Sketchy

by Samms, Olivia

  “Normal? What’s normal? We all have stuff.”

  I kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For not running away.”

  “A Diet Coke for Willa! Fast! Hurry!” Eva Marie barks. Willa and her ladies of the court stand at the concession stand.

  “Of course,” Chris says.

  Sarah asks for a cup of water.

  “That was horrible, what happened with the horses.” I hand Willa the pop.

  “Are you okay?” Chris asks the girls.

  Willa, still wearing her father’s coat, looks down at the counter, at my open sketchbook, at the modified WANTED poster, and gasps. “Who did that? Who drew on that?”

  “Who did what?” Chris asks.

  “Drew on that—that face?” Willa points at the flyer.

  “I did,” I confess.

  Chris mouths, “Uh-oh.”

  Willa chokes up. “Are you mocking me? Are you making fun of what happened to me?”

  “Oh god, no. I’m so sorry. I was just playing with it a little,” I sputter.

  “Give it to me!” She grabs it.

  “That’s an official police sketch, not a coloring book!” Eva Marie barks. “Are you nuts?”

  Willa looks at me. Her voice drops down a half-octave. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “She’s the new druggie girl at school. A rehab rat,” Eva Marie snorts.

  “My name is Bea, Bea Washington,” I correct her. “And yes, I’m new at the school. And I’m sorry, I’m really sorry I drew on the poster.” I glance at Chris, hoping for some support.

  He mimes closing a zipper on my mouth.

  The school photographer approaches the girls and saves my sorry ass. “We’re ready to take pictures now, in the gym.”

  “Oh! I must look like a wet rat,” Willa panics. “I need a mirror.”

  “We’ll go with you,” Eva Marie chimes in. Sarah nods in agreement.

  Willa squints her baby blues at me one last time as she pops open an umbrella and walks up the stairs of the stadium toward the gymnasium.

  Eva Marie hands me an empty cup. “Bitch.” She marches off and joins her queen.

  “Open mouth, insert stiletto,” Chris quips.

  “Hey, Chris, cover for me?” I grab my bag from the safe. “I need a smoke, like, big time.”

  “You know, you really should quit.”

  “I know, I know, it’s a nasty habit.”

  “I’m not going to want to kiss you on our first date with your mouth tasting like an ashtray.”

  “I’m crushed.”

  “You should be. I’ll have to save it for Ian, I guess.”

  “Hey, thanks again for not bolting on me… with what I told you before.”

  “Are you kidding me? I’m going to use you. Win the lottery with your power.”

  “Shut up.”

  I walk fast up the dark ramp, using my phone as a flashlight, hopefully scaring off the critters. I step out of the tunnel and into the parking lot. The wind scoops in and inverts my umbrella. Shit. I know my hair is skyrocketing to the moon, so I duck back into the tunnel, lean against the wall, and take a cigarette out of my bag.

  “Need a light?”

  I startle at a figure, a man standing next to me in the shadows. A cigarette lighter flicks on in the darkness.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  He lowers his cap, and a shiny badge reading POLICE glistens in the dark.

  “Oh! I’m sorry I swore, officer.” Just what I need, trouble with a cop. I hide my cigarette.

  “Well, do you or don’t you want a light?”

  “You sure?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “Um, thanks.” I put the cigarette in my mouth, and he lights it, then lights his own, illuminating his eyes for a fraction of a second.

  He exhales. “You know, you shouldn’t be out here all alone.”

  “I know. I have a buddy down in the concession stand. Just needed a smoke.”

  We stand in silence.

  Okay… this is awkward.

  “Shouldn’t you be patrolling, looking for bad guys or something?”

  “I’d rather be here with you.”

  “Um… I’m going to go to the little girl’s room.”

  “I’ll walk you there.”

  “No, thank you. I think I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, be careful. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Yeah, well, thanks again for the light.”

  I jog through the rain to the back entrance of the school and turn when I get to the door, stubbing out my cigarette with my boot. He’s still standing there in the tunnel, the red embers of his lit cigarette like a firefly in the darkness.

