“Oh my God, there she is,” Taylor said in a stage whisper to Devon. “Be my bodyguard.” Devon grinned as she pretended to cower behind him. I guess it was a nice change for him, helping girls instead of hurting them.
“Please. Having just seen my locker, I think you can take care of yourself,” I said flatly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jenny,” Taylor said innocently. “But I did warn you that people are starting to talk. And after your little freak out on Friday, maybe people are worried about your violent side.”
“My violent side? It was a slap, Taylor. Calm the fuck down,” I said, my voice cracking.
I had always been tall for my age, and when you’re a tall girl, you worry that you are somehow mannish. You look at the delicate little things all around you and wish that you could be so undeniably female too. The way Taylor was pretending to cower made me feel like an oversized thug.
“Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that makes people wonder,” Taylor said smugly. Her friends were all staring at me intently, as if I might launch myself at them. Even Devon was frowning at me, like he was in any position to judge.
“They should be wondering how you managed to spell psycho right. Quite a feat for a girl like you,” I hissed, turning away.
“You see?” I heard Taylor say. She was speaking to her friends, but loudly enough for me to hear. “She’s a total freak. I’m just saying, maybe she got angry at Chloe that night…”
“Do you really think she would do that?” Devon asked. “Kill Chloe?”
“I don’t know…,” Taylor drawled, her voice dripping with confusion. “I mean, we know she’s violent. So…” The conclusion was left unsaid but inescapable.
I turned the corner, my heart beating so hard I could feel my pulse in my head. It was such a bizarre accusation, but I knew half the school would instantly embrace it. Everyone loves to blame a victim; it lets them believe that bad things don’t happen to good people. High school sure made it hard to like people.
—
I spent the next twenty minutes sitting in a bathroom stall, trying to calm down. My chest felt so tight that I thought I was going to pass out. The competing pressures of my life were pushing in on me: get my grades up so I can pass; help Helen’s family; make my mom proud; keep it together at school; don’t fall in love with Tom; fall in love with Tom; get revenge on Taylor; forget Taylor; be happy in high school; get out of high school. I felt as if I were being forced through a tube that was too small for me. The strain was cutting off my oxygen and making it hard to think. I gasped shallowly and tried not to panic.
The old graffiti was still on the wall. I was eye level with a note that said, “Amanda Rich steals boyfriends.” To my left I could read, “Ashley Baudette is a coke-whore.” Finally, on my right was the note that had become the unlikeliest memorial at Thunder Creek High: “Chloe Shaughnessy is a slut-bag.” Underneath this pre-disappearance judgment, people had subsequently written “Miss you, Chloe” and “R.I.P.” But no one had thought to cross out the original insult. It was maddening, but all the comments were equally false anyways. Chloe hadn’t been a slut, and none of those people really missed her.
Having my locker vandalized heralded a nasty turn in my high-school career. I had been marked as an outsider, a crazy girl who might have killed a friend. I should have seen it coming. I’d struggled to connect with people since Chloe had disappeared. I couldn’t care about all the meaningless things, and I couldn’t seem to understand the meaning of the important ones. Maybe I really was crazy.
I knew it was only a matter of time before my name ended up on the bathroom wall of shame. But maybe it would hurt less if I didn’t have to passively wait for it to happen. I pulled a pen out of my purse and proactively wrote “Jenny Parker is a Psycho”—right next to the slur against Chloe. It was strangely comforting to see my name up there with Chloe’s. It made me feel closer to her.
I was late to my next class, but at least I wasn’t absent.
Chapter Thirty–One
March 29, 2006
I didn’t see Tom at school until Wednesday. I’d been coming up with excuses not to see him, getting progressively more nervous about what it would be like when we did meet up again. I knew it was immature, but I didn’t know how else to deal with him leaving. I just threw myself into going to class and studying.
It felt strange to focus so intently on school, but it wasn’t boring. I was starting to realize that school was a lot more rewarding when you thought it might lead somewhere exciting. I had always been so convinced that I would end up like my mother, scraping by in a crappy job. But I didn’t believe it anymore. It made me wonder how much of our personality was negotiable, how concrete any fact about you was at sixteen. Maybe it could all be changed.
After school on Wednesday, Tom found me by my locker. He was wearing a worn-out Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and I could see the square outline of his cigarette pack in his jeans. The moment I saw him, I felt a rush of heat travel from my hairline to my toes. I knew I couldn’t forget that night…and not just because it had ended with a snowstorm of ghosts.
“Hey,” Tom said, leaning against my locker. The janitor had cleaned the graffiti off after school on Monday, but the yellow paint still seemed stained, as if particles of the word Psycho had been permanently ground into the surface.
Tom didn’t look as relaxed as he usually did. He kept crossing his arms in different iterations and shifting uncomfortably. I tried to play it cool, to ignore my mixed-up feelings and treat Tom like any other guy. I didn’t want to waste my time thinking about someone who didn’t care enough to return the favor.
“Hey,” I said, zipping up my backpack. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know, I just haven’t seen you since…Saturday,” Tom said, glancing around the crowded school. “And I was worried that you were mad at me or something.”
