The Mary Shelley Club

by Goldy Moldavsky

  It was kind of what he was known for at Manchester. If somebody at school wanted access to a car for fooling around, all they had to do was either pay up or do Sim’s homework for a week. And nobody ever tried to steal the cars ’cause they knew if they did, Sim’s stepdad would break their legs. So. Win-win-win.

  The moral of the story was that Sim loved his stepdad, like, a lot. Just for making Sim’s Point possible. And right at this moment, Jennifer Abrams seemed to love Sim a lot, too. She was hanging all over him as they walked among the cars. It was after eleven, and in this part of Brooklyn, that meant there was no one and nothing around to disrupt them, just the changing traffic lights and the B47 bus passing every twenty minutes beyond the chain-link fence.

  Sim checked himself out in the darkened driver-side window of a Toyota Corolla. Hair was properly coifed with a good two inches of height. Supreme Playboy pocket tee hanging mostly loose, except for the strategic French tuck in the front of his Burberry slim fit jeans. His midnight-blue velvet bomber jacket by—

  “Can we go?” Jennifer said, tugging him toward a cherry-red Jaguar. “Let’s get in this one.”

  Sim pretended to consider it, tilting his head, cocking his eyebrows as he examined the car. It was nice, definitely, but … no reclining seats. So. “I got just the car for us, babe.”

  His turn to tug on Jennifer’s arm now, but she stood her ground like a boulder. “This is a Jaguar.” She said it like she was out of a Mary Poppins movie or something. Jag-you-AHH.

  Sim huffed. There was one car out deep in the lot that he liked to use. It was just a 2004 Volvo. A junkbomb. But there was room. No stick shift to poke him at the worst possible time, and the seats were worn polyester, which was really so much more comfortable than it sounded. Way more comfortable than the reupholstered stuff, which could be slippery and always squeaked. The 2004 Volvo was his lucky car. It got him lucky. The Jaguar was all wrong. So.

  “This other car…,” Sim said, trying to think something up quick, “it’s got a surprise for you.”

  Jennifer’s lips turned up at the corners and her eyes sparkled behind her glasses. “What kind of surprise?”

  “You’ll see.” Sim didn’t know what it was about glasses, but he loved them. Anybody ever asked, he told them it was a librarian fetish or something, but he just liked that it made girls’ eyes look big and bright. Any time there was a magazine lying around and he was bored, Sim would draw glasses on the girls in the pictures.

  The last girl Sim had dated didn’t wear glasses, but he liked that she had a temper. It was hot. He def/prob should’ve ended things with her before starting things up with Jennifer, but Sim wasn’t smooth like that. Didn’t know the proper formula for the how and when of sidepiece management. So instead of figuring it all out, Sim had bounced. It was like his stepdad always said: Don’t fix your problems—dump ’em. And Felicity Chu was a problem.

  Sim led Jennifer to the Volvo, which was surrounded by prettier cars like no one would notice the difference. Jennifer could tell, though. She didn’t look impressed. “What’s the surprise?”

  “The car’s name is Jennifer,” Sim said. “I named her after you.”

  He waited. And then Jennifer jumped on him, her hands all over the sides of his face and her mouth all over his. Worked. Every. Time. They got in the car but—

  Wait.

  “Did you hear that?” Sim said, breaking their kiss.

  “Hear what?”

  “There was, like … a thud.”

  “That was my heart,” Jennifer said.

  Whatever, a girl was on top of him. Sim wasn’t about to waste any more time. He peeled off his midnight-blue blue velvet Armani bomber jacket and focused on the important stuff. More lips. The two kept kissing, but then Sim heard it again. Not the exact same noise. A sort of scratching this time.

  And it was closer. Right on top of them.

  “You didn’t hear that?”

  “Sim.”

  “No seriously, there was scratching on the roof. You didn’t hear it?”

  “All I hear is my doubt, telling me that maybe I shouldn’t be in a car with a guy who is making excuses not to make out with me.”

  “But I heard—”

  “You want to hear something so bad, fine!” Jennifer took out her phone and Lady Gaga’s voice drifted into the Volvo, telling them they couldn’t read her poker face.

