“This is stupid.” The other man doesn’t turn around. “Big stupid waste of time.”
“You’re the one wants to let her go.” Marren’s eyes look hollow and carved-out under the streetlights. “Anyone ever tell you—hey—” The man gives his friend a shove. “She looks like Elizabeth Taylor! Right? Anyone tell you that?” He chews on the end of a toothpick ruminatively, then works it between a couple of molars. “Those eyes of hers.” He runs his fingertips along Felice’s brow bone. “God, I feel sorry for you,” he says abruptly. “What’s a little girl gonna do with a face like that?”
They climb out and the night sand under her sneakers is dense and damp, wet cement, barely curving under foot. She smells the aftermath of rain—it must’ve come while she was in the club. Her skin feels like a finely woven gauze: the rain melts in the air in white flashes, flourishes.
The music room was supposed to be their sanctuary. She wasn’t very good at violin, but she still enjoyed the rasp of the bowstrings, the cool tilt of the instrument under her chin—who knows why. The whole time she played, right from the start, she felt his eyes on her profile. Mr. Rendell’s gaze, always there, hovering in the air. Even when he wasn’t looking at her directly, he was still looking. Eyes hovering like bees. The music room belonged to her and Hannah. After class, they claimed the room for hours—supposedly to practice, Felice on violin, Hannah on clarinet—even though Hannah always said it was pointless—it wasn’t like they were going to become musicians. They used to eat the palmiers and meringues Avis packed for Felice, and one day Hannah held up the scroll of a palmier and said in a languid, speculative way, “I wonder why your mother is trying to make you fat.” She glanced at Felice, her dark, solemn eyes shining. “Do you ever think about that?”
Felice smirked. “You’re crazy. She’s a baker.”
Hannah sniffed a meringue, then tossed it into a trash bin. “You ever wonder if she’s trying to poison you? Because, seriously? I think she might be.”
Sometimes Hannah would light a cigarette. She’d hand it to Felice, who held it up between two fingers, admiring the thin white trickle of smoke. She didn’t puff on it, though: Stanley was contemptuous of smokers. She and Hannah lounged on the gray upholstered couch pushed against the wall. One day Hannah talked about her older brother Simon (Semir) who’d killed himself by drinking the cleaning fluids stored under the bathroom sink. She talked about it in a casual way, as if she were describing a shopping trip.
“Why? Why did he do it?” Felice was breathless: she couldn’t imagine losing her brother.
Hannah looked disoriented: she touched her hair, which fell around her shoulders in pieces. Finally she said, “It was years ago. I hardly remember. He kept talking to himself a lot. And not to anyone else. I guess it was sort of like he forgot how to be happy.” Then she smiled briefly and said, “I hope that never happens to me.”
“Me either,” Felice said, chilled and heartbroken for her friend.
Late on a Tuesday afternoon, after class, Hannah told her she had to get home early that day to help her mother “have her usual mental breakdown.” This entailed, apparently, Hannah doling to her mother just the right number of Vicodin. “So she doesn’t go haywire again,” Hannah said, tugging on the sleeves of her thin black sweater. Then she and her mother watched TV together, but when Felice asked what they watched, Hannah admitted her mother generally slept through all of it. “I think the only reason she’s still working is for the drugs.”
Felice had never heard stories like this before. “Aren’t you worried about her? What does your dad say?”
She shrugged and pulled the sleeves over her hands. “They know the deal. I’ve already told them I’m out of here in a year or so.”
“You’re only fourteen years old!”
“So?” Her face was clear and cool. “And they’re a million and I can already do a better job than them.”
“Where would you go?”
“Europe. Spain. Basque Country maybe. You should come with me. We’ll take over the world.”
Felice smiled and her gaze rippled over her friend. But suddenly Hannah seemed to harden, as if she were offended, and she said, “There’s no point anyway. All any of us are doing is wasting time until we die.”
“So there’s no point to doing anything?”
