“A few hours?” I said. “I’ve heard that before.” Devin time was like another dimension of timekeeping altogether. No formulas or anything, no relativity theories. Things lasted as long as she wanted them to, and that was that.
“What’s a few hours with good company?” she said, grinning. “Smoking-hot company.”
“We don’t even know them,” I said.
“We’ll get to know them.”
“How do we know they’re not serial killers?” I pulled my legs under me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “Jeez, they work at the WayMart. They spend their afternoons packing produce, not heat.”
“So,” I said, plucking at a few strings, “how do you know it’s not a ploy to meet victims?”
“You’re insane, Cass Kirschner,” she said. “Besides, it’s not a date. It’s just four friends hanging out.” She grinned again. “Remember that if my mother asks.”
I play a few dramatic chords. Dun-duh-duh-dun.
Devin laughs.
Okay, so I didn’t really think Chad and Marcus were serial killers. But I didn’t like how Devin met guys everywhere and then I had to tag along on her dates because Mrs. Rhodes wouldn’t let her go by herself. I didn’t like that Chad would be super cute and smooth and that halfway through the “not-a-date” he and Devin would disappear into the movie theater or behind the mall and this Marcus guy and I would probably be stranded on a hard plastic mall bench discussing bugs or baseball or whatever other annoying things this person Marcus liked.
“I don’t know, Devin,” I said. I stopped plucking and bit on my nail. It was soft, and a piece came off easily. “Maybe we should stop by the WayMart so I can meet him first. So I know if he’s a total waste of time.”
“No way,” she said, shaking her head. “That’ll look ridiculous. Like we don’t trust Chad.”
“Trust Chad?” I said. “I don’t even know Chad.” I shook my head. “And you only spoke to him for five minutes while your mom was in the next aisle buying cereal.”
“Chopped meat,” she said.
“What?”
“My mom was buying chopped meat, not cereal.”
I sighed. “Do you always have to be right?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s how I know I’m right about Chad and Marcus.” Devin leaned back on her bed and propped herself up with her elbows. “I’m good at reading people.”
“Really?” I said. “I can’t believe you would say that after the recent Greg-and-Dan debacle.”
“There was nothing wrong with them,” she said.
“They were collecting Social Security benefits.”
Devin rolled her eyes. “You’re so off sometimes, Cass.”
“Okay,” I said. “What about that guy Andrew who left us at the mall when his girlfriend showed up?”
“Loser.” She planted an L on her forehead with her thumb and forefinger.
“And that other kid, from Fairview, and his friends who tried to get us to go back to their house with them? There were like six of them and only two of us?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Ricky, I think. He was cute.”
“He was a perv,” I said.
“Your point?” She tilted her head to the side.
I sighed again. “Remember Ty, the guy from the ice-skating rink who gave you all those hickeys right before your grandma Nan came up from Florida?”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Thank God for cover-up!”
I rolled my eyes and chewed on the rubbery bit of nail in my mouth.
Devin sat up again. She looked at me, her eyes wide. “I chose you to be my best friend, didn’t I?”
I stopped chewing. “That’s not fair.” She always threw that at me when she was trying to win an argument. Like I’m the one who was lucky. What about Devin? I stuck with her when our old group fell apart. When Lizzy and Gina decided they couldn’t deal with Devin anymore. When everything blew up.
“You are not backing out, Cass. Don’t do that to me.” Devin’s blue eyes were so piercing.
I looked down at my guitar for relief. I stretched out a few chords and pulled out some notes. I’d been working on a few of my own pieces, but right then they were all a little jumbled together.
“That sounds nice,” Devin said, her voice softer.
I shrugged and played more. “Thanks.”
“You’re really good—you know that?”
“Sure,” I said. “You just want me to go with you on Saturday.”
“True,” she said, leaning back. “But I wish I could do something like that. You know, like have a talent.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Plenty of guys think you’ve got talent.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I guess so.” I played a few more chords, and even though Devin’s motives were totally transparent, I ate up the compliments. Who wouldn’t? When I was finished I rested my hand on the curve of my guitar.
Devin clapped a little too dramatically, but I didn’t mind. “The amazing Cass Kirschner, ladies and gentle-men,” she said.
“Okay, okay,” I said, grinning. “You win. I’m a sucker for applause.”
“I meant every clap,” she said. “Really, truly.” She smiled, but there was something more to it, something sad, if that makes any sense. At that moment I actually believed her.
I gave in. “What’s so great about Chad, anyway?” I said. “Mr. Supermarket Produce.”
Devin flipped her hair and grinned. “I like a guy who knows what to do with melons.”
“That’s gross.” I threw a pink patchwork pillow at her.
“Hey, and you know what?” Devin leaned forward. “I hear Marcus is especially good with cantaloupes.” She poked me in the chest.
“Ow,” I said. “You are so disgusting!” I hit her with another pillow.
“You mean hilarious?” She grabbed the pillow and jumped on me.
I squealed. I couldn’t help it—she’d landed on my ticklish spot, and I was already laughing from the produce jokes. “Stop,” I said, still giggling. “I can’t breathe.”
