After I’d been awake for an hour or so, Officer Daniels of the Healy Police came in to ask me some questions. I’d seen him through the doorway of my hospital room, talking things over with my parents. When he came in my mom followed, and she sat down next to me on a green vinyl chair.
“You and Brandon had a few beers before you took off?” Officer Daniels said real casually, thumbing through his little notepad and not looking at me. He didn’t even sit down.
I didn’t answer him right away. The room smelled like pee and bleach, and it made me kind of queasy.
“Son, we have your blood alcohol content and Brandon’s, too,” he said, “and both were above the legal limit. So there’s no need to play coy.” I guess I felt a little relieved when he told me that. So I said that yeah, me and Brandon had downed a couple of beers before Brandon’s mom had asked us to head to Seller Brothers to get some diapers for his little sister.
Officer Daniels scratched his notepad with his pencil a couple of times.
“Any other reason Brandon might have been distracted?” he asked.
I wasn’t expecting that follow-up question. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to clear my mind. I remembered the screech of the brakes before we ran off the road. I remembered how I’d bit down hard on my tongue when we crashed, and my mouth had filled up with blood. Like it was full of nickels and dimes.
I guess a while passed because my mom spoke up. “Josh? Is there anything else Officer Daniels needs to know about what happened?”
I stared at the chew marks on Officer Daniels’s pencil. It looked like a rat had been gnawing on it. I tried not to think about the throbbing pain in my shoulder. I tried not to think about anything, actually.
“Well, Brandon was sort of fooling around with his phone,” I said finally. “You know, like messing with it?”
Officer Daniels shook his head. “Too common these days,” he announced to my mother, like I wasn’t even there. He wrote down a few more things in his notepad, told me that he had everything he needed, and said he hoped I’d get better real fast.
“By the way,” he said just before he turned around to leave, “great win at Homecoming, son.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said.
My mom and I just sat there for a little while in silence. Then she came over and kissed me on the forehead. She sniffed a little like maybe she was trying not to cry.
* * *
It’s been almost a month since the accident and Brandon dying, and my body still isn’t totally back to normal, but the doctor says I could probably be back on the football field with enough time to make the last few games of the season.
That’s what he told me anyway, like that was what I was supposed to be the most concerned about. When I could play football again. Not my best friend dying or anything.
My mom and dad and younger brother keep looking at me like they think I’m going to disappear or something if they stop staring at me. Like maybe I was supposed to die in that accident or something, and it’s just luck that I didn’t, so they’d better keep looking just to be safe. Sometimes my mom cries when she looks at me. It’s real uncomfortable.
Even with my broken collarbone and my sore muscles, I went to the funeral, of course. The funeral was crazy packed. I mean, even people who showed up on time had to stand in the back, and there were some people in the lobby area of the church just trying to hear even though they couldn’t see. Even the mayor of Healy was there. Brandon’s mom and dad and all his brothers and sisters were up front, and his mom was just sobbing all hysterical, which made all the moms and the girls sob even harder. The whole team and Coach Hendricks were up behind the family, and Coach Hendricks just kept shaking his head the whole time.
I think Alice is the only student at Healy High who didn’t come to the funeral. Even Kurt Morelli was there with his grandma. I guess it makes sense since he lived next door to Brandon ever since we were all in kindergarten.
At the service, the pastor said all this stuff about Jesus and making sense of bad stuff, but I didn’t really listen. I rubbed my hands on my knees, wiping the sweat off. I couldn’t stop thinking about me being wide receiver and Brandon being the quarterback and how we’d practice together, just the two of us; it was like we never even had to talk to each other. We just always knew where the other guy was going to run, where the other guy was going to throw. I thought about how Brandon would throw these perfect spirals and they would just fall into my hands so easy. Swish, thump. Swish, thump. Swish, thump. We could do it over and over and over again.
We talked without talking.
