Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) (8 page)

You can’t,
said Hux.
I’d say you’re royally screwed.

Chapter 8

Jasmine

“It’s cold,” said Karen, dipping her toe in nervously. “Maybe there’s something wrong. Maybe it’s switched off.”

“It’s
meant
to be that temperature,” said Nat patiently.

Karen blinked. “Really?”

I shook my head. “It’s not cold. It just feels cold because you haven’t got in yet. I still can’t believe you’ve never been swimming!”

“You’re sure you
can swim,
right?” asked Clarissa. “We don’t want the lifeguard to have to save you.” She looked over at the chair where a six-foot hunk of bronzed magnificence in red shorts sat on high alert. “Although….”

“Yes,” said Karen, oblivious. She was being brave and putting a whole foot into the water, now. “I’m sure I remember swimming lessons when I was a child. Before the cello.”

Clarissa, Nat and I all looked at each other.

“Perhaps we should stay in the shallow end,” I said.

It had been my idea to come to the huge, indoor water park. None of us had been before, which was sort of the point. I thought it was time we did something other than just Fenbrook or Flicker or Harpers. I was buzzing with the news of the screen test, but I still had that feeling that I needed to keep
being
Jasmine, to keep shoring her up by being silly and fun and lively. Otherwise she might collapse from the inside out, and the cracks would make my friends suspicious.

First rule of fooling people: don’t appear mysterious. If you put up the shields and refuse to answer questions, everyone will want to know what the big secret is. But bouncy, flirty, Jasmine? Everyone already understood what she was, so there was nothing to ask.

We sat on the edge of the pool for a moment, looking down at our reflections in the water. Nat and Karen had gone for one piece bathing suits, Karen blinking nervously, still unused to her new contact lenses. Clarissa was wearing some sort of black and white designer thing that looked like three small handkerchiefs tied together with bootlaces. If her boobs had been as big as Nat’s, let alone mine, it would have been obscene but, as usual, she managed to pull it off with aplomb.

And me? I’d gone for a white and black polka dot bathing suit that looked like the sort of thing a 1940s glamorpuss would have worn as she graced the side of a WWII bomber, together with a cheeky grin and a
Come home safely, boys!

“I still don’t get it,” said Karen. She looked at the water slides and the people whooping and laughing and splashing around. She’d had to take her glasses off and she was blinking like a befuddled owl. “It’s all echoey. I’m getting goose bumps. And it smells of chemicals.”

“Chlorine,” I told her. “In case any kids pee in the pool.”

Clarissa looked horrified and pulled her feet up out of the water.

“Joke,” I said quickly. “That never happens. Come on.”

We all slid in. The water was only up to our chests...except for Karen, who was up to her chin. “It’s
freezing!”
she hissed.

“Swim!” said Clarissa. “It’ll warm you up.” And she was gone, powering through the water like a Dolce & Gabbana torpedo.

“So,” said Nat. “
Blue & Red
.” We started to walk further into the pool, too busy talking to start swimming but wanting to get our shoulders under the surface.

I grinned. I’d been grinning a lot, since the impromptu audition with Dixon. “I
know!”
I looked down at myself. “I have to get in shape.”

“Your shape is fine,” said Nat.

But I shook my head. “I’m meant to be young and fit and fresh out of the academy—I should have abs of steel.” I poked my stomach. “I’m more...marshmallow.”

“You’re curvy. Curvy is good.” Nat looked down at herself. “I wish I had your boobs.”

“You’d
overbalance
if you had my boobs. You couldn’t pirouette on one toe with these things swinging around like pendulums.”

“If we’re trading bodies,” said Karen, “could I borrow someone’s height?”

We looked back at her. She was doing her best to follow us, but the water was already up to her lower lip.

“Swim!” said Nat.

Karen looked uncertain.

“You’re sure
you
can
swim?” I asked.

“Yes!” said Karen. “I just—I can’t quite remember.” She pushed off from the bottom and launched herself forward, then flailed with her arms and promptly sank. I dragged her up by the shoulder and she took a huge gulp of air.

“Karen, are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Nat, turning over onto her back and drifting alongside.

“Yes! It’ll all come back to me!” And Karen launched herself forward again.

This was getting to be a thing, with Karen. Ever since Connor, she had a new-found confidence that was both adorable and dangerous. She’d come out from beneath my wing, the fact that she was a year older than any of us making her push herself even harder to be independent. Now that she’d graduated, we saw a lot less of her. Between rehearsals with the orchestra and jamming with Connor—trying to come up with a follow-up to their hit track—it seemed as if she was barely there. It was as if she was growing up in fast forward and, after all those years spent living under the thumb of her father, I could totally understand it. But I couldn’t help feeling a little sad about it, as well. I’d
liked
having her under my wing. I missed her being there.

Clarissa swam past us, did some sort of underwater one-eighty, and then cruised alongside. “What’s
that?”
she asked.

Karen was now managing to stay on the surface by doing something that was a little like doggy paddle and a little like a paddle steamer. Her kicking was splashing people several feet away.

“That’s Karen swimming,” I said levelly.

“See?” said Karen, panting. “It’s fine. It’s all fine.” I could tell she was using every ounce of concentration and effort to stay afloat. We formed up alongside her and swum in a line: two lithe water nymphs, a paddle steamer, and a killer whale. That’s how I felt, at least, next to them. But it felt good just to be doing something as a group.