She turned her head. “Doesn’t matter if you’re president or a bum. Not in the end. It all goes back to zero.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
Sometimes it was easier to be friends with Hannah when she wasn’t around. There was something perfect about school after final bell—the formal emptiness of the halls. Felice and Hannah had talked about all sorts of plans—how they’d make movies together and see things. But when Felice was alone she could sink into the feeling of the future—the delicious ache of it—just by pointing her thoughts into the distance.
Felice slipped into the music room, evading the custodial staff who sometimes patrolled the school’s east wing. It was silent and the room was full of long shadows. She left the lights off: beyond the windows, she could see rain prickling the cement courtyard. She heard a sound then and, turning, realized that she wasn’t alone in the room.
Two people. They appeared to be crumpled together on the couch. She gradually made out Hannah’s straight, choppy hair, her blouse unbuttoned and pushed down around her middle. Her skin had a bluish-white cast like marble. She’d never seen her friend’s body before. Hannah, for all her ironic, knowing ways, was extremely modest—she refused to disrobe in front of or shower with the other girls after P.E. Hannah’s eyes were lowered, her arms coiled around a man’s bare back—his shirt on the floor, his fly flapping open, though his pants were still pulled up. There was a sound like a sigh and a moan—they hadn’t seen her come in. Felice watched them, frozen. The man released another awful whimper: it was Mr. Rendell. Felice ran out of the room, the double doors crashing shut after her.
She ran down the hall to the girls’ bathroom where she burst into sobs, bent over the sinks. When Hannah came in a few moments later, she could barely look at her in the mirror. She kept seeing the small arc of her friend’s right breast squashed under Mr. Rendell’s chest, the careful, precise expression on Hannah’s face.
“Please don’t report him.” Her voice was trembling; she patted at her shirt, buttoning. “It doesn’t matter at all. It’s nothing.”
“You said you were going home.” This was the least of it, but somehow it was the thing Felice picked to say.
“I know. It’s stupid. He doesn’t even really like me. He just picked me because I’m friends with you.” Hannah’s face looked young and bare and frightened. “But he knew you’d never go with him, of course.”
Felice was shaking all over; she rubbed her arms with her hands; she kept feeling little surges of nausea. “So horrid.”
“I know.” Her voice was high and faint.
Another sort of possibility occurred to Felice then, a chill entering her bloodstream as she whispered, “Did he force you?”
Hannah’s eyes seemed huge in the dim light. “A little, the first time,” she murmured. After a moment, she dropped her eyes and said, “Not really. I kind of was happy about it. I couldn’t believe that he liked me. Even a little.”
“The first time? How often?” she started to ask; she broke off in the middle of often. She wanted to comfort Hannah, to feel sympathy for her.
Hannah started trying to explain to Felice, to give her details, in their old gossipy way. “It was the time you had the dentist, remember? You missed orchestra. Rendell said he wanted to go over a new song with me. Such a skank. He locked the doors that time—but I could tell he liked thinking about getting caught.”
Felice tried to nod and laugh, but then for some reason, Hannah faltered and said, “I’m really sorry.”
FELICE STRIDES AHEAD on the sand and Marren lets her—she knows he won’t let her get too far. At least she doesn’t have to look at hi
m. The moon is burning through the sky and there are gray shadows everywhere. She skirts the Starbucks beach entrance, passes the thick thatches of sea grass—half trampled by tourists, even in low season—and wanders toward the Cove. “Over this way!” she calls, trying to project her voice. She can hear him trudging behind, his breath coming in the asthmatic smoker’s wheeze she knows well—lots of outdoor kids have it. He doesn’t have to be fast, of course, if he has a gun. Felice hopes one of the kids might recognize her voice. Farther back on the sand, away from the water, she senses other forms shifting past them: street kids—staying silent and unseen.
