The Girl in the Park

by Mariah Fredericks

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Mariah Fredericks

  Jacket photograph of girl copyright © 2012 by Jason Todd/Rubberball/Getty Images; jacket photograph of Central Park © 2012 by Eileen O’Donnell/Flickr/Getty Images

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Schwartz & Wade Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Schwartz & Wade Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Jon Landau for permission to reprint an excerpt from “Yesterday’s Child” by Patti Scialfa, copyright © 2004 by Patti Scialfa (ASCAP). All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Fredericks, Mariah.

  The girl in the park / Mariah Fredericks.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When a teenaged girl with a bad reputation is murdered in New York City’s Central Park after a party, her childhood friend is determined to solve the mystery of who caused her death.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89907-2

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Murder—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction.

  4. Schools—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.F872295 Gi 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011012309

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  FOR THE ONES WHO NEVER

  MADE IT HOME

  AND THEIR FAMILIES

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Day One

  Day Two

  Day Three

  Day Four

  Day Five

  Day Six

  Day Seven

  Day Eight

  Day Nine

  Day Ten

  Day Eleven

  Day Twelve—The Last Day

  After

  DAY ONE

  In my dream, everyone talks except me. It’s a party, and I’m surrounded by voices. I listen. I smile. I nod. No one is actually speaking to me. But still—I want to pretend I’m a part of it.

  Faces spin by in a blur. More people now, and still more. They laugh, tease, point fingers. Their talk becomes a meteor shower of sound, the words coming too fast and hard to understand.

  And maybe because I am silent, I’m the one who sees her. Wendy. She’s standing in a wide-open window. The city stretches vast and dark behind her. Her toes are poised on the sill, her fingertips just reach the edges. There is nothing to hold her as she stares into the crowded room.

  All of a sudden, she wobbles. Her fingers lose their hold. Now it’s all balance. Her arms flail, a foot rises. I am too far away, I can’t reach her in time.

  Stop! I yell. But it comes out an ugly blurted Op! People glance over, embarrassed, go back to their talk.

  She’s falling! This is She alling! Someone giggles. Another girl tries to hide her smile.

  Desperate, I scream, Someone help her! Thomeone elper!

  Now the laughter starts. As everyone swings toward me, pointing and snickering, Wendy falls, but no one sees. I howl, No, no! as I feel my heart fall with her.

  And someone’s knocking at the door.

  I open my eyes, see my mom standing by my bed. Still dazed from the dream, I take in my purple quilt covered in stars, Sullivan the blue whale perched at the foot of my bed, the postcard mosaic on the opposite wall. Faces, because I like faces. Greta Garbo. Edith Piaf. Lucy from Peanuts.

  I struggle up, croak, “Hey, Mom.”

  “Rain, honey, I’m sorry to wake you.”

  I look at the clock. 7:16. We’re visiting my grandmother today, but even so, this is way, way early for Sunday morning. Particularly when I’ve been to a party the night before. Which my mother knows. So what gives?

  Blinking, I say, “It’s fine. What’s up?”

  “Ms. Geller’s on the phone. She’s looking for Wendy.”

  My mom looks at me. What is this?

  I look back. I have no idea.

  As we walk down the hall, my mom asks, “Was Wendy at the party last night?”

  Wendy doesn’t miss parties. “Yeah, she was there.”

  “I didn’t know she was still a close friend.”

  I make a face like, I didn’t either.

  Now we’re at the kitchen. I pick up the phone. “Hi, Ms. Geller.”

  “Rain? I’m so sorry to call this early.” She’s talking fast, a little too loud. Scared, I think, but trying not to be.

  “No problem at all. What can I do?”

  “Well …” Big sigh, ends on a shaky laugh. Everything’s okay! “Wendy did not come home last night.”

  Faces start flashing in my head. Snatches of conversation. Wendy surrounded by people, laughing—she’s always laughing.

  I hear Ms. Geller say, “And, uh, I’m just hoping there’s a very rational explanation.” Again, the weird shaky laugh.

  “Oh, absolutely,” I say.

  “You were at Karina Burroughs’s party last night, right?”

  “Yes. Wendy was there. I definitely saw her.”

  “Was she … How do I ask this? Was she okay?”

  Wendy using two hands to lift a gallon of vodka, sloshing it over a line of plastic cups. Party time!

  “Um, it was a party. But when I saw her, she was fine.”

  “When did you last see her? Can you remember?”

  “I left early,” I apologize. “Before midnight. So probably I saw her at …”

  Hey, Nico …

  “Eleven? Eleven-thirty?” I say.

  “And she was okay?”

  I make agony eyes at my mom, and she squeezes my hand.

  “She had had some alcohol,” I say carefully. “But she wasn’t over the edge or anything.”

  “Anyone she was with? A boy?”

  Come be with me, Nico.

  I hate this. I don’t want to tell this woman things she doesn’t want to know. “She has lots of friends, Ms. Geller. Everybody likes Wendy.”

  Even as I say this, I wonder why I’m saying it. Because it’s not true.

