This is WAR

by Lisa Roecker

  “It is Lina, right?” The girl pulled her eyebrows together in confusion and Lina shook her head.

  “No, um, I mean yes. Yes, I’m Lina. And you are?” She sounded ruder than she meant to.

  “Mari. I’ve seen you at the Club. I’m a server. Is everything all right? You look lost.” Lina hadn’t realized that Mari still held her hand. She squeezed gently and then leaned in close, her breath tickled Lina’s neck. “Bet I can help.” Blood rushed to Lina’s cheeks, and it felt like her entire body was blushing. And then, so fast she couldn’t be sure if she’d just imagined it, she felt Mari’s lips on her ear. “You look like you could use a drink.” The girl giggled and handed Lina her glass.

  Lina didn’t think, she just tipped her head back and let the cool liquid slide down her throat. The drink burned its way down into her stomach, and she involuntarily squeezed her eyes shut as the alcohol coursed through her body. When she opened them, Mari’s lips were just a breath away from her own, and more than she had ever wanted anything in her life, Lina wanted to close the space.

  But this wasn’t how Lina had envisioned her night going. This wasn’t who she envisioned spending her night with. This wasn’t who Lina was supposed to be.

  “I’m … good, thanks. I’ve gotta go.” Lina turned and rushed back up the stairs not caring what she looked like. She just had to get out of there. She had to stick with her original plan.

  And like a sign from a God she never really believed in, the phone she’d been handed when she boarded the ship buzzed in her clutch.

  Mariner’s Cove. Now.

  She was being summoned by her mystery date. Lina knew this was it. Tonight was the night she’d finally let go of everything and forget all of the other weird shit. She was just a normal girl who didn’t really enjoy guys. Sexuality existed on a spectrum like anything else, and she happened to fall in the place where it didn’t feel all that good. Maybe if she finally got it over with, maybe then she’d feel differently. Surely instinct would take over. Or something. As Lina made her way through the winding hallways, the boat began to tip and sway. Her head swam. She couldn’t quite find her footing. How strange. She must have drunk more than she realized.

  When she finally found the room, she was happy to see the bed. She collapsed into its white expanse without even remembering what she was there to do.

  Until she saw Trip Gregory.

  “You made it.”

  Her mouth tried to form some type of response but her lips refused to move the right way.

  “This is going to be fun. Promise.” Trip smiled, the whites of his teeth blending together into a solid strip, his eyes spreading out and then in.

  Lina began to fade. “My friends … I … um, I’m supposed to find them.” The words slipped out of her mouth. She needed an escape. Something about Trip in the tiny room unsettled her.

  “They’re fine. Willa’s with James. It’s just you and me.”

  Those were the last words she remembered him saying before she blacked out completely.

  Later, when her eyes fluttered open, Lina was alone. She heard the fireworks exploding outside the window. Her heavy eyelids only allowed her to see the briefest flashes of red, white, and blue. She wished she were on deck so she could really see them. There was something cozy about fireworks, the way they warmed the night sky, their burnt campfire smell. But tonight she was so tired. It was impossible to keep her eyes open, like there was someone scrubbing her corneas with tiny brillo pads. Sleep seemed to drown her, and this time when the darkness swallowed her up, she was too tired to try to claw her way out.

  Minutes or hours or days later Lina opened her eyes and came to a few realizations rather quickly. The first was that she was fully dressed. The second was that the bed was wet. The third was that she wasn’t alone.

  She remembered the fireworks, her dry mouth, and heavy eyes. And then Trip. What the hell had he done to her?

  But when Lina rolled over to examine the snoring boy passed out next to her, Trip was nowhere to be found.

  Instead, Lina was sleeping next to a very soaked, very unconscious James Gregory.

  And that’s when she heard the sirens.

  Chapter 17

  Back to the drawing board. 9 2morrow. Same place.

  Sloane read Madge’s text over and over again, the words swimming in front of her eyes. She wondered what a drawing board looked like. Obviously, she knew that Madge was referring to a theoretical drawing board and not an actual, physical board, but the question sort of got stuck in her brain. Like when one of her uncle’s old school records got a scratch and kept playing the same snippet of a song over and over again. Sloane’s brain was like that. Sometimes it just got stuck.

