The Falling Girls

by Hayley Krischer

  “Distant? Because I joined cheer?”

  “There’s that. But for a while now, it seems like there’s something else that’s on her mind. That she’s not present.”

  My mother sprays her wrist with a musky cologne, then washes it off. Itching her nose from the smell.

  “You’re with her all the time. You don’t see this? I mean, you girls draw those tattoos up and down your body. And, Jesus, hopefully you’re sterilizing those needles. I’ve never said anything because I know it wouldn’t make a difference, but you can get diseases.”

  “Of course we’re sterilizing the needles. It’s a whole process, Mom. And they’re not up and down my body. It’s a few tattoos.”

  “One day you’re going to ask me to take you to get them lasered off and it’s going to hurt like hell. I’ll remember this conversation then,” she says, her voice rising, her anxiety, always the anxiety boiling up inside and releasing itself in a fury. “Do you think other mothers ignore when their daughters come home with a tattoo? Because I guarantee that they don’t. I wish you would appreciate me.”

  “You’re the one who always says to me that you want me to make my own decisions, even if they’re not the decisions you agree with. So please, explain,” I say.

  She files the brushes back in the glass jar on her counter. The perfume smacking up against all of the other tiny bottles that she’s collected. She must get so bored here, waiting for me to grow up so she can start her life and travel with her friends.

  She closes her eyes. “Why did you come in here, Shade? What can I help you with?”

  “I need to talk to you. Like, really need to talk to you.”

  So she sits on the toilet. Smooths out her silk skirt. Fixes her bangles so they lie flat on her wrist.

  “Do you think Jadis would do something bad? Like, do you think she’s capable of something?” I say.

  “Capable of what?”

  “Do you think she’s capable of hurting someone?”

  “She’s a screwed-up girl, Shade. Her mother is in and out of the country, and before that, she was in rehab. Her father left her for that younger woman. She only has that brother of hers. And you. You’re all she has. So do I think she’s capable of hurting someone?”

  She stands up and stares into the mirror again like there’s going to be an answer for her there. I can’t read her hesitation. She goes back to the routine. Fish face. Wipes off blush with a cotton ball. Dabs more blush on.

  “Just say what you’re going to say,” I tell her.

  “I wondered how she was going to tolerate you joining cheer, to be quite honest. How she would cope with that new friendship of yours. How you were always whispering on the phone to Chloe Orbach. Three can be a crowd.”

  “We weren’t three though.”

  “Not to you, you weren’t. But come on, Shade. You’re a smart girl. I’m sure Jadis felt like she was sharing you, and I know she’s not great at that,” she says. “Most friends aren’t.”

  My mother tells me how she used to worry when Jadis and I were younger. She reminds me how Jadis didn’t like it when I had another friend over. She pouted and cried and carried on when she and I weren’t in the same class together. And when we were in the same class, she wrote the teacher letters about why she should sit next to me.

  “Don’t you remember all that? It was the two of you constantly in your own world, mostly of her doing. You—I think you would have made other friends, opened yourself up a little if it wasn’t for her. Jadis wanted to be so close to you that sometimes it scared me. Even her mother thought it was weird. She said something to me one day about Jadis being obsessed with you. For a little while I thought it was cute, but then I started wondering if it was healthy. She wanted so much ownership over you. And you didn’t seem to mind.”

  I remember those times. And I remember liking it. You learn to rely on your friends when your parents aren’t around. Jadis and I had so much to share. Dads off somewhere living some bohemian life. Self-absorbed moms with flaws like Band-Aids, out there in the open for everyone to see their barely patched-together lives. We fell into each other so easily. I remember a time when we first walked home from school together and I was at her house, the two of us on her bed.

  I asked her when her father would be home because back then I was scared of dads. That’s what happens when you don’t have a father in the house, you hear the noise of a bellowing man and you want to hide. But she laughed when I asked her.

  “There’s no dad here for miles,” she said like she was in a Western movie, and cracked a smile.

  Jadis was mine and I was hers. If I felt lost, she’d find me. She was the person I could look through crowds of people for, and there she’d be, right there, staring back at me.

  “Well, she was my best friend, Mom. It felt good.” Was, I hear myself say. Was.

  “I know. I know it feels good to be wanted that way. To be the object of someone’s affection,” she says. “But when you went to cheerleading, I was relieved. Do you know why? Because you seemed happy cheerleading. And it gave you a little space from Jadis.”

  “Wait, what?” Silence. This isn’t something she’s ever said or even alluded to.

  “Cheerleading has been good for you,” she says slowly. “It helped give you another focus. So you had something else in your life. Other people in your life. Something other than her. I love Jadis, I do. But it’s been nice to see you smile.”

  “You know those smiles are fake, Mom,” I say. “That’s part of the routine. They force me to do that, so I practice it around the house. It’s a show.”

  “Okay, then,” she says. “If smiling is so painful, then why do you keep going back? Why have you worked so hard?”

  Smiling is an exercise in willpower, a muscle I work, just like my triceps or my quads. All of it came together as part of putting myself on. Of making myself into someone I wasn’t, this girl who could fly, who could smile on command. Who could throw her body into twists and flips. The discipline of it. It’s all part of the uniform. The whole performance.

