Slide

by Jill Hathaway

Or something much, much worse.

  I’m suddenly sitting up, crushing the phone against my ear.

  “What is it?”

  “Amber’s parents called. She didn’t come home last night. They wondered if she was with Mattie.” There’s more. I can tell by his tone of voice there’s something he’s not telling me.

  “And?”

  “Honey, Amber is dead.” The stark finality of his words knocks the breath out of me.

  I take a moment, struggling to find my voice, trying to remember the last time I saw Amber. It was outside the principal’s office. That was the last time I saw her with my own eyes.

  But I was with her around ten p.m. last night.

  Or, rather, Rollins was with her.

  I switch the phone from one ear to the other.

  “Mr. Golden heard the shot and found her body on the football field—isn’t that your psychology teacher? Evidently he was at school, preparing lesson plans for the day. God knows why he was there so late. What teacher stays until ten o’clock? The police say . . . it looks like another suicide.”

  I’m willing to bet it wasn’t a suicide. Just like Sophie’s death wasn’t a suicide.

  “Vee, are you okay?” He’s making sure I’ve got my shit together so I can take care of Mattie. What choice do I have? I have to be okay. I have to keep Mattie safe.

  Two cheerleaders are dead. She could be next.

  “I’ll be home by tonight, okay? We’ve got a bad situation here. I need you to stay with Mattie until I get home. There’s no school today. The police have cordoned off the area.”

  I picture it in my head—yellow tape stretched around the football field, waving in the wind. Chalk marking where the body was found. Can you use chalk on grass?

  My father interrupts my thoughts. “Okay? Okay, Vee? Can you handle that?”

  I’m nodding, but he can’t see it. “Yeah, okay, Dad. Should I tell her?”

  I hear him release a deep breath. “I guess you’d better. Will you guys be okay today?” Guilt has crept into his voice. Another traumatic event that he won’t be around for.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, and his ringtone pops into my head. Be happy. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  In the kitchen, I mix pancake batter while thinking of what I’ll say to Mattie. There seems no good way to tell her. I’m glad I’m not a doctor. My father must go through this all the time, searching his mind for the perfect words to break bad news. I wonder why he’s not better at it. Maybe I should be thinking about what my mother would say if she were here.

  I pour little circles of batter into a sizzling pan, then grab a handful of chocolate chips and drop them one by one into the pancakes. A knock at the door startles me. I peer through the window and see Rollins standing on our porch. I freeze for a moment and then duck down before he can see me. It’s not something I think about, just instinct. Try as I might, I can’t come up with a way to explain how Amber died right after she met up with Rollins.

  He knocks again. I close my eyes.

  Go. Away.

  After about five minutes, I pick myself up off the floor and peek out the window. The porch is empty. Rollins is gone. I heave a sigh of relief.

  I scoop the pancakes onto a plate. I spend a long time standing in front of the refrigerator, looking at a picture of my mom when she was in college, tan and skinny and smiling, with blond hair and a white tank top. Below it, there’s a picture of my sister at her eighth-grade graduation. Dad and I stand on either side of her, giving her double bunny ears. On any other fridge, this would look like a happy collage of memories, but on our fridge it’s a mockery of what once was, what could have been. A happy family.

  I pull the refrigerator door open and grab the syrup so I can drizzle it on my sister’s pancakes, just the way she likes them.

  I nudge Mattie’s door open with my foot and carry in the tray of pancakes and orange slices. Now that I’m standing there, it seems silly, like pancakes could possibly soften the blow that another of her friends is dead. I’m acting just like my freaking dad. Taking a couple of steps backward, I rest the tray on the floor in the hall and then enter the room again. I will do this in my own way.

  She’s snoring, her eyelashes thick against her cheeks. The strangest urge creeps through me—to crawl into bed next to her, wrap my arms around her, feel her torso rise and fall with each breath. Instead, I open the curtains and let the sun shine in, hoping it will obliterate the darkness my news will bring.

  “Mattie?” I sit down next to her, shaking her gently. “Mattie, wake up.”

