An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York
First published in the United States of America by Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2020
Copyright © 2020 by Jessica Goodman
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Goodman, Jessica, 1990– author.
Title: They wish they were us / Jessica Goodman.
Description: New York : Razorbill, 2020. | Audience: Ages 14+.
Summary: At an exclusive prep school on Long Island, Jill Newman looks forward to her senior year as a member of the school’s most elite clique, the Players, until new evidence surfaces about the murder of her close friend Shaila.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019051804 | ISBN 9780593114292 (hardcover)
ISBN 9780593114308 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Preparatory schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.
Cliques (Sociology)—Fiction. | Murder—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories.
Jews—United States—Fiction. | Long Island (N.Y.)—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.G6542 Th 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051804
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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To Mom and Dad,
for the roots and the wings.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Acknowledgments
About the Author
PROLOGUE
IT’S A MIRACLE anyone gets out of high school alive. Everything is a risk or a well-placed trap. If you’re not done in by your own heart, so trampled and swollen, you might fall victim to a totally clichéd but equally tragic demise—a drunk-driving accident, a red light missed while texting, too many of the wrong kinds of pills. But that’s not how Shaila Arnold went.
Of course, technically, her cause of death was blunt force trauma at the hands of her boyfriend, Graham Calloway. With trace evidence of sea water in her lungs, drowning may have been the easiest assumption, but upon closer inspection, the bump on her head and the puddle of thick, sticky blood that matted her long honey-blonde hair was unmissable.
Blunt force trauma. That’s what her death certificate says. That’s what went down in the record books. But that’s not really how she died. It can’t be. I think she died from anger, from betrayal. From wanting too much all at once. From never feeling full. Her rage was all-consuming. I know this because mine is, too. Why did we have to suffer? Why were we chosen? How had we lost control?
It’s hard to remember what we were like before, when anger was just temporary. A passing feeling caused by a fight with Mom, or my little brother Jared’s insistence on eating the last piece of apple pie at Thanksgiving. Anger was easy then because it was fleeting. A rolling wave that crashed ashore before it settled down. Things always settled down.
Now it’s as if a monster lives inside me. She’ll be there forever, just waiting to crack open my chest and step forward into the light. I wonder if this is how Shaila felt in her last moments alive.
They say only the good die young, but that’s just a line in a stupid song we used to sing. It isn’t real. It isn’t true. I know that because Shaila Arnold was so many things—brilliant and funny, confident and wild. But honestly? She wasn’t all that good.
ONE
THE FIRST DAY of school always means the same thing: a tribute to Shaila. Today should be the first day of her senior year. Instead, she is, like she has been for the past three years, dead. And we are due for one more reminder.
“Ready?” Nikki asks as we pull into the parking lot. She throws her shiny black BMW, a back-to-school present from her parents, into park and takes an enormous slurp of iced coffee. “Because I’m not.” She flips down the mirror, swipes a coat of watermelon-pink lipstick over her mouth, and pinches her cheeks until they flush. “You’d think they could just give her a plaque or start a charity run or something. This is brutal.”
Nikki had been counting down to the first day of senior year since we left for summer break back in June. She called me this morning at 6:07 a.m., and when I rolled over and picked up in a hazy fog, she didn’t even wait for me to say hi. “Be ready in an hour or find another ride!” she yelled, a hairdryer blowing behind her into the speaker.
She didn’t even need to beep her horn when she showed up. I knew she was waiting out front thanks to the deafening notes of Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know.” We both have a thing for eighties music. When I climbed into the front seat, Nikki looked as if she’d already had two Starbucks Ventis and a full glam squad appointment. Her dark eyes glimmered thanks to a swatch of sparkly eyeshadow and she had rolled the sleeves of her navy Gold Coast Prep blazer up to her elbows in an artful yet sloppy manner. Nikki’s one of the only people who can make our hideous uniforms actually look cool.
Thank God my nightmares stayed away last night and the near-constant bags under my eyes had disappeared. Didn’t hurt that I’d had a few extra minutes to apply a thick coat of mascara and deal with my brows.
When Nikki pulled out of my driveway, I was giddy with anticipation. Our time had come. We were finally at the top.
But now that we’re actually here, parked in the Gold Coast Prep senior lot for the first time, a shiver shoots down my spine. We still have to get through Shaila’s memorial and it hangs over us like a cloud, ready to rain all over the fun.
Shaila was the only student to ever die while attending Gold Coast Prep, so no one knew how to act or what to do. But somehow, it was decided. The school would start the year off with a fifteen-minute ceremony honoring Shaila. The tradition would last until we graduated. And as a thank-you, the Arnolds would donate a new English wing in Shaila’s name. Well played, Headmaster Weingarten.
