Here Lies Bridget

by Paige Harbison

  I almost asked her why she would suggest that when she knew what I’d told her about what Anna had said. Then I remembered the grenade. And then I thought about what had been happening to me.

  5 1

  My popularity was dwindling, and Anna’s was increasing.

  Inside, I felt like some kind of worst fear had been confirmed. I had to stop this Anna girl from blowing up my life.

  And I knew exactly how.

  “Jillian?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How quickly can you tell everyone about the big party tomorrow night?”

  “What big party?”

  “The one we’re going to have.”

  Jillian squealed and started bouncing quietly on her sofa cushion. She was obsessed with parties. Sometimes I’d wake up on the day of one of my parties, wander blearily down the stairs, and spot her outside setting up with Meredith. I was lucky to have them—I rarely had to do much.

  A party was the perfect solution. It was time to reassert my popularity. Time to show Anna who wore the skinny jeans in this town. Better too soon than too late.

  “’K, so get started,” I said, and Jillian nodded. I was gratified by her consistent agreeability. “Tomorrow you should get here early. We’ll have to set up. Plus I’ve got better makeup than you do. We’ll have to tell Michelle to come early also. She wears stuff from, like, the drugstore.” I made a blech sound.

  Jillian was already on her phone texting out invites.

  She, Michelle and I were up until two in the morning setting up for the party. I’d inform Meredith of my plans the next day. Not that it mattered anyway, because she would be f lying to Florida that afternoon.

  And with that parent- and guardian-less freedom, I decided that Michelle’s twenty-two-year-old brother was going to have to do something more useful than sitting around playing video games.

  5 2

  P A I G E H A R B I S O N

  The next day, Jillian, Michelle and I were sitting at my kitchen table eating breakfast.

  Well, mostly I was.

  I was scarfing down sugary cereal. Jillian was reading the nutritional facts, eating a banana and telling me all of the reasons why I shouldn’t be eating “that bowl of sugar.” Michelle wasn’t eating anything.

  “Michelle, eat something.” I glared at her.

  “I’m not hungry, it’s fine.”

  “Michelle.”

  “Seriously,

  Bridget.”

  I considered her for a moment. “What, do you not like what I have to eat or something?”

  I narrowed my eyes at her as she exhaled edgily.

  “I’m just not hungry, okay?”

  My phone vibrated on the table. I silenced it, not interested in reading yet another excited text from someone I didn’t care about saying something about C ya tonite! or Thanks for the invite!

  We’d invited everyone we knew. And it felt like all of them were texting me. Which was all well and good—maybe people hadn’t been doing what I told them to lately, but I seriously doubted that everyone would stop being this eager to be my friend any time soon.

  “Fine,” I said, as I took another bite from my cereal. “As long as you’re not just overreacting to Jillian’s little health freak-out over there. It’s not like she even knows what she’s talking about.”

  She didn’t say anything, and just as I was about to grill her some more, Meredith came quietly into the kitchen. She was rubbing her lips together and closing a lipstick.

  “Oh, good morning, girls!” She smiled.

  5 3

  I sneered. I didn’t know why, but as soon as she walked into the room, I felt like she’d been offensive somehow.

  “I’m having a party tonight,” I said, giving her no greeting whatsoever.

  “Are

  you?”

  “Yes.” I looked challengingly at her. Then I spotted her purse and suitcase by the front door. “I thought your f light wasn’t until four. Are you leaving now? ”

  It would be exactly like her to leave so ridiculously early for a f light. Even that conscientiousness of hers bothered me.

  “Oh, well.” She pulled a to-go coffee mug from the cabinet and turned around to get the milk from the fridge. “I’m meeting somebody beforehand and I’ll have about an hour and a half before the shuttle picks me up after that. I just want to be ready to go in case the meeting runs long.”

  “Meeting with who?” I asked.

  She turned back to me and looked into my eyes warily. It had something to do with me, I knew it.

  “Who?” I demanded.

  She sighed. “John Ezhno.”

  Of course she couldn’t bring herself to lie, and save me the embarrassment she was now inf licting on me.

  “Really.” I stared at her.

  “Yes, does that surprise you?”

  “Um, yes.” It did. I could not believe this was still going on. “Does that surprise you? ”

  She set down the skim milk, and looked at me.

  “Bridget, stop it.”

  “You stop it.” She was the one going around having secret meetings. About me, for God’s sake.

  “Bridget, I mean it! You know, I wouldn’t have to keep seeing him if you or your father would just—” She stopped.

  5 4

  P A I G E H A R B I S O N

  If

  Meredith started defying me, I’d start a damn war with her. I didn’t have anything to lose in this relationship.

  “Would

  just

  what? ”

  She dropped her head, clearly holding back more tears.

  Taking a deep breath, she stood up straight, secured the lid on her mug and walked out the door. I felt a small wave of guilt wash over me. I hated when other people took the high road in an argument. It made me look foolish.

  When I turned back to my cereal, I felt two pairs of eyes on me. I looked up to see Jillian’s and Michelle’s mouths hanging open.

  “Wha…?” I said with my mouth full.

