Where the Truth Lies

by Jessica Warman

  Like when she answers her door, after I’ve been banging on it for a good thirty seconds. “Hola, babycakes,” she says, batting her long brown eyelashes at me. “What’s up?”

  She’s just gotten out of the shower; a short, white silk bathrobe clings to her still-damp body, which is lanky and flawless. Her dark hair is wrapped tightly in a towel, her widow’s peak exposed on her forehead. I know for a fact that Renee, with all her money, does not own a blow-dryer. She just lets her hair air-dry, runs a comb through it, and voilà: tousled perfection. I don’t know why, but I’m infinitely annoyed by this factoid. I mean, who doesn’t own a hair dryer? It’s like not owning a toothbrush or something.

  Personally, I don’t know what I’d do without one; I have long red hair that is thick and wavy and will not respond to a hairbrush without a heavy spraying of detangler beforehand. Nobody knows where the color came from; both of my parents have brown hair. I’m also covered in freckles. You’d think that, being a redhead and all, I’d have one of those fiery, feisty personalities, but I don’t; most people would probably describe me as quiet and somewhat shy. Standing across from Renee, I feel impossibly strange looking. Not exotic strange, like she is, just weird strange.

  “Do you have to ask what’s up?” I say, trying my best to sound imposing.

  She blinks. There’s no sarcasm in her voice; it’s just matter-of-fact. “I just did.”

  “Franny,” I tell her. “I found her practically unconscious against the screen on our windowsill. She could have fallen out. I could be staring at her dead body right now.”

  Renee shakes her head. “Don’t be so dramatic, Emily. That seems unlikely. She was fine when I left her.”

  I look around; we shouldn’t be talking about this in the hallway. “Can I come in?”

  Renee’s roommate, Hillary Swisher, is gone; there’s no doubt in my mind she’s over at her boyfriend’s dorm, making out on the common-room sofa. Instead, there are a few other girls in the room. They all look younger, and I don’t recognize any of them, which means they’re probably—

  “Seventh graders,” Renee explains, nodding at them with a sincere smile.

  Right.

  Of the three, it’s obvious two of them have been crying. They sit cross-legged on Renee’s bed, legs and elbows touching, kind of holding on to each other. They look lost. The first few weeks at any new school are tough, but I can’t imagine going away to boarding school at age twelve. I mean—I did go to boarding school at twelve, but my dad was just down the hall in his office. I could walk to my parents’ house whenever I wanted. These girls are alone, parents probably hundreds of miles away. Sometimes I think it is kind of a cruel thing to do to your own child, but pretty much everyone starts at Stonybrook in seventh grade. It’s just the way things happen for some people.

  Renee gives them another demure smile. Despite their homesickness, they’re clearly in awe of her. I mean, everyone who’s been to the movies or stood in line at a supermarket browsing the tabloids knows who Renee is. She leans over her bed and puts her arms around them in a group hug. She takes a moment to kiss each of them on the forehead. I find the gesture surprisingly sweet and touching, and it takes me a little off guard. I’d always imagined that Renee was too cool to be overly sensitive or caring, but she certainly seems that way now.

  “I have to talk to Emily in private for a few minutes,” she says, “but why don’t the three of you come get me when you’re ready to go up to dinner?”

  They nod. They give me hesitant, tearful smiles on their way out. For a minute I forget all about Franny, but as soon as the door closes I remember why I’m here: because that was Franny, four years ago. And in a lot of ways, it still is.

  As I step farther into the room, Renee says in a sarcastic tone, “Be careful to stay on my side.”

  This is the first year Renee and Hillary have been roommates, and I hear they’ve already been bickering nonstop.

  Right now, a thick line of duct tape divides the room into two halves.

  “It creates kind of a problem,” Renee says as I stare at the tape, “because, as you can see, our closet is on Hillary’s side of the room, and the door is on my side.”

  “Uh-huh. And this was whose idea?”

  “Not mine.” With a wicked little grin, Renee strolls pointedly across the line to Hillary’s bed, takes her wet hair out of the towel, and tosses the towel onto her roommate’s side of the floor. Then she lies down on Hillary’s bed, her hair getting the pillowcase all wet. “God, I miss Madeline.”

