Tragedy Girl (9 page)

My eyes grow moist, blurring the trees outside Dr. Sennett’s window. “I can’t see Mom and Dad in my future. That’s all I can picture: the things that are missing.”

A long moment passes.

“Yet you’ll march into your future anyway,” Dr. Sennett finally says. “Even if you do nothing. Even if you tell yourself that whatever you’re holding in your hands right now is all you can count on so you can’t possibly let it go. You can’t hold on tight enough to make time stand still, Anne. Your future is coming, whether you like it or not.”

I sniffle and wipe a tear from my cheek.

“But you know what?” Dr. Sennett says in barely a whisper. “I think you’re gonna like it just fine.”

“You
take it.”

“No,
you
take it.”

“No, you!”

Uncle Mark and I laugh at each other as we each reach for the last apple in the bowl, both of us passing through the kitchen from separate areas of the house before bedtime.

“I don’t even like apples,” Uncle Mark says. “Blechhhht.”

I raise an eyebrow and point an index finger into the air. I retrieve a knife, cut the apple in half, and hand him his piece. His eyes sparkle as we dig into our halves.

He chews, then says with a full mouth, “You are brilliant.”

I giggle. “That’s what Blake’s mom called me at dinner yesterday. She was like, ‘Aren’t you brilliant or something?’ And I was like, ‘
Duh
.’”

“Brilliance is hereditary, you know,” Uncle Mark says, swallowing his bite. “Hey, speaking of brilliant, this indie movie that got awesome reviews at Sundance is playing at the university theater. Wanna go?”

I scrunch my eyebrows. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Yeah, I meant tonight,” he deadpans, and I laugh at myself, squeezing my eyes shut.

“It’ll be there all week, silly,” he says. “Maybe over the weekend?”

“Hmmmmmm. Will you supply the apples?”

“Maybe
half
of one.”

I nod sharply. “It’s a date.”

Uncle Mark tousles my hair. “You look just like your dad, you know.”

I feel my face brighten. “People have always told me I look like Mom.”

“No, you definitely inherited both your looks and your brilliance from my side of the family.”

I laugh some more, loving Uncle Mark for being irreverent about my parents. Maybe we’re finally moving past the proscribed discussions guided by the invisible hand of an expert.

We stand there a minute on the cool tile, then he says, “So, that psychiatrist lady … that’s going okay?”

“She’s actually a psychologist,” I say. “Yeah, it’s going fine. She’s really cool.”

“Because you don’t have to go if you don’t want to, you know,” Uncle Mark says.

“Aunt Meg actually forced me at gunpoint.”

“Well, that’s where I draw the line.”

I wrinkle my nose at him playfully. “It really was thoughtful of Aunt Meg to set it up. Okay, initially I thought, ‘That Aunt Meg is quite the control freak’”—I say this in an exaggerated, sing-song voice—“but it does help to have someone to talk things over with.”

Uncle Mark puts an arm around my shoulder and squeezes me tightly. “You know you can always talk things over with me, sweetie … right?”

I’m so touched that I’m momentarily speechless.

“I’ll always be here for you, Annie.”

I swallow a lump in my throat as he folds me into a big hug.

Seventeen

“Hand it over!”

I gasp and run over to Melanie’s locker. I’ve just gotten to school, and I have to pass her locker to get to mine.

But it’s not Melanie standing at her locker. It’s Blake. Blake and Natalie. She’s standing there seemingly frozen in space, her eyes as wide as saucers.

“You heard me,” he tells her in a menacing growl, leaning so close to her face that their noses are almost touching.

Melanie, who’s just arrived at school herself, rushes to my side. “What is going
on
?” she asks in a frantic whisper.

“Now!” Blake bellows to Natalie as an ever-growing curious crowd collects.

“You … you don’t understand,” she says plaintively.

Lauren rushes up to Melanie and me, muttering, “What the hell?”

Blake is still hulking over Natalie, who looks like she might actually implode with fear. I rush to the locker and step between the two of them, locking eyes with Blake. His are bulging with rage.