Devin sat up and plopped down next to me on the bed. “Admit it, Cass,” she said. “You wouldn’t have any fun without me.”
Maybe. Maybe that was true. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go, but Marcus better not be a complete ass.”
“I’m sure he will be,” she said. “With a name like”—she held her nose and finished with a nasally twang—“Marcus.”
I threw another pillow at Devin, and she threw one at me. Soon we were rolling all over the bed again, kicking and laughing. The patchwork quilt fell to the floor in a pink heap, and it felt like the millions of times we’d done things like this before. I remembered again why she was my best friend.
We collapsed beside each other on the bed, winded from so much laughing. Devin turned toward me. She breathed in and out in short spurts, and her breath was warm and minty on my neck. I was aware of my own breath, rising and falling. I turned toward Devin and closed my eyes.
AFTER
ENTER THE DETECTIVE. “I’m sorry,” my mother says to him. “She hasn’t been herself since it happened. She’s usually more cooperative.”
Cooperative? I’m not in preschool.
“Devin was a real handful,” my mother says. “I worried sometimes that she was leading Cass down a path, if you know what I mean.”
Oh, yes. My mother is revved up and ready to go.
Detective Williams sits down on the ottoman across from my new permanent spot on the couch. He’s young and has honest eyes, brown like warm fudge. It’s clear he really wants to help. He opens up a notepad. “Anything specific that worried you?”
“Boys,” my mother says. “Risky behavior, that sort of thing.” She shrugs. “You would think her parents would be more on top of her, but denial’s a powerful thing.” She nods knowingly—all those years of therapy have made her an expert on everyone else’s lives.
“Mom!” My body bubbles
with anger. She thinks somehow it’s Devin’s fault that this happened. Devin’s fault because of who she was. The oldest argument in the book—the girl deserved it. My mother’s back in the 1950s with Mrs. Rhodes’s apron. She has no idea how wrong she is.
“The boy thing…” my mother whispers to the detective as though I’m not right there in the room with them. “Not so much of an issue with Cass.”
Detective Williams looks embarrassed for me. He scribbles something in his notebook. Probably something like, Girl dies due to boy-crazy, late-night tendencies. Not a problem for chubby friend. If I’d eaten anything in the last day, it would be all over the couch by now.
Detective Williams sits up and stretches his long legs in front of him. “Mrs. Kirschner—”
“Gilbert,” says my mother. “Ms. Gilbert. Cass’s father and I are divorced.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, shifting his weight in his seat.
“I’m not,” she says, grinning, and I want to climb underneath one of the couch cushions. “I already have one teenager to deal with—I didn’t need another.” She looks at her fingernails. “We were young—what can I say?”
I bury my head in a throw pillow. I can’t stand how my mother makes her almost twenty years of marriage seem like a big mistake. Which makes me part of that big mistake.
“Ms. Gilbert,” says the detective, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with Cassandra for a few minutes.”
“Cass,” I say. I’m still not talking to you, I think, but at least get my name right.
“Sorry, Cass,” he says, leaning forward.
“It’s fine with me,” says my mother. “Honey, just tell him what you know. The sooner we figure things out, the sooner we can put it all behind us.”
My ears grow warm. Put it all behind us? It will never be behind me. It will always be in front of me, staring back at me, no matter where I go. Always, always, always.
The detective clears his throat. “Can you tell me anything about what happened that evening?” he says. “Anything at all?”
I can tell you a lot, I think, but not what you want to hear. I lean into the throw pillow, so my voice is muffled. “We were at the mall that day. We go there sometimes.”
“Cass,” he says, “could you maybe take your face out of the pillow?”
I sigh and lift my head.
“Thanks,” he says. He writes something in his notebook. “What’d you do there? At the mall?”
“We had a date.”
“Devin had a date,” my mother says, interrupting. “Cass just went along. Cass is a good girl, Detective Williams, and very musical. She plays the guitar— even writes her own songs.”
“Mom.” I grit my teeth.
“Interesting.” The detective nods. “Yes, the two boys, we spoke with one of them, a Chad Miller.” Miller? Funny, I realize then that I never knew his last name. Did Devin?
Detective Williams wonders the same thing. “How well did Devin know Chad Miller?” he asks.
I shrug.
“Mr. Miller told me he met Devin when he was working produce at the WayMart.”
He leans forward. “Is that your understanding?”
Mr. Miller? Suddenly Produce Chad the überjock sounds like a high-school principal. “I guess so,” I say. “I mean, that’s what she told me.”
“He’s not from your school?” asks the detective.
I shake my head.
“He’s a little older? A junior, I believe. Does that sound right?”
“A junior?” says my mother. “There aren’t enough boys your own age?”
“It’s just one year, mom,” I say.
Detective Williams ignores our side conversation. “What did you think of Chad Miller,” he says,“when you first met him?”
Chad Miller. Chad Miller. My head hurts. Why do I have to think about Chad Miller at all? “Typical dumb jock.” I shrug. “I didn’t really talk to him.” He didn’t really talk to me.
Detective Williams writes that down, too, I guess. “Thanks.” He nods. “Anything else?”
I roll back over onto the couch. “No.”
