They Wish They Were Us

by Jessica Goodman

  “Let’s not talk about it, though. It’s probably so boring to you.”

  “You know it’s not.” I roll my eyes at him.

  Adam tilts his head and raises an eyebrow, like he doesn’t believe me. “Fill me in on Player drama.”

  I laugh. “There’s no drama.”

  Adam smirks. “There’s always drama.”

  “Nikki and Robert are on and off, you know that.”

  “Eh, boring. Next. Have you come up with any good pops yet?”

  My heart tightens. The pops are my absolute least favorite thing about being a Player. Everyone else thinks that they’re necessary, that they set us apart and make us tough. A way to break you and then put you back together, to prove you can follow the Players’ rules, that you’re worthy, you deserve everything the Players can offer you. I think they’re a means to an end. “Not yet,” I say slowly. “We gotta personalize them, you know, so I think we’re waiting to see who gets in.”

  Diane comes over and pours long, dark streams of coffee into our mugs, then disappears again. Adam takes a sip and nods. “Sure,” he says before pivoting. “How’s Henry?” Adam cocks an eyebrow and I instantly blush.

  “The same,” I say. “He’s gonna apply early to Wharton. His dad is making him. He really wanted to go to Northwestern for journalism, but . . . you know.” The decision had been plaguing Henry all summer but after an epic showdown with his dad over Labor Day, Henry told me he decided. Wharton it is. Business school or bust. He could always parlay it into business of media or something. Run a network, he said half-heartedly. Save the industry, maybe. But I could tell he was devastated by the idea of sitting in a cubicle in some skyscraper instead of reporting live from South America or sub-Saharan Africa.

  Adam shakes his head. “That kid needs to learn how to make a decision for himself. Just because his last name is Barnes, doesn’t mean he needs to become hedge fund royalty or whatever. I mean, look at me. My dad was obsessed with the idea of me being a neurosurgeon like him, but I said fuck that. I’d be miserable as a doctor. You know that. I bet he’ll regret it.”

  Adam’s right. But agreeing with him feels like a betrayal to Henry. I try to stay neutral.

  “You still applying early to Brown?” He raises an eyebrow.

  I nod. “Sent in the app last week.”

  “Phew,” Adam says, and lets out a sigh of relief. “Gonna need you up there with me senior year.”

  I bite my lip to hide a smile.

  Ever since Adam got into Brown, all I could think about was applying there, too. At first, I wanted to be there because he was there. I pictured us away from Gold Coast, with the rest of our lives stretched out before us in parallel lines. Brown would be just the beginning. We would sit together in the corners of dark parties wearing fishermen’s sweaters and downing cups of shitty jungle juice, our foreheads almost touching as we got lost in conversation. We would walk through the grassy quad, leaves crunching underfoot, as we made our way to a tailgate.

  But when I actually started doing research, I found that there was so much more there that I wanted. Last year, when I told our guidance counselor, Dr. Boardman, that I was thinking about Brown and that I wanted to study physics and astronomy, her face lit up in delight.

  “Oh, darling, this will be fun.” She stood from behind her oak desk and reached up to the highest shelf in the office, pulling down a slim pale yellow pamphlet. “They have a Women in Science and Engineering program. It’s just perfect for you,” she said, her dark brown eyes wide and bright. “They offer full rides to the top two students. First you get in, of course, but then you take a test in the spring to determine the money.”

  I flushed, embarrassed that she knew I was a scholarship kid, though of course she did. It was her job to know.

  “You have a shot,” she said. “A good one.” She thumbed through my transcript and then leaned in close to her laptop, scrolling through my resume. “Science Bowl captain for two years. Math Olympiad Scholar all four years.” She kept scrolling. “Ah, look, you’ve even tutored middle school students in physics! Do you ever sleep?” Dr. Boardman joked and threw her head back with a chuckle, her graying bun bouncing up and down.

