People Like Us

by Dana Mele

  She unloads her new set of theories to Brie, Maddy, and me in her rapid-fire speech as I pick the mushrooms out of a chicken quesadilla. It’s a little bittersweet. Quesadilla night was Tai’s and my favorite.

  “I thought Jessica committed suicide,” Maddy interrupts.

  Cori glares at her. “At this point, anyone still clinging to the suicide theory is in denial because they’re scared, Notorious. Would there still be crime scene tape on her room if it was a suicide? And why would the detectives still be questioning us?”

  I snap my head up. “They questioned you, too?”

  Cori eyes me dubiously. “Of course. We were witnesses.”

  I feel my silverware slipping between my fingers and place it down, wiping my palms on my skirt. “What did you tell her?”

  She frowns and tucks a strand of her thick, chin-length brown hair behind her ear. “Him. I talked to the short guy. Lombardi. I told him what we saw. Dead body, very sad, too late to do anything. Now. Back to poor sweet Hunter.”

  Nola flutters over and sets her tray down next to me and Cori stops talking. Brie smiles tautly and nods a greeting. Cori and Maddy both gaze up at Nola wordlessly. She looks back at them and then at me.

  I take a nervous bite of quesadilla. “You guys know Nola Kent?”

  “We keep meeting,” Brie says. She takes a sip of my soda and it strikes me what a territorial move it is. No way is she jealous. I glance at Nola, who is sipping her own drink and watching Brie, and then at Brie, who hangs on to my glass and swirls the straw around.

  Nola turns to Cori. “You’re the cat girl.”

  Cori clears her throat. “Actually, yeah. I knew him personally.”

  It’s not funny at all. What happened to Hunter was sick and vicious and wrong. But the tension at the table is getting to me, and something about the way she says it bubbles a giggle up to my lips. Brie gives me an odd look, and I cough into my hands. Nola flashes me a wicked grin behind her mug of tea.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Cori snaps at Nola, not entirely fairly. I was the one who laughed. Although Nola did grin.

  “So who did it?” I ask Cori, hoping to defuse the situation. “Bottom line.”

  She takes a bite of avocado and chews thoughtfully. “A student. A junior or a senior. Someone who was here long enough to have a familiarity with Dr. Klein’s mansion and Dr. Klein herself, and obviously, someone who’s still here.” She takes a sip of milk and then goes on, thoroughly enjoying the spotlight. “It was someone who had a reason to resent Dr. Klein. But it wasn’t revenge. It was a compulsion.”

  Maddy’s eyes widen. “So you think it’s a serial killer?”

  Cori nods solemnly. “It’s textbook.”

  Brie brushes her foot against mine again, and bounces it back and forth between hers playfully. “Kill any cats lately?” She came to dinner straight from track practice, just slightly breathless, her cheeks still flushed, her hair pushed back from her forehead with a scarlet band. She’s always cutest right after practice.

  “Funny.”

  Cori frowns. “What?”

  I kick my foot free. “Brie thinks it’s hilarious that the detective at the crime scene has a vendetta against me.”

  Maddy rolls her eyes. “Why was she so mean? She obviously needs a hobby.”

  “Maybe she’s right.” All eyes turn to Nola, who looks at us ominously over her mug of tea. I close my eyes in frustration. Why does she have to be so weird? “I mean, Jessica stole her boyfriend. No one else has a motive. Except Jessica’s ex, and since Kay’s secretly sleeping with Greg, who knows what else they’re hiding?” She shrugs, and everyone gapes at me.

  “Please tell me you’re doing no such thing,” Brie demands.

  “I’m not!” I turn to Nola, who is grinning wickedly. “She made that up. I’m not dating anyone.”

  “I didn’t say dating,” Nola says in a loud stage whisper.

  Maddy’s mouth drops open and Brie casts me an uncertain glance. I grab my tray and storm away from the table, dumping the remainder of my dinner in the trash. Nola follows me to the door.

