by Aarsen, Zoe
Strangely, Candace returned to her old self that week at school. It was if the promise of a trip to Hawaii had pointed her mania a different direction. In the cafeteria, she rolled her eyes at Hannah and didn’t appear to be affected by the taunts and jeers of lower classmen who had heard about her Homecoming rampage. I continued to sit with Hannah, Tracy, and Michael at lunch time, but made no attempt to hide my friendliness toward Mischa and Candace. With mid-terms just two weeks away and the leaves beginning to fall from every tree in town, I busied myself with preparations for our first junior class fundraiser of the year. It was my goal to organize a weekend yard clean-up service, which I had decided to call, “the junior class Rake Sale.” I created a series of posters encouraging classmates to sign up for six-hour shifts to help our class “rake in the money” for the ski trip that Hannah was organizing for January. The amount of money that we needed to raise by the end of January was fairly daunting. Wealthy kids at our school probably could have asked their parents to write checks to cover their costs, but everyone else could raise the majority of the cost of their trip by working their shift. No one liked doing manual labor, but I was hopeful that people would take advantage of the opportunity to pay for their trip with a few hours of hard work.
To my great surprise and relief, the sign-up forms were nearly full by Wednesday afternoon at lunch time after having been posted in the cafeteria for only three days. It definitely seemed like kids were open to working off their fee to go on the trip; the big remaining question was whether or not people in town would be interested in hiring high school kids to clean up their leaves, mow their lawns, and trim their hedges. We lived in a town where everyone’s family had thousands of dollars’ worth of lawn equipment in their garage, so it was a gamble whether or not anyone would be willing to pay for assistance.
Candace’s mom checked Candace out of school from the principal’s office on Thursday to drive her to Sheboygan to meet with my father’s former colleague, Dr. Gonzalez. Candace had actually been looking forward to the examination, hoping that Dr. Gonzalez would take her side on the topic of the sedatives and anti-depressant drugs she had been taking for the last month. She was insistent that the drugs were dulling her senses and making her feel stupid, and was eager to be free of her prescriptions. Mischa and I walked Candace to the first floor before lunch time and watched through the slats in the blinds on the windows of the principal’s office as she greeted her mother. They exchanged pleasantries with the office administrators before stepping back into the hallway. Mrs. Lehrer shifted her oversized sunglasses from the top of her head back down over her eyes as soon as she was back in the busy high school hallway in an attempt to avoid the stares of curious teenagers. Candace held perfect posture as she strode toward the high school’s western exit, a set of double doors leading to the guest parking lot, not especially caring who observed her leaving school midday with her parent.
All afternoon, I was lost in thought during my classes, wondering if—when Candace resurfaced later that night—she would be able to provide some kind of logical, reasonable explanation for everything that had happened in the last few weeks. Even despite all of the proof that I’d gathered, I was still holding out for some kind of plausible reason for all of the weirdness I had witnessed. My father had taught me that logic was the greatest defense against doubt, and while I was certain that what I’d seen with my own eyes was real, I desperately wanted a reason for it not to be so.
Not surprisingly, Candace reconnected with Mischa that night before calling me. Mischa had already texted me the disturbing message, “She’s in total denial,” ten minutes before my phone rang. I smiled politely at my mom and crept down the hall to my room to speak in privacy.
“So, what’s the word? Are you bonkers?” I teased.
“Totally not bonkers. Easily distracted and suffering typical symptoms of grief, but I’m afraid that’s all,” Candace sighed. “Sorry to disappoint.”
I didn’t want to press her for more information and risk upsetting her, but at the same time, I was desperate to hear more about the psychiatrist’s assessment of the circumstances of Olivia’s death. “Did he ask you about Olivia and the accident?”
“Duh. Of course he did. We talked for a while about the emotions people go through when someone close to them dies. All of it made total sense. I realized when I was trying to tell him about Olivia’s party that I don’t even really remember too well what happened that night. I still think Hannah is shady. But I mean, how similar was her story about Olivia’s death to what actually ended up happening?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. It was as if Candace had been brainwashed.
She took a deep breath on the other end of the line. “I am open to the possibility that I may have imagined a lot of the details that were upsetting me most.”
A million objections sprang to mind, but I kept myself calm, not wanting to disrupt whatever solace she had achieved during her meeting with Dr. Gonzalez. “I don’t think you really imagined all of it,” I commented gently. “Mischa and I were there, too, and we’ve both thought for the past few weeks that Hannah was involved in Olivia’s death. Did he say anything about the possibility that maybe we were all hypnotized into thinking weird things because of the game?”
Candace paused, and then said, “Honestly, McKenna, I don’t think it’s healthy for me to dwell on that game any longer. I just want to get my mid-terms over with, and fly to Hawaii. That’s all I want to think about: getting a tan. And I don’t think it would be such a bad idea for you to talk to a psychiatrist, too. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you might very well have some unresolved issues from your sister’s death.”
