“Let me know if any of your football buddies need their permission slips signed,” I told him. “I’m seeing serious business opportunities here.”
“Sounds fun. Almost like old times, eh, Parv?” Preston said. “Like our shenanigans at Bristol Academy. Too bad you weren’t there too, Max. Parvati and I ruled that school.” He smiled to himself. “Good times, good times.”
Parvati gave him a dark look. “Yeah, except those ‘good times’ got us expelled, and these little fibs have the potential to make us cold, hard cash. She gestured around the table with one hand. “Liars, Inc. All of your duplicitous needs serviced by Max et al.”
“Et al.?” I glanced back and forth between the two of them.
“Us, obviously.” Parvati’s skin was glowing the way it did after a major hookup session.
“You two are both loaded,” I protested. “And college bound. Why would you want to help with an unethical and possibly illegal business?”
“My parents have been stingy lately,” Preston said. “And as you know, I have expensive vices.”
He was referring to his gambling habit. He bet on everything: online poker, college basketball, women’s tennis. Once he told me he won fifty bucks on the outcome of a minor military skirmish in the Middle East.
“It’d be a good training exercise for me,” Parvati added.
I snorted. Her main goal in life was to work for the CIA, and if there was one thing she did not need any training in, it was how to lie. When the Colonel caught us in the hot tub, she turned on the tears in five seconds, telling her dad that nothing had happened, that we were just kissing. And the hilarious thing is, he seemed to believe it, even though our clothes were strewn across the deck.
“Fine,” I said. “If you two want in, then you’re in charge of drumming up more clientele.”
“Word of mouth seems to be working so far,” Parvati said. “What is that? Seventy bucks in an hour? Not bad.”
“I’ll spread the word a little,” Preston added. “Liars, Inc., huh? Could be just what we need to liven up our senior year.” He slid his chair back from the table. Parvati and I followed his lead. The three of us dumped our trays.
Pres thumped his right fist twice against his chest. “Be good, you two.” He headed toward the gym.
Parvati and I turned down the main hallway where all of the seniors had their lockers. “So I’ll see you tomorrow around ten,” she said with a wink.
“Meet you by my car. Same as usual.”
“We’ll talk more about our new business venture.” Her voice lowered to a growl and her eyes practically smoldered, like the idea of running a mini–crime empire with Preston and me really turned her on.
“Okay.” I wasn’t convinced that anything was really going to come of it, but I’d talk about the new Boyz Be Bad album or the vegan-friendly cafeteria choices if it was going to make her keep looking at me like that.
THREE
October 22nd
PARVATI WAS LEANING UP AGAINST the side of my beat-up Ford Escort by the time I got out of detention. Her wheels were a lot nicer, an almost-new VW Jetta with air-conditioning that actually worked, but it was too conspicuous. For some reason—probably just to see if her parents would do it—she had requested a purple paint job for her last birthday. Now the whole school referred to her car as the Grape.
“Max time.” She glanced around to see if anyone was watching before giving me a peck on the cheek. “My favorite time in the whole world.”
I unlocked the door for her and we both tossed our backpacks into the backseat.
“So,” she started, as I pulled away from the curb, “Preston and I had a little brainstorming session last night about what other services we could offer our fellow classmates.”
The muscles in my neck tightened. “You went over to Preston’s house?”
“No, on the phone, silly,” Parvati said. “Don’t be jealous. I’m all yours.”
I believed her, but I was still jealous. Pres and Parvati were friends before I knew either one of them. They had both attended the same ritzy private school until they managed to get expelled together as juniors. Neither of them ever told me exactly what they did to get kicked out. Pres claimed substance-induced amnesia, and Parvati vaguely explained it as “stealing a bunch of stupid stuff from different classrooms, rare books from English, chemicals from chem lab, that sort of thing.” Apparently this was a dare game they played with their friends: one group would steal a bunch of crazy shit, and another group would have to put it back without getting caught.
Each time I asked her about the story, the details got more vague, and part of me always imagined this string of thefts culminating with Parvati and Preston having wild sex on the headmaster’s desk. Both of them assured me this was not the case, but I still couldn’t shake the idea completely.
I pulled my car out into the street and headed toward the beach. “What’d you two come up with?”
Parvati ticked things off on the pads of her fingers. “Lying. Forging permission slips. Calling in sick for people. Switching tests. Creating alibis.”
“Alibis?” I raised an eyebrow. “Wow, we really are starting a life of crime.”
“Not for crimes,” she said. “More like cover stories. Maybe someone is grounded but wants to sneak out to a party, or maybe a guy wants to take his girlfriend to that crappy Seabreeze Motel for the night. We can pretend to have group projects to work on or make up overnight field trips, that kind of thing.”
I nodded. “I guess the next question is, what are we going to do with all the money we’re going to make?”
“Nights at the Seabreeze?” She laughed, but I knew she’d be down for it if I was, even though it was way below her standards.
“Is there any chance we could sneak up to your dad’s cabin?” I asked. The Colonel’s cabin was on the outskirts of the Angeles National Forest, a remote wooded area an hour north of here. Parvati and I had driven up there occasionally this past summer so we could be alone, but her dad loaned the place out to his military buddies during hunting season, so it was only safe at certain times of the year.
“It’s still deer season.” Slouching down, she rested her head on my shoulder and sighed. “Trust me. You’re not the only one going crazy.” She reached across the center console and curled her hand around my thigh, her fingers toying with one of the fraying strands of my jeans. Her light touch was all it took to get me excited. The car swerved slightly as the wheel twisted a little in my hands. I swallowed hard.