My Best Friend's Exorcism

by Grady Hendrix

  “It was Wallace Stoney, wasn’t it?” Abby asked. “We have to tell or he’ll do it to someone else.”

  Instead of answering, Gretchen opened her bookbag and took out a folded yellow hand towel from her mom’s bathroom and a big tub of Ponds cold cream and set them on the edge of the sink.

  “I’m the owner,” she said, “and you’re the slave. And the slave doesn’t get to wear makeup.”

  Since seventh grade, only Gretchen had ever seen Abby without her face on, and she knew not to talk about it at school. No one talked about Abby’s makeup.

  “I’m not playing around,” Gretchen said.

  She unscrewed the lid of the jar.

  “Take it off.”

  Abby’s spine went weak. Her head was spinning from the perfume. Maybe if she played along for a bit, Gretchen would stop. Like, Abby would be about to put the cold cream on her face and then Gretchen would grab her hand and laugh and say “Just kidding!” and they’d be friends again.

  “If you don’t take off your makeup,” Gretchen said, “I’ll do it for you.”

  “We have to tell your parents about Wallace,” Abby managed to say. “He attacked me, too.”

  Gretchen held out the jar of Ponds, gleaming soft and white in the fluorescents like a big tub of Crisco. Abby walked to the mirror on straw legs and looked at her reflection. Under the ugly bathroom lights her skin looked like poached shrimp, all pink and shiny. At some point in the next few seconds, Gretchen was going to see how ugly she was being.

  “Do you really want this?” Abby asked, scooping up cold cream with two fingers.

  “Duh,” Gretchen said.

  But Abby was physically incapable of bringing her fingers any closer to her face. Her hand was shaking. Gretchen rolled her eyes. The whites were inflamed with burst blood vessels.

  “I’ll do it for you,” she said.

  “Please,” Abby said, her eyes suddenly aching, her throat closing tight. “It’s my makeup, Gretchen.”

  Gretchen grabbed Abby's hand and smeared the cold cream onto Abby’s face. The white goo mushed into her eye, then left a smear across the bridge of her nose. It was cold and greasy on her eyeball.

  Abby lost it. She shoved herself away from the sink, knocked into Gretchen (who weighed next to nothing), and sent her reeling backward into the hand dryer. Abby scrabbled at her face and flung the gob of cold cream on the floor with a splat, then shoved her way out of the bathroom. Holding one hand over her right eye, not knowing how bad the damage was, she ran without looking until she got to the bathroom in the back hall behind the library, where the faculty offices were, and locked the door.

  She didn’t want to look in the mirror, but she finally forced herself to. She saw that her eye was bloodshot, but otherwise not too bad. She touched up her makeup, then made it to first period just before the second bell. All day she simmered; then after school she waited outside where parents picked up the middle schoolers until she saw Gretchen shuffling out, hugging her books to her chest. Abby went right for her, shoving her backward, not caring who saw.

  “Stay the fuck away from me,” Abby snarled, dimly aware of students stopping to watch. “I am your only friend. I am the one person who cared what happened to you. I am the one person who still talks to you, and you just lost me. You know exactly what you did and you know exactly why it matters, so get this through your rich-bitch skull: We are not friends. Not now. Not ever.”

  Gretchen didn’t move. She just stood there, taking it.

  “You don’t need a ride to school? I’m too dirty for your parents? You want to treat me like dog crap? Then fuck you.”

  At TCBY, Abby shoved her arms into the ice machine until they went numb. She couldn’t even feel it when she stuck the pin from her nametag through her skin. She wanted to be cold forever. She wanted to be made of ice. She went home and drank water, then turned on The Equalizer. At 11:06, her phone rang.

  “Hi, I’m Mickey!” it shouted. “Hi, I’m Mickey!”

  Abby snatched it off the hook.

  “Hello?” she said.

  A long moment of silence whistled down the wire.

  “Please,” Gretchen said, “don’t hate me.”

  Out of habit, Abby almost said she didn’t hate Gretchen, but she took a minute and remembered everything and put it all into her voice when she said, “Go away.”

  “Don’t be mad at me, Abby. Please,” Gretchen said.

