Lessons from a Dead Girl

by Jo Knowles

  I feel what I think is an emptiness in my stomach. I turn back toward the store window again, but as I see my pale reflection and the darkness behind me, I realize that what I’ve really been feeling is loneliness.

  I’m crying when my father puts his hand on my shoulder.

  “Laine, honey. What are you doing here?”

  It’s the first time since I was really little that I’ve cried out loud. He puts his arms around me and squeezes me into his down parka. It smells like wood polish, and I cry on it. My hands are still shoved in my pockets, and with his arms around me, they’re stuck there. So I just stand and let him hug me. I’m glad he doesn’t ask what’s wrong. He seems to understand somehow that I don’t want him to. And, anyway, where on earth would I begin?

  When I can’t cry any more, we drive home. I can’t eat, even though my mother tries to make me. My father gives her a look that tells her to leave me alone.

  I go to bed and put the covers over my head. I think back to that night when Leah came over for the last time. How she looked at me and Christi as she held the knife to her wrist, like we were pathetic losers. How she laughed at us. For a second, I had wished she would just do it — plunge the knife in and get out of my life. But the feeling vanished when I heard the sound of the car horn and the stranger’s angry voice and I watched Leah disappear into the night.

  Before I know it, it’s morning, and I have to go back to school and face all those girls who think they know Leah. Who hate her because they don’t understand.

  I spend the following day at school walking from class to class feeling numb and alone. I rub the scar on the inside of my palm, trying to remember the details of that night. Was Leah really warning us? Was that supposed to be her cry for help?

  When I get home from school, I decide to call her.

  Mrs. Greene answers the phone.

  “What a surprise, Lainey!” she says in her high-pitched voice. “So good to hear your voice. We’ve missed you!”

  While I wait for her to get Leah, panic slowly creeps into my chest. What do I say? I heard you tried to kill yourself, and I’m calling to find out if it’s true?

  “Hey, Laine,” Leah says.

  I’m surprised to feel glad to hear her voice.

  “Hi,” I say.

  There’s a long pause. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  “What’s up?” she finally asks. “Decide to miss me?”

  “Um. Well. Of course I miss you,” I lie.

  “Of course?”

  I should hang up.

  “I was just calling to see — to see if you’re OK.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  I should’ve known she wouldn’t make this easy.

  “Um. Well. I heard this rumor.”

  “A rumor?” she says in mock surprise. “About me? That’s shocking.”

  “Yeah. Well. I guess it was only a rumor.”

  Because you sound like your usual old self.

  “What was it?”

  “Oh. Nothing. It was dumb.”

  “What was it?” she says, more demandingly. “Let me guess. I got pregnant?”

  “No.”

  “I got kicked out of school?”

  “No.”

  “I had an affair with one of the teachers? I got caught using drugs?”

  “No. It wasn’t any of those things.”

  Please stop.

  “Then what? I’ve heard them all, Lainey. You can’t surprise me.”

  Fine.

  “They said you tried to kill yourself.”

  I listen to her breathe. I wait. I count her breaths. Six, seven, eight — I can’t take it anymore.

  “Leah? It’s not true, right?”

  “Of course not,” she says. But her voice sounds different. “God, Lainey. You’re so gullible. I’m glad you give a shit, though — I really am. I could use a friend like you at my new school. But, Laine, we’ve both moved on, you know?”

  This time, I’m the one who doesn’t say anything. Is this really it? Is Leah letting me go for good?

  “Yeah. Um, OK,” I finally say. “Sorry to bother you. I’m glad it was only a rumor.”

  “Thanks, Lainey. Hey, have a good life.”

  She hangs up before I can say good-bye for real.

  I don’t know how many times I’ve wished I’d never met Leah Greene. I don’t know how many times I was sure I hated her.

  I should be thrilled to be set free at last.

  So why do I feel so empty?

