Brown Girl Ghosted

by Mintie Das

  Bright beams of moonlight shine through my windows, illuminating the silhouette of a girl. She’s suspended from the ceiling Mission: Impossible–style except there are no ropes or wires attached to her. The girl hangs in midair like a stringless marionette. Wild, unkempt locks fall over her face and she wears nothing but a white sheet around her emaciated torso. Her bones protrude through her thin, papery skin.

  The Aiedeo are certainly a diverse bunch, but I have never seen one that looks so dead. I am trembling so hard that my fingers are actually vibrating as I reach under my bed for the skull chain. When I find it, I try to lift the chain above my head. It’s way too heavy.

  I get out of bed and stand with my feet apart. Then I lift the skull chain with both hands and start to swing it around. My body eases into a rhythm. I remember when the Aiedeo taught me how to use a similar weapon back in the day.

  To my uneasy surprise, the girl doesn’t move, which isn’t very Aiedeo of her. Those chicks always liked a good fight. Finally the girl lifts her head.

  I stop midswing and stand on my tiptoes to get a better look. Nothing about her is recognizable, yet now there is no denying who it is. The skull chain drops to the ground as my body goes limp and I fall onto the bed.

  My heart, which is now lodged in my throat, stops beating. I force myself to speak. “N-Naomi . . .” A hundred questions race through my head, none of which I actually want the answers to.

  Naomi doesn’t respond; she just widens her dry, cracked lips into a bizarre grin. I cower at the very edge of my bed. What is this?

  I pinch myself until it hurts. Okay, I am awake. I scramble through explanations until I land on the most plausible: Naomi is playing a sick joke on me as retaliation for the bitch-out. “Naomi, I kept my mouth shut. It was Collette, Jessica, and the rest of them. Go get your payback with them.”

  Again, there is nothing but silence. My fear is quickly turning into annoyance. What am I doing speaking to this prop like it’s actually Naomi? I can imagine her and Tessa recording this entire prank; tomorrow there’ll be a YouTube video of me almost pissing my pants over a doll hanging from my ceiling. Maybe that’s Naomi’s revenge plan—to humiliate all of us.

  “Okay, it’s time to go. Fun’s over, bitch.” I jump up again but this time I whack at the life-size dummy as though it’s a piñata.

  Suddenly, there is a loud snapping sound like bones breaking. I freeze as Naomi pops each of her shoulders out of its socket and extends her arms like Gumby. She pushes me back down on my bed so hard that I bite my tongue. The sting radiates through to the back of my mouth.

  Before I can move, Naomi drops down from the ceiling so that now she is floating upright directly in front of me. The right side of Naomi’s skull is bashed in and her feet are backwards so that her heels are facing me. I gasp. She’s even more grotesque than dead Dr. Jenkins. I try to edge back farther but I am already smashed up against the wall. But Naomi doesn’t go after me. Instead, she heads in the opposite direction.

  “The fun is just starting, bitch,” Naomi whispers before she jumps out of my window.

  Day 5: Alive

  Meryl waits with me in MHS’s parking lot until way after the school bell rings but Naomi never shows up. I know deep down inside, in a place that I’m not ready to face, that she won’t. Still, I spend all morning asking our mutual friends if they ’ve seen Naomi. They mostly reply with snarky jokes about orgies and gangbangs.

  When there is still no word from Naomi at lunch, my denial starts to wane. Then the county sheriff shows up with a man dressed in a suit that is too tailored for Meadowdale and a brunette who looks like a TV cop and rumors start to fly. The only time Sheriff Hopper comes to MHS on police business is to give us his yearly scared-straight seminar that he hopes becomes a TED Talk or to oversee the biannual locker searches.

  “Naomi got arrested for distributing pornography to minors,” I hear Collette whisper to Becca during study hall and I whip around.

  “What about Naomi?”

  “Thought you were #2good2gossip, Violet.” Collette rolls her eyes. “Even though it’s not gossip if it’s, like, a fact.”

  I want to rip Collette’s boingy ponytail off her head but I control myself. “What’s a fact? That Naomi got busted?”