  I finish lamely, “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “But there’s no one you can remember she might have stayed with?”

  “Did you try Karina? Or Jenny Zalgat?”

  “Oh, yes.” Ms. Geller’s voice turns chilly. “They couldn’t be bothered to come to the phone.”

  Hung over, I think. Or protecting Wendy. No—protecting themselves.

  I hesitate. There is one other name I could give Ms. Geller.

  I blurt out, “Nico Phelps. You could call him.”

  “Nico Phelps.” A pause. She’s writing it down. “You don’t have his number?”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Okay.” Deep breath. “Okay. Thank you. This is—”

  “You truly don’t need to thank me, Ms. Geller. I bet Wendy calls the second you hang up.”

  “Probably.” She almost laughs this time, then says, “Actually, that’s another thing.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve tried calling her cell phone. There’s no answer.”

  Wendy checking her cell, chucking it back in
her bag. Somebody’s playing mommy again. As if she gives a crap.

  “Sounds like she’s feeling a little defiant,” I joke.

  “I hope,” says Ms. Geller. “I mean, that that’s …”

  She stops herself. “Anyway, sweetie, thank you. When this is over, I want you to come to dinner. We’d love to see you. It’s been so long.”

  “Yeah, same. And—”

  “Yes?”

  “Let me know. When it all works out.”

  “I will.” And she hangs up.

  * * *

  “Wendy Geller,” says my mom, pouring us both coffee. “You haven’t been friends with her in years.”

  “Not since ninth grade.” I pour milk in, watch it bleed through the dark, clear coffee and turn it muddy. “Total besties until we realized, Hm, we actually have nothing in common.”

  My mom nods in her pretend wise woman way. “You were very different girls.”

  “Yeah. She was cool, though.”

  Cleft palate. Big deal. Okay, maybe you sound a little funny. Some. Times. But you need to forget about that and speak up, girl!

  Wendy is dropping frozen cookie dough on a baking sheet. Turning, she says, “Because can I say something? Most people? Myself included? Talk way too much. You. On the other hand. Listen. And you think. So when you do speak? You’re brilliant. So, give up the silence, okay?”

  We are sitting in my kitchen at an old wooden table. My mom likes blue and white; you can see it in the white curtains, the blue tiles on the wall. A vase of sunflowers sits on the windowsill, big and ridiculously beautiful.

  I tug on one of the petals. I am thrilled by Wendy’s compliment and do not know what to say. My whole life, people have been telling me to speak, and it’s just one more thing that’s wrong with me. Rain does not participate in class. Speak up, I can’t understand you. Years of speech therapy have helped my s’s, sharpened my t’s. But I still hate how I sound: mushmouthed and nasal. Even if people can understand me, why would they want to listen?

  Wendy is the first person to tell me I might have something to say. And she gives me this amazing present as if it’s nothing. As if it’s no big deal to tell someone, You’re cool, you’re normal. You don’t have to hide.

  A blob of dough in her hand, Wendy says, “And now I have a question—why are we baking these?”

  Me laughing. “Not sure.”

  “The dough rocks raw, am I right?”

  “You are so right.”

  “She was sweet,” I tell my mom. “She had a good heart.” Then I wonder: Why am I talking about this girl in the past? Because you don’t know her anymore, comes the answer.

  I say, “I don’t know why her mom called me.”

  “Maybe because you’re the last sane friend she had.” My mom holds out the bagel basket.

  Taking a poppyseed bagel, I say, “There are a few other sane people at my school, Mom.”

  My mom sings opera. Like for a living. She’s not Renée Fleming, but if you’re into opera, you probably know her. Maybe it’s all that time she spends with Verdi and Mozart, but she has very high standards. One of the things she says: “If you eat junk and you watch junk, you turn into …” “Junk?” I guess. “Exactly.” Luckily she also has a sense of humor and has been known to pig out on Chinese food and Project Runway marathons.

  Even though Wendy and I haven’t been friends for almost two years, sometimes I’ll tell my mom things I’ve heard about her. Why, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s hard to get my head around the fact that someone I was once friends with would be doing those things.

  All of which is to say: my mom doesn’t have the highest opinion of Wendy.

  Now I say, “It’s important to Wendy for people to like her.”

  “So she becomes the kind of person people ‘like’ instead of the person she really is.”

  “Ma …”

  My mom reaches out and squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry. Just her poor mother was so scared and … thank you,” she says suddenly. “For not doing that to me. If you’re ever that mad at me, hit me with a frying pan.”

  “Really?” I grin at the thought.

  “Well, maybe a pillow. But don’t let it get to this point.” My mom shudders, picks up her coffee. “Who’s Nico Phelps? I haven’t heard that name before.”

  “There’s a reason for that.” I look at the clock. “We should get ready for Grandma’s.”

  “Ooh, gosh!” My mom leaps off the chair, her kimono flying.

  Later, as we’re heading toward the car, my mom says, “So, what’s really going on here?” and I know she means Wendy.

  I hold up my hands like, Who knows?