“What’s going on?” I ask in the calmest voice I can muster.

“I caught our little note-writer red-handed,” he says, his eyes once again boring into Natalie’s.

“No!” she protests weakly.

“Hand. Me. The note,” he says chillingly.

Enough of a crowd has gathered that an adult is finally in the mix. Mr. Loring, my calculus teacher, rushes up to us. He looks almost comically harmless in his short-sleeve dress shirt and bow-tie, but I’m ridiculously glad to see him.

“What’s going on?” he asks Blake.

Blake’s eyes scan the crowd: Natalie, me, Melanie, Lauren … He seems conflicted for a nanosecond but quickly recovers and puffs out his chest.

“Natalie just put a note in my friend’s locker,” he tells Mr. Loring.

“And why is that your concern?”

Again, a wave of ambivalence washes over Blake’s face, but only for a moment. “Someone’s been passing anonymous notes to her. Notes about my friend. So I’ve scoped out her locker for the past couple of days to see if I could catch the person in the act.”

Blake presents his hand, as if he’s serving up Natalie on a platter. She turns almost literally green.

“And
whose
locker is it?” Mr. Loring says.

“Mine,” Melanie says, stepping forward. “Blake is right, Mr. Loring. Someone’s been sending me anonymous notes. They’re no big deal—just immature kid stuff—but I told Blake about them over the weekend, so I guess he was watching out for me. We don’t know for sure, but we think Natalie might be the one writing the notes.”

She glares at Natalie, who wilts before our eyes.

Mr. Loring turns toward her. “You’ve been putting notes in her locker?”

Natalie trembles. “Just two. But they’re not from me.”

“And who might they be from?” he persists.

Natalie’s chin trembles. “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

Mr. Loring purses his lips. “Let’s take this to the office.”

“Mr. Loring,” Blake says, his voice now measured and reasonable, “I think we can settle this among ourselves, if you don’t mind. Now that we know who’s been planting the notes, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about this anymore.”

“What a stand-up guy,” Lauren mutters under her breath.

Blake is giving Natalie a studied stare, his expression a mixture of condescension and contempt.

“Are there any threats in the notes?” Mr. Loring asks.

Natalie’s face crinkles like a leaf. “I don’t even know! I haven’t even read the stupid things!”

“No threats,” Blake interjects quickly. “She’s got a crush on me and is trying to stir things up with my buddy and his girlfriend.”

Natalie squeezes her eyes shut.

Mr. Loring looks at Melanie. “No threats?”

“No, sir,” she assures him earnestly. “No threats.”

Then Melanie tosses a haughty look at Natalie and adds, “I’m not afraid of her.”

Mr. Loring hesitates a moment, then tells Melanie, “Open your locker and show me the note, please.”

Melanie, Lauren, and I exchange glances. Jamie’s nowhere in sight, but we know he’d be mortified to have half the school watch the saga unfold.

“I really think we can handle this ourselves … ” Melanie says.

“The note, please,” Mr. Loring says curtly.

Melanie sighs and opens her locker, plucking a sealed blank envelope from the top. She swallows hard, then hands it to Mr. Loring.

He glances hastily around the hallway. “Everyone else, please resume what you were doing,” he says.

The crowd starts reluctantly dispersing, everyone except Blake, Natalie, Melanie, Lauren, and me.

“Girls?” Mr. Loring says to Lauren and me. The two of us drop our chins and start slinking down the hall, trying to walk slowly enough to overhear what’s going on.

But we have to keep moving, and soon we’re out of earshot. Mr. Loring murmurs a few words we can’t make out, then walks to his classroom. Lauren and I rush back to Mel’s locker.

“I swear, I didn’t write it!” Natalie is telling Blake and Melanie, now heaving full-fledged sobs.

“Where’s the note?” I ask Blake.

He nods toward Mr. Loring’s classroom. “He took it.”

“What did it say?” Lauren asks breathlessly.

