“This one time I was sitting with Kayla and Lainie at breakfast. Not with them, but at their table, I guess. And they were talking, quietly at first, but pretty soon it got louder, about all the ways they would like to kill Jackson. Not real ways, I didn’t think at the time, but gross stuff. Things like skinning him alive or roasting him like a marshmallow or suffocating him with his own balls. It was sick. They were giggling and Lainie kept glaring over at him and Emma—they were together for, like, a minute, so I guess that was why. But it was really gross. And disturbing. I wish I’d said something to someone then. I didn’t think she would actually do it. But I definitely think she was capable. That stuff she said . . . I think she really hated him then, even though they got back together.”
“There was a night in July when a bunch of us played Assassin, and they were in my group. Kayla was Moderator and she chose Jackson as Assassin, and Jackson killed Lainie, and all of us guessed it immediately because of course he did. And after it was out there, Lainie was like, ‘Then I rose from the dead and killed you back! Now we’re both gone, like Romeo and Juliet.’ And Jackson grabbed her around the middle and said, ‘My ghost too shall have revenge!’ And Kayla grumbled, ‘Romeo and Juliet killed themselves, not each other,’ but Jackson and Lainie were too busy making out to notice, and everyone thought they were adorable.
“I keep thinking about that and getting chills. Has anyone else mentioned it?”
October 4
Dear Lainie,
My dad is making stir-fry and the whole house smells like garlic—a smell that always and forever will remind me of you, and the time we got stuck on kitchen duty and Chef Beverly made us peel a thousand garlic cloves. I’m convinced my hands still smell of it, though not nearly as much as they did in the days after. Chef Beverly was a sadist. (Seriously, do they run background checks on the people they hire at camps?) That was cruel and unusual punishment. Though, okay, it was also kind of fun.
Oh god, do you remember before then, in the first or second week, when on our way to the dock we heard A SOUND and thought for sure we’d be caught? Your arm shot out to stop me, and we crouched, frozen in place for eight centuries (it felt that long to my screaming, cramped-up legs), hyperventilating, as someone emerged from the faculty cabins, went up the hill, and disappeared behind the mess hall. They crossed right in front of us, maybe twenty feet away—one slight turn and their flashlight would have beamed directly at us. I understood then how a rodent feels the moment before it dies from fright.
(I found a mouse in our kitchen sink once, all stiff and dead and belly-up. My mom said it probably fell in there, couldn’t get out, and panicked and gave itself a heart attack. Poor mousy.)
But we were safe, and when the danger passed, we continued to the lake, high on our second chance at life. We guessed it must have been Chef Beverly on her way to the kitchen—searching for Scooby Snacks, you joked, and I honestly thought that was some kind of junk food, like gummy bears or Teddy Grahams.
I was like, “Do you think she has a stash of Goldfish in there too? I need to get my parents to send me some. Wouldn’t those taste so good right now?”
You patted me on the head and said, “You are the cutest thing I’ve ever met. Never change,” and it took me a minute to understand that Scooby Snacks aren’t snacks at all but some kind of drug (though exactly what kind of drug, you didn’t seem to know for sure, either).
(Okay, the internet tells me it’s either pot, mushrooms, or Valium, or maybe “club drugs,” whatever that means. Maybe drugs to take when you go dancing? See, even when I try to delve into edgy rebelliousness, I can’t help but stay hopelessly innocent.)
I was never embarrassed about stuff like that when it happened in front of you. Your delight was always worth it. I kind of played it up sometimes, it’s true, but it was a joke between us. One that soured and stopped feeling funny whenever Jackson was around. You never made me feel embarrassed about being naïve, but Jackson was a jackass. And although you didn’t make it worse, you also didn’t make it better.
