The Goodbye Girls

by Lisa Harrington

  “We’re having tacos. As usual!” Willa hollers just before she disappears around the corner.

  In Art class I eavesdrop on a couple of girls sitting behind me. They both play clarinet and are quietly discussing the trip. From what they say, I can tell they have jobs—one works at Hollister, the other hostesses at East Side Mario’s. They’re trying to calculate how much they’ll have to earn per week to cover the trip. I can’t help feel a little jealous—okay, bitter. I’ve dropped my resumé at a bunch of places and haven’t heard a word back. I perk up when I realize they’ve done the math wrong.

  It’s raining after school. I hold my knapsack over my head as I run to the bus stop. Willa is already there, pressed up against the outside of the bus shelter, trying to stay under the roof overhang. The shelter itself looks like it could burst open any second; a hundred—or at least twenty—students are crammed in like sardines. The glass is all steamy and dripping with their breath and body heat. Yuck. I’d rather stand in the rain.

  At that moment, Trish drives by in Abby’s car. They honk and wave as they pass. I notice the back seat is empty. “Useless trolls,” I mutter.

  “Remind me to ask Siri the best place to bury a dead body,” Willa says.

  I’m soaked by the time I schlep up my driveway. Trish and Abby are standing on the front porch. Trish is patting Abby’s back and Abby’s shoulders are shaking. She’s crying. High probability it has something to do with Todd, but my desire for warmth and dry clothes trumps any curiosity I have. They both squeal as I bust them apart and red rover my way through their emotional barrier.

  After I change into sweats and a hoodie, I go to the kitchen. I’m just finishing making hot chocolate when Trish comes in. “God, Lizzie. Could you be more of an asshole? Couldn’t you see that Abby was upset?”

  “Let me guess.” I spoon a glob of Nutella into my mug. “They cancelled Grey’s Anatomy.”

  She places her hands on her hips and curls her lip. “No. Todd dumped her. And don’t joke about cancelling Grey’s Anatomy!”

  I roll my eyes. “So why’s she crying? Wasn’t she going to break up with him anyway?”

  “Like that matters,” Trish says.

  “What you’re saying is, she’s just mad he beat her to it.”

  “No!” Trish scowls, all defensive. “It was the way he did it. He sent her a text!”

  I mull this over. Even Abby deserves better than that. “Ouch.”

  “I mean, they went out for almost a year,” she says. “He’s such a total social moron.”

  I have to agree. Todd is kind of…ew. “Too bad he couldn’t have hired a trained professional to break up for him.”

  “No kidding,” Trish says, reaching for the Nutella. “Someone should start a business for idiots like him.” She takes my spoon and starts eating right out of the jar. “It’d be a total cash cow.”

  And there it is.

  I actually have to reach out and steady myself against the counter. What are the odds that the answer to all my problems would come straight from Trish’s mouth?

  Chapter 3

  “Are you sure you’re okay with tacos again, Lizzie?” Willa’s mom, Marlene, rips open a packet of seasoning and sprinkles it over the frying pan. “You must think that’s all I know how to cook.”

  “I’d hardly call browning ground beef cooking,” Willa says sarcastically.

  Marlene’s face goes all tense and her lips stretch into a thin line.

  I shoot Willa a “What’s wrong with you?” look, even though I know exactly what’s wrong. She’s convinced that her mom is the reason her dad left. “No, no. I love tacos, Marlene. We never have them at home, so this is great.”

  Marlene gives me a grateful smile before turning to Willa. “Get the sour cream and salsa from the fridge, please,” she says coolly. “And don’t forget Lizzie’s guac.”

  I mentioned once that I liked guacamole, or maybe Marlene asked, I can’t remember. Ever since, she always has it in the house for me.

  Willa drags herself to the fridge. “I don’t know how you can eat this stuff.” She passes me the container. “It looks like puke.”

