by Donna Cooner
“Hey …” Ross looks away from the screen to me and then back again. He points at the video. “That’s you.”
“You’re on YouTube,” Emily says in awe. “Oh. My. God. You’re THAT Torrey Grey. Beautystarz15.”
Somehow I find words. “That’s me,” I say, trying to sound casual.
Breathe. Smile. Play to the camera.
“You remember, Mia?” Blair says, waving the phone under her friend’s nose. “You showed me her channel last summer. The boho-bun tutorial?”
Mia is the only one at the table who doesn’t look shocked by the big reveal. Suddenly, I know without a doubt this is who put the note in my backpack. She recognized me from day one. “Yeah,” she says sullenly. “Big surprise.”
“Wow. Look at your subscriber count.” Blair sounds impressed.
I don’t know what to say, so I just sit there with a fake smile plastered on my face.
“I can’t believe you’re here. In person.” Emily breathes, her eyes huge.
“Why are you here anyway?” Mia asks, in a tone that indicates she’s less than thrilled by my presence.
“My dad transferred. New job.” I don’t add, Oh, and by the way, my sister died. I figure that’s the thing coming next anyway, so I wait.
But Mia’s next question isn’t about Miranda. “So what do you think of these shoes, Beauty Guru?”
She sticks her foot out from under the cafeteria table so I can get a good look at her jeweled sandals. Lots of bling. Totally wrong with those print capris.
“Well …” I say, stalling for time and trying to figure out what the right answer is supposed to be. I’m not used to giving a fashion assessment on the spot, face-to-face, or critiquing someone who can actually talk back.
Blair frowns. “Leave her alone, Mia.”
Mia holds up her hand. “I just thought she’d want to share some of her expertise with the rest of us.”
“They’re great,” I finally say. “Super stylish.”
“I told you,” Blair says. “They’re perfect. Even Beautystarz15 likes them.”
“I’d totally wear them,” Ross says. Emily giggles.
I did it. I’m me again. Back where I belong.
I take another bite of my bagel. So people know who I am. It’s okay. In fact, it’s good. It’s better.
Lying in bed that night, I think about what happened in the cafeteria. I try to imagine what will happen when they all find out about Miranda. Will Blair turn out to be just like Zoe, my “best friend,” who hasn’t been in touch once since I moved away?
I turn over on my back and stare up at the ceiling.
I have to keep Blair on my good side. I don’t want to end up shunned, in the same social category as Luis.
Then, even though I don’t want to, I think about Luis. I think about his nice hair, black and thick. I think about his face, usually so serious. And I think about his eyes, because when he does smile, it transforms all the darkness. Like a light you turn on and back off again. On — it’s brilliant, intense. Then snap, the smile is gone again. Just like that.
The pillow feels wrong. I rearrange it, punching it a few times and turning it over. I glance at the clock. It’s late. I should have been asleep a long time ago, but there’s a now familiar dread inside me, smack in the center of my chest. The nightmares and skeletons are waiting for me to close my eyes.
Tonight, the shadows of this strange room bring a new urge — a craving so powerful I can’t ignore it. I want to see something, feel something, of Miranda’s. Something she loved. Like shoes and dresses and earrings. Like the things I brought home from shopping trips and held up to the camera to share with my virtual, imaginary friends. Only, the things Miranda loved would be different.
Finally, at two o’clock in the morning, when the rest of the house is asleep, I creep out to the garage. In the top of the second box I find a brown beat-up backpack. It feels smooth and worn under my fingers. Miranda loved this backpack and, if I knew how, I’d give it to her again.
I quietly take it back to my bedroom and stuff it into the dark back corner of my closet. It’s my first ofrenda.
Torrey Grey (Beautystarz15), a popular teen beauty vlogger, is the subject of a new video that features her in a less-than-positive light in the minutes before her sister, Miranda Grey, was tragically hit by a speeding car. Miranda later died at the hospital from her injuries.
