Keep Your Friends Close

by Elsie Vandevere

  But apparently not to everyone. “Make up with Mark?” Tommy raised his eyebrows.

  “I guess. You headed out?”

  “Yeah, I’m not really in the mood to party.”

  “Why’d you come in here, then?”

  “Not really in the mood to be alone either.” He looked down. “I don’t know. It’s weird.”

  Want to dance? Just say it, she told herself: want to dance? It wasn’t a slow song about love, or heartache, or dying, or anything.

  “Glad you came, brother.” Tyler clapped him on the back. “Thought you might change your mind, hence the shirt in your truck.” Tommy was wearing a blue Oxford button-up shirt. It hugged him nicely.

  “Yeah, thanks,” his brother mumbled.

  “Dance with my date.” Tyler pulled Maggie forward by the hand like a gentleman, which of course he still was not, and handed her to Tommy who, to her delight, looked like he forgot how to breathe for a moment. “I promised. I’m a man of my word. But just one dance. Then, she’s mine for the party. Too cool to hang around here for the whole dance, kiddo.”

  She could have returned Tyler’s kiss to thank him, but she didn’t want a crazy Amber or someone appearing to hit her.

  Tommy shrugged and shyly placed a hand on her waist, holding the other hand. “I’ve only got one move.” He laughed nervously over the jazz. He held his arm straight out, stepping to her side, then put his hand holding hers behind her neck. He slid his arm behind her neck, letting her hand go, then down her opposite shoulder, along her arm towards himself, slowly. They separated the full length, pausing as their hands joined. It was smooth. She’d seen it before in a dance called the shag, an older one. Then he pulled her back towards him. The second time they tried it went better. They giggled like idiots, her cheek brushing his chest.

  As they moved backward then toward each other again and again with the tempo, she tried to look sexy. She didn’t know how except sucking the corner of her lip or tossing her hair, slowly dropping her waist as much as she dared, which wasn’t much. Other kids were practically pole dancing without a pole, unless their skinny dates could constitute as one, she noticed with a little disgust. But it seemed to work because his eyes were pretty big.

  “That dress.” Tommy looked her up and down. It was fair to say: he gawked.

  “Just the dress, huh?” She could not believe she had said that taunt. She swallowed. It was out there now.

  “Well, you in the dress.” He sort of coughed that part.

  “Coming to the party after?” Mazy asked, brushing against Maggie with the beat.

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes shot inadvertently to Tommy.

  “It wasn’t really a question. I think Becca’s making you,” she laughed, dancing against some football player in a sloppy way that made Maggie suspect the punch had been spiked and the fun was about to move locations.

  But Tommy had said he didn’t want to be alone.

  But he hadn’t said he wanted to be with her either.

  And there was the séance tonight, the feeling of being watched, Amanda’s face literally there in the room…only, they hadn’t seen it while they were dancing, making Tommy and Maggie suddenly stop and break away as she had feared it might.

  As if reading her mind, Becca appeared, flustered, not dancing. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?” Mazy asked stupidly, giggling and going nearly all the way to the floor dancing.

  “The memorial collage!” she demanded of Maggie, breathless.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe they moved it so it wouldn’t get bumped,” Tommy offered. He pinched his nose as Becca pushed her way through the crowd in the other direction. Mags had never seen him do that.

  “Look, Maggie, I’m going to go, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t ride with anyone—”

  “Drunk, I know.”

  “Stick with my brother or Becca, okay? Mark’s parties can get kind of wild and they’re a long way from town…” Well, that was the first time she heard that. There was usually one main party place in small towns, maybe two or three, and they went without saying.

  “I’ll be careful. Honestly, I’d rather just go home.”

  “Need a ride?”

  “No, Becca promised me one. It’s okay. Go home.”

  “Okay,” he smiled sadly, slowly, as he released her hand. She watched him disappear. And then, the real commotion started.

  People murmuring, stopped dancing, and all began to face one direction, toward a place on the dance floor. And from that place she heard screaming. A familiar voice. Weaseling her way through, she saw Becca, crying, holding a piece of paper in her hand.

