My Best Friend's Exorcism

by Grady Hendrix

  Sometimes a clueless dork would ask why she looked like a clown, and in bright sunlight she could be confused for a Miss America contestant in full stage makeup, but Abby diverted the attention by being cheerful all the time. When there was a joke to be made, she made it. When there was something nice to do, she did it. And by eighth grade, when people started reinventing their looks in preparation for high school, everyone just accepted that this was the way Abby looked.

  The downside was that it took her a solid half hour in the morning to sponge, powder, and poke her face into submission. She had to put down a base layer of foundation, then blend, and smooth, and powder, and draw on her eyebrows and do her lips and do her blush for color, and get everything perfectly in balance so that she didn’t look like Tammy Faye Bakker. But as long as she woke up early enough, it was actually kind of relaxing to watch her acne scars disappear underneath her real face as she got prettier and prettier, section by section.

  Her shift started in twenty minutes, so she finished her makeup, sprayed her bangs up high, put on her green and white uniform, pulled her ponytail through the back of her baseball cap, resprayed her bangs, and got everything situated.

  She drove to the strip mall on Coleman, and for the next six hours Abby stood in the cold glass cube of TCBY, marinating in the sour vanilla stink of frozen yogurt. It didn’t bother her. Every hour she spent chilling in this giant freezer was another four dollars in her bank account.

  It was a pretty uneventful shift until around four thirty, when the telephone rang.

  “TCBY, how may I help you?” Abby said.

  “Blood,” Gretchen said. “Everything’s covered in blood.”

  It’s the End of the World as

  We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

  Abby turned her back to the line of customers and dropped her voice. She heard sloshing in the background. “Where are you?” she asked.

  “I took a bath,” Gretchen said. “And I decided to shave my legs but the water turned bright red and I don’t know if it’s my blood, or a flashback, or if it’s real, or if I’m freaking out.”

  The background sound dropped away and Abby heard a high-pitched buzzing.

  “Help me,” Gretchen whispered.

  “How much is there?” Abby asked.

  “A lot.”

  “Okay, stand up. Get out of the tub, and stand in front of the mirror. Stand on a white towel.”

  Dee Dee tugged Abby’s sleeve.

  “We’ve got a line,” she said.

  “One sec,” Abby mouthed, waving Dee Dee away, because frozen yogurt was really not a priority right now. She heard splashing over the receiver, then dripping, then silence.

  “Are you looking?” Abby asked. “Is there blood on the towel?”

  A long pause.

  “No,” Gretchen said, relief in her voice.

  “You’re sure? The towel’s fine?”

  “Yes. God, I’m losing my mind.”

  “Watch TV and I’ll talk to you tonight,” Abby said. “Don’t forget to call me.”

  “I’m sorry I bugged you,” Gretchen said. “Go work.”

  Abby hung up and, having solved a major crisis, she happily pulled vanilla cones and spooned Heath bar crunch over them until nine o’clock, when she and Dee Dee locked up. When Abby got home she turned on the tail end of The Jerry Lewis Telethon, got into bed, and held one finger on the cradle of her Mickey Mouse phone until exactly 11:06. This was her nightly phone date with Gretchen. She could never call Gretchen’s house this late, and technically Gretchen wasn’t supposed to call either, but as long as Abby kept her finger on the cradle and let go the moment the ringer vibrated, her parents never had a clue.

  But that night, the phone never rang.

  Seven twenty on Monday morning and mist clung to the Old Village, creeping up from the harbor, forming a white scrim that hovered over the ground, blurring all the hard lines. Abby pulled onto Pierates Cruze and rolled to a stop in front of Gretchen’s house, singing along to Phil Collins because nothing put her in a better mood. In the back seat was a tray of rice krispie treats to give Gretchen a soft landing after the hard weekend.

  Gretchen usually waited for Abby on the street, but this morning there was only Good Dog Max. He’d tipped over Dr. Bennett’s garbage can and was up to his shoulders in trash. When Abby put on the parking brake he started and spun around, standing stiff-legged, staring at the Dust Bunny until she opened her door, at which point he leapt over the white trash bags, caught his front legs, and face-planted into them. Abby ran to the front door while he flailed around.

