“Lily says she invited you to her pool party.” She leans against the sinks and tilts her head. “You know it’s just because her mom made her, right? Because your mom works with her?” I’m drying my hands, rubbing them red, but this stops me. That hadn’t even occurred to me. My stomach falls away. I bet Zara’s right. It was our mums who pushed us together on You-chat in the first place. “If you go, you’ll just embarrass yourself.” She snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Maybe look at people when they talk to you? So they don’t think you’re rude.”
Raising my head feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I drag my eyes up to Zara’s.
The bathroom door sweeps open. In walks Mara, with another girl from the fringes of their lunch-table group: dark eyes, black ponytail. They’re silent, and Zara doesn’t even look around. Like she was expecting them. They circle behind me.
The hairs on my neck prickle. Fear makes words burst out of me.
“I don’t give a toss what you think.” My voice is tight, high. “And I’ll do what I like. Let me out.”
Zara’s eyebrows lift, but she stays put, arms crossed. A smile pulls up one side of her mouth. “You know you can’t go to a pool party unless you’re clean. Isn’t that right, Mar?” Her eyes go to Mara behind me.
Mara snorts. “I don’t think she’s clean.”
Zara sighs, like it’s a shame. “I don’t think she wipes.”
I launch myself toward the door and freedom. Zara yelps and fear flicks over her face, like I’m making a lunge for her.
I’m hauled backward suddenly, hot hands hooked through my elbows.
“Get away from her, you freak show!” Mara’s voice is in my ear. The girl gripping my other elbow, still silent, has superhuman strength. They pull my arms back so far, the buttons on my new dress threaten to pop. The thought of them laughing at me, my dress ripped open … I swallow. I’m wearing my worst bra, white-turned-gray, with the ripped lace. A flush creeps up my neck, burning my cheeks.
Zara scrapes a rattail of hair away from her face with a nail. She doesn’t look scared now. Her eyes glint like bullets. “We need to check if you’re clean enough for the pool.”
Mara hoots her laugh.
My stomach turns to ice.
No—they can’t do this. I’m hyper-aware of my bare legs, and where the cotton hem ends above my knees.
“I bet she doesn’t even change her underwear,” Zara says thoughtfully, and paces toward me.
I thrash, but they hold me tight. My sandals slide on the slippy tiles. There are three of them. If they try to pull up my dress, I can’t stop them.
Silent girl lets me go. My right arm is free! I shove Mara off me.
“What’s your problem, Nita?” Zara scowls. Silent Nita shakes her head so hard, her black ponytail swings. She pushes through the bathroom door without a word.
I’m right behind her, but Nita’s already disappeared down the corridor. My breathing slows, and I lean against a wall. My cheeks still blaze, but I’m shivering. The bell screams its ring and classroom doors burst open, pouring people. The Friday crush to escape is desperate. I force my legs to move, pushing against the flow to get back into Art for my bag, and stumble through the classroom door.
“You all right?”
I flinch at the hand on my shoulder. Mr. Morrison looks worried; the frown creases his whole stubbly head.
I nod. But my hand trembles as I pick up my bag. He passes me a sketchpad, and I stare at it before I realize it’s my own drawing.
“Great work today. Why don’t you take it home this weekend, show your folks?”
In the picture, Zara’s mouth is twisted in that half-smile.
I turn away. There’s wet in my mouth, like I’m ready to be sick on the floor. Mr. Morrison is still asking if I’m all right when I walk out the door.
The bus ride home is a numb nothing. The feel of Mara and Nita holding my arms flashes back every few seconds. I crouch on the plasticky seat, hoping to die. With every bump of the bus, I imagine that’s me lying under it, thump thump. Crushed. Problems over.
Until my phone buzzes in my bag: Haley, asking how it went, did I talk to Zara.
Ugly tears pour down my face. I’m past caring who sees me. Awful. The worst. She’s A PIG.
Aw, sweetie, Haley says. I would hug you right now if I could. Tell me everything.
I start telling her what happened. I don’t even remember getting off the bus. All I know is that sympathy shines out of Haley like a light, and I follow it. Thank God for her.
Two hours later, I feel a billion times better—apart from my thumbs, which ache from messaging. We’ve gone over every detail of my nightmare day: from the psycho whispers to the attack in the bathroom.