Naturally I bristled at that, and couldn’t stop myself from wondering if this was speculation on Candace’s part or if Dr. Gonzalez, who I’d never met but who surely knew all about me, having worked with my dad, had formed that opinion of me. Our conversation drifted to a close and Candace asked if I was prepared for that weekend’s fundraiser. I was surprised that the Rake Sale was even on her mind. Candace had been generally so checked out of normal high school life for the last few weeks, I doubted that she read the posters on the walls or listened to morning announcements.
As Candace seemed to be distancing herself from Hannah’s involvement with Olivia’s death, the disturbance in my bedroom had been growing stronger all week. I had taken to keeping myself awake until the wee hours of the early morning with my lights on, waiting until I was absolutely certain my mom was asleep and that my trot down the hall with a blanket to the living room couch wouldn’t wake her. Sleeping over in Trey’s room on Sunday night had been enough to scare me out of attempting it a second time soon; either the alarm clock on his cell phone had failed, or Trey had absent-mindedly turned it off after its first ring, and we’d overslept. The sound of his mom knocking loudly on the door had sent me diving beneath the comforter, certain that a very uncomfortable and oddly baseless conversation with my mom about sex was in my not-too-distant future.
On Friday morning, my mother was waiting for me with her hands on her hips in the kitchen when I surfaced for orange juice after a restless night.
“When I got up this morning, one of the burners on the stove was on, and it looked like it had been burning all night,” she said in a barely controlled, angry voice.
Already having a good idea of who was to blame for the oven being turned on, I feigned interest in the stovetop and noticed that an area around the burner in the front left corner was darkened from heat.
“Sorry,” I said, not sure what to say. “I don’t even remember the last time I turned the stove on.”
I knew better than to flat-out deny my own involvement; there were only two of us in the house and if I blamed Olivia’s ghost, my mother would cart me off to the insane asylum to have my head checked faster than I’d be able to say, “Just kidding.” I was surprised that Olivia had managed to tinker with the gas stovetop, but not shocked, seeing as how she was probably annoyed that
I was foiling her attempts to harass me in my bedroom. I had taken down all of the shelves and framed photographs in my room, and had boxed up my music boxes and CD’s. In frustration, Olivia was obviously trying out her strength in different areas of the house, and it occurred to me that I should probably fear that she might try out her tricks in my mom’s room.
“Honestly, McKenna,” my mom said in wonderment, staring me down. “What is going on? You’re up at all hours of the night, doing absent-minded things like this. Are you sleepwalking? And then there’s the eating, and the weight loss… I am really concerned.”
“I don’t think I’m sleepwalking,” I said, not sure how to get myself off the hook for this kitchen disaster. I also didn’t think I’d lost any more weight since the summer, and attributed that comment to Hannah’s mom’s involvement. “But I guess anything’s possible. I honestly don’t remember turning the burner on. I didn’t cook anything yesterday.”
Mom was not buying my act of innocence for a second. “Maybe this whole Student Government thing was a bad idea. If you’re under too much stress, then something has got to give.”
“It’s not too much stress,” I assured her quickly. “I’m enjoying it.” But even as I was speaking the words, I knew I was trying to convince myself as much as her.
That night, Trey told his parents he was sleeping over at a friend’s house, and crept through my window with his backpack. He looked around at my stark walls in wonderment, shaking his head. “It looks like you’re moving out,” he commented. Olivia’s spirit was strangely quiet, not causing any disturbances at all. It was so eerie, I half-expected to open my bedroom door in the morning and find the rest of the house missing.
In the morning, my alarm clock sounded at dawn and I left Trey sleeping in my room when my mom gave me a lift to the shopping center where juniors would assemble for the Rake Sale. Hannah and Tracy were already there, waiting and sipping lattes in Tracy’s car. Mom and I had brought with us a table with folding legs and posters that Hannah, Tracy, Michael, and I had made during the week, and Hannah and Tracy walked across the parking lot to greet us as Mom pulled the table out of the trunk.
“Hi, Mrs. Brady,” Hannah said in a polite sing-song voice.
“Hi, girls,” my mom said, unfolding the legs of the table. I could tell that she had no idea which girl was Hannah and which girl was Tracy. I made fast, bashful introductions, eager for my mom to drive away before volunteers from school began to arrive.
“This was such a great idea of McKenna’s. She’s really a genius at thinking up ways to raise money,” Hannah gushed.
My mother looked at me with a quizzical expression. “I don’t know where she gets it from. Certainly not from my side of the family.”
Thirty minutes later, there were a handful of students roaming around the parking lot for their shift, and holding signs along the road side to catch the attention of cars passing by. It was nine in the morning, and our services were officially available for the day, at least according to the hours of service we’d written on our posters, and the story that had been written about us in the Willow Gazette. Kids had arrived carrying rakes, hoes, bush pruners, and gardening gloves as they had been instructed, and were now just eager for some customers. I tried to happily greet everyone who had arrived for our first shift and felt a little guilty as I saw Erica’s mom’s black SUV pull into the lot. Erica’s mom greeted me by loudly announcing, “McKenna! You’ve lost so much weight! I never would have recognized you!” I blushed furiously and cringed, wishing that Mrs. Bloom hadn’t reminded everyone in the parking lot that I had been thirty pounds heavier the previous October.