  If that is true, then it makes perfect sense that Naomi is absent today. Right? It might just be the case.

  “Well, I don’t know if she’s in jail or anything, but Lara works in Principal Wagner’s office and she overheard the sheriff say Naomi’s name. Then she mentioned it to Colby, who she’s kinda hooking up with, and his mom is like a bigtime lawyer in Springfield. Way bigger than Meryl’s dad, BTW. And Colby said that since a lot of the kids who saw Naomi’s sex tape were under seventeen and considered minors, she could go to prison for distributing porn to children.”

  I frown. I’m not sure that’s how the law works; as usual, Collette’s “facts” are about as reliable as a holey condom.

  Becca takes a small tube of lotion from her bag and rubs it into her hands. “Girls like Naomi—” She’s interrupted by the snap, crackle, and pop of our ancient PA system. “Will all students and faculty please proceed to the gymnasium immediately.”

  Groans and moans echo through the classroom. I wait to hear the rest of the announcement. Surely there’ll be something about a special assembly with the prizewinners from the 4-H fair or a visit from the local Rotarians. They never just interrupt the school day for an impromptu get-together in the gym. The knot in the pit of my stomach grows to the size of a grapefruit.

  I walk into the hallway without speaking to anyone. As I round the corner, my knees start to wobble. I step into the gym and quickly scan the place for Meryl. We’re supposed to stay with our classes, but I need my best friend.

  “Come on, kids! Quickly! Find a seat and sit down,” Mrs. Thorpe, one of the PE teachers, shouts.

  “Keep on movin’! That’s right, keep on movin’!” Mr. Cox, the other PE teacher, yells at us as though he is herding cattle.

  I spot Meryl on the second row of bleachers and dart toward her. The sheriff huddles with the principal and other school administrators off to the side. “There could be a million reasons why they brought us here,” Meryl says as I squeeze in next to her.

  I stay silent and stare straight ahead.

  Meryl shoots me a worried look. “Except that Dr. Phan and Mr. Shay are up there with the cops. School counselors usually means there’s a crisis.”

  I can hear my heart beating.

  The assistant principal, who was a former army commander, steps up to the microphone. “Silence, soldiers! We need everyone’s attention up here. Right now.” The roar in the gymnasium dulls but it’s still too loud to hear anything.

  “Shut up,” the sheriff hollers. He looks like the type of guy who spends a lot of time watching Clint Eastwood movies. The assistant principal grimaces.

  “Listen up, kids. This is important,” Mr. Wagner calls out. His calmer approach has the right effect and the crowd quiets down. “We have some tragic news to share with you,” he continues. His face is red and splotchy, like he’s been crying. “Sheriff Hopper, I’m gonna let you speak now.”

  The sheriff swaggers back to the microphone stand. I bite down on my lip so hard that I can taste blood.

  “Children, there’s no way for me to break it to y’all easy. Today, we lost one of our own.”

  Please don’t say it, I plead over and over in my head. I grab Meryl’s hand.

  The sheriff clears his throat. “Naomi Talbert is dead.”

  Nine

  I RUB MY BACK up and down against the trunk of the sycamore, letting the rough bark scratch an itch between my shoulder blades that I can’t reach with my fingers. Both grassy banks of the creek (pronounced “crik” by locals) are lined with elms, maples, gingkoes, and a bunch of other trees that I don’t recognize because I never paid attention in my ninth-grade botany lab. The kaleidoscope of their leaves—kiwi, emerald, moss, hunter—reflects dow
n onto the water, giving it the appearance of a thick, murky pea soup.

  The early-evening sun casts a fiery reddish-orange glow over the meadow where the cows graze. They have the same big, golden-brown eyes as me. Maybe this is the real reason why so many of my Indian relatives don’t eat beef. Cows are sacred because they look like they’re part of the family.

  On a few previous occasions down here, I came across an adventurous heifer (as in bovine and not an overweight girl) who bravely escaped through a hole in the wire fence. Once, one of them even made it halfway across the creek’s slippery rocks and fast-moving waters before a ranch hand showed up in a pickup truck to wrangle her back home.

