Envy ec-1

by Gregg Olsen

  Starla wanted to say something about her mother’s inappropriate knee-high boots and shimmering top, but she thought better of it. She wanted her mother to know what she was up against, and as far as advocates went, her mom was basically all Starla had.

  “The beginning of what? When we were best friends?”

  “Today. What happened today?” Mindee went to the refrigerator and filled a glass of wine from the boxed sangria that always commanded most of the top-shelf real estate.

  “Okay, you don’t have to be so bossy,” Starla said, sliding into a dining chair while her mother took a seat across from her.

  “I’m a mom,” Mindee said, adding without a scintilla of sarcasm in her voice, “bossy is what I do.”

  “Can I have a sip?” Starla asked, mostly to needle her mother. She hated any wine that could stain her teeth. Sangria was right in the middle with a rosé, her buzz wine of choice.

  Mindee shook her head. “No. You can’t. Now, tell me what happened.”

  “All right,” Starla said. “From the beginning …”

  IT WAS 1:30 P.M. ON AN EARLY FALL DAY the week before homecoming in the very middle of state history class, a requirement that brought most students to the brink of the abyss called boredom. Teacher Relta Cox liked to “celebrate” the lives of people who had made their mark on Washington, but the reality of it was that students sitting in front of her didn’t care one bit about early explorers, native people, or pioneers who settled the region back in the days when it was called Oregon Territory. They might have been more engaged if the discussion veered toward the ritzy house that Bill Gates owned near Bellevue, or how much dope Jimi Hendrix smoked on any given day, or some tidbit about Starbucks when it was cool and not just a Denny’s that served only coffee drinks and pricey pastries.

  The rest of the stuff, forget about it.

  A boy from the principal’s office, who no doubt asked to be the bearer of the message since it was going to Starla Larsen, entered the classroom, spoke with the teacher, and then handed a paper to Starla. She looked down, shook her head, and got up to leave. The girl knew how to own the room. She wore a leopard-print tank, black Capri pants, and a gold choker that looked very, very expensive. Her purse was a black Michael Kors that her fans knew was her go-to bag. Starla’s outfits made her the best-dressed girl in school. Starla scanned the classroom as her long legs moved toward the door to the hall. Her eyes lingered only a second, and on only one person.

  Katelyn Berkley! She’d made good on her threat.

  When Starla arrived in the principal’s office that afternoon, her fears were confirmed. Seated across from Principal Andrea Sandusky was the cheer coach, Lucy Muller, a young woman with long, dark hair, a bad overbite, and the kind of strong, lithe body that suggested her past as an Olympic gymnast hopeful. As a high school principal, Ms. Sandusky never smiled anyway, so her grim face offered no tip-off of what was to come.

  “Starla, I’ve asked Ms. Muller here because a situation has arisen that calls into question your ability to stay on the cheer team.”

  “What is it?” Starla said, trying to not to crumble. Even being somewhat prepared was not enough to ensure that she’d be able to keep it together. She had wanted nothing more than to be the youngest Buccaneer varsity cheerleader captain in the history of the team. She’d been the only freshman to make the squad and was well on her way. The honor would surely be hers. She deserved it.

  Not everyone deserves all good things, but I deserve this. This is mine!

  “We have high standards here at Kingston,” began the principal, who apparently had just finished a spinach salad because her left front tooth was covered with a fragment of a mossy green leaf. “We’re proud of our students and consider them to be ambassadors of our school in the community.”

  “Yes, Ms. Sandusky,” Starla said, trying not to look like she was staring at that green tooth, but she was. “I know. I get that. I am the best ambassador for this school.”

  Andrea Sandusky rolled her tongue over her tooth and sucked.

  Got it.

  “I thought so too. But something has come to our attention that has given us great concern about you.” She stopped and picked up a manila folder. In a flourish that would have impressed most defense lawyers, she pulled out a single 8 × 10 photograph. Then, as if it were laced with poison, she set it on her scrupulously neat desk, faceup. It depicted Starla with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

  Starla shifted in her chair. “I can explain that.”

