They Wish They Were Us

by Jessica Goodman

  When French rolls around, I breathe easy as I realize the midterm has the exact same questions as the study guide I memorized. I breeze through the first section, then etch out a translation. Thank God I’d actually studied on my own for this part. If I only get a few points off here, I’ll land a 96, just what I need to solidify a 95 average for the semester. Perfect.

  When Madame Mathias calls time, I drop my exam on her desk and retreat into the hallway.

  “Did you see Jill Newman?” I hear a voice say behind me. “She was done like twenty minutes in.”

  “Always,” someone else says. “I heard she and that whole stupid table have all the answer keys from, like, years ago. It’s bullshit.”

  “None of them are actually smart.”

  “So fucking unfair.”

  “They’re all gonna get into Harvard or Yale, too. They always do. Stealing our spots with fake-ass work.”

  “Ridiculous.” Heat creeps up my neck and I peek around my shoulder to find two girls from the debate team shooting daggers at my back. They clamp their mouths shut when they see me and quickly turn on the heels of their leather loafers, retreating in the other direction.

  My skin burns with shame, a reminder that I don’t deserve what I’ve been given. But even if they don’t know what I’ve been through to get here, I know it comes with a cost. I paid my dues. I suffered, too. They don’t know I’m here on scholarship, that every day at Gold Coast is a fight.

  Tears prick my eyes and I blink them back, eager to get out of here, to do what I’ve been waiting to do all week.

  When the final bell rings, I push the heavy metal doors open and feel the cold wind against my face, sea salt blowing into my hair. It bites. But I’m finally free. Until a heavy arm slinks over my shoulder, throwing me off my step. I fall sideways, right into Henry.

  “There you are. I was looking for you after lunch.” His fingertips graze my chest, hardening my nipple, even beneath layers of clothes. I shiver. “Sorry Robert was such a shit. You know that’s just how he is.”

  “That’s not an excuse,” I say. I just want to forget about Robert’s comments, what those debate girls said, and everything inside Gold Coast’s walls. “But it would be nice if you could stand up for me.”

  “You’re totally right,” Henry says, throwing his head back. “I’m sorry. Next time, okay?” He leans down and his lips touch my forehead quickly, almost chaste, before changing the subject. “What’s up for tonight?”

  I had hoped to avoid this—lying to him. A trapdoor opens inside me and I will my stomach not to drop through it. “I gotta do some family stuff,” I say.

  “Really?” Henry cocks his head. “I thought Jared was going over to Topher’s. The juniors are throwing that whole Super Pong thing.”

  Shit. I try to picture my brother standing behind a beer pong table covered in dozens of red cups, as he tries to sink a little plastic ball. It isn’t so hard to imagine anymore. “Just a me and Mom thing. Gotta put in some quality time, you know?”

  He nods. “Totally. See you tomorrow?”

  I swallow hard and force a smile. “For sure.”

  * * *

  —

  It’s 7:59 p.m. and I’m standing in front of what must be Rachel Calloway’s apartment. Only two miles from her parents’ fancy Tribeca loft, her front door looks janky, like anyone could walk right in without a key. Weekend revelers shout at one another from the many bars that line the street and notes of piss waft over from a phone booth that looks like it hasn’t been used since the nineties. There must be dozens of people laughing out here, smoking cigarettes and huddling close together, but I’ve never been more alone. I pull my parka closed and peer at the cracked intercom until I find 6E.

  Buzz. A deep, instantly familiar voice crackles. “Hello?”

  “It’s Jill Newman,” I say, suddenly feeling my nerves in my throat. Do I sound young? Can she sense the sweat collecting between my fingers?

  “You made it,” she says. “Watch the steps, they’re steep as fuck.”

  The lock unlatches like a switchblade and I push inside, coming face-to-face with a set of rickety stairs that look like a fire hazard. She wasn’t kidding.

