“Don’t try to pretend you weren’t there, too, Cass.” She folded her arms across her chest.
Gina turned around and looked up at the fluorescent pink Cadillac clock that doo-wops on the half-hour. She said something to Lizzy, but they still didn’t see us.
“I cannot stand Gina,” said Devin. “I hate both of them, but she’s the worst.”
It’s hard to imagine anyone hating Gina Vincenti. “You don’t hate her,” I said.
“Of course I do,” she said. “Don’t you?”
I chewed on my nail. I knew what I was supposed to say, but the words refused to budge. “I guess I never really thought about it,” I said instead.
“You never thought about it?” said Devin. “After everything that happened you have no opinion on the matter?”
I shrugged. “Well, we’re not friends,” I said. “But shouldn’t hate be reserved for murderers and international terrorists?” I smiled, but it did nothing for the tension.
Devin rolled her eyes. “You know, Cass, sometimes you’re not really that funny.”
Her comment stung. “Just making a point.”
She put her hand on her hip and tilted her head. “I’ll bet you wish you were with them at the mall instead of me.”
The word jumped out. “No.” Maybe I answered too quickly. Sometimes the right answer was wrong when it came out too fast.
Devin nodded slowly. “I get it.” She tightened her lips. “You wish you were still friends with them. You don’t care how they treated us. How badly they hurt us.”
“That’s not true.” Not entirely. But I didn’t feel that wronged. The only thing that felt wrong was that Gina and Lizzy were no longer our friends.
“It is true.” Devin’s eyes welled up, but I’d seen this before. She was deliberately not blinking so that they would tear.
“I just, it’s, well”—I scrunched up my face—“I don’t think they said anything that bad.” Devin had been the one flinging poison arrows.
“Really?” The fake tears disappeared, and suddenly she smiled. “Okay, so there they are.” She nodded in the direction of the diner. “Go hang out with them. It’s what you want.”
“Devin, come on.”
“No, really. I’ll just meet the boys on my own. Maybe you’ll be right for once, and they’ll actually be serial killers. Don’t worry: if I see duct tape, I’ll scream. Hopefully someone will hear me.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I?” she said. She leaned in close. Her breath was hot and angry on my face. “Tell me, Cass. Tell me you hate Gina Vincenti and her stupid sidekick, Lizzy Tanaka.”
“Devin…”
“Tell. Me.”
“Devin, I never said I wanted to hang out with them.”
“You didn’t have to.” She stared at me, her eyes cold and hard. “It’s all over that sad, pouting little face of yours. I know how you think. I’m your best friend, or at least I thought I was.”
I sighed. “Forget it.”
“Say it, Cass. Tell me you hate them.”
“Devin, I…”
“I knew it,” she said. She held her best-friend charm right up to my face. “I guess this means nothing to you.”
My heart beat faster. At that moment I had that terrible thought. I thought again about what it would be like if Devin wasn’t my friend anymore. If instead of going on bad double “not-dates” with random produce guys, I could be at the diner with Gina and Lizzy ordering black-and-white milkshakes and cheese fries. I could be alone in my room, strumming my guitar as much as I wanted. I couldn’t think of an easy way to make that happen. To make her go away. But I wished that I could.
I touched the charm that dangled from my neck. It was impossible for me to leave Devin Rhodes alone.
“Fine,” I said. “I hate them.” The words tasted tart and bitter at the same time. I was kicking myself for being such a weenie.
Devin looked at me and nodded, but there was no smile. She was still angry. I was weak and shaky, as if I was coming down with something and should be in bed with a soft pillow, a box of tissues, and reality TV.
“Devin,” I started to say, but she held up her hand. She reached into the pocket of her jean jacket and pulled out her stolen lip gloss. She put it on, then mashed her lips together, all the while silent.
