The Cheerleaders

by Kara Thomas

“At the time, lying felt like a better option than doing nothing.”

  When I don’t respond, Ethan sighs. “I planned on telling you what really happened at the coffee shop. But when I saw you, I chickened out. I’ve never talked to anyone about Jen before.”

  I think of the note in Jen’s handwriting. I’m not okay. Sadness needles me. I don’t want to go to the place where I imagine what would have happened if Ethan had told someone about that note right away. “Why wouldn’t you talk about her?”

  “Who would believe me? Who would honestly believe that someone like Jen Rayburn and me—” Ethan closes his mouth. Rests a hand on his knee, his leg jiggling again. Jonesing for a cigarette, I realize. Tom did the same thing when he quit ten years ago.

  My throat feels tight. “Someone like Jen and you what?”

  Ethan shrugs. “I don’t know. She was gone before I could find out.”

  All the way on the other side of the lake, I see the outline of a school bus wind around Osprey Road. I check my phone; it’s ten to seven. I need to leave in a few minutes or I’ll be late, but I want to keep sitting here, talking about my sister. I came here to find out why Ethan lied about what he saw that night, and now that I know he didn’t, I’m right back where I started. Sifting through dozens of pieces that might not even belong to the same puzzle—the murders.

  Ethan watches me. “What are you thinking?”

  My thoughts are racing too quickly for me to fashion them into words. Ethan saw Juliana Ruiz arguing with the person who killed her, who may or may not have been the owner of the pickup truck Mr. Brenner saw. A mystery guy whose name never came up in the investigation—most likely because no one ever had a reason to suspect him. He could be anyone.

  “Juliana Ruiz was on your list,” I finally say.

  Pink blooms in Ethan’s cheeks. “Are we back here again? You think I killed them?”

  “No, I don’t, or I wouldn’t be anywhere near you. But it sounds like Juliana was the real target that night, so I’m just trying to understand why someone would want to kill her.”

  “I don’t know,” Ethan says. “She was really popular. Everyone liked her.”

  “Everyone except you.”

  “I didn’t dislike her. I don’t think Juliana ever said one word to me,” Ethan says. “I can’t tell you why I put her on the list. I can’t even tell you why I made that stupid list except for the fact that a bunch of cheerleaders and football players humiliated me one day and I made a mistake.”

  Ethan reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cigarette lighter. He flicks it, but doesn’t motion to dig out a cigarette or whatever he smokes. After a beat, he says, “Juliana seemed cool. It always looked like Jen preferred her to Susan.”

  “Did Jen ever say anything to you about them? Apparently Jen and Susan were fighting and it made things weird with Juliana and Jen.”

  Ethan sticks his lighter back in his pocket. “Jen didn’t say anything specific. Just that she felt like she was losing her friends.”

  “Do you know who Juliana hung out with other than Jen and Susan?”

  “I always saw her with the other cheerleaders. Even the older ones. I had gym at the same time as her, and she was always attached to this weird senior.”

  “Weird how?”

  “I don’t know. She was ditzy but always trying to seem tough. She was new.”

  “Carly Amato,” I say.

  “Yeah. That’s her. You know her?”

  “I talked to her a couple weeks ago,” I say. “She told me she barely knew Juliana.”

  Ethan flicks his lighter again, eyes watching the flame dance in the breeze settling over us. “Well, that’s bullshit. The two of them were always together.”

  I’m speechless. Ethan stares at me. “Does that change things?”

  “It complicates things.” My head is swirling. I want to explain, but I’m really going to be late to school. “I’ve got to go.”

  Ethan nods. He watches me sling my backpack over my shoulder. It looks like he wants to say something else.

  I return his stare. “What?”

  Ethan glances down at his lighter again. His voice sounds far off. “When I called her that morning—I asked if she was okay. She said she was, and I believed her.”

  I pause, the strap of my backpack sliding down my shoulder. Swallow. “You don’t think she did it.”