  My grandma lives in Connecticut. Unless she has a performance, my mom visits her every Sunday. Every other Sunday, I come. And my mom, being my mom, insists on no iPods, and cell phones turned off. Because “when you’re with a person, you should be with that person. Not distracted by five million other things.”

  But I can’t help it. Today I’m distracted. Not by five million things, just one. Wendy.

  Last night, on my way to the party, I wondered, Okay, what will Wendy do tonight?

  Will she get bombed? Probably yes.

  Say something outrageous? Pretty sure yep.

  Take off all or most of her clothes? Always a chance.

  Kiss, grope, or whatever, someone? Likelihood strong.

  Chance that that someone will be someone else’s boyfriend? 99.9 %.

  Then I thought about the particularly insane thing she had promised to do that night. And I wondered two things: Doesn’t she know how ridiculous she is? And what is that like? To have no fear?

  My mom taps me on the leg. “We’re here.”

  My grandmother lives in Litchfield, in a house some people would call a mansion but she would insist is just a house. My mom grew up here. She rode horses. It looks like the kind of place you ride horses. Lots of grass. Lots of quiet. White houses and American flags. It’s one of those drizzly, cold November days; when we arrive, my mom and I hurry from the car to the door.

  It used to be when we visited my grandmother, she’d open the door herself, fold first me, then my mom in a big hug. “Glory be, you’re here!” Now the nurse answers the door with a big smile and calls, “Ms. Donovan, look who’s come to lunch!” Of course, my grandmother can’t look because she’s in the living room. In a wheelchair.

  So my mom takes off her coat and asks the nurse, whose name is Gwen, how my mom is. Which means, Tell me what to expect. And Gwen murmurs, She’s fine, doing fine. Which means, No change. Meanwhile, I go down the hall, calling, “Grandma?”

  Since her stroke, my grandmother can’t move her right side. As I come through the door, I see her sitting in her chair, staring out at the garden, as if something she wants is out there but she’s not sure how to get it. I hesitate, confused by her distance. But then she seems to recognize that I’m here. Her left hand rises and her blue eyes brighten.

  Hugging her, I say, “Hey, Grandma, you look great.”

  She peers at me. “… oo ook ike … oo.” You look like you.

  “And that’s okay?” My hands go to the chopsticks in my hair. Most people make me feel self-conscious, but only two people have the right to: my mother and my grandmother.

  “Gr-r-rand.”

  My mom comes running in like she’s a teenager and her mom is her best friend who she hasn’t seen in forever. She gives her a big, long hug, then whispers, “Guess what I brought.” My grandmother shakes her head. “Cheesecake.”

  Over lunch, which still takes place in the formal dining room at a table meant for twelve, my grandmother asks, “ ’ow’s sool?”

  I catch a flash of anxiety from my mom; she has a hard time understanding my grandmother these days. “School’s hard,” I say, translating for her.

  “Junior year is so much pressure,” says my mom.

  My grandmother makes a face. “… ’oo serious. Have fun.”

  “I have fun,” I assure her.
>
  “Just last night, she went to a party,” my mother chimes in. My grandmother raises her eyebrow: And what did you get up to?

  “Nothing, Grandma. You know me.”

  Can I make a suggestion?

  Wendy transferred to our school in ninth grade. Right away, it was clear she didn’t belong. First off, she was from Long Island. Her parents had split up a year earlier, and her mom had just moved back to the city. Rich city and rich suburbia are not the same. It showed in Wendy’s clothes, in her hair. You heard it in her voice. B&T, people sniffed. Bridge and Tunnel. And the fact that she wanted so bad to fit in just made it worse.

  At our school, everybody is the child of a Somebody. That kid’s dad is a real estate mogul, that kid’s mom is a judge, that one’s uncle wrote the script for Batman. Wendy’s mom and dad were no one you’d heard of. Her grandparents were paying the bills for Alcott, and their money was something tacky like pool cleaner. For a while, Wendy had the nickname Pond Scum.

  In ninth grade, I was feeling like I didn’t belong, either. My two best friends had left—one moved to Westchester, the other transferred. They’d been my islands of safety, people I could float to in class or the cafeteria. They never made fun of how I talked, and because of them, I rarely had to talk to people who might. Now I was starting high school lost in a sea of people who thought I sounded like the Elephant Man.

  Not that they said so to my face. Anymore. Sure, some kids still wiggled their fingers in fake sign language at me in the hallway. (“Sounds so weird, she must be deaf,” ha, ha.) But most of it was more subtle. Like the first week of school when I had to ask Nora Acheson how many chapters to read for History of the Renaissance. She frowned as I talked, her mouth tight with embarrassment. Then once I’d ground to a halt, she said in a resentful voice, “I’m sorry, I did not understand that. What did you say?”

  I knew my mistake. I had dared to speak. The rule at Alcott was simple: if you are not okay, keep it to yourself. Do not inflict yourself on those better than you. Stay silent. Keep your head down. Leave us alone—and we’ll leave you alone. Remind us of the depressing fact that you exist and we will punish you however we see fit.

  Which was why what Wendy did that day in the hallway was so completely and utterly astonishing.