The video shows the two girls involved in a heated argument, with Grey yelling at her younger sister to “Grow up” when Miranda refuses to film the footage for Grey’s latest haul video. Guru gossip sites have responded with rants trashing the Colorado native.
“Be the person they know and want to be.” —Torrey Grey, Beautystarz15
There is a big gray cat face between me and the computer screen.
“He’s still looking at me,” I complain.
Stu, Raylene’s cat, stares back at me with unblinking green eyes. Raylene and I are supposed to be studying for our English quiz, but neither one of us is into it. All I’m focused on at the moment is that my fastest Internet connection in weeks is currently being blocked by a cat.
“He loves you.” Raylene lies on the floor of her bedroom, with a newspaper spread out in front of her. She is obsessed with the contest going on in the Huntsville Item to select the animal models for next year’s Humane Society calendar. Every day, she checks the two-page spread of dog, cat, and bunny pictures for the current vote total. So far Stu is not in the top twelve and is, therefore, not in the running to make the calendar. That doesn’t stop Raylene from calling faithfully every single day on our way home from school to enter the special dial-in code on her phone to vote for Stu. It also doesn’t stop her from talking smack about all the front-runners.
“Oh. My. God. That Dalmatian is STILL in the lead!” she cries. “He has to be cheating,” she adds for at least the tenth time since I’ve been here. “There is no way one thousand twenty-three people like that black-and-white spotted thing. You watch. He’s going to make the month of January. By cheating!”
Stu’s tail twitches back and forth across the keyboard — the only thing moving on his huge chunk of a body. It isn’t that I don’t like cats. I’ve just never been around one before. Miranda had a hamster once, but that was the only pet we ever had. It was pretty easy to ignore. Stu, not so much.
“Shoo,” I whisper. Stu blinks, but doesn’t budge. I try to look around him to see the computer screen. He tilts his head to one side and stares solemnly at me, once again completely blocking my view of the monitor. Stu — 1, Me — 0.
Raylene sighs behind me.
“I think Dalmatians are cute,” I remark. I know that comment will annoy Raylene, and I’m not disappointed.
“Cute? You think black dots everywhere are cute? I hear they even have black dots inside their mouths. That is not cute. It’s disgusting.”
I just need a few minutes. Just a quick look at my Google Alerts, if I can keep Raylene occupied with the newspaper contest. I reach out slowly toward Stu. He stares unblinking at me as my index finger gets closer and closer. Then I poke him. Very lightly. On the head.
“Hhhrumph,” says Stu, and he gets up, but he just makes a big circle on the desk and then plops back down. Facing the computer screen. Now I am staring at the back of his head.
“Even that stupid cocker spaniel is in the running.” Raylene is still talking behind me.
I roll my chair over to one side and try to look around Stu’s fat, furry back. I scroll up to the toolbar and type in my name. Pages and pages of mentions. The movement on the screen catches Stu’s attention. His head follows the cursor across the screen.
“This is horrible! The freakin’ rabbit has more votes than Stu!”
I slide the cursor up to the top of the screen. Stu looks up. I move it to the bottom of the screen. Stu looks down. I move it in a big circle. Stu’s head goes around in a big circle. It’s kind of entertaining until he reaches out and whacks the screen with a big paw,
claws outstretched. I jerk backward in surprise and Stu jumps off the desk with a loud thump.
“I can’t even look at this anymore. It’s totally wrong.” Raylene gathers up the paper in disgust.
“I don’t think cats are supposed to thud when they land,” I say, watching Stu stalk off toward his bowl of Mr. Purrfect cat food in the corner.
“He needs a new picture. The one they have just doesn’t do him justice.” Raylene pulls out her phone and snaps a few shots of Stu munching away. He never looks up. “You hold him and I’ll take his picture,” she says.
“No,” I say quickly. The most recent news story with my name listed on it is all I see. My hands freeze on the keyboard.
It has to be a mistake. Zoe wouldn’t have done this.
