by Kara Thomas
She swallowed and composed a private message to him.
The ticking in the clock overhead fell into step with the pulsing behind her eyes. A migraine coming on. She got them when she was stressed. When a (1) popped up over her inbox, the pounding ceased for a moment. Ethan had replied.
Her heart was speeding; she wanted to ask him if he was okay, how much trouble he was in…
An angry voice popped up in her head. Why would you do that? Why would you ask HIM if he’s okay after what he did?
Blood flowing to her face, she typed back:
It took Ethan a few minutes to come up with his response.
Jen drew her feet up on the chair, knees to her chest. She stared at her phone, at a loss for how to respond.
When she didn’t write back, Ethan sent another message.
Jen swallowed. Wrote back:
The backs of her eyes pricked. She imagined the look that would be on Juliana’s and Susan’s faces—on all of the cheerleaders’ faces—if they saw this conversation. If they saw her talking to Ethan McCready like he was a friend.
Another message from Ethan came through:
Jen’s veins turned to ice as she thought of how twitchy Mr. Demarco and Principal Heinz had been. And then that sad look in Tom’s eyes, like he wasn’t sure whether to believe her when she told him she wasn’t involved.
Ethan leaving Jen off the list had a simple explanation: He liked her. He always had, she suspected, and the thought must have occurred to everyone. There had to be something else, some reason for them to suspect—
Jen’s hand flew to her mouth. The note. She’d slipped the note into Ethan’s locker on Friday morning…Ethan was expelled for the hit list this morning…
Someone saw her. They saw her slip the note in Ethan’s locker—probably the same person who saw him scribbling a list of cheerleaders’ names after the scene in the cafeteria.
Jen jumped to her feet. She had to go back to Principal Heinz’s office, to tell him that they had it all wrong, that she hadn’t done whatever they suspected. Adding names to Ethan’s list, maybe? Fantasizing about revenge on her fellow cheerleaders for some unknown misdeed?
She waded through the chairs crowded into Mr. Garner’s room, knocking some over on her way into the hall. Immediately, a security guard appeared in front of her.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Jen’s body shut down. She couldn’t form the words: Principal Heinz. I have to talk to Heinz right now.
The sound of a metal door slamming at the end of the hall drew Jen’s attention. She turned. Locked eyes with Susan, who was putting her flute into her locker.
Jen’s insides went cold. How could she have forgotten that Susan had confronted her the other day, when they were shopping for dresses? She’d seen Jen put the note in Ethan’s locker. Did she seriously think it had something to do with Ethan’s list?
Susan looked away from Jen and hurried off toward the band room.
* * *
—
Friday was class Spirit Night, but Jen had very little spirit to contribute. She hadn’t spoken to Susan all week, even though no one could confirm that Susan was the one who told Principal Heinz about the hit list, about how Jen had slipped a piece of paper into Ethan McCready’s locker.
The cheer squad bake sale table was smothered in brownies, bags of caramel popcorn, marshmallow fudge. All things the cheerleaders would never eat in front of Allie, who seemed to subsist on almonds and kale juice and five-dollar bottles of water from Whole Foods.
The irony of being assigned the bake sale table hadn’t escaped the cheer girls. Jen watched Colleen Coughlin consider a rejected cupcake, its top caved in. Jen herself was nauseous from stolen licks of brownie batter.
The buzzer went off inside the gym, to a chorus of cheers and boos. The cheerleaders were taking turns manning the bake sale table. Jen’s event, the relay race, was later. Inside the gym, whoever was emceeing announced that it was almost time for the male kickline performances.
Male kickline was always the highlight of class Spirit Night. Every year, a few girls from each class would choreograph routines for the guys in their grade to perform. Last year, the appointed freshman male kickline captain, Cassidy Burns, had chosen “Like a Virgin”; the boys had squeezed themselves into jean shorts and lacy fingerless gloves, and some had even drawn birthmarks on their cheeks with eyeliner. Principal Heinz’s eyes almost popped out when they started rolling around on the floor, gyrating. Mrs. Coughlin wanted to cut them off mid-song. In the end, the guys were disqualified for being inappropriate and Cassidy was banned from choreographing any future class Spirit Night dances.