“I’m not mad at you,” I said flatly. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Really?” Tom asked, eyes narrowed. “You’re acting a bit weird.”
I sighed and decided to tell him the truth, or at least a bit of it. “Tom…I can’t have nights like Saturday if you’re going to leave soon. It’s just too…confusing,” I said, trying to maintain a shred of dignity even as my cowardly heart begged for a million nights just like Saturday, even if it all still ended with Tom leaving me to go traveling. Was it braver to take the heartache now or postpone it for a few months? I didn’t know.
“Oh…okay,” Tom said. “Look, Jenny, I thought you got that with me graduating, I can’t…I mean, I really like you but…”
“I get it,” I said. “It’s just not easy for me. This has been a tough year. Can we just focus on the Helen thing?”
“Sure,” Tom said, patting my arm. “Whatever you want.”
I nodded and tried to pretend that this was the end of it, that I could turn my thoughts about Tom off so easily.
“I talked to Alan yesterday,” I said. A hurt look settled on Tom’s face, and while my aching heart felt a moment of satisfaction, I hurried to explain. “I think the two of us were too intimidating, and thought he might talk to me if I was alone.”
“Did he?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, he told me a lot,” I said.
“Okay, cool. Do you want to get together later and discuss everything?” Tom asked.
“Yeah. How about you pick me up at eight? I know where we can go,” I said. My mom would be working tonight so there would be no awkward questions.
My breath caught at the thought of the evening ahead. Somewhere between his arrival at my locker and this moment, I had made a decision: I was going to tell him everything, and not just about Helen. I had nothing to lose; he was going to leave me anyways. I needed to tell him everything that had happened the week Chloe went missing. It was time he knew the truth, no matter how much that scared me.
—
When I arrived home that day, there was a cop car parked in front of my house. I groa
ned and slapped my steering wheel in frustration. I really wasn’t in the mood to be interrogated. I briefly considered backing the car out and making myself scarce for a few hours, but they were cops. It wasn’t like they were going to forget about me. Better to get it over with.
I parked the car and slammed my door a little harder than necessary. In one smooth motion, Officer Trudeau slid out of her car and shut the door behind her.
“Where’s your partner?” I asked flatly.
“He had something to do. It’ll just be me today,” Trudeau replied, giving me a sugary smile.
“Goodie,” I said, unlocking my door. My mom wasn’t home, but that was okay. I knew that the cops coming around worried her, and I didn’t want that after she’d been so understanding about everything.
I dropped my backpack in the hall and flopped on the couch. Officer Trudeau sat stiffly in the armchair. It was like she was trying to be as uncomfortable as possible.
“So, Jenny, how have you been?” Trudeau asked, smoothing a piece of dark hair behind her ear.
“Okay,” I said. “As best as can be expected, I guess.” It made me uncomfortable when the cops asked that. If I said that I was good, they might think I didn’t miss Chloe and that maybe I’d had something to do with her disappearance. If I said I was awful, they might think I was overplaying the devastated friend act in order to hide something. Talking to the police made me feel as if I were on a tightrope in hurricane-force winds.
“What have you been up to lately?”
“Nothing much,” I said, choosing not to mention my amateur murder investigation. “Trying to get my grades up in school.”
“Yes, I heard you’ve been having some problems in school. You hit a girl, didn’t you?” Trudeau asked, her face deliberately calm. I frowned. How did she know that? Had someone called the cops on me? Or did that piece of information come through the same informal channels that Tom had used to find out about the police investigations?
“Well, she insulted me. She called me crazy,” I retorted, before instantly regretting my words. I didn’t need to tell her anything more about me.
“Jenny, I’m going to level with you,” she said, staring at me over clasped hands. “You’ve been spotted hanging around the reserve and out at a bar called the Trapper. That seems a bit strange. Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said with a shrug. “I stopped at the Trapper to use their phone, and I have a friend who lives on the reserve.” I could feel my pulse quicken as I considered the fact that I had been watched without knowing it.
“Really? You just stopped at a rough bar on the edge of town to use a phone? Are you sure this doesn’t have anything to do with a murder victim being dumped in that area?” Officer Trudeau asked, her arched eyebrow telegraphing how little she actually believed me.
“What? Now you think I know something about that too?” I asked sarcastically. “I’m curious, is there any crime in Thunder Creek that the cops don’t think I have information on?”
“Careful with your tone,” she warned, wagging a finger at me. “Jenny, for all we know, Chloe’s disappearance and the murder could be connected. And we keep interviewing you because I know you’re hiding something. We need all the information we can get.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” I said tiredly. “Look, I’m friends with Helen’s cousin. You know, Helen—the girl who got murdered? He lives on the reserve, and that’s why I was near the Trapper. He needed to see where she was found.”
“Huh,” she said. “Word of advice, Jenny. I would avoid crime scenes.”
“Maybe if you guys had actually solved her murder I wouldn’t be hanging around,” I said.
“You think it’s that easy, huh?” Trudeau asked, snorting with laughter. “Trust me, solving a murder is damn hard, especially when there’s so little evidence.”
“Well, finding evidence is hard when you’re all focusing on the girl who disappeared and not the girl who was murdered,” I said.