But what we talk about most is how Zara should be punished.
She should be covered in scabby pus sores, Haley says. Like the plague rat she is.
I nod as I type. A rock should fall from space and flatten her in her bed.
SHE should fall from space, Haley says.
Into boiling oil.
Or sharks. Sharks are always good.
I laugh and stretch on my bed. I rack my brains for a new idea, but we’ve covered most of the ways Zara should suffer. Then I remember the glint of her smartwatch under the bathroom lights. Can you get shocked by a smartwatch? I say. I picture Zara’s perfect straight hair frizzing up, worse than mine. Maybe if she wore it in the bath.
Zara has a smartwatch? What kind?
I’m typing when there’s a quick knock on my bedroom door, and it swishes open. I sit up and scowl. “It’s called privacy, Michael.”
“Ready to go?”
It’s Mum. I’m so floored, I just stare. “What are you doing home?” My phone says five fifteen p.m. Mum hasn’t come home in daylight since we got here. My mind races to all kinds of tragedies and I stand. “Is Dad okay?”
“Wow, it’s hot in here.” Mum sweeps over to the window. “Why isn’t the AC on?” She’s her neat self: auburn hair pulled back, trim skirt, and tucked-in blouse. She’s changed out of her commute shoes and is in heels, for some reason. “Everything’s fine with Dad. Why aren’t you ready?”
She tugs at the window, which is still stuck open from yesterday, when Lily visited. With an expert thump and a slap, Mum gets the window down and flicks on the AC. Her eyes sweep my room. She’s making a giant effort not to comment on the dirty clothes by the bin, and the clean laundry I haven’t put away. “Is that what you’re wearing?”
“What are you talking about?”
Mum sighs. “Don’t even tell me you haven’t seen my messages.”
I look at the phone in my hand. A few texts have popped up, but I’ve been busy.
Mum’s eyes roll to the ceiling. “Jeeves, read Roisin’s messages.”
My phone buzzes as Jeeves pipes up. “Sure! Four messages received from Kathryn Doyle. Three forty-five p.m. today: ‘Hey, Roisin, we’re heading to a cookout later; can you be ready by five?’ Four fifteen p.m. today: ‘Roisin, did you get my message? Let me—’ ”
I get the point. “Jeeves, stop.” I huff and try to do something to my hair. The waves bounce and pull against the brush. I text Haley that I’ve gtg, and Mum whooshes out my door.
It’s not until we’re outside in the cab, where I’m sandwiched between a giant striped bag that Mum has plonked there and Michael—who’s man-spreading like crazy—that Mum twists around from the front seat and beams at us.
“This’ll be fun!”
“What, Mum?” I look at Michael, but he gives me a frozen grin, like a robot who’s been instructed to express happiness.
“Remember, I said yesterday: We should do something as a family this weekend. We’re going to a family cookout.”
“Whose family?” Mum’s not listening; she’s talking to the driver. We’ve hardly gone any distance before the cab stops outside the nicest house in Eastborough: all wooden shutters and flowering trees. Lexus in the driveway. Historic plaque by
the door, where Lily is standing with her father.
I can’t believe this.
“My boss’s,” Mum murmurs, opening the cab door. “Be nice.”
“Welcome! Some weather today, huh?” Lily’s dad has the best smile: I can see where she gets it from. Seeing him throws me, though, because he looks Japanese. I knew Lily was mixed race, but I was pretty sure it was her mum who was from Japan.
Lily’s dad puts out his hand. “Kathryn. Great to meet you, finally! I’m Brian Tanaka; this is my daughter, Lily. Everyone’s out back.” There’s a lot of shuffling. Mum introduces me and Michael while she fishes in the striped bag for the wine we brought. We crowd through the front door. Lily’s big brother is there, too. More introductions.
It’s unreal to be standing in Lily’s house at last. Everything is classy New England: polished wooden steps lead upstairs, and a lamp on the hall table spreads a stained-glass glow up the wall. We pass a family room that makes ours look like a sad hotel. I glimpse leather couches and a gigantic flat screen. Michael turns to give me a did-you-see-that-monster-TV stare, but my mind is too blown.