  “I’m sure you can, but explanations don’t really count for much when there is incontrovertible proof.” The principal tapped her unmanicured fingertip on the photograph, which, on closer examination, appeared to be a laser print, not a photographic print.

  Lucy Muller, who’d up to that point seemed to check out of the meeting, finally spoke, whistling through her overbite like a piccolo. She was fired up and on the defensive. Starla, as her name implied, was the cheer team’s future star.

  “I want to go on record now,” she said.

  “This isn’t a courtroom,” Principal Sandusky said.

  “Right,” the coach said, acknowledging that she’d overreached in her language. “I want to go on record that this morals offense, while serious, does not meet the requirement to remove Starla from the squad.”

  Principal Sandusky didn’t appear to be too convinced. “Oh, really. Smoking and drinking?”

  Starla knew better than to say a word. It wasn’t easy for her to keep her lips shut, but this time reason won out over the need to always jump into the fray.

  Lucy Muller picked up the flimsy photograph. “It is a violation, but look at the date stamp on the border. The bylaws say that an offense is only punishable if the person violated rules after she had been uniformed as a member of the Buccaneers’ cheer squad.”

  Ms. Sandusky studied the date: a year and a half the year before.

  “You’re underage now,” she said, obviously miffed. “This kind of trailer-park behavior is unacceptable, and we have a zero-tolerance policy at Kingston High. What were you here, fourteen?”

  Starla didn’t say a word. She didn’t even move her lips.

  Coach Muller did, or rather, whistled. “In case you didn’t know,” she said, now lapsing into a slight Southern accent, “I was raised in Mobile Manor Estates near Louisville. I think we should consider leniency.”

  The principal’s face went a shade of red. Not scarlet, but very close. The last time Starla had seen that same color was on a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes. It was, she thought at that very inappropriate moment, her very favorite color in the world.

  “I will take that under advisement,” Principal Sandusky said, looking first at the cheer coach and then over to Starla. “See that this doesn’t happen again.”

  Starla nodded. She hated the woman, yet somehow she managed to smile just enough to signify that she understood and was still a very congenial person.

  “I promise,” she said. “Thank you, Ms. Sandusky.”

  MINDEE FINISHED HER FIRST GLASS OF WINE and returned to the refrigerator. By then, Teagan had come into the kitchen in search of dinner. He had enough food stains on his shirt to make the casual onlooker think he’d already eaten or was wearing a cool graphic tee.

  “We’re having tuna noodles tonight. The good kind. The kind with potato chip crumbs on top,” Mindee told Teagan as she flicked him out of the room.

  Starla wondered how anything with potato chip crumbs could be considered “good.” Her mom was a terrible cook. She didn’t mind enough to say anything. To keep her weight down, she’d taken to purging two nights a week. Only two, because she was sure that didn’t meet the wiki guidelines indicating a serious problem.

  “First of all,” Mindee said, “you can only drink and smoke at home. If that photo was taken anywhere but here, you’re going to have your butt handed to you right here and now.”

  “It was,” she said. “Promise.”


  Mindee didn’t question her daughter’s veracity just then. That usually brought more drama than she could handle on a glass and a half of wine.

  “Second of all,” she went on, “I am so pissed off at Katelyn. I could just kill her!”

  “I know. Me too. But, Mom, really, I am kind of sad for her.”

  “Sad? We can show her sad.”

  “Look, she’s a nothing. She didn’t make the squad again—she didn’t even have a chance. She’s a clumsy brunette. When I think about it, she doesn’t even have a boyfriend. She never, ever, has.”

  Mindee grabbed a kettle, a can opener, and a can of mushroom soup. “She hurt you, honey. She tried to take your spot. Get me the Starkist. Two cans.”

  Starla got up and went to the pantry. “Coach Muller would never have put her on the team. She laughed at her like the other girls did. I did.”

  Mindee fastened her eyes on Starla’s. “If she’s so damn jealous because of what you’ve got, then let’s give her something to talk about.”

