“That’s right,” Lily said, covering her mouth. I could scarcely hear her over my teeth chattering; there must be another door open somewhere. Maybe the back one, the one to the garden. “He was with her all night. I barely saw him myself.”
Rachel sighed. Her brother’s friends were acting
weird
. “All right, I guess I’ll call her. Can I use your phone?”
“Broken,” V said promptly, and then shook her head slightly. “I mean, the downstairs phone is broken, and I’m expecting a call from my parents.”
“Oh,” Rachel said.
“Long-distance,” V said.
I snapped my fingers. “He’s not
there
,” I said. “I remember him saying he was going to leave, out the back–”
V pushed me away from the door and opened it. Kate and Lily moved forward, forcing Rachel to step quickly toward the open door. It looked like people were moving in for the kill. Jen- nifer Rose Milton came down the stairs.
“What’s going on?” she said, and then assessed the situation instantly. “Flan, would you come upstairs with me?”
“What?”
“I need you for something.” Rachel was looking at Jennifer Rose Milton like maybe Jenn had stolen something from her.
I tried again. “Adam’s not–” Something brown burned me. Kate had hit my elbow and my coffee had spilled down my white T-shirt, almost to the tiny embroidered flower. I stepped back. The rest of the coffee spilled on the floor. Kate and Lily stepped ahead of me. Gabriel took me firmly by the shoulders and moved me farther back.
“Could I leave through your yard?” Rachel said. “It’s a lot quicker to my house. I just cut through–”
“Right,” I said. “That’s what I–” “I’m sorry,” V said, sickly-sweet.
“Sorry,” Flora said, agreeing. She stepped in front of me. It was getting hard to even
see
Rachel.
“The garden is closed,” V continued like a docent.
Rachel wasn’t born yesterday. “
What
?” she said. “Will you just let me–”
“No,” V said. “You weren’t invited here. Adam isn’t here. Please leave.” Gabriel slipped in front of me. Everybody was in front of me.
“Flan?” Jennifer Rose Milton asked. I looked at her but couldn’t read what she was saying. “Upstairs?”
“We have
school today
,” Rachel said. “My mom wants to know where Adam
is
. He didn’t come home, on a
school night
. Why are you acting like–”
“We’re not
acting like
anything,” V said. They had pushed Rachel to the door and she was looking, finally, frightened. I tried to take a step toward her but Gabriel, gently, pushed me back, toward the stairs. I stepped on the first step and Jennifer Rose Milton moved around me so
she
was in front of me too. I took another step up.
“He’s
here
, isn’t he?” Rachel said. “
Adam? Adam
!”
Lily tripped over her own feet and stuck a hand out to steady herself. “He’s not here,” she said, and laughed.
“Where
is
he?” Rachel said. She was out the door and V was starting to shut it.
“We don’t know,” Kate said. “Go find him.”
I took another step up and suddenly saw, in aerial view, what was happening just as the door was shutting. Down in the en- trance hall it wasn’t clear, but from above I could see that every- one was huddling together, staying close and thick between Rachel and me like protective
animals. Moving like a flock, to protect one of their own. The whole Basic Eight–Kate, V , Douglas, Gabriel, Flora, Jenn–moving me away from harm.
“
Where is he
?” Rachel said, and the door shut, and I was safe.
Tuesday November 2nd
I was dozing against the window of the bus, cold and smooth like water, when I heard somebody holding up the line of people boarding. Somebody was inquiring the price of a ticket to Roewer High School, and the bus driver, thinking he was being jerked around (though goodness knows why–he weighs too much to be jerked anywhere), was snapping at her.
“You’re holding up the line,” he said. “It’s a dollar. There’s no ticket.”
“Oh,” she said. I craned my neck to see who this person was, raised by wolves in some San Francisco wilderness and finally escaping by public transportation. A tall hairdo was blocking me. I heard a purse click open and coins drop into the box. Her clunky footsteps coming up the aisle and finally plopping down next to me.
“I can’t believe you do this every morning,” she said, and I opened my eyes. V was on the bus. V . On the
bus
. “If I ever get my car back, Flan, I’m going to drive you to school every day. This is disgraceful.”
“What are you doing here?” I said. “Here I was hoping you’d save me the walk from the stop by pulling up in your gorgeous car.”