Not only has Mum dragged us to her boss’s house, pretending it’s family time, but now I have to make stupid small talk with Lily, who I have nothing to say to anymore. Zara is basically Satan. If Lily can’t see that, she’s no better. My jaw clenches as we follow Lily. Her glossy hair shines in the glare bouncing into the house from the back garden.
I stop short. Splashing and shrieky laughter leak in from outside. Oh God oh God. This is Lily’s pool party. Starring Zara and Mara. My heartbeat hammers in my throat. Sweat pricks under my arms and I tug at the hem of my dress, pulling it lower over my bare legs.
“Mum!” I lean past Michael and clutch her arm. “We don’t have swimsuits; I’ll go back for them.” I’ll walk up our hill dead slow, poke around at home getting our things; maybe the devil twins will be gone by the time I get back.
“Got everything right here.” Mum pats the black-and-white bag on her shoulder. I stare helplessly at its prison stripes. Of course Mum is organized, and there is no escape.
It’s impossible to ignore them, but I’ve tried. They’re stretched on sun loungers like roasting meat, Zara rubbing oil onto her arms. Her suit is a one-piece, Day-Glo green against her perfect tan. Even Mara, in her stringy bikini, is a pleasing apricot gold: I’d thought her blonde hair meant she’d be pale like me. I’m standing under the parasol, smearing on sunscreen that turns my ghost legs bluish-white, when I hear them snicker.
Here we go. This’ll be about me, whatever they’re laughing at. An image of the virus we saw in Biology jumps into my brain. I can see my entire future in Eastborough: Zara infecting everything, spreading, getting stronger.
“Is that your brother?” Zara’s voice bubbles with a held-back laugh.
I look at Michael, standing by the door of the pool house, where he’s just changed. He’s fiddling with the tie to his swimsuit.
Lily’s brother, Hiro, hoists himself out of the pool. He pads past Zara and Mara, baggy trunks streaming water, and flicks a hand to make them shriek. Zara roots in her bag for her phone, wide eyes fixed on Michael. What is the big deal?
Zara smirks and starts to say something to me, but I jam in my earplugs. Her voice becomes a thick mumble.
Flashbacks of the bathroom stab through me: slippy floor tiles, hands gripping my arms. But I listen to my breathing, the loudness of it. And I reach for what Haley said: the next time you see those girls, do this, right? Picture a plate of armor across ur chest. You are so much better than them.
I dive in with barely a splash, and cool silence swallows me. The underwater is mine, and the dappled light. I glide, streamlined, to the far end, then tumble-turn without a breath.
I don’t know how many laps I do, but I’m in my zone and almost forget the trolls at poolside. I do my strokes, imagining more tragedies striking Zara, from getting a face full of pimples to falling out the door of an airplane. I need to remember them, to tell Haley. Each one makes me feel stronger, like driving a nail through what happened in the bathroom.
Two sets of baggy trunks cannonball into the deep end, their tucked bodies trailing bubbles.
I surface, panting. It’s a second before Michael and Hiro come up. “Why’d you change?” I ask him. Michael’s trying to stand on Hiro’s shoulders, and he’s wearing weird trunks: not his Speedos, but loose folds of yellow and blue.
Michael stands up slowly and stretches his arms out for balance. “Borrowed these from Hiro. The others were ripped.”
“And a little wrong,” Hiro says, grinning. His shoulders shake with Michael’s weight, but he looks older than Michael, and even broader. Streaming water flattens Hiro’s hair around his eyes, and he looks so like one of Haley’s manga heartthrobs, I want to take a picture for her.
“Wrong!” Michael echoes, and they both laugh like hyenas. This is my brother; he only just met Hiro, and they’re friends. Michael topples off with a gigantic splash, and that’s when I notice the empty sun loungers: Zara and Mara have vanished, and their stuff is gone. Relief avalanches over me.
There’s another splash. “Hey!” Lily bursts out of the water, pushing her hair back. “Omigod! That feels so good; I was burning up. Sorry I abandoned you. Mom made me pass out drinks while she grills. She won’t let anyone else touch her tare marinade.” Lily nods toward the barbecue, surrounded by people from Mum’s work: rumpled geeks who don’t leave the lab much, or ever. A dozen or so of them stand around with beers, not drinking, talking hard.