  “Sorry,” she says lightly. “Did I take it too far?”

  “What is wrong with you?” I shrug my coat onto my shoulders. “I called Greg because you asked me to set you up. I’m trying to be nice to you, Nola.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest and juts her pointy, almost elflike chin out. “Yeah? Is it that hard? Is it really so painful?”

  I become aware that everyone within earshot is staring at us. “Just . . . be normal.”

  She shakes her head. “Take a joke, Kay.”

  “Your jokes aren’t funny.”

  She narrows her eyes. “Yeah? Neither are yours.”

  I push out the door into a swirl of leaves and stalk back toward my dorm. In a moment, Brie rushes out and falls into step beside me.

  “What is going on with you?”

  “Nothing. Nola is full of shit.”

  “Then why are you wasting your time on her?” Her breath clouds out of her mouth, and she bounces up and down as we walk. She’s only wearing a sweatshirt and track pants, and I take my jacket off and hand it to her but she pushes it back to me. We play reverse tug-of-war for a second until she finally drapes it over both of our shoulders. “Stubborn.”

  “She’s weird, but she’s nice.”

  “She doesn’t seem nice at all. She just made an ass out of you.”

  “Apparently you don’t like anyone anymore.”

  Brie squints at me. “Why would you say that?”

  I shrug. “Maddy.”

  We stop talking for a moment as we pass through a group of students, who give Brie the customary smiles and greetings, but either I’m imagining it or I get a few weird looks. “Okay, did that anonymously skanky junior just mouth the word bitch at me?” I stop dead and glare at her over my shoulder. Her name is Hillary Jenkins; she tried out for soccer two years running and didn’t make the cut. And I can make her life a living hell.

  Brie steers me away from the wrought-iron lamppost where the juniors have congregated. “Look. With Tai and Tricia gone, people are starting to talk. About you ratting both of them out, getting Hannigan fired—”

  “He was fired?”

  “Where have you been, and why wasn’t I invited? Tai and Tricia are finishing the year at public school, and to them, that’s a huge insult.”

  “Neither of them will answer my texts.”

  “Well, the word going around is that you made it happen.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Of course you didn’t. Just like you didn’t sleep with Jessica’s ex-boyfriend.” She purses her lips and raises her eyebrows. “Interesting how these rumors started the second you began hanging out with Nola.”

  “You’re way off.” I turn around and glance back at the juniors, contemplating setting the record straight about exactly what went down with Tai and Tricia. But Brie gently pulls me back toward Barton Hall.

  “There’s one more thing.” We’ve reached the stone steps of Barton and she gazes up at my window. “Somehow it got out that Jessica and Spencer slept together. And people think it’s weird that she died right after that. Now, with you turning on all your friends and hanging out with Nola, who has a reputation for necrophilia and devil worship—”

  “That’s bullshit. We made up that rumor.”

  “Well, it’s coming around to bite you in the ass now. Maybe reconsider hanging around with her until the investigation wraps up.”

  I kick the grass and stifle a scream of frustration. “This sucks.”

  “It’s going to be okay. We just need to lie low and ride it out.”

  I study her. “You still think suicide?”

  She takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “It’s tough to say without seeing the evidence.” A
lawyer answer. She looks at her watch. “I have a ton of Latin.”

  “French.”

  “So, no more Nola?” It’s never easy to argue with Brie. First, she phrases requests like statements. Second, her level of self-confidence makes me doubt myself. And third, standing this close, I forget why my side of the argument was important in the first place.

  “Come on. Would you stop hanging out with Justine if I asked you to?” I try to say it casually, like it isn’t an actual question.

  Brie’s face clouds over. “Fine. I didn’t realize you and Nola were so close.” She flings my jacket at me. “Talk soon.”

  I stomp into the building and up the stairs to my room. I have to get some actual homework done tonight. It takes me until midnight to catch up on my work and I almost fall asleep at my desk, but Nola’s jabs are bothering me. Obviously I’m not dating Greg, nor am I interested, but I do need to learn more about Jessica and what she might have known about my past.