  Maggie was confused until she looked down at the gym floor.

  The poster had been torn in fat, jagged chunks, all except one corner that had been utterly destroyed, ripped into over a dozen tiny pieces. Becca’s body heaved with angry panting or with dry sobs, Mags could not tell. The brunette’s eyes were very wet, but her face was livid, hair falling askew. She glared at everyone, her eyes resting a moment on Maggie, who squirmed before she realized she felt a need to. Just visible on the floor was one of the smallest pieces—a heart.

  Chapter Ten

  Friendly Neighborhood Ghosts

  “What’s going on now?” Tyler asked, appearing at Mag’s side, annoyed.

  “Someone destroyed Amanda’s memorial,” she muttered in disbelief. She did not say that whoever had done it paid special attention to the corner dedicated to Tommy and Amanda.

  “Holy crap,” he breathed.

  The police arrived in no time, and suddenly everything got very, very real. It seemed like a pretty strong reaction to the destruction of a cardboard poster, but, Maggie supposed, when that poster was a memorial and that memorial was for the victim of an unsolved crime, things changed. They must have been nearby, maybe even hanging around or following someone to arrive so quickly. The cops bagged the poster and interviewed Becca.

  During her few minutes of questioning, she pointed a long finger toward Maggie. Maggie felt her eyes widen.

  Officer Latchley walked over. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said nicely, his voice more gravelly than Tommy’s smoky one, she noted. “What was your name again?”

  “Maggie,” she reminded him, since they met at Jake’s a couple days before. His eyes opened wider, like he recognized that name. Maybe, she thought in a half-hopeful way, he’d heard it at home.

  “I understand you helped make the poster.” Whew. Becca had not pointed to her as a suspect, jealously demolishing remnants of Tommy and Amanda, but because she helped make it. Of course.

  “Yes. Becca asked me to help because she’d seen my collage at home. I think she was just trying to include me, being nice…” Mags babbled, hoping it made sense.

  He scribbled something down. “And you’re new, right?” She nodded. “See anything?”

  “No. I was dancing and I didn’t even know what was going on until I heard Becca.”

  “And who were you dancing with?” he asked, still writing.

  He wanted her alibi. She looked at him, a deer in the headlights. He waited.

  Tyler was her date, his son, so that should be her answer.

  But she couldn’t say Tyler. He’d know that wasn’t true when he spoke to Tyler and whoever he had actually been dancing with. Would he know Tyler was ‘helping’ his brother? Did he know about the kiss? Or would it look bad? Officer Latchley had met her, she also noted, when she was on a date with Mark just two days ago.

  She knew whatever she said looked horrible at the moment, but she would look worse if she lied about anything. At least if she told the truth, she looked like an honest slut.

  He was still waiting for an answer.

  “Tommy.” Unless she was mistaken in the dim lighting, he smiled like he was trying to hide it. She wondered at little at that. “He just left right before I heard…” she added.

  “And do you have any idea who co
uld have done this?”

  “Well,” she wanted to tell him about the Homecoming Queen. “I don’t really know everyone, and I didn’t know Amanda. I guess maybe somebody jealous about the crown or someone who is grieving.”

  “Interesting that you say someone missing her and not someone who didn’t like her.”

  “I haven’t really met many who didn’t like her.” Technically, Maggie had met Ashley (where had she stormed off to after all?). Pushing that thought aside, she continued, “but people deal in different ways.” She shrugged, thinking of what Sarah had said. “Maybe they didn’t want to be reminded. Whereas if someone really didn’t like her, that doesn’t mean they would destroy a memorial for her, especially knowing it would draw attention to them.”

  “Good point. You thinking of becoming a detective?” he joked.

  “Maybe.”

  He shut his notepad.

  “You haven’t heard anything, have you?” Her stomach actually made a noise. The note!

