Such a Good Girl

by Amanda K. Morgan

  “I know. And he didn’t. Please don’t think that.” And I do know. And I like him, too. There’s a part of me that wishes I never touched Alex, so this Sandeep thing could happen. I shift beneath my blankets, my legs twisting up in the sheets. What would I be doing now if I hadn’t ever gotten involved with Alex? Would I be talking to Sandeep instead of hiding out in my own house, feeling completely ignored and depressed?

  “And you haven’t answered Neta’s calls, either.”

  “So you guys have been talking about me?” My voice is cutting. I can’t believe they’re hanging out without me, talking behind my back.

  Kolbie is quiet for a few seconds, and then: “Well, more about her dead grandmother, but yeah, I guess so. She was worried about you. I was more pissed.”

  My body turns strange and cold for a half second. “Neta’s grandmother died?” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “But she wasn’t sick, was she?”

  “No. She had a heart attack. And Neta’s been calling you and calling you and so have I, but you haven’t been there.”

  I swallow hard.

  “Is Neta okay?”

  “No.”

  Kolbie’s furious at me. This isn’t about Sandeep at all. Of course it’s not. It’s about Neta and the fact that I’m a completely horrible friend. Why couldn’t I just check a text? Or return a call? Or do anything besides be completely stupid and self-involved?

  “The funeral’s Monday. First Trinity Church. The arrangements are in your texts, if you’d ever care to check them.” She says it like I’ll probably turn her down—like she expects me to. Like I’m the biggest disappointment ever.

  “I’ll be there, Kolbie.”

  “I should think so.” Kolbie’s voice is thin ice over a winter pond. Brittle and cold and hateful. And I don’t fault her for it.

  “Listen, Kol—”

  But she’s not there. She’s hung up without saying good-bye.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Undercover

  My dad has two pickups. There is one that he drives to work and treats like a baby; he spends his weekends washing it and waxing it and using a special cloth to clean it that he spent, like, thirty bucks on. Then, there’s the other truck. The real pickup truck, that is actually used for pickup-type things.

  He lets my uncle borrow it most of the time. It’s faded blue and rusted and he uses it to drag around lawn mowers and hasn’t properly cleaned it in almost twenty years. The windows are the kind you have to roll down by hand and they’re smeared with years of fingerprints.

  And so, the night before Neta’s grandmother Pilar’s funeral, I tell my dad I need to tote some stuff for the school food drive, and so it doesn’t seem weird that I need to borrow the old pickup truck that basically no one ever sees my immediate family or me in, ever.

  When I start the rust bucket, it takes two tries for it to catch, but the engine (or whatever) finally shrieks and turns over. I cringe. It’s louder than I’d prefer, but it is ancient. I think it’s actually from the eighties or something, so it’s even older than Ethan. But I let it run for a minute, and the noise level evens out.

  I start off toward the school, and then I turn in the direction of my destination: Alex’s house. I know the way by heart . . . the names of the little streets, which intersections have stoplights and which have four-way stops. The sidewalks and trees and little painted mailboxes in his neighborhood have become almost as ordinary to me as my own street.

  I park just down the road, in front of a squatty little orange house with all its lights off, and kill the engine in a spot where I can still see the Belrose home and Jacqueline’s cute little teal car parked out in front.

  She’s still there.

  Of course she is.

  If he’d told her he wanted a divorce, wouldn’t she have fled to her mother’s or sister’s or something? Isn’t that what happens when people ask for divorces? One of them leaves?

  It’s not like I’m stupid. It means he didn’t ask. It means he lied. It means nothing has changed and I’m just a fool who is wasting her time.

  And I am not a girl to be made a fool of.

  I grind my teeth and sink down in the seat. It’s twilight, and soon, the streetlights will flicker on, but just now, the sun has sunk to the point where it’s hard to see anything, which means no one will be able to see me in my dad’s old pickup.

  What is taking him so long to leave her? Does he still have feelings for a woman who totters around complaining and reading gossip magazines? Is he that shallow that he would choose her over me?

