Among Friends

by Caroline B. Cooney

  And will you do that alone?

  Will I always, all ways, have no friends?

  Will anybody take Emily’s place, or Hillary’s, or Paul’s?

  Dizzy.

  I have to get a grip on myself.

  The proctor is going to think my diary is a cheat sheet.

  Put it under the chair.

  You can’t solve anything by writing it down, anyway.

  Look at this examination. Does it solve anything? No. It adds to the problem. You have to win, Jennie, always, all ways, set the diary down and win.

  I opened the third booklet of the day’s torture and read the first page of math problems and knew I could not do them. The dizziness crawled over me until I had to hang onto the desk itself. I turned through the four pages of problems in the tiny awful pamphlet. I’d be able to get half.

  Half! A grade of 50! I have to get over 90! I have to! I’ve got to win this!

  The whole school is pitted against me! I can’t go back and admit they’re right, that I can’t do it! I can’t face that! I can’t let Amanda win! I’ve got to be the junior they think I am! I have to win. I have to win. I have to win. I have to win.

  The words pounded in my skull.

  Thick vicious rhythm.

  I have to win!

  I have to win!

  I always have to win!

  The room was very large, and the desks widely spaced. A proctor stood at the front. The proctor had a paperback book she was reading, its cover folded so you couldn’t tell if she was reading a mystery or a piece of meaningful, important twentieth-century literature.

  Winning is what I do, I am a winner!

  I chewed my hair, which I never do, and bit down on my pencil.

  My parents brought up a winner, and I am a winner.

  And glancing slightly ahead and to the left, I realized that Amanda was left-handed, and no blocking arm curled up to hide Amanda’s paper. Big fat numerals paraded across Amanda’s page. Amanda had the same problems to work that I did.

  But she didn’t have the same answers.

  Amanda’s answers would be right.

  I sat in my seat, failing the math section of the test, and thought, Oh, thank God! I can win after all! I just have to cheat!

  Hillary and Jared and Ansley and Paul and I got called down to Dr. Sykes’s office. In some ways I suppose we are a sort of group, but not really. Paul is all by himself, and Hill and I stick together, and Jared and Ansley are practically taped together—and yet, we are a crowd. But I could not imagine why Dr. Sykes wanted us.

  And I don’t think he could imagine why, either.

  He was truly peculiar, asking truly peculiar questions, all centering on Jennie.

  Paul Classified said, “But Dr. Sykes, she just got on the bus for Hartford yesterday morning. Isn’t she taking the examinations with the seniors?”

  Dr. Sykes said, “Uh, no. No, she—she isn’t, Paul.”

  We stared at him. She had certainly gotten on the bus. We all saw her.

  Dr. Sykes said, “During the third examination, she walked out of the room. It’s not allowed and the proctor called to her to come back, but she didn’t. That was yesterday. Nobody has seen her since.”

  Talk about stunned.

  Hillary and I stared at each other. The Jennie we knew would never do a thing like that. Never!

  Paul said, “She hasn’t called us.”

  Now we stared at him. “Us?” repeated Hillary.

  Jared said, as if it hardly mattered and we should have known this anyway, “Paul’s living at our house now. Dr. Sykes, do they think something happened to her? Or do they think she—uh—ran away?”

  It was almost impossible to say the words. Jennie Quint—running away? Runaways are skanks on drugs, or kids whose parents abuse them, or nasty little creeps with nothing going for them who hate school anyhow. Jennie Quint, a runaway?

  And yet, when you say, “Did something happen to her?” what do you mean? Kidnapping? Murder? Suicide?

  Hillary has not been interested in Jennie for a long time. She said, “You’re living with the Lowes, Paul? When did that happen?”

  “Little while ago,” said Paul irritably. I, who watch Paul ceaselessly, had not even seen that he has new clothes: a shirt that fits, sneakers first-day white, and a sweater that doesn’t threaten to rip apart over his broad shoulders. “Dr. Sykes, what are they doing to find Jennie?” he asked, never glancing at Hillary.

