The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [45]
Onscreen, the President and First Lady are flashing matching grins, their faces lit by the generous sun as they walk to their would-be slaughter.
“Okay, it is kinda nutty you’re watching this,” I tell her.
Her eyes roll toward me. “You’re really chock full of charm, huh?”
“I thought it’d make you laugh. By the way, why’d you come here? I thought we agreed it was better to lay low until we—”
Standing up from her seat, she reaches into her purse, pulls out a small square present wrapped in what looks like the morning newspaper, and hands it to me.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“What’s it look like? It’s a poorly wrapped present. Open it.”
“I don’t—” I look over my shoulder, totally confused. “You came here to give me a present?”
“What’s wrong with a present?”
“I don’t know… maybe because, between Orlando dying, and then finding your dad, I sorta threw your life in the woodchipper yesterday.”
She regrabs the present, snatching it from my hands.
“Beecher, tell me something that upset you.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“In your life. Pick a moment. Pick something that hurt you… a pain that was so bad, you almost bit through your own cheek. Y’know… someone who really put you through the emotional wringer.”
“Why would—?”
“Tell me who Iris is,” Clementine says, reminding me that the people who know you the longest are the best at finding your weak spots.
“Why’re you bringing up Iris?”
“I heard Orlando say her name yesterday—and within two seconds, you had the same pain on your face that you have now, like someone kicked your balls in. I know the feeling… y’know how many DJ jobs I’ve been fired from? So what happened to Iris? Is she dead?”
“She’s not dead. She’s an old girlfriend. We broke up.”
“Okay, so she dumped you for another guy.”
“That’s not—”
“Beecher, I’m not trying to upset you… or pry,” she says, meaning every word. “The point is, whatever it was—however Iris hurt you—you’re over her now, right?”
“Absolutely,” I insist. “Of course.”
“Okay, you’re not over her,” she says as I stand there, surprised by the sudden lump that balloons in my throat and the familiar sting of self-doubt that Iris planted so deeply in my chest. “But you will be, Beecher. And that’s what you did for me yesterday. For my whole life, I’ve wondered who my father might be. And now, thanks to you, I know. And yes, it’s not the easiest answer. In fact, it may just be… it’s kinda the Guinness Book of World Records crappiest answer of all time. But it’s an answer,” she says, handing the present back to me. “And I appreciate that.”
Looking down at the present, I give a tug to one of the scotch-taped seams. As I tear the paper aside, I spot the turn buttons on what looks like the back of a picture frame. It’s definitely a picture frame. But it’s not until I flip it over that I see the actual picture inside.
It’s a color photo of me in seventh grade, back when my mom used to shop for whatever Garanimals shirt I was wearing that day. But what I notice most is the other seventh grader standing next to me in the photo with the wide, surprisingly bucktoothed grin. Young Clementine.
The thing is, back then, we never had a photo of just the two of us.
“H-How’d you get this?” I ask.
“I made it. From our old class photo in Ms. Spicer’s class. You were standing on the left. I was on the right. I had to cut us out with an X-Acto knife since Tim Burton movies made me genuinely scared of scissors, but it still made our heads kinda octagonal-shaped, so sorry about that.”
I look down at the frame, where both of us have our arms flat at our sides in standard class-photo positions. Our heads are definitely octagons.
“You don’t like it?” she asks.
“No, I like it… I love it. I just… If you had scanned it in—I feel bad you had to ruin the actual photo.”
“I didn’t ruin anything,” she insists. “I cut out the only two people I cared about in that class.”
I look up at Clementine, then back down at the photo, which is choppy, poorly made, and completely unflattering.
But it’s of us.
A smile grips my cheeks