The List (24 page)

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

His words, in memory, take on a hollow sound inside Danielle, as the reality shadows everything that had been bright and light and possible.

Had she looked beautiful to him that night?

She’d certainly felt beautiful, even with the bug bites and the chipped purple polish on her toenails and the horrible tan lines from her lifeguard suit. She’d felt beautiful that whole summer. But it seemed like so long ago.

Toward the end of the song, Andrew crushed her toes underneath the rubber tread of his running shoes. That hurt for sure, but not as badly as it would to see him stepping on someone else’s feet.

Jane snaps her fingers. “Hello! Danielle! Andrew’s going to be the jealous one when he sees you dancing with senior guys.”

Danielle laughs. “I don’t know any senior guys.”

“Yes you do!” Jane turns around and calls out for Will. “Will, aren’t you going to dance with Danielle tonight?”

“Sure,” Will says, smiling at her with a set of very white and very straight teeth. “I got moves. Lots of moves.” He does the running man down the bus aisle, back to his seat.

“I saw him checking you out at the relay,” Andrea whispers.

“Yeah, right.”

Charice leans forward and pinches Danielle’s cheek. “You’re hot, girl! What are you even worried about?”

Jane folds her arms. “Look. We’re picking you both up at seven. End of story.”

Danielle laughs. “I don’t have a dress or anything.”

Hope nudges her. “Yes, you do. That pink one you bought.”

Danielle had put it on last night as part of her pity party after the whole Andrew incident. The dress didn’t really fit. Not just the material, but the style. It wasn’t her at all. “I’m not wearing that.”

Jane points at Andrea. “She’s got dresses out the ass.”

Andrea flips her hair. “Yup. It’s true. I am an admitted clothes whore. I can bring a few things over. I think we’re about the same size.”

“Thanks,” Danielle says, starting to feel excited. She’d noticed Andrea’s clothes before. She always had something pretty on.

“So you’re in?”

Danielle nods and smiles. “I’m in.”

argo stands at the sink eating a quick bowl of cereal. The homecoming game is in a few hours. She has her cheering uniform on, her hair pulled up with a curl of white ribbon. The kitchen looks as good as it does after the cleaning lady visits, with no trace of last night’s party, aside from the starchy smell of flat beer wafting up the drain, the three overstuffed bags of recycling set out on the deck and now slouching against the glass patio door, and a faint haze of cigarette smoke in the air.

Rachel and Dana should be here any minute.

Margo walks to the front window and parts the curtains. Jennifer’s car is still parked in the driveway. Margo prays Jennifer will come and get it when she’s not here.

The phone rings. She thinks it might be the girls letting her know they are running late, but it isn’t. It’s Maureen.

“Hey,” Maureen says, with an awkward pause to acknowledge that they haven’t spoken for an entire month. “Is Mom there? She’s not picking up her phone.”

“She’s out shopping with Dad, and then they’re going to the homecoming game.”

“Oh, right.” Maureen says it flatly. “How’s that going?”

Margo thinks about not saying anything, but in some ways, Maureen is the best person she can talk to about it.

“Honestly, not great. There’s this whole big movement going to get Jennifer Briggis elected as homecoming queen.”

Maureen lets out a deeply annoyed breath. “Don’t you think that’s mean, Margo? Hasn’t the girl suffered enough?”

“I don’t have anything to do with it.” Margo really doesn’t appreciate her sister’s tone, considering how Maureen had talked about Jennifer back in the day. “In fact, I’m one of the only ones not doing it, even though everyone in school thinks
I
made the list this year.”

“Wait. What list?”

“You haven’t even been out of high school for four months, and you’ve already forgotten the list?” Margo checks her watch. The cheerleaders are supposed to be at Mount Washington High in five minutes so they can board the bus with the football players and lead the Spirit Caravan. They’ll be cutting it close.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Maureen snarks back. “But last year’s was supposed to be the final list.”

Margo squeezes the receiver. “How do you know that?”

It takes a while for Maureen to say anything. And in the pause, Margo slowly lowers herself down on the arm of the sofa, because she just has this feeling. Finally, Maureen sucks in a breath and says, “Because I made last year’s list.”

A horn honks outside. Dana and Rachel. Her ride.

“What do you mean you
made
last year’s list?” Margo says quickly, because she’s out of time. “You were
on
last year’s list.”

“I know.” Margo hears her sister shift the phone from one side to the other. “I put myself on it.”