But there’s no sign of Berry or Reynaldo. Of course: they’ll be out clubbing for hours yet. They won’t return till the water starts glimmering. The ocean looks high and white tonight, as if there is a hidden engine churning inside: the waves rumble, a deep drumming, rolling over all other sounds. For years, she’s thought there was a way to stay safe: when bad stuff happened to people, it was because they were crazy or stupid. She’d even thought that about Hannah. As she waits for Marren to close the distance between them, she thinks: There’s no escape for anyone. Felice stops and turns deliberately into the moonlight, tiring of cat-and-mouse play, facing into the glassy darkness between herself and Marren. She feels the ghost of an old age she will never live to see settling over her, oxidation rustling in her bones, catching up with her. Marren moves toward her. The night wobbles over his shoulder, and she sees that she’s walked farther ahead of the man than she’d realized. For a moment, the noise of the surf seems to recede and she can hear his breath, the little huffs, as if he’s already getting winded. “Hey, girlie,” he calls. “Slow it down now.”
Felice can’t see any sign of his friend. She glances ahead, up the beach; the moon lights the sand like a trail of silver minnows. She starts walking again, a bit more quickly, just to see what will happen next.
“Fuck, girlie. Don’t test me now. Trust me on that.” His voice is tense. Felice speeds up, moving faster, feet arched and silent, until she’s running, heading toward the firmer wet sand. She moves well on the beach. Almost flying. Skating. Behind her, Marren yells, “God—fuck. Fuck. Stop. Fucking stop now.” Her lungs broaden in her chest, her wiry arms whip at her sides: perfect, coordinated action. She can see in the dark, she can run like this forever, like the free divers who slice through miles of ocean on a single breath.
There’s a sound: something breaking or snapping—metal on metal. Then the explosion is so loud the night seems to wang inside out like a steel drum. Stunned, Felice trips, pitches face forward, sand grinding into her mouth and eyes, her ears scorched with the aftershock of noise.
FELICE DROPPED OUT of orchestra. She couldn’t bear the sight of Mr. Rendell, his shambling, apologetic manner, his way of glancing at the sixth-grade girls. And Hannah had allowed him—that slack, pale body, arms like rolls of baguette dough—to touch her. The next morning, Hannah came right up to her after homeroom. “Hey, pretty stupid last night, right? Thank God you saved me.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled. Bella caught Felice’s eye as she slipped past them in the hall, her friend alerted to some crucial shift in Felice’s posture. “I’ve gotta—I better go,” Felice said, moving sideways, as if someone were tugging on her arm.
Hannah stared, her lips parted, then tightened, bravely. “We’ll hang out later, right?”
Felice didn’t speak to her again after that day, not once. Her old friends welcomed her back as if she’d been away on an ocean passage. No one mentioned or seemed to resent the way she’d abandoned them for Hannah, no one questioned the way that relationship had abruptly ended. They spoke of Hannah in vaguely sympathetic, sorrowful tones. “It’s so sad, the way she is,” Yeni lamented. “It’s not her fault, really.”
“She’s kind of pitiful,” Marisa said.
“She could actually almost be pretty,” Coco chimed in. “Like, if she straightened her hair and lost six or seven pounds to start.”
“Quit slumping!” Bella proclaimed. “That’s what I always want to say when I see her. And wear some actual colors for once. Enough with the black sweater. But she’s just so scary?” She darted a glance at Felice.
At the lunch table, Felice ducked her head. “Did you know about her and Rendell?” There were gasps. And then a look—such a look—of sumptuous pleasure came over the girls’ faces, like biting into éclairs.
All week, Hannah tried to approach Felice between classes. Felice moved to a desk near the front of the class in French. She felt Madame Cruz’s scrupulous gaze take in the change. Then there was a substitute music teacher—no one knew what had happened to Mr. Rendell. Felice’s friends traded rumors. Bella speculated that Hannah might’ve threatened to report him herself. “That’s pretty brave—I mean, if it’s true,” Coco said.
“But honestly, she should leave you alone now,” Bella said. She sat up straight in her chair. Her features were so delicate they were almost miniature—a small nose, lips like cinnamon candies, and mild blue eyes—so she always looked a little prim. “The way she’s chasing you around—she’s just embarrassing herself.”
Felice was relieved to hear someone say this. Hannah’s longing gaze evoked in her a guilty impatience tipped with anger.