  Instead of a sleepy Gretchen ready for her Diet Coke infusion, the glass door unsealed and Mrs. Lang stood there in her housecoat.

  “Gretchen won’t be coming to school today,” she said.

  “Can I go up?” Abby asked.

  She heard a rumble as Gretchen avalanched down the stairs, dressed for school, bookbag over one shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “You hardly slept,” Mrs. Lang said, grabbing Gretchen’s bookbag and dragging her to a halt. “I’m the mother and I say you’re staying home.”

  “Get OFF me,” Gretchen yelled, twisting away.

  Abby’s skin felt hot and clammy. Their fighting always embarrassed her. She never knew how to make it clear whose side she was on.

  “Tell her, Abby,” Gretchen said. “It’s vital to my education that I go.”

  Mrs. Lang looked in Abby’s direction, forcing Abby to stumble over her words.

  “Well,” she said. “Um . . .”

  Mrs. Lang’s face fell.

  “Oh, Max,” she said.

  Abby looked behind her. Good Dog Max had trotted up the path and was staring at the three of them as if he’d never seen them before. A stained Maxipad was stuck to his muzzle.

  “Gross,” Abby said, laughing. She grabbed Max’s collar and pulled him toward the door.

  “No, Abby!” Mrs. Lang said. “He’s covered in yuck.” She took hold of the collar, and in the confusion Gretchen slipped from her grip and broke for the Dust Bunny, dragging Abby along in her wake.

  “Bye, Mom,” she called over her shoulder.

  Mrs. Lang looked up.

  “Gretchen—” she said, but by then they were at the end of the driveway.

  Dr. Bennett was squatting by his garbage cans; he looked up as they ran by.

  “Keep that dern dog out of my yard,” he said. “I’ve got my air rifle.”

  “Morning, Dr. Bennett,” Gretchen said with a wave as the two of them slammed into the Dust Bunny and Abby pulled out.

  “Why didn’t you call last night?” Abby asked.

  “I was on the phone with Andy,” Gretchen said.

  She handed Abby two sweaty quarters and reached between the seats to pull out the Diet Coke that Abby always brought her.

  Abby was annoyed. Gretchen had come back from Bible camp talking about nothing but Andy, her great summer love. Andy was so cool. Andy was so studly. Andy was so living in Florida and Gretchen was so going to go visit him. By the first week of July she’d forgotten about him, and Abby assumed it was over. Now here he was again.

  “Great,” Abby said.

  She hated that she sounded sour, so she put on a smile and cocked her head like she was interested. Abby hadn’t seen any pictures of Andy (“Andy says that taking pictures is like clinging to the past,” Gretchen said, sighing) and she hadn’t talked to him on the phone (“I’m writing him letters,” Gretchen crooned. “They’re so much more meaningful.”), but Abby could picture him perfectly. He was a gimpy hunchback with one eyebrow and braces. Maybe headgear.

  “He’s done acid before,” Gretchen said. “And he told me that the thing in my bathtub was totally normal. A lot of people have had that happen, so I’m not Syd Barrett.”

  Abby was gripping the steering whee
l so hard her fingers ached.

  “I told you it was fine,” she said, smiling.

  Gretchen leaned forward, rifled through Abby’s tapes, and popped in their awesome summer mix. By the time they roared into the student parking lot in a cloud of white dust, they were both screaming along with Bonnie Tyler, having Total Eclipses of the Heart. Abby cruised into an empty space at the far end, put the Dust Bunny in park, and yanked the emergency brake. They were facing the sports fields that led to the headmaster’s house, where five of the stray dogs that made their home in the marsh were chasing one another through the mist.

  “Ready for AA?” Abby asked Gretchen.

  Gretchen flinched, then turned to check the backseat.

  “I’m having flashbacks,” Gretchen said.

  “What?” Abby said.

  “Someone keeps touching the back of my neck,” Gretchen said. “It kept me up all night.”