  Marlene violently bangs the wooden spoon on the side of the frying pan. “Let’s eat,” she says, trying to sound chipper.

  At the table, I carry most of the conversation. I’m actually pretty good at it now. After the first couple of times eating in total silence, I knew there was no way I was living through that anymore. So one night I just decided to open my mouth and start talking. It helps that I have an endless supply of stupid stories about Trish.

  Willa’s only contribution is, “Wow, Mom. Cupcakes for dessert. That’s original.”

  After dinner, Willa and I excuse ourselves to do homework. Well, I do. Willa just leaves. I’d been waiting until we were alone to share my news. I shove Willa’s bedroom door closed with my butt. “Prepare yourself. I think I may have come up with a plan. Well…” I scrunch up my nose. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Trish actually may have been the one who came up with the plan.”

  Willa looks up from her laptop, raising one eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Long story short, Todd broke up with Abby via text. Then Trish said something like, someone should start a business—like, do the breaking up for them. You know, for those who lack the skills to do it properly.”

  “Hmmm.” Willa considers this for a second.

  “And, like, remember how Connor broke up with Lydia? He got his friend Ian to tell her.”

  Willa begins to nod. “There are a lot of losers out there.”

  “I prefer the term socially challenged.”

  She points a finger at me and winks. “That’s because you’re too nice.”

  “I don’t know about that….”

  “Stop. You know you are.” She pulls her hair back, twists it into a knot, and stares intently into her laptop screen. “A business…a business…a breakup business…. Okay, let’s start a list of things we have to do.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah. We’ll be partners.”

  “Why? You don’t need the money.”

  “Don’t you ever listen? I told you. I’m not going to New York without you. You have no business savvy. I, on the other hand”—she looks back at me over her shoulder and flashes me a dazzling smile—“am brilliant at everything I attempt. I will ensure your success.”

  My nose gets tingly. “Thanks, Willa.”

  “No worries. But my laptop’s about to die. Is my cord on the floor?”

  I sprawl across her bed, hang over the edge, and check around the carpet. “Nope.”

  “Must be in my knapsack.”

  I flip onto my back and listen to Willa rummage through her giant walk-in closet. “So we’re going to start a business?” I say. “Just like that?”

  “There’s obviously a market, so it’s not going to be too hard.” Her voice sounds muffled and far away.

  “And you think people are really going to hire us? To break up for them?”

  “I guarantee it.” Then there’s a bang, a crash. “Oh, wait. Here.”

  Something hits me in the chest. “Ow!”

  “Do you want that?” she asks, sticking her head out of the closet door.

  I pick up the unidentified flying object. It’s a purse. Coach. “What do you mean?”

  “Mom got it for my birthday. I don’t like the colour. Plus everyone and their dog has a Coach bag. I’m holding out for a Dooney & Bourke. Dad’s going to Boston for a medical convention. He’ll ask me if I want him to bring me back anything.”

  “So return the Coach one. Keep the money.”

  “Nah. It’s probably past the return date.”

  I run my fingers over the bag. It’s gorgeous. I could sell it. I could keep the money…for the trip…I hand it back to her. “Thanks, Willa, but I c
an’t.”

  She shrugs. “Suit yourself.” She chucks it into the back of her closet. Then she sits at her desk, plugs the cord into her laptop, and starts typing. “We’ll need to advertise. Mom says her website is one of her most important business tools. And it’s one way we can get the word out.”

  “Okay. That makes sense. But what should our thing be? Like, how do we carry out the deed, do the actual breaking up?” I tug on my bottom lip, concentrating. “Singing telegram? Poem? Letter? Gift?”

  Willa’s fingers go still. “No. It should involve chocolate. Chocolate makes everything better.”

  “Yeah, but as you know, I’m more of a Doritos kind of gal.”

  “Okay…then maybe it should be designed to each—what should we call them? Victim?”

  “Well, there’s no point beating around the bush. They are getting dumped. How about dumpee? The other person will be the dumper.”