Raylene scoops Stu up and carries the struggling cat over to the desk. Dropping him into my lap, she steps back and raises the camera to her face.
“Stop, Raylene.” I push the cat out of my lap. Reaching over, I grab the phone out of her hand and slam it down on the desk. I’m so focused on the words in front of me, I don’t care about Raylene or the stupid cat anymore. All I care about is the screen.
This can’t be happening.
I feel a rush of panic as I read the news item. Everything is unraveling. Zoe recorded my last conversation with Miranda, then posted it for the world to see.
I click on the video and all my horrible, angry words spill out into the room. Then I hear my sister’s voice and I see her face. For the first time since that day.
It’s there. It’s real. The memory that has lived inside my head for so long now lives on the Internet. For the whole world to see.
The video ends and the room is silent. I can’t breathe.
“Wow,” Raylene says after a minute. She reaches for my shoulder and squeezes. “That was horrible. I’m so sorry.”
“Shut up,” I mumble, hurriedly shutting the browser. I want to run and hide. No. I want to call Zoe and scream at her. No wonder she hasn’t returned my messages. She’s been busy editing and sharing a video of the worst day of my life.
“Who posted that?” Raylene asks after a long moment.
“A friend,” I answer automatically, still reeling from the shock.
“Doesn’t look like a friend to me.”
“She isn’t anymore.” I’m trembling as I turn away from the computer and put my head in my hands. There’s nothing I can do now. The video is out there. A video that should have never existed.
“Your sister was cute.” Raylene pats my back with one hand, but I brush it off.
“Shut up, Raylene!” I say again. I feel bad speaking to her that way. But my mind is whirring, my blood roaring in my ears.
Raylene backs up a few paces, frowning. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to say.”
“Just be quiet.” Zoe did this. My best friend. My used-to-be best friend. Who does such a horrendous thing? What is wrong with her?
But it isn’t just about Zoe. I was the one shouting those horrible things to my sister just before she died.
What is wrong with me?
“Look, I understand. I wouldn’t want to talk about it, either.” Raylene walks back to her bed, flops down on her stomach across the purple flowered bedspread, and watches me cautiously. Somehow she manages to keep her mouth zipped shut.
I blink rapidly. When this gets out to everyone at school, if it hasn’t already, Raylene will likely be the only person who will talk to me. All of my plans for a new life and new friends will never work out.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say, turning to Raylene. “I’m not mad at you.”
“I know,” Raylene says. “It must be so hard to think about that day and this” — she points to the computer screen — “makes you remember it all.” Her eyes fill up with tears.
I nod. I’m too numb to cry. “That day was such a blur,” I say softly. “I rode in the ambulance with her, but she never regained consciousness. By the time my parents got to the hospital she was already in surgery. But it was no use….” I shake my head. “I try not to remember that we argued. But now it’s going to be everywhere. This makes me look horrible.” Now the tears feel like they will come. I swallow hard.
“Brothers and sisters fight,” Raylene says. “It happens. It just makes you more real.”
“It’s more than that.” I pause, trying to put it into words for the first time. “Being real means that everyone can criticize who you really are. Not just what you look like.”
Raylene looks over at me suspiciously. “But when you do the statement thing for your family, you can tell everyone how sorry you are, right? With all this publicity, there’ll probably be tons of reporters in court, and even more people will follow your blog.”
“Yeah,” I say. As the word comes out of my mouth, I feel a tiny spark of hope. The victim impact statement is really the only hope for redemption on the scale I need. Now I know I have to do it.
“Maybe I should do a blog on twirling,” Raylene says, her mind as random as the kamikaze squirrels we have so far managed to miss on our daily drive to school. For once I’m almost grateful for her haphazard train of thought. It distracts me from the video I’ve just seen. At least for a minute.