My eyes go back to the poolside. “Where’s, um …” Zara’s name sticks in my throat. I pray she’s gone, but maybe she’s lying in wait somewhere.
“Zara had to babysit her brother, so they headed out.”
I tread water and Lily ducks under to do a handstand. Suddenly I hear birds singing, or maybe they were there all along. I couldn’t be happier if Lily had said, “Here, have this bag of money.”
Savory smells waft from the smoking grill. That’s when I do a double take, because the crowd’s moved and I get my first look at Lily’s mother. She must be the one in the apron, deep in conversation with my mother, gesturing with long tongs. She’s smiley, shorter than Mum, and white. She’s even paler than I am.
This is so odd, I forget all about being cool to Lily like I’d planned. “Your mum … is from Tokyo? I didn’t think—” I stop and shake my head. “Ugh, do I sound like some mad racist? I didn’t know there were white Japanese people.”
Lily shrugs. “Mom was born in Japan, grew up speaking English and Japanese. She went to an international school in Tokyo, but she says she’s Japanese on the inside.” Lily flips over and swims on her back toward the edge. I wonder how often she’s had this chat, about her mum’s background. I feel like an idiot for mentioning it. But Lily’s her sunny self. She climbs out and sits beside the drinks tray; it’s empty except for one can and her smartwatch. “Saved you a lemonade, if you want it?”
“Thanks.” I heave out of the pool, and the sun warms my back. I sip my drink and give a sigh so huge, Lily bursts out laughing. I can’t help it: I smile, too. The whole world is lighter with those two sun loungers empty. We dangle our legs, and I hold up my lemonade. “I’d have thought you’d have a robot to pass out drinks.”
Her eyes stretch huge. “We actually do!”
“Ha! Serious?” I try to picture a robot butler rolling over the lawn, around the lilac bushes.
“Yes! He’s broken. Hiro tried to make him carry his dumbbells. Hey!” Lily starts, like she’s remembered something. “You are amazing in the pool. Did you swim on a team?”
I feel a blush creep up. “My school’s, in Dublin.”
“Hiro swims front crawl for Amherst.”
I don’t know what Amherst is—a university? He must be good.
“He’s amazing. Just finished freshman year. Hence all this.” She gestures around. “I’m psyched you came, Roisin. Even if, you know … your mom made you.”
>
She says it like she’s not the queen in her castle, like I’m doing her a favor. And here’s the crazy Lily thing: She sounds like she means it. The sarcastic comeback I want to fling at her just vanishes. Instead I go for the truth. “I’ve wanted to come to yours for ages, Lily.” I study my lemonade can. “That sounds needy, sorry.”
“Really?” Lily gives me a long look. “Okay, just that—you canceled on me a few times, and I thought …”
“I canceled?”
She turns around to face me. “We were going to meet at the 7-Eleven, the Saturday you arrived. You were too tired, I get that, but then you didn’t come over that next week when I— Oh.” Lily’s face drops. Her hand covers her mouth. “Oh, Roisin.”
What she says next should make me furious, but I’m too stunned. Lily explains that Zara takes her phone sometimes. She’s sent messages before, pretending to be Lily. Just for fun.
Lily stands up. “You know what? Let’s check that right now. Where’s your phone?”
Lily follows me to the pool house, and I dig out my phone from the clothes pile. Bingo. Roisin! You around Saturday? Come at 2 if you can. It’s an old DM from Lily, and right after it, the cancellation. Sorry! My mom says no one can come over.
Lily stares miserably at me through the gloom of the pool house. “I never sent that. And it was Zara who told me you’d called and said you were too jet-lagged to meet that first weekend. She said she answered my phone because I was in the bathroom.”
I shake my head. I feel like laughing. That first weekend was the time I told Haley about: when I stood for ages at the 7-Eleven, waiting for Lily. Later, she texted to say I’d got the time wrong. Only that was Zara, too: more fake messages.
“Wow,” I say. “She is just— Wow.” Haley is utterly right. Zara is so insecure about Lily’s friendship that she’s lied left, right, and center—lied to me and about me.
Two skimmer nets for cleaning the pool lean on the wall behind Lily. Their giant see-through heads on stick bodies remind me of Zara and Mara, whispering in the hall.
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