  The two of them exchanged an uncomfortable look.

  “Nothing,” Jillian said, turning her face back to the nutritional facts. Her eyebrows were still raised.

  “Look, I can’t help what she’s doing. You guys aren’t going to tell anybody, right? Jillian?”

  “Of course not. Did you know this has partially hydro-genated oils in it? That is so bad for you. Oh!” She stopped to answer her phone, which had just started emitting a tinny version of “Respect.”

  After talking for a minute, she hung up and announced that she had to go. Her brother had knocked his front tooth out, and she needed to take him to the dentist.

  Michelle stuck around, which was weird, because usually she left earlier than Jillian. It was always strange when it was just the two of us. It always felt a little naked without someone else around as a buffer.

  After closing the door on Jillian and reminding her to come back ASAP so I could fix her face with my makeup, I walked into the living room, where Michelle was sitting, and turned on the TV.

  “Bridget?” she said. “Can we talk for a second?”

  5 5

  “Sure,” I said, f lipping through the channels. She looked at the TV, and then at me.

  “Like, without the TV on?”

  I exhaled noisily and turned it off. She took a deep breath before speaking.

  “It’s kind of…embarrassing to talk about. I just think…that you kind of…make me feel bad about myself sometimes.” She said the last part of her sentence so fast I barely understood the words.

  I scoffed and raised my eyebrows at her. “I what?”

  “It’s just…I’m sensitive about my weight and—”

  She

  couldn’t be serious.

  “Oh,

  shut

  up, Michelle.”

  “No, Bridget, I won’t shut up!” She stood up. “You say things all the time that make me feel really bad about myself, and it’s just not okay!”

/>   I sat there on the couch, looking up at her skinny body and bony cheekbones. I was shocked. I had hardly ever seen her mad about anything, and here she was, f lipping out about something stupid.

  In retrospect, I realize I should have taken her seriously, if only just because she was my friend and I owed her that.

  Instead, I was embarrassed by what she’d said. I took it as an attack on me and stood up, too.

  “Like

  what? ”

  “Oh, my God, Bridget, you really don’t know?”

  I suddenly felt defensive. What could I have ever said to make her feel insecure about her weight?

  “No,

  I

  really don’t know, ” I said, saying her words with a nasty tone. “Are you seriously telling me you feel fat?”

  “Yes!”

  “Oh,

  puh- leeze. You’re deluded. You’re crazy! And I’m not 5 6

  P A I G E H A R B I S O N

  going to listen to crazy talk.” Not anymore, anyway. I’d had enough of that lately.

  Plus, Michelle was super skinny. She was like five foot eight and a hundred and fifteen pounds. She was the kind of pretty that made you want to just eat vegetables and fruit and sacrifice all the fat/delicious in your diet. She had always been gorgeous. The only reason she wasn’t the queen of the school was because she was too shy, not good with makeup or hair or clothes, and wasn’t willing to claw her way to the top of the social ladder. And because I wouldn’t let it happen.

  But even though the situation warranted me saying something reassuring like that, I just kept shouting at her.

  “I didn’t say you’re fat, Michelle. I wouldn’t say anything like that. But if you feel fat, eat a salad or something, I don’t know. It’s all in your head. Just don’t blame your insecurities on me!”

  She was so obviously thin that this conversation seemed ridiculous, and I didn’t want to waste time catering to Michelle’s compliment fishing.

  “It’s

  not

  my insecurities only, Bridget, you’re always making comments about what I should do to look prettier and telling me my clothes are all wrong, and I just can’t—”

  “I’m your friend, Michelle, it’s called advice?” Then something occurred to me. I hushed my tone in disbelief at what this whole thing might be about. “Is this about the gym shorts? They’re from freshman year. And they just don’t fit you anymore!” And there’s nothing wrong with that, I should have said.

  Instead, I shushed her when she tried to talk, and turned the TV back on. We spent the next hour in awkward silence, each with our faces pointed in the direction of the TV show neither of us were interested in, pretending that the argument hadn’t happened.

  5 7

  A few hours later, I wondered if what I’d said to Michelle was too harsh. I was considering dialing her number on the phone in my hand when I heard a car door slam in the driveway.

  I raced down the stairs so that when Meredith opened the front door, I was standing on the bottom step with my arms crossed and my lips pursed.

  She looked at me and sighed.

  She was impatient with me?

  “Listen,

  Bridget—”

  “What did you guys talk about? Did you swap stories about how awful I am?”

  “Bridget, please,” she pleaded, quietly.

  I closed my mouth only because I was desperate to hear what had happened.

  She walked into the sitting room off the foyer and sat on the love seat. “Listen, I just can’t talk about this right now.”

  My nerves twinged. I had to know what happened. They were talking about my life. “You can’t just go off with my teacher and then refuse to tell me what happened, Meredith.”

  “I’m

  not

  refusing. ” Her voice was weary. “I just have other things on my mind, and—”

  “If you would just say it, this conversation would end so much sooner.”

  She shut her eyes, and took a deep breath.