  Talk about a creepy cop!

  I push open the door. The hallway is empty. My heels click and echo on the tiled floor as I walk into the ladies’ room.

  It’s dark. I flip a switch. The fluorescent lights flicker on with a buzz. I look in the mirror, at my crazed hair, and sigh at the mess. The door suddenly slams open. I turn, ready to kick the creep in the balls with my “don’t fuck with me” boots.

  “How do you know him?” She stands there, wet and shivering.

  “Willa, you scared the shit out of me.”

  Willa locks the door. She holds the WANTED poster in her hands. “I said, how do you know him?”

  She’s a little wobbly and looks scared. The bruises on her neck stand out under the fluorescent lights, and all of a sudden I feel like hugging her.

  “I don’t know him. I was playing around on the poster. It was stupid of me. I’m into art, it’s what I do—draw.”

  She walks toward me—her eyes wild, pupils dilated. “So you don’t know him. You’ve never seen him?”

  “Does that look like him? The guy who raped you? Did you see him here tonight, in the stands?”

  “How the hell would I know?” I smell her breath. The sweet, familiar odor wafts my way and fills my pierced nostrils. She turns, looks into the mirror, and straightens her crown. “I don’t remember anything from that night.” Willa takes makeup out of her bag and touches up the bruises on her neck.

  “Does it still hurt? Your neck?”

  “What do you think?”

  A little blood trickles out of her nose and lands on an embroidered daisy on her dress.

  “Um, your nose. It’s… I think it’s bleeding.”

  Willa dabs the blood with the corner of a wet paper towel and glares at me through the mirror.

  We couldn’t be less similar, Willa and me. My dark, ethnic look; her fair, all-American look. And yet, at that moment, standing side by side, looking at each other through the mirror, we are one and the same.

  And then I see it—like a little light clicking on in her head. She knows I know, and I know that she knows I know.

  “I can try and help you, Willa. I can, if you want.”

  “What are you talking about? You help me?”

  I hear Eva Marie and Sarah in the hallway. “Willa? Willa? Are you okay? You in there?” they yell, pounding on the door.

  I jot my cell phone number on the flyer and hand it back to her. “I’m here if you need me.”

  Willa looks down at my number, folds the flyer, and slips it into her purse. She unlocks the door, and the girls fall into the room. They stop when they see me and make a face like they smell something bad.

  “Are you okay?” Sarah hugs Willa. “We couldn’t find you. We were so worried.”

  “I’m fine—let’s get our pictures taken.”

  The door slams in my face.

  My windshield wipers work hard while I drive home, and the wind whistles, bending saplings alongside the road in half. I sit a little forward in my seat, slow down, and concentrate on the wet, slick road ahead of me.

  Jesus, what a night, I think to myself. Willa was tweaked, no question. And the face on the poster, with the shading I did, the cleft I drew… it must look like him. Why doesn’t she want
anyone to know that she remembers him?

  A light floods my rearview mirror, shining bright in my eyes. What the…? I adjust the mirror and see a car behind me. The lights barrel toward me, pulling up close.

  “Shit,” I say out loud. “What’s their hurry?”

  I speed up, thinking I’m driving too slowly. But the car speeds up with me and is now tailgating me—dangerously close.

  My street is coming up ahead, on the right. I wait until the last second, without turning my blinker on, and pull the steering wheel hard to the right. My tires screech and fishtail as they follow my order. The car behind me turns and screeches along with me, speeding up, getting even closer. The bright lights shine and flicker in my eyes.

  “OH MY GOD! It’s going to hit me!”

  I abruptly turn left, careening into my driveway. I slam on my brakes with both feet, and the menacing car speeds off into the darkness.

  Holy shit. I try to collect my breath.

  My cell rings in my purse. My heart won’t stop racing.

  I take a deep breath and answer. “Hello.” The phone wobbles in my shaky hands.

  A slurred voice. “Monday, before school at seven. The antique barn on Lilac Lane. Meet me—”

  “Willa? Is that you? Was that you following me?”