  For months after I talk to Leah, I have the same dream about her. She’s in a black sports car with a faceless man. She lifts her arm to wave good-bye. As she does, blood starts to gush out of a slit in her wrist. She’s crying. I try to open the door to let her out, but the car is moving, pulling away from me, down a black dirt road. Leah keeps waving at me. And now I can’t tell if she’s waving good-bye or gesturing for me to come after her. The blood starts to cover the window until I can’t see her face. I run after them, but the car disappears. Then I wake up, sweating. Feeling sure the rumors were true.

  One day I’m home sick from school with a bad cold. I’m lying curled up in a ball on the couch with my favorite old quilt wrapped around me, watching old Real World episodes, when the doorbell rings. I waddle to the door, still wrapped in my quilt. I assume it’s my mother coming home from work to check on me. She’s always coming to the door with her hands full, pressing on the doorbell with her elbow so someone can come help her. I swing open the door without looking to see who it is first.

  Standing there in a shiny sweat suit that looks brand-new, and certainly hasn’t been sweated in, is Mrs. Greene.

  “Oh, Laine!” she exclaims when she sees me. “This is grand!”

  “Hi, Mrs. Greene,” I manage to say to her heavily made-up face.

  “Are you under the weather or something, Laine? I didn’t expect to see you.”

  I nod.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. But I’m glad, too. Not that you’re sick, I mean. But that you’re here. I’ve been meaning to bring this to you for weeks. But, you know, things get busy. I’ve been carrying it around in my purse for days, and today I finally remembered to do something about it.” She’s made her way inside, closing the door behind her.

  It occurs to me that we’ve probably never been alone together before, and it feels a little odd.

  Mrs. Greene rummages through her large black patent-leather purse.

  “Ah,” she says. “Here it is.”

  Before I have time to guess what it could be, out comes the nesting doll that Sam gave me all those years ago. As soon as I see it, I can almost smell that night: the candles, the food, the wood polish on the floor.

  “It’s your nesting doll, Laine! Remember?”

  “Yes.” But I don’t hold my hand out. I just look at the doll sitting quietly among Mrs. Greene’s perfectly manicured fingers.

  We’re still standing in the hallway. My head feels like it has doubled in size, and I can’t close my mouth because I have to breathe through it.

  “You must have left her at the house, Laine. And then forgotten about her? Anyway, when I was reorganizing some of Leah’s and Brooke’s things, there she was. And I thought, well, that was Laine’s doll! Leah tried to tell me that you gave it to her, but I know Leah. Sam meant for you to have it.”

  She presses the doll into my hand.

  “Thanks,” I say. I try to imagine Leah being caught in a lie, but I just can’t do it. Leah is the best liar ever. She told me once it was OK to lie as long as you asked God to forgive you right away afterward. Sometimes I thought I knew when she was lying because she’d pause for a minute and I thought maybe she was saying a quick, silent prayer.

  “It’s a shame you two aren’t friends anymore. But I guess you grew apart. That always happens in high school, when you take different classes and things.”

  I nod, feeling the line across the doll’s middle with my finger.

  “My goodness were you
two inseparable! Remember, Lainey?”

  “How does Leah like her new school?” I ask. I look up at Mrs. Greene to show her I really do want to know.

  Her face is grayish, her makeup cakey. She seems older than I remember.

  “Oh, well, Leah’s a little too big for her britches these days. Says she wants to quit school because she isn’t learning anything. Ah, Laine, I never should have started her in kindergarten a year late. But I wasn’t ready to let go of her! I think she hated being almost a year older than all her classmates, though. I think it was hard on her, even though she was always such a good student. But she developed so early, anyway, and then — well, you know. Leah has always looked a lot older than she is. When we took her out for her thirteenth birthday, the waiter thought she was eighteen! He couldn’t take his eyes off her.”

  She says the last bit proudly. I see Sam dancing with Leah and Brooke in the living room, watching their bodies, while Mr. and Mrs. Greene smile proudly. I feel ill. I want to hurl the doll across the room.