  “Wowzers,” Abby said. “You have turned into Syd Barrett.”

  Gretchen flipped her the bird.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to AA.”

  They got out of the Dust Bunny and headed into school. On the way, Abby brushed her hand against the back of Gretchen’s neck and Gretchen jumped.

  “Stop,” she said. “You wouldn’t like it if I did it to you.”

  Albemarle Academy sat at the end of Albemarle Pointe on the Ashley River, bordered by marsh on two sides and by the Crescent subdivision on the third. Albemarle was expensive and intensive, and everyone who went there thought they were better than everyone else in Charleston.

  “Uh-oh,” Gretchen said.

  She nodded ahead and Abby looked as they crossed Albemarle Road, which separated the student parking lot and the sports fields from the school buildings. That enormous wall of meat, Coach Toole, was crossing in the opposite direction, wearing obscenely tight weightlifting pants.

  “Ladies,” he said, nodding as he passed.

  “Coach,” Gretchen said, swinging her bookbag around and reaching inside. “You want some nuts? My mom gave me a bag.”

  “No, thanks,” he said, still walking. “I’ve got my own nuts.”

  The two girls looked at each other, incredulous, and then ran away laughing, racing up the sidewalk by the drop-off lanes where Trey Sumter, already behind on his homework this early in the year, was sitting on the bench by the flagpole, begging them as they passed. “Did y’all do those earth science questions?”

  “Igneous rock, Trey,” Gretchen said. “It’s always igneous rock.”

  Then Abby and Gretchen turned the corner into the breezeway, with the front office on one side and the glass doors leading into the upper school hallway on the other, the vast green Lawn spread out before them, the bell tower rising on the other side, and they were in the thick of it, surrounded by the student body of Albemarle Academy.

  “Oh, God, spare me,” Gretchen said. “We’re all so pathetic.”

  They were the children of doctors and lawyers and bank presidents, and their parents owned boats and horses, plantations in the country and beach houses on Seabrook, and they lived in gracious homes in Mt. Pleasant or in historic houses downtown. And every single one of them was exactly the same.

  The Albemarle student handbook was the Bible, and the dress code was clear: you dressed like your parents. The kids saved their big hair, big colors, and big shoulderpads for the weekends. During the week the dress code was all New England prep academy. The girls dressed like “young ladies,” the boys like “young gentlemen” and if you didn’t know what that meant, then you didn’t belong at Albemarle.

  The boys had it the worst. They shopped at M. Dumas, the shabby chic store on King Street where their moms picked one look for them in seventh grade, and they stuck with it for the rest of their lives: khakis, long-sleeved Polo shirts in winter, short-sleeved Izod shirts in spring. After college they added a navy sportscoat, a seersucker suit, and an array of “fun” ties to wear to their first jobs at local law firms or their fathers’ banks.

  The girls tried. Occasionally, a rebel like Jocelyn Zuckerman showed up wearing cornrows, which, although not explicitly banned by the dress code, were considered outrageous enough to get her sent home. But for the most part they kept their self-expression inside the dress code through elaborate workarounds. White turtlenecks were for girls who wanted to draw attention to their chests without showing forbidden cleavage. Girls who thought they had good butts wore stirrup pants that clung to their assets. Subdued animal prints (leopard, tiger, zebra) were popular with girls who were trying to project unique personalities. But no matter how hard they tried, they all still looked the same.

  Because it wasn’t just their clothes. Albemarle taught grades one through twelve but there were only seventy-two students in Abby’s class, and most of them had been going to Albemarle together since first grade. They had carpooled to Brownies together, and gone to Cotillion together, and their mothers belonged to the Hibernian Society together, and their dads did business and went dove hunting together.

  It was a school where everyone complained about the work load, but ragged on public schools for being “too easy.” Where

  everyone hated the dress code, but snickered at the “rednecks” who roamed Citadel Mall in stonewashed denim and mullets. Where everyone was desperate to be an individual, but they all were terrified to stand out.