Someone came up with the idea of the letter—Felice could no longer remember who. A couple of the girls dictated, and Marisa transcribed it in a flowing hand on scented stationary. It was filled with observations and recommendations about Hannah’s “attitude” and ways she could improve her hair and clothing. It concluded by saying that they, the undersigned, were warning her to stay away from Felice, that they were tired of Hannah and her “weirdness,” and that if she didn’t respect this warning there would be “consequences.” Seven girls signed the letter. And then, in enormous, bold letters at the bottom, Felice’s name. They slipped it into Hannah’s locker on a Friday. Idana Demetrius, a ninth grader who wasn’t even in their group, ran up to Felice and Bella to say she’d seen Hannah reading the letter in social studies. “Her lips were moving,” Idana reported. “She must’ve read it like thirty-five times.”
Over that weekend, Felice began to feel anxious; her sleep was filled with broken, crackling dreams. She woke early on Saturday, looking around the still-dark room, a profound sense of dread snaking through her, un-wellness like static trapped beneath her skin. At breakfast, the egg her mother had poached—to Felice’s usual specifications—seemed to be staring back at her, a glazed eye. She mashed it with her fork, then scraped it all into the garbage. She helped Stanley clear the table and dried dishes while he washed, which was so unusual he frowned at her. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know—I like to dry. No biggie.” She rubbed the towel over a glass, circling the rim, then holding it in such a way that, light-struck, it seemed to brim with some brilliant ectoplasmic fluid. She let out a little cry and almost dropped the glass.
“What is wrong with you?” He didn’t say it meanly. Her skin felt hot. “I don’t know how to do it right,” she said, rubbing again at the glass.
“It’s fine,” he said. “No big deal.” The window was open: it was a windy day; she stared at that light, bouncing white diamonds of it, and tiny bits of shadow like musical notes, and the fronds like splayed-open green blades. They moved, murmuring and waggling, then suddenly went silent and reserved.
Felice felt a little better on Monday. She’d forgiven herself for signing that stupid letter: someone as tough and smart as Hannah would laugh it off. She was almost glad that she’d signed it. Something had to be done, didn’t it? She couldn’t have Hannah moping behind her forever. Stanley dropped Felice off—he’d recently gotten his license and their mother let them use her car while she was working. As Felice walked up the wide stone apron to the main entrance, she noticed Ms. Muñoz, her guidance counselor, waiting just inside the door. She’d never seen Ms. Muñoz outside of the main office. “Felice,” she said, “can you come to my office, please?”
The air seemed
to evaporate. She stared at her and almost burst into tears, almost cried, I didn’t write the letter! It wasn’t my idea! She scanned the hallway, bustling with students, waiting for Hannah to appear, her look of justified hatred.
In the office, Ms. Muñoz did not get behind her desk but sat beside Felice on the soft cotton love seat. She looked frightened as she touched Felice’s shoulder, saying, “I understand you were good friends with Hannah Joseph?” Felice didn’t make any reply, she simply waited, frozen. So Ms. Muñoz said, “I’m sorry to have to—to be the bearer of such terrible news, but Hannah passed away over the weekend.”
Felice rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand; her throat felt sore. She wasn’t sure of what she’d just heard.
The counselor’s eyes searched the walls of her office; she knotted a tissue in her hand, touched it to her nose. “It’s terrible. Just awful.”
“Hannah?” Felice echoed. She was still thinking about the letter. “What did you say again?”
“She actually . . . I’m so sorry, Felice, but she did it herself. I mean—she took her own life.” The counselor leaned in so close Felice thought she might be about to kiss her: Felice could see tiny inflamed red veins in her eyes. “I’m sure you’ll hear rumors—the way things get around in schools. I’m so terribly sorry, my dear. I understand you were best friends.”
Felice blinked, her eyes felt hard and scratched. Nothing would come into focus. There was a sere gray light around Ms. Muñoz’s face that blended into the walls of the office. “Hannah isn’t in school?”
“Oh, darling. She’s gone. She died, my dear. Saturday morning—that’s when they found her.”
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