  “Sure.” She nods. “And so like I was saying, it should be designed to each dumpee’s personal taste.”

  “We can use a basket, fill it with their favourite things as told to us by the dumper.”

  “That’ll work,” she says. “Next we need a name for our business.”

  We toss some ideas back and forth. Like Breakups R Us, We Do Your Dirty Work, Time to Move On.

  “That last one sounds like a funeral home,” I say.

  “Okay. What about The Enders, or The Destroyers...The Annihilators?”

  “They all sound so violent.” I frown. “We’re not trying to wreck anyone’s life, we’re just helping people say goodbye. Nicely.”

  “We could be The See Ya Later Alligators.”

  I twist up my mouth. “The Goodbyers?”

  “Nah.” Willa shakes her head, then stops. “The Goodbye Girls?”

  I repeat it a couple times to myself, roll it around my tongue. “I like it. Kind of glam and classy.”

  We start constructing the website. Willa really is brilliant at everything.

  “We should offer different levels, like according to what people can afford,” I suggest.

  “That’s a good idea. Say…silver, gold, and platinum?”

  “Uh-huh. And they could pick depending on how much they care, or cared, about the person, or how long they went out.”

  “Or how guilty they feel,” she adds.

  I snap my fingers. “We’ll have a questionnaire on the website that the dumper can fill out about the dumpee, likes and dislikes, that kind of thing. That’s how we’ll know exactly what to put in their basket.”

  Willa nods. “We’ll work out the cost to us and decide what to charge from there. It should be at least double.”

  “It’s the perfect plan,” I say. “We should make a sort of ‘suggested items’ list for each package level and do an estimate so we can post the prices.”

  “Hopefully most will go for the platinum. Because people are going to talk, right? And no one will want to look like they cheaped out.”

  My eyes get big. “Of course. The backlash could be vicious.”

  We plunk ourselves down on her bed with a scribbler. First we decide on the questions for the questionnaire. Then we pick the things that will be common to all packages—favourite salty and sweet snacks, beverage (non-alcoholic), DVD, maybe a book, and definitely a blown-up headshot of the dumper, mounted on Styrofoam, with a set of darts. The higher-level packages will just have more things.

  Willa wants to create a comment box where the dumper can write a personal message that we’ll print off and include in a card. But I’m doubtful people will believe we won’t read it even if we say we won’t. Willa seems to think that they’re not going to even care if we do. We argue about it for a while and in the end we choose to leave it up to the dumper—they can write one or not.

  I scan our notes. “I bet we can get a lot of this stuff at Dollarama.”

  “And my cousin, Randy, works in the photo department at Walmart. He can totally hook us up with the headshots, probably have them mounted too,” Willa says.

  I stare back down at the notes. “If our math is right, we should charge forty bucks for silver, sixty for gold, and eighty for platinum. Sounds like an awful lot, doesn’t it?”

  “Are you kidding? I was selling lollipops the other day for a school fundraiser. You wouldn’t believe how many kids whipped out fifties to pay for a two-dollar sucker. There are over fifteen hundred students at the West, and a ton of them have money. I say we go sixty, eighty, and a hundred.”

  I do the math quickly. We’ll be making forty bucks’ profit even on the cheapest baskets. But I’m still not so sure. “Willa?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shouldn’t we feel sort of bad about this? Like, making money off the misery of others?”

  She looks at me like I’m crazy. “They’d break up whether we were on the scene or not. If anything, we’re making it a nicer, more enjoyable experience for them. Actually, the more I think about it, we should probably be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.”

  I guess she has a point—though maybe not about the Nobel Peace Prize. “Okay. Since you put it like that.”

  There’s a Taylor Swift calendar hanging above Willa’s desk. She goes over and flicks through the pages. “About two and a half months. A little over ten weeks. If we pull off at least three or four breakups a week, that should totally cover your cost, and even spending money.”