“Look, we have limited resources. Decisions about how deeply we investigate things have to be made,” Trudeau said, her flushed cheeks indicating that this was not a decision she supported.
“And that decision had nothing to do with the fact that Chloe’s white and Helen’s Native?” I asked.
“It wasn’t my decision, so I don’t know,” Trudeau said weakly. “In any case, we are still searching for links between the two cases. And as I’ve said before, I don’t know why you’re complaining. I’d assume you’d want us devoting every moment to trying to find Chloe.”
“I think you guys can do two things at once,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “I forgot how simple everything is when you’re a teenager.”
“Nothing is simple right now,” I said fiercely. “My best friend is missing and I keep being questioned by the police.”
“There’s an easy way to fix that. Just tell me what you’re hiding and we’ll leave you alone. I know you know something about her disappearance.” Trudeau’s voice had become soft and comforting. Was this some sort of interrogation trick to convince me that she was my friend? It would have taken a far better actor to convince me that the cops were on my side.
“Look, Chloe was my best friend, and I really hope you guys do find her safe and sound. But I didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance,” I said, wondering how many times I’d have to say this before they believed me.
Trudeau jumped up and began pacing in front of me. Her whole face changed in an instant as I rebuffed her attempt to play “good cop.” She was breathing sharply and glaring at me as if trying to stop herself from throttling me. It was a strange situation; there really was nothing she could do to make me talk. She had no proof that I was hiding anything, so all she could do was keep questioning me, hoping that eventually I would give in.
“I’m not talking about actions. I’m talking about knowledge, Jenny. You know something you’re not telling us. Maybe you’re doing it to protect Chloe, or maybe you’re doing it to save yourself, or maybe you just don’t think it’s relevant, but you can’t make that call. It could be the thing that helps us find Chloe, and by not telling us, you’re obstructing justice.”
She said all of this in a flurry, her chest heaving and her eyes shining, but it didn’t have the desired effect. I sat there, staring at her with an expressionless face.
“I’ve told you a million times, I don’t know anything,” I said.
Chapter Thirty–Two
When Tom picked me up that night, I told him to drive to the top of the ski hill. I’d been avoiding this place ever since Chloe disappeared, but it was time now to tell the truth. The whole truth.
The hill had shut down for the season a few weeks earlier, when the number of runs they kept open gradually dwindled down to zero. I was taking Tom to the top of the chairlifts, the place I’d shared with Chloe. It would be the first time I’d ever been there without her. It made me sad to realize that I might keep accumulating these firsts until someday I’d look back and realize that I’d lived a full life without my best friend.
Tom drove on the highway that curved through town. We passed our high school, a few cars haphazardly parked in front. I wondered if they belonged to teachers working late or drama students practicing. Maybe it was the janitors, silently pushing their brooms down granite corridors. I leaned out the window, the wind coursing across my scalp, and watched the school disappear behind me. Someday I’d leave it behind forever.
The streetlights bathed the highway in an amber glow. After I got my license, Chloe and I spent whole nights driving aimlessly around town. I always loved driving on this particular stretch of highway because the orange lights made you feel like you were in California on a summer night. It was hard to find exotic things in Thunder Creek; a good imagination was necessary.
Tom glanced over at me while we waited for a red light to change. His face was half bathed in shadow, but I could see a smile crinkle his eyes. He rea
ched over and patted my leg.
“I wish you were graduating this year too,” he said.
I shrugged. “But you’re going to Asia anyways,” I said. I’d been reminding myself of that fact constantly, hoping I’d stop forgetting that he was leaving, that he didn’t want me. Every time I forgot, it hurt more to remember.
“You could have come,” he said wistfully.
I looked out the passenger window, my mind turning over the unknown contours of that idea. I couldn’t imagine Tom and me anywhere other than Thunder Creek. Our connection was so grounded in feeling trapped by the familiar and resenting our lives. I couldn’t envision us being in a brand-new place together, a place we had chosen to represent freedom. It hurt to think of something so exciting when it was wrapped in the understanding that it couldn’t happen.
“Maybe. I’d settle for just getting out of Thunder Creek,” I said flatly, trying not to get upset over one more missed opportunity.
The light changed and Tom sped off again, climbing the road that led to the hill. When we got to the top, Tom parked in the darkest section of the lot and I led him to the ski lift.
It was terrifying to be back here, but I knew it was necessary. I spent the walk searching for Chloe’s mitten and was genuinely surprised when I couldn’t see it. I’d thought for sure that it would be here, a final breadcrumb to confirm my suspicions. Maybe it was silly to assume all along that the mitten was a sign.
Tom hesitated when I started climbing the ladder, but he eventually followed me. The view was especially beautiful. The moon was almost full, and it hung low in the sky like a balloon that had slipped through a child’s fingers. Thunder Creek was a blanket of lights thrown across the hills, its beauty only dulled by the stars above.
“It’s cool up here,” Tom said, sitting next to me on the platform. It was a tight squeeze, as Tom was a lot larger than Chloe, but I didn’t mind. The warm, spring-like breeze coming over the trees made my soul feel as light as whipped cream.
The Lives of Desperate Girls Page 20