“My gorgeous car is
gone
,” she hissed, scrunching down in her seat like a spy. “We can’t talk here, Flan.”
“What?” I said, and then her eyes widened. She blinked and smiled at me, then looked around the bus.
“That’s right,” she said in a loud voice. “Stolen. My car was stolen. It’s gone. That’s why I’m taking the bus.” She brushed her hair theatrically from her face. “Stolen.”
“That’s
awful
,” I said. It
was
awful, but why was she telling everyone on the bus? “Um, when did it happen?”
“The last I saw it was at the party,” she announced. “I mean, right before the party. And then when I went to drive to school today it was gone.”
“Have you called the police?”
“My father is taking care of it,” she said. Rays of light were coming through the window at sharp odd angles, branding little triangles and squares on V ’s tired face. “They just got home last night, and boy was I busted. I had to get up at the crack of dawn, just to–”
“
Boy was I busted
? Why are you talking like you’re in a TV commercial?”
V glared at me, then leaned back in her seat scowling like I’d spoiled her fun.
“V ,” I said, “just tell me what’s going on.” She shook her head. I leaned into her. Her face was dark and furious. I spoke quietly, hoping that was the way she liked it. “V , I’m sorry. I just–well, I’m just sitting here and suddenly you’re
taking the bus
, and now you tell me your car is stolen. Is that it? Your
car
? I mean, I’m sorry it’s stolen, V , but–”
“Hey,” Lily said and we both jumped. She was standing up next to our seats, with her cello case next to her like a bodyguard, her notebooks against her breasts. She looked wrecked and not just early-morning wrecked. She looked refugee-wrecked.
“Can I sit down?” she said, and leaned toward us. The rays of light struck her and I saw her face was utterly green.
Really
green, like pale algae was clinging to her. I heard myself gasp. I’d never seen someone,
green
like
that. “I don’t mean to sound like,” she swallowed, “an old lady, but I need to sit down.”
I waited for V to get up but she just sat there, her face still scowling and her eyes far away. V , ever-polite V , not giving up her seat for Lily Chandly who was looking like a pond you shouldn’t go into. One you shouldn’t even touch.
“Of course,” I said, getting up and stepping pointedly over V whose legs were hanging into the aisle like somebody’d for- gotten them. V blinked, looked up at Lily and slid over to the window. Lily smiled a small lime smile and dropped into the seat. I put my hand on top of her cello case, to steady it. “I’ll take this,” I said, but Lily didn’t even acknowledge me.
“I don’t know if I can make it through the day,” she said. “I keep throwing up.”
“
We all do
,” V said tersely. “Shut up.”
Lily’s face got all puckered like an infant tantrum. “I can’t–” she whined, but V cut her off. She raised her hand, and for a second it looked like she was going to
hit
Lily. But the harshness of the gesture worked by itself and Lily shut her mouth.
“What?” I said. I couldn’t have seen what I had just seen, but I saw it. I think all the tenses are right in that sentence. “
What
?” I looked down at Lily who looked too sick to care. “V ’s just been telling me about her car. Have you heard? It was stolen, sometime around the night of the party. That gorgeous car. Isn’t that awful?” I sneaked a look at V to see if I was saying the right thing, but her eyes were closed and she was leaning against the window. I looked over at Lily who was blinking at me like
I
was going to hit her. “Lily? Did you hear about it?” Lily looked over at V , who opened her eyes and shook her head slowly,
no
. “Lily?”
“I can’t–” she said, and swallowed. The bus stopped; we were at school. Lily stood up with effort and took her cello case from me. V stood up too. Lily walked to the back door of the bus unsteadily while I hovered over her. V went to the front; I watched her step down the stairs almost haughtily, not looking back at us. I left the bus first, and Lily followed, stepping down each step like she was in the dark. Finally she was out in the grungy street, in the morning light. V hadn’t waited up for us and was already striding toward Roewer. Lily blinked at the world; outside her skin didn’t have any less of that unearthly green. She took one step and doubled over; I caught her cello case from clattering onto the ground. With a horrible lurching noise she threw up, a mouthful of dark gray thick something onto the curb where it sat like a dirty snowdrift. I put my hand on Lily’s shoulder, but V didn’t even look back. The lurching sound, wet breathing like something going under, struck me in some way, and I stood there, searching my brain for the connection. Some memory. My head was vibrating like a tuning fork, searching the files for the right picture, but nothing came of it, only the dimness of some aquarium dream: gurgle, gurgle, gurgle. Lily gave one more dry heave and then stood up again. She reached into her pocket for a tissue and wiped her face, grimacing at me. She took her cello case and then looked at my hand on her, until I took it off.