  I dart up, moving one foot in front of the other, afraid if I stop now, I’ll stop forever. And finally, when I reach the top floor, Rachel is standing barefoot, leaning with her back propped up against a purple doorframe. She’s wearing baggy acid wash jeans and a thin, nearly see-through white T-shirt. Her hair is wavy and shaggy, with big, voluminous layers hanging around her face. She’s somehow prettier than she was in high school, vivid and kinetic with sparkly dark eyes and round pink cheeks. I want to reach out and touch one finger to her chin, just to see if she’s real.

  “Jill Newman,” she says slowly, cocking her head. I wonder how she sees me. If I look older or different. She didn’t stick around for the after, to see how everything changed or didn’t.

  “Rachel Calloway.”

  “C’mon in.” Rachel turns and leads me into her apartment. The space is tiny, and I can see the entire place from the entryway. Stacks of books line the brick wall, and a mid-century maroon couch, covered in thick wool blankets, has been shoved to one side. Her walls are bare save for an oversize watercolor painting of bold, abstract flowers that’s been tacked to the plaster with thumbnails. It looks like an unfinished art project. Leafy plants hang in macramé swings on either side of the sofa.

  “Welcome to the real world,” she says, offering me a smile. “Want some tea?”

  I nod and follow Rachel into her kitchen, which is really just a narrow hallway that happens to have both a stove and a fridge.

  She squeezes honey into two ceramic mugs painted with outlines of curvy female bodies. Their nipples are just pink points.

  “Cute,” I say.

  “Thanks. My girlfriend made them.”

  I try to hide my surprise but Rachel laughs. “Yep, queer. Started telling people a few years ago,” she says. “I guess no one from Gold Coast would know.” She pauses. “My girlfriend’s name is Frida. She’s a coder. Lives around the block.”

  “That’s cool,” I say. I mean it, too. She and Adam never really seemed to fit together. But obviously I thought that.

  “It’s good to see you.”

  “You too,” I respond because what else is there to say? Standing in front of Rachel makes me long for the past, for the months leading up to Shaila’s death and our initiation. I want to burrow inside those weeks when we were all bonded together. Even when it felt like torture, when we were pushed to the absolute brink and I thought I would explode from the adrenaline and the fear, I knew, I hoped, it was worth it. We were holding on to a thread that was always at risk of unraveling.

  A sunshine yellow kettle whistles and Rachel turns away. As she pours the hot water into the mugs, I spot faint raised scars, white as stone, lining the backs of her arms and the nape of her neck. Some are thin, as if someone drew a sewing needle over her skin, and others are thick and fat, scary.

  She turns and follows my eyes. “Ah,” she says softly. “Had a bad year after everything. Coulda been worse.”

  It never occurred to me that Rachel also suffered, that she had been a victim of what Graham did or didn’t do. Her only crime was loyalty, I guess. And she paid for it, too.

  “Come on,” she says, picking up the steaming mugs and walking past me to the couch. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The cushions sag with our weight and I wait for her to start, trying hard not to be the one to fill the silence. Seconds pass, maybe a minute, before Rachel stands again, her fingers tangling themselves together. “Wait a sec,” she says.

  She retreats behind the bedroom door and I hear paper rustling, weight shifting from one foot to another. She finally emerges holding a thick envelope, the old-school kind with ruled lines and little cardboard circles bo
und together with tiny red string.

  “Open this,” she says, and hands it to me.

  I unwind the thread and slide out a stack of uneven papers. It’s a whole jumble of random shit. Rachel stays quiet and I set the folder aside. I pick up the first page. Graham’s transcript from freshman year. An 87 average. Good thing he didn’t need a scholarship. The next page is a thick piece of cardstock covered in a full-bleed glossy image of Shaila and Graham. Their mouths stretch into wide smiles. His arm wraps around her shoulder and she leans her head against his. Their white teeth glimmer and their navy Gold Coast blazers are perfectly pressed. No grass stains or stray crumbs. I look at their eyes and shiver, dropping the rest of the papers in a mess on the floor.

  “Shit,” I say. I’ve never seen this picture. It looks like it was taken at a lacrosse game, like they’re leaning against the bleachers. I was probably only a few feet away.