  Ethan lifts his eyes to meet mine. “Do you?”

  “I go back and forth,” I say. “Sometimes I don’t believe she would ever do that to us. Sometimes I think, maybe, if I had gone through what she did…”

  “You wonder if you’d feel like you had any other choice.”

  I nod. Hearing him say it feels like a gut punch.

  Ethan is still studying me as I hop on my bike. “Do you think it would be easier if you found out she was murdered?” he asks.

  I think for a moment, the balls of my feet grazing the pavement below me.

  “Only if I find who did it,” I say, kicking up the stand on my bike and pedaling into the direction of the high school.

  * * *

  —

  The school day doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes and there aren’t any buses here yet. I lock up my bike on the rack, my nostrils curling at the scent of weed clinging to the air. I can’t imagine the stoners being at school this early, and I wonder if the rumors about Mr. Ward and the other English teachers blazing in the parking lot are true. Before I head inside, I pull up Carly Amato’s Facebook page and send her a new message.

  Ginny is waiting for me at my locker.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “For Saturday.”

  She picks over her words carefully, as if she’s not sure she’s apologizing correctly. I’m pretty confident it’s not something she has to do often.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t listen to you.”

  “Well, I didn’t have to freak out like I did.” Ginny inhales and closes her eyes. Opens them. “My dad left us on October eighteenth. That was a week before the murders.”

  All the blood in my body drains to my toes. When I open my mouth to speak, Ginny holds up a hand. “It’s okay. I know how it looks. The week he left, he beat up my mom, and she finally decided to press charges.”

  My chest constricts. “Ginny, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “I know. So I don’t like talking about him.”

  I want to evaporate on the spot. Anything to get away from the sad look on her face. “I never actually thought—”

  “It’s really okay.” She hikes her bag strap up her shoulder. “Let’s forget about it?”

  I nod. The knot that’s been in my chest since Saturday has loosened a bit. “What do you have this period?”

  “Earth science,” she says. “You?”

  “Chem. I’ll walk with you.”

  We wend our way through the crowds outside the classrooms. When the clusters of people are behind us, I lower my voice so only Ginny can hear. “I have to tell you something.”

  “What is it?”

  I glance down at my phone; Carly’s page is still open. I refresh it, hoping she’ll have responded to my message by the time the page loads.

  “There’s not enough time before the bell,” I say to Ginny. “Can we talk somewhere at lunch?”

  She nods. “Mrs. Goldberg is out today, but I have a key to her room. We can meet there. Monica? Did you hear me?”

  I’m staring at the screen of my phone. The page has reloaded, but Carly Amato’s profile has disappeared and been replaced by an error message.

  “What’s wrong?” Ginny asks.

  I look up at her, feeling a little shell-shocked. “Carly Amato just blocked me.”

  FIVE YEARS AGO

  OCTOBER

  Tom was always saying there were no suc
h things as accidents. He would come home with stories about teenagers driving into signposts because they were texting, elderly people in Buicks putting their cars in drive instead of reverse and hitting every car in the parking lot.

  “It’s not an accident if it could have been avoided.” Tom would share the stories over dinner, while he had a captive audience. He wanted Jen and Monica to know, he said, for when they started driving. He wanted them to understand that even the worst-case scenario could be avoided through skill and by paying attention.

  Ever since Bethany Steiger drove into a tree, killing herself and Colleen, though, Tom hadn’t said much at all.

  No one could explain what had happened. Everyone who had ever been in the car with Bethany had said she was a good driver, and her phone records showed that she hadn’t been texting Friday night.

  That night, after her mother woke her to tell her about the accident, Jen had waited up until Tom came home. He walked past the living room couch where she had curled up, listening to her mother on the phone in the kitchen. He walked right past Jen as if he didn’t even see her.

  She caught pieces of what he told her mother. Worst I’ve ever seen. Couldn’t even tell which girl was which. One of the paramedics puked everywhere. She heard sobbing, but it was Tom.