  This whole place is so damn Americana that I can imagine Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer floating by on a raft. It’s hardly my usual scene, especially because I am far from a nature lover, but when Meryl and I discovered it five years ago, we both thought that we’d found our own secret hiding place. We even gave it a code name: Avalon.

  Avalon is tucked away about two miles into the woods, behind a cul-de-sac in Fawn Ridge where Meryl’s mother lives. It isn’t actually that remote, but being here always makes me feel like I’m somewhere else. And today of all days, I wish I could be anywhere else.

  We lost one of our own. The sheriff’s words play in a constant loop in my mind until the sound of a loud beer belch quickly flings me back to the present situation.

  Just before our freshman year, Meryl and I were utterly gutted to find out that our Avalon was actually a favorite spot to hook up, get high, or both for multiple generations of Meadowdale High students. It’s even rumored that the mayor lost his virginity out here. Today, it’s a makeshift memorial ground for Naomi.

  After the assembly, school was dismissed early. We all came out to “the Creek,” which is a far less imaginative name than Avalon, but it’s what this area is commonly called. Maybe not everyone, but it seems that most of the student body showed up at some point. Kids have been coming and going all day. Except for people like me; I’ve been sitting out here for hours, unable to make myself leave.

  I shiver. The shade is just a bit too cool now that the sun is starting to set. But I like the way the sycamore tree’s low-hanging branches act like a shield, distancing me from the rest of my classmates. Meryl is sitting in the sun but she’s close by, which gives me comfort.

  We lost one of our own.

  I look at the splotchy red faces that surround me. There’s been a ton of tears all day long. Actually, hysterical sobbing is more accurate. At times, it feels like a competition to see who can cry the hardest. I’m not sure if I’ve cried at all.

  Crying means acknowledging that Naomi is gone and I can’t do that. I know what I saw last night. I heard the sheriff’s announcement. I’m here watching them all mourn Naomi as though their best friend died. Yet I’m unable to accept any of it.

  They’ve spent the whole day grieving. Most of them have never truly been touched by death, so I forgive them their stupidity. Death—or, rather, the dead—looms over my entire life like the branches of the sycamore tree. I grew up in its shadow and know that once it gets you, it never leaves.

  “Just heard back from my dad and he says he has no info on Naomi,” Meryl tells someone.

  I smile to myself. I don’t even need to look at Meryl to know that she’s lying. There’s a growing obsession among all of us about the who, what, why, and, especially, the how of Naomi’s demise. Collette is working her sources like a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist.

  I overheard some of our friends pressure Meryl to ask her DA dad about Naomi and I know there is no way Meryl is actually going to do it. Both of our dads work with highly classified material. It’s an unspoken rule that we never share anything we hear with civilians. Granted, my dad’s field is international terrorism, which isn’t nearly as juicy as the local law cases Meryl’s dad deals with. Regardless, pumping her dad for inside info right now would make Meryl come off as totally amateur, which is not her style. However, the little white lie Meryl just told our friends seems a particularly befitting way to honor our dead classmate.

  We lost one of our own.

  “Text from Trent,” Collette calls out as if it’s an urgent news alert interrupting our regularly scheduled program. “He says he’s too effed up about Naomi to come down here. RIP.”

  Collette treats this info like it’s earthshattering, but considering Trent and Naomi dated for four years, it seems pretty reasonable that he’s devastated. A few of the kids who smuggled down cases of Keystone Light, a beverage that Naomi called white-trash champagne, hold up their beer cans.

  “And Tessa is supposedly tranquilized due to toxic shock,” Collette continues.

  “Toxic shock is like what happens when you leave your tampon in for too long, Collette,” Becca corrects her. “You probably meant that Tessa is sedated due to shock. Seriously, get a brain, Collette.”

  I look over at Nate. He’s the only one from their inner circle down here. I guess, as Trent’s best friend, he was less close to Naomi than Trent or Tessa, but his eyes are so red that looking at them make mine burn. Then I spot Caleb a few feet away and wonder if the bloodshot eyes are because of tears or weed. I can’t really see Caleb’s eyes because his entire face is pretty messed up from Nate’s beatdown two days ago. I’m not sure if they made up but if they did, it probably involved a lot of drugs.

