The Ugly Girls' Club: A Murder Mystery Thriller

by C. A. Wittman

  “Like, what are you trying to figure out, exactly?” She asked.

  Jill glanced at Emma, irritation sparking in her green eyes. “Emma, we are going on four minutes out from Breakfast time. I cannot explain the feeding process to you in four minutes. If you want to understand the data I’m collecting, we’ll have to talk when there is plenty of time for me to explain my system and answer your questions.”

  Emma grabbed her lunch bag and shoved it in her backpack, then picked up her bowl of cereal to take to her bedroom.

  “If you got up earlier, you could eat at the table,” Jill said as Emma started to walk away.

  Emma turned around. Her mother’s expression was unreadable. “I’m really not that hungry so early in the morning. Even now, I have to force this down because I know I’ll get hungry later.”

  Jill looked thoughtful. “When you get home from school, let’s make some time to talk about that.”

  “Okay.” Emma paused and smiled at her mom. Jill smiled back, although her brow remained crinkled in thought, and Emma knew her mother’s return smile was only a cued response to Emma’s own facial expression. Her mind was somewhere else. Emma went to her room and ate her cereal at her desk, thinking about Jill. From what she had gleaned about her mom’s family, Grandmother Patty did not understand Jill and her autism. And Jill’s father, a mathematician, was so caught up in his work and mathematical theorems that he’d paid minimal attention to his family. Emma’s grandmother had taken on the brunt of the child rearing. Jill was the middle child of three. She had an older brother named Michael, who was now a theoretical physics professor at Stanford, and a younger sister, Sara, a CPA. Jill had been a difficult child, Grandma Patty had remarked. She didn’t speak until she was four and threw multiple temper tantrums throughout the day over all sorts of things. She’d been so fixated on schedules and routines that the whole family had to revolve around Jill’s needs. Otherwise, no one got any rest, Grandma Patty had recounted.

  Then, there were all the problems with the clothes. The colors and fabric textures. Jill only liked blue, black, or very dark green colors and refused to wear anything that did not fit into her limited preferences. Wool gave her a rash and she cried at the feeling of polyester on her skin—a problem in the seventies, when polyester was all the rage. Food was a nightmare. Jill did poorly in school, but read way beyond her age level and collected things obsessively. There had been the button collection and the stamp collection. The rock collection and, later, flower collection. She’d press flowers between wax paper and had folders and folders of different flowers. By the time Grandma Patty took Jill to see a therapist, Jill had lost a lot of ground when it came to understanding social cues and reading facial expressions. She’d had to learn what came to others naturally. Jill had told Emma she remembered the therapist showing her a page of different facial expressions and asking her what each expression meant, and that she hadn’t been able to decipher any of it. She had always found people puzzling, communication and body language a big mystery. It seemed people understood each other through some sort of osmosis.

  The therapist helped Emma’s mother learn facial expressions, body language, and appropriate responses to regular everyday questions like, “how are you?”

  Jill compared her time with the therapist to how Helen Keller must have felt when she understood that the different finger movements her teacher made in her hand meant something.

  In fact, Jill’s favorite book was The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller. She had tried to read it aloud to Emma when Emma was six years old, but Emma didn’t have the attention span for the memoir. And so her mother rented, then bought the movie adaptation.

  Emma scraped up her last bite of cereal, her mind still ruminating on her mother and her family. Grandma Patty died of cancer two years ago. The funeral had been in San Jose, Aunt Sara flying in from New York. Emma’s aunt lived in an upscale apartment in SoHo with two toy poodles that had auburn fur and looked like stuffed animals. Their names were Flopsey and Mopsy, after Sara’s favorite childhood story Peter Rabbit. Sara looked a lot like Jill, but was several inches taller and bigger-boned. She’d never married. Her life revolved around her dogs, her job, and occasional trips to Europe or Mexico. Uncle Michael was married with no children. Like Emma’s grandfather, he hardly spoke in social gatherings. None of the siblings were close. Jill was the least likely out of the three to have become a parent, but here she now was with three children.