  “Never made it into the yearbook,” Rachel says. Her lips curl up, her attempt at a joke. “But it was always my favorite.”

  Shaila stares back at me. She was so young. She wasn’t done yet. My throat is dry and my fingers clench around the edges of the paper. It’s all so messed up, that Graham’s alive and Shaila’s dead. I want to hurl my mug at Rachel and her smug little face, for bringing me here, taunting me with memories I had tried viciously to forget. I pull at the edges of the photo, wanting to rip Shaila from Graham’s grasp. Then in one crushing tear the sheet gives, leaving me with just Shaila’s smile. I let Graham float to the floor.

  “I have other copies,” Rachel says.

  That fuels my fury and I leap to my feet, knocking my knee against a mug. It wobbles before crashing to the floor, a river of ceramic shards and sticky liquid. I don’t say sorry because I’m not. Instead, I open my mouth, ready to spit fire. But Rachel has other plans.

  “Sit down, Jill.”

  And for some reason I do.

  “This is what I wanted to show you.” She reaches down into the heap on the floor and pulls out a single sheet of white paper. Black letters dance on the page, but I can’t focus when she places it in my lap.

  “What is this?”

  “Look,” Rachel says, tucking her feet under her butt. “When they took Graham away, it wasn’t like they examined any evidence. They took his word for it. One and done. Case closed. They didn’t even test his clothes or look at Ocean Cliff, or anything. You think the Gold Coast police were prepared for a murder? They’re barely able to bust a party up the Cove.”

  I remember that, how nothing really happened. The Arnolds showed up at the station with some man in a black suit, a lawyer. It was all so muffled, so adult. And then it was over.

  “There wasn’t a question if he did it or not,” Rachel says. “Everyone just assumed he did because that’s what he said. But he was so blackout. We all were, you know.” She shakes her head. “He didn’t remember any of it. He didn’t give any details. No one asked. And now, he still can’t remember anything. So how could he have done it? There’s just no way.”

  I look up and Rachel’s eyes are red. Her lips are pursed, and her hands are wrapped tightly around her mug. She inhales deeply, not glancing at the blooming stain I’ve made on the floor. “I just turned twenty-one,” she says. “Which means I finally have access to my trust. I can pay for the lawyers my parents decided not to get. I can fund Graham’s rebuttal on my own. We’re gonna fight it.” Her voice is scratchy and raw, full of fire. “We’re testing everything. His clothes, some rocks, they’ve all just been sitting in the Gold Coast station in one of those stupid fucking boxes, taking up space. And we just found out something big. Something that could change everything.”

  “What?” I whisper.

  “You know all that blood on his shirt?” she asks. “That was his. He cut his stomach, deep. Soaked right through. Down to his shorts. But none of it was Shaila’s. It was all Graham’s. He didn’t touch her. Not at all.” She points to the piece of paper in my hand and I look down, finally understanding what I’m holding. The results of the blood test.

  I open my mouth to respond but I come up blank. It’s suddenly hot in here. I’m boiling. If I peel my skin away, maybe another layer will be revealed.

  Rachel grabs my hands in hers and clenches them both tightly, bringing her angular face close to mine. Her skin is glowy, her pores tiny. I wonder if she’s ever had a pimple.

  “He didn’t do it,” she says. “I know he didn’t.”

  But I shake my head. How can this be true? The past can’t be rewritten, it just can’t.

  “Look,” Rachel says, finally releasing my hands. I pull them back to my body and wrap them around my knees. “You don’t have to believe me just yet. But think about it. Then maybe you’ll want to help us.”

  “Help you?” I spit. The idea is insane. Ludicrous. “How would I even do that?”

  “You were there, Jill. You’re the only one who would understand. Who would listen. You loved Shaila as much as Graham did.” Rachel squeezes her eyes shut and thin lines crinkle down her lids. “Adam always said you were fearless. More than the others. That you were smart and steady and good.”

  My stomach flips with the thought of Rachel and Adam talking about me all those years ago. What else did he say? Did he really believe all that? Then I remember what he said at Diane’s. Rachel is nuts.

