“Interesting.” I nod. “Or maybe she just didn’t want to give you the satisfaction.” And then I pointedly return to filling out the column of checkboxes.
“Ah, I get it,” he says. “You must have OCD or something. Is that why you’re in here?”
I set the pen down hard on the clipboard. “No,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m not…obsessive-compulsive. I’m just following instructions.” And I’d like to be left alone, I add silently, although I think my tone more than implies it.
“Okay.” He tosses the magazine in the empty chair beside him. “What are you in for, then?”
“Excuse me?”
“What are you in for? What’s gone so haywire up here to land you in the pristine offices of Garretson, Smith & McKenna, PhD, LPC, CRC?”
I shift my weight in my seat and hug the clipboard tighter. “Well, that’s overly personal,” I say. “Not to mention rude. I don’t even know you.”
“You’re Lake…” He snaps his fingers repeatedly, like he’s trying to conjure up the answer. Then I see him peer down his nose at my scrawled handwriting. I snatch my clipboard and hug it to my chest. He rolls his eyes. “Okay, so I can’t remember the last name. Lake Something-or-Other. Relax, you went to Oceanview Elementary with me.” Busted.
He wears a light checkered shirt unbuttoned over a cotton T-shirt and yellow shorts and he smells, well, kind of amazing. In fact, I find myself wanting to lean in just a touch closer to catch another whiff of—What is that? Aftershave? Cologne?
I’m about to open my mouth when I stop myself. It’s been years. He doesn’t still go by—he can’t still go by—
“Ringo.” He grins and extends his hand out for me to take. Pine trees with a hint of vanilla. Odd combination for a person. “It’s been a while.”
“I—I—I didn’t recognize you.”
It’s not a complete lie. It seems sort of amazing that the boy sitting in front of me is the same one who years ago hardly spoke above a whisper. Actually that’s why he’d been held back a year, so that he was in my grade. No one knew if he was slow or just shy, only that he tolerated Smelly Ellie—Maybe that’s why he’s so intent on the good cologne now? That, and he sat inside every day when it was time for recess.
My gaze moves to the ring around his eye that had reminded me of Spot the Dog. Crap. This is just my luck today, running into someone who I probably more or less ignored, even perhaps rudely, ten years earlier. I had no idea what happened to Ringo after that one year when we shared a classroom. A new school? Homeschooling? I hadn’t cared, but to be fair, I didn’t even keep up with my former best friend, Jenny.
“Really?” He looks at me skeptically. “You see a lot of faces that look like this walking around? Damn,” he says. “And here I thought I was unique.”
I let out a small laugh that sounds more like a hiccup.
“So, see, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” he continues, “are you going to tell me what you’re in for?”
“I—I still think—” I begin to protest. Then, I shut my eyes and exhale. “What the hell. I was in a car accident. A few days ago. My best friend and…” My voice rasps over the ridges in my throat. “Um, my boyfriend, and they, well—they both died.”
Ringo strokes his chin. “Yikes. That is rough. Well, how old are you?”
“I’ll be eighteen this month.”
“Shit.”
“Shit,” I agree. “So what are you in for?”
His brow line drops lower. I notice that the birthmark makes his eyes appear uneven, like the ringed one is sitting lower on his face. “I’m not telling you that,” he says. “That question is entirely too personal. And quite frankly, rude. Besides, I hardly even know you.”
My lips part and I’m about to snap at him, when the door on the other side of the waiting room opens and a woman calls my name. “Lake Devereaux?”
Ringo picks up his magazine from the seat beside him and reopens it in his lap.
I stare hard at him but stand up. “That’s me,” I respond to the woman.
“Welcome,” she says in a flight-attendant voice. “We’ll be right back here.”
And when I glance back at Ringo, half expecting him to look at me with a sly grin and eyes that appear crookedly set but aren’t actually, he instead keeps them trained on the pages of the magazine as though that’s what he’d been doing all along.