  Emma checked the time on her phone. It was after seven. In ten minutes, she had to leave. Because of the twins’ meal schedule, Emma was expected to get herself to school in the mornings, either by walking, or riding—if a scooter was nearby, she’d hop on one of those. Getting out of the house was tricky. The bulk of her so-called “interruptions during mealtime” had to do with not being quiet enough when she left the house in the mornings. Emma stacked her bowl over two more on her desk from previous mornings and made a mental note to wash them and put them away when she got home from school.

  Her phone lit up and she read the text from Cat.

  That vid of wren is blowing up

  Emma felt a little twist in her stomach. Who would post that? It was so cruel.

  She stood and slung her backpack over her shoulder, putting her phone in her pocket as she reached for the door. A thought came to mind and her hand hovered over the doorknob.

  What if it wasn’t suicide?

  They were huddled at the entrance of the school: Hunter with Wren’s best friends, Poppy and Posie. Poppy looked like she’d been crying. Posie’s head was tucked down, and Hunter’s hands were shoved in their pockets. Kids swirled around them. Some glanced over their shoulders at the trio.

  “Hey,” Emma said.

  Poppy’s eyes were red and puffy. She glanced at her wordlessly.

  “I’m really sorry about Wren,” Emma said.

  Poppy’s eyes widened and then a bubble of mucus expanded out of her nostril and Posie put an arm around her shoulder.

  “Thanks,” Posie said for the two of them, then pulled Poppy away, leading her up the stairs to the school.

  Hunter remained behind.

  “Did you see the video?” They asked and rolled their eyes angrily.

  “Yeah,” Emma said softly.

  “Completely heartless. She’s dead! God!” They gave a hard kick at the step. “Sometimes I hate my generation. No one has any morals anymore. None!”

  Emma swallowed. She’d never seen Hunter so angry.

  The hiss and crackle of too-loud music coming from someone’s headphones had Emma turning her head to see Nisha approaching them. She was doing a bobbing motion with her body, but stopped when she saw their faces and pulled her headphones down, the music still hissing from the speakers. Emma could faintly hear the trap beat of “Sally Walker”.

  Nisha pulled her phone from her back pocket and stopped the music.

  “I saw it,” she said before Hunter or Emma could say anything. “Yo, that was fucked up, putting that video out.”

  Hunter nodded.

  “You think it’s suicide?” Emma and Nisha said at the same time and gave each other a look.

  Hunter shrugged, then said, “No. I don’t. I think someone had it in for Wren.”

  “Who do you think it is?” Nisha asked.

  Hunter shrugged.

  They were soon joined by Cat and Cassandra, the conversation continuing as the five of them walked into school together until it was time to part ways, Emma and Cassandra heading to their algebra class.

  Cassandra said in a low voice, “My mom had it out with Sam last night. She told her she couldn’t have Donovan over anymore.”

  “Why?” Emma asked.

  “It had something to do with him knowing that skank, Candace, who lives at Gumption’s across the street.”

  The sketch of the girl in a beach chair flashed through Emma’s mind and she stopped walking.

  “How does Donovan know Candace?”

  “My mom said
she heard him threatening her because she owed him money. She thinks it had something to do with drugs.” Cassandra made a face.

  Emma’s mouth fell open.

  “I know,” Cassandra said.

  The girls resumed their walk to class.

  “What do you want to do for graduation?” Cassandra asked after a bit.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it that much.”

  “All of us should definitely plan something.”

  “Yeah. Definitely,” Emma agreed.

  “Where you goin’?” Nisha asked.

  “Home, I guess,” Emma said as they exited the campus in the mass exodus of students.

  “I was thinking about going to Starbucks or something. I still got that gift card from my birthday. You wanna come? My treat.”

  Two girls passed them and they fell silent, listening to their conversation.

  The girl with the short spiky hair said, “I mean, everyone said she was always nice, you know, but who talks to a little kid like that?”

  “I know. Disturbing,” her friend replied as they descended the stairs.

  “They’re talking about Wren,” Emma said in a low voice.

