And Then I Found Out the Truth (24 page)

I thought about that. “Enjoying” might not be exactly the right word, but it wasn’t so far off. “I mean, I miss Erin and people like that, and I’m having problems with physics, but I’d have problems with physics anywhere and Natalie’s been tutoring me, and then there’s Quinn, which is huge, and even Gwyneth isn’t so awful once you get to know her.”

“And what about New York?” asked my mother. “You’re probably not getting much surfing in.”

I had surfed once, soon after I’d arrived, out in Southampton with Quinn, but it wasn’t like at home, where I could be out on the water almost every weekend. “No,” I admitted. “But there are a lot of other things to do. Quinn and I went to see an off-off-Broadway play, and Charley’s always inviting me to art shows. New York is kind of wonderful, actually.”

“Then why don’t you finish up the semester there?” she suggested.

“What?” It hadn’t occurred to me that was an option.

“You and Charley seem to get along well, and if she doesn’t mind, I don’t mind. It’s only a few months, after all, and I’ll be back and forth from Palo Alto, and you can come for Thanksgiving. Maybe Charley and her friend Rafe will want to join us. Quinn, too.”

“You like him?” I asked.

She smiled. “What’s not to like? Now, on a related topic, how do you feel about Mark? Because there’s a chance he might stick around for a while.”

I’d never seen my mother blush before — not ever — but she was blushing now. And if that was Mark’s doing, then I wasn’t going to object.

We made it back to New York in time for Homecoming at Prescott. And Patience had been busy while we were gone. I wasn’t sure how she’d done it, exactly — mostly I was just surprised Mr. Seton hadn’t had a nervous breakdown when confronted with her full wrath — but everyone who’d been part of the poker thing had been reinstated after agreeing to do a bunch of community service and enroll in a Gamblers Anonymous program. And once Hunter spoke to him, Mr. Seton even apologized to Quinn and promised to write a glowing letter of recommendation to his first-choice college.

The Homecoming game itself was sort of strange. They played soccer, not football, which seemed un-American almost, but hardly any of the Manhattan private schools had varsity football teams. Even stranger was seeing T.K., Patience, and Charley together in the alumni section of the stands. T.K., whose closet at home was stocked entirely in sensible neutral colors, had on a red scalloped Rebecca Taylor top Charley had insisted would be too fabulous with her skin tone. Of course, when I saw her sitting between Charley in her orange beaded sweater dress and Patience in her Ralph Lauren weekend wear, I still suspected that at least one and possibly all of them had been switched at birth. Regardless, it was the first time since my father died that I’d had more than a single relative at a school event. And I had to admit, I liked it.

But what I liked most was the dance that night. I’d been right — Charley had wanted to find the perfect outfit, and this meant a silver silk dress from Betsey Johnson with a purple sash and full skirt, accessorized with tons of silver and pearl necklaces and sparkling silver pumps.

Natalie was there — with Edward, because once she’d analyzed her collection of data, running regressions and calculating confidence intervals, she’d realized Charley had a point — the most important thing was what she herself thought of him, and how he was with her, which turned out to be as smitten as Rafe was with Charley. Gwyneth was there, too, with some guy from Collegiate, and she even waved at me from across the dance floor. At least, it looked like a wave. She might have just had a wrist spasm.

And I was there with Quinn, who looked better in his suit and tie than any movie version of James Bond.

He might not have been Homecoming King material, but he was definitely leading man material. And at that moment, with all of the pieces of my life finally back in order, he was everything I could possibly want — the final piece to make the puzzle complete.

Now, if only the DJ would play a tango….

Acknowledgments

With thanks to:
Aimee Friedman, Abby McAden, and everyone at Scholastic
Laura Langlie
Alex Aberg Cobo
Manuel Urrutia
Anne Coolidge Taylor
Michele Jaffe
Rulonna Neilson
Raj Seshadri
The Sturman Family
Wikipedia

About the Author

Jennifer Sturman is the acclaimed author of several mystery novels, including
The Pact, The Jinx
, and, most recently,
And Then Everything Unraveled
. After graduating from Harvard College, Jennifer earned her MBA from Harvard Business School. She now lives in New York City, a few blocks from Delia’s aunt Charley. She has no free time, but if she did, she would probably spend it watching teen movies from the ’80s. Please visit her online at www.jennifersturman.com.

Also by Jennifer Sturman

And Then Everything Unraveled

The Pact

The Jinx

The Key

The Hunt

Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Sturman
All rights reserved. Published by Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.,
Publishers since 1920.
SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sturman, Jennifer.

And then I found out the truth / by Jennifer Sturman. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Sequel to: And then everything unraveled.

Summary: Although her environmentalist mother has been declared dead, Delia is sure that she is still alive, but suspects that the father of the boy she likes is trying to make sure she does not stay that way.

ISBN-13: 978-0-545-08724-7 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-545-08724-4 (alk. paper)

[1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Missing persons — fiction. 3. High schools — fiction. 4. Schools — fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.S94125And 2010

[Fic] — dc22

2009040542

First edition, July 2010

Jacket illustration and photo by McFaul
Jacket design by Whitney Lyle

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E-ISBN 978-0-545-32227-0