by Eden Beck
“We were just so devastated to hear about little Sadie White …” Ms. Martin starts, her voice dripping with fake concern.
I can’t sit in here a moment longer to hear this garbage. It’s obvious the only reason we’re here in the first place is so Ms. Martin can try to impress Lola. She’s always looking for some kind of opportunity to try to convince her there’s no need for a home visit any time soon. All it ever does is make sure Lola’s going to stop by very soon and one of us is going to be blamed for it.
I was already irritated with Ms. Martin for making me go to this funeral, but this is just too much. Screw her threats. Even I have my limits.
I hop out and slam the door behind me before Ms. Martin can try to stop me. It’s a deceptively nice day for a funeral. That late-summer smell of cut grass is offset by the hum of bees already busily trying to pollinate the cut flowers laid out on nearby gravesites.
My feet have barely touched the pavement when the morning quiet is pierced with an ear-spitting shriek.
“Sadie!”
Before I can register what’s going on, a tear-streaked woman is barreling into me with arms outstretched wide. Her hands clutch at by back, my hair, and then grab me by either side of my face and holds me out at arm’s length.
Sadie’s mother, Mrs. White looks over me with a crazed look in her eye. Black liner is smudged and streaked down her cheeks, highlighting the look of desperation painted across her features.
“Sadie, sweetie, I almost … I thought …”
Her outburst has started drawing other eyes. Lola has stepped back from the car and looks mortified as Mrs. White’s break down continues and I just try to pry myself from her grip without gathering even more of a crowd.
But she isn’t having any of it. Unable to hold on to her daughter in life, Mrs. White isn’t going to let go now. Everything in me tenses and she crushes me in a vice-like grip. “You’re back! You’re here!” She begins to sob, and all I can do is plead silently as her husband finally appears over her shoulder, an equally confused look on his face. I’m frozen to the spot. I can’t move from a combination of fear and her iron arms around me.
Her husband, Mr. White, blinks a few times, and then reaches for his wife mechanically, forcing her back and off of me.
“Dear, get a hold of yourself. This is … this is not Sadie.” He stops for a second, his eyes searching over me as if trying to convince himself of what he’s already saying. But he just shakes his head and frowns as his wife tries to pull herself free so she can lunge at me again.
“Stop! It’s Sadie! Look at her! How can you say that it’s not? That’s my baby!” Mrs. White is in hysterics, but then she looks at me again, and I see the realization come into her tear-flooded eyes. She’s only just now starting to come back to her senses, and her tears are quickly turning to confusion as she looks me over once more.
“Wait. You’re not … if you’re not … who are you?” She looks up at her husband with wide, vacant eyes. “I thought you said only close friends. At this pace … everyone is going to know …” She covers her face with her hands. “Isn’t it enough that our baby girl is … gone … now everyone is going to know everything.”
Several of Sadie’s old friends have stopped at the edge of the parking lot and are staring as the scene unfolds. They’ve taken this opportunity to show off a variety of stylish black outfits, and from the way they’re greedily eyeing the spectacle I can tell they’re already trying to figure out the best way to retell this story to friends later. Well … the ones that are still alive.
That got dark fast. I’m sure they’re grieving in their own, weird and shallow, way.
Lola Hines has managed to slip away from the car and hurries over to make sure I haven’t been hurt in Mrs. White’s temporarily melt-down. She puts a hand protectively around my shoulders, and though I know she means well, I tense up again.
“This is Theodora Price. You were one of Sadie’s friends, weren’t you?” She shakes her head, and glances sadly at the Whites.
For a second, Sadie’s mother gets that glassy-eyed look on her face again. She reaches out with one hand to brush a stray lock that’s escaped my ponytail away from my face, but she stops herself at the last second. Lola and her husband are both holding their breath, waiting to see if she’s going to melt down again.
I’m not waiting for anything.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Ms. Martin take a last swig out of one of her many hidden flasks. She herds the girls out of the car in their own black outfits and then staggers over and interrupts us, trying to strike up a casual conversation like she’s Mrs. White’s long-lost best friend. Her voice is loud and abrasive as ever, but here it draws even more looks.
Lola isn’t an idiot; she knows Ms. Martin is full of it, but she is a nice lady, and she tries to nod politely while her eyes scan the crowd for any opportunity to pull my horrendous excuse for a mother away from the grieving parents. Sorry lady, I think as I make my own withdrawal, she’s your problem now.
Fortunately, a life of petty crime has taught me how to blend into crowds, so before either of them can try and stop me, I’ve already slipped onto the other side of some trees between the parking lot and the funeral home where the reception is being held.
From my vantage point beyond the trees I can watch as the rest of the cars arrive. I’m surprised that there are so few of them at first. Under any other circumstances, Sadie’s funeral would have had the turnout of the decade … but from the looks of things, her parents really are doing everything they can to keep things under wraps.
The ushers aren’t even handing out obituaries, and there are big “no pictures” signs hanging all over. I can see Sadie White’s disappointed face shaking her head in my mind I almost feel sorry for her.
She’d be so pissed to know so few people showed up to her last party. In a way, I’m pissed too. Sadie was supposed to have everything, but the moment she fucked up, her parents abandoned her too.
