“You didn’t hear it from me,” she says.
I lock my lips and throw the imaginary key over the bar.
“What happened?” I lean in and ask, but about that time, Sophie Matthews saunters up and jumps right into our conversation. She doesn’t seem to remember me, and I turn away to avoid speaking.
Several minutes elapse before Sophie finally stumbles back to the bar for another drink. It isn’t until she wanders away that I notice the square of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her wedge.
“So?”
“Infidelity,” she says, with a little more intrigue and exuberance than necessary. “Colton is splitting time between Nashville and D.C., and word is, he got caught up getting the Lewinsky treatment from a staffer for the Speaker of the House.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s what Audrey said happened.”
“Now I know you’re lying.”
Back in school, Audrey Winstead—the least of the Suicide Blondes—was so loyal to Madeline, she would habitually refrain from revealing anything about her, lest she violate her role as the Queen B’s lapdog.
Gillian holds up three fingers in a Scout’s Honor salute. “Things have changed between those two,” she says. “Among all of us, I guess.”
“No shit,” I say without thinking.
Us. Such a strange word, and though she means well, Gillian doesn’t understand. I was the one they plastered all over the newspapers. I was the one who ended up in a courtroom. I was the pariah labeled as a murderer and a witch and a devil worshipper and whatever else. Not them.
To soften my last comment, I add, “Not for nothing, but there hasn’t been an us for twenty years.”
At this, Gillian checks the bottom of her drink with a wry glance. She’s only just realized now that she and I, though old friends, are not what we used to be, and I’m not suddenly on her side now, just because she reached out to me.
“I know,” she responds. “Listen, I—”
“Don’t mention it,” I say. “Really, don’t. I’m not trying to hold a grudge. It’s just...hard sometimes. You can’t just wipe away twenty years.”
As she struggles for a response, I glance in Audrey’s direction. Sure enough, she’s holding court for some dignitaries of the Nashville social world, whose last names even I remember from way back in the day. These are people with wide networks and deep pockets, and Audrey isn’t so much sucking up to them as swallowing every bit of them down.
She’s finally figured out who she is, it seems.
“The big shock is, Audrey and Madeline don’t speak anymore,” Gillian says.
“They were so close.”
“Since Mads isn’t Queen Bitch anymore, Audrey is doesn’t have to be her puppet.”
I nod. “She doesn’t have that ‘whipped dog’ look about her. She looks, I don’t know, peaceful or something. Maybe she’s better off without Madeline.”
“Maybe we’re all better off without Madeline,” she adds.
That sends us both to staring into our drinks, but eventually that contemplative note passes, and we’re back to our gossip.
“She’s hit every shitty branch on the way down. You’ve been in the Pacific Northwest, so you aren’t privy to the Gone Girling of Madeline St. Clair. You follow her on Facebook?”
It catches me sideways, and I nod before I know exactly what I’m admitting to.
“She went from the biggest, baddest chick in our friend group—one-in-a-million—to a walking cliché.”
Gillian says. “You know, you...you had to, you know, deal with everything that happened, but I’ve wondered more than once if the shoe had been on the other foot, would it have even affected Madeline?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I think the liquor is starting to go to my head. Let me clarify: Would you say your life remained basically the same after...everything came out?”
It’s an obvious question, bordering on stupid, but I want to see where it goes. I shake my head. “It’s like the Robert Frost poem, except the road I traveled is covered in broken glass and lit cigarettes.”
“Precisely,” she says, as if explaining calculus to me. “I mean, you didn’t become a serial killer or a carny or anything, but I’d be willing to bet there is a considerable difference between who you became and who you could have become. Am I wrong?”
It has crossed my mind. I think about all of the joyless one-night stands and evenings spent alone on my couch, spooning freezer-burnt Ben & Jerry’s into my mouth.
“I wasn’t always going to be the person I’ve become,” I say.
“Damn right,” she responds. “And yet, even with the stain of being, I don’t know, an unindicted co-conspirator, Madeline went on to marry a rich local yuppie from a respectable family. It’s like she’s allergic to adversity.”
“Was. Sounds like it’s not true anymore.”
“The point I’m making,” she says, “is that she could have easily absorbed the blame in...his death without having the overall arc of her life be diverted. Her family’s money would have shielded her from, well, what happened to you.”
“And now, even though she’s slipping, she’s all we’re talking about.”
“Well, she is going to keep hurtling through space—and by space, I mean Nashville—until she gets carted off to an old folks home—”
“Or an insane asylum—”
“—and that is just not going to change.”
She smiles. “Unless you were to kill her. Haha.”
And there it is. The first sour note of the night.
“That’s not funny, Gil,” I say, though I don’t know why I’m saying it. Maybe the years have made me cautious. Maybe I’m gun shy about murder jokes. Or maybe there’s a part of me that thinks it would be really easy to slide back into old habits, and I have to draw a very distinct line.
“I know, I’m sorry,” she says in a single breath. “I’m drunk and tired and I wanted to know what’s happened to you after all these years. I’m sorry. Really.”
Gil isn’t the joking kind.