But no one wanted to remember Graham Calloway. No one mentioned him at all.
Last year’s assembly wasn’t so bad. Weingarten stood up and said something about how much Shaila loved math—she didn’t—and how she would have been so thrilled to be starting AP Calc if she was still with us—she wasn’t. Mr. and Mrs. Arnold showed up, as they had the year before, and sat in the front row of the auditorium, dabbing their cheeks with cotton handkerchiefs, the old-fashioned kind that were so worn, they were almost translucent and probably held residual snot from decades before.
The six of us sat next to them, front and center, identifying ourselves as Shaila’s survivors. We were chosen as eight. But after that night we became six.
When Nikki weaves into the spot reserved for class president, Quentin is already waiting for us. “We’re seniors, bitches!” he says, and slaps a piece of notebook paper against my window, flashing a hastily drawn doodle of the three of us. In it, Nikki holds her senior class president gavel, I grasp on to a telescope twice my size, and Quentin’s covered in flaming-red paint to match his hair. Our little trio makes my heart melt.
I squeal at the sight of real Quentin and fling the car door open, throwing myself at his middle.
“You’re here!” I say, burying my face into his doughy chest.
“Aw, Jill,” he says with a laugh. “C’mere, Nikki.” She launches herself into our hug and I inhale the dewy scent of Quentin’s laundry. Nikki leaves a sticky kiss on my cheek. In seconds, the others appear. Robert, with his slicked-back hair, takes the last puff of a mint-flavored Juul and shoves it into the pocket of his leather jacket. He should get a handful of demerits for wearing it in favor of his blazer, but he never does. “I can’t believe we have to do this again,” he says.
“What? School or Shaila?” Henry comes up behind me and rests a hand on the top of my butt, nipping my ear with his teeth. He smells overwhelmingly male, like freshly cut grass mixed with expensive French deodorant. I blush, remembering this will be the first time we’re seen at school together as a we, and inch closer to him, tucking my shoulder into his armpit.
“What do you think?” Robert rolls his eyes.
“Shut up, you idiots,” Marla says, whipping her platinum-blonde braid over her muscled shoulder. Her face is tanned from a summer spent training at the best field hockey camp in New England. Her stick hangs low over her back in a tie-dyed canvas bag, its taped handle peeking out the top. The ultimate sign of varsity realness. She wears it well.
“Whatever,” Robert mumbles. “Let’s get this over with.” He walks ahead, leading us onto the grassy quad, manicured and untouched after a summer without students. If you stand in just the right spot, below the clock tower and two steps to the right, you can glimpse a sliver of the Long Island Sound just a mile down the road and the tall sailboats swaying carefully next to one another. The salty air makes my hair curl. There’s no use owning a flatiron here.
I bring up the rear and gaze at my friends’ backs. Their perfect silhouettes set against the sun. For a moment nothing exists outside the Players. We are a force field. And only we know the truth about what we’ve had to do to get here.
Underclassmen—Nikki calls them undies for short—trot along the paved walkways, but no one comes close to our little unit. They keep their distance, tugging at their too-stiff white button-downs, tightening belt buckles, and rolling up their pleated plaid skirts. None of them dare to make eye contact with us. They’ve learned the rules by now.
I am sweating by the time we reach the auditorium, and when Henry opens the door for me I’m filled with dread. Most of the velvet-covered seats are already taken and big bug eyes turn to see us walk down the aisle to our places in the front row next to Mr. and Mrs. Arnold. They’re both dressed in black. When we approach, they stand and dole out pursed-lipped air kisses to each of us. The smacking sounds echo through the cavernous room, and the scrambled eggs I had for breakfast curdle inside my stomach. The whole thing reminds me of my grandfather’s funeral when we stood for hours, receiving guest after guest until my puckered mouth wilted like a flower. I am the last to greet Mrs. Arnold and she digs her crimson nails into my skin.
“Hello, Jill,” she whispers into my ear. “Happy first day of school.”
I manage a smile and wriggle my arm from her grasp after a moment too long. When I squeeze in between Henry and Nikki, my heart beats fast. Shaila stares back at us from a gilded frame, sitting on an easel in the middle of the stage. Her golden locks fall in full, beachy waves and her deep green eyes have been made more electric with some help from Photoshop. She looks the same as she always did, forever fifteen, while the rest of us have acquired additional pimples, more painful periods, nastier dragon breath.
The theater smells like freshly xeroxed paper and sharpened pencils. Gone is the musk that had settled in by the end of last spring’s school year. This place was the one thing the Arnolds got right for her memorial. The auditorium was Shaila’s favorite spot on campus. She starred in every class play she could, emerging from afternoon rehearsals on a euphoric high I couldn’t understand. “I need the spotlight,” she said once with her deep, full laugh. “At least I can admit it.”