  That was Friday. It was Sunday evening now, and Jen was staring into her closet. The only black dress she owned was the one she’d worn to her cousin’s wedding over the summer. Could she wear the same dress to both services? Would anyone notice?

  Jen didn’t know what the etiquette was because no one she had ever known had died. She considered it strange that in fifteen years, she hadn’t experienced death. She’d almost started thinking that tragedy couldn’t touch her. And then Bethany and Colleen happened.

  Allie canceled cheer practice for the week and Bethany’s memorial happened first.

  Mr. Steiger was Jewish and Mrs. Steiger was Catholic, and Bethany had been raised with neither religion. Her family had chosen to have a memorial service at the funeral parlor instead of a traditional wake and funeral.

  Since Petey and Monica had both gotten strep throat over the weekend, Mrs. Berry had called Jen’s mother the night before, offering to drive Jen to Bethany’s memorial service.

  Jen couldn’t bear the thought of telling her that she and Susan weren’t speaking to each other, so she’d made an excuse about how she and Juliana had to do a project together; she’d take the bus home from school with Jules and get a ride to the service with Juliana and her neighbor, an older girl on the squad.

  For her part, Jules played along, even though she made it clear how she felt about being in the middle of Susan and Jen’s fight. They barely spoke on the bus ride to Juliana’s house; the shock and horror at Bethany’s and Colleen’s deaths hung over them, but in a way, it felt like they were grieving Susan’s absence too.

  Now Jen sat on the edge of Juliana’s bed, tugging on a pair of stockings her mother had bought at the drugstore that morning. Jules was cross-legged on the center of her bed, jewelry box in her lap, picking through its contents. Her big brown eyes were tinged with red. She had been crying a lot the last few days—much more than the other cheerleaders, even though Susan and Jen were closer to Colleen and Bethany than Jules was.

  Juliana held up a pair of gold stud earrings in the shape of bows. “Is it inappropriate to wear jewelry to a wake?”

  “No,” Jen said. “It’s not a wake anyway.”

  “I’ve never been to one of these things.” Jules put the earrings back and looked at Jen. “I need you to do something for me tonight.”

  Something slithered in Jen’s stomach. “What?”

  “Will you talk to Suz? For me?”

  Jen picked a pill of fuzz off her stockings. “I don’t think tonight is the appropriate time.”

  “Why? All of this just proves life is short,” Juliana said. “What if something happened to her while you guys are fighting? How would you feel?”

  Juliana stopped pawing through her jewelry box, settling on a golden cross. She draped the chain around her neck. Fumbled a bit with the clasp before lifting her eyes to meet Jen’s. “Help?”

  Jen crawled over and fastened the chain behind Juliana’s neck.

  “You know it’s all bullshit, right? The stuff about me and Ethan?”

  Jules’s shoulders tensed at his name. She was silent a few moments. Just as Jen was about to explode, Juliana spoke. “I know you’d never want to hurt any of us.”

  Jen’s heart dropped. It wasn’t good enough. “The other stuff, though. About me and him—it’s not true.”

  Juliana shifted so she was facing Jen. “I know. But, like, you have to see it from Suz’s point of view. Being on someone’s hit list is pretty freaking scary, Jen.”

  “I know,” Jen said, but of course she didn’t. How would she? She wasn’t on it. “It was still shitty she didn’t ask me about what she saw at his locker before she went to Heinz.”

  Juliana’s eyes moved to the cross at her throat. She fingered the chain. “What did you put in Ethan’s locker?”

  “Nothing.” Jen flushed. “It was nothing. The issue is that she assumed the worst without even asking me.”

  “Maybe she felt like she couldn’t ask you.”

  “Did she say that?”

  Juliana wasn’t looking at Jen. “I noticed it too. You’re just not the same.”

  “The same as what?”

  “I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “Can you just try?” Jen asked.

