The Telling (25 page)

My muscles ache from holding myself stiff, and I can't believe I didn't see it before. “
It just flew out?
Ben walks by you in the ninth grade and you lie and tell girls that I had sex with him? Other girls repeated that rumor. I was terrified that Ben would hear. That he'd think I had something to do with the gossip or he wouldn't want to be seen with me if he knew what girls were saying.”

She pulls her hair from her collar and fans it over her shoulders. “Jeez,
what do you want from me? I admitted it—not that I had to or anything. I'm sooo sorry, okay?”

“I thought it was Carolynn who made that up.”

Becca shakes her head. “Car was there when I said it, and she just repeated it. I dunno, L. Maybe she thought it was true?”

My attention snaps toward Carolynn “Did you?”

She's parting the white gossamer curtains and peering at the street below. “Becca's mom just pulled up.”

“Carolynn,” I yell.

Her eyes dart to mine and her hand releases the curtain. Shafts of diagonal light pass over her features. “No, I didn't believe it. It was a messed-up thing to repeat and I'm sorry. Teenage girls are the cruelest animal.”

“Yeah, they are,” Becca gibbers. “See, everyone knows it.”

I whirl back to face her. “You're the cruelest. Can you imagine what being called Uni-Boob felt like when I was eleven years old? Before I even had boobs? Do you know how gross and ugly it made me feel?”

Becca hooks her fingers in her lap as she stares at them. When her head snaps up, I expect another toss of her hair or a disconnected smile. Her eyes are glazed, tears sneaking out the corners. “You may not believe me, but I am sorry. As sorry as I've ever been.” The back of her hand wipes a tear streaking her cheek. “I would go back in time and change it. I would shut the eff up and tell you to eat lunch with us and do all the stuff with you I should have. But I can't.”

I don't get to respond because Becca's mother throws open the door and flies into the room. What is there to say? Words aren't
enough. They weren't for the villains of our stories and they're not for Becca. My hands are fisted at my hips. I can't release them. I tilt against the wall. A poster's at my back. It's one of those French billboard replicas, with a half-naked girl wearing a masquerade mask as she swims in a glass of champagne. I hear it tear as I sink to the floor, and that strikes me as terribly appropriate.

“I got home from running . . . went out back because I left the dogs there . . . they pee under the table and you said I
had
to leave them out. You said that dogs belong
outside
.” Becca ends in a muffled wail as she melts into her mother's lap.

I glare at the mop of Becca's wet hair. My sadness is limited to Twinkie and Winkie, with their technicolor nails and darting pink tongues. They weren't bad dogs. They could be sweet, endlessly enthusiastic no matter how many times you left and reentered a room. They didn't deserve to die, but Becca deserved to lose them.

Is this the punishment my fictive self would have doled out if I'd known that Becca was behind the awful whispers? I wasn't plotting my revenge on Carolynn when I thought she was the perpetrator, yet somehow, it's so much worse that it's Becca. Becca and I were friends. I kept her parents' fights secret. I smiled at her in the halls when she pretended not to notice me. I never held it against her. Were all those biting, passing comments Ben made about Becca because he knew what I didn't? Becca was the mastermind behind the rumors.

If there is a part of Ben on our island, it would want revenge.

I think back to that evening on the terrace when he asked if girls ever hurt me. He offered to kill them. I wondered out loud how he'd do it and he looked disappointed, I assumed because I sounded
serious. Perhaps that wasn't it. What if Ben was disappointed that I asked him how he'd do it rather than tell him that I'd been plotting my own revenge? In that moment I took shape, and he saw how different I was from the Lana in his head.

At present Becca says she'd go back and do things differently. She says she's sorry. It's easy to apologize after the fact, though, isn't it? It's easy to say,
I should have been honest and brave
.

