Vesper

by Jeff Sampson

  Megan picked me up in her old rust bucket of a car. She cursed the whole way to school—about her car, other cars on the road, old people crossing the road, the glare from the rising sun, the nasally voice of the DJ on the radio—on and on.

  Megan’s not exactly a morning person.

  School picked up with the same routine as every year. Megan stormed through the halls in her black skinny jeans and black dress-tunic thing and black sunglasses, her butt-length blond hair slapping me in the side as she whipped her head around to meet everyone’s eyes, daring them to say something. Meanwhile I sort of shuffled alongside her, folded in on myself, my eyes not leaving the schedule I held. Every now and then I’d glance up from the green tile floors to make sure I wasn’t going to walk into someone or something, but otherwise I did my very best to stand in Megan’s shadow and let her be angry enough at the world for the both of us.

  This year Megan and I shared the same homeroom: Ms. Nguyen, our calculus teacher by day/local access Vietnamese talk show host by night. I sat at a desk halfway back, by the windows, with Megan beside me. Everyone else in the class was loud and laughing: The girls with their camis and tight jeans and glossy hair were huddled in little groups getting all ohmigod about something, the guys acting like complete jackasses as usual. They were straight out of The CW Land, a magical place where everyone dates everyone else, then gets all dramatic about it. A land of excitement and wonder where everybody spoke a language I had no hope of understanding.

  Of course, there were other “geeks” scattered about—some tiny girl in the front with curly hair and wire-frame glasses who shivered like she was cold, a chubby guy near the door wearing an unfortunately patterned button-up shirt and sporting the skeezy little mustache boys get. And Megan, eyes aimed at the ceiling, arms crossed, letting out pointed sighs to show how over everything she was.

  Only, they weren’t like me, not really. Because geeky can be worked if you know how to pull it off. You like things not in the mainstream? There’s definitely a group you can click with somewhere in school—I’m pretty sure I’ve seen glasses girl and mustache guy in the same after-school LARP club.

  But here’s the thing about me and school: I didn’t fit into any of those neat cliques, because I didn’t know how to make myself fit. Among all the kids in our little suburban school—the freaks and the nerds, the jocks and the cheerleaders—I was hopelessly apart. Just me, Emily Webb, alone, counting the hours until school was done and I got to go back home to my room and my DVDs and my books.

  My only real friend was Megan. She could be dour, yeah, but I didn’t blame her, not really. Back in junior high, she’d spent three years trying desperately to join the in crowd, though her overly eager efforts were met mostly by whispered mocking in the halls and the occasional harassing email.

  I stuck by her through it all, halfheartedly helping her with her plans to be cool despite not having any idea what cool was. One of the girls, Sarah Plainsworth, the ringleader of what could best be called a tween Mean Girls, actually seemed to take pity on Megan one day. She introduced Megan to a boy from another school—online, of course—and set about arranging a date for them. Megan was more excited than I’d ever seen her, and we’d spent a week finding her the perfect outfit, and the perfect hair, and practicing the perfect things to say.

  Only, of course, there was no boy. The date had Megan standing alone in a family-style Japanese restaurant as Sarah and those she’d wrangled in on the gag sat around a hibachi table and laughed. Megan had stood there, shaking, focusing on the chefs making little volcanoes out of onion slices to keep from seeing the faces of those mocking her.

  Something clicked then. She finally got that, for whatever reason, people like Sarah Plainsworth would never let her become a part of their seemingly perfect lives. And so Megan just looked Sarah square in the eye until the girl no longer laughed, then left, leaving those kids and her dreams of being somebody like them behind.

  Sarah Plainsworth moved away between junior high and high school, and with her left the memories of her epic prank—for everyone except Megan. Freshman year, Megan came back to school all withering attitude and black clothes. A whole new girl.

  I watched Megan glare at a shiny blond girl sitting near her, and it made me wonder what she’d think if she knew about my alter ego the night before. About my weird, temporary mood swing. Because if there was one thing I knew about Megan, it was that she trusted me to always be me. Quiet and with an ear only for her. Not someone who dressed flashy or trashy, not someone who longed to go out on the town to mingle with people very much like bitchy party girl Sarah Plainsworth.

