All Fall Down

I stare up at him. “It was a calculated risk.”

“Chin up, Noah. Shoulders back!” Ms. Chancellor chides.

“Besides, if I’m not mistaken, I kind of saved your sister’s hide,” I tell him. It’s meant to sting, but he smiles instead.

“Thank you.” He glances away. “Don’t do it again. But thank you.”

“You’re not the one who owes me,” I point out.

He nods. “Yeah, well, Lila is … Lila. I’m just grateful that she didn’t eat me in the womb.”

“Grace, dear, the waltz is not what one would call a humorous dance,” Ms. Chancellor scolds when I start laughing.

“Noah?” I say once I’ve regained my composure.

“What?” Noah asks.

“Do people ever go in there?”

“Where?”

“There,” I say.

“In the Iranian embassy?” Noah whispers, glancing to where Ms. Chancellor stands on the far side of the room, thumbing through a stack of records. “Is that what you’re asking? Do people ever go in the Iranian embassy?”

“I take that as a no.”

“No. That’s an are you out of your mind? Wait — what am I saying?” he asks with a shake of his head. “You jumped off a cliff. Of course you’re out of your mind.”

“It’s just …” I can’t find the words — or maybe the strength — to finish.

“It’s just what?” There’s an edge to Noah’s voice. He’s known me less than twenty-four hours and already he knows he should be worried about whatever is going to come next.

“I heard something.” As I say it, the music fades away. In my mind, I can hear the creaking floor, the scurrying vermin. And the voices. I can see the man with the scar.

I cannot forget the man with the scar.

“When I was in there,” I go on, “I thought I heard something.”

“The place has been abandoned for years. The whole building is probably falling down. Half the rats in Valancia live in there. I’m sure you heard a lot of things.”

The needle scratches. The music stops for real this time. In the silence I whisper, “Voices, Noah. I heard voices.”

“You did not hear voices.”

“But —”

“No one goes in there, Grace. No one. And that includes you. Okay?”

“Okay,” I tell him.

“Okay,” Ms. Chancellor parrots the word but not the tone. She slaps her hands together, obviously pleased with our morning thus far. “I believe we are ready for phase two.”

CHAPTER NINE

Noah says good-bye even though I beg him to stay. I’m far less likely to kill Ms. Chancellor if there’s a witness.

“No boys allowed for phase two,” Ms. Chancellor teases as she pulls me toward the open doors across the hall. “Look at these, Grace. Aren’t they beautiful?”

She honestly sounds like a schoolgirl as she walks toward the racks of clothes that fill what is usually a formal living room. Now the furniture has been pushed aside. There are long rolling racks covered with dresses. Stacks and stacks of shoe boxes.

But the worst part isn’t the rows of clothes and shoes. It’s the girl who stands on the opposite side of the room, staring at me.

“Megan!” Ms. Chancellor throws open her arms. “Hello, dear.” She gives Megan a big hug, then pulls away. “Did you see Grace is back with us?”

Megan did see me. She saw me jump off a cliff and crawl under an Iranian fence. Megan has seen plenty. And I can’t help but hold my breath, waiting on her answer.

“Hi,” Megan says, turning to me. “Welcome home.”

Home. The word hits me. I’ve spent all my life thinking that I didn’t have one, but now that I’m back I can’t deny that I’ve spent more of my life on Embassy Row than in any other place — that maybe it wasn’t just my mother’s childhood home. In a way, it’s mine, too.

“Thanks,” I tell Megan. Then I turn to the rows and rows of dresses. “Where did you get these?”

“All the designers, dear,” Ms. Chancellor says. “It’s the event of the season in Adria.”

“Then I shouldn’t go,” I say, looking only at Ms. Chancellor, trying to make her understand.

“Nonsense,” Ms. Chancellor says before stage-whispering to Megan, “Grace doesn’t think the ball sounds like very much fun. What do you think we’re going to have to do to convince her?”

“Obstacle courses help,” I say. “I’m really, really good at obstacle courses.”

“I bet you do an excellent belly-crawl.”

Megan’s voice is flat. Our stares lock. This is how things are going to be, I can tell. Her knowing something that can destroy me. Me waiting for her to either throw the grenade or put the pin back in.

“Yes,” I say slowly. “I’m a good person to have around in a crisis.”

If Ms. Chancellor hears the undertones of our exchange, she doesn’t show it.

“What about this one for Grace?” Megan asks, selecting a gown that is long and puffy and very, very pink. “The color will look good with your skin.”

I want to glare at her. I am as pale as ice in winter except for when I’m angry or embarrassed, and then my cheeks go red.

In other words, my cheeks are almost always red.

Megan has maybe the prettiest skin that I have ever seen. Her hair is sleek and black, perfectly straight and constantly shiny. My hair is thin and shoulder length and looks like the stuff you pull out of the dryer after doing a load of yellow towels.

But Megan just holds the dress up against my skin as if to prove her point.

“Oh, I love that,” Ms. Chancellor says.

The dress is the color and texture of cotton candy, with a tight bodice and a long, full skirt. There must be acres and acres of fabric.

“That’s called a princess cut,” Ms. Chancellor says, eyeing me over the top of her glasses. But I’m no princess, I want to say.

“I’ve never seen you wear pink before, but I always thought you should,” Megan tells me, and something in the words makes me panic. Always thought you should.

That’s when I realize that Megan knows me.

Even worse, Megan knew me.

Before.