  All you really need to know is that I’m going to crack you wide open, Robert McCall said on the TV.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Abby said.

  “I don’t understand,” Gretchen said, totally bereft. “What did I do?”

  That’s when Abby knew: Gretchen was crazy. She had gone crazy and she was pulling Abby down with her. The longer they talked, the worse it would get.

  “If I have to explain it to you, then we were never friends,” Abby said.

  “Don’t leave me alone,” Gretchen begged. “I can’t do this on my own. I can’t fight it by myself. I’m sorry for what I did, but he makes me. He’s always whispering in my ear, telling me what to do, making me hurt people. He wants me to be all alone, with no one left but him. I’m sorry, Abby. I’m so, so, so sorry.”

  The whining, wheedling edge in Gretchen’s cracked voice made Abby feel nothing but contempt.

  “Goodbye, Gretchen,” she said.

  “But we’re friends,” Gretchen cried in a tiny voice inside the receiver, and a fist gripped Abby’s heart and squeezed. “You’re my best friend.”

  Abby was far away from her body, and all she had to do was stay out of the way as her hand floated to Mickey’s arm and hung up the phone.

  “It’s over,” her mouth said to no one in particular.

  The phone rang again, but Abby picked up the receiver and dropped it. She didn’t want to talk to Gretchen. Right now, she wanted to show Gretchen how much this pain hurt. Abby wanted her to feel what she felt. She wanted her to know this wasn’t a game.

  Friday was Spirit Day, and God’s fist, made of angry black clouds, slammed down on Charleston with a vengeance. The wind kicked over garbage cans and sent trash skittering down the streets, whipping fine sand through the parking lot, lashing its grains against exposed ankles. By first period, everyone’s hair was ruined—the girl’s bathroom reeked of hairspray, the sinks were spattered with gobs of mousse. The breezeways became wind tunnels that blew up skirts and blasted faces red.

  By the end of second period it was pitch dark outside the windows. Packs of football players gathered in the halls, muttering blackly about how their game had better not be canceled or there would be hell to pay. Something oppressive coiled around the school and squeezed. Five of the football players face-planted Dereck White into a garbage can. Someone shook up a Coke can and tossed it inside Carson Moore’s locker.

  The rain smashed down during Spanish 2. One second Mr. Romasanta was conjugating asesinar, the next second his voice was drowned out by a wave of static as the full fury of the sky was unleashed. Cold water misted through the windows, followed by a scramble as the suck-up students raced to close them and turn on the air-conditioners.

  That night, Abby didn’t eat anything except a bag of microwave popcorn in her room while she watched Dallas, Miami Vice, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous—anything that turned off her brain. The rain kept up all day Saturday, turning streets into rivers and yards into lakes.

  Abby’s dad ran out to his shed early and stayed there all day. Abby hid in her room and distracted herself by cleaning out her closet. Normally the rain made her feel snug and cozy, but today it only made her feel cold.

  She found her old Dukes of Hazzard lunch box where she kept all her pictures, and she sat on the bed with her stuffed animals and went through them, dealing out a deck of cards from her past: she and Gretchen dressed for the punk rock par
ty at Lanie Ott’s house when they were all still friends; Gretchen in fifth grade showing off her moonwalk in the driveway. Gretchen asleep, covers pulled up to her chin, photographic evidence taken by Abby that she smiled when she slept (Gretchen still wasn’t convinced).

  So many pictures right before a moment or after a moment; pictures of each other when they weren’t ready for the picture yet, or when one of them had her hat on when she meant to take it off or her sunglasses off when she meant to put them on. Abby talking, mouth in weird half-open shapes, Gretchen gesturing at unseen things Abby couldn’t even remember anymore. Abby laughing. Lots and lots of pictures of Abby laughing.

  The summer after sixth grade it had rained like this. Abby and Gretchen had put cots on the screened porch of the Langs’ beach house on the Isle of Palms and slept outside every night, listening to the rain whisper as they fell asleep. For a week in August, Mr. Lang took off from work and stayed at the beach house, too. He spent the mornings on the phone, but at night they played Uno and Monopoly. During a lull in the rain, he took them shrimping to show them how to use a cast net, but it turned out he didn’t have a clue. A black lady fishing on the beach had shown them how to hold it in their teeth, sucking in salt water, biting the lead weights along the edge, then twisting their upper bodies and hurling the net like a carpet. They caught exactly one shrimp. It was delicious.

