The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson Page A

Darko
promotional sticker I got off some guy in England.”
    Nina sighed.
    “I’m listening,” he said, correctly interpreting the noise.
    “Okay,” Nina said, “let’s move on….”
    Despite what she’d been taught over the summer—that you could never judge a project by the tone of one meeting—Nina had the distinct feeling that running council was not going to be quite as she’d imagined it.
    Nina came home that afternoon and put herself to work. She emptied her bags, finished the last load of wash, moved her fall clothes to a more prominent place in the closet. She cleaned her already-immaculate desk and restocked it with new school supplies for the year. These were normally some of her favorite activities, but they felt hollow.
    She went downstairs and turned on the TiVo, flipping through all of the shows that it had saved for her in her absence. Days’ worth of
Trading Spaces, Clean Sweep
, and
What Not to Wear
were waiting for her. These shows were Nina’s way of rewarding herself—watching people rip down bad decorations, dump out contents of closets, cast aside bad clothes—these things soothed her. She never tired of them.
    Except for today. She didn’t feel the slightest twinge when the paint cans were dramatically opened and the room’s new colors were revealed.
    Maybe she was sick. She felt her head. It was cool.
    Only 8,728 hours left until she saw Steve. She wondered if she should adjust that amount for the time difference. Maybe it was only 8,725 hours. It made no sense, but it was a small improvement, anyway.
    She would never live that long. She might be able to make it to the end of the week, and then she’d be on her knees, begging for some of her dad’s frequent-flyer miles.
    “You’ve got that look,” her mother said, glancing into the room. Today her mother had on a crisp yellow blouse, a white skirt, and a delicate pearl necklace. Since her home was her office, Nina’s mom was always dressed up—this was a big part of the reason that Nina always dressed carefully, too. Her home wasn’t like Avery’s or Mel’s, someplace where you could just do whatever you liked. Nina always had the lingering feeling that she was somehow on display. Like now. Apparently, she had a
look
.
    “What look?” Nina asked.
    “The ‘I’m back from college’ look. It’s always a little strange at first.”
    “I felt like Mel and Avery were …” Nina searched her brain. “… mad or something. It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “They’re not mad,” her mom said. “You’ve been away from your friends. They’ve been doing things here that you weren’t a part of. You three have never been apart for that long. I went through it with my friends when I came back from school the first time. You need a girls’ night. To catch up.”
    “They’re at work,” Nina said dully. “Besides, I have to finish getting my speech ready.”
    “You went right back to work this morning. You need to give yourself a break every once in a while, Nina. Trust me. I know. I’ve made that mistake before. I’m giving you the AmEx, and I’m telling you to go have some fun.”
    Her mom was probably right. Maybe she just needed to get up and put herself back in circulation.

12
    Nina had never
been to P. J. Mortimer’s before. It sprang up in the middle of a shopping center parking lot, and it had opened while she was away. She sat in her SUV with the engine off and stared at it. The building was dark brick and had green awnings and seemed kind of sunless and prisonlike. Her own summer had been so academic and Californian, with the bay and palm trees and beautiful buildings—she’d never thought about the fact that her friends had spent most of their time cooped up. No wonder they had so little exciting news to report. It wasn’t exactly a romantic hot spot. She would have hated to spend the summer at a place like this.
    It was very dark inside. She approached a guy in a green shirt who was standing at the