*Tiny sad violin*
I didn’t have to peel all that garlic, please remember. You got in trouble for coming in three minutes after curfew two nights in a row, but you weren’t out with me—you were sucking face outside our cabin with Jackson, and couldn’t pull yourself off him in time. Why Jackson didn’t get in trouble when he must have shown up at his cabin even later than you got to ours, I don’t know, but I guess his counselor looked the other way or didn’t notice. “Boys will be boys” or whatever. I think you wanted him to step up and turn himself in, but when he heard you got kitchen duty, he just said, “That sucks,” and let you take the fall alone. So I went with you.
Instead of going to free swim or archery, or back to the cabin to read, I walked you to the kitchen to report for your punishment, and when Chef Beverly looked us up and down and said, “Two of you?” I said, “Yup,” and shrugged when you whispered, “You don’t have to do that.”
She tossed us aprons and bandannas for our hair and said, “Okay, troublemakers. I hope you like the smell of garlic because you’ll be reeking of it all week.” It was only a slight exaggeration.
(I still can’t figure out how Chef Beverly always smelled like cigarettes when there was no smoking anywhere on campus and no one ever saw her light up. Did she have a secret lair? Sneak deep into the woods to do it? Not smoke all summer but still stink from years of nicotine residue coming out her pores? Quel mystère.)
The garlic did reek, and it stung in a cut I hadn’t realized I had on my finger. But sitting on a stool beside you, peeling clove after clove and dropping them into a big white bucket, while Chef Beverly sang off-key to endless country tunes on the radio—chopping and gesturing with her alarmingly enormous knife—those were some of my favorite few hours of camp. First, you were infinitely grateful, and I felt like some kind of friendship superhero for making what was, really, a pretty small sacrifice on my part. Second, we were in it together, just as we should be, the way things hadn’t always felt between us since you’d gotten distracted by Jackson.
While we peeled, we talked about which campers we thought the counselors secretly couldn’t stand and why (Chef Beverly’s face gave nothing away, but I’m sure we were right), and what superlatives we would give everyone if we were creating a camp yearbook. I let you declare yourself and Jackson “Cutest Couple” (but only since Rach and Melanie weren’t official yet), and blushed when you assigned me “Most Random” and “Most Loyal.” We pinned “Biggest Flirt” on Jackson—though you weren’t thrilled about it—and chose “Most Likely to Win a Nobel Prize” for Nitin, though we disagreed over a Nobel Prize in what. (Peace! Obviously peace.) I wanted to give you “Most Likely to Win an Oscar” or “Most Unforgettable,” but you insisted on “Best Sneeze,” and it’s true that yours is the weirdest and most surprising sneeze I have ever heard. “Sneeze Most Likely to Win an Oscar,” I suggested, and you liked that.
When the bucket of garlic was half-full, you lifted your chin, wrinkled your nose, and declared, “This song pisses me off.”
I hadn’t been listening to the music at all. I tuned in long enough to catch the chorus: something about a man deciding to shoot his wife when he finds out she’s been cheating.
“Why?” I asked. It seemed no worse than the other songs Chef Beverly had been playing.
“It’s offensive,” you said. “The whole idea of a crime of passion makes me furious. It’s such bullshit.”
“You don’t believe in crimes of passion?” You held stances on things I’d never thought to think about.
“I don’t believe in passion as an excuse for violence against women, no,” you said, chucking another naked clove into the bucket. “It perpetuates the idea that it’s understandable and normal when a woman is beaten or killed by a man who is just so passionate he can’t control himself when her choices tick him off. Adultery is not an excuse for murder. It doesn’t make beating your wife more okay.”
Yo
u stared me down, but I wasn’t about to dispute that.
“Men love putting the blame for their anger and violence on the very people they’re beating or killing. They act like it’s natural or even noble and romantic to get caught up in the moment and want to kill us—like, how could we expect any different? It’s our fault.” Your hands flew through the air as you spoke, sending garlic skins skittering in all directions. “We provoked them to kill or beat us because we cheated, just like we provoke them to rape or grope us by flirting or existing, and drive them to distraction by what we wear to school, and cause them to hate us as politicians or people by being too aggressive or too demanding or too needy or too shrill or too anything outside the box they want us to stay in.”