  Nisha flipped her braids over her shoulder and gave Emma one of her looks.

  “What?” Emma asked.

  “If you ask me, she was on something.”

  “Do you think she was a secret addict?” Emma asked.

  “Girl, who knows? What Starbucks do you want to go to? I’ll text Cat and Cassandra.”

  The thing about Nisha was that she had witnessed so much intense dysfunction in her life that sometimes she could be callous about violence and death. She was a loyal friend, but outside of that, her life motto essentially was: Shit happens. Oh well.

  “Whichever,” Emma said with a sigh. “Let’s see if Hunter wants to come.”

  “Okay.” Nisha sent out a group text.

  Their phones pinged back, and Emma opened her messages.

  Cat texted that she was on her way out, and Cassandra sent a thumbs up. Hunter emerged from the crowd seconds later.

  “Got your text,” they said. “Sure. Although, what do you think of Philz?”

  “I’ve got a gift card for Starbucks,” Nisha said.

  Cat and Cassandra joined them.

  “I definitely don’t want to go to Starbucks,” were the first words out of Cat’s mouth.

  “Why?” Nisha asked, raising a brow.

  “I’m over that place,” Cat said. “The coffee either tastes burnt or it’s too watery.”

  “I’ve got a gift card,” Nisha said.

  “Let’s go to Montana. There’s a ton of cafes on that street,” Cassandra said.

  “Bitch, there’s a ton of cafes everywhere. Why do we have to haul our asses way out there?”

  “We can get scooters.”

  “I don’t have the app. And don’t you have to be sixteen to rent scooters?” Hunter asked.

  Nisha gave them a look. Everyone knew it was easy to get around age restrictions. You just used your fake Facebook account to sign up on rideshare apps, and Lime, the scooter company, didn’t require you to upload a license. Most drivers with rideshare companies couldn’t be bothered to screen kids or cancel rides if a passenger looked too young. Nisha had a cousin who worked for one of the companies, and he told her they got penalized if they canceled too many rides, even if the cancellation had to do with the passenger being a minor. Plus, parents loved the new transportation options. Half the time, the parent was circumventing the restrictions to sign their kid up.

  “Where’ve you been? In a cave?” Nisha asked.

  Hunter frowned.

  Nisha turned to the rest of them. “You bitches better make up your minds or I’m ditching y’all because you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.”

  “Can you please not talk to each other like that?” Hunter said.

  “Like what?” Nisha asked. Then her expression cleared. “Oh, right, we got our little feminist goody goody over here.”

  “I think we should go to Starbucks,” Emma said diplomatically. “It was Nisha’s idea. She has the gift card and is offering to treat us.”

  “Thanks, Em,” Nisha said.

  “I second that,” Hunter said, and earned a big smile from Nisha.

  “Oh. Okay,” Cat said.

  “Whatever, I’m easy,” Cassandra said.

  The five moved in the general direction of downtown Santa Monica, falling in with a throng of their peers, and waited at Pico Boulevard for the light to change. A man with matted hair, a peeling red face, no shoes, and a tattered, smelly blanket draped over his shoulders approached them. Kids began stepping away, a few holding their noses.

  “Any of you guys have any money?” He asked listlessly.

  The kids ignored him as his watery, rheumy eyes swept over the group. Hunter dug into their pocket and pulled out their wallet, taking out a five-dollar bill. They handed the man the money and he took it with a trembling hand.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I haven’t eaten all day.”

  A girl stepped forward and handed him a banana. His face brightened. “Thank you.”

  Suddenly, kids were reaching into their pockets, handing him change and one-dollar bills as the man accepted the offerings, repeating over and over, “bless you.” Cassandra, who had initially stepped away from him, dug her wallet out of her bag and handed him a twenty. His eyes widened when he saw the bill.

  “That’s too much,” Emma said in her ear.

  But Cassandra only grinned. The good feeling Hunter started with their first offering had spread amongst the group. A boy called out to the man, “have a nice day, sir.” He shuffled off, beaming, and the streetlight changed. As they crossed the intersection, a car beeped its horn and slowed. The driver yelled out the window,

  “You kids are awesome!” before she sped away. For a good ten seconds, they silently took in their collective act of kindness.