But I let it go. I don’t have the cache to start poking around just yet.
Then her face brightens as she walks right past her own comment, and she says, “What did happen to you, M.E.?”
M.E. is the nickname I answered to when we were teenagers. Just hearing it causes the release of a certain kind of adrenaline. She’s working me, and I have to admit: It’s kind of working.
I shrug. “I went to juvie. Spent some time on a bunk with my hands under my head. And then I graduated.”
“Then you disappeared.”
“After I graduated from the weird school I attended, I drifted around. Went by a different name. Worked for a few charities, thinking that sort of thing would...absolve me. After I became disillusioned with that, I just kind of floated along as if I expected something big and unwieldy to come and swallow me up.”
“And the drifting, that was a way to rinse the mold off?”
“Basically.”
“Did it work?”
“Not really.”
“Well,” she says, “if it helps, I spend one night a week gazing at my ceiling, because I can’t stop thinking about the things I typed in that chat room.”
Just then, a hand appears on Gillian’s shoulder. We both turn to see Audrey Winstead standing there, her perfect hair and gleaming teeth shining through an obvious champagne buzz.
“How come nobody told me about getting the band back together?”
Audrey Winstead is the very picture of put-together. Designer clothes. Artificially-aligned teeth. Perfect blowout. Highlights. Everything.
When she graces us with her presence, the conversation veers wildly in the direction of her. How well she is doing. How much money she made in “the market” last year. How many celebrities and country singers she’s rubbed elbows with.
“Honestly, I don’t mean to brag,” she says, finishing up her résumé, “but
I’ve helped make the strip on 12 South what it is today.”
Everything that comes out Audrey’s mouth has an air of bullshit to it. So much so, you have to turn away to prevent getting a whiff of the stuff. It’s a schtick, and if she knows how fake it sounds, she can’t seem to help herself. She oozes the quid pro quo of sleazy southern politics.
She’s the exact opposite of Madeline, who never bragged because she already had everything she needed. She was motivated by pure spite and the need to manipulate. Everything else was just so much empty air.
“Well,” Gillian says, “We’ve been talking about you-know-who, and here you come over. I figured you would have some...interesting words to contribute on the topic.”
A strained blink from Audrey. “Let’s just say that karma is in full effect.”
She’s drunk. It’s obvious the networking portion of this event is over for her, so she can move on to guzzling elaborate, pricy cocktails without fear of losing any personal business.
“You know, it’s like that night,” Audrey continues, slurring her words ever so slightly. “I mean, Gillian you weren’t there, but—”
“Shut up, Audrey,” Gillian says.
I’m confused. Or maybe Audrey’s confused, so I offer up, “But she was there. Gillian and you and Madeline and I. We were all there.”
It’s framed like a question, but I’m not quite sure why there should be any confusion at all. On the night of Everett Coughlin’s death, we all had a role to play. Madeline was the mastermind, Audrey was the sycophant, Gillian was the computer’s owner, as well as the one who did the bulk of the typing.
And I, as it turns out, I was just the scapegoat, brought in to play a very limited but impactful role.
When I glance from Audrey to Gillian, the latter is giving her a death stare to end all death stares. It is the nuclear holocaust of death stares. It would render a Russian city useless for centuries, and I don’t quite understand it.
But Audrey appears to be off on her own tangent, massaging a different wound.
“Madeline has always been like a bookie,” Audrey continues, “keeping a secret little notebook—figuratively speaking—of all the wrongs she’s perpetrated to give herself power in this town. And now—now—it’s finally all coming down. I, for one, welcome a change. In fact, you know what would put the final nail in Madeline St. Clair’s coffin?”
“Audrey,” Gillian says. “Don’t.”
“If you went on TV and just told the truth. Just clear your name. None of us will come out looking good, but you will definitely be able to change the narrative about that night. About all of it.”
“I don’t think—”
“I’m serious, Mary Ellen,” she says, ignoring Gillian. We’ve even been contacted by the networks to do sit-down interviews to put the whole thing to rest, but they only seem to want to do it under the condition that you be there, too. You’re the John Lennon of this whole scenario. We don’t matter. You do. Nobody wants to see Ringo hop onstage and play the old hits, and that’s coming from me, the media whore of the group.”
She smiles sardonically, a sharp edge of hurt in her voice. Her eyes move to Gillian, who sits stone-faced amidst her sudden pronouncement.
“I mean, it’s not like it would hurt us,” Audrey continues, finishing up her argument. “We’ve already been made out to be monsters. We could finally put this to rest. Just get it all behind us, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” I respond. The truth is, I don’t want to talk about it. I feel as though the more it’s out in the world, the more power it has.
“Well, you should think about it,” Audrey replies, “because we’d all like to speak our truth before somebody else gets to do it for us. You know, when we’re dead.”
And then, just as she had wandered into our conversation, she curtsies and turns back the way she came, waving to a few key members of some entourage in the corner.
“She’s more like Madeline St. Clair than she will ever know,” Gillian says, shaking her head as she watches Audrey disappear into the crowd.
5
THEN
They are at a house party when they first see Everett Coughlin.
