Slide

by Jill Hathaway

  Or maybe Samantha is right for once in her life.

  Or maybe Sophie and Mr. Golden were having an affair.

  He’s good-looking in an older, Johnny Depp sort of way. I could see how a girl could develop a crush on him. And what guy wouldn’t want some of what Sophie had? She was stunning.

  But she was a kid.

  My stomach turns over, thinking about the two of them together.

  “You okay?” A hand pulls on my sleeve, bringing me back from my twisted reverie. Zane is leaning close, and I catch a whiff of his cologne, something spicy.

  He’s got a notebook propped up on his lap so that it looks like he’s taking notes, but behind it he’s reading a book. I crane my head to see the title—Tender Is the Night. Zane catches me peeking and gives me a sheepish, lopsided grin.

  I smile back, and warmth rushes into my cheeks. It’s nice to feel something other than fear. It’s nice to think about how cute Zane is, with that shock of blond hair falling in his face, instead of speculating about who killed Sophie. Zane returns to his book, and I try to focus on what Mr. Golden is saying. I realize someone is staring at me from across the room. It’s Rollins, and he doesn’t look happy at all.

  After class, Rollins pushes out of the room without a word, but Zane lingers as I stuff my notebook into my backpack.

  “Good weekend?”

  “Um. Not exactly.”

  He gives me a sideways look. “Everything okay?”

  “Well, besides my sister’s best friend dying, I’m great,” I say, and then realize how bitter that sounds. “Sorry. Just having a rough week.”

  He reaches toward me, as if to put a hand on my arm, but then pulls it away, like he’s not sure if he should touch me. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Determined not to be a total downer, I try to make small talk. “So how was your weekend?”

  He shrugs. “Went to a concert.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who’d you see?”

  “The Belly-Button Lint.”

  “Never heard of ’em.”

  “Consider yourself lucky.” He makes a face and tucks his novel under his arm.

  “Good book?” I ask.

  Zane grins. “I’m a sucker for Fitzgerald.”

  “Yeah? I read The Great Gatsby last year. Not a huge fan.”

  We’re the last ones in the classroom, and I’m conscious of Mr. Golden straightening papers at his desk, trying to seem like he’s not listening.

  “Let me guess. You read it for English. You had to fill out study guides. At the end, you wrote a five-page paper and had to analyze the characters, the symbols, the theme.” Zane shakes his head in disgust.

  “Something like that,” I say, nodding. It was only a three-page paper, but still.

  “God, it pisses me off when teachers suck all the life out of literature. Do me a favor. Read Gatsby again, but read it outside, under a tree, at dusk. It’s a completely different experience. Only read a chapter if you want, but give it a shot. Will you do that for me?”

  The expression on his face is so serious. I’ve never met anyone as passionate about words before. Well, Rollins loves to write, but it’s almost as though he does it because he’s compelled to point out the hypocrisy all around us, not because he loves the language. The way Zane speaks about F. Scott Fitzgerald—well, it reminds me of how I feel about the stars. They are bigger than me, bigger than us all, and that’s what makes them beautiful.

  “I promise,” I say, and the look on Zane’s face makes me tingle.

  After school, a handful of kids are hanging out in the parking lot, killing time before football practice or play rehearsal or whatever. A group of guys sits in the back of a pickup truck, arguing about who will buy beer next weekend. Two sophomore girls lean together, sharing earbuds, bopping their heads to a beat I can’t hear.

  I pass by the tree Sophie used to park her little Neon under. I can picture her easy smile and dimples. Her wide-open eyes. The dark slash across each wrist. The white piece of paper, mocking me with Sophie’s fake last words. I have to stop walking. I drop my backpack and lean against the tree, pressing my palms against my eyelids to make the memory go away.

  When I remove my hands, I see the girls have stopped dancing. They stare at me from a distance, probably trying to avoid catching the crazy from me. I straighten up, try to look normal, or as normal as a pink-haired narcoleptic can appear.