Two boys were headed our way. One was well-built, not too tall, and was sporting short blond hair and an expensive-looking watch. The other was tall and very thin, in a black knee-length coat and high-top sneakers. He had black curly hair and skin the color of mochaccino. My heart woke up inside my chest—this one was cute, really cute. I couldn’t help thinking it. Not that it mattered, for me, at least. The shorter one broke into a smile, wide and ravenous, like a cat about to devour a small, pretty bird. The other one looked less hungry, more distracted, as if he’d rather be anywhere else besides walking toward Devin and me.
“There she is,” said the shorter one. “What’s up, Devy-dev?”
Devin turned away from me and moved toward them, chest first. Her demeanor changed completely. “Hi, guys,” she said, her voice back up to a sparkly princess octave. She slowly peeled off her jean jacket.
Devin leaned in so that the blond one could plant a quick kiss on her cheek. “Chad, Marcus,” she said, “this is Cass.” She turned toward me. “My best friend.”
In the entire white sterility of the mall, there was nothing whiter, nothing more pure, than her smile.
AFTER
HOW DID THAT MAGAZINE GET THERE? How was it open to that page? My heart thumps hard inside my chest, and my stomach begins to twist into painful knots.
“I wasn’t reading that,” I say. My voice shakes. Was it Devin? Did Devin leave that open for us to see? My thoughts whirl around inside my head. The slippers, the magazine? How much power do the dead have? How much power does Devin have?
Mrs. Rhodes closes her eyes and breathes in through her nose. Then she opens them and licks her lips. “Cass,” she says. She grips my arm in the same place Chad grabbed me. It still hurts from his grasp.
“You’re hurting me,” I say, exhaling.
She doesn’t seem to hear. She’s staring at me, still holding on.
“Cass,” she says again, “please, is there something you can tell us?” Her words slide out from her lips; I can almost see them as they’re coming out. “Anything about that night? No one will be angry with you. I promise. We”—she bites her lip—“we just want to know what happened.” Her voice rises into a high whisper.
This Mrs. Rhodes, this broken Mrs. Rhodes, is so far away from the put together, cheerful, charming Mrs. Rhodes I know. From the Mrs. Rhodes that I’ve wished many times could be my own mother. Or at least I’d wished that my own mother could be more like her. I don’t recognize this Mrs. Rhodes. I want to talk to her—I do. But the longer I keep my secret, the harder it is to tell it. How do I do it? How can I tell her I could’ve stopped it from happening? That if things had gone differently that night, Devin would still be alive? How can I tell her that?
“I don’t know,” I say, my words rehearsed by now. I stare at the magazine. It’s still open to that same page.
She slides down onto the floor beside me, like a balloon losing its air. I stiffen, not sure what to do. Should I get up, put my arm around her? Nothing I can think of seems like the right thing to do. Then again I passed on doing the right thing a long time ago.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to jump at you like that.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“No,” she says. “It’s ridiculous. A magazine, a damn magazine.” She picks it up and hurls it across the aisle. It smacks against the metal shelf and lands on the floor.
She turns to me. “Losing your child.” Her eyes well up. “Losing my child. I go through it over and over in my head, every day, Cass, every day.” She licks her lips again. “If there was something I could do to change things, not make the same mistakes. If there was som
ething I could’ve done…”
What is she talking about? Does she think it’s her fault? “Don’t say that,” I say. “I’m sure—”
“We all make mistakes, Cass,” she says, looking down at the floor. “Stupid, selfish mistakes.”
Somehow I can’t picture that. Mrs. Rhodes is about as good as it gets, and I wish I could tell her that. I wish I could tell her that I want my mother to be more like her. Classier, less opinionated, less angry at the world. I wish I could tell her nothing she did would’ve changed what happened. But I don’t.
“Oh,” she says, starting to sob again. “My Devin. Oh, oh, I’m sorry.”
She pulls her legs up against her chest and folds her arms over her knees. She sobs into her knees, and I know I should do something, put an arm around her, touch her shoulder, but I’m still totally stiff, unable to move.