  Dr. Sykes stretched his hands out helplessly. “Not much. They don’t have a clue. She’s just gone. They have a photograph of her they showed at the airport, Amtrak, the bus station, and the rental car agencies, but the amazing thing is, in a snapshot, Jennie is pretty ordinary: brown hair, brown eyes, nobody can remember a thing.”

  “I don’t think that’s so amazing,” muttered Hillary.

  Paul said, “Maybe she’s still in Hartford. Are they checking hotels? The Y? Does she have relatives up that way?”

  Ansley said, “Well, Jennie simply would not jeopardize a test, so she must have absolutely had to go to the girls’ room.”

  Dr. Sykes said, “Yes, but she would have come back from the girls’ room, Ansley.”

  “Maybe somebody kidnapped her.”

  And Paul Classified said in the queerest, saddest voice, “No. Kidnapping doesn’t really happen. They go because they want to.”

  Candy, I thought. He means Candy. Oh, Paul! I didn’t even think, because I was so amazed about Jennie! Paul, it worked! My letter to Mr. Lowe worked! I knew he could help you!

  I was so happy and pleased with myself I had to hide my joy: in this awful, mean year, I had done a good deed. Paul would never know, I would never tell anybody, not even Mr. Lowe. I put my hand over my mouth to cover up my expression.

  “What can we do to help find Jennie, Dr. Sykes?”

  It came from me at the same time it came from Paul. It was synchronized. Paul gave me a tight look that was sort of a smile but really a frown. The Lowes would get to know him: Ansley and Jared would get to know him. But not me.

  And Dr. Sykes shrugged. Because nobody knew how to find Jennie.

  Even gone, Jennie is a smash hit. Nobody in school is talking about anything except Jennie’s disappearance.

  I remember when I started this journal I had categories. That lasted about a week. Now the school has divided into categories over Jennie.

  There’s your violence crowd: they believe Jennie was kidnapped or lured into prostitution and any day now her body will be found in the gutter. Half of me truly laughs at all that melodrama, and the other half of me can’t eat lunch thinking about it.

  There’s your whose fault is this, anyway? crowd: they’re blaming Jennie’s parents for pushing her, and Amanda’s crowd for yelling at her, and Emily and Hillary for abandoning her. Emily was crying all day. We all kind of gathered around. We couldn’t be a team for Jennie now, but at least we could hand Emily another Kleenex. (Actually, I couldn’t, I hate tissues, but Ansley really got into the image of herself as comforter.)

  And then there’s the Shrink of the Day crowd, analyzing Jennie’s psyche. When she got to the math section, she couldn’t take failure, they’ve decided. Her strength made her weak. (Whatever that means.)

  But Paul Classified asked me if I thought Jennie would kill herself.

  Since Paul does not joke, and does not exaggerate, and seems to have more experience with this kind of thing than I do, it really shook me up. “Jennie?” I said.

  Ansley made me cut classes and hold her hand. There’s nobody more self-sufficient than Ansley. But she kept saying, “What if Jennie is in trouble, Jared?”

  “Obviously Jennie is in trouble.”

  “Oh, Jared, don’t be a toad. What if it’s bad and she’s hurt and she needs us?”

  I kept heaving these huge sighs. “Ansley, you and I are the last people Jennie Quint would call.”

  Ansley began weeping all over my shoulder. “Not the last!” she protested. “Amanda Hodges
is the last.”

  “Ansley, have faith in Jennie. She’s just too tough and too smart to get into that much trouble.”

  “But Jared, Jared, the things people were guessing at in school—like what happened to that little boy Adam in Florida—murdered and cut in pieces.” I tried to calm Ansley down. “Jennie’s got her own credit card and some cash. She can charge till she reaches whatever limit she’s got on it.”

  “If she’s alive to sign the charges,” said Ansley. “If nobody else is using the card.”

  So we drove on home because school stopped being school and turned into a guessing game about what horrible things could have happened to Jennie Quint.

  And in my living room, where nothing more interesting than changing the wallpaper has ever taken place, there was Ansley counting on me to save Jennie from death, and Paul counting on my father to take him to visit his mother at the mental hospital, and Mrs. Quint getting consoled by my mother!