* * *
I think about Brandon and I think about the funeral and I think about the hospital, and I think about that day a few days after they’d buried Brandon. The day his mom came over to our house to see me. My mom was still making me spend most of my days resting on the couch in the den, like she was afraid to let me out of her sight.
“God, Josh, if only I’d known Brandon had been drinking, I wouldn’t have ever asked him to go to the store,” Mrs. Fitzsimmons said. “But honey, I’m not an idiot. Brandon wasn’t a stranger to a couple of beers. The police said it was the drinking that probably caused the accident, but Officer Daniels said you mentioned something about Brandon’s phone? What can you tell me, sweetheart? I feel like there’s something you aren’t saying. Please, Josh. I just want to know everything that happened that day.”
The television was on mute. I stared at ESPN for a minute. Mrs. Fitzsimmons was just sitting there on the edge of my dad’s old recliner. My mom had given her a glass of sweet tea that she held in her lap but she didn’t drink it. She just sort of clutched it with her hands.
“Well, I mean…” I started. My heart was pounding real hard.
“I know you don’t want to make trouble, but I feel like there’s got to be another explanation than he just had a few beers,” Mrs. Fitzsimmons said. She put the glass down on the coffee table and reached out for my hands. Her hands were cold and clammy. Maybe from holding the sweet tea. Maybe just because they were. And I thought about all the times I’d been over to Brandon’s house since I’d been a kid. The millions of times. And how Mrs. Fitzsimmons was always so nice to me and everything, almost like another mom.
And I felt my mouth moving and words just coming out, and all of a sudden I was telling her about Alice’s texts.
“Alice Franklin?” Mrs. Fitzsimmons asked, her forehead wrinkling up.
I nodded. I mean, it was kind of embarrassing because she was Brandon’s mom, but I’m sure even Mrs. Fitzsimmons had heard the rumors about Alice and Brandon and what had happened at Elaine’s party at the end of the summer. Everyone had been talking about Alice since then. Even the grown-ups.
So I told her how when we’d been on the road, Alice had been sending Brandon all these texts and she wouldn’t stop.
“Texts? What do you mean texts?” Mrs. Fitzsimmons said. “What would she be texting him about?” I looked at the television screen and I looked at the glass of sweet tea on the coffee table. But I couldn’t look at Mrs. Fitzsimmons.
“Uh, I’m sorry, but this is sort of awkward,” I said.
“No, it’s okay, Josh. The texts, were they, like, harassing?”
“They were, like, uh, sexual stuff,” I said. “Like stuff about that party and, uh, stuff she wanted to do to Brandon or whatever.”
“How many times did she text him while he was trying to drive?” Mrs. Fitzsimmons asked.
“Lots. I mean, I lost count. They were popping up every second or so.”
Mrs. Fitzsimmons nodded and I guess you could say she looked upset, but her face relaxed a little, like maybe there was a part of her that was also relieved. She finally took a sip of her tea.
“So you could say she was distracting him with her texts?” Mrs. Fitzsimmons asked.
“Yeah,” I answered. “You could say he was distracted.”
“Thank you, Josh. Thank you for telling me that. I know it wasn’t easy.”
I nodded, and I was glad when she switched the topic to Brandon’s funeral and how touched she was that so many people came out for it and how happy Brandon would have been about that. We sat there for a little bit longer, just talking about Brandon and how much we both missed him, and Mrs. Fitzsimmons had to dab at her eyes a little with her napkin and stop every so often so she didn’t start crying really hard. When she decided to leave, she hugged me, but not too tight on account of my shoulder.
“Josh, sweetie, I just want you to know you’re welcome at our house anytime,” she said. “Anytime, honey. I don’t want to lose touch with you. I hope you know that.”
I nodded again, wishing she would just go home. I felt bad about feeling that way, but I just wanted to be by myself.