  I sigh. “No kidding.” Madeline Moon-Park was Renee’s old roommate. She didn’t come back to school this year. “Where did she go?” I ask.

  Renee shrugs. “I don’t know. I can’t get ahold of her. She changed her e-mail address, and her home phone doesn’t work. All I know is that I came back expecting to room with Madeline, and she didn’t show up, so they put me with Hillary instead.” She pauses. “Don’t you know where she went? Didn’t your dad say anything?”

  I shake my head. “Just that she wasn’t coming back. I figured you would have talked to her by now.”

  “Well, I haven’t. You know what she’s like. If she doesn’t want to talk, she’s not going to talk.”

  I almost smile. There was nobody else like Madeline. I never understood how she and Renee got to be so close, but their relationship was practically telepathic. For a moment, I imagine how I’d feel if Franny or Steph or Grace suddenly disappeared, never to be heard from again. I’d be heartsick.

  “Want to know why she did it?” Renee asks, her tone shifting from nostalgia to bitterness.

  “You know why Madeline left?”

  “No. Want to know why Hillary put the tape down?”

  “Oh. Sure.” With the room split in two, it’s obvious this is a mismatched pair of individuals. Renee’s side is a mess: piles of clothing and shoes litter the floor; the bed is unmade; Renee’s desk is covered with books and papers and a coffeepot that is half-full, definitely not fresh—there’s fuzzy white mold climbing the sides of the pot, growing on the surface of the sludge. Amidst the mess on her desk, there are several framed photographs of Renee with Bruce Graham. In one of them, she’s standing beside him on the red carpet at, like, age twelve, his “date” to the Academy Awards. I remember that so vividly from eighth grade; Renee going to the Oscars for spring break was the talk of the school.

  Hillary’s side of the room is spotless—at least it was, until Renee threw her towel on the floor and got into the bed. There isn’t a stitch of clothing in sight; all of Hillary’s schoolbooks are stacked neatly on a small bookshelf. Above her bed, there’s a collage of photos, mostly of her and her boyfriend and a few other friends. I don’t see Renee in any of them.

  “Last Saturday, I came home early from the city, and Hillary was gone—off somewhere with Max, of course.”

  Max Franklin is Hillary’s boyfriend. The two have been inseparable since the ninth grade. They’re the kind of couple who makes everyone, including me, want to gag. They’ll probably get married someday.

  “So Hillary rolls in around midnight, drunk as a skunk, and she starts puking everywhere, right?” Renee sits up, getting angry all over again. “I mean everywhere. I was asleep, and she woke me up with … well, let’s just say it was disgusting.”

  “But you said she’s the one who put down the tape?”

  Renee’s tone is calm. “Would you listen to me, Emily? I’m trying to explain something to you. After she passed out, I was so … I don’t know, so kertwanged over the whole mess. But somebody had to clean it up, right? I mean, we’ve gotta live in this room, obviously.”

  I glance at the moldy coffeepot again. “Uh-huh.”

  “So I cleaned it up all by myself,” she finishes.

  “And that’s what made Hillary so mad?” I give her a doubtful look. “Really?”

  Renee shrugs. She tries to hold back a smile without success. “Well … I used her clothes to clean up the … mess.”

&
nbsp; “You used her clothes?”

  “Right. But not her uniforms—I mean, we had school the next day. Hillary’s a clotheshorse—she’s all about couture and whatever, you know?”

  I do know.

  “I used her real clothes. Some of them got ruined.” She sighs, looks around the room. “I might have gone a little too far. Hence the tape. We’re still adjusting to each other.”

  “So I take it Hillary’s still mad?”

  Renee shrugs. “She’ll be over it soon.”

  That’s what it’s like here: things flare up and diffuse, flare up and diffuse. You get really good at conflict resolution. Ten girls in a dorm—you can’t be mortal enemies with anyone, especially your roommate. It would make life miserable.

  But we’re way off track. I cross my arms and try to glare at her. “Listen, I don’t want you getting Franny stoned anymore.”