  She opens one eye and studies me. Then she jerks upright, throwing her princess-pink covers away from her body.

  “What time is it? Oh my God, I’m going to be late for practice. What—do I smell pancakes? Is it Sunday?” She stares at me, confused.

  “Mattie, I have something to tell you.”

  She freezes, a look of apprehension washing over her face. Her muscles tense, like she’s bracing herself for the impact.

  “There’s no school today. Amber’s dead.” No euphemisms, just the bald, ugly words. I rip the Band-Aid off and wait for her to scream.

  Mattie’s shoulders droop, then her eyes. I see the knowledge working its way through every muscle group, as they all become slack. First, her face. Then her arms. Then the trunk of her body. She slumps there, devoid of any expression at all.

  “They found her on the football field. They think it was suicide.” Even as I’m speaking, I’m not entirely sure who they are. I have a vague mental picture of Officer Teahen and a bunch of uniformed figures inching their way across the campus, looking for clues.

  Mattie says nothing.

  I’m afraid to leave her alone, so I go into my room and grab some CDs and my old teddy bear, Cleo. I pop my Smashing Pumpkins CD into Mattie’s computer because that’s what I like to listen to when I feel as if my life is being sucked out of me. Billy Corgan’s voice is a salve.

  Pushing Cleo into her hands, I say, “Mattie? You’re going to get through this. I promise.” Then I climb into bed and wrap my arms around her, pretending we’re stranded in Antarctica and I have to use my body heat to keep her alive. Strangely, it’s only after I hug her that she starts shivering.

  The lack of sleep is catching up with me. I drink cup after cup of coffee, but it does nothing to stop my drooping eyelids. I try to stay on my feet and be productive. I check on Mattie every half hour. At lunchtime, I bring her a sandwich and some yogurt. She just leaves the food on her bedside table, untouched.

  After forcing myself to nibble on a sandwich of my own, I retreat to the bathroom. I am fading. I fill a glass with water and use it to wash down some caffeine pills, but I am not quick enough. Too late, I realize I’m holding the Scooby-Doo glass that Officer Teahen used the day he visited our house.

  Too late, I realize he must have imprinted on the glass.

  Too late, I realize I’m going to slide.

  I fall to the bathroom floor in a heap.

  Officer Teahen is sweating. His shirt is damp with moisture. When he was at our house that day, he seemed so calm and collected as he questioned Mattie. But now, I realize his heart is pounding. He does a great job of hiding his feelings.

  He’s in a bare room with cement walls, furnished with only a table and two folding chairs. Hanging from the ceiling, a fluorescent light illuminates every corner. A mirror stretches almost the entire length of one wall, and I’ve seen enough cop shows to know this is a twoway mirror. Seated at the table, looking extremely ill, is Mr. Golden.

  Officer Teahen takes out the same little notepad he used when he questioned Mattie and retrieves a pencil from his pocket. “Tell me again, why were you at the high school last night?” He turns around to face Mr. Golden.

  “I wasn’t feeling well, so I was preparing my lesson plans for the substitute teacher.” Beads of sweat materialize on Mr. Golden’s forehead.

  “What time was this?”

  “Um, about nine forty-f
ive.”

  Officer Teahen makes a note of the time. “Tell me what happened then. Don’t leave anything out.”

  Mr. Golden takes a deep breath. “Well, I waved to Eddie—the night custodian—and went to my classroom. I wrote my lesson plans on the board and set out some work sheets on my desk. Then I left.”

  “How long did this take?” Officer Teahen taps his pencil against the notepad thoughtfully.

  “Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty.”

  “And that’s when you heard the shot?”

  Mr. Golden squeezes his eyes shut. “Yes. About ten fifteen.”

  “And what did you do then?”

  Mr. Golden opens his eyes. “I went out to the football field, where I heard the shot. And I found—I called 911 right away.”

  Officer Teahen takes a minute to ask the next question. I get the sense he’s struggling with how to phrase it. Finally, he asks, “Mr. Golden, what was your relationship with Amber Prescott?”

  Mr. Golden looks dazed. “She was in my sixth-period class.”