Dr. McKenna has blond, chin-length hair and wispy bangs and wears a smart skirt-suit that reminds me of one of the prosecutors on a procedural television show. I follow her through the doorway into an office, where I’m relieved to find no couch. Having never been to therapy before, I’ve been picturing exactly the setup that I’ve seen on television, which includes me lying down on a black leather sofa and being forced to spill my deepest, darkest secrets to a doctor with a thick notepad. Up until this very second, I’d become particularly hung up on whether I should take my shoes off before lying down on the couch. It seemed like the sort of thing everyone else knows how to do except for me.
Stuff like that gives me a lot of heartburn. Like when I go to the doctor and they tell me to take off everything from the waist down, I always have this momentary flash once the nurse is gone when I worry that I haven’t heard her right. As though I’ll strip down, and when the doctor comes in, he’ll wonder why the heck I’ve taken my pants off. I don’t know. It’s just one of those things about me. The way Penny was scared of both global warming and heights, in that order. Or how Will was afraid he’d end up like his dad. I wonder if this is the sort of thing I should be telling Dr. McKenna. Or maybe it’s completely irrelevant and she’ll think it’s weird if I bring it up. In therapy, do people talk directly about their problems or do they circle around them until they have a “lightbulb” moment? Here I go again.
When I hand Dr. McKenna the clipboard, she sets it down on her desk without looking at it. I think of Ringo and his knowing smirk, and feel a little too irritated, considering he’s someone I hardly even know.
“First of all,” she says, taking a seat on the opposite side of her desk and rolling the chair closer until her elbows are resting on the surface. I run my fingers over the ridges of my cast. “Can I just say that I’m very sorry for your loss? Your parents provided me with a bit of background, and I know that is the most trite, cliché thing I could possibly say.” She rolls her eyes toward the ceiling. “But I’m afraid even psychiatrists aren’t given magic words for these types of situations. We’re stuck with the exact same ones that the rest of the world is.”
And with that, I think that I like Dr. McKenna instantly.
“How would you like to begin?” she says.
“I—I don’t know. It wasn’t my idea to come here in the first place.” This comes out more snappish than I intend.
She nods sympathetically but doesn’t say anything more.
I fidget. “My parents say I can only bring back one person. I guess that’s true. I mean everyone knows that. It’s just…”
Dr. McKenna doesn’t try to finish the sentence for me. Instead she leans back in her chair and says, “Why don’t you tell me about your friends.”
1,444 days
Summer has passed and I’ve turned fourteen now, with nothing to show for an entire season of my life. My brother and I didn’t pick crab traps or dive for sand dollars. Instead, I tried to fill our time with new things, diligently researching all of the activities we could do now together—a zero-gravity salt spa, the aquarium, IMAX theater, a one-man comedy act about defending cavemen—but Matt either wasn’t interested in doing anything or wasn’t interested in me. (Unfortunately it still seems to be a healthy mixture of both.)
Mom and Dad have both decided that I will attend a new school. The decision is made in one of those family meetings to which I’m no longer invited. One day it’s just: “Good news, Lake, we’ve gotten you a spot at St. Theresa’s,” and then the next I’m standing in an ugly navy-blue sweater vest with nowhere to stash my brother
’s old skateboard, which I became at least halfway proficient at riding during my ample alone time these last months, weeks, whatever they were.
Modern History, I read on my schedule. The ink has begun to smear from where my sweaty thumbprints have mashed the paper against the scratchy grip tape of my board. I tuck both the board and the schedule under my arm. I’m holding on to the skateboard like a security blanket, because in the last few weeks it’s kind of become one.
Just go in, I chide myself. This shouldn’t be half as scary as dropping into a six-foot ramp, but this thought does nothing to calm me because should and shouldn’t just don’t seem to apply anymore. My hummingbird heart thrums against my ribs. “It’ll be good for you,” my parents had said. I sighed, remembering. Broccoli was good for me. Private school? That was debatable.
With the current state of my home life, I’m both starved for companionship…or have possibly lost my appetite for it—it’s impossible to tell which.
I’m hovering outside the classroom, already twenty-five minutes late for class. Mrs. Savage: not the most promising name for my first-period teacher. I smooth the pleats of my skirt, check that my crisp white button-down isn’t bunched beneath the crest-emblazoned vest, and at last open the door.
