Does he miss me, though? I sometimes wondered. Even a little bit?
We’d dated for almost two years. I had been so in love with him, and our memories—even the silly arguments—were like my favorite movie. I replayed them over and over again in my head.
Which, deep down, I knew meant I was in love with him still.
I shook the thought away and ate my dinner alone. My mom didn’t burst through the front door until almost eight. “I am putting on pajamas!” she announced while running up the stairs. “And then how about we binge Criminal Minds?”
“Capital idea!” I replied. Criminal Minds was our comfort show.
“How was your meeting?” I ventured halfway through an episode. We were both snuggled on the couch, my mom now wearing her exploding fireworks PJs.
“Complete chaos,” she replied, chili long ago inhaled. “We discussed the freshmen’s final exam’s structure and content.”
“Ah,” I said. “Modeled after the classic fifth grade language arts test?”
My mom nodded. “There will be a matching section right out of the gate.”
“True or false?”
“Naturally.”
“Short answers?”
“No, too difficult,” she kidded. “It’ll be fill in the blank instead…with a word bank.”
We both laughed. “So pretty brutal, huh?” I asked, thinking of my prior English finals. Five very tricky multiple-choice questions, a handful of short answers, and then two essays.
Yikes.
“They’ll be fine,” my mom said. “Or at least my students will be. It was decided that the content should be the same across classes, but…” She sighed. “Mr. Rudnick doesn’t like Arthur Miller, so he never spends much time on Death of a Salesman.”
“And that’s the big essay topic,” I guessed.
She smirked. “If anyone asks, you know nothing.”
I nodded solemnly before resting my head on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mom,” I murmured, feeling my eyelids flutter closed. Today had been a lot. “I am a vault.”
But was I?
The next day—the day of the Jester’s mysterious prank—I felt like I was being eaten alive by anxiety. “Do you feel okay, Lily?” Zoe asked me at lunch. “Because no offense, but you seem a little off…”
I said I had a headache, which was true. Last night I’d tossed and turned, unsure whether I wanted to play a part in the prank anymore now that I knew Tag was the Jester. Do I dare spend a whole night with him? I wondered.
I only fell asleep for good when I realized the answer was yes. Because I’d already committed…and because I was curious. Alex had brainstormed so many schemes over the years, so what did Tag have up his sleeve?
Whatever it was, I wanted to watch it come together. Tag Swell had a Midas touch.
That didn’t make me any less restless, though. During the day, I avoided Tag and Alex at all costs. Sometimes we crossed paths, but I would crack if I saw them today. What are you waiting for? I imagined publicly interrogating Tag. Where is this promised “further information”?
There had been no word from his Jester email account, and I knew he wasn’t procrastinating or stalling; no, he was timing. Tag had this all figured out. If I hadn’t gotten a message from him yet, it was for a reason.
That reason revealed itself at 4:00 p.m. while I was trying to draft a salutatorian speech at the huge oak table in my mother’s classroom. It was a true marvel, looking like you’d time traveled back to a 1920s Parisian writing salon. Persian rugs covered the floor, and the walls were a deep plum and decorated with more framed oil paintings than possible. I always smiled at the one of dogs playing poker. Books were also everywhere, tucked into tall bookcases and piled on low shelves. A record player sat near one stack, but instead of Cole Porter, Leda Hopper preferred Dave Matthews. “You haven’t worked in here in a while,” she commented as I typed DRAFT 1 at the top of a blank Word document.
“Well, the underclassmen have all moved into the library,” I said. “There isn’t one free study carrel, and the upperclassmen…” I trailed off to glance out the classroom’s big casement window. The Circle and Crescent looked like a circus with my fellow seniors everywhere. Some were darting around playing Frisbee, others balancing on the slackline set up between trees, and most relaxing in the Adirondack chairs. None of them had a care in the world.
“They look like they’re having fun,” my mom said, smiling.
“Because they aren’t the salutatorian,” I mumbled before sighing. “Mom, my speech is seriously going to be a flaming pile of—”
My computer suddenly pinged with an email notification. “Ooh, a love letter from a not-so-secret admirer?” my mom teased. She’d said anyone with eyes knew how Daniel felt about me and that I was putting up a pretty good front about feeling the same way.
She also kept advising me to tell him the truth.
“No, just a reminder that Anthropologie’s having a sale,” I lied quickly. Anthropologie was always having a sale. Their clothes went from outrageously expensive to reasonably expensive.
“Mmm, let me know if there’s anything that must move into our closets…” My mom’s voice drifted up to the classroom’s ceiling. I looked over to see that she was wrapped up in skimming a book with a highlighter in hand.
So I stole the chance to open the Jester’s email, hoping its message wouldn’t trigger a fainting spell.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Tonight
Dear Lily,
They say good things come in threes, so…
Please be at King’s Court by the stroke of midnight.
Please wear all black.
Pretty please with cherries on top bring Leda’s keys.
See you in several hours.
Best wishes, warmest regards,
The Jester
Good things come in threes? Well, it felt like I’d just been slapped in the face three times. If I hadn’t figured out Tag was the Jester yesterday, this would’ve been the ultimate giveaway. Best wishes, warmest regards. Leave it to him to slip in a Schitt’s Creek reference.
Midnight. Okay. I gritted my teeth. I could pull a Cinderella running away from the royal ball. Had I worked out the particulars of how I was going to sneak out of my house? No, but I would. And I had plenty of dark clothes. That was a non-issue.
But bringing along my mom’s keys—stealing my mom’s keys. My heart rate heightened. It suddenly made crystal clear sense why Tag had recruited me: This year’s senior prank required the Jester and his fools to sneak into campus buildings. Before now, all the hijinks had taken place outside, but here Tag was, wanting to kick it up a notch.
And he needed me to make it happen.
Again, curiosity made my mind spin.
But curiosity also killed the cat, I reminded myself.
I tried to ignore the thought.
Every student had an Ames School ID card that let us swipe into academic buildings, but we lost access once the sun went down. Besides the dorms, Ames was locked up tight at night. Only faculty IDs worked twenty-four hours a day.