“But —” The car horn beeps again. Margo curses under her breath. “Hold on a second, okay?” she says to her sister. “Just hold on. And don’t hang up!” She sets the phone down on the couch
and swings opens the front door. “I’ll meet you at the school,” she screams to Dana and Rachel. “Go ahead without me!”

“What? Why?” Dana yells back.

“You’ll miss the Spirit Caravan!” Rachel chimes in.

“Then I’ll see you at the football field!” Margo tells them. Dana and Rachel are completely baffled as to what reason she might have to skip out on the Spirit Caravan, but there’s no time for Margo to lay everything out. “I’ll explain later,” she calls, waves good-bye, and then slams the door. She runs back to pick up the phone. “You there, Maureen?”

“Yeah,” she says in a tired voice. “I’m here.”

Margo goes to the window and looks outside. Dana and Rachel are gone. “Alright,” she says, sitting cross-legged in the center of the living room rug. “What happened?” She doesn’t say another word. She doesn’t even breathe.

“It was the end of my junior year, and I was cleaning out my locker. I picked up this plastic bag and it was weirdly heavy. There was something wrapped up in brown paper inside. I unwrapped it and realized it was the Mount Washington stamp. There was no note in the bag. No instructions or any clue as to who’d put it there or why. I even went through the trash can, through all the old papers I’d just tossed, in case I missed it. I have no idea how long the bag had even been in my locker. But I definitely knew I had a serious opportunity.

“So all summer long, I thought about who, exactly, to put on the list. It was a serious power trip, and I became obsessed with evaluating everyone I saw. My friends, your friends, the little freshmen on orientation day. It was a massive secret beauty contest, and I was the only judge. Though, truthfully, I was
only thinking about the pretty girls. The ugly ones were just … afterthoughts. Except Jennifer. I sort of decided from the very beginning that Jennifer would be on the list.”

“Why?”

“Because anyone other than Jennifer would have been a letdown.” Margo lets the words seep in. Maureen continues, “I did think about picking you as the prettiest junior, Margo. But I went with Rachel, since I thought it would raise red flags. You know, to have both of us on there the same year.”

“You could have picked me and not yourself,” Margo notes.

“Hmm. I guess that’s true. But I thought I deserved it.”

It’s funny, but Margo had felt the same way. She never questioned her sister being on the list, being homecoming queen. But knowing it was Maureen herself behind it — well, it made things different.

Maureen goes on. “The thrill of being prettiest senior lasted for, like, a minute. My friends were jealous. They treated me weird. They thought they deserved it more than me. Which maybe they did, but I started to think maybe they weren’t my real friends at all. And every time I saw Jennifer trying to be a good sport about everything in the hallway, I felt guilty. Have you ever read that Edgar Allan Poe story about the heart that beats under the floorboards? That was basically my life. That’s when I got the idea. To confess.

“I went to see Jennifer after graduation. I told her what I did, and that I was going to make sure that she wouldn’t be put on the list next year. There would be no list. There’d be no four years in a row. I made this big deal of throwing the embossing stamp in the trash right in front of her. I told her I was sorry, and that, if she told on me, I wouldn’t blame her for it.”

“Wow. That’s … wow. But wait. Who were you going to give the stamp to?”

“You, I guess.” And then Maureen adds, “But I never would have told you it came from me.”

Margo’s mind spins. Who would she have put on the list, if she’d had the chance? For as badly as she wanted to be homecoming queen, could she have put herself on it?

An interesting hypothetical, yes. But it didn’t matter. What did is that Margo is innocent. And now she has proof that Jennifer’s the guilty one.

Margo says, “So after you left, Jennifer must have pulled the stamp out of the trash and she put herself on as the ugliest senior.” She wonders why Jennifer would do that.

“Yeah,” Maureen says. “And she put you as the prettiest.”

Even though the Spirit Caravan has surely started making its way back down the mountain and to the football field, Margo drives to Jennifer’s house. She can’t let this go one second longer.

To think, the whole time, Jennifer knew. She knew people suspected Margo was behind the list, but she never hinted otherwise, never said a word to defend her. Jennifer had been glad to let Margo take the fall, have her reputation ruined, to have Margo’s friends and complete strangers think the absolute worst of her.

Margo hates that she ever felt sorry for Jennifer. She wishes she could go back in time and erase her conversation with Matthew. Not the end of it, obviously, but definitely the parts where Margo made herself look bad. She can’t wait to call Jennifer out, to force her to own up to what she’d done. And to all the people who thought she was guilty, she’ll say,
I told you so.

But as she pulls along the curb in front of Jennifer’s house, a wave of nerves catches her by surprise. She and Jennifer are about to have it out, the way they probably should have back in eighth grade. Only this time, it will be way more messy, way more painful.