  Renee raises one thick, perfect eyebrow. “What are you, her mom?”

  Good thing I’m not, I think.

  “You two aren’t even friends,” I say. “Why were you hanging out in the first place?”

  It occurs to me that Renee is probably stoned, too. I can’t even tell. That’s another thing about her. She’s the kind of person who’s so self-assured, she’d never be the type to get paranoid or weird when she’s high.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “Sincerely. I just wanted to help.”

  “By getting her high? How was that helping?”

  “I was trying to get her to eat. You know—the munchies?”

  I shake my head. “Yeah, I know all about the munchies. But that makes no sense. Why were you trying to get her to eat?”

  “Emily, have you seen the girl naked? We were in the bathroom together, okay, and she was walking around in her shower shoes and those weird underwear of hers, and I could see the divot in her sternum. With her hair pulled up, I could see the outline of her skull. She has fuzzy hair on her arms—did you know that happens to people when they’re starving themselves? And then I was thinking about it, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her eat.”

  “You think she’s anorexic?” I frown. “Listen, I know Franny. She’s got plenty of problems, but that’s not one of them.”

  Renee takes a long moment to consider me. “You seem so certain. The girl is so stressed that she’s literally pulling her hair out. It’s called—”

  “I know what it’s called. And she’s seeing a therapist for it,” I lie. Franny’s mother is very antitherapy, very much “everything’s happy and great as long as we don’t talk about it.” She’s a very popular politician.

  “So you aren’t worried?” Renee asks.

  “No,” I say. “I see her eat. Franny’s always been too skinny.”

  Renee shrugs. “If you say so. I thought stuffing her face might do her some good. I was only trying to help.” She gets up, smooths the sheets on Hillary’s bed, and flips the pillow to hide the wet spot. With her back to me, she says, “I stay up really late sometimes.”

  When I don’t respond, she turns around, steps deliberately across the tape to her side of the room, and adds, “Sometimes I hear you. What do you dream about?”

  I’m not sure how to answer her. Why is she bringing this up? “I don’t remember. Everyone has nightmares sometimes. We’re, you know”—I borrow one of Dr. Miller’s favorite reassuring phrases, trying to hide my sarcasm—“in a time of great transition from childhood to adulthood.”

  Renee shakes her head, damp hair landing perfectly across her shoulders. “You’re lying to me, Emily.”

  “Oh yeah? Who are you all of a sudden, Sigmund Freud? My roommate’s anorexic, I’ve got issues with my dreams … you’re like a real Svengali, aren’t you?”

  She seems genuinely sorry, almost confused. “I was just trying to help Franny. And sometimes when you scream …” She shudders. “It’s horrible.”

  I’m at a total loss for words. I’ve never had a conversation remotely this intimate with Renee before.

  “Well … I’m sorry I wake you up.”

  She blinks. “I didn’t say you woke me. I said I heard you. I’m already awake.”

  “Oh.”

  “ …”

  “ …”

  “Just … let me worry about Franny, okay? She’ll be all right. We’ll both be fine.” I attempt a smile. “Worry about your territory war over here, okay? You’ll get used to Hillary.”

  “Hillary Swisher,” Renee declares, “will never be Madeline Moon-Park.”

  I giggle. Everybody misses Madeline—she was obnoxious to the point of hilarity, a tiny bundle of energy with the foulest mouth I’d ever heard—and it’s just like her to disappear without a word to anyone.

  “If you leave Franny alone,” I say, “I’ll try to find out what happened to Madeline.”

  Renee shrugs. “If we don’t know by now, we probably never will.” Her expression grows serious. “Emily—you can knock, you know? If you can’t sleep. I have tranquilizers. They’re prescription. They’ll knock you out. Or we could stay up …”

  All of a sudden, I’ve had my fill of Renee. I stare at the duct tape, unwilling to meet her gaze. “I should check on my roommate.”

  Back in the quad, I find Franny snoring softly into her pillow, fast asleep. The sheet beside her is covered in a tiny bundle of hairs. Even though it’s only late afternoon, she’ll likely stay this way until morning if I don’t wake her up. She sleeps a lot.