  At night they lay in the dark, listening to 95SX play “Russians” by Sting and “Take Me Home” by Phil Collins over and over again, and they talked about how they’d move in together after high school, and they’d each get a cat and they’d name them Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke, and even if they had boyfriends, they wouldn’t let boys get in the way of their friendship.

  Now the rain came crashing down, and there was no one calling Abby and no one she wanted to call. She was completely alone, and she couldn’t imagine a future where it wasn’t raining.

  She woke up Monday morning and decided she had to fix things. She took a hot shower and put on her face, then steered through the darkness, tires barely clinging to the old bridge, wind shoving the Dust Bunny from lane to lane; she vowed the whole way that by the time the day ended, she and Gretchen would be friends again.

  Abby waited outside Mrs. Erskine’s English room for Gretchen to show up. As the last echo of the second bell died, the stairwell door swung open and Gretchen entered the hall. Abby had her statement all planned out, and then she saw Gretchen and couldn’t say a word.

  Gretchen had cut her hair. The long blond frizz was gone, replaced by a tight halo of curls that hugged her scalp, showing off her neck, suddenly giving her cheekbones. There was a lump in Abby’s throat—she would never make such a huge move without consulting Gretchen first, and Gretchen had gone and done it without talking to Abby at all. Even worse, it looked great.

  Gretchen’s skin wasn’t perfect, but it was clearing up and makeup concealed the rest of the damage. Her eyes were bright. She was wearing black stirrup pants and black Capezios and a leopard print sweater with a black turtleneck underneath. Her posture was perfect, spine straight, shoulders back, and she’d done her nails with French tips. Most of all, she glowed. She was beaming. She was healthy. She was beautiful.

  “What?” Gretchen asked, hand on the classroom door, noticing Abby for the first time. Her voice wasn’t hoarse; it was thick and southern and sounded like normal.

  “Are you all right?” Abby asked.

  Gretchen wrinkled her brow.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked.

  “All that stuff,” Abby said. “Last week? Everything that was going on?”

  Gretchen raised an eyebrow and gave a half smile.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I’m fine. But maybe something’s wrong with you?”

  New Sensation

  “No way is that dillweed sitting here,” Margaret said.

  It took Abby a second to realize that she was the dillweed in question.

  Abby wanted to say “Up yours” or “I didn’t want to sit with you anyways,” but to her profound disappointment she found herself looking down at the grass, embarrassed, desperate to be allowed to sit at the picnic table.

  The tropical storm had missed Charleston and veered out into the Atlantic, and Monday was humid and clear. It had rained the night before and the grass was still spongy. Margaret and Glee had commandeered the picnic table in the middle of the Lawn and there was plenty of room, but apparently it was for non-dillweeds only.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” Gretchen said. “I don’t know why she’s following me around.”

  “Whatever,” Margaret said. “But I don’t want that thing speaking.”

  Abby watched in shock as Gretchen sat down with Margaret and Glee and the three of them started talking as if she didn’t exist. Too humiliated to leave, too uncomfortable to stay, desperately wishing she could make up her mind, Abby started to sit, then stopped. She looked at everyone walking across the Lawn, throwing Frisbees, running and sliding over the rain-slicked grass in their dress shoes, and then she looked back at the picnic table and finally decided to perch at the far end. So it was like she was sitting with them, but not close enough to make anyone angry. Was that okay for dillweeds?

  “I need a faculty advisor for the Environmental Awareness Club,” Gretchen said.

  “Ask Father Morgan,” Margaret said, then she lowered the green apple she’d been toying with for the past few minutes and looked at Glee. “Glee would have to join.”

  “Stop it,” Glee said, blushing.

  “Father Organ,” Gretchen said, and she and Margaret collapsed onto each other’s shoulders, laughing.