“Lily,” I said, “you need to go home. You can’t–”
“Let’s go,” she said. Her eyes were dead and white but her mouth was smiling like a bad clown. “Time for school.”
“You can’t go to school like
this
,” I said. “You’re
sick
.”
“We’re having a meeting,” she said. “Seventh period, down by the lake. Don’t forget.”
“What? We all have Millie then. We can’t all cut that class to–” “
Flan
,” she said, and started to cry, “we have to go to school.” “OK,” I said, and reached out to touch her. She flinched sharply, her hands darting up to mine as if to slap them away. She looked at me and actually took a step back. “OK,” I said again, more carefully, and stepped away from
her
. “Just, you know, take it
easy.”
“We have to go to school,” she muttered. “OK,” I said, again. We went to school.
The day itself was uneventful, drifting by like ice floes. Something in Calc. Apologizing to Hattie Lewis for missing class yesterday. I’m sure she suspected something when all my friends were sick too, although Lily throwing up in the hallway just as class let out helped convince her that maybe there
was
a flu going round. Adam wasn’t in choir. Pond water under a microscope. Capitalist bell curves rising like tits. And then, for some reason, I ducked Millie’s door and trudged to the lake for this big meeting.
Wouldn’t you know it–V showed up first, so we had to sit there not talking to each other by the side of Lake Merced. Finally I sat up and looked at her taut face. I was astounded to see she was smoking, her dull smoke rising up against the silhouettes of the trees. “V , I’m sorry,” I said. She blinked and puffed. “I don’t even know what I was saying, there on the bus.” True except for that pronoun. “I didn’t mean to upset you, V .
Please
. I’m very sorry.”
She turned to me finally and suddenly, her eyes sharp as the tip of her cigarette. “
You
–” she started in a voice so rough my whole body chilled, down to the cold earth I was sitting on. Then she sighed and shrugged her
shoulders, took another drag like a pro. Where did she even
learn
to smoke?
“It’s fine,” she said, dully. She looked at me and smiled a little. “I guess–I guess it’s sort of a rough time.”
“Are your parents giving you a rough time?” I asked. She blinked. “What?”
“Your parents?” I said, and bit my lip. Suddenly I was saying the wrong thing again. “You know, the party?”
Her eyes widened and widened, and the ash of her cigarette sat there, unflicked. “
What
?” she said.
“Hey,” Lily said and we both jumped. She was standing up next to us with her cello case next to her like a bodyguard and her notebooks against her breasts. Douglas was behind her, smiling thinly and holding–has everyone been
brainwashed
?–a lit cigarette.
“Hey,” V said, and burst out sobbing. Her shoulders shook and her cigarette fell to the log she was sitting on, where it nibbled at the damp bark. Douglas crushed it out with his shoe and sat next to her, holding her stiffly in his arms. Lily sat on her other side and stared into space miserably, her cello case leaning against her. Everybody was on the log except me, sitting on the ground. I was not only mystified, I was passé. V sobbed and sobbed, in loud raw gulps of sound.
“Cut that shit out right away,” Natasha said casually, strolling out from somewhere with Kate and Gabriel. She was smoking too, her dark lipstick staining the filter. Kate was glaring at V
like a drill sergeant.
“
Natasha
–” Douglas said, whirling around to her.
“She’s right,” Kate said, sitting on the ground. She leaned back on the log and opened her backpack, took out a notebook and pen. “We don’t have time, we can’t afford–V , stop it right now.”
“She can’t just
stop it
,” Douglas said. “She’s–”
“
NO
!” Gabriel said, pointing at them. “
No
! Just
stop
!”
I decided not to say anything, sitting on my hands. My body felt so cold. V bit her lip and choked back a sob. She was stop- ping, just like that.
“Thank you,” Kate said, with a thin smile. She looked stone- serious but somehow–
eager
.