  And her stupid, scratched, stuck brain couldn’t stop imagining a drawing board for the War. Would there be pictures of the Gregorys with bull’s eyes printed over their faces? Or maybe pictures of Willa. Her school picture, the snapshot of her and Sloane in Aruba, the sun glinting off Willa’s blonde hair. Or maybe even a picture of her when they pulled her out of the lake that night. Sloane hadn’t wanted to look, hadn’t wanted to see, but she was there when they fished her friend from the dark water. She remembered.

  Willa’s body, bloated and blue from her time under the surface, was another mental sink hole. Sloane dug her fingernails into her palms, worked to switch the image, tried to conjure up Aruba, white sand, Willa’s crooked smile, and the sparkling water—but no matter what, she was only ever able to see death. The scratched record in her head played on. As she walked toward the secret entrance to the Club’s attic she thought about songs and how supposedly soldiers used horrible pop songs to torture terrorists in remote island prisons. Sloane imagined playing a manufactured pop song over and over again for the Gregorys, while at the same time forcing them to see the image of Willa, still and cold. That was a revenge she could wrap her head around.

  Sloane knew the girls’ original plan was doomed. The doubt had already taken root and grown like a thorny vine, tightening around her so that the key she wore every day felt more like a noose than anything else. These were Gregorys. They couldn’t be damaged by naked pictures and drugs. Nothing could end their reign at Hawthorne. But she never quite found the right moment to tell the girls. Or really, to tell Madge. She saw the determination in her eyes, knew what happened when she set out to win. And she was scared for her. But more than anything, she wished Madge would grieve for Willa like a normal person. The truth was Sloane didn’t really understand how destroying the Gregorys was supposed to make them feel any better about losing Willa. In fact, so far, this whole revenge scenario had only made Sloane feel worse.

  But in the end, it didn’t matter what she thought or felt. This was the central reality of her life: Sloane knew she was dumb. She said dumb things all the time, did dumb things. She’d learned to compensate for being an idiot by shutting up and agreeing with whatever everyone else said or did.

  Getting by was so much easier that way.

  Sloane made her way up the stairs, counting them one by one in her head as she ascended, a childhood habit that she could never quite kick thanks to parents who attempted to make every second of her life a teachable moment of some sort. Her earliest memory was of the time her mother forced her to read Corduroy out loud at one of the many social gatherings her parents hosted. Each memorized word slipped from between her lips, her voice loud and strong. She knew enough to change her inflection on certain words and to read slowly as though she were truly sounding out the words for the first time, decoding the secret message. But it was a good thing she knew the book by heart because as she “read,” the story distracted her. The little girl, Lisa, claimed she loved Corduroy just the way he was as she fixed the strap of his broken overall. But Sloane didn’t buy it. Lisa didn’t want to make Corduroy more comfortable; she wanted him to look good. Lisa was embarrassed by her beat-down bear in the same way her parents were embarrassed by their dumbass daughter. Even as a little girl she noticed her fath
er flinch when she stumbled over a word. Her parents wanted to parade her around like some kind of trophy they had received for being geniuses. But those genius genes hadn’t been passed on. She knew it. They knew it.

  And Willa knew it, too.

  Sloane had been running late, as usual, when she’d walked into her room to find Willa staring at her PSAT scores that she’d accidentally left out on her desk. Yet another dumb mistake.

  “I thought you were a National Merit scholar?” There was a trace of fear in her voice, the same slight quiver she heard in her parents when she said something outrageously stupid.

  If Lina had seen her test results, she would have pretended that it never happened. But Willa was never one to pretend. She always spoke her mind. She always asked really annoying questions. It was one of the things that Sloane hated the most about her dying. All of these people, they remembered Obituary Willa. The real Willa was more than an angel. She was the one who’d busted Sloane for lying about her PSAT scores and called her on it—to help. The one who stayed Sloane’s best friend even after she knew Sloane was a fraud. The one who helped Sloane keep her secret.