  Greg is probably the last person I should be speaking to, after what Detective Morgan said. But he also knows Jessica better than anyone else. I brush my teeth, change into my pajamas, climb into bed, and switch off the light before I decide to call him. He doesn’t pick up, which makes sense, because by now it’s approaching one o’clock. I decide not to leave him a message. He’ll see that I called. If he wants to call back, he will.

  But by one thirty, I still can’t sleep and I somehow end up dialing Spencer’s number.

  “Katie D. How many lives have you ruined today?” he greets.

  “Never mind.”

  “Don’t hang up,” he says hastily. I can hear him typing rapidly. “Sorry. I’m in a bad mood because I’m losing. Let me die.” For a moment I hear him punching his keyboard violently, and then there’s silence. “Sorry. I’ve missed our Insomniacs Anonymous meetings.”

  “Can’t say the same.” I could. But I never would. Both of us are terrible sleepers. We think too much. Night was one thing Brie and I could never really share, because she’s an early sleeper, so as much as I love lying next to her for the first hour, it very quickly becomes torturous staring up at a dark ceiling. Spencer and I drove around, made out, talked endlessly about nothing, threw rocks at the moon. Stuff you do when there’s nothing else to do. I snuck Spencer into my dorm overnight once—an infraction that could have resulted in expulsion—and we climbed the tower and spent the night watching for shooting stars. I fell asleep eventually, but when I woke, his forehead was still pressed against the window, his eyes trained on the thin halo of light rising over the lake. That was the night I told everyone Spencer and I finally had sex, the night it was supposed to happen. Somehow, though, we ended up just watching, waiting. There was supposed to be a meteor shower. The heavens failed us.

  “I love your honesty.” I hear him lighting a cigarette and opening his bedroom window. I imagine myself there with him. I’ve always hated the smell of smoke, except in the freezing cold, tucked under his battered down parka. I can’t explain it.

  “Then tell me something.”

  “Ladies’ choice.”

  I want to ask both about Jessica and whether the police have questioned him, but Spencer is impulsive about telling the truth. He’s more likely to be forthcoming if he brings it up himself than if I ask him and it’s obvious that I care. Because then it’s a game. “Are you seeing anyone?” I ask instead.

  “Cops aren’t exactly my type, you know?”

  His other talent is seeing right through me.

  “Let’s meet up.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Sure. Sleep is becoming a vanishing memory at this point. Meet me at Old Road in fifteen.”

  He doesn’t hesitate. “Bring snacks.”

  I show up with two Vitaminwaters and a handful of energy bars. I don’t really have anything else. When he pulls up, I climb into his car and am immediately enveloped by the smells of vanilla coffee and cigarette smoke. He gestures to the cup holder and I pick up a coffee cup gratefully.

  “I knew you would screw up the snack mission. There are doughnuts in the back.”

  I reach behind me and pick out a glazed chocolate. “Thanks.”

  He heads down the winding road through the woods that line the eastern shore of the lake. “What do you want, Kay? You only call when you want something.”

  “Doesn’t sound like me. I just want to talk.”

  “About?” He flicks his cigarette out his window and rolls it up, and I turn up the heat.

  “Nothing. Anything. Coffee and doughnuts.”

  He pulls the car over and looks at me. “Then let’s really talk. About us.”

  I get the worst sinking feeling. His face has always struck me as angelic and devilish at the same time, depending on the expression he chooses to wear, and right now the hope in his eyes is destroying me. Part of me wants to kiss him and tell him to forget everything both of us have done. Because Brie is never going to want me. Not as her girlfriend. She proved that tonight. And Spencer and I know each other so well. We can call each other on our bullshit, and drive each other wild, talk each other down from the ledge, and turn each other on in seconds. I hate that everything I want is ruined by contradiction. My brain is split, my heart severed. In this moment, right now, I want to unbuckle my seat belt, climb into his lap, and kiss away every memory the past few weeks has scarred into my brain.