  A hand reaches out and grabs me.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiii!”

  Rollins emerges from behind the tree, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. His leather jacket hangs open, revealing a Decemberists T-shirt.

  “Hey, it’s just me.”

  I catch my breath, glaring at him. How can he ignore me all weekend, especially after Sophie’s death, and then expect me to act like nothing’s wrong?

  “Why were you hiding behind a tree?” I demand. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

  The two girls are still gaping at me, and Rollins takes a few steps toward them and thrusts out his hands, curved like claws. “Boo!” They move away nervously.

  When he returns, he gives me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Nasty said he’d give me a month of detention if he caught me smoking again, so I was kinda lying low.”

  I wait for a moment, expecting him to apologize for barging out so suddenly on Friday night or at least to make some comment about Sophie’s death. But instead he just looks at his shoes, his hands pushed deep in his pockets.

  “So what happened in bio today? I was going to ask you in psychology, but you seemed busy,” he says, practically spitting the last word.

  If he hadn’t been so absent lately, I might tell him the truth, how I can’t quite shake the feeling the world is a few shades darker since Sophie died. How I’m scared of my own shadow. If he’d really wanted to know, he would have called me. He would have come after me when I freaked out in bio. He would have stuck around to talk to me after psychology, not gotten pissed that I was having a conversation with someone who actually seems to care how I feel.

  The lie, not quite a lie but not quite the truth, comes out easily—the same one I told Mrs. Williams. “It was nothing. I just haven’t been sleeping well. A lot of stress, you know?”

  He squints at me, and I feel like he’s staring right through the brave front I’ve been wearing all day. “Right. Well, how is Mattie?”

  “How would you feel if your best friend died?” I give him a stink eye that would rival Mrs. Winger’s, hoping to make him realize just how stupid his question is.

  He holds my gaze steadily. “Pretty shitty, I guess.”

  “Yeah. She’s feeling pretty shitty.”

  We stand there, looking at each other. His face is blank.

  “Why didn’t you call?” I demand finally. “I mean, you must have heard what happened on Friday night.”

  His eyes drop away from my face. I can see I’ve caught him off guard. It’s obvious we’re growing apart, but it’s like he didn’t expect me to say anything about it. I guess I don’t blame him, really. I’m not usually the confrontational type of person.

  “I don’t know,” he says, shuffling his feet. “I was busy at home. Besides, if you needed to talk, you could have called me.”

  He meets my eyes again, and this time I have to look away. It’s true. I could have called him. But I didn’t. If only I could reach out to him, ask for help, tell him what’s going on with me. Every time I picture it, though, I see my father’s face when I told him about sliding—how panicked he was, how clearly he thought I was crazy.

  I can’t go through that again.

  After a long silence, he picks my backpack up off the ground from where I dropped it. He hands it to me.

  “Heavy.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter, swinging the bag over my shoulder. “It’s really heavy.”

  I want him to say something else, something light and funny to make everything between us better. But he doesn’t say anythi
ng, just stands there. I wish I knew how to get back to us again, but something’s broken between us, and no matter how much I want to—I can’t fix it.

  The leaves crunch beneath my feet as I make my way home. Only a few stragglers remain on the branches, and even some of those drop to the ground when the wind picks up. A yellow leaf twirls and dances to the ground before me.

  Strange how death can be so beautiful.

  I immediately feel guilty for the thought. Sophie did not look beautiful. She looked drained and defeated, like life had beaten her. I try to think of something else, but she’s always in the back of my mind, waiting for me. Somewhere, right now, her killer is carrying on with life, believing he (or she) got away with it.

  I pull my jacket tighter, but the wind cuts right through the thin fabric. Long shadows grow from the trees and the mailboxes. On a lawn grown over with weeds, an abandoned tricycle is tipped on its side. It looks so old and rusty, I bet the child who used to ride it around is halfway through college by now.