I think about how weird it is that Chad works here and that Mrs. Rhodes is sitting with me on the floor. Did they pass each other in an aisle? Would they have brushed by one another, neither one knowing their connection to each other? What did Chad do that night after he left the mall, anyway? Where did he end up? I realize that I don’t actually know.
Finally she lifts her head. “You know, it’s funny,” she says, wiping her eyes. She’s talking to me, I think, but she’s staring straight ahead. “Sometimes,” she says, “sometimes I really think she’s still here. I almost feel like I can touch her, hear her. Do you?” She laughs, but I know it’s a nervous laugh. “Do you ever feel that way?”
My heart slams into my chest at full throttle. “I— I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Mr. Rhodes thinks it’s too many cocktails.” She clamps her lips together, then turns to me. “It’s not, though,” she says. “I haven’t had a drink in weeks. Not since it happened. Can you believe that?” She throws her hands up in the air, then shakes her head. “Listen to me talking to you about cocktails. What’s wrong with me?” She leans against the pharmacy shelves. Then she folds her arms over her knees and drops her head down into them.
I want to tell her that everything will be okay. That time will heal all wounds or something trite like that. Only I know it’s not true. Nothing will ever be okay, and she won’t ever really heal, will she? How can you heal when you’ve lost so much? Mrs. Rhodes and me, we still have that in common. I sit with her for another moment before I get up to find my mother.
Before
CHAD HAD HIS ARMS WRAPPED AROUND Devin’s middle. His biceps were thick and veiny. It was clear he worked out.
“Not here, Chad,” Devin said, giggling. “Everyone can see!” He was nuzzling her neck from behind and flicking his tongue at her, laughing.
“So what?” he asked. He then squeezed her waist and pretended to take a bite out of her neck.
Devin squealed. “Chad!”
Part of me wanted to look over at Marcus. Wanted to see if his cheeks, like mine, were burning holes through his face.
“Hey, get a room, you two,” Marcus said. I turned toward him. His cheeks weren’t red at all; in fact, he was smiling. Marcus thought he was being funny. God help me. He would be spewing corny jokes all afternoon until my ears bled with boredom.
My cheeks burned even more when he caught me looking at him. He raised his eyebrows and grinned. I turned away, but not before we made eye contact. And in that second it was clear we both knew we were stuck with each other. At least for the next few hours.
“So, what are we seeing?” Devin said, freeing herself from Chad’s grip. We were standing at the entrance to the mall theater.
“I don’t care,” said Chad. “I’m not planning on watching.” He grinned with his white teeth, then grabbed Devin back into his grasp. He squeezed her again.
“Ouch,” she said this time. She was still smiling but no longer with her eyes. “That hurt.”
“Not into rough sex, huh, Dev?” Chad laughed. But then he squeezed her again. She hit him, and for a second I actually saw a flash of anger in Devin, something I didn’t usually see—at least when it came to boys. Chad backed off, and she smiled again, wide and flirty, as though it was all part of a game.
I was frankly a little repulsed by the scene and losing my patience by the minute. “Just decide already,” I said.
Chad looked at me, did a once-over, then said, “Why? Are you joining us?”
“I—”
“Just kidding, girly,” he said.
“My name’s Cass.”
He shook his head and smiled. “You’re the one who plays the guitar, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Dude, you need to go electric with that shit. No granola crunchy crap.” He let go of Devin and launched into a heavy-metalesque air-guitar solo.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I said, rolling my eyes. Chad was a piece of work—a really bad, poorly imagined piece of work.
“Let’s just find something to watch,” said Devin. “I’m not hanging out in front of the movie theater all day.”
“Hell, no,” said Chad, still grinning. He was such a meathead, I swear I could almost see flecks of sirloin growing from his scalp. He was getting less cute by the nanosecond.
Chad took out his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and pushed some money at the ticket agent. “Two for Burning Rubber,” he said. “You don’t mind hanging back, big guy, do you?” Chad patted Marcus on the back.