  One month ago, we were building an addition and heading for a ski vacation. Now we’re shoring up everybody in Westerly with emotional problems.

  “You are too a fine parent,” said my mother, handing Mrs. Quint a cup of tea. “These things happen to all of us,” my mother added, trying to sound comforting.

  We all stared at my mother. I in particular resented the implication that these things happen even in the Lowe family. My mother looked at me helplessly. I guess she can’t say to Mrs. Quint, “You’re a rotten parent and you should have expected this.”

  Ansley said, “Let’s all go visit Mrs. Smith.”

  And Paul? Does he yell at her? Does he say this is classified? Does he try to strangle her? No. He smiles and says he would like that.

  And to think a year ago I thought life was simple.

  The police were here.

  Looking for information about Jennie.

  They were nice-looking men: kind of huggy, actually, like big blue teddy bears. I was very surprised. The kind of person who would be at a crossing at an elementary school, not tracking drug runners or murderers. “You’re Jennie’s best friend, we understand?” they started.

  I started to cry.

  I am ashamed of those tears, because they weren’t for Jennie. They were for me. If I’m a best friend …

  They wanted to know if I thought Jennie had run away—or been taken. I said I didn’t know. I said I really didn’t have a single clue to where she would go if she were running away. And I don’t. But I lay awake all night wondering.

  Two in the morning. Three. Whispering, “Jennie, I’m sorry.”

  Toward dawn I said into the silent darkness, “Jennie, if you need me, you can call me. I’m still your friend. I promise.”

  But there is no evidence to support that.

  So I doubt if she heard.

  I said to the police, “She probably ran away.”

  Mrs. Quint had obviously been weeping for hours. “No! Why would she do that? She has everything! And the very finest of friends! She doesn’t do things like that! She doesn’t hang out or have bad acquaintances! Not my Jennie!”

  Mrs. Quint lords it over everybody on Lost Pond Lane. She hasn’t talked about basic things like weather or flowers or the Women’s Club for ages; it’s been Jennie this, Jennie that. And my poor mother always has to say weakly, “Well, our Hillary is happy.” You can tell Mrs. Quint is glad there are losers like me to sit in Jennie’s audience. My mother has never thrown china at Mrs. Quint or anything, which I think shows admirable restraint.

  I said to the police, “She ran away. She’ll do anything for attention.”

  So at last we know it all.

  Paul was five when his little sister Candy was born.

  His mother didn’t want another child, didn’t want Paul for that matter, was rough with them. Paul didn’t say it, but I guess she really slapped him around, and the baby, too. And then she just left. Disappeared. Who could walk away from a newborn baby and a little boy starting kindergarten? I can’t even imagine doing that. Wouldn’t you lie awake your whole life long wondering if that baby was warm and fed and laughing? Wondering if your little boy was happy in school and joined the Cub Scouts and fell off his bike?

  Anyway, Paul’s father married again, and this second wife brought them up. Paul really loved her, and she’s the one Paul calls Mom, and she’s the only mother that Candy ever knew.

  Okay, typical suburban story so far. And what happens last year? The real mother shows up and wants her kids back. She says she has a prior claim as the biological mother. And Candy says to the biological mother, “I’ve always known you would come for me one day! I want to live with you!” And off goes Candy, thrilled and happy, without a backward look. Paul’s mom almost collapses—these are her kids. So when she starts falling apart the father can’t take the pressure, and what happens? The father walks. Leaves.

  Can you imagine?

  What a bunch. Reliability first, you know?

  Paul’s mom has a total breakdown, as who wouldn’t, thrown aside by the daughter she brought up and the man she loves? Paul’s mom lives in constant fear that Paul won’t come home one day because he doesn’t really love her, either.

  I said, “What about therapy?”

  “Talking is nice, I suppose, although I don’t do much of it myself, but talking doesn’t change things. My mother is terrified, and I don’t blame her. She can’t trust anyone, including me, and I don’t blame her. She feels worthless and no good, and I don’t blame her.”

  Ah, dear diary.

  You know what I have learned this year?

