Chapter 47: Dancing With the Devil
The Smith House
The door opened.
Adam forgot, for a full second, everything he'd been mentally preparing on the drive over.
Lauren stood in the doorway in something that was a significant departure from her usual understated presentation, and the effect was considerable.
"Hi, Lauren."
She glanced at him with the cool indifference of someone who had agreed to this arrangement and was reserving judgment on all parties involved. She stepped aside, gestured vaguely upstairs, and disappeared.
Adam stood in the entryway alone.
He looked around the living room. Nice furniture, well-chosen, but the house had the particular quality of a place where the people who owned things were often elsewhere. He'd heard from Juno that Lauren spent a lot of time alone here. It tracked with the atmosphere.
Lauren reappeared in under five minutes, which surprised him. She'd added something to her appearance that she hadn't had before — lipstick, maybe, or just the difference between being looked at and deciding to be seen. Either way, the effect was complete.
"We're picking up Juno first," she said, getting into the passenger seat.
Adam looked at her. "Both of you? At the same time?"
"Or I can get out and you can go alone," Lauren said, in a tone that was entirely pleasant and somehow completely non-negotiable.
The girl who had spent weeks as Juno's quietly agreeable companion had apparently left the building.
"Fine," Adam said, and drove to Juno's house.
Juno's dad and stepmother answered the door with the calm of people who had learned to receive whatever unusual situation Juno generated with equanimity. Juno's younger sister tried to make a comment and was efficiently silenced.
The three of them drove to the school.
The 1992 Graduation Dance
Emmett was already there, with Ivy, wearing the specific expression of a man who had arrived at a social event with someone he'd told himself he was completely done with and was now pretending he'd always planned this.
Adam gave him a look of complete understanding.
Emmett gave him a look of equal understanding and significantly more envy.
"Hard Candy," Emmett said, watching Juno and Lauren move away. "This is really it, isn't it."
"Yeah," Adam said.
"You've got two dates somehow."
"I'm a tool," Adam said. "I genuinely don't understand what's happening."
"Unbelievable," Emmett said, with feeling.
When the music started, Juno caught Adam's eye and tilted her head toward Lauren. Adam nodded and crossed the floor.
He'd danced at enough of these events over the past four years that the mechanics were automatic. But dancing with Lauren was different from his usual fluency. She held herself with a careful formality, like someone performing a version of a normal experience rather than having one.
Adam kept the frame correct and didn't push for more than the moment offered.
Then, close to his ear, in a voice that was entirely pleasant and entirely chilling: "Stay away from Juno."
Adam didn't react visibly. He continued the step.
"I heard you," he said quietly.
"Stay away from her," Lauren repeated.
He looked at her. Her eyes were direct and completely serious.
"I'm going to Columbia in the fall," he said. "Juno's going to Harvard. The distance takes care of itself."
"I'll be watching," Lauren said.
She held his gaze for another moment, then looked over at Juno, who was sitting alone in the corner watching them with an expression Adam couldn't fully decode.
Then Lauren, without further explanation, walked him across the floor and exchanged him for Juno with the efficiency of a relay handoff.
Adam stood in front of Juno and blinked.
"Did you know she was going to do that?"
"Yes," Juno said.
"She just threatened me and then handed me to you."
"I know."
"While we were dancing."
"Ignore it," Juno said pleasantly, and they started moving.
Adam danced and said nothing for a moment, processing.
"When are you heading to Boston?" Juno asked.
"Haven't decided yet."
"I'll wait," Juno said. "We'll drive up together. Drop you in New York first, then continue to Boston. Karen has a car."
"We," Adam said.
"Karen and I," Juno said. "She's going to Boston too. Roxbury Community College."
Adam looked at her.
"She's following you to Boston," he said.
"We're best friends," Juno said simply.
Adam thought about the knife in the grass on the hillside, the red hoodie, the very specific look Lauren had just given him on the dance floor.
"Of course you are," he said.
The song ended. Juno returned him to Lauren's general vicinity with the same calm efficiency.
After the school dance wound down, the real second act began at Gretchen's estate — her family's place on the edge of town, which had enough space and enough of the right attitude toward private gatherings to accommodate the entire senior class without anyone feeling crowded.
Adam, Juno, and Lauren drove over together.
The night was warm and the stars were out and the summer was just beginning.
Adam parked, turned off the engine, and sat for a second in the quiet before opening the door.
Legendary, he thought, for no particular reason.
He got out.
End of Chapter 47
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