  Butterflies hummed inside my stomach. This was what I had hoped for, for all those late nights racking up extracurricular activities, all that risk to get to the top, to be worth it. To make me, as Dr. Boardman liked to say, “marketable” to the admissions boards.

  Dr. Boardman slid the shiny brochure over to me, and on the front, I saw beautiful young women laughing and sitting together on benches and in classrooms, textbooks splayed open in front of them.

  Brown invests in our female scientists and technologists, said one caption. Join twenty-five incoming freshmen on the journey of a lifetime. The words sat under a photo of a group of women staring up at the aurora borealis on what looked like a class trip to Norway. I brought the pamphlet close to my face and peered at the girls. This could be me.

  Everything solidified when I visited Adam last year. Mom and I had driven up early one Friday morning so I could sit in on an Intro to Astronomy class with Mallika, a tall, dark-skinned, impossibly confident sophomore from Wisconsin who adored the Women in Science and Engineering program.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” she squealed when we met in front of the lab. “Showing prospectives around is my all-time favorite thing. I’m basically the ambassador to the program. Plus, I hear you’re super into astronomy, too, so it’s perfect. I just did a summer at NASA.” Mallika raced ahead and threw open the doors to a small auditorium where students were already beginning to gather for class. We grabbed a pair of seats just as the lights dimmed, signaling the professor was about to begin.

  “She just got back from doing research at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii!” Mallika whispered in my ear.

  As the hour raced by, my heart swelled. I wanted so badly to be there, to be among these brainy kids, learning and growing and becoming a fuller me, one who knew everything there was to know about the stars, the sky, and the magic up above. I wanted to be friends with people like Mallika, who were obsessed with what I was obsessed with.

  After the class ended, I followed Mallika into the hallway as she smiled and joked with just about everyone who passed. “Keep in touch!” she said, squeezing my arm.

  I met Adam outside on the quad so he could show me, as he put it, “all the fun stuff they leave off the tour.”

  “Hey, Newman,” he said as he appeared and wrapped me in one of his amazing bear hugs. “Let’s go.” Adam grabbed my hand and we started walking. I tried to stay in the moment with him; I’d wanted to be alone with him here for so long, but my brain was still spinning with diagrams and theories and constellations.

  “Ta-da,” he said, after a short walk through campus. We stood in front of a dilapidated townhouse. Shingles were falling off the side and the front porch looked like it was about to cave in. “College life.”

  “It’s perfect,” I said. And it was. It was exactly the kind of place that I pictured for Adam. We spent the rest of the evening playing beer pong with his roommates—three other guys in the English department who took turns ripping hits from a two-foot bong. It was so much like everything back in Gold Coast. So . . . normal.

  My head started to spin and when I looked at my phone, I saw a text from Mom. It’s about that time . . . she wrote.

  “Shit,” I said. “I think I have to go back to the hotel.”

  Adam nodded and set the bong back down on the cracked coffee table. “I’ll walk you.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said, embarrassed.

  He laughed. “Come on.”

  We walked together in silence until we reached the sleepy bed and breakfast Cindy Miller had recommended. This time, I was totally aware of every centimeter between us. I wished this were our default. That this was my life, permanently.

&
nbsp; Adam stopped and turned to me. “So,” he started, his clear glasses slightly askew, making his blue eyes shine brighter than I ever remembered. “What do you think?”

  “I love it,” I said.

  “I knew you would.”

  I braced myself for something magical. For a cosmic moment that would ripple through my veins. For our mouths to find one another. For everything to collide and make total sense. I closed my eyes and waited. But nothing happened. Instead, Adam hugged me with such a gentle grace I wanted to cry. He rested his head on top of mine and breathed in deeply. “See you soon, kid.” Then he was gone.

  That night I resolved not to be the girl who followed a boy to college. This wasn’t about him, I told myself. Brown was the best. It was the right fit. Everyone said so.