  “No, Willa,” I say firmly. “We have to split it evenly.”

  She sighs loudly. “Just calm down. Let’s get you taken care of first, then we’ll worry about me. Okay?”

  I sigh too. “Fine.”

  “I’ll make flyers to get the word out about the website,” she says. “I’ll print a bunch off tonight and we’ll tape them up all over the school tomorrow.”

  Then something occurs to me. “Willa,” I say. “Putting up the flyers. We can’t be seen. We can’t let anyone know it’s us.”

  She frowns. “Why? I can’t wait for everyone to know what amazing entrepreneurs we are.”

  “Don’t you get it? Anyone in a relationship, if they see us coming toward them, will run screaming in the opposite direction.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t do deliveries during school hours….” Willa chews on the tip of her pencil. “But you’re right. They’ll still avoid us like the plague.”

  “We’re like those people at big companies who hand out pink slips that say you’re fired.”

  “Or the Grim Reaper.” She nods. “Okay. I’ll make up an email account that’s attached to the website. And we’ll be real subtle about putting up the flyers. Maybe pick a time when the school’s mostly empty.”

  “All right.” I’m excited and nervous at the same time. “And you’re sure no one will know it’s us?”

  “I’m sure,” she says. “Trust me. Our plan is foolproof.”

  Chapter 4

  Mom is leaning against the kitchen counter sipping her coffee. I glance at her sideways as I spread peanut butter on my bagel. There’s something different about her. I sneak another look. Makeup. She’s wearing makeup.

  “Hey, Mom,” I say. “You look nice.”

  At first she seems confused, like she doesn’t understand my comment, but then she smiles. “Thanks, Lizzie.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “I think I just got tired of looking like I could haunt a house.”

  “You always look good, Mom,” I say. “Especially for your age.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Wow, thanks.”

  “You know what I mean.” I smash my bagel halves together and press. The melty peanut butter oozes out the sides. “People are always saying how young you look.”

  Running a finger under her eye, she says, “Not many young people have the bags and dark circles that I have.”

  “That’s becaus
e you work too much,” I say, licking the globs of peanut butter off the edge of my bagel.

  She shrugs. “It’s all good.” And she sets her mug in the sink.

  In that second I see the exhaustion in her face that no amount of makeup can hide. Now’s not the time to bring up the New York trip. I don’t want to make her feel bad about saying, “We can’t afford it.” Of course, she’s not going to have to afford it, but I’m not ready to explain all that to her yet. I’m not sure she’s going to be totally on board with our business plan.

  “Are you working at the gym today?” I ask.

  “Yup.”

  “I thought you were only supposed to be part-time reception. You’re there a lot more than part-time.”

  “That’s fine. I’m not complaining.”

  “You never do, Mom. Maybe you should.”

  “And what?” She sweeps an arm through the air. “Risk depriving you of all this?”

  “Ha, ha,” I say and wrap my bagel in a piece of paper towel.

  She gives me a playful nudge. “Can I drop you at school on my way?”

  “That’s okay. Willa and I are going in early to sort sheet music for band,” I lie. “Her mom’s picking me up.”

  “Willa’s mom. How’s she doing?”

  “Um, I dunno. Okay, I guess.”

  It’s weird Mom asked. Though Willa and I have been best friends forever, our moms never really got to know each other. They kind of travel in different circles. But I guess now they have something in common—singlehood. Maybe they’ll become BFFs.

  “It can’t be easy, though,” she says.

  “Everyone has shit, right?”

  She makes a face. She doesn’t like it when I swear, but she can’t really say much, because the stuff that comes out of her mouth, say like when we’re driving in traffic, could peel your nail polish off.

  “Anyhow,” she says. “I picked up a shift at the bookstore. You and Trish will have to fend for yourselves for supper.”

  “We’ll survive.” I shove my breakfast-to-go into the front pouch of my knapsack. “Love ya,” I say as I head out.