  I have learned that I am lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky.

  My family loves me. Nobody has abandoned me, nobody’s going to. I have friends and relatives and roots and money. Luck of the draw, I guess. Poor Paul, poor Paul. What’s classified is pain.

  .… I stopped writing because I felt done.

  I forgot about Jennie.

  Am I really a person so shallow that all this is a soap opera to me, and I’m just watching other people’s suffering like entertainment?

  So after we talked about P.C.’s whole life—which was as depressing a story as I ever heard—no wonder he won’t talk about it—we talked about Jennie. And where she could be, and why she did it. Paul didn’t run off when he had problems big enough to drown in, so why did Jennie run off? I have thought and thought about what the kids are saying in school and I can’t quite agree with it. But I haven’t come up with anything better.

  We were all sitting in the addition: great glass walls that look down the sloping grass and past the gardens into the marsh. It was dark, and the lights of the town lay far away, and the stars above were lost in a storm that would come during the night. My mother had fallen asleep on my father’s shoulder. My father has been home so much lately. I guess he decided that with families and kids collapsing left and right he should have better attendance.

  Ansley said, “I think … maybe … it’s because … somebody needed Paul.” She looked very intently out at the almost invisible yard, gathering an almost invisible answer. “Somebody couldn’t live without Paul.” Ansley turned and looked at me, but her hair was in her eyes and for once she didn’t toss it back. She whispered, “Nobody really needs Jennie.”

  “Her parents,” my father said.

  Ansley sniffed. She doesn’t like the Quints. “Her parents just need something to show off. They could do as well with a new Jaguar.”

  I wonder how she’ll come back. It isn’t easy, coming back. You have to admit you’re a jerk. I don’t know why they’re all so worried about her. I have known Jennie Quint very, very well for my whole life and there is nothing Jennie can’t do.

  Paul is living with the Lowes. It’s nice, because we see him every day now. He’s much friendlier. Mr. Lowe spends a lot of time with Paul. If I was jealous of Jennie, you would certainly think Jared would be jealous of Paul. But he isn’t.

  Everybody’s scared for her. They think that coming back will be so hard that she j
ust won’t come back. That no matter how bad it is “out there,” Jennie will stay and suffer rather than come back humiliated and dumb. I have faith in Jennie’s conceit—she doesn’t really want anything to happen to the great Jennie Quint.

  None of the seniors won Star Student anyhow; it went to the same high schools it always goes to. We must have bad breath or something.

  Every time the bus stops I look out the window.

  I think—I could get off here.

  But I’m afraid to get off the bus.

  If I get off the bus, I have to start living again.

  I think about Jennie every minute.

  I think about such ordinary things. I took a shower this morning and used almond soap, which I love, and Jhirmak shampoo, and after I stepped out onto the thick soft vanilla colored mat, I dusted myself with Anais Anais powder. I blew my hair dry until it felt the way the powder smelled: cloudy and pretty.

  Her father thinks Jennie may have had a hundred dollars cash. It has to be gone by now. So what is Jennie using for soap and toothpaste? Where is Jennie sleeping? What is Jennie eating? When it’s dark, on this February night, and icy cold, and snowing, where will Jennie be?

  Downstairs my mother was yelling good-bye because she had to leave for work. I raced down with just my towel on to kiss her good-bye, and I said, “While you’re in New York, keep an eye out for Jennie.”

  My mother sighed. “I don’t envy the Quints. I went over to see them last night, and they have just about collapsed. You know, their whole lives were wrapped up in that girl. And this is how she repays them! By slapping them in the face.”

  I’m always surprised by the parents’ point of view. I guess Jennie did slap them in the face—but oh, how we slapped her first! Especially me.

  “Mom, it’s been six days. How is she keeping her hair clean, do you suppose? Jennie always liked to wash her hair every other night.”

  “You just have to hope she’ll come to her senses,” said my mother, dashing out the door. It was sleeting. But maybe Jennie had taken a bus to Florida. Or California. Maybe she was already waitressing in Miami. Oh, Jennie, don’t throw away all that you are! All that you could be!