Body Double: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

to school wearing hand-me-down skirts and shoes with cardboard soles.
    Go away. Everyone please just go away.
    The door finally stopped whooshing open.
    Pressed up against the stall door, Alice strained to hear if anyone was still in the room. Peeking out through the crack, she saw no one standing in front of the mirror. Only then did she creep out of the bathroom.
    The hallway was deserted as well, everyone gone for the day. There was no one to torment her. She walked, shoulders hunched self-protectively, down the long corridor with its battered lockers and wall posters announcing the Halloween dance in two weeks. A dance she would certainly not be going to. The humiliation of last week’s dance still stung, and would probably always sting. The two hours of standing alone against the wall, waiting, hoping a boy would ask her onto the floor. When a boy had at last approached her, it was not to dance. Instead he’d suddenly doubled over and thrown up on her shoes. No more dances for her. She’d been in this town only two months, and already she wished her mother would pack them up and move them again, take them someplace where they could start over. Where things would finally be different.
    Only, they never are.
    She walked out the school’s front entrance, into the autumn sunshine. Bending over her bicycle, she was so intent on opening the lock that she didn’t hear the footsteps. Only as his shadow fell across her face did she realize Elijah was standing beside her.
    “Hello, Alice.”
    She jerked to her feet, sending her bike crashing onto its side. Oh god, she was an idiot. How could she be so clumsy?
    “That was a hard exam, wasn’t it?” He spoke slowly, distinctly. That was one more thing she liked about Elijah; unlike the other kids, his voice was always clear, never muddled. And he always let her see his lips. He knows my secret, she thought. Yet he still wants to be my friend.
    “So did you finish all the questions?” he asked.
    She bent down to pick up her bike. “I knew the answers. I just needed more time.” As she straightened, she saw that his gaze had dropped to her blouse. To the gap left by the missing button. Flushing, she crossed her arms.
    “I’ve got a safety pin,” he said.
    “What?”
    He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pin. “I’m always losing buttons myself. It’s kind of embarrassing. Here, let me fasten it for you.”
    She held her breath as he reached for her blouse. She could barely suppress her trembling as he slipped his finger beneath the fabric to close the pin. Does he feel my heart pounding? she wondered. Does he know I’m dizzy from his touch?
    When he stepped back, her breath flew out. She looked down and saw that the gap was now modestly pinned shut.
    “Better?” he asked.
    “Oh. Yes!” She paused to compose herself. Said, with queenly dignity: “Thank you, Elijah. That’s very thoughtful of you.”
    A moment passed. Crows cawed, and the autumn leaves were like bright flames engulfing the branches above.
    “You think you could help me with something, Alice?” he asked.
    “With what?”
    Oh, stupid, stupid answer. You should just have said yes! Yes, I’ll do anything for you, Elijah Lank.
    “I’ve got this project I’m doing for biology. I need a partner to help me with it, and I don’t know who else to ask.”
    “What kind of project is it?”
    “I’ll show you. We’ve got to go up by my house.”
    His house. She’d never been to a boy’s house.
    She nodded. “Let me drop my books off at home.”
    He pulled his bike from the rack. It was almost as battered as hers, the fenders going rusty, the vinyl peeling off the seat. That old bike made her like him even more. We’re a real pair, she thought. Tony Curtis and me.
    They rode to her house first. She didn’t invite him in; she was too embarrassed to let him see the shabby furniture, the paint peeling off the walls. She just ran inside, dumped her book bag on the kitchen table, and ran out.
    Unfortunately, her brother’s dog, Buddy, did as well. Just as she came out the front door, he scampered out in a blur of black and white.
    “Buddy!” she yelled. “You come back here!”
    “He doesn’t listen very well, does he?” said Elijah.
    “Because he’s a stupid dog.
Buddy!
”
    The mutt glanced back, tail wagging, then trotted off down the road.
    “Oh, never mind,” she said. “He’ll come home when he’s ready.” She climbed onto her bike. “So where do you