  “You should see her now, honey,” Mrs. Greene goes on. “She thinks she’s going to be a model. I wish I had the pictures from her portfolio to show you. We had them done at a studio in Boston. The photographer told us she was a natural. So of course now she thinks she can just quit school and become the next supermodel.”

  Just like Sam said, I think.

  “Well,” she says with a sigh, as if it’s all too much to think about. “And what about you, sweetie? What have you been up to? Thinking about college yet?”

  But she doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Oh, I had such high hopes for Leah. For Brooke, too. You know about Brooke, don’t you, Laine?”

  I shake my head.

  “She’s going to go to school to become a court stenographer.”

  “A what?” The doll feels heavier and heavier in my hand as I try not to remember that night.

  Please, Mrs. Greene. Just go away.

  “A court stenographer. It’s the person who types out what people are saying in a court case. You know. Like a trial. She’s really excited. Thinks she’s going to be able to witness all the interesting cases. I think it would be boring. At least she might meet some lawyers, though. You know, she really is pretty.”

  I manage to smile, even though I desperately need to blow my nose.

  “So, a touch of the flu? I hear something’s going around.”

  I sniff.

  “And here we are still standing!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I feel like a child standing in my pajamas with my blanket. When I move aside, she heads straight for the kitchen. I didn’t even know she knew where it was. I follow, my blanket trailing behind me, wondering what I’m supposed to do next. I’ve never spoken to Mrs. Greene for this long in my life.

  “Can I make you some tea, Laine?”

  In my own house? “Um . . . OK,” I say quietly. I place the doll on the kitchen table and sit down.

  Mrs. Greene turns the doll so she’s facing me before she walks to the stove to start the kettle. She hums while she searches for and finds two teacups and the tea bags. She seems peculiarly happy. Like she’s trying too hard. Mrs. Greene was always so proud of how beautiful her girls were. Still are. Maybe too proud. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, she’d told them. But at what price?

  We drink our tea while the doll watches us.

  “Do you know why it’s called a nesting doll, Laine?”

  I shake my head.

  Mrs. Greene reaches for the doll and separates her. She pulls out each doll, lining them up in a row as she goes until she gets to the last doll. Then she puts them all back inside each other again. “Each doll nests inside the next biggest one. And the largest one of all keeps the others safe, like a mother hen.”

  “That makes sense,” I say, taking a sip of the tea. It tastes better than the way my mother makes it — it has lots of milk and sugar. I wonder if she makes tea like this for Leah.

  As soon as I finish, Mrs. Greene gets up to leave. When I thank her for bringing the nesting doll, she gives me a close hug. Her breasts smoosh up against me, but it doesn’t make me feel bad, like I’d imagined when I saw her do it to other people, though never Leah or Brooke. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her hug them.

  From the window next to the door, I watch her hurry across the driveway to her new white Cadillac. She waves as she pulls away. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.

  I go back to the kitchen and find the nesting doll still sitting happily on the table.

  I hate that Mrs. Greene took her from Leah. I hate that Mrs. Greene must have found the doll and confronted Leah about it. It would have reminded Leah about that night and my broken promise. I can still see the strange glance between Sam and Leah when she took the doll from me the next morning. How he almost seemed to know she’d do it, and so it had really been a gift for her all along. But mostly I can still hear the sound of her quiet cries in the dark the night before.

  I take the doll up to the doll closet and throw it inside. The doll breaks apart when it hits the floor. I shut the door before the pieces rattle to a stop.

  By the end of my sophomore year, I pretty much give up on ever having any real friends. I’ll get through this torture they call school, and then I can go live as a hermit someplace.

  Only just as I make up my mind to live my life in exile, Jessica Lambert comes up behind me and tells me I have a pen mark on my shirt. I try to cover the spot by holding my books in front of it.

  “It’s not a big deal,” she says. “That happens to me all the time.” She smiles at me.

  “Thanks,” I say, looking at my shoes.