  “Nothing beyond that? You never spoke with her outside of school?”

  “No.” Mr. Golden sounds agitated.

  “What about Sophie Jacobs? What was your relationship with her?”

  “She was in my eighth period.”

  “Some students have stated that they saw you driving her in your vehicle. Is that true?”

  Mr. Golden shrugs nervously. “I gave her a ride home sometimes.”

  “That was it?”

  Mr. Golden pauses, and Officer Teahen rushes on. “Mr. Golden, were you aware that Sophie Jacobs was pregnant?”

  Mr. Golden bows his head. After a long, long moment, he whispers, “Yes.”

  Mattie’s scream brings me back. The noise is multilayered, peel upon peel of shock and terror. I am crumpled on the bathroom floor.

  “Mattie, stop. It’s okay. I’m okay.” I crawl toward her and pull myself to my feet. As she nestles her head into the crook of my neck, her screams subside.

  I hear the front door open.

  “Girls?” my father calls. Mattie breaks away from me and races toward the sound of his voice. I follow her down the stairs and watch them embrace. He squeezes her tight, and it makes me wish I could feel the warmth of him.

  “Are you girls okay?” It’s a dumb question. He turns a little pink.

  The officer’s conversation with Mr. Golden hangs somewhere in the back of my head. I need to get away, go someplace to sort out my thoughts.

  “I’m going out,” I announce, grabbing my jacket from the coatrack.

  “Where are you going?” my father demands, grabbing my wrist, sounding panicked. I know he’s afraid to be alone with Mattie and her grief, but I need a break. I shake him off.

  “Out. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  With that, I slip out the door.

  I walk quickly to keep warm. It seems the temperature is dipping lower every day now. Before long, the dead leaves will be covered with snow. Pure, white snow. That thought cheers me a little.

  In my head, I replay the scene at the police station. It seems clear that Officer Teahen believes Golden is involved with the girls’ deaths somehow. He seemed to be insinuating that the teacher was having an inappropriate relationship with Sophie or Amber or both of them. If you’d asked me a few weeks ago whether Golden was capable of such a thing, I’d have said hell no. He was a cool teacher. Everyone liked him. But I guess appearances can be deceiving.

  I turn onto the next street, Arbor. At the very end is a light-blue house with a picket fence. Until recently, a slanted For Sale sign had been stuck in the front yard. This is the house Zane was talking about. This is where he lives.

  Without thinking, I climb the porch and gently rap on the door with my knuckles. A moment passes, and I hear voices somewhere in the house. I hear someone tromping on the stairs.

  Zane flings open the door and looks at me in surprise. “Vee. What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

  “Yes. No. I’m just . . . I need a jelly doughnut.”

  Zane’s eyebrows knit together. “I don’t have any left. I’m sorry.” His earnestness makes me smile, in spite of myself.

  “Oh, no. Metaphorical jelly doughnuts, you know? I need to talk.”

  “Ah,” he says. “Metaphorical jelly doughnuts I can do. You want to sit down?” He motions toward a couple of rocking chairs. I ease into one and survey the street. The neighborhood I’ve lived in my whole life seems different somehow, from this angle.

  “What’s up?”

  A sob bubbles up in my throat. I clamp my hands over my mouth, a little embarrassed at the sound. I’ve only known this boy for a few days. I’m really starting to like him. Do I really want to bawl like a baby in front of him?

  Zane sits in the chair next to me and pries away one of my hands. He holds it in his own, soft and hard at the same time. He slides his finger back and forth over the skin between my thumb and pointer finger. It makes me shiver.

  “Someone else died,” I say. “Another of my sister’s friends.”

  He leans forward, concerned. I tell him about my father’s phone call and how I spent the whole day watching over Mattie.

  I tell him I’m scared. So scared.

  I’m scared my sister won’t make it through this alive.

  Through it all, he keeps rubbing my hand, and it’s his touch that gives me the courage to keep going. When I finish, we just sit there. Across the street, a girl in a purple cape chases a small, yapping dog. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be that girl.