  “She was just so hot!” Sleazy Bear groans before chugging his beer. He’s been milking all the grief out here for every hug and shady ass-grab he can get.

  This is about the hundredth time today that I have heard a variation of this sentiment. There have also been dozens of well-meaning eulogies that share cherished memories of Naomi. Most people describe her as kind, generous, and full of life, which is as impossible to believe as the fact that she’s actually dead. However, I’m keenly aware of the living’s tendency to glorify the dead. Relatives, particularly Naresh, have canonized my mother’s memory to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if they started referring to her as Saint Laya.

  Naomi was a bitch. Everyone here knew it. But that doesn’t make her death any less painful.

  We lost one of our own.

  I hurt in ways that I didn’t know were possible. Like most of my classmates, I’m not sure if this clusterfuck of emotions is due to losing Naomi herself or to dealing with the fact that one of us can actually die. We’ve spent our entire lives listening to adults lecture us about the dangers of this and that, constantly warning us of our false sense of invincibility. And all of it had about as much effect on us as the “no sex until marriage” tweets the local Purity chapter sends out every weekend.

  Invincibility is one of the few upsides of youth. We are supposed to have our entire lives ahead of us. Naomi was supposed to have hers.

  “Maybe Naomi offed herself,” Jessica says, then hesitates.

  “We don’t know anything yet,” Becca snaps.

  “When a healthy sixteen-year-old dies all of a sudden, you can pretty much bet it was either a car accident, misadventure, suicide, or murder.” Meryl raises her right eyebrow. “Why, do you have something to confess?”

  “No, Sherlock.” Jessica rolls her eyes. “It’s just that everyone’s been making such a big deal about cyberbullying. The principal gave that totally busted lecture at the beginning of the year about MHS’s zero-tolerance policy with bullying, and your dad said he’d prosecute cyberbullies to the fullest extent of the law.”

  My ears perk up. Just what is Jessica getting at?

  Jessica continues. “And Naomi was trolled pretty hard this weekend—you know, after the sex tape. I mean, H and H did name her this week’s ho. It’s the same standard shit that happens to every heffer and ho.”

  My stomach churns. Slut, ho, whore, bitch. Is this really how Naomi spent her last weekend alive—surrounded by all this hate?

  “Jesus.” Meryl scrolls through her phone. “You call this standard? There are messages here telling Naomi to kill her
self and mentioning gangbangs. This shit is depraved.”

  Jessica sighs. “Save the self-righteousness. We all do it and you know it. The point I was trying to make is that the cops could make a case for bullying, which this totally isn’t. I mean, Naomi is—was—like an uber-troll herself. But maybe we should try to take some of this stuff off in case people start getting it twisted. Not that I was any part of it.”

  “The internet is anonymous, Jess,” Collette chimes in. “So we’re totally cool.”

  “I got this one, Meryl,” says Becca. She turns to face Collette. “No, it’s not anonymous. The police can track your IP because you’re an idiot and you probably used your own phone. Seriously, you’re like one of those dumbest-criminal videos, Collette.”

  “And for the record, we don’t all do it,” Meryl adds.

  “Like I said, it’s not my bag.” Jess shrugs. “Collette was the ringleader who got everyone to troll. She even told people what to write.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t have thought of ‘Naomi is a slut’ myself if Collette hadn’t come up with it,” Sleazy Bear slurs as he takes another swig of his beer.

  I watch with contempt as they begin pointing fingers at one another. Now it seems like everyone is playing a round of the Blame Game.

  “You’re all such assholes,” Meryl says, seething.

  “OMG,” Lara shouts so loud that she gets everyone’s attention.

  I turn in her direction. Lara and Collette have been taking turns sharing irrelevant information all day. This breaking-news announcement is probably something as enlightening as “Naomi’s parents are devastated.”

  “My aunt Rita works over at the coroner’s office and she says that”—Lara takes a huge breath because clearly there isn’t enough oxygen in her entire body to keep up with the ultra-fast pace at which she is speaking—“Naomi was murdered.”