That's how the rest of the afternoon goes. I'm stupefied with fury and hurt. Becca's mom escapes for a pot of tea when it's clear that she can't console her daughter. Willa and the boys huddle in Becca's room after Sophia leaves. Josh waits for more news about Ford. The firefighters declare the cuts on Twinkie and Winkie puncture wounds, likely made by birds. They believe it's possible that one of the dogs bit the bird's beak clean from its face. The last person through the terrace's gate must not have latched it properly and the wind blew it open. None of the adults are alarmed. Dead animals are nothing compared to the body of a boy. Even Detective Ward is ambivalent when Josh asks him over the phone if this could be payback from Maggie's killer for discovering the body. The grown-ups dismiss it as little more than Mother Nature—the suburban, and therefore tame and benign, version of a lion attacking a gazelle.

“We should listen to Josh's mom,” Rusty says. “Karen knows what's going on better than we do.”

“Do you hear yourself? You are such a sheep,” Duncan tells him, propped against Becca's bed with a corner of her duvet on his shoulder.

“I can't believe Ford is dead,” Carolynn repeats for the third time. “Do you know he made a grab for my boob sophomore year at a dance?”
She fans her hands over her chest. “I punched him in the face and told him I'd kill him if he ever touched me again.”

Becca smashes her finger against her lips. “My mom could hear you.”

Carolynn scowls. “So what?
I
didn't kill him.”

Willa nudges me after I zone out. I've missed the last piece of their conversation, and everyone's attention is on me. “I won't be able to sneak out tonight. Can you, Lana?”

Becca hugs herself. “You're still in for Ben's peace out, right? I can't stay home and do nothing tonight . . . not after my babies. Pleeeease.” She smiles wide. It's an alligator smile. A mask. I used to believe she was too transparent to lie convincingly about who she is. Willa would say too stupid. We were both wrong.

“We staked out the wildlife museum last night,” Duncan says.

Rusty is on his feet, practicing his swing. “They don't even have a security guard or an alarm,” he says. Doing something as ordinary and natural to him as swinging an imaginary bat has helped him recover since the terrace.

“I wanna do this so bad. Not just for Ben—mostly for him,” Duncan directs to me, “but it'll be a declaration of life for us, too. We. Are. Alive. And we won't let nothing—
no one
—change that.” He rubs his fist in his palm.

A murmur of agreement travels around our circle. On an ordinary, small day, the kind that
before
was made of, breaking into the Gant Wildlife Rehabilitation Museum would have given me hives. Today I don't need convincing. Everything that's happened has made it easier to believe that Ben could be here, somewhere in Gant, in some form. The prank is for him; he'll know it immediately. It'll make
the newspaper, people will talk, or Ben will be able to sense it happened and recognize it as the message it is.

Anticipation for tonight settles into my chest. I'm dying to tell Ben:

You haven't been forgotten.

D
ad is pacing in the kitchen when I get home. Like the other adults, he writes off Twinkie's and Winkie's deaths as nature gone rogue. The attacks hardly draw a contemplative sigh or an eyebrow furrow from him as he takes a final sip of his latte. Ford's death holds all his attention.

“How well did you know the younger Holland boy?” he asks. I think I hear a note of suspicion in the question, though it might be my imagination.

I wave vaguely. “We had some classes together.”

“His older brother is one of the boys who attacked that poor man a couple of years back. Was Ford troubled too?”

I cringe inwardly. There's that word again:
troubled
. Dad uses it for all the teenage behavior he doesn't understand. “He wasn't an ax murderer, if that's what you're wondering,” I say. This is true and the most generous thing I can say about Ford.

Dad's eyes narrow with concern. “Sounds like you didn't care for him.”

“Not really,” I say. A prolonged silence follows, and I try to look
contrite as I wash my hands at the faucet and dry them with a paper towel. Dad's still tensed, waiting for me to continue, when I turn around and for the barest second I think he can read it all on my face. I, Bumblebee, am not sorry about Ford's death; I'm glad for it. I think my dead stepbrother has found a way to continue to
be
. I hope Ben is
existing
in Gant rather than existing nowhere in death, even if it means he's a vengeful force. Even if it means he's a poisoner, a murderer.

An incoming e-mail dings from Dad's laptop behind him, and the spell is broken. Dad spins to check it; he can't help himself. It happens just in time, because I could feel my secrets shouldering into the back of my mouth. Yarns of our stories around Gant. A handprint on Ben's desk. The rosary finding its way into my secret place. Half the peas gone after Ford's body was found. None of it comes. He wouldn't believe me anyway.