The warmth from my cheeks spread to the back of my neck. Marcus and I were not even asked to join. I didn’t even like Marcus, but suddenly I felt bad for him. Bad for us. “Nah, you guys go,” Marcus said. He dug his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Cass and I will have ourselves a good time out here.” He smiled at Chad but didn’t even look at me. He knew he was lying.
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Chad. “Come on, Devydev.” He grabbed her again, this time around the neck, almost into a headlock. His bicep nearly covered the bottom portion of her face. Her eyes widened for a moment, then she pulled him off of her.
“Seriously,” she said. “Stop it.”
Definitely anger.
She glared at him, and he smiled at her. But his smile quickly dissolved. “Lighten up, Dev,” he said. “We’re just having some fun.”
“I know.” Devin shrugged. Her tone was lighter now, almost apologetic. She looked at me, and this time, I wasn’t sure what I saw.
“Come on,” said Chad. “The previews are the best part.” He nudged her. “And the only part we’re gonna see.”
“Fine,” said Devin, but she smiled. Chad put his arm around her, this time like a normal person, and they headed toward the theater doors.
They were almost there when Devin turned around and looked at me again. “Sure you don’t want to join us, Cass?”
I hadn’t expected this. I wasn’t sure what to do. She hadn’t invited me to join her in, like, forever. I looked over at Marcus. If I said no, then he’d think it was because I wanted to hang out with him, and I didn’t. If I said yes, I’d need full-on rain gear to protect myself from all the saliva that would be flying around. I’d said yes before. It wasn’t the right answer.
“I’m okay,” I said. I dug my hands into the pockets of my cargo pants. “Go ahead. I’ll see you after.”
Devin nodded, but she was still looking at me. I saw something there, in her eyes, but I wasn’t sure what. Did she want me to come with her?
“Let’s go, babe,” Chad said, pulling her by the shoulder.
Devin still faced me. She reached for her neck and played with her charm. Our best-friend charm. It dangled in her hand, and she ran her fingers over the chain links.
“What’s the problem?” Chad said. “Do you want to go in, or what?”
“Yeah,” she said, letting the charm fall back onto her chest. She was still focused on me. “Cass, meet us back here at ten?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“Ten, okay?” she said again.
“I told you, I’ll be here.”
She nod
ded, her lips tight. “Okay.”
She turned away and disappeared into the half-lit darkness of the theater’s corridor.
AFTER
“YOU NEED TO MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIFE,” my mother says a few days after the incident at the pharmacy. “You need to get out. You need to do something. Something besides tagging along on trips to the store with me.”
“Your idea, not mine.” I head toward the living-room couch. My guitar lies on the carpet nearby. I lug it from room to room, like a wooden security blanket, but still, I’m unable to play.
“Look,” she says, unpacking some groceries. “I know you’re hurting.”
Hurting isn’t quite the word. Reeling. Loathing. Drowning. All better words.
“Mom,” I say, “Devin just died.” I flop down onto the couch and prop my feet on the armrest. The cool leather feels good against the warmth of my skin.
“Feet down, please.”
I groan and move them. My mother sits on the couch next to me. She’s forcing me to go to the mall today with Lizzy and Gina. They called the day before and invited me shoe shopping. In my mother’s world a new pair of strappy sandals could part the Red Sea.
“Gina and Lizzy are being good friends,” she says. “Don’t cut yourself off. Grab onto people who reach out.”
She doesn’t mean Mrs. Rhodes, of course, even though she’s reached out more than anyone. My mother likes Lizzy and Gina. She was more upset than I was when our little foursome broke up. She wasn’t happy that I got stuck in Devin’s half of the friendship pie.
“You should call that boy,” she says. “Maybe he’ll meet you there.”
Marcus has now called three times, plus shown up at the shivah, plus launched pebbles at my window. Nothing he says will change what happened, what I did. Maybe he even knows that. All I know is that after that night I don’t want to think about what I look like to him. I wish I had a giant eraser that could wipe that day clean, and Marcus and I could start over.
Devin Rhodes is Dead Page 10