On her way out, she stopped in the kitchen to talk to my mom, and I could catch little bits and pieces of what they were saying over all of the yelling on ESPN. Now I love my mom and everything, but she doesn’t exactly have the best habit of keeping stuff to herself. And in a town like Healy, information like the kind I’d just shared with Mrs. Fitzsimmons travels pretty fast. I guess my mom must have told someone else’s mom, and that mom told another mom, and maybe that mom told her kid. You get the idea. Anyway, the bottom line is that by the time I started back at school, Alice Franklin wasn’t just that slut who’d slept with Tommy Cray and Brandon Fitzsimmons at some party.
She was the slut who got Brandon Fitzsimmons killed.
Elaine
Brandon and I were never boyfriend and girlfriend. Like official, we-celebrate-monthly-anniversaries, I-have-a-framed-picture-of-him-in-my-bedroom kind of boyfriend. I mean, I’ve had boyfriends like that. When I was younger, they were usually upperclassmen, and they were always popular. I started dating guys when I was in seventh grade. Other girls couldn’t go out that young, but my mom was okay with it. I mean, my dad wasn’t. But my mom sort of talked him into it as long as the guy came over to our house first and shook his hand and blah blah blah.
But the thing is, as I’ve grown up, there’ve just been fewer and fewer available guys around here who are older than me and who are my type. Which left Brandon. I know this is going to sound totally conceited, but, like, as the most popular girl and guy in our class, we naturally ended up together sometimes. And by that I mean we went to sophomore Homecoming together and we made out at parties pretty regularly and when I was bored or he was bored, we would go over to each other’s houses and yes, okay, fine, I did sleep with him a few times last year. (Oh my God, if my dad knew he would just have a stroke and die. Even if Brandon was the best quarterback Healy ever had.)
Anyway, I’m not saying he was like my property or whatever, but there was this unspoken thing that everyone knew, which was that Brandon Fitzsimmons and I were sort of with each other when we weren’t busy figuring out who else we could be with. It was, um, the natural order of things. We were on again, off again, on again, off again, wash, rinse, repeat.
Until that Sunday when he got in his truck with Josh Waverly and they headed to Seller Brothers.
The news that Brandon died spread faster than the news about Alice at my party. I heard about it from Maggie, one of my best friends, who heard about it almost right away because her father is a Healy police officer.
She called me the afternoon that it happened, totally sobbing—she couldn’t even breathe.
“Elaine, I’m so so so totally sorry, but Brandon Fitzsimmons is dead,” she said.
I just sat there on my bed, holding my phone, and I cried for him. And for me. For us.
I thought about how gorgeous he was. How you could stare at him all day long, even when he was being kind of an asshole, and you could just appreciate his face for what it was. Which was perfect.
And I thought about junior high, when he used to snap my bra strap and wink at me in the cafeteria and squeeze my butt in the hall. It was the first time I’d started to realize I was cute to boys, even if my mom was already making me go to Weight Watchers and I was already worried that my butt was kind of big.
And I thought about that weird, totally embarrassing thing that happened between us the night of my infamous party—him pinning me down on my bed, his eyes looking at nothing, his breath stinking of beer.
And I thought about him doing it with Alice Franklin later on at that very same party in my guest bedroom, the two of them laughing about me before Tommy Cray took his turn.
Alice.
I knew I could never trust that girl.
On the day I found out about Brandon, I also thought about the eighth grade dance—when Brandon and I were absolutely and totally on again, but later Alice swore to me up and down she didn’t know, she thought nothing was going on between us, and she hadn’t really wanted to kiss Brandon that much to begin with even though she had. I mean, okay, I get that it was eighth grade and Brandon’s voice had barely changed and none of us could even drive yet or whatever, but still. It just goes to show you what Alice Franklin is like. At the dance—which I had arrived at with Brandon, I will have you know—Alice ended up making out with him in the coat closet. A few of my girlfriends found them and ran and told me, and after walking in on them and screaming at them both, I ended up spending half the dance in the bathroom crying and asking everyone if my mascara was running.
Brandon apologized a bajillion times, and then we were off again until we were on again. Again. But I never forgot what Alice Franklin did to me, and neither did anyone else. Which makes it very easy to believe the rumor about her at my party. It’s just the kind of thing a girl like Alice would do.