  “You’re the only one who would want justice for her,” she continues. “Who would be willing to fight for it. Just think about it.”

  The room feels small, like a dollhouse. Her apartment is closing in on me and I notice for the first time that there are no windows in her living room. I wonder how people live in New York City. These homes aren’t made for that. They’re made for survival. “I need to go,” I say.

  I push open her flimsy door and start down the stairs. Rachel calls behind me. “Just think about it.”

  I don’t stop until I reach the bottom floor, where I twist the tarnished metal doorknob and suddenly, finally, break free. Her street smells of city garbage and sticky beer, but I breathe in deeply, trying to swallow as much air as I can, to shock my system, to know the last hour wasn’t a dream.

  I’m miles from the train station, even farther from home, but I start walking. Anywhere that’s far away from clinical terms like evidence and ragged, hollow half possibilities.

  I turn her words over in my head until they become bland mush, and then again until I start to see her motives clearly. Rachel doesn’t want justice for Shaila. She wants it for Graham. And if I believe her, it means someone else we know is guilty. Which truth is worse?

  TEN

  IT’S EASY TO pretend that Rachel never hit me up. That she didn’t plant life-altering theories inside my brain. That she’s still cemented in my mind as Adam’s ex, the sister of a killer, the enemy—not a potential coconspirator.

  All I need to do is agonize about college decisions, like every other senior. I’m due to hear back from Brown in a week, and the only antidote to the stress, it seems, is to go into full Player mode. Obsess, as I have for the last three years, over the weekly check-ins and insane ideas for pops, all the work that Nikki huffs and puffs about now.

  After intro night, we told the freshmen to clear their weekends for the rest of the year. They were only exempt from Player stuff if they had a family emergency or a Bat Mitzvah or something. For their first test, they had to memorize facts about the Players and recite them back to us on the beach behind Nikki’s house. Wrong answers resulted in being squirted with ketchup and mustard. Rinse-offs in the frigid bay were optional. The next week we made them cook an entire Thanksgiving meal at Quentin’s after eating pot brownies. Bryce set off the fire alarm with a burnt turkey but Jared nailed the brussels sprouts.

  And last week, on the first Saturday in November, Henry devised a new task. He made them wash the Players’ cars while singing my favorite eighties songs on repeat. I threw some S
tevie Nicks solo tracks on the playlist. Cher made an appearance, obviously. All along, they were forced to do little things, like carry Player packs—little fanny packs filled with Player essentials: Juuls, mints, tampons, pencils, mini Snickers, condoms, Advil. They were our walking drugstores. “Gum me,” I’d say when passing Sierra McKinley in the hall.

  They were on call 24/7, available to do morning runs to Diane’s, to clean out our gym lockers, to do basically anything we wanted. Nikki even made Larry Kramer sort her laundry one Sunday just to see him blush when he folded her lacy thongs. It was easy stuff, harmless shit that brought them together as a class. Nothing they wouldn’t experience in college times ten.

  Still, I dreaded these tasks when I was a freshman. I was always so sure I would mess it all up. Shaila’s reaction was more annoyed than scared. She would whine like hell when Rachel would text her, requesting a dozen pow-do—those totally addicting little powdered donuts from Diane’s—at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday. We’d go together, of course, making up excuses to our parents, and as we rode there on our bikes, Shaila would call out behind her, “Nothing brings you closer than being made to feel like someone’s little bitch!”

  That was the unofficial Player motto.

  There was only one time when I was really, seriously scared by one of the supposed-to-be-easy pops. It was a mild Friday night just before Thanksgiving and Rachel texted, asking for a case of Bud Light and a pack of Twizzlers. Shaila and I rode our bikes to the gas station next to Diane’s, which is still famous for selling underage kids beer on the DL.

  Shaila made a beeline for the refrigerators, retrieved what we needed, and placed the cardboard box full of cans right up on the counter without uttering a word. The cashier looked her over once, twice, and then nodded. She handed him a crisp bill, smiled sweetly, and said, “Keep the change.”