Skin Deep Read online

  “A literal fight. Sorry, I don’t mean a literary fight, but like hair pulled, punches thrown. Who knew Creative Writing 201 could be so interesting? I should’ve taken it when I had the chance.”

  “You must’ve heard what happened? From her classmates?”

  “It happened after class, when it was just Penny, the girl, and the professor. The girl she fought with—Henrietta something—she’s gone, too. She was very Mormon and just didn’t fit in here, so she went back home. I can find out her last name and you can track her down, I suppose. You can also talk to Professor Marks, though he’s funny about CW201. He considers it therapy and himself a therapist, so you might get stonewalled with doctor-patient privacy type of bullshit.”

  “Did you and Penny talk about it? Or are you going to stonewall me, too, with doctor-patient privacy type of bullshit?”

  Faith smiled. “The whole point of TLC is to be a safe house. We want our girls to get better, but on their own terms. Unless they want to change, nothing’s going to work. I asked her if she wanted to talk about what happened, and she didn’t, so I just held her for a while. She cried, then fell asleep.”

  “So Penny didn’t tell you where she was going.”

  “No, but I know that Wheeler personally came to see her in her room.”

  “Is that something that normally happens, the president of the college making house calls?”

  “Wheeler makes it sound like she’s all hands-on, but she’s hardly around. In the four years I’ve been here, I never heard of her visiting any student in her dorm room.”

  “And the next day, Penny was gone.”

  Faith nodded. “I went to see Wheeler when I found out, but of course, she wasn’t available. And the registrar’s office told me Penny took a voluntary leave of absence.”

  “Why did you give Josie such a hard time? She said Penny read from a note card, listing all her grievances.”

  “It’s part of the healing process. You have to confront your fears, and there’s no greater source of fear than from those who love you. Her mother was way too involved in her daughter’s life. You know she tracked Penny’s periods in a ledger?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Jesus, I thought she was gonna kill me when she came here, looking for her daughter. Thank goodness security showed up.”

  “When did Penny come to TLC?”

  “Right after she and Grace had a falling out. Mid-September, so she was here for about a month. It was supposed to be temporary, but then she realized how much she wanted to stay. How much she needed it.”

  I glanced at my watch. One thirty. No wonder I felt like a zombie.

  From the bottom desk drawer, Faith brought out a Hello Kitty bag and a bath towel and handed them to me.

  “Just what I always wanted,” I said.

  “Basic toiletries, so you don’t have to go to bed all gross.” She handed me the key to the room then bid me good night.

  After she left, I trudged to the bathroom down the weird red-lit hall. The bathroom was bathed in red, too, and I was reminded of the darkroom I used to frequent way back when, during my high school photography class. That was about how old Penny was, myself back then. Who was that girl? I could hardly remember. Not that different than who I was now, though I was probably wrong. I bet I would hardly recognize my younger self if I ran into me now.

  These were some strange thoughts I was having. Late night thoughts. Penny’s bed was made, but it’d probably been weeks since the sheets were changed, so I stayed in my t-shirt and jeans and got under the blanket. As I fell asleep, I hoped to absorb whatever remained of her identity here, because it looked like I was going to need all the help I could get.

  23

  With my mind awake and clear in the morning, I searched Penny’s room again, the kind of searching that involved turning over the mattress, checking its seams, and moving furniture. There weren’t many pieces to move, and the only thing I found was a packet of gum that possibly predated even me: JUICY FRUIT written in a blocky font that I remembered from my childhood.

  All that remained in the closet were a handful of wire hangers and a white belt from a terry cloth bathrobe. The only objects that saved this room from complete anonymity were the four books on the desk: The Collected Stories of Richard Yates, Stewart O’Nan’s Last Night at the Lobster, The Riverside Shakespeare, and a plastic spiral-bound packet that looked like it came from a print shop. CREATIVE WRITING 201, it said on the cover, Professor Lawrence Marks. On the first page were his office location and hours: Grover 212, Tue 9-11am. Since I hadn’t overslept too badly, I could head over there after breakfast with time to spare. The spiral-bound packet itself seemed brand new, with no notes on the margins or food stains. According to the second page of the syllabus, the class was supposed to have read a third of its contents by now.

  TLC looked much more inviting in the morning, the sun filling the hallways with natural light instead of the eerie bloody red. I could’ve used a shower, but I didn’t have any clean clothes with me, so didn’t see the point. Besides, from the way the girls here were dressed, I’d fit right in with my frumpy, lived-in look. I brushed my teeth and washed my face in the bathroom then made my way out.

  “Hello, Katie,” I said to the spiky-haired girl at the front desk.

  “I’m Carson,” she said. And to make matters as clear as possible, right behind me was Katie herself.

  When I got to the dining hall, they were already closing up. I grabbed a bagel and slapped a hunk of cream cheese in between and made my way over to Grover, one of the uglier buildings on campus, a squat, flat-roofed thing that looked like it was built in the seventies. How could anyone think this garish orange and bright yellow trim on the windows was ever a good idea?