  “The old you would have told me the truth when I asked what you put in Ethan McCready’s locker.”

  A knock at the door; Mrs. Ruiz popped her head in and asked if they were ready to go.

  * * *

  —

  Jen didn’t have to seek out Susan at the memorial service. Before it started, while Jen was waiting in her chair, Susan sat down next to her. Across the room, where Jules was speaking with Bethany’s parents, Jen caught her sneaking a glance at them. She wondered if Juliana had spoken to Susan too.

  “I don’t like this,” Susan said to Jen.

  “Me neither.”

  Jen heard Susan suck in a breath. Then, gently, she rested her head on Jen’s shoulder. Susan was rarely affectionate.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Me too.” A messy, mascara-stained tear dripped from Jen’s face, onto the front of Susan’s dress, but she didn’t say anything, or seem to mind at all.

  * * *

  —

  A week had passed since Colleen and Bethany’s car accident, and Jen was noticing a shift in the atmosphere at school. Almost like the sky lightening after a storm. With each day since they started again, cheer practice became less serious. The girls began to laugh again, in fits and starts.

  Allie had finally rearranged the pyramid to account for the void left by Bethany and Colleen.

  It shouldn’t be this easy, Jen thought. Grief isn’t supposed to be easy.

  She knew it was different for Mrs. Coughlin, who was rumored to have taken the rest of the year off, and for Mr. and Mrs. Steiger, who were talking about selling their house and leaving Sunnybrook. Jen couldn’t fathom how the holes in their lives could be repaired by shifting, rearranging.

  Even her best friends seemed to have moved on from the accident. Susan was back to chewing the erasers off all her pencils in anticipation of getting her PSAT scores.

  Thursday was the last practice before the game. Friday night was dedicated to the pageantry of the coming weekend—the float building, the announcement of the homecoming court.

  When Allie released them for the afternoon, Jen plopped onto the bleachers with Juliana and Susan. The rrrip of Velcro as Susan removed her knee wrap. Jen kneaded her own neck, sore from the swift kick one of the fliers had landed in a botched ba
sket toss.

  “So,” Juliana said. “There’s a party Saturday night at Osprey’s Bluff.”

  Jen’s stomach tightened. After homecoming last year, they’d gone to Levi Heckman’s house. Levi was number one in their class, and they’d been friends with him since elementary school. His parents didn’t care about drinking as long as everyone stayed outside. Jen, Susan, and Juliana had gotten tipsy on wine coolers and fed Cheetos to the horses in the stables.

  “I thought we were going to Levi’s again,” Jen said.

  “Everyone is going to be at the bluff,” Juliana said.

  Everyone you feel is important, Jen felt like muttering.

  Susan pumped the water bottle in her hand. “Who’s going to drive us to the bluff?”

  Susan, always concerned with the mechanics of things.

  Juliana shrugged. “Carly said we could ride with one of her friends.”

  “I’m not getting into a car with some senior I don’t know,” Jen said. “People get busted at the bluff all the time. My stepdad is a freaking cop.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Juliana said. “Why do you have a problem with everything lately?”

  Jen’s throat sealed up. Susan’s eyes were on her sneaker, retying her laces, even though they’d been done tightly a minute ago.

  Juliana stood, the bleacher groaning beneath them. “I have to pee.”

  When she was gone, Susan leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “I don’t get what’s happening.”

  “She’s changed.” Jen fought off the sting of tears.

  “Don’t you see?” Susan said. “We’re all changing.”

  Jen’s lips parted, but the sound of something slamming against a locker made her clamp her mouth shut. Next to Jen, Susan jumped like a skittish cat. There was the sickening crack of a slap, followed by a yelp: “Bitch, get off of me!”

  Some girl was getting her ass kicked.

  Jen hopped over the bench and ran toward the shouting, never looking over her shoulder to see if Susan was following. She skidded to a stop by the lockers outside the athletic office.