There was no question this year that the job would go to Juliana. She didn’t even have to lobby for it; she raised her hand at the student council meeting and Mrs. Coughlin said the job was hers. Juliana Ruiz was a responsible, respectful girl. There would be no gyrating on Juliana’s watch.
Jules had been bubbling over with excitement all week about class Spirit Night—every night the male kickline group met in her basement to practice their routine to “Barbie Girl.” Jen had gone over to watch their final rehearsal, and she had to admit, the sophomores would be hard to beat.
Ethan McCready and his hit list were the furthest things from anyone’s minds. Actual death was the only thing that could cast a cloud over class Spirit Night. Earlier in the week, Mrs. Coughlin wanted to cancel it, terrified that Ethan would show up and massacre everyone. She was always like that, working herself into a lather over something.
In the end, the administration had compromised on a police officer stationed outside the building. Mike Mejia was currently in the parking lot, having just bought a hunk of candy-corn fudge from the bake sale.
Bethany fanned herself with the paper listing the prices for the treats on the table. The gym was stifling, all those sweaty teenaged bodies bouncing off each other. The heat was making its way to where Jen and the other girls were sitting, just outside the gym.
Bethany swiveled in her chair and poked her head through the gym doors. “Where are those little bitches? I’m not missing the kickline.”
Jen rolled her eyes. The freshman girls on the team had drawn the short straw, stuck manning the bake sale table while the upperclassmen watched the guys dance. “Do you have to call them that?”
Bethany snorted. “You want to sit here instead?”
“They’ll come.” Jen looked away, feeling Bethany’s eyes on her still. “What?”
“What’s going on with you and Susan?” she asked. Colleen set down the cupcake she’d been fondling, suddenly interested.
“Nothing,” Jen said.
“You guys haven’t talked all week,” Colleen said.
“It’s our business, okay?”
Bethany leveled with Jen. “You know she’s just jealous of you, right?”
Bethany used shit talking as a form of currency; Jen knew Bethany only wanted her to say something nasty about Susan so she could trade it for something later. You’ll never guess what Jen said at Spirit Night. Bethany even talked about Colleen, her best friend, constantly, telling everyone what a slut she was.
“Why would Suz be jealous of me?” Jen said. “She’s pretty and she’s smarter than I am.”
“Because she has to work at it,” Bethany said. “Does she even sleep?”
A girl bounded through the gym doors and plopped down at the table. Jen jolted, terrified it was Susan and that she’d heard everything. But it was just one of the freshmen; two more followed, ready to relieve Jen, Bethany, and Colleen of their shift at the table.
Jen scanned the bleachers, looking for someone to sit with. Susan was sitting in the sophomores section with the girls she played tennis with. She was looking around the gym, wearing neon pink—the sophomore class color for this year—looking a lit
tle twitchy. When her gaze landed on Jen, her lips pinched together and she looked to the girl next to her, suddenly very interested in their conversation.
Hit her. Jen cracked her knuckles, a little disturbed by the thought that had streaked through her head. She’d never hit anyone in her life, not even her little sister, who definitely deserved it. But the sight of Susan sitting there, acting like Jen had done something wrong—it was too much.
Jen stalked up the bleachers to where her other friends were sitting—a group of girls she’d also grown up with. Most were in her honors classes; the others had either gone to Jessie’s Gym with her as kids or had been on her peewee soccer team.
She didn’t even realize that she didn’t see Juliana anywhere until the buzzer sounded and Mr. Heinz announced the freshman male kickline team. The crowd went nuts; Jen had to stand up with them to see the center of the gym, where the freshman boys were cartwheeling out.