  It had the program of my dreams but it was also the perfect place to burst the Gold Coast bubble, to challenge everything I thought I knew, to meet people who grew up in areas that were diverse and interesting and not painted with the same brush. Where people acknowledged how insane it is to have multiple houses and cars, where the administration actually wanted students to have an array of perspectives and backgrounds, didn’t just pretend to.

  So I put everything I had into that application. I spoke to Mallika and a handful of professors in the astrophysics department, gathering as much information as I could for my essay. I tried my best to explain why studying space was the only thing I could picture myself doing, and why I would be a worthy investment. I could have combed through the Files, looking for Brown contacts or help from the uber-exclusive college counselor who saw Players for free (his daughter was one five years ago). But I didn’t. Every time I went to open the app, something stopped me. I wanted to do this on my own. I wanted to see if I could. So instead, I submitted my application and prayed.

  At Dr. Boardman’s insistence, I also sent in an app to State’s honors program, which, if accepted, would guarantee me free tuition.

  “Plus, doesn’t their physics department have an exchange program at that observatory you love in Hawaii?” Mom asked when I told her.

  They did, I admitted begrudgingly.

  “Well, okay then.”

  Now at Diane’s, Adam stretches his arms behind him and leans back against the booth. I feel a pang of disappointment as he pivots the conversation away from college and to the Players. “So, when are you picking newbs?” he asks.

  “In a few weeks, I think.”

  “Our bros gonna do it?”

  I fight the urge to chew on my fingernail. I don’t want to have to explain to him why I don’t want Jared to be involved. Even with ensured grades, the entry into another world, the deafening fun, I don’t want him to go through it, to jump through a bunch of stupid hoops just to prove he can.

  Part of me, though, knows the real reason why I don’t want him to be a Player. I don’t want him to know what we’ve done.

  “Maybe,” I say. “We’ll see.” Diane plunks our plates down in front of us and my stomach growls at the beige mountain. Pancakes flop on top of hash browns and eggs. Sticky logs of browned meat poke out from beneath the pile.

  “Your highness,” Adam says, folding his hands in a prayer formation. “I’m not worthy.”

  “Oh, shut it,” Diane says, swatting his palms down. “I’m impervious to that Millah charm.”

  When she walks away, I know it’s time. “I have to tell you something.”

  Adam takes a bite and swallows. His lips are shiny with grease and I want to lick them clean. He cocks his head to one side, permission to continue.

  “I got a bunch of weird texts,” I say. My heart beats at a threatening pace. “From Rachel.”

  Adam drops his fork. “What?” He swallows. “Show me.”

  I pull out my phone and hand it to him, watching as he scrolls through the messages.

  “This is so typical,” he says, shaking his head.

  “It’s nothing, right? There’s no way she’s telling the truth. This is batshit.”

  Adam slides my phone across the table and leans back against the booth. “Rachel is nuts.” His voice cuts the air between us like a knife. “I didn’t want to tell you this but she sent me a text like this over the summer.”

  “Really?” I ask, stunned. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I didn’t want you to get upset. I know how this stuff affects you. Shaila and everything.”

  My eyes sting and I shake my head. Her ghost is everywhere, even between us at Diane’s Diner. Adam reaches out and puts his hand over mine. “Just don’t let her get to you, okay? She’s looking out for her brother, not you.”

  I nod. “You’re right.”

  “Gotta pee,” Adam says sheepishly. He slides out of the booth and disappears into the bathroom.

  I blink back tears and spin my head to face Shaila. Her wide, freckled face smiles out from the frame. She had no idea what was coming, what we would be asked to do, or how it would all end. I didn’t know that would be her last night, that it would be marked by crashing waves and warm vodka. Flecks of sand settling on my lips. A crackling scream. Fists clenched around sheets. My frizzy hair, unruly and alive. Darkness. Absolute darkness.

  “You okay?” Adam returns and rests a hand on my shoulder. I manage a nod. “It’s going to be okay, Jill. I promise.”

  He’s never let me down before. He’s always saved me in the end.