You looked ready to burst into flame. “Like, why should they have to consider us to be full people, with internal lives and needs and desires just as valid as theirs? Women are objects. Of course you get mad and lash out at or destroy your object when it frustrates and betrays you. Who can blame you? How infuriating. It shouldn’t have misbehaved. We should look pretty—but not too pretty—and shut up and smile and be grateful and stay in our place and agree with the mens,” you raged.
Across the kitchen, Chef Beverly gave a slow clap. We glared at her. “Amen, sister,” she said. “Amen.” She beheaded a clump of carrots with her knife.
When the bucket was full and your punishment paid, we scrubbed our hands with soap and the lemon halves Chef Beverly said might help, but which mostly made me yelp when the juice seeped into my finger cut. “Out, damned stench,” you muttered as you washed, and I wiggled my fingers in your face. “At least now we can repel vampires with our fingertips,” I said, and you agreed that would definitely be useful.
But instead the garlic repelled Jackson. “You stink,” he said, sniffing the air and pushing you away when you wrapped yourself around him in the food line. You acted like that was fine. Cool as ever. But the light in your eyes flickered.
“At least it’s our fingers, not our breath,” I said.
He kissed you, as if to check. “Thank god.”
You pulled away, perhaps inspired by your own rant. “Don’t worry, boys, we won’t bother you with our stench. Kayla and I have urgent business on the other side of the room. Ta-ta.”
I shrugged at Nitin, who said, “I kind of like it.” I lifted my tray and followed you to a table full of girls. My heart was full.
I knew you were capable of standing up to him. I admit I loved you best when you did.
Ugh, okay, the stir-fry must be ready because Adele is calling me to set the table for dinner. I got a pass from stuff like that for a while, but Dr. Rita thinks it’s a good idea for us to “restore normalcy as much as possible” and “move on with living” even as you’re stuck in limbo, awaiting your trial. They’re taking her word as gold (maybe because it costs about as much), so here I go. Normal, normal, normal. Whatever that is now. (Apparently it’s chores. And actually doing my homework.)
Wish you were here.
Love,
Kayla
P.S. If I could take the fall with you for Jackson’s death, would you want me to? Peeling garlic together for the next twenty years to life?
Maybe I’m glad you can’t answer that.
P.P.S. I wonder if Chef Beverly thought about telling that story to the police . . . or if she had, if it might have given them pause or changed their minds about your motive or whatever.
Maybe, like me, she told them just the bare minimum—only what I truly had to.
Maybe they never interviewed the cook.
P.P.P.S. If this were Clue, you would definitely be Miss Scarlett—sultry, cunning, elusive. I’m thinking that makes me Colonel Mustard—especially the grumpy whiskers.
Wouldn’t it be great if this were just a game? If an envelope revealed the answers, then we set it all up and played again?
It was Chef Beverly, with the knife, in the kitchen! And next time Nitin, with the rock, in the cabin! No need for motives, juries, evidence, or confessions—the proof’s right there in the cards!
And then we’d escape through our own secret passageway.
P.P.P.P.S. Maybe Dr. Rita’s right, maybe I am still in denial a little. And, okay, Adele is going to burst a blood vessel if I don’t go set the table right now. Mothers.
October 8
Dear Lainie,
Last night I dreamed we were out on the dock with the sun on our backs and our toes in the lake, and everything was good and right with the universe. There were other campers swimming in an area nearby and we could hear their shouts and splashes, but they weren’t with us. We were in our own private bubble, just the two of us, intimate and close, and I felt connected and happy and content.
Then it was nighttime. The swimmers were gone and the moon was out and we’d been so wrapped up in talking, we’d stayed out past dinner, past campfire, past curfew. I stood in the blue darkness, worried we’d get in trouble, but you pulled me back down and assured me it was fine. I sat, but I couldn’t focus anymore. I felt anxious. When I looked at the water, it was thick with blood.
