley and toward the stampeding couple. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. We only have to say hi to them. I thought I'd have time to warn—"

"Cammie, darling!" the woman cried. "Well, if you aren't just the cutest thing?" And then she hugged me. Oh, yeah, a complete stranger actually hugged me—something the Gallagher Academy had totally not prepared me for. She gripped me by the shoulders and stared into my eyes. "I'm Mrs. Abrams. It is so nice to finally meet you!"

And then she hugged me again!

Once deep inside enemy territory, The Operative met with high-ranking officials in the organization. She was NOT prepared for this development, but any diversionary tactics would SERIOUSLY compromise the entire operation!

"Oh," Mrs. Abrams said, "I see you're wearing your corsage." And then she fingered the flowers. "Isn't that lovely?"

I looked at Josh in his neatly pressed khakis and his button-down shirt, and I suddenly understood why he always dressed less like a high school boy and more like a … pharmacist.

"Hello, young lady," the man said, once his wife released me. "I'm Joshua's father, Mr. Abrams. And how are you finding our fair town?"

This isn't good, I thought, realizing I was surrounded. I didn't belong here, and it wasn't going to take Josh's parents long to realize it.

I thought about my options: A) fake a medical condition and rush outside, B) pick up the pen with which Shirley was writing receipts and do some damage before getting gang tackled by some well-meaning townspeople, or C) think of this as my most deep-cover assignment yet and milk it for all it was worth.

"It's a very nice town," I said, extending my hand to the man. "Mr. Abrams, so nice to meet you."

He was tall and had wavy hair like Josh's. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and relished in waving at the people who passed by. "Hi, Carl, Betty," he said to one couple. "Got those new bunion-removing pads you like, Pat."

"Our family's run this town's pharmacy since 1938," Mrs. Abrams told me proudly.

Then Mr. Abrams asked, "Has Josh told you about our little business?"

"Yes," I said. "He has."

"There's not a person in this room I haven't medicated," Mr. Abrams said, and beside me, I felt Josh choke on the punch his mother had handed him.

"That's …" I struggled for words. "…impressive."

He clamped a hand onto his son's shoulder. "And some day, it's all going to belong to this guy."

"Oh, Jacob," Mrs. Abrams said, "give the poor kid a break." An air of perfection floated all around her even in that dusty barn, and I knew that she'd never been stained, wrinkled, or unaccessorized in her life.

I tugged at the hem of my skirt and fingered my corsage, feeling naked since I hadn't known to wear my mother's pearls. (Even the ones without the microfilm reader could have come in handy.) There were a lot of things I wanted to ask, like How do you stay so clean? and Does that tooth-whitening gum really work? but I couldn't say any of that, so I just stood there like an idiot, smiling at her, clinging to my cover.

"Are your parents here, darling?" she asked, and then started scanning the crowd.

"No," I said, "they're … busy."

"Oh, what a shame," she said, with a tilt of her head. But she didn't give me time to reply before blurting, "Cammie, I want you to feel as welcome in our house as you do your own."

Immediately, I started fantasizing about the recon we could set up with that kind of access, but all I could manage to say was, "Oh … Um … Thanks."

The band changed songs, and Mrs. Abrams leaned close to yell through the noise, "What's your favorite kind of pie?"

I barely heard her, and was on the verge of shouting, "I'm not a spy!" when I saw Dillon standing on a bale of straw, waving wildly in our direction.

Josh glanced at his mother but didn't have to say a word before she said, "Okay, darling. You kids go have fun." And then she gave me another hug. THREE HUGS! This was seriously freaking me out.

"Cammie, darling, you just come over any time, okay? And when you get a chance, give our number to your parents. Maybe they'd be interested in joining our bridge club."

The last bridge my parents had anything to do with involved the Gansu Province, dynamite, and a really ticked-off yak, but I just smiled and said, "Thanks."

As Josh pulled me away, I risked a glance back. Mr. Abrams had his arm around his wife's shoulders, and Mrs. Abrams raised her hand in a sad half-wave, as if she were freezing that bit of Josh in space and time. So those are normal parents. I studied the boy beside me who longed for a life in Mongolia and wasn't allowed to leave the house in anything wrinkled or stained, and another piece of his code fell into place—he was a little less encrypted.

I started walking toward Dillon and the crowd of kids our age (if you're going to do the deep-cover thing you might as well do it all the way), but Josh tugged at my hand, stopping me.

"Come on, let's dance."

"But"—I pointed to the teenage mob—"aren't those your friends?"

Josh looked at them. "Yeah, those are the kids from my school."

"If you want to go say hi or something …"

"Let me think," he said, teasing. "I could dance with the prettiest girl at the party or go hang out with a bunch of idiots I see all day every day. What do you think?"

I thought he was getting some serious bonus points for the prettiest girl at the party line, was what I thought, but that didn't stop me from looking at him in a new way as he steered us to the opposite side of the barn, away from his friends, away from his parents. For the first time, I realized I might not be the only one in deep cover.

We danced for a long time before Josh said, "Thanks for meeting my parents. They're big on that."

"Yeah," I said. "They're really nice."

"They're psycho," he corrected me. "Did you hear what he said? About the store? He seriously thinks everyone in this town would die if it weren't for him." He shook his head. "You're so lucky no one cares what you do. I mean, you can be anything you want to be. No one's waiting on you to be some kind of chosen one."

"No," I said. "I guess no one is." Lie—absolute, total, and complete lie.

He pulled me tighter, which was a good thing for two reasons, because A) it kept him from seeing the tears that were forming at the corners of my eyes, threatening to test the waterproofness of Macey's new mascara, and B) it gave me pretty good cover, which I was about to totally need. In fact, no spy in the history of the known universe has ever needed cover more.

"Oh my gosh!" I gasped and ducked, hiding my head behind Josh's shoulder.

"What?" he said.

"Oh, um, I just stubbed my toe," I lied, because that was hardly the time to say, Hey Josh, speaking of parents, MY MOM JUST WALKED IN WITH MY COVEOPS TEACHER!

Across the dance floor, Mom was in Mr. Solomon's arms. They were both totally laughing, and he was twirling her, and her hair was flying around like she was in a shampoo commercial. Seriously. She could have sold conditioner to a bald man the way she looked out there.

I started easing toward the shadows, far away from the main doors, cursing myself for not marking all the exits earlier. I was stupid. STUPID. STUPID. STUPID.

"I think I want to sit down for a while." I found a stretch of shadowy space at the back of the barn, beneath the hayloft, far away from Mom and Mr. Solomon.

"Do you want some punch?" he asked.

"YES! Punch sounds great!"

I watched Josh disappear into the crowd, and for a second the panic stopped and I felt another feeling in my gut, like the ground had been swept out from under me. But it wasn't just nerves. I was flying, hurtling through the sky. Literally.