  Muffled voices drifted from beneath the attic door. She hoped she was just late enough. Not so late that she made people worried or annoyed, but the kind of late where you rushed in seemingly frenzied, and the project or the lab—or, in this case, the doomed plan—was already underway: responsibilities assigned, leaders established. For Sloane, running behind was a lifestyle. It cemented her role as a follower, and being a follower minimized her chances of looking like a jackass. If anything in her life came close to an art, it was tardiness.

  With a deep breath, she turned the aged bronze handle. “Sorry I’m late, guys.” One by one, she examined their faces. Lina’s dark eyes softened ever so slightly. Not annoyed. Rose, whom Sloane still couldn’t get a read on, smiled when she saw her. Not annoyed. Madge smoothed her perfectly straight hair and avoided making eye contact. Semi-annoyed. But then again Madge was pretty much always semi-annoyed. “What’d I miss?”

  “We were just discussing these,” Madge said, turning toward Sloane. She wore a crisp white T-shirt. Weird. It must have been brand-new because there were still creases along the center and sleeves. She’d never seen Madge in a T-shirt. “They’re for sale in the pro shop.”

  “Why would anyone want to buy a T-shirt?” The only T-shirts in Sloane’s drawer came from random 5K races and Round Robin golf tournaments. Rose shot her an is-this-girl-for-real? kind of look just as her brain caught up with her mouth, and she realized she was talking out loud. “Wait, I mean, what’s on the front? I can’t see it.”

  Madge pulled the shirt taut across her chest, smoothing out what was emblazoned on the front. There was Trip, naked and grinning, the words WHAT HAPPENS AT THE CLUB STAYS AT THE CLUB in block letters.

  “All the money from T-shirt sales goes to the children’s hospital,” Madge grumbled. “Mr. Freaking Packard had one on.”

  Mr. Packard was at least ninety years old and was one of the original members of Hawthorne Lake. He spent the bulk of his days in the Club gym, hands behind his head doing these awkward and inappropriate-looking hip exercises. Sloane wondered if he even knew what he was buying. She was pretty sure he was legally blind. He also seemed like the kind of guy who would buy a T-shirt just to buy a T-shirt, so she wasn’t sure the fact that he was wearing one proved anything. Either way she really didn’t know what to say. Their plan had obviously backfired, and she wasn’t sure where that left the girls. She wondered if maybe they should admit defeat and move on like everyone else.

  “We’re trying to think of our next move,” Rose said as Sloane plopped down next to her.

  So much for moving on. Sloane wanted to like Rose. Whenever she’d see her around the Club in past summers, Rose would have her nose stuck in a book—walking and reading, camped out under a tree and reading, sipping a drink and reading. Sloane avoided girls like her because they almost always asked her questions about her favorite book or wanted to know details about her AP classes in school. They made immediate assumptions about her purely based on appearance, and it drove her insane.

  But maybe she’d been wrong about Rose. Like Willa, she seemed smart, but not judgy smart. There was a big difference between the two. Still, as much as she wanted to accept Rose, she couldn’t. Not completely. Not when Lina’s scorn for the girl had suddenly transformed into a twisted sort of friendship.

  Sloane’s eye caught on Madge’s knee, shaking compulsively. Her eyes fixed in space, lost in whatever plan she was trying to develop. Her mouth moved from side to side, lips closed around a mint. She always sucked them these days, and Sloane wondered if maybe she should pick up a habit of her own. Sucking mints seemed to help Madge develop plans. Maybe chewing gum would help Sloane sound smart.

  Just as she was about to ask if anyone had a piece of gum, Madge smoothed her dress and stood.

  “We have to take a step back.” Most people would give up after a failure like the gala but not Madge. It only made her more determined to win. That was the difference between people like Sloane and people like Madge. Sloane would definitely have given up; in fact, she never would have tried in the first place. “We need to strike at the peer level. Hit them where it hurts.”

  “In the balls?” They were the first words in Sloane’s head, and they just sort of flew out of her mouth. It was like she’d taken truth serum or something. God, she wished she had a piece of gum.

