Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board (Weeping Willow High)

by Aarsen, Zoe

  My heart sank. Cheryl knew that I loved the folksy duo Lamb and Owl from New Zealand. I had no idea that they were doing a U.S. tour and I was suddenly both jealous that she had tickets, and enraged with her for buying them in what was obviously an attempt to rekindle our friendship. Cheryl didn’t like them nearly as much as I did. Ditching the Homecoming game to venture downstate with Cheryl and presumably her mom or dad to a hipster folk concert would definitely not have gone unpunished by Olivia and Candace.

  “I would love to,” I lied wistfully, “But I might have to be here late after classes on Friday for a meeting that Mr. Dean was just telling me about. And then I usually stay home on Fridays. With my mom. You know, this time of year.”

  I hated myself for using Jennie’s death as a way to get out of having to go to the concert, but the excuse rolled off my tongue with such ease. Immediately Cheryl’s face fell, a mixture of disappointment that I was rebuffing her offer, and shame that I had called her out on forgetting that it was the most emotionally trying time of year for my family. As soon as I saw her reaction, I regretted my choice in excuses, but it was too late to rescind my lie. I wasn’t sure what I’d say if she found out I had gone to the Homecoming game with my new circle of friends, but I could already sense the lies forming in my head about them insisting that I accompany them to the game, appearing at my house, honking their car horns until I agreed to drive to Kenosha.

  “Oh my god, McKenna, I’m so sorry,” she apologized. She looked as if she might start crying. “I just completely forgot. I just miss hanging out, you know? I thought it would be fun to go to the concert together.”

  My heart was kind of breaking. I didn’t have much experience in ending friendships, and I wished there was a way that I could invite Cheryl into Olivia’s circle, too, but high school just didn’t work that way. I was disappointed in myself and knew that my mom would not appreciate how I was behaving. But I just wanted something more from high school that I couldn’t even put my finger on. I wanted to belong. I wanted to go to the Homecoming dance on Evan’s arm and not have to ever worry about being called cow by any of the idiots in the junior class ever again. I wanted memories of being popular to look back on by the time I left Willow for college. In an odd way, after the grief-saturated childhood I had endured, I felt like I was owed two years of popularity.

  “It’s okay, Cheryl. Maybe we can hang out next weekend,” I offered, knowing in my heart that I’d make excuses the following weekend, too.

  Outside on the track, with all of us dressed like clones in our red and black gym suits, Olivia and Mischa blazed past us, taking their laps far more seriously than me, Candace, and Hannah. Candace tuned both me and Hannah out by adjusting her iPod endlessly, skipping songs that didn’t suit her that afternoon and singing along off-key to those which did. We walked casually to the annoyance of Coach Stirling, our shadows stretched out on the gravel before us. Candace’s shadow was a foot longer than mine and Hannah’s.

  “About Friday,” Hannah said shyly when Candace wasn’t listening. She was nervous, and was fiddling with her locket. “I think I owe you an apology for what I said. I didn’t know about your family. I felt really awful all weekend but I didn’t want to text you or anything because that would have made it even more weird.”

  “It’s okay,” I replied, not especially wanting to talk about Jennie outside on the track on such a beautiful fall day, with a crisp breeze blowing. “You’re new in town. How would you have known?”

  She bit her lower lip nervously, as she often did, and I thought sinisterly to myself that if she wasn’t so pretty, it would have been easy to categorize Hannah among the anxious nerds and self-conscious dweebs of our school. “I don’t want to sound like a total freak, but sometimes I see things.”

  I felt the day slowing down around me like a special effect in a movie. I wasn’t sure if I had heard her correctly. Was she implying that she had some kind of psychic abilities? Perhaps my suspicion hadn’t been so off-base.

  “Um, could you elaborate on that?” I asked. “You can’t just say something like that and not explain.”

  Hannah shrugged as if what she had just said wasn’t a big deal. “You know, like, stuff. About people. Not like, X-ray vision or anything. But I just get sort of a vague impression of something that happened to them, or is about to happen, and I never really know what it means. When I touched your forehead, I smelled fire and I saw smoke. I didn’t know that you’d already survived a house fire,” she said apologetically.

  My walk had slowed down to a snail’s pace, and because Candace couldn’t hear our conversation over her music, she power-walked ahead of us. I couldn’t really believe what Hannah was telling me, but at the same time, I had to believe her, because it made sense. She knew things without knowing them. She saw things without her eyes.

  “So… Olivia’s car?” I dared to ask. “You mentioned in your story about Olivia that her parents were going to give her a red car for her birthday. Did you know that when you said that, the red Prius was already parked in the Richmonds’ driveway?”

  Hannah blanched and touched her fingers to her own forehead, obviously stressed that I was grilling her. It wasn’t my intention to be tough with her, but I naturally had a lot of questions about her ability. “No, I didn’t know it was already up there. But on the very first day of school when Olivia introduced herself to me, I just saw in my head that she would drive a small red car. I don’t know too much about cars. I just guessed that it was a red Prius.”