  Marks’s office was on the second floor, and there were two students waiting in line, sitting on the floor outside the closed door. Earbuds in ears, eyes on the phone: this was the default mode for just about every kid I saw here at Lewie.

  I didn’t have earbuds, but I did have a phone, so I sat next to a boy and unlocked it. The campus had wifi everywhere, but for some reason, I couldn’t connect to it.

  The door opened and a girl came out hitching her backpack, and the next student went in.

  “You need the Lewie app if you want to connect to the five gigahertz access points,” the boy said. He then looked up at me and correctly assumed I was in the techno-neophyte age group. I offered him my phone and a few magical swipes and taps later, I was online.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Which class of Lare’s are you in?” he asked.

  “Lare?”

  “That’s what we call him, Professor Marks. Or, more accurately, what he wants us to call him.”

  The boy was Rob Lowe cute. But remembering that I was a professional gumshoe, I cleared my throat and managed to respond calmly.

  “I wanted to talk to him about Creative Writing 201,” I said.

  “Ah, the class everybody wants to get into,” the boy said. “You have to submit a writing sample. Three poems or a story at least fifteen pages long, double spaced. I tried with my poems but he wasn’t feeling them.”

  “Sounds like freshmen would not have an easy time getting into the class.”

  “Just one this year, from what I heard,” the boy said.

  Penny, who must’ve submitted something that really caught Marks’s eye.

  “I’m trying again next semester, for CW202. I still have seven more chances, so I’ll just keep at it. Lare wrote me a very nice letter why he didn’t let me in, though. He’s like the fairest guy around.”

  “Even fairer than Judge Judy?”

  The boy laughed at my terrible joke, and it sort of made my day that I got him to laugh. Oh, Siobhan, you really need to get a grip. Or maybe just get laid. And preferably with someone who wasn’t young enough to be your son.

  “The way he runs his workshop, he makes sure that students ha
ve something good to say before they can start criticizing.”

  “Because positivity is the source of all that is good,” a voice interrupted.

  24

  Lawrence Marks stood over us like a gentle giant. He could’ve served as the model for the lumberjack on front of Brawny paper towels, with his full beard and flannel shirt.

  “Hey Lare,” the boy said, and got up. I did, too, because I felt awkward to be the only one sitting.

  “Ricky, my man,” Marks said, and they exchanged an orchestrated flurry of slaps and bumps with their hands that ended with a manly half-hug.

  “Your John Hancock, please,” Ricky said. He produced a sheet and handed Marks a pen. Marks looked it over and nodded, then signed.

  “Much luck with it,” Marks said.

  “Thanks, Lare.” Ricky then turned to me. “See you around,” he said, and for a second, I thought to myself, Did he really mean that? Then I had another thought: You’re an idiot.

  “I don’t know you,” Marks said. “I assume you are a WILL student?”

  His hand was as soft as a pillow when I shook it.

  “I am,” I said. “Siobhan O’Brien.”

  “That’s an interesting name,” he said. “A novel-worthy name, I bet.”

  He led me into his office, which was messily academic, with books and journals crammed into every possible space. On the floor were pillars of books that reminded me of several Jenga puzzles leaning on each other.

  I sat and showed him my PI license. “I was hired by Penny Sykes’s mother to find her.”

  “I didn’t know she was missing,” Marks said. “The registrar informed me she took a leave of absence.”

  I gave him the rundown. He was an intense listener, focused on every single one of my words.

  “Sounds like she left on her own volition,” Marks said.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here, asking questions. So can you tell me what happened between Penny and Henrietta?”

  “No,” Marks said.

  “I thought you were there.”

  “I ran in to break up the fight after it had started. The class had ended, I had a department meeting to attend and was halfway down the corridor when I heard the screaming. Henrietta had Penny in a headlock of sorts, and Penny was punching her in the stomach. Like professional wrestling.”

  Marks didn’t seem fazed recounting this story. In fact, if anything, he sounded a little proud.

  “I take it this is not the first time something like this happened,” I said.

  “Fiction is a rough mistress,” he said. “Sometimes truth reveals itself best through a veil of make-believe. No, it’s not the first time in my career that two students went at it, but it is rare for them to have a physical altercation. I don’t promote their violence, but I support their passion.”

  “So the fight had to do with something one of them wrote.”

  Marks put up both hands like a traffic cop. “We abide by the Vegas code.”

  “What happens in CW201 stays in CW201.”

  “It’s a safe zone for my students to express themselves without repercussions. If I can’t provide that protection, what good am I?”

  “Would you allow me to sit in class, then?”

  “And what would that accomplish, outside of you procuring a list of kids to interrogate later?”

  The fairest, Ricky had said. I had to appeal to that side of him.

  “Would you be willing to tell your students who I am and why I need their help, then put it to a vote to determine the fate of my visit?”

  He stroked his beard thoughtfully, a practiced pose if I ever saw one. But he did look like he was actually considering it.

  “I like the way you think,” he said. “I’ll email my students today and let you know what they say. It’ll have to be unanimous. One dissenting voice…”

  “Of course.”