When their routine was over, and Mr. Heinz shouted, “Let’s make some noise for the sophomores,” Jen scanned the gym for Juliana, finally finding her on the sidelines, cheering the sophomore guys on as they ran out to the center of the floor.
The guys all froze into different poses. “Barbie Girl” started blasting, and for those three minutes, Jen forgot Susan, forgot Ethan McCready, forgot how much everything sucked. Juliana had outdone herself. The guys were actually kind of good, and their strutting and preening had the crowd whooping and laughing.
Next to her, Christine Verni was giggling so uncontrollably she had to grab Jen’s arm for support. Jen smiled, the first real one she’d had in ages, and cheered along, cupping her hands around her mouth and hollering out to her guy friends who were dancing.
And then it was over. Jen couldn’t wait to pounce on Jules, to tell her what a fucking fantastic job she’d done. Jen got up from the bleachers and ran down to the floor. She scanned the crowd around her for Juliana’s hot-pink T-shirt, but there was only a sea of red-clad junior girls.
When she was positive Juliana wasn’t among them, Jen looked at the side door. It was swinging shut; Mr. Heinz and Mrs. Coughlin didn’t seem to notice, distracted by the scene the junior kickline was now making in the center of the gym. The guys were dressed as firefighters, suspenders stretched over their bare chests, and Mrs. Coughlin’s face was the same shade as their plastic costume hats.
“We specifically told you everyone had to be clothed,” she was shouting at them as Jen snuck by, hurrying out the side door before anyone could notice and try to stop her.
The rear parking lot was full of cars, and empty except for two girls hanging out by the soccer field, their backs to the fence as if they didn’t want to be seen.
Even though she was hundreds of feet away and it was dark, Jen could see the neon pink of Juliana’s T-shirt. A sharp, high-pitched laugh told Jen who Jules’s companion was, even though she already knew.
Carly and Juliana didn’t notice Jen at the curb; a couple of other kids were there also, waiting around for rides home. Kids with strict ten p.m. curfews. Jen kept her eye on Juliana and Carly and ducked behind an SUV about ten feet away from the fence.
“Your mom won’t notice some are missing?” Juliana asked.
“No. Her doctor gives her, like, sixty a month,” Carly said.
Juliana fell quiet for a moment. “Should I mix this with alcohol?”
“It’s fine,” Carly said. “I do it all the time, and that’s like the weakest dose.”
Jen was still processing what Carly had said when a black pickup truck pulled up to where the girls were standing. Jen craned her neck around the side of the SUV, but the tinted windows of the truck blocked Jen from getting a look at the driver.
“Took you long enough,” a male voice from inside the truck said.
“Sorry. Precious Jules had to watch her boy ballerinas perform.”
“Male kickline,” Juliana corrected her. The driver roared with laughter; Carly joined in, and Juliana started to say something, but the door to the pickup truck slammed, cutting her off.
Pills. Jen took her hand off the SUV, worried she’d leave a streak of sweat on it. Pills: She knew it. Carly Amato was a druggie.
She wanted to shout out to Juliana, let her know she was watching. Maybe then Jules wouldn’t get into that truck with God knows who, doing God knows what kind of pills. But her throat had locked up, and all she could do was watch her best friend she had left get into a truck so big it seemed to swallow her whole.
Sunday morning, I head downstairs and through the garage. My old neighborhood is about five miles away, and the idea of being alone with my thoughts for however long it takes me to bike there is unbearable. I stick my earbuds in and pull up the last playlist I made and shuffle the songs.
The opening bars of the song about a blue-eyed boy and a brown-eyed girl. I’d made this playlist the night Brandon dropped me off. I yank the earbuds out, suddenly okay with silence. Toss my phone into the basket of my bike and hop on.
There’s a chill in the air today, and the sky is pearly gray with low-hanging clouds.
I need to find out what happened to Ethan McCready after he got expelled. He knows where we live, and I want to even the score.