This funeral isn’t about celebrating Sadie’s life, it’s about hiding her death … and it makes me sick. Maybe I don’t know much about what good parents do, but it seems to me that Sadie’s are doing this all wrong for her.
I catch one of the caterers stepping outside the small funeral home to take a smoke behind me and I catch a whiff of the spread inside. My stomach, still empty after a long night outside, draws me in. No use letting good food go to waste if I’m already forced to be here.
Lola has managed to get Ms. Martin away from the Whites, but now she’s stuck being gabbed at about how well things are going at the house. She doesn’t look convinced.
While the rest of the people who actually knew Sadie linger outside, I start picking over the best buffet spread I’ve ever seen. Forget shrimp cocktail, there’s carefully braised swordfish, lobster tails, prime rib—and those are just the entrees. I catch one of the caterer’s sizing me up, and just stuff another lobster tail in my mouth.
“Everyone grieves differently,” I say through my mouthful of food. He looks skeptical, but he leaves me alone—and that’s all the permission I need.
The whole setup is made a little off-putting by the fact that they’ve put up big “in memorial” posters on the other side of the table. Even I feel a little guilty taking that third dinner roll with Sadie’s yearbook photo smiling down at me like a ghost of prom-queens past.
As I look over the photos, the truly sad thing is how normal and happy she looked as a kid, before she grew up into an entitled monster who literally snubbed her nose at me any time someone inadvertently hurt her honor by saying we looked alike.
There’s a turning point mid-memorial where all the photographs shift from a happy little girl sitting on her uncle’s lap to a duck-faced debutante wearing short skirts and touting pom-poms. The real things are glued tackily to the end of the display beside her homecoming sash. They are the last things in the chronological line, her crowning glory. I stop for a closer look. Now this is the Sadie I knew.<
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I’m just reaching to pick at the edge of her driver’s license that’s been taped to the board when I hear the doors open behind me.
Instinctively, I step to the side and behind a pillar and immediately curse myself. It’s only weird if I make it weird, and I just made it weird. As soon as I hear them speaking, however, I know I made the right decision.
Sadie’s friend’s voices sound about as stale as their personalities. I catch the tail end of their conversation as they burst inside, whispering just quiet enough to give the appearance that they’re trying to be respectful, but still loud enough for anyone inside to overhear everything they say.
“… the way she reacted? Ugh. I’m embarrassed for Sadie.”
They stop moving at the end of the buffet to look at the memorial. None of them reaches for a plate, but I’m pretty sure it’s because none of them has actually eaten real food since they hit puberty.
I’m imagining one of the other girls is shaking her head. I can practically hear her brain rattling around in there.
“No wonder she wanted to go to Hawthorne. If I had a mother like that, I’d want out too.”
“I’d kill to go there,” the third girl says, sighing. She then quickly adds, “But I didn’t kill Sadie. I promise.”
I roll my eyes just in case none of them had the good sense to. Good lord woman, can’t one of you not make today about yourselves for once? Your best friend just died for goodness sake.
I’ve just about heard all I can handle from these girls. I’m about to turn back and face the fact that Ms. Martin is probably going to kill me if I don’t make an appearance outside and fast, when I hear a crackling, tearing sound.
One of the girls has pried Sadie’s new driver’s license from the board with her long, pointed nails. She wrinkles up her nose as she peers down at it.
“Little bitch,” she whispers. “This is what you get for trying to leave us.”
The other girls giggle nervously. She throws the card back down on the table.
“All she had to do was show up for the first day of school tomorrow, and the rest would be history. But she had to go and … and …” for the first time, one of the girls has to pause to sniff.
It’s the first sign in any of them that they’re actually feeling something.
The tender moment is as fleeting as it was shallow, however, the moment she opens her mouth again. “I’m just glad her parents can’t get a refund. That whore of a mother of hers deserves to pay for what she’s done to Sadie.”
“And god knows,” one of the other girls says, as they trio turn to walk away as the door opens again and other start to file inside, “It was expensive.”
As I listen to the girls talking, a seed takes form in my mind, and an idea begins to grow.
This isn’t the first I’ve heard of the elite private school Sadie was going to … it just has never seemed all that important. Until now.
I peek around the column at the girl’s retreating backs, and then over my shoulder towards the front door. I don’t see anyone looking, so I quickly dart out to the table and palm Sadie’s driver’s license. I have many talents, and though some of them are considered bad, this is one that I’ve found to be quite useful from time to time. Sleight of hand. A quick theft.
I’m out through the kitchens, darting between flustered cooks and caterers, until I emerge out the back. Here one moment and gone the next. I’m good at it, but I don’t want to lie, steal, and cheat my way through life.
That’s the whole point of this idea, isn’t it?
This idea … it’s stupid, there’s no denying it. But it just might work. I take a moment to take stock.
Everyone keeps saying how much I look like Sadie. Even her own mother thought that I was her for a minute. I squint hard at the ID card. I guess I can see we share something more than a passing resemblance, but enough that a stranger might actually think I’m Sadie?