  I stooped over my desk and ran my finger over a name carved into the faux-wood top, still trying and failing to recall everything that had happened between reading and Megan’s phone call. Maybe, for just a moment, I’d managed to flip the normal teen switch in my head. Maybe, for just a moment, whatever issues made me so hopelessly incapable of fitting in with anyone had gone away. Megan wouldn’t like it, not at all. But maybe if I figured it all out, then we could figure her out too.

  I didn’t get the chance to think about it further, because the second bell rang and Ms. Nguyen swished into class.

  “Good morning!” Her voice was loud, her smile broad and bleached. She sounded exactly like you’d expect a local access talk show host slumming as a high school teacher to sound. She was never boring, Ms. Nguyen. Today she wore a canary yellow pantsuit accessorized with a red and purple scarf tied round her neck, and her hair was shellacked into a bob last seen in 1967.

  I sort of loved her.

  “Another year is upon us,” Ms. Nguyen announced as she sat in a chair, crossed her legs, and cradled a cup of coffee in her lap. She took a sip, then made a face. “Oh, that is just terrible.”

  I laughed a little too loudly and got a wink from the short guy sitting in front of Megan. Spencer Holt was the sort of goofy guy who was just funny enough to get to hang out with all the cool kids as their token comedian. I’d seen him around for years, but had never really talked to him. He grinned over at me, and, heat rushing to my cheeks, I looked down at my desk.

  Ms. Nguyen set the coffee cup on her desk and was about to resume speaking when the door opened. A small woman with a somber face stood there, and she beckoned Ms. Nguyen over. They huddled together and spoke in hushed tones in the hallway while the whole class watched.

  Megan sighed. “Let’s get on with it already,” she muttered.

  When Ms. Nguyen came back a moment later, she seemed a different person. She sat back in her chair at the front of the class, hands trembling.

  “Ms. Nguyen?” A pretty, redheaded girl in the back stood up, concerned. Nikki Tate, the head cheerleader.

  Ms. Nguyen shook her head and looked over the class as though she was just now seeing us. Her eyes welled up with tears.

  Something inside my chest twisted, like a spring wound too tight. Something horrible had happened . . . and it was then that I remembered, and I felt like a total jerk for forgetting: Emily Cooke had died last night. Emily Cooke had died, and no one knew except me and Megan. And now everyone who knew her—who actually knew her, not like me—would hear about it, and . . .

  I hunched over my desk, eyes down. I didn’t want to see anyone’s face. I felt strangely guilty, because I’d known about this horrible secret and should have said something. Ms. Nguyen spoke, her voice quiet and shaky, but I didn’t really hear her words, just the sadness in them. She told us that a student had been found murdered the night before and that we were going to have an assembly about it later. The class listened in shocked silence.

  “Who is it?” the guy behind me asked. “Who died?”

  Shoving my glasses up my nose with my index finger, I dared a glance up at Ms. Nguyen. She seemed to wobble in place before blinking and taking us all in. It was as though she’d mentally drifted off somewhere and only now realized she wasn’t alone. “I know many of you were her friends,” Ms. Nguyen said. “She w
as a lovely girl, a lovely girl. . . .”

  “Who?” Nikki Tate whispered from her seat in the back. “Please tell us.”

  Ms. Nguyen’s face contorted in grief. “Emily,” she finally said. “It’s Emily Cooke.” And Ms. Nguyen began to sob.

  The air felt sucked out of the room.

  A chair squealed as it was hastily shoved back, and a girl ran past. I only saw her for a second before she tore open the classroom door and was in the hallway—Mai Sato, a big track star around school. Only then did I remember that she and Emily Cooke were friends.

  Mai’s flight set the room buzzing with whispered chatter. Normally Ms. Nguyen would have put a stop to that, but she was softly crying to herself in her seat while Nikki Tate and the curly-haired girl from up front comforted her. I never knew Ms. Nguyen cared so much about Emily Cooke. But then again, I didn’t really know anything about Emily Cooke, did I?

