They Wish They Were Us

by Jessica Goodman

  Jared groans. “You’re really gonna make me work for this?”

  “Yup.”

  “You don’t know how hard it’s been,” he whines. “How many pops I’ve had to do. Stuff I never thought . . .” His brow furrows.

  I fold my arms over my chest and picture the worst. My baby brother streaking through town after midnight. Eating dog food and trying not to cry. Lying to Mom and Dad about where he was going. Cheating on tests just because he could. Everything I did when he was still in middle school. But there’s no way his would be that bad. The guys didn’t have to do half the stuff we did. They were always tasked with things like bartending and blowing up the pool floats. Never asked to bend over in a bikini in the middle of winter. Never expected to laugh it off when Derek Garry honked their boob or smacked their butt—but, like, as a joke. Relax, they’d say. Never told to send nudes. Never punished with even more dumb pops when they didn’t.

  Jared drags a socked foot against the hardwood floor. “I think they’re making it harder for me because of you,” he says in a soft voice.

  I inhale sharply. “Leaving in five,” I say. “With or without you.”

  I push past him and head downstairs, away from his gaze, fighting the urge to challenge him on what he thinks he knows about me and about the Players.

  * * *

  —

  At school, the halls are creepy and quiet, only punctuated by the sounds of metal lockers slamming and hushed whispers. Everyone walks like they’ve just seen a crime scene. Giddy. Anxious. Hungry for information and thrilled just to be alive.

  When I get to English class and slide into my seat, the one next to Nikki, Mr. Beaumont isn’t there, obviously. Instead some baby-faced sub with greasy bangs pulls down the projector.

  “We’re, um, going to watch a movie today,” she says in a high-pitched squeak. “The Great Gatsby. The one with Leo. You read that in the fall, right?” She tries to smile, but when no one returns the favor, she furrows her brow, turns her back, and hits some buttons. The lights go down and the music starts.

  Just after the opening scene, my phone erupts and Nikki’s name blinks back at me.

  Bathroom in five.

  I turn around to see her staring at me, her eyebrows raised.

  She shoots her hand into the air. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  The nameless sub doesn’t even turn around. Instead, she waves her hand in our direction and Nikki slinks out the back door. A few beats later I follow suit.

  The Gold Coast restrooms are nice, to put it mildly. They all come stocked with little baskets full of peppermints, Q-tips, and tampons. The good ones, too. Not the cardboard kind that stab like knives. Each girls’ room is outfitted with a baby-blue leather couch. They’re usually reserved for seniors, though sometimes an undie will plop down when they think no one’s looking. I did that once freshman year and was promptly caught by Tina Fowler. I had to carry her SAT prep books around for a week after that.

  When I shut the door behind me, Nikki pulls me into the stall closest to the couch, the one that’s big enough to be a horse stable, and locks the door behind me. “Shaila,” she says. Her voice is scratchy, like she’s been yelling or crying. Both could be true. “Do you think Beaumont did it?” I turn over what I know in my head. How much I want to reveal. I’m so, so tired of lying. Of trying to hold everything in. And so, instead, I decide to tell the truth.

  “Maybe. But there’s so much you don’t know.” I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Then the words tumble out, tripping over one another. I tell her about Rachel’s texts. Her cramped, cozy apartment. The drive up to Danbury. The way Graham cried when he spoke about the blood. Sneaking into Shaila’s room. Finding the tiny folded-up letter behind the photo of us. The look on Kara’s face when we showed her. The sparkling diamonds someone had gifted Shaila. How Shaila only trusted Kara with her secret. How that secret may have gotten her killed.

  “I don’t know if there’s any proof yet that it’s Beaumont,” I say. “But it has to be. There was that rumor. Shaila wrote that he was older. Maybe the police will find something.”

  I wrap my arms around my stomach, holding myself together, and sit on the toilet. The porcelain is cold against the backs of my legs. I expect Nikki to run out of the bathroom, to tell on me, to tell the others, to ruin everything more than I already have. But instead she steps backward and slides down the wall to sit on the tile floor, resting her chin on her knees.