  Starla looked confused. “I don’t get what you mean.”

  Mindee poured a bag of egg noodles into the just-boiling water.

  “Let’s get her a boyfriend,” she said.

  Again, a confused expression appeared on Starla’s pretty, pretty face. “I still don’t understand.”

  Mindee indicated her empty wineglass. She didn’t worry about it being her third glass. She’d read somewhere online that three a night was not a serious problem.

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “All you have to do now is get me the open bag of chips and crunch some up. Teagan gets cranky when he doesn’t eat. I can’t stand cranky preteens and all the drama they bring. We’ll take care of Little Miss Troublemaker after dinner.”

  Mindee Larsen had no idea of the drama she was about to unleash. Neither did Starla. On his worst day ever, Teagan Larsen couldn’t even come close to being that bad. Sure, he might try. In a home with two contentious females and Jake Damon, his mom’s boyfriend, the boy had to try.

  chapter 17

  TAYLOR RYAN COULDN’T SLEEP. It might have been the jitters that came with being back at school after a long break. Kids were bragging or complaining about their Christmas gifts or where they went on vacation. Some complaints were deserved. Outside of Port Gamble were a number of mobile homes tucked in trailer parks or by themselves behind Douglas firs and big leaf maples. Some were hidden from view for a very good reason. The poor of Kitsap County, sometimes referred to as Kitsappalachia, were one group: people with drug or alcohol problems, mental illness, or something that forced them to live in circumstances that were far from ideal. Then there were the others, the criminals—the “rough crowd” as Valerie Ryan called them—who chose to hide out in the country so they could cook meth, grow pot, or do other things that led only to trouble.

  “Trouble always begets more of the same,” she had told the girls on more than one occasion. “When you see trouble, don’t run to it like a moth to a flame. The moth gets burned, remember.”

  And yet, that’s exactly what Hayley and Taylor did. Their mother knew it, of course, and her admonition was a warning with little teeth; it was nothing more than a reminder to be very, very careful.

  “You poke at evil with a stick,” Valerie had said, offering chilling advice they’d never forget. “Never use your fingers.”

  Taylor went downstairs quietly that night, although she didn’t need to be so light on her feet. She could hear her father snoring, and she knew that her mother probably had earplugs in and her head under a pillow.

  Maybe under two.

  She made her way to the kitchen and rifled through the refrigerator, but she wasn’t really hungry. She filled a glass with tap water and walked to the windows with the rippled glass that were original to the 1859 house.

  The bay was a black void, with only the faint shimmer of waves at its rocky edges. A bird called out abruptly somewhere in the darkness. The finality of its cry chilled the teenager. The scream of an animal in the dark almost certainly meant its gruesome demise.

  Taylor wondered about Katelyn and if her soul had crossed over, if Katelyn’s soul had been lifted to the place where there is an absence of all pain. She and her sister were blessed in many ways, but there was never a time when either could understand fully why it was that their empathy for the dead was so deep, so profound.

  “Katelyn,” she whispered, leaving a misty fog on the windowpane, “what happened to you?”

  Her fingertips touched the cold glass for a second, not long enough to leave more than a few dots on the fogged, uneven surface. She resisted the impulse to draw a heart. It was a strange feeling just then, strong and confusing.

  “Tell me when you are ready. Tell me, if you can,” she said haltingly.

  Taylor and her sister knew people would think their gifts were faked, like bad sideshow psychics, carnival mediums, and the pack of middleaged men that paraded around cable TV talking with the dead like some nitwit’s idea of an otherworldly cocktail party.

  “Wow, he guessed that someone in the audience has a family member with the first letter J in their name,” an unimpressed Beth Lee had said one time when she was over watching TV at the Ryans’.

  “Yeah,” Taylor said. “Pretty stupid.”

  “I love how they always say that dead people have unfinished business to attend to,” Beth said. “Like whatever you’re doing when you croak needs to be put in order.”

  Hayley caught her sister’s eye. Beth was a lot of things—vegan, Goth girl, fashionista—but she didn’t really understand that there was truth to some of what those TV shows were playing up.