Eleven pairs of eyes snap into focus and I immediately long for something to do—skate, dive, surf, anything—other than stand there reddening under the heat of their collective gaze. I shuffle over to Mrs. Savage and fish the pink slip from the front office out of my pocket. “Hi, I’m new here?” I add the ridiculous question mark on the end like I’m not sure. It’s possible that in only one summer I’ve managed to completely forget how to interact with humans.
She scans the slip, then turns to the class. “Everyone, this is Lake Devereaux. She’s a new student. Please welcome her accordingly.”
There’s an exaggerated cough and in the middle of it I can clearly hear the word “Boner.” My neck blazes.
Then a boy sneezes and the word “Sexy” comes out.
“Enough,” says Mrs. Savage without much force. “Unless a few of you have suddenly come down with the flu and need to be sent to Principal Nazari’s office?” Silence. “That’s what I thought.” She resumes a smug smile. “Lake, we were just about to break into debate groups to discuss what will be our semester project this year. The class will be holding a mock congressional session to either pass or vote down the Pickering Regulations.” I nod and try to avoid eye contact with any of the other students. “Since Harrison was so vocal, why don’t you join his group with Maya and Peng.”
Harrison the Articulate Sneezer raises his hand. I thank Mrs. Savage and make my way toward the empty seat nearest the group while Mrs. Savage explains the assignment, which is to work with our group to represent an interest group, then debate its side of the argument as if we were trying to draft the legislation surrounding resurrection rights. No resurrection history is included in any school curriculum until eighth grade. I used to be excited to finally get to study it when I was younger. It seemed so grown-up.
Now I can’t think about resurrections without thinking of Matt and the promise my parents made him only a week ago. I’d been the one to find him. Blood had been seeping out of his mouth, running down from the corners. It dribbled down his chin. He’d tried to bite through his own tongue to choke, a tactic he’d seen in a movie that Dad let him watch when Mom left to get her hair cut.
“Alexis Angel,” the girl named Maya says to the two boys. The group is turning their desks to face one another. She ignores me entirely, instead staying busy punching buttons into her phone, as I push my skateboard under one of the desks and rest my saddle oxfords on it. “Too pretty. Too perfect. Guarantee it,” she says without looking up.
Harrison rolls his eyes. “You’re just jealous. Lead singer of Dante’s Playground.”
Peng throws an eraser at Harrison and hits him squarely between the eyes. “Come on, everyone knows that one. All his fans are death groupies.”
“I’ve heard he’s actually not.” Maya glances up. “He’s just saying he is to push his image. Oh!” She leans forward. “Somebody told me, I can’t tell you who, that Principal Nazari is.”
Harrison guffaws. “But he’s so…feeble.” He does a crooked, bent-over impression of an old man walking.
Maya raises her eyebrows and shrugs, pushing her thumb hard into her phone screen many times over.
“Um.” I sit up and give a small wave. “What exactly are we doing?”
“Sorry, hi.” Maya shakes her head like she’s a little embarrassed. She sets down her phone. “I just programmed a cheat code to this new game and I’m ob-sessed.” I make sure to look impressed, given that I can hardly save contacts to my phone without getting frustrated. “Anyway, we were just guessing resurrecteds—who is, who isn’t. Potter Goodwin. What do you think?”
“I…” My eyes shift around for somewhere to land. “I don’t know who that is.”
Maya smacks her tongue to the roof of her mouth impatiently. “You know, that congressman, the one who is all, no resurrections, they’re a sin against God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?”
“Yeah.” I use the toes of my shoes to roll the skateboard underneath me. “I guess so.” The name did sound familiar.
“Sorry, it’s not important. What’s important is you. You’re the first new kid we’ve had since sixth grade,” she says. “It’s super strange.”
Harrison flips his notebook closed. Not a promising sign for our group project. “Yeah, but that was Michael Glaser and he’s weird and definitely not hot.”
“Yeah, Michael’s a real boner killer.” Peng snickers.