  Yes. Being with Jacqueline is easier, certainly. But there is no way that she could be better.

  Cold is beginning to seep in through the car, and I wish I’d brought along a blanket or a thermos of hot cocoa. I button my jacket up to my neck, and the streetlights come on, bathing the Belrose house in a yellow light that I happen to know comes in through the front windows and rests very softly on the beige carpet in the living room.

  I blow into my hands and wrap my arms around my body, and then something happens.

  The door opens on the familiar little brick house, and two people walk out onto the front steps. There is Alex, in a hoodie and jeans, not dressed enough for the cold of the night, and Jacqueline, in a red peacoat and high heels, a long wool scarf wrapped around her neck. They walk to her little car together, and he leans forward with a sense of familiarity.

  They kiss, just for a quick moment, and his hand touches her arm in a way that means she is his.

  And then she just drops her purse into the passenger side door, crosses to the other side, and drives away.

  He waves at her, then walks back into the house, like he has done nothing out of the ordinary.

  My fingers dig into the cracking vinyl of the seat.

  They kissed.

  It was not the kiss of a couple that is breaking apart. It was a worn-in, familiar type of kiss, the kind that’s repeated for hellos and good-byes and maybe at night before turning out the bedside lamp. Something done out of habit. Not forced. Not unhappy.

  He walked outside to see her off.

  And then he kissed her.

  With lips he promised were mine.

  My heart rots from the inside out. I feel tears start in my eyes, but I blink them away. I turn the key in the pickup, but it only whimpers in a sad, ragged way. I turn the key again, and the truck groans and screams but finally starts, and in the house I am parked next to, a light goes on and the curtains are switched to the side.

  I hit the gas and speed away, not caring, the truck rattling loudly along the little street.

  Let them stare.

  Alex doesn’t care either. Obviously. He’s certainly making it very clear he and Jacqueline are still very much a thing and I do not matter.

  When I get home, I walk into the house through the mudroom and into the kitchen. Immediately, my mother hugs me. “Baby,” she says. “You should have told me what was going on.”

  I untangle myself from her arms. I can’t remember the last time we hugged. “Um, I’m okay. What?”

  My mind jumps to Alex.

  She steps back, leaning against the kitchen island. She looks concerned, for once. The lines around her face look deeper than usual, and her eyes are blurry and tired. Her blond hair, the same shade as mine, seems to have more silver highlights around her crown. “Neta’s grandma. The funeral tomorrow. Have you been over there to talk to her? Have you figured everything out?”

  “Yes.”

  That’s a lie. I haven’t been over there. Neta hasn’t answered any of my calls, and her text had simply said, NO THANKS, EVERYTHING FINE. Which was code for LEAVE ME ALONE YOU SELFISH BITCH.

  Which is fair.

  So I let her know I was here if she needed me and then left her alone. And I texted Kolbie and extended the same offer, and of course she hasn’t responded. In fact, she may have blocked me. I’m not sure. I’m scared to try to figure it out.

  “That’s g
ood, sweetie.” My mother reaches out to smooth my hair, then pulls back, as if thinking better of it. She’s already hugged me once. That’s our family love quota for the year, basically. Two touches in one day would just be ridiculous.

  “I got into Princeton,” I say, off the cuff, and she smiles at me, sort of sad.

  “I know, honey. I remember. You told us at dinner.”

  Which is just weird, because I know for a fact no one at dinner was listening to me.

  I leave her in the kitchen and go back upstairs to be alone, where everything makes just a little more sense. I lay out my black dress with thick black tights and black shoes, and I text Kolbie and Neta to tell them I’ll be there, I promise.

  And I fall asleep.

  But the next day at the church, outside the chapel, things don’t make sense either. Because where Kolbie and I should be standing, alongside Neta, there is someone else. Someone with a very similar GPA and a pretty chess-piece necklace.

  Kamea Myers.

  Standing right in the thick, with Neta and her entire family.

  Holding Neta’s hand while she cries.