Mrs. Briggis answers the door. It is the first time Margo has seen her since the day her friendship with Jennifer ended. She steels herself for the coldness, but there isn’t any. “Margo! What a nice surprise!” Mrs. Briggis looks over her shoulder. “Jennifer’s still asleep. I don’t think she’s feeling very well.”

“Do you think I could go up and talk to her? Just for a second? It’s about tonight.”

“Of course. She’s really looking forward to the dance. It was so nice of you girls to take her out shopping and convince her to go. I know if she never went to a single high school dance, she’d regret it forever.”

Margo looks down at her feet. “Yeah.”

Margo takes the stairs two by two and enters Jennifer’s room without knocking. Jennifer is asleep in bed. Her party clothes, the ones she’d worn last night, are in a heap on the floor.

The walls are painted a cheery lemon yellow, which Margo thinks is new, though she can’t remember what color they used to be. The bunk beds are gone, replaced by an iron frame with rose-colored glass spheres mounted to the posts. She can’t see Jennifer, just her lumpy form underneath the quilt Jennifer’s grandmother had sewn as a present for Jennifer’s eleventh birthday. Margo loved that quilt. The pink squares with the strawberry print were her favorite. Jennifer liked the ones with the shamrocks best.

Margo has not thought of Jennifer’s grandmother since they stopped being friends, and she realizes that she’s probably dead. She’d been very sick all through eighth grade, deteriorating. Jennifer used to call her at the nursing home and sing to her over the phone.

Margo inches forward. “Jennifer!” she whispers. “Jennifer, wake up.”

Jennifer wriggles out from under her covers and squints at Margo. “What are you doing here?”

“I know you made the list, Jennifer. My sister told me everything.” Margo crosses her arms and waits for the moment. That
uh-oh
moment to register on Jennifer’s face.

Jennifer rolls over. She’s hurting, Margo can tell. Probably from everything she drank last night. There’s a glass of water on her nightstand. Jennifer takes a few big gulps, and then says, “Oh.”

No
uh
. Just an
oh
. That’s it.

Margo glances around the room for the Mount Washington stamp. For proof she can take back and show everyone. But Jennifer’s room is messy. She probably has it hidden. So she turns back to Jennifer. “Why did you put yourself as the ugliest senior? It was to frame me, right? Or maybe you were just looking for people to pity you.”

“Why shouldn’t people pity me?” There’s no sarcasm in Jennifer’s voice. It’s just an honest question.

“Umm, because it’s your fault you’re on the list! You did it to yourself!”

Jennifer shakes her head, as if Margo isn’t following. “Yeah,
this
year. But what about the three other years of high school?
Maureen told me she put me on the list because anyone else would have been a letdown. And you know what? She was right. If I’d put anyone else’s name on that list, people would have said,
It should have been Jennifer
.” Jennifer closes her eyes and winces as she sits up. “Look, I had no idea this ‘Queen Jennifer’ stuff was going to happen. I’m as surprised as you are about that.”

“So then why did you put yourself on the list?”

“Because being on the list makes me somebody. People know who I am. I don’t know why you’re so upset with me. I picked you for prettiest, didn’t I?”

Margo laughs. She can’t help herself. On Monday, it had felt like the entire school had voted her the prettiest. Like it was
a fact
. But no. It was only Jennifer.

“You
are
the prettiest, Margo.” Jennifer continues, “And I didn’t want to take anything away from you. But when Dana and Rachel started being friendly to me, I wondered if … I don’t know … maybe we could be friends again, if I could prove that I fit in with your group.” Jennifer closes her eyes and shakes her head sadly. “But it was clear you weren’t interested in that.”

It’s true. Margo wasn’t.

But why was Jennifer? Didn’t Jennifer hate her?

And then Margo remembers. Last night. In her bedroom.

“What were you doing in my room last night? What were you looking for? You were the one who made the list, so clearly the stamp wouldn’t have been in my armoire. What had you wanted to find?”

Finally, the look Margo has been waiting to see arrives. The corners of Jennifer’s mouth sink. She’s embarrassed. Humiliated. But over what?

Jennifer lowers her head. “Your diary.”

Margo gasps and steps backward until she hits the door. “You read my diary?”

“It’s not like I did it all the time. Only when you started acting weird. I was trying to find out what was going on with us, because you wouldn’t talk to me about it.”

Everything starts to click in Margo’s head. “You always knew the perfect things to say to make me feel bad about myself. Now I know why.”