  I don’t tell her that I dream about it.

  Her phone buzzes. It’s her ride. “I can cancel, really, honey. Do you need me to stay home?”

  “Do I need you to stay home?” I laugh, surprised.

  “What’s so funny? I’ve been taking care of you since you got your concussion, haven’t I? I’d stay home if you wanted me to.”

  “I don’t think you’ve ever asked me that question.”

  “Oh, I see. This is when you start telling me I’m the worst mother ever. Trust me, there are worse mothers. Just look them up on the internet. You’ll find them.”

  She pops a mint, shoves a lipstick and the blush in a little beaded bag. “I thought we were really connecting. I thought you were finally going to forgive me for all of my wrongdoings, or at least what you perceive as my wrongdoings. No one ever said I was perfect, Shade.”

  I take her hand. Her soft hand. Her veins large and pulsing. Her skin so different from mine. Older.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry,” I say. “Go ahead and do your thing. Catch your ride. I’m fine.”

  I’m not at all fine. I want her to stay, but I don’t know how to ask her.

  She holds my face with her hands. “You only need this,” she says, and touches my head with her finger. “And this,” and softly touches my heart with her other finger. “But mostly you have to open your eyes, Shade. You have to see that some of these girls, their motivations are different than yours.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that not everyone does the right thing. And sometimes people who have anger toward someone else, they use it in a dangerous way.”

  “Mom, you never answered me,” I say. “Do you think Jadis is capable of hurting someone?”

  “Only herself, honey. Only
herself.”

  I drift into my bedroom and I stare at my tattoo that Jadis branded me with. Of the girl falling. The girl flying. She said it was me, but I don’t know anymore. Maybe she drew herself.

  Chapter

  33

  The next day I search for Jadis in school, scanning above the heads in the hallway for her lavender hair. Checking our old spot by the first-floor bathroom, near the music room, outside the cafeteria before lunch. Instead I find Emma by the media center, staring into her phone like it’s a deep ocean and she’s trying to see to the bottom.

  “She won’t come to school,” Emma says. “And I can’t force her. She doesn’t care if she fails out. They can’t make her go. She’s seventeen.”

  “Did she tell you why?” I say.

  “Did she have to?” Emma says. “She’s scared of those Chloes and she’s freaked out by the toxicology report.”

  I feel bad that Emma’s mixed up in this. Her face, so confused.

  “You’re supposed to be the person who knows her the best, Shade. I’m surprised you can’t understand this,” she says. “I’m surprised you don’t know the effect your little fight had on her.”

  “She told you about it?”

  “Of course she told me. I’m her girlfriend.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  After school, I stand in front of Jadis’s house until I can get the courage to ring the bell. Jadis is the only real answer to this puzzle. I have to know where she got the Molly. The thoughts that blare through my mind are terrifying, and I’m not sure how she’ll react to me being here, especially after everything. She might not care what I have to say.

  Maybe I shouldn’t be at her front door. Maybe I don’t deserve to be.

  I ring the bell a few times, then start banging on the door. She opens it up, shocked to see me.

  “What are you doing here?” she says slyly.

  “I need to know what happened that night,” I say. “I need to know where you got the Molly. And I want the truth. I need to know everything.”

  We sit in her bedroom like we used to when we were kids. On the floor, her shag rug, the door closed behind us. I can hear Eddie and his friends downstairs playing music. The strumming of the guitar, beating of drums, so heavy I can hardly think. Part of me feels like nothing has even changed. Like we’re back to the same old thing.

  But she looks like she hasn’t eaten in days. The way she bends over, with that stomach, a deep cavity. The bags under her eyes. She lights up her vape, pressing it hard into her mouth, and exhales.

  “Why do you have to know where I got it? Tell me that at least?” she says, so timid. More vulnerable than I’ve seen Jadis in so long.

  How do I answer that question? Because you’re scaring me, Jadis. Because even I thought you might have killed Chloe. Because I want to clear your name.

  I tell her it’s the only way to prove that what Chloe and Chloe say isn’t true. It’s the only way out of this. We have to go straight to the center. I tell her about the Xanax, how they took some before the dance. We have to wash ourselves clean.

  “We lied to the police, Jadis,” I say, pleading with her. “They came to my house. They’re going to come to your house soon. How far can we possibly take this?”

  She finally lets it out. That she got the Molly from Eddie’s friend Sunshine. The woman that night at the pool. The night she gave me the cheerleader tattoo.

  “The lady with the kid?” I say.

  “Don’t be so judgmental, Shade. Not everyone has perfect lives in the suburbs like we do.”

  “Since when do we have perfect lives?” I say.

  “Someone always has it worse than you. Trust me,” she says, her eyes looking away.

  Jadis explains that Sunshine was a chemistry major at MIT. That she wanted to be like Walter White in Breaking Bad and started making her own Molly, just selling enough to pay for college, but then she got rich off it, and then she got pregnant. That she still makes very small batches. She only sells it to people she knows so she can keep track of it.