  I’ve known Jess, which is what everyone calls her, since grade school. But we’ve never been friends. Leah never liked her for some reason. Leah made all the decisions about who would be in our “group.” None of those girls ever felt like real friends to me. I knew they only talked to me because of Leah. And Leah knew it, too. Sometimes I think Leah liked it that way.

  Jess and I both play the clarinet in band. For Christmas, my father gave me an old clarinet he found at a flea market. He fixed it up and insisted that I try to learn how to play. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of being a band geek, but once I tried playing, I liked it. I liked making noise without using my voice. Besides, if I’m going to be alone the rest of my life, who cares?

  A few days after the shirt incident, I sit next to Jess at practice. She smiles at me and says, “Hi.”

  “Hi,” I say back, a little too friendly.

  This is the extent of conversation number two. But at the next practice, we sit beside each other again. This time she nudges me when Mrs. Hathaway, the band director, claps her hands and tells us we’re all brilliant.

  “Must be deaf,” Jess whispers.

  I snicker.

  Two practices later, Jess asks if I want to share stands with her.

  “Sure,” I say nervously. But when I put my music away to share hers, we realize she plays second clarinet and I only play third, and both sets of music won’t fit on the stand.

  “Oh, well,” Jess says. “We can still push them together. That way Hathaway can’t see us write notes.”

  Hathaway? Notes? Apparently, Jess has decided we’re friends.

  I slide my stand next to hers so our music folders touch and Hathaway can’t see us. Jess gives me a satisfied smile.

  After practice a few days later, Web Foster is waiting in the hall for Jess. I didn’t know they were friends, but it’s obvious they’re close by the way Web grins at her when he sees us. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me with Jess. He even knows my name and says hi.

  The next day we’re sitting in chemistry, and Web sends Jess and me the same note.

  I dare you to scream as loud as you can at 10:05.

  We both look over at him like he’s crazy, but he winks and points to the clock.

  I don’t think any of us will really do it, but as I watch the minute hand slowly making its way to the five, I decide I
’m going to go for it. It’s the end of the school year. What’s the worst thing that could happen? What do I have to lose?

  As the second hand nears the twelve, we exchange looks and nods. Then, just as the hand clicks onto the twelve, I take a deep breath and let out a “Wooh!”

  Jess and Web echo my own pathetic, but victorious, howl.

  When we stop, the room is deadly quiet. We look at one another, our faces bright red. I feel like I’ve just lifted a huge weight off my chest, and I’m smiling like a nut. I’ve never done something like this before. Leah would never do it. She’d say it was totally lame. She’d probably roll her eyes and say how juvenile we are, which is basically what the rest of the class does. No one looks at us. Mrs. Fiske, our teacher, just says, “Enough!” But no one in the class even acts like it was an odd thing to do.

  After class, the three of us meet in the hall and burst out laughing.

  “That was the weirdest experience I’ve ever had,” Jess says.

  “Jess, you live a boring life.” Web sighs.

  “But nothing happened,” I say. “No one did anything! We didn’t even get in trouble!”

  “We freaked them out, that’s all,” Web says. “It was beautiful, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Jess and I say at the same time. Then we all crack up again.

  I have passed their initiation test. I have friends. I wonder what Leah would say to that.

  Just when I finally make friends, they desert me. Two weeks after the scream, school vacation starts and Jess and Web go away. Jess goes to Maine with her parents, who run a dive shop there all summer. Web’s parents are making him go to private school in the fall, so he has to go to their summer-school program before he can enroll.

  I’m alone again.

  I decide to work in my parents’ antique store. Mostly I dust and polish things. My dad plays fifties music off the restored jukebox because he thinks it makes customers feel nostalgic. Within two weeks, I’m walking around with Buddy Holly and Fats Domino songs in my head. It is so pathetic. I’m convinced that I’m a complete failure and will be a hermit the rest of my life after all, humming to the tune of “Ain’t That a Shame.”