I pedal through town and back down familiar roads, until my old house comes up on the right, and my breath catches in my chest. The new owners have decorated the lawn with fake tombstones etched with names like BARRY’D ALIVE.
A grim reaper dangles from the porch overhang, its cloak rippling in the breeze. I think about knocking on the door. Anything for a glimpse inside.
Norwood Drive was known as the street of horrors after Juliana and Susan were killed here. But I couldn’t see it that way—I wasn’t home the night of the murders. I insisted on sleeping at Rachel’s, away from Jen’s strep throat. Even after my sister died, Norwood Drive didn’t scare me.
Aside from the Cannings, who kept to themselves, we knew everyone on this street. Norwood Drive was its own little municipality; everyone had a role. Mr. Brenner, a widower who was about a thousand years old, walked the neighborhood every day, stooped over, arms held behind his back. If he stopped you to talk, you’d have to forget about your plans for the next hour. Mrs. Shaw, the neighborhood watch, who would pick up the phone to tell you that your garbage can had blown over from the wind—she saw it from the front window.
Susan lived three houses down from us, which meant we had little interaction with the Cannings. Their house was on the dead end. Jack Canning’s mother had a stroke after her son was labeled a murderer, and went into a nursing home; the house foreclosed. A Bank Owned sign is still on the front lawn. Last year, Mr. Brenner died.
New families moved into the Brenners’ and the Berrys’ and our house. The only people left who might have known Ethan McCready are the Shaws, who were friendly with my family. If I show up at their doorstep, they’ll make a phone call to my mom as soon as I leave. That can’t happen. Tom can’t know I came here to ask questions about Ethan McCready.
I climb back on my bike and make a right at the corner, heading for the next block over. A narrow wood clearing separates Spruce Street from Norwood Drive. My mother never let me play near the stream when I was younger. Before all the terrible things that happened on this block, the thing that scared her the most was one of us drowning in six inches of water.
At the moment, Spruce Street is livelier than Norwood Drive. Two kids about Petey’s age are kicking a soccer ball around on the front yard of a two-story house. Across the street, a woman is raking leaves. She looks up, pauses when she sees me.
I glide to a stop at the foot of her driveway. Her house is familiar; I have a flash of trick-or-treating for the last time, in seventh grade. I got a pack of organic fruit gummies from this house. When I got home and showed my mother, she rolled her eyes, the same way she used to whenever I reminded her Rachel’s mother didn’t let her dri
nk soda.
“Excuse me,” I say to the woman. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
She leans against the handle of her rake. “I’ve already heard about the good word of the Lord.”
It takes me a beat to realize that she’s joking. I return her smile. “I used to live around here.”
The woman gives me a once-over, the skin on her forehead crinkling. “Thought you looked familiar.”
I nod at the trash bag at her feet. “Do you want help?”
She doesn’t answer. Just picks it up and hands me the trash bag. “Hold that open for a sec.”
“Did you live in that house on Norwood that sold this summer?” She dumps an armful of leaves into the bag, keeping an eye on me.
“Yeah.”
She pauses, her businesslike expression softening a bit. She must know who I am, what happened in my house, but she doesn’t bring it up and I’m thankful for it. “Where did your family move?”
“Waverly Estates,” I say. And I hate it. The thought is automatic. I would rather still live here, because it’s where we’re supposed to be.
“So what brings you back?”
“I’m trying to find someone who used to live around here,” I say.
The woman frowns. “Who? Not many people move away from this street.”
“His name is Ethan McCready.”
The woman pauses, hovering over the pile of leaves she’d been reaching for. “Why on earth is a girl like you looking for Ethan McCready?”
“I think he knew my sister,” I say. “I wanted to ask him something.”
“He lived over there.” The woman points past the house where the kids are playing soccer, at the ranch-style at the dead end. “His mother was such a doll. It’s terrible how quickly the disease took her.”
“That’s awful,” I say. “I heard he didn’t have a father either.”