  I fold myself into the space between his arm and his body. I let myself melt into him, and I can feel him pressing back into me.

  “Zane?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You told me about a sister. What happened?”

  He draws a breath, then lets it out slowly. “She died in the hospital shortly after she was born. I don’t know what exactly was wrong with her. My mom doesn’t like to talk about it.”

  His eyes dim as he speaks. I think about all the pain he’s gone through in his life—his father’s suicide, his sister’s death. I wonder if some of us are just destined to know tragedy personally. We are alike that way.

  “That must have been so hard.”

  “Like I said, I don’t remember much about her. I worry about my mom, though. Ever since we’ve been back, it’s like the past has started to haunt her. She walks around in a sort of haze. I try to get her to go out, do things, meet people. But she won’t. She’s . . . fixated.”

  His worry about his mother touches me. I wrap my arms around him, tight. He nuzzles his nose into the hollow of my neck, and then follows with his lips.

  As he kisses me, I feel like the lies and death and evil that surround me slowly melt away, and I am new again.

  I look in on Mattie before I leave for school. She doesn’t stir. She sleeps the dreamless sleep of Ambien, but that’s a good thing. Without it, I don’t know what she’d dream of. Dying cheerleaders, broken bodies. She’s better off blank. For a moment, I pause, wondering if I shouldn’t stay home to watch over her, but I figure she’ll be safe with my dad.

  In the driveway, Zane waits. I buckle my seat belt, though it won’t do anything to protect me from the wreck that awaits us at school. The principal has dismissed regular classes for the day and arranged an assembly.

  When we arrive at school, we have to park across the street because the football field and most of the parking lot are blocked off with yellow police tape.

  A couple of kids from Wise Choices usher everyone into the gym. They wear T-shirts that say feeling blue? tell someone. The bleachers are packed with antsy students and a few concerned-looking parents. I stand at the bottom for a moment, eyeing the stands. Rollins is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Scotch, for that matter.

  The air buzzes with rumors. Everyone has their own theory about what happened to Amber. Some kids whisper that she was jealous of Sophie’s affair with Mr. Golden. Others say she kil
led herself out of guilt for pushing Sophie to the edge. Everyone knows how she sent that naked picture of Sophie to the entire football team.

  I want to scream my suspicions out loud. Sophie didn’t kill herself. Amber didn’t kill herself. There is a murderer among us, and everyone better watch out. Instead, I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other as Zane and I climb the bleachers. We find seats in the back, overlooking the entire student body and the nervous, shuffling teachers.

  Zane squeezes my hand. “Everything is going to be okay.” Even though I’m sure he’s wrong, I appreciate the effort.

  Three gigantic screens are set up on the gym floor. The middle one is parallel with the bleachers, and the other two are angled inward. Suddenly, the lights go out, and a projector begins flashing images and words onto the screens to the beat of a loud rock song. The pictures are of attractive, yet depressed, teenagers. A redhead fights with her friends. A guy in a baseball cap mopes on the steps in front of his school, his head in his hands. A beautiful blonde stands in front of a mirror, contemplating a bottle of pills.

  Words like sadness, loneliness, and depression are interspersed with the pictures. The show goes on for about five minutes, and then one last slide pops up, stretching across all three screens. It’s the number for a suicide hotline.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” I mutter.

  It’s gotten so hot. I can’t breathe. I Need. To. Get. Out. Of. Here.

  Releasing Zane’s hand, I rise to go. He stands, as if to come with me, but I push him away. I just want to be alone. I just need the space to breathe. Somehow, I manage to pick my way down the bleachers and slip out of the gym.

  The air in the hallway is much cooler. I lean against a trophy case filled with polished gold footballs and basketballs and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to figure out what bothered me so much about the assembly—beyond the obvious fact that it was arranged under completely false assumptions.

  I think, though, that I still would have been sickened, even if Sophie and Amber really had committed suicide. There was something so commercial about it, something contrived. It was like the slide show was designed by MTV. I’m on True Life: Someone Is Killing All the Cheerleaders and Making It Look Like Suicide.