“Good morning, Gold Coast,” Headmaster Weingarten bellows. His bow tie is slightly askew and his salt-and-pepper mustache looks recently trimmed above his pointy chin. “I see many new faces among our ranks and I want to say welcome from the bottom of my heart. Join me.”
People turn to the newbies, kids who had spent their previous lives in public schools and up until today thought the first day of school meant homeroom and roll call, not saying what’s up to a dead girl. Now, in this new and strange place, their bewildered expressions betray them. They are obvious. I was one of them once, back in sixth grade. My scholarship came through only a week before classes started and I came to Gold Coast Prep not knowing a single soul. The memory nearly gives me hives.
“Welcome!” the rest of the auditorium says in unison. Our row stays silent.
“You may be wondering why we are here, why we start every year in this very space.” Weingarten pauses and wipes a tissue across his forehead. The air-conditioning whirs on overdrive, but his brow still glistens with sweat under the bright stage lights. “It is because we want to take time to remember one of our best, one of our brightest, Shaila Arnold.”
Heads turn toward Shaila’s portrait, but Mr. and Mrs. Arnold keep their focus on Headmaster Weingarten straight ahead.
“Shaila is no longer with us,” he says, “but her life was radiant, one we cannot forget. She lives on in her family, in her friends, and within these halls.”
Mr. and Mrs. Arnold nod their heads.
“I am here to tell you that Gold Coast Prep is, and will always be, a family. We must continue to protect one another,” he says. “We will not let another Gold Coast student be harmed.” Nikki’s elbow presses into my rib cage.
“So take this as a reminder,” Headmaster Weingarten continues. “At Gold Coast Prep, we strive to do good. We aim to be grand. We see ourselves as helping hands.”
Ah, the Gold Coast motto.
“Join in if you know it,” he says, smiling.
Five hundred and twenty-three Gold Coast Prep students, ages six to eighteen, raise their voices. Even the new kids, who were instructed to memorize the stupid words before they even set foot on campus.
“At Gold Coast Prep, life is good. Our time here is grand. We see ourselves as helping hands,” the chorus says in a creepy singsong.
“Very good,” says Headmaster Weingarten. “Now, off to class. It will be quite a year.”
* * *
—
We are no longer mourners when lunchtime rolls around. Paying tribute to Shaila is a hurdle we have cleared.
My stomach flips when I catch a glimpse of the senior Players’ Table. The juniors and sophomores have already assembled, but the
perfect table, the one reserved for us, is empty and beckoning.
It occupies the best real estate by far, nestled smack dab in the middle of the cafeteria, so everyone has to pass us and bear witness to the fun we can have, even at lunch. The tables that ring around us are saved for the other Players, the undies, and then from there, how far away you sit from us determines everything.
My feet tingle with excitement as Nikki and I weave through the salad bar, dropping massaged kale, marinated feta, and hunks of grilled chicken onto our plates. When we pass the dessert table, I pluck a piece of raw cookie dough from the glass bowl. Having the little buttery ball on your tray has been a sign of cool girl vibes for decades. Shaila ate it every single day she was here. A bunch of freshmen let us cut them at the cashier, as they should, and we make our way to the table we always knew would be ours. Even now, I’m still surprised to find my spot empty, waiting for me. Seeing that open chair, the one that’s undoubtedly mine, still elicits a weird thrill. It’s a reminder. After all this, I belong. I deserve this. I survived.
Nikki and I are the first ones here, and when we slide into our seats, the familiar feeling of being in a fishbowl begins to take over. We know we’re being watched. That’s part of the fun.
Nikki flips her long black hair over her shoulder and unzips her backpack, retrieving a neon paper box. “I came prepared,” she says. The lid pops open, revealing dozens of mini Kit Kats in flavors like pumpkin, green tea, and sweet potato. Her parents must have brought them back from their recent business trip to Japan—without her, of course. A few sophomores crane to see what glamorous treat Nikki Wu has brought to school.
“Another gesture from Darlene,” she says, motioning to the brightly colored wrappers. Nikki rolls her eyes when she pronounces the second syllable of her mother’s name.
Nikki’s parents are textile magnates and they moved here from Hong Kong when we were in seventh grade. During her first semester at Gold Coast, she was mostly seen hunched over her phone, DM’ing with friends back home. She was totally disinterested in this suburban life. Her indifference to us gave her an untouchable chill factor. That spring, she became besties with Shaila while they were working on the middle school musical. Shaila had scored the lead role as Sandy in Grease, to no one’s surprise, and Nikki had signed up to work on costumes. That’s when we learned she was basically a fashion prodigy, designing slick leather leggings and poodle skirts that looked ready for Broadway.
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