It isn't the fear of being labeled
troubled
by my father that keeps me from sharing—although he'd almost certainly use the adjective. I don't want to expose my and Ben's invented world to grown-up judgment. Sharing the stories with Willa was hard enough; confessing to Dad would be unbearable. Instead I make excuses the rest of the day to stay in my room. I let Dad believe I'm not feeling well; that I'm a normal human and all that's wrong is that I'm disturbed over the death of my classmate.

As planned, I sneak into the stillness of the night at eleven, when I'm certain Dad is asleep and won't hear me reset the house alarm. Carolynn and Becca are already in Carolynn's car down the street, and they flash their lights for my attention. The three of us drive without talking to Josh's, where we'll meet the boys.

The silver three-quarters moon is low as an afternoon sun when we climb into Duncan's SUV. Everyone argues over who brought what, who should sit where, and if it's too early or too late to head downtown. I end up with Rusty in the third row, an arrangement I'm not thrilled over, since he is not Josh. Duncan is slumped behind the wheel, his skipper hat on the dash. Josh takes the front seat to keep watch for any indication that tonight's escapade should be called off. He tried to find out from his mom about measures the police are taking to search for Ford's and Maggie's killer or killers, but he couldn't get much information without coming out and asking about possible road blocks and patrols.

“Why is every song on your phone about bending girls over or flying first class?” Becca complains, scrolling through Duncan's cell.

“Give it back if you're going to insult me,” Duncan says moodily, arm reaching behind him for the phone.

Becca slaps his hand away. “Not until you defend your taste in music. OHMYGOD.” Her voice is shrill. “You have old—like
dinosaur ancient—
Britney Spears on this.” Her laughter peals as she thrusts the phone into Carolynn's lap.

Carolynn looks through the artists, the cell clicking like the spinning spokes of a bicycle wheel. “I didn't know you were Taylor Swift's fanboy, Duncan,” she says, amusement making her words dance.

“Hey,” Duncan growls, “give it back.”

“Should we read your texts to Bethany J. instead?” Becca teases.

Duncan turns and takes his eyes off the road. Josh grabs the wheel as the car jounces over those plastic dots along the shoulder that look like candy buttons. “How 'bout keeping us on the road?” Josh says, righting the car.

“Nosy girls,”
Duncan gripes as he faces forward with his cell in hand. “And Bethany J. doesn't mind my taste in music.”

Rusty's knee knocks mine as he lunges over the middle seat and shouts, “Dude, the bass. Me and McBrook are going to have ruptured eardrums back here.” Duncan holds his middle finger up but turns the hip-hop lower.

Becca has a thermos of spiked cocoa for everyone to sip. Then a flask full of peppermint schnapps follows, and even Carolynn bemoans the syrupy stuff. “Why can't you ever steal a better bottle from your mom's stash?” Carolynn must remember that Becca's dogs died earlier, because she pulls Becca into her side and presses her lips to her cheek.

“This shit smells like my grandma,” Duncan says.

Rusty cracks his knuckles and calls, “That's because she's always loaded.”

“Then don't drink it. You're just giving us Bethany J. germs anyway,” Becca says. “Hold up, no more talking about Bethany you-know-who the rest of the night.” She glances sideways at Carolynn.

“You're the one bringing her up,” Duncan protests.

Carolynn ignores them both. “God, it's a sauna in here. Turn on the air already. Someone smells like a circus freak.”

The bickering is slathered on to cover nerves. It's sticky and as unsubstantial as that marshmallow fluff that comes in a jar. The car is roomy, but there's a cozy, crowded, overwhelming feeling with everyone shouting and frenzied. Becca's long ponytail brushes my knees where it spills over her seat back, and I push it away. I believe that Becca is sorry. Warmth is emanating from my chest at being in this car, a part of this night with these five. But Becca occupies a
different space in my head now. She's in the shadowy corner with the other villains. She isn't a silly girl wondering aloud why we can't all
speak British
and say words like
snogging
instead of
kissing
and
holiday
rather than
vacation
. I'm not ready for her to return to sunnier shores in my head.