Free The Snake Tattoo by Linda Barnes

long drag on her cigarette and failed to look sophisticated. “He’s dynamite,” she added.
    â€œGreat,” I said, deadpan. “Thanks so much for your help.”
    She ignored my tone and started to get up. I stopped her with, “Jerry said you’d have a picture of Valerie.”
    She pulled a gray leather shoulder bag onto her lap by its strap, took out a wallet, flipped through a bunch of credit cards, yes, credit cards—MasterCard, Visa, Gold American Express—until she found the right plastic sleeve. She pulled out a school photo—formal, airbrushed, perfect.
    â€œYou have to give this back,” she said.
    Valerie had a solemn smile that didn’t get as far as her eyes. Her hair was smooth and fine, close to her skull, cut blunt at the chin. Her face was rounder than a perfect oval, her chin small and pointed. Her eyes were almond-shaped under light brows. Her nose was small, like the nose of a small child that hasn’t yet taken on its adult shape. Her eyes were hazel, her blouse collar pale blue, her skin clear. I didn’t think I’d seen a kid with acne anywhere on the school grounds. I wondered if they got expelled.
    I flipped it over. On the back, in childish looping handwriting, it said:
    Elsie
    Remember: moles = grams over liters, Renaud’s algebra factory, Fridays, EJB, Class notes, Flats and flatties, In your face, GR .
    Love ya ,
    Valerie
    â€œLove ya.” Like Paolina closes her letters.
    â€œDoes she always call herself Valerie, never Val?” I asked.
    â€œShe despises Val.”
    Paolina hates nicknames, too. They tried to call her Paula at school last year, told her it was more “American.” She got in a fight over it.
    â€œWho’s EJB?” I said.
    â€œThat’s just junk. He’s this guy I used to date. A jerk.”
    â€œValerie date anybody?”
    â€œWhy don’t you ask Jerry Toland about that? Ask Jerry why she left, okay?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œJust ask him,” she said.
    And then she walked away, swaying her hips, and trying so damn hard to look old.

CHAPTER 8
    Locating Elsie used up my morning’s share of luck. Even with detailed directions to the drama teacher’s office, I couldn’t find Geoff. He had split for the day, chaperoning a field trip, according to some future-stockbroker-of-America. I wondered where the students could have gone, what they might have wanted that wasn’t provided on campus. Maybe they went to the city and watched poor people.
    Geoff, whose brass name plate identified him as Mr. Geoffrey L. Reardon, left his office unlocked, probably to let his students know he had a deep and abiding trust in them. I peered casually down the hall, left and right. Nobody. So I stepped inside and shut the door. Then I yanked down the shade on the single window and flicked on the desk lamp.
    The office sported a braided rug, two chairs—one a comfortable-looking leather swivel, one a ladderbacked job—and an old oak desk. Nothing fancy, just what the Emerson had ordered back in seventeen-whatever when they’d opened, well-polished and gleaming. The desk faced the window. A wood-framed Degas ballerina print tilted on the wall near the door. Two framed diplomas hung nearby. Oberlin and NYU.
    I don’t display my diploma. UMass—Boston did well by me, but face it, it’s not a classy school.
    A low three-tiered bookshelf ran along one wall. The bottom two shelves were full of thin, brightly colored play scripts. The top shelf held mementos. A tarnished trophy with a golfing figure on top and Reardon’s name at the base sat next to a squat Paul Revere bowl engraved with initials that didn’t mean a thing to me. Two scrapbooks labeled “Drama Club” and filled with pictures of students in productions Reardon must have directed were propped open like kid’s picture books, wreaking havoc on their spines. I flipped