  “That is really, really weird,” I told her. On one hand, I was grateful that Hannah had opened up to me. On the other hand, a million more questions were forming in my head. “What else do you know… about me?”

  She only dared to look me in the eye for a second before her eyes darted up at the sky to avoid my stare. “Nothing, really. That’s it. Just fire. And… you have a dog? Something slow and spotted and furry.”

  Moxie was a Brittany Spaniel, and those days she was somewhat slow, hobbling around on her arthritic legs. I nodded to acknowledge that I did indeed have a dog, but I didn’t believe Hannah for a second.

  Hannah knew more, much more.

  But if I were to tell anyone, they would think I was crazy.

  And somehow she knew enough about me to confide in me, I guessed because she probably already sensed that I was onto her.

  What I was wondering more than anything—but didn’t dare ask—was that if Hannah had been able to sense the fire that had killed my sister, then were the stories that she’d told about Olivia, Candace, and Mischa also somehow based in reality?

  “Mr. Dean thinks I should run for Class Treasurer,” I told my mom as I was stirring noodles around on my plate at dinner time. I was being abnormally quiet at the dinner table as I thought about Hannah and everything she had admitted to me out on the track. It wasn’t like me to be reserved at mealtimes, but I definitely didn’t want to confide to my mom that I suspected a friend of having supernatural powers. She would have been on the phone with my dad, asking him to evaluate me, in a heartbeat.

  “Treasurer? Why Treasurer? You’d make a better Class Secretary,” my mother said, never one to encourage me to pursue anything I didn’t really have my heart set on. Save your energy for the challenges that count, she liked to say.

  “I can’t run for Class Secretary, I won’t win. Tracy Hartford always runs for Class Secretary and wins every year. I can only run for Treasurer because that’s the position I’d have a shot at,” I elaborated.

  My mother poured a little more cold spaghetti sauce out of the jar and onto her pasta. Most nights, dinner at our house was a very low-effort affair. We ate a lot of microwave dinners, and at least three nights each week we’d eat take-out that Mom would pick up as she drove back from teaching in Sheboygan. I had noticed a weird pattern develop over the last two years I’d been in high school; on Tuesdays she’d bring home Chinese food, Wednesdays it would be hamburgers, Friday meant pizza. I didn’t point the system
out to her even though she was probably unaware of the cycle.

  “That’s not the attitude of a winner,” she chided me. “I didn’t even know you were interested in Student Government. If you’re into it you, you should run for the office you want. Otherwise, you’re going to be resentful if you win. Who else is running?”

  “Jason Arkadian,” I said, swirling my spaghetti around even more.

  Explaining to my mother that there was no possible way my fellow students would vote for me over Tracy, and that if I chose to challenge her for her role of Class Secretary I would suffer certain public humiliation, was futile.

  “Well, does Jason Arkadian really want to be the junior Class Treasurer? Wouldn’t you feel badly if you denied him that opportunity just because it seemed like fun for a few days?” my mother asked me critically. She just didn’t get high school.

  “No, because I’m interested in it, too,” I admitted. Now that Mr. Dean had suggested it, all of the planning and possibilities associated with the election offered my brain a safe haven from more disturbing thoughts of Hannah and her strange visions. I could lead a successful fundraiser; I was pretty sure of it. And since Emily had been somewhat of an ambivalent Treasurer, I wouldn’t even have to try very hard to do a better job than she’d done. I had never known Emily very well, but had gotten the sense that she’d run for office just because Olivia had. “I would have to organize a fundraiser to pay for the class trip in May. I already have some ideas.”

  My mother stared at me across the table as if an alien was sitting in my chair instead of me. “You’re serious about this.”

  “I am,” I told her.

  “Well. If you’re into it, then I’m into it. It’ll look really great on your college applications. What do you have to do?”

  I told her I’d have to formally announce my nomination on Friday at a meeting after school. As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized that attending that meeting might complicate my trip to Kenosha to see the Homecoming game. I felt a little better about declining Cheryl’s offer to go to Madison. I hadn’t been completely lying to her after all about having an obligation on Friday after school that would prevent me from going to the concert.

  “I’ll pick up some poster board at Walgreens’ on the way home from Sheboygan tomorrow. But I really wish you’d consider running against Tracy Hartford. Her mother has the biggest mouth,” my mother complained.

  That night as I did my homework, I left my blinds raised intentionally because I could see that Trey’s were still open over the fence. I couldn’t see him stirring in his room, but his lights were on, suggesting that he was still awake. Evan texted me, making my heart rate slow down to a thud thud thud when I read his message, asking me what color my dress for the dance was. He was renting a tux and wanted to make sure the cummerbund matched, so that we would look like a real couple. I wondered briefly if he’d buy a corsage. My mother would be absolutely floored if a boy showed up at our house with a corsage to slide onto my wrist.

  Finally around one in the morning, I was too tired to even keep my eyes open any longer, and got up to lower my blinds. The moment I stood up, I looked through my window and saw Trey looking right back at me. This time, I stopped myself before I waved. I wouldn’t be made to feel like an overeager fool twice in one day.

