The Telling (10 page)

Every time Ford looks at me, I can feel his thoughts ticking over all the nasty comments he wants to make and measuring their desired effectiveness. His eyes run from my reddening cheeks, to the dress tight on my chest, to my revealed thighs. I brace myself. This will be ugly; it'll remind me that he doesn't believe I belong here.

Instead he grins and says in a cloyingly sweet voice, “Hey,
sweetie
, looking hot.” He throws an arm around my shoulders. Kristie and
Liddy glance at me, offering brief, identically fake smiles before turning back to Becca and her dogs. Ford's armpit is damp through my cardigan. He presses me close and keeps looking at me like the compliment should be the highlight of my year and should have the power to erase the time I read
Fugly Slut
on a wadded-up piece of paper he gave to me. I shrug him off and look to Rusty.

“Here,” Rusty says, tossing me a button from his pocket. I catch it. Its glossy picture of Josh is different from the ones Kristie and Liddy are wearing. Josh has one arm slung over Duncan's shoulders and the other over Rusty's. “Remember that day?” Rusty asks.

“Yeah,” I say. It was the queen-of-England-is-a-banger afternoon. The picture was taken at midday; the boys don't have shadows. They're grinning in that doggish way some boys smile when there are girls in bikinis. Carolynn, Willa, and I were standing behind Becca as she snapped the picture. Duncan grilled steaks like kabobs afterward on knotty sticks he foraged from the bordering woods. Becca threw a fit because the sticks looked like they could be poison oak. Duncan had to walk Josh to the tree he'd broken them off, so Josh could vouch that they were safe before she'd eat.

I smile at Rusty. “Where is the birthday boy?”

“Why? You have a birthday surprise for him?” Ford interrupts, cracking the knuckles on one hand, then the other.

Rusty says something about Josh pulling kids out of the upstairs rooms, but my cheeks are heating up again and I want to be anywhere but standing next to Ford. I'm almost relieved when Kristie and Liddy begin gushing about Maggie. It's all over town that the seven of us found her. Liddy asks Becca if Maggie was shot between the eyes and then dumped in the spring or
only
drowned.

“Like, were her eyeballs still in her head, or did they disintegrate?” Kristie asks. Her voice is high and grating. She's cradling Twinkie like he's an infant. The little dog squirms miserably.

Becca is sipping off Rusty's cup, and she sprays her mouthful across the circle as she laughs. “That would be too sick,” she says.

“Of course her eyeballs were in her head,” I say. “Maggie
drowned
.”

“But were there worms coming out of her ears? Was she all bloated and fat?” Liddy asks Becca as if I hadn't spoken.

I shake my head. It's throbbing like my high ponytail is banded too tight. “It wasn't anything like that,” I say. “Maggie looked . . . beautiful. It was awful.”

“It would be my bliss to see Maggie's face all gigantic and about to pop like a zit. She was always bending down right in front of Tyler freshman year, and I swear his staring at her butt was why we broke up.” Kristie tries to hold in an explosive laugh with her palm. “Oh my God. That doesn't make me a suspect, does it?”

Liddy covers her mouth in mock horror. “No way would you survive prison.”

“Only if I was the bitch of some lesbo gangster hottie like in that show about girl-jail,” Kristie says, eyes shining as Rusty chuckles. “Swear it wasn't me, though, so who?”

“The cops don't have any real suspects,” Ford says, shifting forward. “That's what I heard my dad telling Duncan's earlier.” Ford's dad is Gant's lawyer. “Gant PD is full of college dropouts used to giving parking tickets.” Ford thumbs the tiny animal emblem on his designer shirt like he's reminding himself why he thinks he's better than the cops. “Even the detective they called in from Seattle is an incompetent halfwit.”

“He was all over us at the police station,” Rusty says. Liddy and
Kristie make sympathetic noises. I narrow my eyes at Rusty's lie and attempt at impressing them. “Yeah, I was like, no way did I kill a girl. I don't have a motive. I should have been like, maybe Ben McBrook's ghost did it, dude?” The others laugh at this.

My mouth goes dry. I miss what follows. I stare at Rusty, and eventually his eyes meet mine and he grimaces, equal parts uncomfortable and sheepish for mentioning Ben. It was a stupid thing to say. Brain-dead for a billion reasons, not the smallest being that ghosts, ghouls, specters, all the stuff of childhood make-believe, do not exist. And yet, I sneak a glance at the shape-shifting shadows cast on the walls.