  It started to seem like it really wasn’t the right time, and I was just about to tell her to forget it and just tell me later, but then she started talking.

  “He’s fed up with you being disrespectful. You and he, he and I, you and I, have all had that conversation. It is just time you stop. You don’t want to be removed from the class and have to take it again.”

  5 8

  P A I G E H A R B I S O N

  “Obviously. Did he say that he might kick me out of class?”

  “He just mentioned it as being an option. Honestly, we only spoke for a few minutes.”

  I squinted my eyes.

  “But you were gone for, like, three hours.”

  “Yes, Bridget, I was doing other things as well.”

  My life doesn’t revolve around you was her implication.

  And—strangely, ridiculously—that hurt my feelings.

  “What were you doing?” I wanted to know.

  “Enough!” she shouted, with a burst of energy I had not seen coming.

  It felt like a slap in the face. I stared at her, unable to speak.

  She stood up. “Why are you like this, Bridget?”

  “Why am I like what? ” I took a step back, feeling suddenly like I couldn’t predict what Meredith might do. I wouldn’t have guessed she would ever shout at me.

  My

  real mother wouldn’t have shouted at me. Surely.

  “So rude all the time! It doesn’t matter if I try to help you, or if I try to do something nice, it’s never enough! I’ve been in your life for the last seven years, and you still treat me like the evil stepmother. Last I remember, the biggest request I made of you was to let me take you to a movie you wanted to see!

  And yet you sit here with your friends, and put me on the spot…”

  She stopped talking, her eyes scanning the ground, like she was looking for a way to express herself.

  I defended myself against the indefensible. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about—”

  “I tried to leave the house this morning by simply saying I was off to meet someone. I didn’t want to mention that I was 5 9

  going to have a meeting with Mr. Ezhno, because I was trying not to embarrass you!”

  “Why

  should

  I be embarrassed? You two are the ones who keep meeting to—”

  “Because, Bridget!” She ran her manicured fingers through the big curls in her blond hair. “You’re too old for this. I can’t believe your teachers are still calling parent-teacher meetings, just like they were when you were in sixth grade. Usually, at this age, you would have earned independence and trust from your family, by acting like an adult—or no, not even an adult. Just simply by acting your age, instead of trying to get attention by being the class clown and terrorizing your teachers and everyone else you go to school with.”

  I gaped at her, my chest heaving, my face hot, not knowing what to say. I had never heard Meredith raise her voice. I’d never seen her angry. I’d certainly never expected her to be so angry with me. That wasn’t how we worked.

  In our relationship, she tried to please me, and I made the decisions.

  It had always been that way.

  Why was she turning on me now? Why, when I was already so stressed out, was she suddenly playing evil stepmother?

  “Well, maybe,” I said calmly, pulling out my metaphorical bazooka, “I was never taught manners. I mean, the only real mother I had died in a car accident before you came to live here. She was the only one who ever really loved us, but she’s gone and you’ve just taken over.”

  Meredith was silent. She opened her mouth to say something but apparently changed her mind and closed it again.

  The intimidation I’d felt brief ly was gone. I took a step toward her. “So obviously, if you’re going to be all parental, I’m not the right one to do it with. And let’s face it, it’s not your thing.”

  6 0

  P A
I G E H A R B I S O N

  Meredith winced, put a hand on her stomach, and sat back down on the love seat.

  Now

  that was a bit dramatic.

  Still…I could see that I had hurt her feelings. It wasn’t like I’d wanted to do that. Or at least I hadn’t wanted to do that without first feeling provoked. But there was nothing I could really do about it now. However upset she was, I was probably the last person she wanted consoling from, even if it had been me who had upset her.

  And then, as I did every time I felt guilty (don’t ask me why), I pretended I didn’t care at all. I scoffed, and walked up the stairs as casually as possible, not looking behind me. I was glad the airport shuttle would be taking her away any minute now.

  When I got into my room, I sat on the edge of my bed and wondered what to do next.

  What

  was

  with everyone?

  I knew I wasn’t the one who had changed. It was like everyone else had gone crazy.

  It was like an episode of The Twilight Zone.

  Even Michelle was acting weird. The only other time I’d ever seen her that mad was in sixth grade. And that time, at least, I’d understood why she was mad.

  I’d had a different set of friends at the time. Bratty, loud, obnoxious, bullying girls. I started hanging around with them after my mom’s accident. I actually remember deciding that if I couldn’t have a mother, then at the very least I was going to have friends. I chose them because they had the power.

  Honestly, a psychologist would have had a field day with me, I was so transparent.

  At the time, I was not at all popular. And even I could see that the girls I hung around with were bad inf luences. They pulled pranks, teased the other girls, were nasty to teachers 6 1

  and did anything else they could think of to have control over their peers. It wasn’t like I even liked them. Liam, a good friend to me even then, always told me I could do better.

  But they were the ones everyone listened to, so that was who I acquainted myself with. I spent the entire “friendship” running behind them, telling them that I didn’t think whatever they were planning was a very good idea. That’s probably why they let me hang around with them for those four years—so that they could feel impressive and outrageous without necessarily getting caught.