  I slip up to Kolbie, who gives me a grateful smile and slides her arms around me, pulling me into a big hug. I am stiff with surprise for a millisecond before I melt into her. I missed her.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I’ve been going through some stuff, Kolbie, but I know that’s no excuse and it’s not about me.”

  She hugs me a little tighter. “I know Riley. I’m sorry I was so hard on you. I know you’d never just ditch us without a good reason.” She pulls away, and her eyes are misty.

  My whole body feels heavy with the truth. Would Kolbie hate me if I told her? “Yeah.” I clear my throat and flick my eyes toward Kamea. Neta hasn’t even looked at me. She’s just standing there, her pretty shoulders hunched over. “How’s she doing?”

  Kolbie shakes her head. “Neta’s a mess. I don’t know how to help her. She’s so close to her grandma, you know?”

  I nod. Pilar was almost a mother to Neta; she lived with her family. She helped Neta with her homework and dropped her off at school before she got her license.

  “What’s Kamea doing here?” I can’t help but ask.

  “I don’t know. I think Kamea was, like, adopted by her cousin’s brother-in-law or something. Some family connection. And they’ve gotten closer lately. So try not to hate her too much today? Please? I promise you can go back to full hate tomorrow.”

  “I don’t hate anyone,” I protest. But my eyes keep straying to the chain around Kamea’s neck. And for some reason, the chain I’m wearing under my own dress feels cold. And heavy.

  And wrong.

  Like maybe I shouldn’t be wearing it in a church. Or at a funeral.

  Neta finally turns away, releasing Kamea’s hand, and comes toward us. Her eyes are, for once, free of the dark makeup she normally wears, and she still looks stunning even though it’s obvious she’s been crying. She throws her arms around me. “I missed you,” she whispers. “Are you okay?”

  I stare at her. She’s been worried about me? “Um, yeah. I’m so sorry I’m been gone. I’ve been . . . it doesn’t matter. Are you okay?”

  She wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sure.” She tries to smile, but it’s shaky and lasts only for a moment. “Thank you both for being here.” She wraps her arms around Kolbie, and tears fall down her cheeks onto Kolbie’s sweater. “I don’t know what to do.”

  And I realize I don’t know what to say to her. What do you say to someone when a most important part of her life is just . . . gone? “I’m so sorry, Neta. Please let us know . . . what we can do.”

  The words feel stupid and empty even as I say them, but she tries to smile again and cries even harder, and I just feel silly and lost.

  “It’s okay,” Neta says finally, through her tears, and I feel like she’s forgiving me. Her mother, who looks like her slighter older sister, comes to get her from us, and leads her daughter away, and they’re buried in each other’s arms.

  Kolbie swallows hard, trying to keep from crying herself. “This sucks.”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  We head into the church, and the usher seats us two rows back—close to where Neta’s family will sit when they come in. Kamea walks up shyly and smiles at us, hesitant. She doesn’t look particularly sad.

  “Can I sit here?” she asks, looking back and forth between the rows of pews. Apparently she’s not family enough to sit with the actual family.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Kolbie choruses.

  My eyes stray to her necklace.

  I wonder again if she has French poetry readings.

  “Oui,” I say.

  “Huh?” Kamea asks, and wedges into the row right next to me, so she’s the very last person in the pew. If we’re singing today, we’ll have to share a hymnbook.

  I just smile like I’m baring my teeth and fan myself with the bulletin I was given when I walked in.

  “This is so sad, isn’t it?” Kamea whispers. “I feel so bad for Neta.”

  “Yeah,” Kolbie says, and looks at me quizzically. Small talk at funerals isn’t really my thing, but if I’m being honest, small talk with Kamea Myers isn’t exactly my thing either. Still, I’ll be kind, for Neta’s sake.

  “I like your outfit,” I tell Kamea as more people file into the church. “It’s very pretty.” I eye her mauve pencil skirt and jacket combo with a tan silk top beneath. It’s definitely probable that the jacket even has shoulder pads. It looks like she went straight to the mom section at Ann Taylor, but I suppose for that section, it’s very nice. It probably cost a lot. Of course, I choose not to shop in the stores for people over forty, but that’s my prerogative.