  But on the razor edge of tomorrow and forever and the second there is air between us again, I can’t forgive him for Jessica. At least, I can’t forget it. I can’t stop picturing. And every time I do, it’s the same terrifying way, a waking nightmare. Her dead, cold body wrapped around him.

  “Spence,” I say quietly, “there’s nothing about us left to talk about. We both know it.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he says in a deadly calm voice.

  My breath catches in my throat. “What does that mean?”

  He starts the car again. “Once,” he says, without looking at me. “Jess and I only hooked up one time. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “You didn’t need to.”

  He drives to our meeting place, the dusty dirt road that diverges from the street and loops around the lake and ends between the village and the lake path at the edge of campus.

  “Thanks for the coffee.”

  He clasps his hands and sighs into them. “It wasn’t about you.”

  “Right.” I can’t help my voice and temper rising. “It had nothing to do with Brie and me.”

  “She hit on me.”

  I stop, the door half open. “Did she say anything about me?”

  “She said you were a narcissistic paranoiac who might think people pursue her boyfriends just to make her jealous.”

  “Whatever, Spence.”

  He grabs my hand. “Kay.” I look back at him. “When she asked if I was seeing anyone, I said no. She called me a dirty little liar. I thought she was being cute, but maybe she did know about us. Looking back, I tend to think she probably did.”

  I pause. “How did you meet?”

  “At a party.” He takes a deep breath and then looks at me guiltily. “Brie introduced us.”

  He’s not lying this time. He looks as nauseous as I feel.

  I slam the door in his face.

  * * *

  • • •

  IN THE MORNING, Detective Morgan is waiting for me in the dorm lobby. Barton Hall was constructed in the manner of a grand British estate, a sort of scaled-down version of Downton Abbey, and the common room is all windows, floor to ceiling. When I can’t sleep, I like to curl up in one of the ancient velvety armchairs so I can gaze up at the stars and pretend it’s all mine. That’s where Detective Morgan decides to question me.

  Once again, Dr. Klein is present as my chaperone. I’m still groggy and my muscles are itchi
ng for my customary coffee and weekday morning jog around the lake. I’m convinced my blood doesn’t flow right otherwise. But Morgan looms in front of the door, standing between me and the crisp morning air, her arms folded, a creepy smile twisting her thin lips, and Dr. Klein hunches in the corner looking smaller and older than usual, dressed in an untucked blouse and drab beige slacks instead of one of her usual bright pantsuits. I attempt a timid smile at her but she just raises a finger toward the common room and I head inside, a cloud of dread settling over me. So. Maybe Morgan recognized me the other night after all.

  She has me sit facing the glass wall so the rising sun is in my face and I have to squint to look at her, silhouetted against the spotless glass. Dr. Klein arranges herself on a sofa in the corner, her knees drawn up underneath her, her hand tucked under her chin. It’s unsettling seeing her in such a casual pose and it occurs to me that the discovery of Hunter’s body has hit her much harder than I anticipated. I didn’t think about it much, but I’d assumed that she’d given him up for dead. Maybe she hadn’t.

  Morgan clears her throat. “Where were you two nights ago?”

  “Studying.”

  “You logged out of the dorm for dinner at five thirty p.m.”

  “Yes.”

  “You logged back in around ten thirty.”

  “That’s right.” I look at her dark figure. Her face is indistinguishable from the rest of her, backlit by the slowly brightening campus.

  “You were studying all that time?”

  “I ate first. Then I headed over to my friend Nola’s room. We studied, I left, went for a run, came back to my room, and studied again until midnight.”

  Morgan shifts in her chair, pulls a notebook from her pocket, and jots a few things down. “Let me get this straight. Dinner at five thirty, Nola’s at, say, six thirty, you signed out of her dorm at seven thirty-eight, and back into your dorm at ten forty-two, and then you studied until midnight.”