  “Father Morgasm,” Margaret said, and they laughed even harder.

  “Father More-Than,” Abby said.

  They both stopped laughing and stared at her.

  “What?” Gretchen asked.

  In fifth grade, Elizabeth Root had peed her pants during the Founders Day concert. The theme was “The Roaring Twenties” and the elementary school chorus was right in the middle of a chanted song about Al Jolson and the stock market when Elizabeth just couldn’t hold it anymore and the front of her gray skirt blossomed black. She tried to run offstage but the stage-left exit was blocked by the entrance of a giant papier-mâché Tin Lizzie. The stage-right exit was blocked by the boys’ choir.

  Mrs. Gay tried to cover by playing her upright piano louder. The more obedient chorus members sang along, and for sixty seconds the assembled parents watched as a little girl, blinded by tears, stumbled around in circles, trailing urine across the stage as an enormous Model T Ford rolled toward her.

  Everyone talked about it for weeks afterward. People made “Pssss . . .” sounds whenever Elizabeth Root walked by in the halls. At lunch she was demoted to sitting with two very kind but deeply unpopular girls. The lower school headmaster finally sent home a note telling parents how to discuss Elizabeth’s pants-peeing with their children. Two years later, when Elizabeth transferred to Bishop England, everyone knew it was because of that time she’d peed her pants.

  On the other hand, there was Dr. Gillespie, a marriage counselor for half the divorced couples in Charleston. Last year he was found tied to one of his office chairs, dressed in women’s clothing, beaten to death with a Pre-Columbian statue from his collection. Not a single story about it appeared in the newspaper. When people mentioned it at fundraiser receptions, they referred to it as a “terrible accident,” and twelve months later you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would admit to remembering Dr. Gillsepie, let alone being one of his patients.

  Turning eighteen doesn’t determine when you become an adult in Charleston; neither does registering to vote, graduating from high school, or getting your driver’s license. In Charleston, the day you become an adult is the day you learn to ignore your neighbor’s drunk driving and focus instead on whether he submitted
a paint-color change proposal to the Board of Architectural Review. The day you become an adult is the day you learn that in Charleston, the worse something is, the less attention it receives.

  At Albemarle, everyone was suddenly being very adult about Gretchen.

  For almost a month, Gretchen had been shunned. Now she wasn’t getting demerits, she was getting attention. People wanted to be near her, to sit where she sat, to talk to her before class, to get her opinion, to receive her attention. For three weeks, Gretchen had been an unmentionable. In three days, she’d soared to number one.

  It scared Abby how quickly everything changed.

  The weather got hot. The sky was a cloudless silver dome.

  Gretchen opened her thermos and poured a cup of thick white milkshake.

  “What is that nastiness?” Margaret asked.

  “This?” Gretchen asked. “I don’t think you’d like it.”

  “How the fuck would you know?” Margaret asked.

  Gretchen reached into her backpack and pulled out an unmarked white plastic canister with a black lid and handed it to Margaret.

  “My mom got it from Germany,” she said. “It’s a diet supplement. One shake a day meets all your nutritional needs. It’s got, like, eight hundred calories in it or something. I think it’s full of speed. Anyhoo, the FDA totally won’t approve it, but I stole one from her.”

  She pulled the canister out of Margaret’s hand, who held onto it for a few seconds longer, then watched with deep longing as it went back into Gretchen’s bookbag.

  “Let me smell it,” she said.

  Gretchen handed her the cup. Margaret wafted it under her nose, then held it there.

  “Vanilla,” she said. “And bananas? Can I try?”

  Gretchen raised her eyebrows and nodded.

  Most people had Margaret pegged wrong. They thought she just wanted to party all the time, but Margaret was a big girl who wanted to be small, and she would do anything to melt her flesh, whether it was Jazzercise twice a week, the Cambridge Diet, the Rotation Diet, the F-Plan Fiber Diet, Scarsdale, Deal-a-Meal, Grapefruit 45. None of them worked, so she kept trying one after the other, suffering through the bloating, the fainting spells, the farts, the hunger pains, the headaches, the cramps. One of these regimes was bound to make her skinny. She had faith.