  “About what happened? Just that she was hit and they don’t know who—”

  “Okay, thank you, Maggie. Be safe, tonight, okay?” He winked like Tyler. He was a cop, a cop who recently found a Wilbur Mason student dead, and he didn’t want to find another one. That was all. Routine warning. Nothing more.

  She walked through the crowd and spotted her friends together: Becca, Mark, Sarah, and Mazy all talking, huddled, looking around. Maggie assumed it was about who might have done the deed, and she approached them. They stopped their conversation, all with friendly faces, facing her.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Becca took Maggie’s wrist. “Tyler, I’m driving your date since you’ll be, uh, unable to later.”

  Outside, in the starkly quiet, starry night, the girls piled into the car. It was too warm. Becca was determinedly driving toward the party, which was out of town. Picket fences turned into pasture fences, homes close to the road flashed by farther and farther apart.

  Mazy was acting weird, uneasy and messy. The two up front, Becca and Mags, rolled their eyes at her. The trees looked weird as the headlights hit them, too white. They went farther and farther south, Maggie trying not to squirm. She sang along with the music, trying to cheer Becca up, trying to be normal.

  But she still checked her phone to see if she was getting service. That’s when, on the side of the road, she thought she saw someone. “Wait!” she attempted to shout over the blaring music, but Becca had already left them alone in the dark.

  “What?” Becca asked, looking over to her and turning the music down.

  “Nothing.” Maggie shut up. “I thought I saw something.” It was probably just one of the trees.

  Mazy began singing loudly. She wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t drunk already. Becca laughed at her, shaking her head. She sped up. Turned up the music. She was trying to drown out life; Maggie got it.

  Mags just looked out the window. She hated the song playing. And as she peered out at the dark farmland, thinking of the shadowy figure she had thought she’d seen, she felt again like she was being watched.

  She felt like the party was a bad idea. She kept hearing the echoes of “be careful.” A party in the middle of nowhere, with so many people who could be M, a crazy girl who wanted to fight her, at Mark’s—who may or may not have threatened her—was not being careful. It just wasn’t.

  This time, the lights hit the object from a distance, catching on the white fabric of a green and white Wilbur Whatsits uniform, a cheer uniform. “Who is that?” Maggie asked, pointing to one of their teammates trudging along the side of the road.

  “Who?” Becca scoffed. Maggie frowned, twitching her nose again but this time in annoyance. How could Becca leave anyone out there like that? Especially after what just happened to her best friend! On a road just like this one. Late at night when people were hard to see.

  “That girl. Walking along the road,” Maggie explained.

  Mazy burst into a fit of giggles. Becca slammed on her brakes, the seatbelt pulling hard into Maggie’s shoulder and chest, knocking the wind out of her.

  “Where?” Becca’s eyes narrowed.

  “Right there.” Maggie pointed out the window, back where they had passed.

  Becca switched off the radio, plunging them into silence on the empty stretch of road.

  She backed up slowly, Mazy’s bobbing head peering out the back glass. The car was silent inside as the engine whirred. Grass disappeared under the car. The lights shone into the darkness, hitting a rail. Weeds. Nothing.

  Becca and Mazy looked at her skeptically, as if they weren’t sure she saw what she thought she did.

  “I saw someone,” Maggie affirmed, silently praying they would appear and prove her right. Becca slowed the car even more.

  Finally, the light hit some a figure. A figure in a green and white short skirt. A cheerleading uniform. Maggie sucked in air quickly. “See? There,” she said, vindicated, as Becca fully stopped her car. Mags already had her seatbelt off and was about to hop out of the car when Becca’s hand stopped her.

  She looked concerned, her brow furrowed slightly. “Where are you going?”

  “To see if they need help,” Maggie said, exasperated. Where else would she be going?

  “To see if who needs help?” asked Becca slowly.

  Doubting her own sanity, Maggie glanced back. Mazy was giving her an equally odd look, one that indicated she was either flabbergasted or had bad indigestion. But the girl in the backseat was only a few feet away from the person Maggie had seen.

  And she was still there. She had her back to them still, and Maggie was curious why she had turned around for help.