  The first bell rang and they headed to class, and all day long Abby distributed rice krispie treats wherever she went: Intro to Computing, where the new teacher, Mr. Barlow, told them there was no eating around his computers. Then Geometry with Mrs. Massey, who confiscated them, ate two, and returned the tray to Abby at the end of class. U.S. History, where Abby made sure to give everyone treats before the second bell rang and the intolerable Mr. Groat appeared and made everyone throw them in the garbage.

  As soon as the bell rang for lunch, Abby met up with Gretchen and they headed for the Lawn. Framed by the front office and the breezeway on one side and the auditorium on the other, the Lawn existed in the shadow of the bell tower. Set next to the auditorium entrance, the tower was a four-story rectangular monolith made of rust-colored bricks hammered into the heart of the school like a stake. On the side facing the Lawn, large metal letters spelled out the school motto: “Faith & Honor.”

  They found Glee and Margaret sitting on one of the Charleston benches in the sun near the bocce players. Abby and Gretchen plonked down on the grass, broke out their green apples and yogurt cups, and soon they were talking about Saturday night like they were old pros who’d been dropping acid since Woodstock.

  “Are y’all getting flashbacks?” Abby asked.

  “Yeah,” Margaret said. “I saw your face on a dog’s butt.”

  “That’s barely even funny,” Abby said. “Gretchen got flashbacks.”

  They all looked at Gretchen, who shrugged.

  “I was just tired,” she said.

  That didn’t sound right to Abby. Normally Gretchen loved sharing drama.

  “What happened?” Glee asked.

  “The acid didn’t work,” Margaret explained. “So nothing happened.”

  “I thought I cut my legs shaving,” Gretchen said. “It’s no biggie.”

  “That is grotesque,” Glee said. “Were you in the tub? Did you think you were bleeding to death?”

  Gretchen ripped out bits of grass until Abby came to her rescue.

  “I heard stuff in the woods when I was looking for her,” Abby said.

  “What kind of stuff?” Glee asked, leaning forward.

  “Weird noises,” Abby said. “And I saw some old building.”

  “Oh, yeah. That thing,” Margaret said, barely interested. “It’s totally like some historic landmark we can’t tear down. It’s so tainted.”

  Abby turned back to Gretchen. “Do you remember anything that happened?”

>   Gretchen wasn’t listening. She was hunched forward, and while Abby watched, her shoulders twitched and she flinched again.

  “Earth to Space Ace,” Margaret said. “What happened when you were naked in my backyard?”

  “Who was naked?” a voice asked, and suddenly Wallace Stoney was among them.

  Instantly, the mood changed. The girls could relax around one another, but Wallace Stoney was a senior, and a boy, and a football player. He thought friendships were emotional, and emotions were weakness, and weakness must be stomped.

  “Gretchen was,” said Margaret, scooting over on the bench.

  “You should have done ’shrooms,” he said, sitting beside her and squeezing out Glee. She stood up and joined Abby and Gretchen on the grass.

  Wallace Stoney had a hairlip scar, and Abby was always fascinated that it hadn’t made him a nicer person. In fact, he was a giant jackass, and they only tolerated him because he was a senior and he was going out with Margaret, and Margaret only put up with him because he did whatever she said.

  He put an awkward arm around Margaret and hauled her legs onto his lap. “Lovemaking is intense when you’re shrooming,” he said, gazing into her eyes.

  “Make me barf now,” Glee said. “I’m going to the computer lab.”

  “Nerd,” Margaret called after her.

  “I’m coming with,” Gretchen said, getting up.

  “What’s the matter?” Wallace leered. “Did I make the virgins uncomfortable?”

  Gretchen stopped, turned, and looked at Wallace for a full second.

  “It takes one to know one,” she said and took off after Glee.

  Abby got up to follow. “I’ll leave y’all to your face-sucking.”

  By the time she caught up with Gretchen, the bell was ringing and so she didn’t see her again until volleyball practice. Their first game was coming up and it would be totally humiliating if they lost. Last year they’d beaten Ashley Hall 12–0, but now the JV team’s power players had moved up to varsity and Coach Greene was not enthusiastic about their chances.