  “I knew,” she says.

  “What?”

  “I knew Shaila was cheating on Graham. She told me. One night when she was shitfaced. Said we’d never understand.” Nikki shakes her head. “It was just like her, always pretending like she knew more than us. Was more experienced. I was shocked. I told her to break up with Graham. That it wasn’t right. And you know what she said to me? ‘Don’t be such a baby, Nikki!’ She didn’t give a shit what we thought. I don’t even think she liked me all that much. You didn’t either.”

  Nikki’s words sting like a slap. I was always jealous of them. It never occurred to me that Nikki wasn’t one hundred percent confident about everything—including her friendships.

  “Shaila had to die for you to be friends with me. It was always you and her against the world. Until she told me her secret. It was the one thing I had over her. Over you, too.” Nikki’s eyes are wet and glossy. She swallows hard. “She was nicer after that. I didn’t know she told Kara, too.”

  I want to ask her so many questions, to hold her and tell her we have to stick together now. That she has to stop her Toastmaster tirade. Her eyes fixate on the two-ply toilet paper and its perfectly folded triangle edge as she continues talking.

  “She never said it was Beaumont, though. Just said it was someone older. More sophisticated. Someone who knew what he was doing. ‘You’d be lucky to have someone like him,’ she told me.” Nikki turns to me, her eyes now rimmed in red. “Guess she was wrong about something.”

  I sink to the floor to sit beside her and rest my hand on Nikki’s knee. She lays her head on top of my fingers. Her hair falls to one side so it skims the tile floor.

  “I thought this was all over,” she says.

  “It won’t be over until we know who did it.”

  “I thought we did.”

  “Me too.”

  We stay like that a long time, at least through the rest of the period, until Nikki speaks.

  “I miss you,” she says, so softly I can barely make it out.

  “I miss you, too. It’s lonely as fuck over here.” I try to edge out a smile. A weak one, but still a smile.

  “It’s not the same without you,” she says. “Marla checked out after getting onto the field hockey team at Dartmouth. Robert’s obsessed with making the pops harder and harder. He’s really going after Jared, you know.”

  Ugh, so Jared was right.

  “Henry’s not over you, even though he pretends to be,” Nikki continues. “He just sulks around, trying to lecture us about the power of nonprofit journalism. It’s like, shut up already, we get it!”

  I let out a laugh. “At least you have Quentin,” I say. Sweet, loyal, talented Quentin, doodling Nikki’s perfectly symmetrical face on paper napkins, cardboard containers, elegant canvases. I wonder if he told her about our conversation in his car. About how we made up, too.

  “There’s always Quentin.”

  “And the undies. They all worship you.”

  Nikki shakes her head. “Not for the right reasons.”

  “I know.”

  She reaches for my hands and holds my fingers tight. “Things are going to be different now,” she whispers. “They need to be.”

  I exhale and squeeze her hands. “Are we friends again?” I ask.

  Nikki throws her arms around my neck. Her skin is hot and sticky, comforting like a toddler’s. She smells like an expensi
ve candle. Her tears fall in wet splotches on my white shirt and when we untangle ourselves, it looks like I spilled water down the front.

  We walk back into the hallway arm in arm, holding back smiles and whispering into each other’s hair. I try to ignore the hooded eyes that flick our way. The questioning stares. Here, word travels faster than the breeze.

  “What, did she blow you or something?” Robert leans against the cold metal and looks at Nikki with expectant eyes. They must be together this week but he’s still such an absolute jerk.

  “Shut up, asshole,” Nikki says. She squeezes my elbow. “We’re cool.”

  “Just like that?” Robert asks. One eyebrow shoots up.

  “Yep,” she says, a smile in her voice. “Just like that.” She nudges me with her shoulder and I wrap an arm around her waist.

  “Whatever. I can’t even begin to deal with whatever this is,” he says. “Because shit just got weird. Look.” Robert whips out his phone and pulls up a news article from GoldCoastGazette.com. Mr. Beaumont’s school photo is plastered on the screen and the headline is written in all caps.