  Sitting in the passenger seat, Maggie thought hard, listening to the ding, ding, ding of the car as the door was open, feeling the refreshingly chilly night air seep into the hot vehicle. She glanced back at the girl. Still there. Still not looking at them.

  Mazy giggled again. But it didn’t sound giddy in the silence with the interior light blinding them. It sounded nuts. “Hush,” Becca snapped. “Do you see something?” Becca craned her neck, looking all around the girl, through her, right at her.

  Right there! Maggie wanted to scream. She nearly laughed in frustration, at a loss. Her throat tightened. She’s right there. A green and white jersey. Cheerleader. Small. Short hair.

  Short hair. There was only one Wilbur Mason cheerleader Maggie had ever seen with short hair, and she had only seen her pictures. Amanda.

  “Hey, don’t joke around,” Becca said. “You know this is where it happened, right?”

  Maggie stared at her in shock, then quickly tried to wipe it off her face, slamming the door shut. “No, really, I thought I saw someone. Guess it was just the fencepost or something.”

  “Maybe someone walked across the field.” Becca shrugged it off, shifting back into drive and moving forward onto the road with a crunch, waiting with her signal on to pull out. Yeah, Maggie thought, a cheerleader sauntering across a cow field alone on an autumn night without so much as a jacket or flashlight...maybe. Maybe she lived there. Someone had to live there.

  Mazy only giggled in response, slumped over her seat, watching Maggie. “What’s the matter, see a ghost Mags?”

  “Shut up,” both girls up front said at once.

  The séance, she remembered. They were holding a séance because Amanda really wanted to be here tonight. Amanda whose boyfriend Maggie had just danced with, whose best friend she was sitting next to at that very moment…she realized she was sitting probably in her seat, where she sat a hundred times.

  Maggie had felt like she was being watched, but maybe she was being haunted.

  She clutched the handle of the car door so tightly her hand cramped up, determined to keep it shut should the unseen cheerleader ghost decide to suddenly try to wrench it open and throw her out. She felt ridiculous, but that didn’t stop the cold sweat from coming, ruining her dress and what was left of her makeup. She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut, praying the figure
would disappear.

  She opened them again and dared only to look in the mirror. It remained, shivering, feet away in the shadows. Mazy peeped back behind her, looking right at Amanda, then whipped around and snickered. She wasn’t continuing to search the darkness. Did she see it? Did she think it was funny? Maggie felt sick.

  They pulled away.

  This was too much for Mags. There was absolutely no one she could tell. They would all be hurt and no one would believe her. Worse, they might think it was some sick joke, or pathetic vie for attention, as if she had not had enough of that in a week to last her a lifetime.

  “Look, I should probably go home,” she said.

  “What?” Becca was surprised. “Come on. You have to go to the party. Everyone’s expecting you. I promise I won’t leave your side.” No one had ever said those words to her in that order, and a week ago, maybe even a few hours ago, they would have been enough to tempt her. But not now.

  “No, I really want to go home.”

  “We aren’t far now. We won’t stay long.” Becca ignored her concerns and Maggie felt that familiar sensation of panic tightening in her chest—being trapped. Not having a car of her own, riding with others, she was always at the mercy of the driver. She couldn’t control where she was, where she went. She was locked inside a small, moving space. It was hot. She wanted out. She did not want to go to Mark’s. She wanted to leap out into the wide open darkness, even if there might be a specter waiting for her.

  Her voice shook as she persisted. “I really need to get back. I forgot my medicine.” It was only half a lie.

  “We’re almost there,” Becca laughed as if it were absurd.

  “That’s okay,” Maggie said before she really thought it through. “I’ll call Tommy and see if he can pick me up.” Maybe that was not the right thing to say, she realized at once.

  Becca kept driving, as if unhearing.

  “Oh, come on,” Mazy whined. “She needs to go home.”

  For another second Becca seemed deaf, then she said, “Fine. I’ll drop you off, Mazy. Don’t get into trouble.”