  Beside me, Megan stared at the ceiling, completely unfazed. Listening to the crying of the shiny blond girl next to her, she rolled her eyes.

  “Drama queens,” she muttered in my direction.

  The assembly that closed the first day of school wasn’t the usual kind; even the rowdiest of the boys kept it down in respect as the principal and a woman from the police department spoke to all of us. They stood on the Carver High Cougars mascot painted in the center of the basketball court and took turns at the microphone. They said very little about the details of the murder but made it clear that they were concerned about student safety in light of the incident—seeing as how Emily Cooke was killed while alone on the streets of a good neighborhood—and that everyone should go straight home from school.

  I sat next to Megan in the top row of the bleachers, listening as precautions were discussed. We were told to always keep in groups of twos or threes, and to get rides from trusted friends or family instead of walking. Megan picked absently at the plastic bench as she stared at the ceiling, but I couldn’t help watching the kids around me. There were more than a few who hugged one another and cried openly, even some guys. It felt surreal, like something out of a movie. I half expected somber music to play over the scene while a camera zoomed in on my pointedly thoughtful expression.

  As the school officials droned on, Megan slipped on her sunglasses and scowled in the direction of four girls huddled together, mascara tears drawing black lines down their cheeks. They held one another and whispered what I guessed were comforting words, their faces ugly in their grief.

  “‘Oh, wah,’” Megan mimicked as she watched the girls. “‘Emily Cooke and I were, like, totally best friends. Like, we used to go shopping all the time, and we shared a boyfriend that one time. Now who will tell me which shade of pink goes best with my lip liner? Death is so not fair.’”

  “Megan . . . ,” I whispered.

  She ignored me. “They should just tell everyone what really happened. That Emily C. decided to walk barefoot for three miles in her pajamas. Did I tell you her parents caught her acting all dazed and out of it earlier that week too? So don’t take an evening stroll dressed for bed and cracked out on drugs, and bam, you won’t be murdered.”

  “Megan, come on. A girl is dead.”

  Megan peered at me over her sunglasses. “Okay, you are, like, the Queen of Schlocky Horror Flicks. I have no idea why you’re so mopey. Why does this bother you so much?”

  “Those are movies,” I said. “This is real life. It’s different. I mean, it could have been me.”

  Megan frowned. “What? Why would it have been you? ’Cause you’re both named Emily?” She flicked her hand dismissively. “That’s stupid. It’s not like you’re dumb enough to wander blazed into dark neighborhoods like Emily C.”

  I remembered the open window, my outstretched leg, the darkness that had seemed so inviting. I remembered my own freaky—though not drug-fueled—mind lapse.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’d never do that.”

  We watched as the class president, Tracie Townsend, took the floor to give a hastily written eulogy. “Anyway,” Megan said, talking over her, “you hate these girls as much as I do. Give it a week, no one will even remember what Emily C. looked like, I guarantee you.”

  “You didn’t seem to think that way last night when you were worried it was me,” I said.

  “Well, that would be different. You actually matter.”

  Harsh. But that was Megan. I was used to it. But I also didn’t have anything to say in response.

  We fell silent as Tracie began speaking in that curt way of hers, her pretty features turned down in a frown, and her perfect black curls bobbing with her somber nods. I considered telling Megan that, no, I didn’t actually hate any of the other girls at school. Though some had gone out of their way to make Megan’s life hell, they never really did anything to me. And anyway, even though Megan wasn’t exactly the forgive-and-forget type, as far as I was concerned all of that was over the day Sarah Plainsworth left. Now no one really seemed to care one way or the other about us.

  I also considered telling Megan about what had happened the night before—the clothes, the window, all of it. But no, I couldn’t admit any of that. Anything that would make Megan think I was going to get all glossy and popular would not go over well. Even if most girls wouldn’t consider my idea of dressing to be “glossy and popular” so much as “sleazy and desperate.” I didn’t think Megan would make the distinction. Not after she’d had us make a pact never to become like “them.”

  Besides, it was just a one-time freaky mental slip.