  But Madge laughed. “Exactly.” She let the smile linger on her lips for a beat but then got that faraway look again concentration twisting her features as though she were cramming for the exam of her life. The intensity worried Sloane. She wanted to say that out loud but had no idea how to tell her friend that yes, they needed to take a step back, but without stepping back in again.

  “Maybe the Captain is secretly pissed about the pictures. I mean, we don’t know for sure it didn’t work,” Sloane offered meekly. Of course, it was the wrong thing to say.

  “I think it’s pretty clear where we stand,” Madge said to nobody in particular.

  “The pictures actually helped them,” Lina murmured. She’d been so quiet since the gala, and Sloane knew her friend was hurting so much more than she ever let on. She’d seen the new tattoos carved into the thin skin along Lina’s inner wrists like scars. She wished there was something she could do. “We need something better, something that will force the Captain to cut their sorry asses off for good.”

  Sloane considered Lina’s suggestion. If she could just come up with a way to embarrass the Gregorys maybe then her friends would come back. But how could you destroy the most popular boys at Hawthorne Lake?

  “We could spread rumors,” Rose suggested.

  The group sat silent. A non-starter.

  “How about …” Sloane and Lina began at the same time. Sloane’s mouth clamped shut.

  Lina shook her head. “Oh sorry, Sloaney, you go first.”

  “Boobs.” Sloane said the first thing that came to her mind and regretted it immediately. It was as though the air had been sucked from the already stuffy attic. Madge’s eyes narrowed, and she was up in a flash, her body bent in half over Sloane.

  “Do you think this is a joke?” Madge asked, breathing heavily.

  “No … I … um … Jack what’s-his-face …” Sloane stammered.

  Lina jumped up from her seat in a tattered velvet chair. “Madge, back off!” She started smiling. “Jake Horvatz. Right? Jake Horvatz and his man boobs!”

  Sloane couldn’t remember a time when Lina had been so excited, and she wished she could jump up and get excited with her friend. Lina got it. She took Sloane’s ridiculous “boobs” and translated. She wanted to kiss her.

  “Hormone therapy, am I right?” Lina said. She started pacing back and forth in front of Madge. “I have no idea if it would even work, Sloane?” Lina raised her eyebrows at Sloane as though she’d be in some position to weigh in on the topic of hormone therapy a
nd whether or not it might make teenage dudes grow boobs just because her parents were successful doctors. Um … no.

  “I could ask?” Sloane said, sounding like she needed permission.

  Rose shrugged her shoulders. “I can pay off the busboys to slip something in their morning drinks.”

  “Well, as long as we have enough money left to cover all of this.” Madge shot Rose and Lina a meaningful look that Sloane didn’t even attempt to interpret.

  “We have plenty of money, and oh my God, if they even come close to good old Jake’s tatas, it will be a huge success.” Lina smiled wickedly. “They can wear Trip’s new T-shirts in the pool.”

  Madge cocked her head. “It’s not bad, and it’s not like we have a lot of options left given our recent expenditures.”

  Sloane wasn’t entirely sure how boobs would get the boys disinherited. She was only sure she was missing something. (Maybe it was a two-stage plan?) Actually, that wasn’t true. Sloane was sure of something else: Willa would have loved this. One time she’d sent them all personal letters from the Captain informing them of a new dress code at the Club that required single young women to wear ankle-length skirts at all times on the Club premises. She, Madge, and Lina actually showed up looking like Amish girls before they figured out that Willa had forged the letter. And then before she could stop it from happening, Sloane saw Willa’s ghostlike body on the sand. If it weren’t for her eyes, open and unseeing, she might have been sleeping, dreaming about her last year of high school before college.

  Her eyes, her eyes, her eyes.

  Sloane’s brain stuck on the image for a moment. She knew from experience that the more she tried to make it go away, the more clear the image became, that the sooner she let it consume her, the sooner it’d be over.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” she said blankly.

  Maybe if she went along with the plan, Willa wouldn’t have to haunt her anymore. Maybe she’d be able to forget how her friend’s beautifully clear blue eyes had turned solid white. How they seemed to scream silently into the blackness. Willa’s eyes told Sloane that she had fought until the final moment.