“So.” Wanting to steer clear of all topics involving male anatomy and my relative hotness and do something other than stutter, I click open a pen and make a show of preparing to jot down some notes. “What interest group have we been assigned?”
Maya scrapes a paperclip on her desk. “Resurrecteds.” She points around the room at the different clumps of students. “They’re pharmaceutical companies, and they’re the naturalists. Personally I think we got the best one. Peng even suggested we could dress up like commune members in white linen on the day of.” She shrugs like she doesn’t care one way or the other. I’ve seen the eerily serene members of one of the nearby communes only once before. They were gathered for a peaceful protest in support of resurrected rights, dressed head to toe in their creepy white linen. I can’t imagine that if I got a second chance at life, I’d want to live it tilling the earth and without Sephora. The commune members, though, are a small but substantial subset of resurrected people who feel they’ve been spiritually enlightened as a result of having died and come back to life. I don’t know if there’s any truth to it, but it’s at least easy fodder for the late-night talk-show hosts.
I write the word Resurrecteds at the top of my page.
Harrison leans over his desk toward me. “I’m a lifeguard, you know.” I’m getting the picture that schoolwork is not going to be a top priority here.
“No, I didn’t know that.” I scribble another note on the paper. “Seeing as I only met you twelve seconds ago.” I mumble that last part. I hear a snort of laughter behind me and turn to see a girl with hair so blond, it’s nearly white, covering a grin with her fist. I turn back to Harrison.
“Yeah. Over at Miller Beach,” he continues. “A bunch of us go out there and drink in the lifeguard stands on Friday nights. You should come.”
“And feel free to bring any of your hot friends,” Peng adds, tapping his pen on the desk. He reaches across with his other fist and bumps knuckles with Harrison.
“A generous offer.” I resist the urge to roll my eyes at someone on my first day, and then, out of nowhere, I suddenly have this giant pang of longing for Family Feud nights with Matt and my mom and dad and for the giant bowls of popcorn that accompanied them and for the times when my brother and I chucked pieces of popcorn into each other’s mouths because, like, it’d be one thing if
I was going home to that.
But Harrison leans back in his chair and gives me an appraising once-over. “Just trying to be hospitable.”
There’s a screech of a chair behind me. Then I look up to see that I’ve been flanked by the lithe girl with the nearly white-blond hair and piercing green eyes.
“Hello, Harry.” The girl with the angel hair pats Harrison congenially on the shoulder. “I see you’ve met my old friend, Lake.” She flashes me a grin. Her mouth is pink, like she’s been eating strawberries all day. “Our moms were close when we were young. We lost touch a bit when Lake went to a different school.”
Peng clears his throat. “We were just inviting Lake to the lifeguard shack this weekend. You know there’s always room for you, Penny.” He clears his throat. “On my lap.” He scoots back his chair and splays his legs wide and vulgar.
Penny. She stays cool as an ocean breeze. She tilts her body toward me, looks down, and subtly lifts her blond eyebrows. I shake my head a tiny fraction of a degree. No, please, no. She glances over my shoulder. “Do you want to ask your boyfriend if he wants to go?” she asks. “Will?”
I follow her gaze to where it lands behind me. On a boy with a tan so golden, it glows, and shaggy surfer hair that reminds me of a beach at sunrise. “Sorry, Harry, my boy,” he says, and tilts his chin, a cocky, self-assured gesture that makes me feel ten instead of fourteen, and continues reading from the open notebook on his desk. “We’ve already got plans on Friday.” Then there’s one quick flash. He looks up at me and, well, not all boys can pull off the wink, but I’m here to report that Will Whose-Last-Name-I-Don’t-Know can.
I clench my fists and place them in my lap, trying hard not to blush too obviously, because surely the girlfriend of that boyfriend wouldn’t blush at all. I’ve never had a boyfriend. Has Penny?
I start to worry that maybe I’m the butt of some weird joke and actually Penny is Will’s girlfriend and everyone’s making fun of me, but then her smile is so warm when she looks down at me and we’ve shared that secret look and I don’t know what it is about her but she just doesn’t seem mean.
This is Not the End Page 5