“What did Ben ever see in Maggie anyway?” Becca asks.

Rusty snickers, his perma-sunburned face deepening a shade. “I know what he saw in her.”

“I'm just wondering because there were so many hotter girls who wanted a piece of that,” Becca explains. “
I
sort of wanted a piece of that, but he never looked at me, not even when I streaked at a Halloween kegger here and I ran right past Ben.”

“That slut got what she deserved,” Ford says. “For Ben,” he adds, dull brown eyes waiting for my reaction. What does he expect, a swoon? I've thought the identical thing, minus the girl-shaming insult. The words are so much cruder and more violent coming from Ford, who's cracking his knuckles in another round and failing to swallow down a beer burp.

Liddy looks up from adjusting her cheer uniform and blurts, “You didn't even like Ben, Ford. He and your brother were feuding.” She presses her lips flat and looks uneasily away.

Ford's smile hardens. He takes a sip of beer, the red cup's rim cutting
off all except his glaring eyes. I know what he's thinking about.

Gant High has this tradition where they donate the profits from homecoming tickets each year to a charity of student gov's choice. His junior year, Ben proposed that our school use the money to help Fitzgerald. Ethan Holland, Ford's older brother, and Max Riley were at that same meeting, both trying to convince student gov to donate the money to their baseball team. They wanted to hire some trainer to come in and give them a swing lesson. Ben argued with Max and Ethan. The money was supposed to go to charity, not to help pay some ex–pro baseball player's fee, especially when the team could have just asked their parents to cough up the money. Right there in student gov, in front of almost thirty kids, three teachers, and Max's and Ethan's girlfriends, Ben told the two boys that if they needed lessons on using their
bats
, he'd help them out. It was stupid and beneath Ben. He'd just wanted to embarrass them.

Instead of taking out their humiliation on Ben, Ethan and Max drove to Skitzy-Fitzy's tent that night. Fitzgerald was found on the shoulder of the highway the following morning, one leg bent behind him, face pulpy and misshapen. Rather than arrest the boys, the police took Fitzgerald to a doctor off the island and told him not to return. He didn't come back for six months.

Becca gestures between us. “Okay, fangirls and fanboys, Lan and I need to find the guest of honor.” Her hands thrust out and Liddy returns Twinkie. With both dogs as passengers, Becca's fingers lace through mine and she tugs me away as Liddy nibbles on Rusty's neck. I squeeze Becca's hand. We're escaping. I sense Ford's eyes stalking us. I want to duck into the crowd, lose him. There's
something else, though, that's making me feel tracked, hunted through the room.

Maybe Ben McBrook's ghost did it.

Rusty's words are alive and crackling in my head, they're sprouting legs and scurrying after Becca and me, and I want to stop short, whirl around, and kick them away. But I don't. However impossible—however wrong, stupid,
classic Rusty Pipe
—his statement is, it brings Ben into the room. It gives him a little life and takes away a little death.

And I'd want Ben back even if it meant he were a monster, changed, diminished, someone—
some half-living thing
—he wasn't before.

F
ord and all them are such hangers-on,” Becca says over her shoulder, hardly out of their earshot. She narrows her smoky lined eyes in disapproval and laughs a little to herself. “Not that they should be shunned or blacklisted. Ford wants to
be
Rusty, and Liddy has wanted to hook up with Rusty since forever, and I can smell their desperation on Mars is all.”

A tiny ping in my chest. I doubt that Liddy's wanted to hook up with Rusty as long as I've liked Josh. In a former summer might Becca have sniped about smelling my desperation from another planet?

“It's Ford I can't stand,” I tell her.

Her glance is thoughtful. “Carolynn hates him too.” She frowns. “Maybe I don't pay enough attention to see it?” Her grin returns. “Destination kitchen?” I nod. It's hard to stay worried about Ford or what Becca might have said in the past when she's tugging me along, girls who are buckets more popular than me eyeing our clasped hands with envy.

Belonging is its own kind of magic, and Becca is its grand sorceress.

Duncan is at the center of attention in the kitchen, a bottle of whiskey raised in a toast above his head. Josh watches, his expression a mixture of amusement and concern. It's hot and stuffy with thirty kids in a spellbound knot, their conversations paused. Duncan clears his throat, more as an intro than a request for attention he already commands.

