The Three-Day Affair by Michael Kardos Read Free Book Online Page B

mean, I could …” But he was out of ideas.
    “And anyway, we aren’t innocent, are we? I drove the car. Nolan said not to return her to the Milk-n-Bread. I listened to him. Now we’re all here. And I don’t see any of us rushing to set her free. Sothat means we’re all in this.” Nobody contradicted me. “So what do we do?”
    “We let her go,” Jeffrey said. “What else
can
we do?”
    Nolan shook his head. “Money.”
    “Come on,” I said. “She’ll take the money and turn us in anyway . We fucking kidnapped her.”
    “Yes, Will. We fucking kidnapped her. I think that’s already been established. You and Jeffrey and I all kidnapped that girl over there. So stop saying it already. Please. I’m begging you.”
    “I don’t think,” I said, my words more measured, “that a bribe will work.”
    “Have you tried? Do you have another suggestion?” His voice lowered. “Do you want to
kill her
? Because we could always do that.” He looked at each of us. “No? I didn’t think so. There, we’ve ruled out murder. See? Progress.”
    “I guess we could offer her some money.” I was feeling the particular exhaustion that comes from having only bad options.
    “That’s right,” Nolan said. “Everyone has a price.”
    “That’s a cliché,” I said. “It isn’t even true.”
    But Jeffrey seemed to cling to the idea. “How much should we offer?”
    “Two hundred and forty-six dollars,” Nolan said. “How the hell should I know? You think I’ve done this before?” He sighed. “Let’s say a thousand.”
    “You think that’s enough?” Jeffrey asked. “That probably isn’t enough. You should ask her what she wants.”
    “She works at a Milk-n-Bread.”
    “Still …”
    “Jeffrey, I’m not particularly interested in your judgment right now. A thousand dollars is plenty. Agreed, Will?”
    “Might as well give it a try,” I said. Actually, the plan seemed terrible, but it was all we had. And a bribe seemed like smallpotatoes compared to robbery and kidnapping. “But who do you think ought to—”
    “I’ll talk to her,” Nolan said.
    Good. I didn’t want that job. “She told me her name’s Marie.”
    “And you believed her?” He shook his head. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”
    “Maybe I should be the one,” Jeffrey said, “since it was me who, you know …”
    “
You?
” Nolan said. “You go in there, you’ll end up accidentally raping her.”
    “Fuck you,” Jeffrey said.
    When Nolan stood and left the control room, Marie’s eyes widened. She hugged herself tighter.

5
    People assume that to get accepted into a school like Princeton, one needs to be an exceptionally well-rounded student. This is false.
    In high school, near the end of my junior year, my guidance counselor called me into her office one afternoon and told me that my grades and test scores gave me a shot at a top college, but that I ought to sign up for more extracurricular activities. Maybe run for class office. Volunteer at a hospital. I decided to do none of those things, because I was more interested in my rock band. We called ourselves Burn, and our logo had flames, and we practiced at high decibels every afternoon in Ronnie Martinez’s unfinished basement. The way I saw it, Burn was the only extracurricular activity I ever needed.
    When I arrived at Princeton, I quickly learned that my guidance counselor was wrong. Top schools don’t want well-rounded individuals. They want a well-rounded class. For that, they need kids who are especially
un
rounded—ones who are exceptional at physics or the cello or the writing of poems, kids who solve complicated math proofs or pilot airplanes or start up foundations to promote literacy or fight diseases in remoteparts of the globe. Put them all together, there’s your class of Ivy Leaguers.
    I hadn’t done anything remotely exceptional even though others thought I had. During my senior year, for the annual science fair I designed a lens for our high