“How about him?”
Madeline sits in one of the overstuffed chairs in the living room, her legs cocked over the arm as she glares at a particular someone in the room. Her skirt almost—but not quite—reveals what she calls her “goodies” as she bounces her legs up and down. An interested party—and there are several here tonight—could probably get a compelling glance, were he so inclined.
But Madeline is not trolling for men at this sad excuse for a party. She’s interested in something else entirely, the result of a game they’ve been playing, one which has grown increasingly bold—and one might say, sadistic—as the year has worn on. They’ve become bored with starting rumors and blackmailing classmates. The stakes must be upped to account for their burgeoning bloodlust.
The person in question, a guy in glasses and a cardigan, looks like the lead singer of Weezer, only slightly more socially awkward than his MTV counterpart. He’s smirking to himself, but it’s all a show. He stands stoop-shouldered in the corner of the living room, a red Solo cup pressed to his chest like a priceless amulet or personal totem.
He doesn’t have anybody.
He isn’t anybody.
He is what they want him to be.
And they want him to be a victim.
“Oh, he’s perfect,” Audrey says, glancing first at the guy and then back at Madeline for approval. Her eyes betray a sense of enthusiasm. Only Madeline, the ring leader, is able to maintain her dispassion. She has the languid, insouciant manner of a bored monarch, able to order a parade or an execution with the same characteristic detachment.
Gillian nods in agreement, though less emphatically. Only Mary Ellen falters at the suggestion. She tucks her fabulous dirty blonde hair behind one ear and tries to find something to hate about this kid.
But she can’t.
He looks totally harmless, the very definition of a dweeb.
It’s obvious he’s come to the party with someone else, or else he heard about it and is crashing it because he thinks he’ll make him some friends.
He’s no mark, though. It would be punching down to take him on as a project.
And maybe that’s why she—she, being Madeline—wants to wreck him. Because his only fault is his weakness.
However, Mary Ellen can’t see herself ruining his life.
And at this moment, he sees her. He’s scanning the room, looking for any excuse not to seem completely and utterly alone, when his eyes meet hers.
He smiles. He thinks she’s into him. Or that she could be into him.
Madeline nudges her from her place in the seat. “Looks like somebody’s got a crush,” she says.
This is how it begins.
NOW
Later, the sound of fist on door knocks me from a troubled sleep. At first, I think it’s coming from inside my own head, or is the result of a dream folding over onto reality. There’s an accompanying wail that sends my hand reaching for the pint-sized aluminum bat under the bed. The owners included it—gratis—just in case something happened at the house.
My mother used to tell me about haints walking the perimeter of graveyards at midnight, with their blood-curdling screams, and for a moment, this is what I imagine.
As the cobwebs get washed away and then bathed in darkness—the darkness of the room, of reality—I put everything into perspective. There’s a woman raising hell outside, and it very well could be the owner’s ex-girlfriend or something. So, even though I carry the bat in one hand, I no longer fear for my life. That said, it doesn’t prevent me from doing a crook-kneed waddle toward the sound.
Finally, I reach the door. I do the thing where I kind of press myself against the wall so the person on the other side can’t see me.
I get spotted almost immediately.
The face in the window is stark and wi
de-eyed, but I recognize the person under the fright wig and makeup at first glance.
It’s Madeline St. Clair.
Or whatever she has become.
When I unlatch the front door, she barges in as if on roller skates, the vodka creating a heavy wake behind her.
“How did you—”
“Just pour me a drink, old friend,” she says, veering heavily for the couch in the living room. She moves like someone who’s just done a series of spins in the front yard and needs a place to sit down, hard.
Luckily, there’s plenty of furniture to catch her fall.
She dumps herself shoulder-first onto the sofa as I mix her a vodka-soda from the ingredients in the kitchen. I hadn’t planned on using the owners’ stuff, but I suppose this is a dire situation.
I return with the drink and look her over.
If I’m being honest, right now she is Cruella De Vil with a Nordstrom’s charge card. Her hair is pointed in several directions, her face twisted into a drunken leer. She doesn’t look real. She looks like a method actor in a really challenging role.
But then she glances up at me, unabashed. She’s Madeline St. Clair, for fuck’s sake, and she doesn’t have to be embarrassed by anything she does.
“I heard you were back in town,” she slurs. “How the hell are you?”
I’m zen as fuck right now. I’m Buddha after a bong rip. I’m a bag full of Xanax. Since I’d already seized my anxiety by the throat with Gillian and Audrey earlier tonight, I feel fine.
“Well on the way to a hangover,” I tell her, and she smiles.
She closes her eyes and lays one forearm over her head dramatically. Same old Madeline. “You and me both. But I meant, you know, in general. How are you doing, in general?”
The words come out in a listless drawl, her mouth working around the syllables. She’s sloshed beyond sloshed. This is an entirely new version of her, way different from the artfully buzzed high school rebel with a penchant for letting randos slip their hands up her shirt at parties.
Ignoring her baiting question—she’s already looking for some kind of leverage against me—I say, “I saw Gillian and Audrey tonight.”
Suicide Blondes Page 5