Raylene picks up the baton off the floor by her bed and waves it at me. “They only pick seven girls, and the competition is tough. If I make it this fall, I have to practice all spring before I actually get to go on the field and perform next fall. It’s a huge commitment. Jessica Peldrum’s older sister, Shannon, was on the line for two years. She got cut her senior year. Really messed up her self-esteem.”
I try not to focus on the word sister. Instead, I try to think about twirling. Twirling is a safe thought, one that won’t make me cry. I know, thanks to Raylene’s never-ending chatter in the car, that her hands are swollen from hours of baton twirling. I know the light fixtures in her bedroom and the dining room are smashed because of the twirling. I also know Raylene twirled in the bathroom, and once tried to twirl in the car. Thankfully, the car twirling has never happened again since I’ve been riding with her and insisted she leave the baton on the backseat.
Raylene sits up on her elbows. “So is it hard?” she asks.
“Twirling?” I ask, my head still spinning.
“No, vlogging.”
“Not really. I just sit in front of a camera and talk about my favorite things.” I smile at the memory of better times. “It made me feel special. Important.”
Raylene thinks over my words for a minute, then finally says, “That’s exactly how I feel about twirling.”
“So multiply that feeling by a million people all liking you from the Internet and that’s kind of what it feels like.” I struggle for something to make her connect with the bigger picture.
“Or hating you,” she says, and I realize she understands better than I expected.
There is an awkward silence, and then Raylene says, “I’m thinking about having a Halloween party.”
I blink at the change of subject.
“And you’ll come, right?” she asks.
“Okay,” I say. It’s not like I’m going to have anything better to do once everyone sees this video.
“You don’t have to wear a costume, but you can if you want,” she says. “Maybe you could get Blair, Mia, and Emily to come, too?”
“Sure,” I say, but I doubt they would come to a party hosted by Raylene. They probably won’t want to be seen with me, either. At least not until after I talk in court.
When I get home from Raylene’s, I’m surprised to see Dad sitting at the table. He’s eating a peanut-butter sandwich with the still-open jar sitting next to him.
“Where have you been?” he asks.
“Raylene’s,” I answer. All I can think about is the video. All I can hear is my screaming voice and all I can see is Miranda’s angry face.
“Make yourself a sandwich, sweetheart,” Dad says, and the warmth in his voice makes me want to run to him, to tell him everythin
g and cry. Instead, I take a deep breath and pull two pieces of bread out of the wrapper on the counter. My parents were fine with me vlogging, but they never really understood. Now they don’t even go on the Internet at all. How could I explain the video to my dad?
I slide the slices of bread into the toaster and push down the lever, knocking a small white square off the fridge. I turn it over and stare down at a picture of a blond-haired girl dressed as a scarecrow. She is standing beside a huge orange pumpkin and grinning widely at the camera. I put it back, tucking it a bit more securely under one of the watermelon-shaped magnets. Miranda, age eight.
“How was your business trip?” I ask Dad, turning toward him while I wait for the toast.
“Fine.” He takes a bite and chews, staring off into space. His summer tan is fading. No more softball games. Miranda used to play catcher and he was her biggest fan, dragging us all to the games.
“Get in front of it,” my dad would yell from behind the backstop. “Don’t let it get past you.”
I never played sports, so I would just sit in the stands and watch. But I understand wanting to get out in front of things. Like now. I need to do damage control.
I think back to Miranda on the softball field. The pitcher’s arm flying around her head and the ball hurtling toward Miranda’s waiting glove. My sister never even flinched. The bat would swing just inches from her, connecting to the ball with a loud crack. Then she’d throw off her face mask to focus on a high, pop-up foul ball. Everyone in the stands, even me, held their breath while she tried to put her glove in exactly the right spot for that ball to fall into her hands. And it did. Just like that. Everyone let their breath out in one long rush of air and then clapped and cheered like crazy. Especially my dad.
“Where were you?” I ask him now. I can never keep up. He travels all the time, going to different banks, doing something with their accounts. It all blurs together after a while. Philadelphia? Sacramento?