  “Is this real? Are you joking?” I say. “MIT?”

  “Not a joke at all. She’s sort of like an artist. Like a drug artist slash scientist or something.”

  If there really is a drug artist slash scientist or whatever behind this, then we have to talk to her. So we can take control of this. So we don’t sink deeper.

  I tighten my voice. “We have to talk to her, Jadis.”

  “No no no no,” Jadis says, pacing around her room now. “This is a small-batch dealer. She can’t be traced back to it this way. I can’t sell her out like that.”

  “If she’s so responsible, she’s going to want to know that someone died!”

  “What are we going to say to her? Was there fentanyl in this crown?”

  “Yes,” I say. “We have to find out if something happened to that batch.”

  “You have to promise me, Shade, that you’re not going to turn her over to the cops. Promise.”

  I know what she’s saying. I remember what Detective Cheerleader told me that day in my bedroom. That they don’t want anyone like me to get in trouble. That they just want to get the bad guys. Someone like Sunshine.

  Jadis holds out her pinkie to me, and I glance at it. Why would she want to protect this woman over herself? Jadis goes on and on about how Sunshine is a good mother, that she just wants to put food on the table. She wants to take care of her kid. That she wants to be in charge of her life. Jadis makes me promise to go there without malice. That we can’t push her into a corner.

  Is it because this woman is so dedicated to her child that she would throw away her prestigious degree to become a drug cooker and a dealer?

  Suddenly I get it. That’s all Jadis wants, someone to put her first like that too.

  “She’s a mom, Shade. Don’t you understand?”

  I give Jadis my word. We’re just going to talk to her. That’s all.

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  Sunshine’s house is a small, pink bungalow with creamy shutters. There’s toys in the front yard and a little red baby toy car. It doesn’t look like a drug dealer’s house, and I guess that’s the point. Jadis knocks, and Sunshine answers the door in a big fluffy robe, her hair in a tight bun, waving us in but telling us to keep our voices down because the baby is sleeping.

  Jadis and I sink into her blue velvet couch. “We have a sensitive situation,” Jadis says. She doesn’t want to insult Sunshine. She’s not saying there’s something wrong with Sunshine’s product. Her product is super clean and we had a good time on it, she says. Except something happened.

  Sunshine is listening intently, nodding along.

  “A friend of ours,” Jadis says, and I can feel her holding it back, “OD’d.”

  “Wait,” she says. “Stop.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” I say. “Because we just wanted to know if there was any connection.”

  She glares at me. Stares at me up and down. “Who the fuck is this?”

  “This is my best friend, Shade.”

  I remind her that we met briefly at Jadis’s pool. But she doesn’t remember me.

  “Your name is Shade?”

  I nod. I think a woman with the name Sunshine will appreciate that my name is Shade. I smile a little. Maybe we’ll talk about names and how Sunshine is the opposite of Shade. How maybe we’re supposed to be in each other’s lives. I stare at her, my mind wandering to all of these places and then she snaps at me, her face in mine, right close to my nose. And I flinch.

  “Are you a fucking narc, Shade?”

  “Me? No, I’m a cheerleader.” It just comes out like that. So gullible, so simple. I grunt-laugh like it’s the funniest thing I could possibly say.

  Sunshine doesn’t laugh. She tells us to lift up our shirts. “I wanna see if
you’re wearing wires.”

  Jadis stands up and grabs at my arm, then strips off her shirt. She’s wearing her black-and-white polka-dot bra, the one that used to be mine.

  “Take off your shirt, Shade,” she says. So I take mine off too. Sunshine wants pants off to make sure there’s no wire on our legs. And now I’m scared because even if she doesn’t find a wire, will she beat the crap out of us? Does she know someone who will? The sweat at the back of my neck, and my head feeling hot. This is what she does for a living. She may look sweet, like a hippie throwback. She may live in a pink house and have a child, but she has to protect her business. Jesus, we were so naive to come here.

  “Why does this chick have what’s left of two black eyes?” Sunshine says to Jadis.

  “She’s a cheerleader. Really. She wasn’t kidding. They do stunts. And she fell the other day during a game.”

  She looks back and forth between us, deciding if she believes this story.

  We dump out our bags and our pockets. It’s clear that we aren’t wearing wires. She tells us to shut our phones off. That we’ve put her in a weird situation, and she’s very sorry to hear about our friend, but she can’t let anyone mess with her life, not now, not ever, especially because she has a kid. Do we understand? She’s firm.

  When she finally realizes that we’re not taping her, she starts pacing. And we just watch her, back and forth, dragging her feet across her red-and-orange shag rug.

  “Look,” she says a few minutes later, as we’re putting our clothes back on. “I don’t know what happened to your friend. But I can tell you right now that I have nothing to do with it.”

  “How do you know for sure?” Jadis says.

  “How do I know for sure?” she says, defensive, her voice with a violent twang. “Because I made the crowns for my sister’s bachelorette party. I made fifteen of them. Twelve of her friends took them. I took one and she took one. I sold you the fifteenth one. They were made in one batch. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Whatever happened to that girl had nothing to do with that Molly.”