  Grace and Stephanie’s door is closed. They’re back.

  I walk in without knocking. Both of them are on the bottom bunk—Stephanie’s bed—sitting cross-legged atop the covers in their bras and underwear. Because their room is captive, it’s always like ten degrees hotter than everywhere else in the dorm. The heat is incredible; it’s gotta be close to ninety. Both of them are sweating, sipping mineral water, having a lazy conversation.

  “I’m going to cheat on my Latin quiz,” Stephanie murmurs to nobody in particular. Her gaze flickers to me and she gives me a bright smile. “Emily! Yay!” She pats the space beside her on the bed. “Come. Sit.”

  “How are you gonna do that? You’ll get caught. You’ll get kicked out.” Grace is the most excitable person I’ve ever met. She’s constantly making wild predictions about everybody’s future. She’s almost always wrong.

  Stephanie hooks her arm around me as soon as I’m seated beside her, my head resting on her shoulder. “I will not get caught. She uses the same quizzes for every class. Ethan took his last week, and he kept it for me. I’m just going to memorize his answers. Would you relax already?”

  Oh, Ethan Prince. Ethan is Stephanie’s twin brother, and they’re superclose. He’s a prefect and an all-around good guy. He even looks like Clark Kent, except not in an “I can’t tell that Clark Kent is Superman” kind of way, but in a “Clark Kent is obviously Superman” way. The only reason he’d ever help his sister cheat is because Steph has taken Latin for almost four years and can still barely conjugate.

  Stephanie has been my best friend since about the first week of seventh grade. We had all the same classes together, and the friendship just kind of fell into place. We’ve been inseparable ever since. But Stephanie and Ethan are completely different. While Ethan doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, Stephanie is much more … spirited. She says what’s on her mind all the time, even if it hurts someone. A lot of people think she’s a bitch. I like to think she provides balance to my personality—I’ve always been so quiet, I can use someone outspoken sometimes. But lately, especially since school started this year, something feels different about our relationship. Stephanie seems more callous, more defensive somehow, and it bothers me more than it used to.

  But she’s been my best friend since we were twelve. I’m not going to let things just slip away. So I rest my head on her shoulder again, and feel content knowing that, for right now, life is good.

  “Hey, Em.” Grace turns her head lazily in my direction. She sighs. “It’s a freaking oven in here.
”

  I undo the top few buttons of my own shirt. The windows are open, but the air outside is stagnant; there’s no cross-breeze. “We could go into my room.”

  Stephanie yawns. “Franny’s practically comatose. Besides, your room stinks. Is she stoned?”

  “Yup.” I give them a quick rundown of the afternoon’s events.

  Stephanie digs a Latin quiz with a big A+ at the top out of her book bag, stares at it blankly for a few moments, and then tosses it aside. It glides to the floor like there’s a thickness to the air; that’s how hot it is in here.

  “So Madeline isn’t coming back for sure?” Stephanie asks. “Emily, ask your dad already. He’s gotta know something.”

  “I can try.” If I’m supersneaky, I can probably get my dad to tell me what he knows—maybe. Like I said, he thinks it’s important to treat me like any other student … most of the time.

  “He might not be able to tell you,” Steph murmurs. “You know, student confidentiality laws and all that.” Her long, curly blond hair is pulled into a messy ponytail. She and Ethan are fraternal twins, obviously, and they’re both good-looking as hell, but they don’t even seem related in lots of ways. Aside from the differences in their personalities, Stephanie looks just like her dad, while Ethan looks like their mom. “Ooh, Grace!” Stephanie is suddenly excited. “Show her! Show her what we got at the mall!”

  “Yes!” Grace hops out of bed. Her muscles are visible everywhere beneath her tan skin; she’s a cross-country runner. She goes to a bag beside her bed, leans over to dig inside, and emerges looking triumphant. “Look. What. We. Got.” She adds, as though I wouldn’t know, “It’s for your dad’s car. Think we can sneak it onto the Escalade somewhere?”