  She hangs up.

  The storm continues outside my window as I stand in my bathroom, looking in the mirror. Beatrice Beaver-head, Chia Pet Washington. I pull my hair back into a ponytail and see the scared hazel eyes of a little Bea hiding behind heavy, dark eyeliner. I spread a glob of Vaseline on those eyes, coating and covering all the dirt, the filth, the seedy alleys of my life. I wipe off the grime with a cotton ball, soiling the pure white fluff with the blackness of my soul. I stare at my naked, greasy face in the mirror.

  It started when I was in the eighth grade. I was thirteen and away on a school trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park, about an hour away in Ohio.

  I was in my Beaver-head phase. Trying my hardest to look like one of the pretty girls at Athena Day. I would flatiron my shoulder-length hair every morning, burning the crap out of it, making it frizz even more.

  We had assigned seats on the bus—a failed attempt by the teachers to break up some of the mean-girl cliques at the school. I was next to Agatha. Agatha Rand. Not only one of the prettiest girls in the school but one of the most popular, and for sure, one of the richest.

  Agatha wasn’t too happy about sitting by me, and she made that abundantly clear. She talked on her cell phone for most of the ride with her best friend, Marissa, who was sitting ten rows ahead of us, until one of the teachers, Miss Metzler, confiscated her phone.

  “That bitch,” she muttered.

  “I know, right?” I commiserated.

  Agatha looked at me, surprised, as if she just noticed I was there. She dug through her purse and took out a tiny little white envelope and hid it on her lap, in the pleats of her uniform skirt. She pulled out a foiled sheet of pills.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” I looked away and started drawing in my sketchbook.

  Agatha leaned over and watched me sketch Miss Metzler with a fat ass and clown lips. She cracked up. “That’s hilarious!”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to hide my smile.

  “Hey,” Agatha whispered. “You ever done speed?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Want to now?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. What will it feel like?”

  “Not very different. It’ll make things go a little faster, make the rides a little more fun. We could do a roller coaster together.” She laughed to herself. “Riding on ice would be bitchin’!”

  “Really? You and me? On the roller coaster?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Okay, why not?” I giggled and closed my sketchbook.

  And that was it. That’s all it took.

  I was hooked from that moment on, to Agatha and to any drug I could get my hands on. And she had plenty of them.

  I became more relaxed with myself as the eighth grade continued on. It’s when I let my hair go wild and free, pierced my nose, rolled my uniform skirt up to my butt cheeks, discovered my retro look, and became one of the cool girls—and Aggie’s best friend.

  I jump at the loud knock on my bedroom door.

  “Bea!!! Bea, let us in!!!” my parents yell.

  I open the door and they stand there, looking as if the air’s been sucked out of them, like two deflated balloons.

  “Aggie. Agatha Rand,” Mom squeaks, tears streaming down her face.

  “What? What about Aggie? What’s wrong? Dad?”

  “She’s the girl who was missing,” he says.

  “Oh, no! Is she okay? Is Aggie okay?” I yell.

  My dad reaches out, holding on to my shoulders. “No, Bea. She’s dead. Agatha is dead. They think it was an overdose.”

  I pass out, collapsing into his arms.

  Darkness.

  3 months

  7 days

  12 hours

  The storm has blown over Ann Arbor, spitting its way east toward Lake Huron and into Canada. High, blustery clouds float weightlessly in the scrubbed-clean, blue gray sky.

  It’s Sunday. I’m still numb and speechless with the news of Aggie’s death, but Jewish tradition dictates burying the body as soon after death as possible, as a mark of respect. I sit in the backseat of my parent’s car as we drive to the funeral.

  “I heard more from campus police. They don’t think any foul play was involved,” Dad says. “Agatha was found fully clothed, lying in the grass on Wave Field.”

  “On campus, Dad? They found her on campus?”

  “They did.”

  My stomach jolts.