And it makes it even easier to believe the rumor about her and the car accident and those texts.
She’s just a skank.
I honestly don’t see how Alice Franklin is going to recover from all this. I really don’t think she will. After the party she tried so hard to act like nothing ever happened, even coming up and trying to sit with us and everything in the cafeteria. It was kind of pathetic. Even her best friend, Kelsie, doesn’t want anything to do with her anymore, and that was before Brandon died. But since the accident … well, I guess it’s not possible since not going to school is against the law, but it would’ve almost been better for Alice Franklin if she never even came back to Healy High.
Josh
The afternoon of Elaine O’Dea’s party, Brandon Fitzsimmons and I were talking about tits.
The deal was, you could open Brandon’s bedroom window and get out onto the roof of the first floor of his house. Lots of times we would climb out there and drink beers and talk about Coach Hendricks’s plays or what teacher was making us crazy or what girls in Healy High had the best tits. That’s what we were talking about the afternoon of Elaine’s party.
“I’m thinking about Elaine right now,” Brandon said, reaching up with both hands like he was giving the clouds in the sky a feel. “She’s got a nice set.”
“You’re sick,” I said, opening up my Natty Light. It was Brandon’s dad’s beer of choice and so it was our beer of choice, too.
It was usually hot as hell up there, even with the beers. We didn’t go out there much during the summer, but the day of Elaine’s party it was kind of overcast, so it wasn’t too bad. And anyway, after a couple of Natty Lights we didn’t mind the sun. Our muscles were aching after Two-A-Days all week, and nothing would help us relax more than the roof and some cold beer. Brandon’s parents were home, and they probably knew we were drinking beer. But they didn’t care. Brandon could get away with anything.
“Look at that dude,” Brandon drawled, motioning to Kurt Morelli. I looked down at the yard to the right. Kurt was hunched over an old lawnmower from maybe 1984 or something. I didn’t see how he could even really push it he was so small and skinny. He kept stopping now and then to wipe the sweat off his face. He was a puny guy, and I felt sorry for him just watching him.
“Glad I’m not mowing my grandma’s lawn,” I said, enjoying the Natty Light buzz that was settling on me.
“Mark
my words, man,” Brandon said, “that dude is never going to get any pussy. Ever.”
“Not like you, King of All Pussy,” I said, wishing we had more beer.
“It’s true,” Brandon said.
And it was true.
Brandon was like a God in Healy, and I guess I was like God’s best friend. He was God of the football team and God of the school and God of the town. Everywhere he went, people knew him. Old people knew him, little kids in grade school knew him, fucking Mexicans who moved here five seconds ago and didn’t even know English knew him. Everybody knew Brandon Fitzsimmons.
Brandon got more action than any other guy I knew. He’d even slept with Ms. Sanchez, this chick who teaches Spanish part-time at Healy High. She’s like twenty-four with a pretty great body, and Brandon said he needed help with Spanish and he just showed up at her house, and according to Brandon they did it on the kitchen table while her husband was at work.
I’ve only done it once. The summer before sophomore year when I was fifteen. It was at the beach and it was this girl named Tessa, and her family was staying at the beach house next to my family’s beach house, and we did it one night down on the sand after we’d gone for a walk. I found us this sort of private hiding spot near some rocks and we did it. Tessa brought the condoms. All I could think about when it was over was at least I could finally say I did it. Tessa and me still text sometimes, but this summer our families didn’t go down to the beach at the same time.
Brandon was always getting after me to get with someone else. I’m not saying this to sound like a dick or anything, but I could probably get action with lots of girls in our class in about five seconds if I wanted to. But for some reason a lot of the girls in our class annoy the piss out of me. They always act like everything is some stupid huge crisis or drama or whatever, and they always want to talk about everything for five hundred years. They remind me of grackles sitting around on a telephone wire getting ready to swoop at some worm.
The Truth About Alice Page 2