  I’m a few houses down from ours, taking in our buttery-yellow Victorian with green shutters. My father hires a neighborhood boy to come rake the leaves and put them in fat plastic bags on the curb. You can tell he hasn’t come in a while because the leaves have covered most of the lawn, obscuring the dying grass.

  Our house looks so normal from the outside. If you were a stranger passing by, you might think a perfectly nice, normal family lived inside—one with a mother and a loving father and two nice, well-adjusted teenage girls. You’d never know the mother was long gone or that the father lived in an impenetrable shell or that one of the girls could slide into you and see the things you hide from everyone.

  Suddenly, I feel sure that someone’s watching me. I spin around, but no one’s there. It’s the same sleepy neighborhood I’ve known all my life. Empty street. People tucked away in their houses, probably watching TV or playing on the internet or cooking dinner. Still the feeling remains. Shuddering, I pull my sweatshirt tight around me, and climb the front porch.

  My father is in his study, bent over his laptop. He’s got white earbuds in, but a few stray notes escape and I recognize the Mozart. My father looks like the exact opposite of my mother. While her hair was long and blond, his is dark and frizzy. She was curvy, with full cheeks; he is lean to the point of looking gaunt. Usually he’s clean-shaven, but today he’s got stubble.

  His fingers fly over the keyboard in a productive little dance. He tap-tap-taps, then stops to take a sip from a glass of ice water, then taps some more.

  “Hey, Dad?”

  He’s totally absorbed in his own little world and just keeps on tapping. I pluck a bud from his ears and say louder, “Dad!”

  A shadow of annoyance crosses his face, but it’s gone in an instant. I know he doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s on the computer, which he is practically every second he’s not at the hospital or concocting some masterpiece in the kitchen.

  He moderates an online forum for people who’ve lost loved ones to cancer. There’s something ironic about it, how he spends all his free time healing strangers on the internet while Mattie and I are holed up in our rooms by ourselves.

  “Hey, Dad. Where’s Mattie?”

  “In her room, sleeping. I was wondering if you’d go with her to the funeral tomorrow?”

  I shift my bag from one arm to the other. Suddenly, the weight is unbearable.

  “You’re not going?”

  He squirms. “I made a quiche for the family. Took it over today while you were at school. I’ve got to work tomorrow.”

  My stomach starts to ache. I really don’t want to see Sophie again, but someone has to go with Mattie. Someone has to be the adult.

  “I guess I’ll go. I’m tired. Going to lie down for a while. See you at dinner.”

  He brightens. “I’m making a pot roast.”

  The thought of a big hunk of meat makes me muy verde—as Señora Gomez would say—but I try to be polite.

  “Yum.”

  I wander into the family room and drop my bag on the floor. From the mantel, I grab my parents’ wedding photo. My father looks strong and happy, and my mother is positively glowing. Staring at the picture, I flop down onto the couch. If only my mother were here, she’d know what to do. She’d go to Sophie’s funeral and hold Mattie’s hand and do all the motherly stuff.

  I must be sleepier than I thought, because I fall asleep, clutching the picture to my chest.

  I’m running through the woods behind our house, branches scraping at my face and bare arms. She’s here, somewhere. Who I’m looking for, I’m not quite sure, but the need to find her surges through my veins like fire.

  I have to save her.

  Something inside me says to run toward the stream. I can see it up ahead, the water glistening in a few places where the sun shines through.

  As I get closer, I can see something in the water, among the logs and pebbles. The water is shallow here, and I glimpse a red-and-gold skirt that looks unnatural against the greens and browns. Pale skin underwater. Long strands of black hair waving around a swollen face.

  It is Sophie.

  Blood wisps from her wrists in long, skinny strands.

  I sink to my knees at the water’s edge and moan up at the unforgiving trees. I’m too late. She is gone forever. I cover my eyes and start to cry.

  “Why are you crying?” someone asks, and I uncover my face.

  The body is sitting up!

  Scrambling backward, I slip on a root and end up flat on my back. Sophie reaches for me with fingers like claws.