Thanking Erica and Cheryl for coming so early and working the first shift was particularly hard for me, because I knew that neither of them really needed to earn money to pay for their ski trips. They were there to win back my approval, I knew. I was both embarrassed by their desperateness and also by my own reluctance to give in and accept their friendship again. Mischa wouldn’t be there until the afternoon shift because she had a morning gymnastics meet, and Candace was too unpredictable to count on for either shift. In my head, a pesky voice told me you know who your real friends are, and I tried to block it out. “Thank you guys so much for volunteering,” I told both of them. “I really wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out this morning.”
By ten in the morning, several cars had pulled into the lot to book services for the day. I staffed the reservation table with Tracy, and Hannah kept track of which kids we would assign to each appointment. In pairs of two, kids accepted slips of paper on which we had written the address and phone number of the house where they were being sent, and drove off to mow lawns and trim bushes with strict orders not to venture inside the homes of anyone they didn’t know. Fortunately, our town was small enough that we knew most of the people who requested our services by name. We sent Jeff Harrison and Tony Fortunado from the basketball team over to the Highlands’ house to clean the gutters of the coach’s in-laws. Sarah Chaney and Crystal Blomquist went to the home of the owner of our town’s largest grocery store to plant orange chrysanthemums and marigolds. A husband and wife with a handful of young children stopped by and asked for three kids to come by, claiming they had an acre of property and could use all the help they could get. It felt like a gift to be actually busy and lost in thought in the warm morning sun, for once occupied with something other than ghostly business.
Forty minutes after Jeff and Tony departed in Tony’s hatchback car, Jeff called Hannah on her cell phone to inform her that there was a crisis. They hadn’t brought with them green lawn refuse bags required by our town’s sanitation department, and Coach Highlands’ in-laws also didn’t have any at the house. They were staring at a huge mountain of leaves and weren’t sure what to do about them next.
“Bags,” Hannah called to me with her hand over her phone. “We need to send refuse bags over to Longfield Road!”
I looked around the parking lot helplessly. We had sent nearly all of our morning volunteers out on jobs already. Immediately I felt myself overheat with panic; I thought I had been so organized and thoughtful, telling all of the volunteers to bring their own lawn tools. It had never even occurred to me to arrange for refuse bags in advance. I felt foolish and ill-prepared for having overlooked something so fundamental. The shopping center where we had set up our operation for the day featured the ice cream shop, a donut shop, a dry cleaner, a beauty salon and a dog grooming parlor. None of those were establishments that would logically carry boxes of refuse bags. Before I even had time to formulate any kind of a plan, Erica was standing in front of me with a solution.
“I can get some bags,” she offered. Her father was the manager of the large hardware superstore in our town’s bigger shopping center a few miles away.
As usual, I only had a few crumpled single bills in my wallet, surely not enough to buy the expensive bags. “I don’t have any cash,” I said, wondering how my mom might react if I summoned her back to the parking lot from home, requesting that she bring money for my school project, especially since just the day before she had expressed concern about my role in Student Government.
“It’s okay. I can take care of it,” Erica said enthusiastically. Cheryl was already digging her car keys out of her purse, and the two of them walked toward Cheryl’s small white car. They stopped by the Highlands’ house on their way back to the shopping center and dropped off a box of refuse bags with Jeff and Tony. Upon their return, Erica informed me that the several boxes of bags she brought back with her were a donation from her dad. Relief pumped through my veins. I knew after that day, I was going to have to commit to spending more time with Erica, Cheryl, and Kelly again.
“Oh my god, that was so sweet of you guys,” Hannah gushed, taking Erica’s hands in her own and smiling appreciatively. Unlike Olivia, Hannah understood that the key to supreme popularity was making everyone adore her, even the nerdish girls like Cheryl and Erica. It wasn’t that Olivia had been cruel to un
popular girls; she had just considered them unworthy of her attention. Hannah’s gratitude seemed genuine, even though I would have been surprised if she knew Cheryl and Erica’s names.
Taking me completely by surprise, Trey surfaced in the parking lot around one o’clock when the afternoon shift was beginning.
“Hey!” I exclaimed. “You’re not even a junior.”
He pecked me on the cheek and clarified, “Oh, I’m not here to work. Just to flirt with girls.”
I blushed and reached out to hold his fingers. With the exception of me, I had never witnessed Trey flirting with any girls before.
“Your mom went into your room after she got back from dropping you off,” he told me in a low voice, taking a step closer to me.
“Oh God, did she see you in there?”
“No, of course not, but she was going through your stuff,” he continued, and waited for my reaction.
At first I was furious—who wouldn’t be?—but then I remembered our conversation the previous morning, and realized she was probably being a diligent mom, making sure I wasn’t hiding drugs in my room. I quickly tried to think through the inventory of stuff in my room to make sure there wasn’t anything in there that might spark concerns. The Ouija board was hidden in plain sight in the Emorys’ basement on their shelf of mildewing board games. I had never kept a diary at any point in my life, and since Trey usually crept through the window already in his pajamas, he had never accidentally left any possessions behind before returning home.