  BEAUMONT CLEARED OF ALL WRONGDOING IN ARNOLD CASE

  “What?” I ask, incredulous. “I thought . . .”

  Robert shakes his head. “Wasn’t him. Dude was in the Hamptons that whole weekend with his girlfriend and his parents. Some place in Amagansett. There’s even footage of him dancing to some shitty cover band at a bar.”

  “But . . .” Nikki sputters. “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t with Shaila, right? She was cheating on Graham. She told me.”

  Robert’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really? I mean, I didn’t peg her as that type of girl.”

  “And what type is that?” I say, rage crawling up my spine.

  “Relax, Newman,” he says, rolling his eyes. Before I can claw his eyes out, he keeps talking. “Even if she was hooking up with Beaumont—which, gross—he didn’t kill her. Couldn’t have. Case closed.”

  “At least we know it was Graham for sure,” Nikki says. She kicks her leather bootie up against the lockers. “Fucking monster.”

  But I can’t shake the feeling that something still isn’t right. “I don’t know. What if it wasn’t?”

  Robert taps his foot against the floor. “Jill,” he says. “Let. It. Go.” He punctuates each word with a clap, bringing his hands together right in front of my face. People turn to stare. They’re obvious and they don’t care.

  “I can’t just let it go,” I hiss.

  Nikki takes a step back, her eyes flitting up to the ceiling. “This is giving me a migraine.” She squeezes the bridge of her nose and throws her head back like she has a nosebleed. “I don’t know if I can talk about this anymore.”

  “You don’t have to, but I do. I just . . . do,” I say. I spin on my heel and bolt for the door. I can hear Robert groan behind me, but I don’t care.

  “Let her go,” Nikki says, her voice kind but so far away. “She needs to get it out of her system.”

  I push outside and step into the parking lot. The air around me is suffocating, too stale. Images of Beaumont, Graham, and Shaila flash in front of me. I want to push them aside, to forget everything and be a normal person. A Player. So close to the end. But I can only think of Graham and Shaila, how their whole relationship was a lie. And we were just collateral damage.

  My phone buzzes right as I climb into the car with a text from Adam.

  You okay? I just saw all the news. Beaumont’s innocent?

  Ugh, I know. Everyone here is freaking out. No idea what’s going on.

  The words fly from my fingers. I so desperately want to confide in him, to ask him what he knows, but I hold back, unwilling to let him know that I’ve betrayed him. That Rachel and I have been plotting all along.

  I bet Rachel’s behind this, he writes. Just more confirmation Graham is guilty.

  I fight back tears. What if he and Nikki are right? What if I’ve wasted my time trying to believe my best friend’s killer was innocent? What if all of this is straight-up bullshit?

  My phone buzzes again and I flinch.

  I really thought we had him. It’s Rachel.

  Me too, I type back. It’s the truth.

  There have gotta be other leads though. Someone else??? Got any ideas???

  I sigh, utterly exhausted at the idea of Nancy Drew–ing this shit all over again. It’s just . . . too much.

  Can’t talk right now, I write. I gotta hardcore cram for the scholarship exam.

  Don’t back out on me now, Newman!

  I throw my phone onto the passenger side and it falls to the floor, buzzing again and then again, with more messages from Rachel. But I leave it there and punch in the oldies station. I turn the volume all the way up, letting synthesizers and pop crescendos drown out her pleas for help.

  TWENTY

  IT’S INCREDIBLE HOW much space freed up in my brain when I stopped trying to make undies’ lives hell. When I’m not constantly thinking about the Players and the next party or the latest juicy rumor. Or who the hell killed my best friend. There’s so much time left to study. To let the facts and figures marinate in my mind, to let them become a part of me. So much so that on the morning of the scholarship exam, I’m not even nervous.

  I wake at 5:30 a.m. without an alarm. It’s already warm for April, and the sky is a mess of pinks and purples. I finally feel calm. I feel ready. Little numbers and symbols dance in harmonious rhythm inside my head and I know, I just know, I’ve studied as hard as I could have.