  Sim wasn’t about to sit here with a totally hot girl and just listen to music all night. So. He flipped her over, reached to the side of Jennifer’s seat, and pulled its lever. He hovered over her as she slowly reclined backward. He started kissing her again, proving how focused he was on nothing but her.

  And the noise he’d heard. Yeah, he couldn’t get it out of his mind, like, at all. Which made Sim keep his eyes open. Which was a weird way to kiss someone, but it allowed him to spot a shadow looming just beyond the rear window. And soon, there wasn’t just a shadow, but movement. Something dark flashed outside the car. Sim’s lips stopped moving. Had he closed the gate in the chain-link fence? But he always closed the gate. Did he forget to lock it, though?

  “Why aren’t you kissing me back?” Jennifer asked. “It’s like I’m kissing a dead fish.”

  The closer the shadow got, the more it looked like a person. Someone must have snuck in. No telling if it was male or female, just someone wearing a thick black coat, a hoodie pulled so low it obscured their face.

  Sim crouched over Jennifer, frozen, as she continued to paw at his clothing obliviously. The shadowy figure was ten paces away.

  Five.

  Jennifer let out the most vicious scream and Sim leaped back, smashing his head against the roof. “WHAT!”

  “This is my favorite song!” Jennifer squealed.

  “That’s why you screamed?”

  “Um, hello, they never play the Ruperts on the radio anymore.”

  Sim wasn’t going to sit here any longer. And not just because the Ruperts sucked, but because there was definitely someone outside the car. Sim couldn’t see them anymore, but that noise from earlier was back. On the roof again. Louder. And then the car shook.

  “Was that you?” Jennifer whispered. For the first time, concern flashed on her face.

  “Quiet, I think there’s someone out there,” Sim whispered, every inch of him tensed and waiting for the next noise. It came from the roof. The undeniable sound of shoes hitting metal. The roof dipped slightly, let out a low groan.

  “Boo!”

  Sim jumped but it was only Jennifer, giggling hysterically.

  “Why would you say ‘boo’ right now?!” he hissed. “Like, why would you choose this moment of all moments to say ‘boo’?!”

  “Okay, you don’t want to be my boo, I get it, gosh,” Jennifer said. “What about sweetie? Sugar bear? Pookie?” Her hand caressed his shoulder. “Are we gonna screw?”

  No. Not when there were freaking footsteps on the roof of the car! And not with a girl who couldn’t hear anything but that awful Ruperts crap. Damn, Sim needed to seriously stop dating the worst girls.

  “Let’s go. Someone’s playing a prank or something,” Sim tried to open the door but it wouldn’t budge. “Are the child locks on?”

  Sim jumped again when he heard a tap on the window. But it wasn’t the dull sound of knuckle on glass. No, this was sharper. Like metal on glass. When he looked up, Sim’s heart almost stopped.

  It was the Black Hoodie. Holding a big-ass hook.

  “FuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKK.” Sim kicked the door open, slamming it into the Black Hoodie, who went down with an oomph.

  Sim ran, ignoring the sound of Jennifer calling after him.

  But the rows of cars turned the place into a tight labyrinth, preventing Sim from making a clean run for it. He rounded trunks only to smack into bumpers. His hips thwacked against side-view mirrors, eventually tearing one clean off a convertible. His stepdad was going to kill him. But not if this Hoodie freak got to him first.

  Sim nearly cried with
relief when he saw that the gate was two car rows away. He’d be there soon.

  But then the Black Hoodie popped up to block his way.

  Sim stumbled back. How had he gotten there so quick? Sim had left the freak behind. Now this dude popped out of nowhere, looking even bigger than before. He was so close that Sim could now see his face. White. Stoic. Scars. It was a rubber mask.

  The Black Hoodie pushed Sim hard and he pinballed between two car doors on his way to the concrete. The Black Hoodie was leaning over him, raising a knife in the air, when Sim kicked out. He’d been smart to wear his Acne Studios Jensen Grain boots tonight. They not only made him an inch taller, but also came to a fine, hard point at the toe. He slammed the tip of his boot into the Black Hoodie’s side so hard Sim could feel ribs crunch.

  The Black Hoodie let out a grunt and doubled over, holding their abdomen. It was Sim’s only chance. He ran out the gate and didn’t look back.