  Or was it? Maybe it wasn’t drugs that had made the other Emily seem so weird to her parents. Maybe there was something going around, some sort of personality-altering disease. I mean, what would possess Emily Cooke to go wandering miles from her house, barefoot and wearing only her pajamas, especially on the same night I dressed like a streetwalker and decided to jump out my window?

  Maybe it was the weirdness of the night before, or the bizarreness of coping with an entire school filled with shocked people walking around like zombies all day, but I didn’t feel right. Something felt shifted inside of me, off center and wobbly, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t put that unnameable something back in place.

  Megan nudged me as Tracie finished speaking and the kids in the bleachers applauded politely. “Hey, don’t get all silent on me,” she whispered. “It sucks that the other Emily got whacked, okay?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t get a word out before a girl turned around and shushed us. Embarrassed, I clamped my lips closed. Megan rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything.

  We sat there, silent, as the rest of the world’s most depressing assembly death-marched to its somber finish and we could finally go home, where I could escape into a book and forget all about dead teenagers and strange mood swings and this horrible sensation that after last night, nothing was quite right anymore in our school or our small town.

  Chapter 3

  Big Ol’ Fatty Hambeast

  Nothing gets your mind off of depressing thoughts of dead teenagers like being called fat on the internet.

  It happened the same day as the assembly. Nothing was on TV that night—it was only early September, after all, and new TV seasons don’t start until mid-month—so I was in my room. I’d come home from the horrible downer of school five hours earlier after riding alongside Megan through a torrent of rain that fogged up her windows, the world outside hidden behind a gray mist. I’d say that the weather had matched the day’s downcast mood, but I knew that was a joke. The writhing storm clouds would soon give way to blue skies before returning a few hours later along with, like, a flurry of hail or something. No one’s mood is as bipolar as western Washington weather.

  After racing through the downpour to my front door, I hugged my dad, where he sat at his desk killing undead hordes in his computer game, then decided I’d distract myself by trying once again to read Lord of the Rings, since it felt like my geeky duty to do so. I didn’t last long at that�
�yes, I know, I should feel horribly ashamed that I can’t get past all the hobbit singing to get into the story. Instead I went browsing online.

  Maybe it’s just me, but hearing about someone my own age, someone I vaguely knew, dying . . . it wouldn’t leave me alone. Forget my giant DVD case filled with movies about teenagers getting murdered—I’d seen so much CGI and makeup and red-dyed corn syrup that when it came to the idea of another teenager dying it never seemed real. I’d never really considered that one day I could walk outside and get shot, and it would be all over.

  So maybe that’s why I Googled “Emily Cooke” and spent hours reading about her. There were local news articles about the mysterious murder, of course, and a whole slew of blog posts from people who’d known her, talking about their shock. Some people posted letters of hers they’d saved—surprisingly well-written letters that contained amusing haikus and clever, off-kilter short stories about the person she had written to.

  Eventually I ended up on Emily Cooke’s own blog. I clicked through the pictures of her smiling with her friends, then started to read all the comments from people saying how much they’d miss her.

  In the middle of those comments, I saw this:

  Terrizzle Sept 8, 4:54 p.m.

  sad ur dead emily ur much hoter than fat Emily

  My first thought: “Terrizzle” (real name Terrance Sedgwick) should not be in eleventh grade and writing like that. Capitalization, punctuation, and spelling words out aren’t that difficult, especially in what’s supposed to be a message to a dearly departed friend . . . or a hot girl he wanted to hook up with, whatever.

  My second thought: Wait, “fat Emily”? There are—or, well, were—only two Emilys in our class, which meant . . .

  Oh. Oh no.

  Here’s a fun fact about me: Like the partial truth I’d told Dawn the night before, the last thing I ever wanted was for guys like Terrance to look at, think about, or talk about me to other people. The mere idea was completely terrifying. Even so, I guess I had always sort of fantasized that a guy would see me and get past the ponytail and the glasses and the giant sweatshirt to discover how insanely awesome I am, then come and whisk me off into that magical teenager fairyland where everyone else gets to prance around.