“Here's to my oldest friend, Josh Parker”—he sweeps an arm to Josh—“who's never gamed up any girl I was into. Not even once,” he booms. The crowd cheers. Duncan throws his head back, bottle to his lips, and drinks. Josh bows dramatically to the applause. His blue eyes land on us as he rises. He mouths an emphatic, “You're here.”

Becca hooks her hair behind her ear, setting her gold earring swinging, and says, “Duncan's been hammered the whole day
and
with Bethany J.” Her green eyes glitter and she bounces her exposed, freckled shoulders. “He gets a pass just like me too, though.” She wags her finger. “Car does not think so.”

I go to ask why Carolynn doesn't think Duncan should get a pass, but Becca tugs me along. Duncan finishes his chug to louder whooping. His hat falls and I watch Bethany J., adjusting her crop top as she swoops it from the floor and places it on her sleek black hair like she's crowning herself queen. Duncan doesn't seem to notice. He's unshaven, giving him an older, dangerous look. His feet are squared and he's swaying like someone winding himself up for a fight. Duncan with his hard and shiny exterior, a glittery Easter egg of a boy, doesn't seem like someone who cracks after seeing the body of a dead girl he knew only superficially.

Becca cups her hand around my ear. “Not everyone can deal,” she whispers. “Seeing a corpse.” With her face this close, she looks like she
did when we were ten and she used to whisper secrets about her dad's affair and her parents' fighting.

Willa and Carolynn are at the breakfast nook, each facing away from the other. I throw my arms around Willa and even though she's not a hugger, she squeezes me back. “I called you three times,” I tell her.

Her features look naked without glasses, and by the gentle squint of her eyes I know she isn't wearing contacts. “I saw. Sorry. I wanted to think through some stuff before we talked,” she answers quietly. Tiny blue plastic barrettes I haven't seen in years pin her bangs. Willa's angry with me. Why else would she avoid my calls, need to think through what she wanted to say, and then show up for a face-to-face?

“Josh,” Becca squeals brightly. He's all smiles, bobbing head and waving hand like he's a small-town mayor greeting voters. He dodges a group of soccer players calling him over for shots. He delivers hellos to us as the kitchen goes quiet.

Only Duncan's raised fist gripping the bottle is visible over the sea of heads. “Here's to my best buddy, Josh, who always has my back, even when it gets him a broken nose and a split lip 'cause I talked shit about some senior d-bags frosh year.” Applause fills the kitchen.

A strange noise comes from Carolynn's throat, and then in a deep, flat pitch meant to imitate Duncan's, she says, “Here's to Josh, who throws house parties so I can drink my face off like some alcoholic Neanderthal.” Josh reaches to take Carolynn's hand.

“Don't get your panties in a wad.” She holds her hands up in a state of embarrassed agitation. “I'm just messing around, okay?” She hugs herself and cuts a straight line, the crowd parting for her.
I watch Josh as he watches Carolynn escape into the backyard. He isn't himself tonight either. His tan skin isn't as warmly hued. There are twin frown lines between his brows. And there's something less tangible that's off, like his usual aura of well-being is calibrated wrong. He meets my eyes. They are light blue like the shallows of the sea. Infinitely compassionate.

“She's freaked out from yesterday and it's just easy to take it out on Duncan,” he explains.

“Everyone is so bumming me out,” Becca says, giving a little stomp of her heel. She digs through her purse, unceremoniously pushing Winkie and Twinkie aside until she comes up with the flask of schnapps. She jiggles it, is reminded that it's empty, and without a word, veers toward a group of popular junior girls passing around a bottle. Within seconds she's surrounded, the girls enraptured by her guest appearance. Becca beams, motions to her shoes, and gestures as she recounts some exploit. Her fans laugh, delighted, each made to feel special with a brush of an arm or a compliment. Becca smiles blissfully when she's given a bag of miniature marshmallows and control of the bottle. The natives lay sacrifices at their priestess's feet.

Willa mutters that she needs to lie down. Josh produces a key from his jean pocket. “I lock my bedroom so I don't end up with random couples in there,” he says in an apologetic way. “You can use it, though.” Willa starts toward the rear staircase. I should follow. She's my best friend and she looks like she's going to be sick. She came to Josh's party to talk to me. But I haven't been alone with Josh for days and I want to stay standing near him, on his birthday.