Football.
The Roseville football stadium was on the far side of town, nestled against the tall hills that rose from the valley just fifty yards behind me. In the distance, the band started playing. The sound echoed through the hills. The cheering crowd grew louder as we walked toward the chain-link fence, joining the stream of people that flowed inside the gates. Steel beams framed the stands. Specks of dust and debris would fall sometimes like a faint snowfall as we stood beneath the bleachers, staring out onto the field. There were uniformed officials holding big orange markers. A coach paced back and forth, yelling orders no one seemed to hear. Cheerleaders moved in perfect unison, their red pleated skirts flipping as they yelled and kicked. And behind them sat a small stage with five girls in crowns and fancy dresses.
"Oh my gosh," Macey said, pointing to the girl in the center who wore a white dress and a tiara. She sounded as overwhelmed as I felt.
"I think maybe she's their queen," I guessed, because, honestly, we were in completely foreign territory!
Spies have to be comfortable in all kinds of social situations, but I don't think I'd ever been anywhere where some people were wearing tiaras and others were wearing sweatshirts. I mean, I'd watched football on TV with Grandpa Morgan, but never once had I seen any girls in formal wear!
A track circled around the football field. On the other side lay the opposing stands, the opposing team. Macey and I started walking in that direction, past the concession stand, and ran right into Tina Walters.
"Excuse me," Tina said, stumbling a little. And then she looked at Macey. She looked at me. She opened her mouth to speak, but then, just as quickly, she shook her head as if dismissing some crazy thought.
"Ummm…sorry." I grabbed Macey and bolted away.
Macey looked at me, her contact-colored eyes wide as we both silently mouthed, Pop quiz!
Near the bathrooms we saw Eva Alvarez posing as a member of the other team's flag corps and talking to a middle-aged woman wearing an I [heart] #32 corsage that was as large as her head.
I heard Courtney Bauer's laughter from under the stands. Now I know, technically speaking, that a crowd full of Gallagher Girls is supposed to make me feel safe, but right then they weren't backup—they were highly trained operatives who could blow our cover at any time.
Macey and I stayed calm and kept walking, taking in the sights and sounds, until suddenly things felt…different. Again. I sensed the Gallagher Girls in the crowd, but also…something else. The game must have been going well for Roseville, because the home crowd was cheering; but for some reason I found myself thinking about another day and another crowd. But this time I didn't think I was crazy as my mind flashed back to Washington, D.C. This time, I knew what I was looking for.
"He's here," I muttered as my gaze swept over the crowd, no longer seeing football fans and cheerleaders, band members and aging former jocks.
"What?" Macey asked over the roar of the crowd.
"Zach," I whispered back.
"I don't know why he didn't kiss you!" Macey said with an exasperated sigh, as if she totally wasn't in the mood to debrief again.
"No." I shook my head. "He's here."
And that got my roommate's attention. "How do you know?" she asked, turning to take in the crowd. "Is it a pavement artist thing?"
"No," I said. "It's a girl thing."
Macey nodded as if she knew exactly what I was feeling. She scanned the bleachers. "Maybe Blackthorne is here for a CoveOps exercise too?" she offered, but I shook my head. "Ooh! Solomon alert!" Macey said then, coming even more alive.
Our teacher was by the flagpole. Our teacher was looking our way. It would have been easy to spin around, to try to hide. But luckily Macey stayed with me, quiet and still, as Joe Solomon's gaze passed over us.
Maybe it was instinct or training that made me freeze. Or maybe it was the sight of the boy standing forty feet behind my teacher, in the middle of the track, staring right at me.
Being recognized during a covert operation is bad. We're talking democracy (not to mention life) as you know it may cease to exist…bad. Enemy agents might try to kill you. Friends who don't have a clue that you're posing as a United Nations translator and using the name Tiffany St. James might totally blow your cover. But until that moment,
I didn't realize just how dangerous it is to be recognized by…
Your ex-boyfriend.
"Isn't that.,." Macey started, but I couldn't wait for her to finish.
"Josh."
My mind raced with all the reasons I shouldn't panic. After all, it was homecoming and it seemed like the entire town of Roseville had come out for the show. And not only that, but at that moment I looked more like Macey than like me as I stood there in my long black wig and blue contacts, and jeans that the real me would never wear for fun on a Friday night. But the hope I clung to the hardest, as I stood twenty feet away from my first boyfriend, was simple: I was still the girl nobody sees.
But there had always been one exception to that rule. And he was standing right in front of me.
"Has he…filled out a little?" Macey asked, squinting her eyes to see better through her fake glasses. "He seems…hotter," she added, as if she totally approved.
I wanted to say no. I wanted to pretend it didn't matter. But when he turned and started walking away from us, I did what any spy (not to mention ex-girlfriend) would do: I followed him.