  24

  THE NEXT EVENING, we regrouped at Bram’s house after Thayer and I were done with our shifts at the movie theater and Freddie had finished pitching in with his mom’s catering business.

  It was Felicity’s turn to pick a movie. I had pegged her as a fan of black-and-white movies, like Nosferatu, or some weird Swedish silent film from the 1920s. But Felicity ended up going with Urban Legend. At first, I had no idea why, but then it became clear.

  “If I could live during any era it would be the glorious—if brief—time in history when Joshua Jackson had his hair bleached,” Felicity said. “Urban Legend and Cruel Intentions. Peak Joshua Jackson, if you ask me.”

  And there it was. Felicity: the Joshua Jackson superfan. She watched the screen with rapt abandon as Joshua Jackson tried to make a move in a parked car.

  “Ew, no,” Thayer said. “Peak Joshua Jackson was The Mighty Ducks. That movie was my sexual awakening.”

  “I can’t believe we’re talking about this,” I said. “Peak Joshua Jackson is The Affair, obviously.”

  “You watched The Affair?” Freddie asked, eyebrow suggestively cocked. “Gotta say I’m more of a Fringe guy.”

  “Does no one here have any respect for Pacey Witter?” Bram said.

  I was back in his house for the first time since our disasterous study session, and so far we’d successfully managed to avoid all interaction. Which was an arrangement we both seemed happy with.

  “Okay, a compromise,” Felicity said. “Peak Joshua Jackson is the Joshua in the one episode of Dawson’s where he had frosted tips.”

  Felicity was in a surprisingly good mood. Maybe it was Joshua. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d gotten her cheating ex to go running scared into the night. We hadn’t done much beyond dressing in incognito black and scraping a few twigs over the roof of a used car, and yet, I gotta say, it was deeply satisfying. Maybe now Sim Smith would think twice about taking girls to his stepdad’s creepy car dealership.

  “Now this,” Thayer said, “this is a beautiful example of the parked-car trope. Take notes, Felicity.”

  On the screen, Joshua Jackson was dangling from a tree, his shoes scraping the top of his car.

  Felicity scowled. “I don’t need lessons on how to stage a Fear Test from the guy who sent an eight-year-old down the hall last year and called it a day.”

  “Thayer paid a girl from the Lower School to stand in the hallway before the final bell rang last year,” Freddie whispered to me. “I think he was banking on the scary-sad-girl-with-long-hair factor, but it was broad daylight and nobody cared. One of the worst Fear Tests on record.”

  Thayer let out a gasp. Freddie’s whisper had apparently not been low enough. “How dare you?” Thayer demanded. “It was a quality test. Way ahead of its time.”

  “It was garbage,” Felicity said. She threw a handful of popcorn at him. Bram leaned over to pluck the kernels off the floor but as he stretched his arm out, he winced and grabbed his side. I seemed to be the only one to catch it.

  “I still say I deserve a do-over,” Felicity said.

  “No do-overs,” Freddie said. “That’s against the rules.”

  “I was injured during my own test.” Felicity held up her arm to punctuate the point, an Ace bandage encircling her wrist. According to Felicity, when Sim had popped open his car door he’d seriously injured her, but I was pretty sure the only bruising she’d experienced was to her ego. “I didn’t get a chance to complete the rest of my test.”

  “Rest of your test?” Thayer said, tickled. “Girl, you weren’t gonna do anything but chase him anyway.”

  “Personal injury is part of the risk,” Bram piped in. “You have to come to terms with your test being a failure.”

  Felicity exhaled loudly through her nostrils. “It wasn’t a failure. I scared him.”

  “Okay,” Bram said. “But the biggest scream of the night came from Jennifer over a song.”

  “Screw you, Bram.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t a failure,” Freddie assured her. “You scared Sim.”

  “Yeah, but his girlfriend wasn’t scared at all,” I said.

  “Um, who asked you?” Felicity said. “The target is the only person you have to scare.”

  “But when there are other people in the Fear Test, shouldn’t their reactions count for your overall score?”

  “New Girl makes a good point,” Thayer said. “We should add that to the rules.”