  I open my mouth to scream, but my voice is gone.

  The Sophie thing grabs my shoulders and leans closer. I can smell her breath, the decay of it, like something sweet gone rotten.

  “What’s wrong, Vee? Feeling guilty?”

  Her grasp tightens, and I feel like her fingernails are going to break my skin. Her eyes are black, soulless, nothing like the sweet girl I knew.

  “Are you feeling bad you didn’t do anything when you had the chance?”

  Inside her mouth are tiny, pointed teeth. Sharp enough to tear flesh.

  “You let them hurt me, Vee. You didn’t say anything. Did you?”

  I start to cry, tears stinging my cheeks. “I’m sorry, Sophie. I wanted to help you. I did. I just didn’t know how—”

  “Bullshit,” she hisses. “You. Let. Me. Die.”

  Her mouth drops open like she has no jaw, and all I can see are those perfect little teeth that are going to chew me to bits. And I know I deserve it.

  The doorbell tears me from my nightmare. I sit straight up, heart pounding, sure that Sophie’s come to our house to get me.

  Bing bong. Bing bong. Bing bong.

  No. It’s just the doorbell.

  Sophie’s not here. Sophie is dead.

  The late afternoon light slants through the dusty air of our family room and hits the scuffed wood floor. I pull myself up and stagger toward the door, passing my dad’s study on the way. His head sways to a beat I can’t hear—too loud, obviously, for him to hear the doorbell.

  A tall man with serious eyes stands on our front porch. He’s dressed in a police uniform. Shit. How could the cops know I was there when Sophie died? I force my face to relax.

  “Hello. I’m Officer Teahen. Are you Mattie Bell?”

  “Uh, no. That’s my sister. Has she done something wrong?”

  He releases a puff of air and says, “Oh, no, no. I just need to ask her some questions. She was friends with Sophie Jacobs, correct?”

  Before I can answer, I feel a warm hand on my shoulder. “Can I help you?” My father inches in front of me a bit, blocking the open door.

  “Mr. Bell,” the officer says politely. “I was wondering if I could speak with your daughter Mattie about Sophie Jacobs. I’d like to get an idea of the frame of mind she was in on Friday before . . . before the incident. Is she available?”

  The muscles in my father’s hand tense, but he gives a per
fectly cordial reply. “She’s up in her room. Let me see if she’s awake.” He steps back, pulling me with him, and opens the door wide for the policeman to step through.

  “Would you like something to drink, Officer . . . ?”

  “Teahen. Officer Teahen,” the man replies, stepping into our front entryway. “Some water would be great.”

  My father pats me on the back with a little pressure in the direction of the kitchen, and I continue on my trajectory to fetch a glass of water. Too curious to even be annoyed with the task, I grab a Scooby-Doo glass out of the cupboard and wait for the water to run cold before filling it.

  When I return, Mattie is sitting in the recliner, and my father and the officer are stationed on the couch. I hand the glass of water to the policeman, and he takes a long gulp before setting it on the coffee table. I slink backward and take a seat on the bottom step, where no one can see me, but I can hear everything.

  Officer Teahen clears his throat. “Well, Mattie, can you start by telling me a little about your friendship with Sophie?”

  A pause hangs in the air, and I know exactly what Mattie is thinking about. The naked pictures Amber sent to the football team—does the officer know? Is that something friends do?

  When she speaks, I can hear the nervousness on the underside of her voice. “We’ve been best friends since the eighth grade. We were in cheerleading together. I—I loved her.” Mattie’s words dissolve into a string of hiccups and sobs.

  Everyone is quiet for a little bit, until Mattie stops crying.

  The officer speaks again, a bit more warmly. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mattie. Don’t be nervous. I just want to know how she was feeling that day. Did she seem a little off to you? When was the last time you spoke with her?”

  Mattie starts to sound a little more confident. “Friday morning, at her locker. She said she wasn’t feeling very well. She thought the cinnamon roll she got in the cafeteria must have been bad.”