Natalie blurts out the answer. “It said, ‘Why won’t you listen to me?’ That’s all it said; that’s it! And
I
didn’t know what it said until Mr. Loring opened it!”

“Then why did you plant it in my locker?” Melanie asks.

“I didn’t
plant
it,” Natalie says through jagged sobs. “I
put
it in there. As a favor to a friend. I didn’t know what the notes said; I didn’t know they were freaking you out.”

“Bullshit!” Blake says.

“It’s true! I swear it’s true!” she cries.

“Then who wrote the notes?” Melanie demands. “Who are you covering for?”

Natalie drops her head and shakes it. “I promised her I wouldn’t tell. But I’ll ask her today if it’s okay. I’ll tell her this has all blown up and become a huge mess. I promise, I’ll ask her if I can tell, and if it’s okay with her, I’ll—”

“Why in the world,” Lauren asks, “would you try to protect the privacy of a sniveling coward who goes around writing anonymous notes?”

“She’s only trying to help,” Natalie says, her eyebrows an inverted V over tear-stained eyes. “If you knew who it was, you’d understand. She isn’t trying to freak anybody out. She’s only trying to help.”

We cast anxious glances at each other, which makes Natalie dissolve into a fresh round of tears. “I promise, I’ll ask her today if I can tell you. I promise!”

Then she turns and runs down the hall, her shoes tap-tap-tapping against the linoleum as she buries her face in her hands.

As we watch her disappear into the crowd, Blake’s eyes narrow. “She’s never been anything but a pain in my ass,” he says, his voice hard and gravelly. “A goddamn pain in my ass.”

“She’s gone,” Lauren says.

My eyes dart from her face to Melanie’s and back again as I approach them at the lunch table. “What do you mean?” I ask.

“I mean Natalie wasn’t in our second-period class,” she says. “Word is she hightailed it out of school as soon as she was caught planting the note this morning.”

I put my tray on the table and take my seat, though I know I won’t be able to choke down even a bite.

“Has Jamie heard?” I ask. “I haven’t seen him at all today.”

Melanie sighs. “Poor Jamie. I’ve cornered him at least three times and he won’t even talk about it. He just shakes his head and says, ‘Whatever, just drop it, there’s nothing to say.’” She snorts. “Tell that to the rest of the school. It’s all anybody else is talking about. I guess you were right, Anne.Tell a couple of people, and before long the whole school’s talking about it.”

“It didn’t help that Blake made a scene at the locker,” I mutter, picking up a limp fry and then dropping it back onto the tray.

“What was he
supposed
to do?” Melanie asks. “He caught her red-handed!”

“I dunno,” I say. “He just goes a little … ballistic sometimes. If he’d been a little more discreet—if he’d been the
slightest
bit discreet—we could have wrapped all of this up privately and moved on. And why was he staking out your locker anyway, Mel? Did you even ask him to?”

She thinks about it, then waves a hand impatiently. “No, but I’m glad he did. It was a good idea; I guess it was just a matter of time before another note turned up.”

“Maybe … ” I murmur.

Lauren looks at me quizzically. “Why are you hating on Blake all of a sudden? God knows he annoys the hell out of
me
—so darn earnest—but aren’t you glad he got to the bottom of this?”

“Uh,” Melanie interjects, “considering
I’m
the one who was getting the notes, I think I’m the only one qualified to answer that question. Yes, I’m doing the happy dance that the mystery is solved.”

I drum my fingers on the tabletop. “Except that it isn’t,” I say, more to myself than the others.

They lean in closer.

“What do you mean?” Melanie asks.

I pause, then shrug. “It still doesn’t make any sense. Why would Natalie want to break up you and Jamie? And why did she react so strangely at the locker? She really
did
act clueless about what the notes said. And who’s this other girl she’s talking about?”

“You mean the fantasy girl who doesn’t exist?” Melanie says.

“Why would that be so far-fetched?” I ask. “Blake says he and Jamie have been getting hate mail from people at Cara’s school.”

Mel shakes her head briskly. “Natalie has established herself as a lunatic. What did you expect her to do, admit it? I don’t get why you think it would be so shocking for her to lie.”