There was another reason I’d organized the trip. We badly needed some Fenbrook Girl time. I was delighted that Nat had found Darrell the previous summer but, ever since she’d moved into the mansion, it felt like she’d withdrawn from the group a little. As if she wanted to keep us at arm’s length for some reason. She seemed happy...maybe that was it, maybe she was
too
happy with him. Maybe she didn’t need us anymore.

Clarissa had followed, getting into first torrid sex and then something much deeper with her muscled hunk of a biker, Neil, but I knew things weren’t all rosy. Neil would disappear on “business trips” for a few days to a week and, when any of us asked where he’d gone, she’d go very quiet. I was pretty sure she didn’t know herself, and that worried me. They’d been together over a year, now. How could she bear to still not know what he did for money? She hadn’t withdrawn from our little group like Nat had...it was more as if she wasn’t really there in spirit, so preoccupied with Neil’s secrets that she was only going through the motions with us.

Karen, Nat, and Clarissa. All of them just slowly drifting away, too gradually and too subtly to make a big noise about it. I’d look paranoid and childish if I said something. And that was just the way of things, right? As you grew up, things changed and you went your separate ways. So...why did it feel so wrong?

I suddenly coughed and spluttered—I’d been so preoccupied with moping that Karen had paddle-steamed past me and I was in her wake. I powered forward and rejoined the formation.

“We need to celebrate,” said Clarissa, looking across at me.

“Not unless I pass the screen test,” I told them. “I don’t want to jinx it.”

“Fine,” said Nat. “Flicker if you get in. Clarissa’s place and orange Skittle vodka if you don’t.”

Clarissa’s place.
Nat moving out had been the end of an era. Next, I guessed, Neil would move in with Clarissa and then they really would all be in couples. There was a part of me that actually hoped it wouldn’t happen, that Neil would cling on to his biker lifestyle and stay in his own place in Boston. I immediately felt my stomach twist in guilt.

There was a huge splash just in front of us as a guy flew out of the end of a water chute and plunged into the water.

“Why do people do that?!” asked Karen, spluttering.

We all looked blankly at her. “What...go down a water slide?”

We stopped swimming and treaded water. Karen did the same—sort of—by windmilling her arms.

“It’s...
fun,”
I said.

“Why?” She looked genuinely confused. “Why is sliding down a big plastic tube into some water
fun?”

“It’s, you know...like a slide, only better because it twists and turns and—” Clarissa broke off at Karen’s expression. “You know, a
slide.
Karen, you must have gone to a playground at least once!”

Karen looked at her and then looked away, embarrassed.

“What did you
do,
your entire childhood?” asked Nat, horrified.

“Brahms,” mumbled Karen, not meeting her eyes.

The rest of us all looked at each other.

“I’ll try it,” Karen said abruptly. She paddle-steamed over to the edge of the pool and climbed out.

“You don’t have to—” I said quickly.

“No. It’s fine. Obviously I’ve been missing out.” She walked toward the spiral staircase that led to the water slide.

“It’s quite a big one,” I said. “Are you sure—”

But she was already marching up the stairs, all five foot four of her. I felt my chest tighten. She was so determined to prove herself, to catch up on the life she’d missed before Connor. Maybe
too
determined.

I turned back to the others. “Okay,” I said. “Well, this is probably a good thing. It’s a good thing, right?”

They all nodded. But as Karen climbed higher, she slowed down. It really
was
quite a big water slide.

“Maybe we should be ready at the bottom,” said Nat. “Just in case.”

We all swam over to the exit of the slide. Karen was at the top of the steps now, but she was barely moving. She looked very small, all the way up there. I mean, even smaller than normal.

“You don’t think she’ll….” I looked at Nat and Clarissa in turn. I didn’t have to say “freak out”—they knew what I meant. They’d been there when Karen had had one of her full-on meltdowns after nearly flunking, a meltdown that had started with catatonia and ended with her fainting on the front steps of Fenbrook. It hadn’t been the first time, either. Breaking down under pressure had been why she’d left her first music college in Boston and come to Fenbrook in the first place.

Of course, she was a lot more relaxed now. Connor’s mix of bad boy Irish charm and—from what she’d told me—
seriously
hot lovin’ seemed to work like a safety valve for her. On the other hand, this new attitude she had, this need to grow up too fast and prove herself at every turn, seemed like an accident waiting to happen.

We watched as she sat down at the slide’s entrance, looked down at us just once, her face pale...and then pushed off. We all held our breath.

The noise started as a worried moan, but rose quickly to an uncertain wail, echoing around the walls of the tube and changing in tone as its owner shot around the turns. By the time Karen reached the exit, it was a full-on scream.

She flew out of the slide, her body stiff and straight as an arrow, and traveled a surprising distance across the pool before plunging into the water. A few bubbles rose to the surface.

“Karen?” I said, panicked. “Karen?!” I prepared to dive down to get her.

Karen broke the surface and heaved in a lungful of air, a huge grin on her face. “
Again!”

Chapter 9

Ryan

They’d partnered me with Hollister. A good guy. Insisted on eating Cheetos in the patrol car, but he had my back, and he was calm and cool in a way that I wasn’t.

I got the feeling that was kind of the point.

We were at a domestic dispute—which was code for “she called the cops on him.” I rapped on the door and told them it was the NYPD, and immediately the argument inside changed from shouts to bitter mutterings.

The door opened. It was a woman and her lip was bleeding, one cheek swollen and reddened. She was a frail little thing, not much bigger than Jasmine’s friend Karen, and she had the same dark, frizzy hair. She was in a white tank top and sweat pants, her feet bare, as if she’d been happily watching TV on the couch before it all went wrong. Her arms were sort of half-folded, one across her stomach and the other hanging down by her side.