  “Thanks,” she says. “I don’t wear a lot of black, so I had to buy it special for today.”

  “The necklace, too?” I ask innocently. My own necklace against my skin. Why isn’t it warming up? It’s so hot in here. Why is it so hot in here? I wave my bulletin faster.

  She picks up the little chess piece off of her collarbone. “This?” she asks. “Oh, no. My own grandmother bought this for me from Costco. I know it’s a bit silly, but it means a lot to me.”

  “Costco, huh?” Flames lick around the corners of my heart.

  She smiles a little. “No judging! It’s from my grandmother. It’s special.”

  “Of course not.” I smile at her. “I’m sure it is special.”

  I turn back toward the front of the church as the family is escorted in, my heart a dying lead thing in my chest. Could Kamea be telling the truth? Her grandmother got the necklace from Costco? What does that say about Alex?

  “Now, was that so hard?” Kolbie mutters in my ear, her voice barely above a breath.

  I want to laugh.

  And then I want to turn to Kamea and tear her eyes out.

  But it’s a funeral, and I’m a nice girl above all, so I sit still and quiet and listen to the service and say my prayers for Neta and her family and her grandmother’s soul.

  When we all stand to leave, I stick my foot out and Kamea just happens to trip out into the aisle.

  “What is wrong with you?” Kolbie asks.

  I look at her, wide-eyed. “Oh my God. That was an accident, I swear.”

  I step into the aisle and help Kamea up and out of the way of the other mourners. “Are you okay?” I ask. “Did you twist your ankle?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were trying to walk. I’m so clumsy.”

  “It’s not your fault. Do you hurt anywhere?”

  “I think I’m okay. Seriously, Riley, thank you so much.” She is flustered and her tanned cheeks are pink with embarrassment.

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “If you’re sure, Kamea.”

  She’s sure.

  I return to Kolbie, and I wait until I have hugged Neta and her whole family and am alone in my car to Google the necklace.

  There is a
listing for it at Costco. There is also one at Target, and a very similar one on Amazon.

  My lead heart grows heavier.

  I type an e-mail to Alex.

  I KNOW ABOUT THE NECKLACE AND I KNOW YOU’RE STILL WITH HER.

  I send the e-mail in a mad rage.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Discussions

  The classroom phone rang during Shakespeare.

  That in itself was not a rare occurrence.

  Nor was the fact that Mrs. Hamilton looked at me and said, “Miss Stone, would you mind stopping by the counselor’s office?”

  Everyone knows that when I’m summoned to the counselor’s office, it’s because I’ve just won another ridiculous scholarship or maybe some representative from some college wants to speak to me, or it’s just some generally positive thing. So I leave everything on my desk (how long does it take to say, “Thank you!” and pose for a photo?) and skip down to Ms. Felcher’s office to see how I can be of service.

  But what I did not expect to see is what I am looking at exactly now, with a very frozen smile on my face.

  Because my parents are on one side of the desk, with very stock-photography concerned parents looks carefully aligned on their deliberately parental faces. How pleasant of them.

  More concerning is that on the other side of the desk is Ms. Felcher, looking a bit surprised (although perhaps she got just a tad too much Restylane at her last appointment) alongside none other than Alex Belrose.

  And judging by the rosiness along the tops of his ears and the perfectly even set of his lips, he is angry.

  No one could know anything, could they? Wouldn’t the principal be here? Wouldn’t it all be a bigger deal than just this?

  “Hello, Riley,” he says, his tone perfectly normal . . . for a teacher.

  “Hello, Mr. Belrose. Mom. Dad. Ms. Felcher. To what do I owe the pleasure?” My tone is perfectly normal . . . for a student who has just been surprise-attacked by a meeting with her parents, a teacher (with whom she has zero romantic connection), and the school guidance counselor.