  “Do you really think that once we die, you know, there isn’t anything more?” asked Hayley.

  Beth rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t go all religious on me.”

  “It isn’t about religion,” Hayley said. “It’s about our spirit. I think there is something here, something more.”

  “I’m not saying there isn’t,” Beth replied flatly. “I just haven’t seen any evidence.”

  Taylor spoke up. “Have a little faith.”

  Beth looked over at the TV. “Dr. Phil is coming on. I have faith that he’ll still be a chub despite his exercise and health books.”

  The show intro cued up and the TV host with the bald head and mustache appeared.

  “Look,” Beth said. “I was right. He is. I must be psychic.”

  Hayley and Taylor laughed, but inside they knew that no matter how hard they might try, no matter how much those closest to them might want to believe them, some things could not be explained.

  Maybe it was more than that. Maybe some things shouldn’t be explained.

  The twins locked eyes. They both knew that that was the truth, absolute and unqualified.

  chapter 18

  THAT FALL AFTER THE CHEER squad results were posted, Katelyn and Starla sat out on the Larsens’ rickety old back porch glider and watched Teagan as he tried to keep their attention on a rope swing that Adam Larsen had put up the year he vanished. The swing was a replacement for one that had rotted, and as a replacement, there was no need to go through the cumbersome process of sucking up to the property management company that kept things Stepford-pretty in Port Gamble.

  Starla offered Katelyn a smoke from a pack of Vogue Superslims Menthol that she’d stolen from her mom and tucked behind a cushion on the porch glider.

  “I didn’t know cheerleaders were allowed,” Katelyn said.

  “They’re not. But they’re also not allowed to get fat, and smoking helps. I don’t want to be bent over a toilet because I ate something I shouldn’t. It’s better not to eat at all. Smoking is very, very helpful.”

  Katelyn lit her cigarette from the ashy red tip of Starla’s smoke and kept her eyes on Teagan.

  “He won’t tell, will he?”

  Teagan was a wiry, fearless boy who seemed to delight in the attention of the older girls. He noticed the smoke.

  “Are you watching me?
Katelyn?” he called over from the rope.

  “No, he won’t tell,” Starla said, before calling across the yard to her annoying brother. “We’re watching you, you little brat.”

  “How can we not watch him?” Katelyn said, pulling a long drag through her cigarette. She was proud that she wasn’t coughing, but, of course, she didn’t say so. “He swings around like a crazy version of Tarzan.”

  “Tarzan was a dork,” Starla said. “His best friend was a monkey.”

  Katelyn smiled. She stifled her desire to correct her friend by letting her know that a monkey and chimpanzee were not of the same species. Not any closer than man and monkey.

  Instead, she changed the subject.

  “I like your hair a lot,” she said.

  Starla fussed with it with her free hand. “I hate it. My mom cut it, and she’s not much of a stylist.”

  Katelyn wanted to touch Starla’s hair, so golden and pretty, but she didn’t.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I think it’s hot.”

  “You would. I mean,” she said, eyeing Katelyn with a cool look, “you don’t have to try as hard as I do to keep things going.”

  It was a dismissive, snarky remark that on the surface seemed like a compliment, but both girls knew it really wasn’t.

  “Nothing’s easy, Starla,” Katelyn said.

  “I get that. Sorry,” she fake-apologized.

  Katelyn reached down to pet the Larsens’ cat, Bobby, a vicious Manx, and, in doing so, the length of her arm was exposed.

  “Jesus, Katie, what happened to your arm?”

  Katelyn sat up ramrod-straight and tucked in her arm like a chicken wing. “Nothing,” she said.

  Starla bent closer. “Bullshit. Let me see.” She pulled on her friend’s wrist to wrestle her arm from her body.

  Katelyn didn’t put up much of a fight. Not really. She let her arm go limp as Starla pushed up her sleeve to reveal three small parallel cuts just below the elbow. The freshly scabbed-over redness popped against the whitest part of her skin.