I stare blankly into space. “I just wouldn’t expect her to lie so
well
… ”

Lauren looks at us haltingly, opening her mouth to speak, then abruptly shutting it again.

“What?” Melanie asks her.

She bites her lip. “Well … there
is
one theory floating around, but it’s really off the wall … ”

Melanie makes a rolling motion with her hand.

Lauren shakes her head. “Let’s just eat.”

Melanie raises an eyebrow. “Uh, I don’t think so. Spill it.”

Lauren picks at her food some more. “I just hate fueling the stupid gossip,” she says.

I lean into the table. “What did you hear?”

Lauren pauses a moment, then rolls her eyes in resignation. “Okay, fine. This is really screwy, but, whatever. Here goes: the thing I’ve heard a couple of people mention—even before the whole school found out about the notes—and these are people who don’t even
know
the dead girl, mind you, so consider the source … ” Lauren blows her bangs out of her face. “They’re kinda floating the theory that maybe the dead girl isn’t really … you know … technically dead.”

Mel and I crinkle our brows.

“I’ve got to admit,” Lauren continues, “it’s the first thing that popped into my head when Natalie started yammering about some mystery girl, some girl whose identity she couldn’t disclose for some unmentionable reason … ”

“That’s crazy,” Melanie says. “Cara drowned that night.”

Lauren gives us a steady gaze. “So say Blake and Jamie. But the body was never recovered. And the people I heard talking—they’re friends with some kids at Cara’s school—they said that apparently no one at the bonfire that night ever saw Cara go into the water. They say it would have been weird for her to go swimming at night, all by herself, and that most of them weren’t even wearing bathing suits.”

“What’s weird about taking a swim on a beach in the middle of summer?” Melanie says. “And I thought
everybody
saw her go into the water. Or maybe I just assumed they did … ?”

Lauren shakes her head. “They said that Blake and Cara went off alone … that they walked far enough down the beach that nobody else could see them … and then Blake came back to the bonfire alone. He pulled Jamie aside and the two of them took off in the direction he’d just come from. Nobody thought anything of it at the time; Blake didn’t tell them what was up. Later, they heard Blake telling the police that Cara had gone for a swim and when he got worried she’d been gone too long, he went back and got Jamie so they could ride out on the jet ski and look for her. It was only after Blake and Jamie came back from the jet ski that anybody else at the bonfire even knew Cara was missing. Otherwise, they’d
all
have been looking for her. That was when somebody called 911.”

“This is crazy,” I say. “Why would they lie about Cara going swimming?”

“Why would
Blake
lie,” Melanie corrects me delicately, then glances at me for a quick sensitivity check.

“So why would
Blake
lie?” I ask more petulantly than I intended. “And if she didn’t drown that night, then where the hell is she and what the hell is she doing?”

“Sending notes to Melanie … ?” Lauren ventures cautiously, but then shakes her head briskly. “This is obviously crazy talk. I told you, it was just a couple of stupid rumors I overheard, and from people who didn’t even know Cara, mind you. Friends of friends, or in this case, acquaintances of acquaintances. You know how reliable
that
kind of information can be.”

Melanie’s eyebrows furrow. “Is there supposed to be some reason that Cara would have wanted to disappear?”

“Again,” Lauren says, “I’ve just heard rumors, but, you know … the typical reason a girl her age would want to disappear.”

We consider the implication, then Melanie gasps and fills in the blank:

“
Pregnant.
”

I feel my pulse quicken and instinctively press my parents’ rings against my chest.

“Oh god, Anne … are you okay?” Melanie says, studying my face as if I’m a mutant lab specimen. “You look like you’re about to hyperventilate.”

“I’m fine,” I snap, but I’m still breathing fast …
really
fast.

“Oh, Anne, we’re just repeating stupid rumors,” Melanie says, leaning closer and squeezing my arm protectively. “Everybody knows how crazy Blake is about you; you can see it all over his face. We’re just being silly and melodramatic.”