  I can’t share with my parents that I saw her at the frat house with Marcus on the night she died. They thought I was at a meeting, and they’d probably throw me back into rehab, even though I didn’t take the pills from Marcus.

  It eats away at me. I could have helped her. I should have helped her, but I was so pissed at her and Marcus. The tears start welling up in my eyes again, and I wipe them with my black-knit blanket poncho and stare at the clouds outside the car window.

  I wish I were on top of one of the clouds. Floating away, away…

  I hear the somber chords of a pipe organ as we walk up to the mortuary. We find a seat in the back. My mom and dad bookend me, shielding me from potential looks and stares. Fellow ex-classmates, the girls from Athena Day, huddle in the front pews, crying, hugging one another.

  Aggie’s parents sit by her coffin. Her mom sobs, her mouth reciting prayers as if she’s in a séance, summoning Aggie to rise up from the dead.

  My mom draws me in close and softly cries.

  I spot Maria, Aggie’s housekeeper. Her face is buried in a lace hankie. I miss Maria, miss her sweet, understanding eyes.

  A slide show begins on a high screen in the front of the room. Dozens of blown-up pictures of a happy, carefree Aggie throughout the years flash above: Aggie as a pudgy, adorable baby; her toddler years; her birthday parties. Aggie in middle school. I recognize the picture of our tenth-grade school camping trip—river rafting down the Indian River in northern Michigan. Aggie and I had so much fun, but we were blasted. I see my hand—the silver ring I wear on my thumb—it rests on Aggie’s shoulder. But my body, my face, is cut out.

  Our eleventh-grade class picture—all forty of us—is displayed on the screen. Aggie stands in the middle, her big, toothy smile framed by her curly hair. I stand next to her—but my face, my face is blotted out with black ink. It’s obvious to me that I am cut out, obliterated out of every single picture.

  I don’t understand. Why? Why am I not in any of the pictures? I didn’t do anything wrong!

  My chest swells with emotion—deep, deep sadness and hurt—and a long-overdue sob gushes out of me, echoing off the marble walls of the mortuary.

  The girls whisper, nudge each other—some of them turn around.
I feel eyes burning into me—judging, hateful, piercing.

  I make eye contact with Aggie’s mom. She turns and whispers something to her husband. Probably saying, “What is she doing here? That druggie!”

  My head feels like it’s going to explode off my body, like in the pictures, and I untangle myself from my mom’s arms and stand, crying out, “I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t! She was my friend, my best friend. I belong in those pictures, too!”

  The organist stops, holding a sustained minor chord. Mr. Rand stands, looks at me—anger fills his red-rimmed eyes.

  I bolt out of the mortuary.

  My parents follow, calling out to me, “Bea, Bea, please stop!”

  I run across the street, pass Aggie’s hearse—and a car nearly hits me. I continue, fast, into a woody ravine. I don’t feel my legs as they move through the muddy thicket. I don’t feel the dense, leafless trees scratching at me, pulling at my hair. I keep running faster and faster to I don’t know where.

  The creek stops me—the creek where Willa was found—and I fall to the ground, crying, wailing, wanting to die, wanting to end it all. Rolling around in wet, rotting leaves.

  Why wasn’t it me? Why not me?

  “That wasn’t fair of them,” he pants, out of breath. “You being cut out of the pictures.”

  I peek through my fingers covered in mud and leaves.

  Marcus.

  He crouches down.

  “What… are… you… doing… here?” My breath spasms.

  He holds his chest, places his arms underneath his pits, breathing hard. “I figured they wouldn’t have been happy to see me either, but I had to come. It’s so sad—so sad about Aggie. I hid in the back and followed you. Thought you’d never stop. I didn’t know you could run so fast!”

  I hop up to my knees, grab him by his shoulders, and yell, “You killed her! You killed Aggie!!!”

  He takes hold of my hands, stops me. “No, Bea, I didn’t. She didn’t OD with me. Aggie left like an hour after you. I made her tea, she ate some crackers, and she left.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I hiss at him, standing, pulling away from his grasp. I back up into the trunk of a birch tree.