  I arrive at the physics room at 6:45 a.m. and the AP teacher, Dr. Jarvis, is already there, though he looks like he just woke up. “Early, Jill,” he says, offering me a toothy grin. “Guess you want to get it over with, huh?”

  “Guess so.”

  He waves me in and I settle into a desk at the front of the room. Dr. Jarvis reads the directions aloud from a packet, even though I’m the only student here. He looks at me, then at the stopwatch sitting on his desk.

  “And . . . go.”

  I work on autopilot for the next ninety minutes, solving equations, identifying figures, writing analyses, and pounding through the essay about why I deserve this scholarship more than the other students taking the exact same test at this exact moment. I fill up little blue book after little blue book, dumping everything that’s in my brain onto the page. By the time Dr. Jarvis clears his throat and calls time, I am wrung out like a damp towel.

  Dr. Jarvis pulls my exam toward him and scans it quickly. Then he tilts his head up. His eyes are warm and his fuzzy beard makes him look like Santa.

  “Whatever happens, I want you to know something,” he says. “You have been a joy to have in class. They would be lucky to have you.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat.

  Dr. Jarvis gives my shoulder an awkward, tender pat.

  “Students like you don’t come around that often. I hope you know that.”

  I nod and feel the warmth spread throughout my chest. I did this test on my own. I earned this feeling.

  “Thank you,” I choke out.

  He nods and opens the door. “Off you go, then.”

  * * *

  —

  The rest of the morning dissolves like a sugar cube. I float from class to class, high on the adrenaline that pushed me through the test. But that all comes crashing to a halt when French class ends.

  “Oh, Jill. Un instant, s’il vous plaît.” Madame Mathias stretches her head up from her turtleneck, even though it’s springtime and her classroom is about one million degrees. “Headmaster Weingarten would like to see you in his office.” The lines around the edges of her mouth deepen as she speaks. “Au revoir!”

  This can’t be good. My backpack suddenly weighs a ton and my stomach sinks. I trudge toward Weingarten’s office, with its dark cherrywood doorframe and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The
waiting area smells like varnish and mint, as if this place is greased down at the end of every day. I sink into a thick wood chair in front of his secretary, Mrs. Oerman.

  She looks up, her round gray eyes and a matching bob giving her a grandmotherly air. Her jaw trembles as she acknowledges me. “Miss Newman, of course. He’s expecting you.”

  I’ve only been in Headmaster Weingarten’s office one other time, the first day back after Shaila died. It was the last day of school, so humid and sticky that my skirt stuck to the back of my thighs even when I walked. I felt like a dog, sweating in the heat. He had summoned me, Nikki, and Marla into his chambers and sat in a circle with us, bringing his chair out from behind his desk.

  “Girls,” he said. “Your time at Gold Coast will never be the same.” He was blunt but kind, which was actually sort of refreshing. Everyone else treated us like we were made of glass. The other teachers would barely look at us, just offer tepid shoulder squeezes, knowing head tilts, and sad, sleepy eyes. Those poor girls.

  Nikki started crying and wiped her snot on the back of her sleeve, leaving a neon green trail slithering up her wrist. Marla clasped her hands together and her shoulders heaved up and down. I wondered just for a second if he knew what had happened to us, not Shaila. If he would bring it up, and if he did, how would we respond?

  But then Weingarten spoke.

  “I had a friend die when I was about your age,” he said. “A boating accident in Connecticut. Connor Krauss.”

  I stared at the crystal-blue centers of his eyes. They looked warm and generous.

  “It was the single most important event of my young life,” he continued. “It shaped me in every way. His death taught me that life is short and every moment is important, worth it.” He held his fist up for emphasis. “I learned to love fiercely and use my time wisely. I wished more than anything that he had stayed alive, but I would not be who I am without that loss.” Weingarten looked at all of us intently, his focus jumping from Marla to Nikki to me. “This will mark you. Shaila’s absence will change you. But it does not have to define you. Do not let it.”