  “No way,” Felicity said. “The rules existed long before she joined the club.”

  But Freddie leaned toward me. “What would the terms be?”

  “I think if you’re going to do a Fear Test with a lot of people present, that’s going to be a harder test to pull off. The more people to convince, the bigger the risk.”

  Felicity got up from the couch, blocking a shrieking Rebecca Gayheart on the screen. “So we’re just going to take New Girl’s advice on how to play this game?”

  “It would make things more interesting,” Freddie said.

  “We know how you love to make things more interesting,” Bram said. I didn’t know what he meant, but Freddie didn’t seem to take too kindly to the remark.

  “This is ridiculous.” Felicity pointed a finger at me. “The only reason you’re in the club is because you found out too much about us.”

  Her words landed like a blow to my stomach.

  “Felicity,” Freddie said, his usual chill tone taking on an edge of warning.

  But Felicity ignored him. “You were a threat to our ecosystem,” she said to me. “You were getting too close to finding out about us. Nobody actually wanted you in this club.”

  “That isn’t true,” Freddie said quickly.

  Thayer piped in. “We’re always on the lookout for new recruits. You fit the bill.”

  We were sitting in our usual movie-watching spots but suddenly it felt crowded, with their gazes boring into me. Here was an opportunity for Bram to speak but he let it pass him by, his silence saying all I needed to hear.

  Felicity turned back to the group. “The rules are bigger than any one of us. You can’t just change them.”

  And with that, she was done, grabbing her coat and leaving.

  Nobody said anything for a moment, and it felt like a curtain had been pulled back. Before, all I’d noticed were the great things about the club. I’d been naïve to the fact that there could be something ugly festering beneath the surface.

  Thayer came to sit next to me, filling the space between Freddie and me.

  “Felicity can be kind of dramatic,” Thayer whispered. “She’s upset because her test sucked, as her tests always inevitably do. Okay? We good?”

  I nodded because it seemed like the response Thayer wanted, but I couldn’t shake what Felicity had said. Did they really want me here? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t budge and we continued with the movie. For the first time a Mary Shelley Club meeting didn’t feel like the cozy blanket it usually was for me.

  Freddie tried to catch my gaze, but I kept my eyes on the screen. The killer
had finally caught up with Tara Reid and she let out a blood-curdling scream.

  25

  BY MONDAY MORNING everyone at school had heard about Sim and Jennifer’s hookup from hell. In the People’s Court of Manchester Prep, they were defendant and plaintiff, arguing two wildly different accounts of what had happened.

  Jennifer told everyone that Sim had taken her to a sketch AF car dealership in bumblefuck Brooklyn to bone and then suddenly made up some story about a killer with, like, bait and tackle or something, and then Sim just ran away, leaving Jennifer to figure out where the heck she was—did she mention she was in bumblefuck Brooklyn? Alone? At night!—and Sim very obviously totally just couldn’t get it up.

  Sim told everyone that the Infamous Manchester Prankster had gotten him, threatened his life with a hook and then a knife, but then he’d beaten the prankster to a pulp with his bare hands and he was definitely not impotent. He had absolutely zero problems in that department. He had the opposite of that problem. He could prove it to any doubters.

  Saundra was delighted with the new scandal.

  “Prankster my ass!” she said, throwing her head back and laughing gleefully at lunch. “Obviously, I believe Jennifer,” Saundra said.

  “Why?”

  “Because Sim can’t get his story straight? First he sees a guy in a hoodie? Then the guy disappears. Then he sees him again with a hook. Then Sim apparently knocks him out when he opens his car door.” Saundra had gathered every scrap of info from both parties, leaving nothing on the parking lot floor. “Then he runs but is stopped by the hooded man again and this time he has a knife? No hook anywhere in sight? And then Sim beats him up? That is highly unlikely, my friend. The only thing Sim has ever tried to beat is—we now know for sure—his nonfunctioning dick.”

  I nearly choked on my kale. “Saundra!”

  “What? I never liked Jennifer Abrams, but I believe women.”

  Just as she said this, the lunchroom din was interrupted by the screeching of metal chair legs being dragged across the floor. Sim hopscotched from a chair to a table, getting everyone’s attention.