Maybe if they don’t know her personally.
And where I’d be going … no one knows her well enough to tell the difference.
And as I’m letting the idea evolve in my mind, I can suddenly see it happening. I can see myself with her straight blonde Barbie doll hair, in her fancy clothes, at this new school she was supposed to go to tomorrow. The more the idea rolls around in my head, the more realistic and doable it sounds.
What would it really take?
Even from outside, I can hear Ms. Martin loudly yelling at the girls for eating at the buffet because it makes her look like she doesn’t feed them. From the shrill tone of her voice, Lola Hines must have had to leave early. She’ll be coming for me next.
This is my life. This is the lot I’ve drawn. But it doesn’t have to be.
It’s like something in me snaps.
I can’t put a number on how many times I’ve simply thought about running away … but I’ve never acted on it before. I guess I never had a place to go. Until now.
I head towards the road and walk past the limos, and I’m just about at the end of the road when I see Ms. Martin standing at her dumpy old car, smoking a cigarette, watching me while she slams the car door shut with the girls in the backseat.
I feel the slightest pang of guilt at the sight of their scared faces pressed to the glass … but I have to do this. Someone has to set a good example for them. I’ll show them there’s a way out.
I look away and pick up the pace.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” she calls after me. She flicks the butt onto the concrete and grinds it out with the bottom of her heel.
“Somewhere better,” I answer her.
She laughs and blows the last stream of smoke out of her lipstick caked lips. I’m not waiting around to chat. I turn from her and begin to take off toward the main road down the small hill.
“Wait! Teddy! Wait!” she cries out, and there’s something in her voice that makes me stop and turn around; something almost … desperate.
“What?” I ask, turning to face her as I continue to back down the hill.
She steps to the edge of the road and stops, not wanting to stand on the lawn in her heels. Any last hope that she might try to show even a smidge of genuine, motherly care, evaporates when her mouth opens again.
“You walk away, you’re dead to me. If anything, and I mean anything, is missing when we get home I’ll have your ass in juvie before you can say runaway.”
A chill shudders through me. Of course, that’s what she’s worried about.
I look at her standing there, a new unlit cigarette in her hands already, her bird-nest of hair … then back down at myself in the oversized dress and worn boots. I turn Sadie’s license over in my hand. It’s the last in a long line of things I’ve stolen.
I’ve gotten quite good at it actually, though I make a point to never steal from the homes where I live. It’s always been from the places where it doesn’t matter, from big business that wastes more than I’d ever be able to steal … but I’ve grown tired of it.
I’m going to steal just once more. This time, it’s going to be something much, much bigger.
I whirl around and stomp off.
Jokes on Ms. Martin. She doesn’t have anything I need.
I don’t have anything, and I don’t need anything. She can’t see that all I want is to get the hell out. I can’t believe that I thought for one second that she might actually care about me. What a joke.
All my life, I would have killed to be someone—anyone—other than who I actually am.
Fortunately for me, Sadie White went ahead and did the hard part for me.
Chapter 3
One bus ticket and a bottle of bleach later and I’m standing in a gas station bathroom looking in the mirror at a face I don’t recognize. The overwhelming chemical smell draws angry looks from others as they glance my way, but that doesn’t matter. My hair is dry and brittle and a little yellow, but it doesn’t matter.
If I look so much like Sadie White, then why not become Sadie
White.
I’m halfway to the school, and the doubt is really starting to settle in. This is a new start for me. It’s more than an escape from Ms. Martin and the system, it’s an entirely new life without any of the baggage that comes with being Teddy Price.
“Sadie White.”
I try the name on my lips. It doesn’t sound right, so I practice it a couple more times until a lady comes out of a stall and looks at me like I just escaped the nuthouse. I don’t want to draw any more attention to myself, so I throw my things into a plastic bag and hurry back to the bus. No use in turning back now.
My life is going to change forever because of this. All my life I’ve had to fight for scraps … but no more. This is my chance to get ahead; to get a fresh start, a new life. Even if it means stealing someone else’s.
Several connections later, the bus leaves me at the end of a long, winding road in upstate New York first thing the next morning. I don’t watch it go. My eyes are trained elsewhere.
Hawthorne Academy looms like a modern-day castle at the top of the hill. The giant gates guarding it from the road are all that stand between me and my future.
My heart is racing. My mind is racing faster than my heart. So many things can still go wrong, but I’ve already made it this far. With a deep breath, I walk through the gates and down the winding lane to the school. This is where it all begins.
I am no longer Theodora ‘Teddy’ Price.
No. From now on I am Sadie White. Rich girl. Bleach blonde girl. Popular girl. Excellent student on her way to college. On her way to a road of success for the rest of her life.
That’s me, I repeat over and over in my head as I hesitate for a moment outside of the main building’s doors, and then push them open and walk in to begin my new life.
The front hall stretches out before me in a long corridor that branches off into another hallway on the left, but stops short of a glassed-in office on the right. Tiny squares of light dance over the floor and walls, courtesy of the huge crystal chandelier above me. The inside of the school looks every bit as much like a fairy-tale castle as the outside does, though with modern day amenities.