  For a moment, neither of us looked away. Without waving, Trey finally nodded at me, acknowledging me. I wondered how those kittens were, if they’d survived their first night when Trey had slept outdoors with them. It would be insane of me to sneak into the Emorys’ yard to satisfy my own curiosity. I looked away first, and closed my blinds. I shamefully wondered what might have happened if I left them open while I changed into my pajamas. Would Trey have watched? Would he have wanted me to know that he was watching? Even just imagining the possibilities made my cheeks burn and my heart race. Why was I even thinking about flirting with Trey Emory? We might as well have lived in different galaxies instead of fifty feet away from each other.

  That night, I tried to think of slogans that I might put on posters to encourage kids to vote for me. I wondered who else might show up to the Student Government orientation meeting on Friday afternoon, potentially threatening my chances in the election. My status among Olivia’s circle was still so new that it wasn’t a surefire thing that I’d win. And if I lost, it might be enough of a kick in the teeth for me to fall back down to color guard status. That was reason enough to not even try, although a victory would secure my popularity until at least the end of the year.

  But the election was just a diversion, I knew. It masked my other thoughts, the ones that were keeping me awake far past a time when I should have been asleep. Thoughts about Hannah and who she was, if she was as innocent as she seemed, and if she knew as little about me as she claimed. And then even more thoughts about Trey, and if he hated me, and if so, why. I shouldn’t have been thinking about any of these things, I knew. I should have been smiling to myself in the dark because Evan Richmond was thinking about me; he had my phone number, and I’d be seeing him on Saturday night.

  “Check it out guys. I think this is it.”

  Olivia stepped out of the dressing room modeling the dress she had found on the rack at Tart, one of two cool boutiques at the small mall in Ortonville, the next town over from Willow to the West. The mall in Ortonville was nowhere near as big as the one in Green Bay, but we had decided to drive over on Wednesday after school to see if perhaps Olivia’s dream dress could be found there. Candace’s mother owned a nail salon inside the Ortonville mall, and Candace insisted that we avoid that hall of stores so that her mother wouldn’t know she was shopping instead of doing homework.

  “Whoah. I think that’s the one, dude,” Candace said, slurping on her frozen chocolate latte through a straw.

  The dress—strapless and cream-colored in a shade that was just dark enough not to be too summery for September—fit Olivia perfectly. It was covered in a layer of delicate eyelet, and when Olivia spun in front of the mirror, the full skirt swung around her knees as if she were a princess in a Disney cartoon.

  “I kind of love it,” Olivia announced. “It’s not really what I was picturing, but it might even be better.”

  “It’s hot,” Hannah assured Olivia. “You should buy it just in case it’s not here later this week.”

  The numbers I saw on the price tag made me cringe when I saw them in a flash before Olivia returned to the dressing room to change back into her melon-colored jeans and silk blouse. I wondered if Hannah recognized the dress that Olivia would carry home in a bright pink bag from Tart that afternoon. She had been uncharacteristically lively and talkative on the drive over from Willow, and I suspected that she was intentionally avoiding eye contact with me.

  Mischa insisted that we stop at the cookie shop before piling back into Olivia’s car to purchase snacks for the ride home. I abstained, envying Mischa her fast metabolism, and desperately not wanting to gain back any of the weight I’d shed over the summer. Once back within town borders, Olivia dropped Mischa off first, because she had to go to gymnastics class at the gym with Amanda. Hannah insisted on being left at the library, where her mom would pick her up after work. I was surprised to be the last one remaining in the car other than Candace, who rode shotgun in the red Prius. In a weird way, being the last one to get dropped off was sort of like being the last one who Olivia hoped to get rid of.

  I decided it was as good a time as any to test my plan to run for Class Treasurer against Olivia. I announced it casually, as if I was still kind of kicking the idea around.

  “Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, Student Government is so boring. It’s the worst. I only ran for President because my dad really wants me to try to get a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin.”

  After stewing over the possibility of winning the election all day on Tuesday, by Wednesday evening I was sure I wanted to run. More importantly, I was sure I wanted to win. It was odd how I had gone from not even considering Student
Government to feeling like my life couldn’t go on if I didn’t win the election in just three short days at the suggestion of Mr. Dean.

  “Totally,” I said. “It wouldn’t be boring for me. Don’t think I’m a freak, but the more I think about it, the more I’m into it.”

  “You are definitely psycho!” Olivia teased. “But meetings will suck less if you’re there. We should run together, like running mates!”

  Having not only Olivia’s approval, but her enthusiasm as well, solidified my resolve to run. Participation in the election went from being a high-risk gamble of my social standing to a necessary step in my certain victory in less than a minute with just a few words from Olivia.

  “Oh my god, you guys are so political,” Candace complained. “What am I going to do in this dump of a town when you’re both passing bills on Capitol Hill?”

  “Marry Isaac and have like, fifty kids,” Olivia teased.