  “Let’s just leave it in the past, okay? You’ve got the best year of your life in front of you.”

  “Okay.” I offer him a small smile.

  I don’t want her to fade, but Adam is right. It is in the past. Shaila is gone. And a bunch of insane texts from her killer’s sister won’t bring her back.

  * * *

  —

  The day Shaila died, the cops took us all to the station. They handed out stale crackers and Styrofoam cups of sugary orange juice before asking a few softball questions. Then they called everyone’s parents to come pick them up. First Marla, then Henry and Quentin, and finally Robert. Nikki’s parents were in Singapore, so Mom said she could stay with us. She didn’t yell at us for lying about where we’d gone. We had promised we were staying at Nikki’s. Instead, she was silent in the car.

  When we got home, Mom made grilled cheese sandwiches, demanded we shower, and split a Xanax in two, placing half in my palm and half in Nikki’s. “Call your mom, dear,” she said.

  “They’re staying over there for another week,” Nikki said to me when she hung up. “Slumber party until then?” She smiled weakly. We were sitting on the couch in my living room side by side, stiff and awkward. We had never had a sleepover just the two of us. Shaila was always there. I hugged my arms around my stomach.

  “I haven’t cried yet,” I said, and closed my eyes. But then everything came rushing back. The shut door. The bewildering darkness. The moment we realized we were all on our own.

  Bile formed in my throat and before I could cover my mouth, my hands were coated in a sticky, green sludge. Tears finally formed in my eyes and I smelled like how I thought poison tasted.

  “Shit, Jill.” Nikki went and got a roll of paper towels, dropped to her knees, and started wiping the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice thick.

  She looked up at me. Her eyes were no longer sparkly and rimmed in pink eyeshadow, like they had been the night before. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  I turned away from her on the couch and wondered if we were allowed to grieve what we had lost, or if that right was only reserved for everyone else. Were we being punished for what we had done, too? We were complicit after all, weren’t we? Nikki must have wondered, too, because she shivered and curled up next to me. Her bare feet pressed up against mine so our bodies formed the shape of a heart. We stayed that way all day.

  Nikki was so different from Shaila, hard where Shay
was soft, in her collarbones, her hips. She’d cower in fear at the times when Shay would laugh in hysterics, during horror movies and while she was stoned. But they had two similar traits. They were both stubborn and loyal like puppies.

  Being with Nikki was like looking in a funhouse mirror where one minute she was me and the next she was Shaila, until she finally morphed back into her own self, no longer the Nikki I knew in the months before. It was jarring but tender, like a dog with only three legs. I was fascinated in a way that made me only want her presence more.

  She was a constant presence in our house, and we got in the habit of sleeping like spoons, alternating at hourly intervals so that her knees were pressed into the backs of mine, and then mine would be against hers. I slept with my fists balled against her, and when we flipped, I could feel her little hands in the middle of my spine. Whoever woke first would retreat a few inches to her side of the bed until the other stirred and it was time to turn over and face each other.

  In that first month without Shaila we spent the early mornings whispering while the summer fog rolled in, warm and weighty. We talked and talked until our voices grew hoarse, about how Nikki was desperate to apply to fashion school, which of Marla’s brothers was the hottest, and how to get the best possible tan by September. I traced the constellations on my skin, drawing imaginary lines from freckle to freckle until Nikki would say, “Do mine. Do mine.”

  But there were unspoken things, too. I didn’t tell Nikki about the nightmares, how visions of Shaila haunted me more nights than not, or that I often woke in the middle of the night, sweaty and panting, a scream caught in my throat. And she never knew that I could hear her crying in the bathroom to her mom, begging Darlene to come home from whatever business trip she was on.

  Neither one of us could admit that we were scared of forgetting Shaila. Sometimes we would start sentences with “remember how . . .” just to test our memories.

  “Remember how she walked like she was on a mission? Or how she always farted when she sneezed? Remember how she she ate her pizza backwards, crust first?”