“Stop overreacting,” Dream You said. “It’s nothing. The water’s always like that.”
I wasn’t certain you were wrong, but I felt uneasy. I tried to convince you we should go. “Like this?” you taunted, and you kicked your feet, churning and splashing. Your squeals were playful until they turned into screams.
Jackson’s corpse floated up through the frothy, bloody water. You kicked him back down, but he bobbed like an apple. You tried again and again. Nothing would sink him.
“Just leave him. Let’s go,” I said. I held out my hand. “Please.”
You turned on me. “You wanted this,” you hissed.
“No,” I said.
“You wanted this and you’re glad he’s dead and that’s why you didn’t try to save him.” You were hysterical, swinging your arms wildly. I stepped back, but I wanted to step closer. “Look what you did!” you shrieked. “Look what you made us do! I would never have done this without you! You wanted it! You caused it! I know you’re the reason this happened!”
“No no no no no no no,” I repeated until I woke up crying and sweating.
Thinking about it now, I’m shaking again.
I never wanted it to happen, Lainie. Truly, truly I didn’t. I know it was only a dream, but I still want you to believe me.
Dr. Rita says everyone we encounter in our dreams is some version of ourself. So I guess I’m the corpse and I’m you and I’m me, and I blame myself and know I’m innocent and want to push the body back down.
Yeah.
That seems about right.
Love,
Kayla
October 12
Dear Lainie,
Dr. Rita thinks I need to be more honest with myself and acknowledge my frustration and anger with you for the way things are now. She says it’s natural that I would feel some resentment for what I’m going through, and even though it’s “admirable and understandable” that I want to protect and defend you, I’m “not doing anyone any favors” by “keeping it all bottled up,” and I “won’t truly feel safe or be able to fully heal” until I “allow a place for those kinds of thoughts and emotions to exist.”
Adele and Peter are paying her $275 an hour to dole out that advice, two sessions a week, so here goes.
I feel sad that I’ve lost you.
You know that one already.
I’m disappointed that what happened with Jackson came between us, when it should have only brought us closer.
I’m disappointed you didn’t tell me everything—that the morning after, caught up in grief, you didn’t confide in me, didn’t confess or explain or even create more lies to tell me. I was there for you, but you didn’t need me. Not the way you should have. I’m disappointed you didn’t trust me with everything that happened to you with him.
I’m mad at myself—and at you—for the way that made me question you. Not out loud, but in my h
eart. Just for a moment. But that moment mattered. I can’t take it back. I’m angry about the damage it caused.
I’m hurt that you gave me reason to doubt you. I’m hurt you gave me reason to doubt us. And I resent it too. It so easily could have not been this way, if only you’d trusted me like before.
I resent that it all went so fast, and the speed and the shock and the blur and confusion meant we got separated before we could work this through and figure it out. All summer, you could always make things better for me, and I always made things better for you, and we talked out everything. Together. I feel cheated we didn’t do that in the end.
I’m scared about the future.
I feel abandoned by you, and a little betrayed. You’re not here for me right now. I still need my best friend, but you’ve left me, even if leaving me wasn’t your intention.
You must be allowed to make phone calls from jail. Why haven’t you called or written?
I know why.
I’m sure your lawyer told you not to. But you’ve never let anyone stop you from going after what you want before this. So maybe you don’t want to see me. Maybe you don’t want me back. Even after all we went through.
I’m scared and mad that I’m on my own, and I feel helpless that I can’t really be there for you, either. Helpless and hopeless and also beside the point.
I feel foolish that you’re still central to me, still the only person I really want to talk to, but to you I’m now secondary at best. Or maybe I’m nothing. A blip in the memory bank. A slideshow you never replay, because you’re focused on too many other, more important things. That’s my deepest, darkest worry, though of course it’s not true. Is it?
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