  “You did that, Little They,” Nisha said to Hunter. “Maybe we ought to call you Saint Hunter.”

  “I’m not a saint,” Hunter said, shoving their hands in their pockets. “I’m a humanitarian.”

  Nisha threw her arm around them. “Aight, HH. We see you.”

  At the Starbucks on Pico, Nisha treated them to various coffee drinks, plus an iced tea for Emma, and they went to sit at the tables outside.

  “What, no Frappuccino for you?” Cat asked, taking in Emma’s large plastic cup of tea.

  “I’m trying to clean up my diet. I think,” Emma said. She took a sip of her tea. It was bitter and tasted like fruity soap.

  Hunter had a small black coffee. “It’s a good idea,” they said supportively and looked off in the distance, sadness descending over their features.

  “Are you thinking about Wren?” Emma asked.

  Hunter nodded. “And Poppy and Posie.” They took a sip of their drink.

  “I saw something weird at Gumption’s house that day we went over there,” Emma said, shooting Nisha a quick look.

  “That sketch?” Cassandra asked.

  “You saw it?” Emma said, surprised.

  “What sketch?” Nisha asked, spooning whipped cream from her mocha into her mouth.

  A cloud moved over the sun and the temperature momentarily dropped before the cloud moved on and splashes of warm, golden light fell over them, emphasizing the cratered acne and pockmark scars on Nisha’s face. Emma had a poetic thought that her life was like the quick changes of weather.

  “It looked like she’d started a sketch of Wren in that beach chair she was in when she was found,” Cassandra said and frowned. “I thought it was sus. I think Gumption’s sus.”

  “Not really,” Nisha said and ate another spoonful of whipped cream.

  “I thought it was, a little,” Emma mumbled.

  Nisha glared at her. “She’s an artist. She’s done a girls and suicide series before.”

  “But why?” Cassandra said. “It’s just k
ind of sick.”

  Nisha rolled her eyes. “Like ninety percent of the time, you don’t know what you’re talking about, Cas.”

  “You know what? I’m sick of your insults,” Cassandra said, her nostrils flaring.

  “So?” Nisha met her gaze with a challenging glint in her eye.

  Hunter said, “What’s this about a sketch of Wren?”

  Emma told them and Hunter looked crestfallen. “Why would Gumption want to paint something like that?” They asked.

  Cassandra motioned at Hunter for Nisha’s benefit. “See? It’s sus. My exact thought.”

  “I watched an old interview of her on YouTube last night,” Emma said and told them what she’d learned.

  “Yeah, I saw that interview, too,” Nisha said.

  “She shot and killed five men at eleven years old?” Hunter asked, incredulous.

  “Yep, sheet-wearing klan mother fuckers,” Nisha said with a smug smile. “Oops,” her eyes snaked over to Hunter. “I mean, you know—bad Ku Klux Klan men.”

  “So what happened to her after that?” Cat asked.

  “I don’t know,” Emma said. “I turned it off at that point.”

  “Really? After she dropped a bomb like that, you didn’t want to find out what happened?” Cat asked, wrinkling her brow.

  “I know what happened,” Nisha said. “No one knew it was her at first who killed those men. But her mama knew, and she packed Gumption and her brothers and left the little country town they was living in and took everyone to New Orleans. Not long after they moved to the city, Gumption was raped. It happened at a park.

  Gumption was babysitting her brothers; the boys ran off from her and into this park for whites only. One of her brothers looked white like her, but the youngest one had light brown skin. Anyway, by the time Gumption found her brothers, this fat bastard park attendant was giving them a hard time for wandering into the park. Gumption, she told the man, ‘These are my brothers and they didn’t know. We’re leaving. So sorry,’ an’ all that. So the man told Gumption he wants to have a little talk with her. He took them to this bathroom in the park and told the boys to wait outside. Then he, you know, raped her.”