  We shook hands and that was that. Two more students had queued after me, so Marks’s office hour parade continued on. Popular guy.

  25

  As I descended the stairs of Grover Hall and was about to head back out, I felt like I had enough at this point to hit up the source. Now that I had access to the Lewie network on my phone thanks to my new boyfriend Ricky, I got on the student directory’s website and looked up Grace Park. I’d half expected her to be unlisted, but there she was, Hawkes 204. I consulted my pocket campus map and found Hawkes, a two-story colonial situated on a hill. It was labeled as an administrative building and not a dorm, which matched what Faith had told me last night about Grace’s special living arrangement.

  The day had turned dark, a heavy gray curtain of clouds moving in from the west. With most kids in classes, the walking paths were almost deserted, fall leaves turning in the wind. I was twenty feet from the main entrance of Hawkes, a bright red door with gold trim, when a man came to walk beside me.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  He was an Asian male about six feet tall with a military-style crew cut. He didn’t have the thick neck or the thigh-like biceps of a bodybuilder, but I felt an undeniable sense of strength coiled beneath his white turtleneck and black slacks. People might say he looked like an athlete, but there was a sharpness there that went beyond tossing a ball around.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Brent Kim, Special Campus Security.” He spoke with a slight accent but enunciated each word extra clearly, like somebody who was taught formal English back in Korea. When he extended his hand, I caught a glimpse of a circle of black stars on the inner part of his wrist.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “May I ask the nature of your business in Hawkes?”

  Time to play stupid.

  “I thought Hawkes was an admin building.” I took out my pocket map and read off the directory on the back. “Here it is, Student Services.”

  When I looked up at him, he had his phone out and snapped a photo of me.

  “It’s rather rude to take pictures of people without asking their permission.”

  “Apologies,” he said, then his phone dinged. “Ms. Siobhan O’Brien?”

  So it was a face recognition thing, hooked up to the school’s ID database. “Special” indeed.

  “Yes. Now that you know who I am, can I go into the building?”

  “Of course. But I’ll accompany you.”

  “So everybody who comes here is escorted by you?”

  “Myself or one of my associates,” Kim said. “Shall we go?”

  I didn’t see a reason to mince words with Mr. No-Nonsense.

  “I’d like to ask Grace Park a few questions,” I said. I showed him my PI license.

  “May I take a picture of this document?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  A click later, he handed it back to me. “May I ask the nature of your business with Ms. Park?”

  “I’ve come to understand that Grace was friends with Penny Sykes. I’ve been hired by Sykes’s mother to find her.”

  “What if I capture your information and your purpose and present it to Ms. Park?” Kim said. “If she agrees to speak with you, then a meeting will be arranged. Does that sound satisfactory to you?”

  It certainly did not, because I had serious doubts my request would even get to Grace. But before I could reply, Llewellyn’s bell tower began to ring. Which was odd, because my watch told me it was 11:38. After ten rings, the bells stopped—and then they began again.

  Simultaneously, both Kim’s and my phones chirped. The text message read:

  *** A BOMB THREAT HAS BEEN RECEIVED AT LLEWELLYN COLLEGE ***

  Please follow your instructors or Llewellyn personnel to exit the building in an orderly fashion.

  “Does this sort of thing happen often around here?” I asked Kim.

  He jogged away from me without an answer.

  All around us, students and professors alike were filing out of their classrooms. My phone chirped again
with a text from a different number.

  guard just left travers. disarm code 62031.

  go through hedges right of hawkes and you are there.

  The number was 111-111-1111. Probably from Faith or Molly, since they had my phone last night, and Molly seemed the techie type to mask the Caller ID. I looked around to see if they were watching me, but good luck with that. Five hundred students may not sound like many, but having all of them outside at the same time, plus all the professors and the employees, walking about on the grass—it looked like Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

  At first glance I couldn’t see how I could go through the thicket of hedges on the right side of Hawkes, but as I skulked toward the back, I found a space between two bushes that I could slip through sideways. I closed my eyes and got a few light scratches on my cheeks, but I made like a crab and squeezed through to the other side.

  Travers Hall, in its brand-new whiteness, stood in front of me. Even with the clouds, the building was almost too bright to look at. I walked up to the front doors, two large panes of glass which were the only ones not covered up by white paper. Initially I thought I was seeing nothing at all, but then my eyes adjusted and saw a black desk and black chair in the lobby where the guard would’ve been, camouflaged by the blackness of the rest of the space. I punched in the five digits into the keypad to the right of me, and the blinking red light turned green. The door unlocked with a thud.

  26

  Inside Travers Hall, the black theme was relentless. Literally everything was black: the walls, the doors, the floor, even the pens in the cup sitting on the guard’s desk. The smell of new materials was pervasive—fresh paint on drywall, little piles of sawdust by the trims and molding, a slight burned scent of warm forced air pushing through galvanized steel metal ducts that snaked around the ceiling.

  White on the outside, black on the inside; whoever put up the cash for this building was in no mood for fifty shades of gray, or even one.