Detective Williams looks at me for a moment, then nods. “Okay,” he says. “Now, Cass, wasn’t one of the boys with you?”
“It was a friendly thing,” says my mother. “My daughter doesn’t date.”
“Please, Ms. Gilbert,” he says. He’s losing patience with my mother, but he’s too polite to show it. “I’d like to hear from Cass.”
My mother frowns and steps away from the couch. “Sorry,” she says, clearly irritated.
“Devin was with Chad; I hung out with Marcus,” I mumble. All true.
“Did you?” says my mother, raising an eyebrow.
Detective Williams leans forward again. “So, you didn’t know that, Ms. Gilbert?”
She shrugs dramatically. “Not the details. You know how teenage girls can be. So secretive.”
I seriously, seriously need to vomit. Only my mother could turn an interrogation into a gossip session.
“So that’s why he’s calling,” she says, raising her eyebrows.
“Marcus Figueroa called you?” asks Detective Williams. “Since the night of the, uh, incident?”
“Yes,” I say. Even now I like the sound of his name—the cadence of it. Marcus Figueroa, Marcus Figueroa, Marcus Figueroa.
The detective leans forward. “What did he want? Did he say anything?”
“She wouldn’t take his call. Bad date, maybe,” says my mother. “Although he seems like a nice kid. Polite, friendly.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. I wish there were someone I could tell about our night together. I never had the chance, never had the chance to gossip, moon, revel, anything like a normal teenager. It all happened so quickly, and then Devin was dead.
“Okay,” says the detective. “We’ll come back to that.” He writes some more in his notebook. “Cass, walk me through what happened next.”
“We saw a movie.”
“Which movie?”
Which movie? What did Devin and Chad see when they left us in the mall? Some stupid car movie? “ Burning Rubber?” I say, realizing too late that my answer sounded more like a question.
Detective Williams doesn’t comment but writes something down in his notepad. “Do you still have the ticket stub?”
“No,” I say. “Why would I? You can’t reuse them.”
He shrugs. “Sometimes people save those, you know, as mementos.”
“Right,” I say. Like I need a memento to never forget that day. That, and the fact that I never had a ticket stub to Burning Rubber. I’m not a total liar— Marcus and I considered seeing it before we ended up where we ended up. Here’s the thing: if we had gone, if we had seen that stupid car movie, things would’ve been totally, absolutely different.
“What next?” says Detective Williams.
“We went home.”
“You went home?” He rubs his chin and sighs. “Cassandra—sorry, Cass, you and I both know Devin never made it home that night.”
I don’t answer. I roll over on the couch and bury my face in the throw pillow again. My brain is pounding at the inside of my skull. It wants out. It wants me to lose it. And given everything that’s happening, I just might oblige.
“Look,” says the detective, “I know this isn’t easy, but you want to help your friend, don’t you?”
Help my friend? I sit straight up, and the words come out fast and harsh. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” My stomach turns on itself and pushes something upward, something soft and salty, like sour oatmeal.
Detective Williams nods. He is really young, and I feel bad. He’s trying to do his job, but I can’t help him. Not in the way he wants. I can’t. I wish I could, but I just can’t.
Detective Williams shakes his head. “We can still find out what happened. We can still find out if someone’s responsible.”
“Please, Cass,” says my mother. “Just tell us wha
t you remember.”
They both look at me. Detective Williams has been patient, but I sense his restlessness growing. My mother is exasperated. She even looks at her watch.
How easy would it be for me to tell them what I know? The things I said that night? The things I did? How easy would it be to let the words uncurl from around my tongue and glide slowly into the space between us? Let them light up the room in brightorange neon: Here’s your answer! Here’s what you need to know! It’s an incredible feeling to have that kind of power. To know that your words could change everything.
Before
“IT’S ME,” SAID DEVIN when I answered my phone.
“I know.” I liked how she said “It’s me,” as though anyone else ever called me. I liked that even though she was most of the reason no one else called, Devin made me feel like I was someone whose phone rang all the time.
“So, it’s all set,” she said. “We’re meeting Chad and Marcus Saturday night at the mall. After dinner, okay?”
I gnawed on my fingernail. “Do we have to?”
“Seriously, Cass?” Devin said. “I’m getting tired of this.”
That stung. “We haven’t gone to a movie, the two of us, in a long time.” I knew Devin didn’t care about things like that anymore. It’s just that I wished she did.
“What do you mean?” she said. “We saw True Night a few weeks ago.”
“Not really,” I said. “You left halfway through when that kid Corey from your science class showed up.”
“So?” she said. “You got to eat the rest of the popcorn. How bad could it have been?”
My hand went instinctively to my stomach. “Hilarious,” I said.
She laughed. “Next time I promise we’ll go together,” she said. “But this time is about Chad, because I promised him.”
“You promised Chad?”
“Sure,” she said. “And a promise is a promise.”
“To Chad?”
Her voice iced over in that way that it had been lately. “Don’t do this, Cass. You’d better not do this. I swear to God, Cass…” She stopped. All I heard was her breath on the other end of the phone. As she breathed I held my own breath.
“Please, Cass,” she finally said, her voice warming. “Okay?”
Devin Rhodes is Dead Page 5