Three Quarters Dead

by Richard Peck

  Sometimes I wondered why we didn’t see more of Spence. He was so much like Tanya, at least in my head. Spiritual twins or something. Bookends holding up the whole senior class. In any group of guys, Spence was the one you noticed. In any group of girls, Tanya was the only one you saw. On a TV soap they’d be a couple—hooking up, breaking up, getting back together—all the fun stuff in a lollipop-colored world. Why weren’t they a couple here in reality? Or were they?

  I listened a lot to all the conversation buzzing around our table, whether I could process it or not. SATs were behind them. Now the buzzing boys were talking college : how to put together a great essay to promote yourself to colleges, and how to pad your profile. How to package yourself.

  And early admissions. And winter term community service that would look good on your application. Building clinics in Guatemala or Sierra Leone or wherever. Also peer counseling and inner-city tutoring. But more important than all that, the prom. And who’d be giving the A-list after-prom parties.

  Tanya wasn’t into colleges, though I hadn’t noticed that yet. But the prom was a different matter. Juniors give the prom in honor of the seniors. And last year Tanya was naturally head of the prom committee. She and Natalie were co-chairs, and it was the greatest prom ever. The theme was “Evening in Paris,” and Tanya had the ballroom of the Beekman Manor done over like Versailles or somewhere, with crystal Eiffel Towers. And she had the fathers of the juniors parking the cars in tuxedos. Then when the juniors’ mothers wanted to help with coat check and serving refreshments, Tanya barred them completely. Evidently it was great. Those seniors were probably still talking about it.

  NOW, HERE IN October, there was already prom talk about next spring. At the time it seemed that the prom would be the major event of the season.

  You weren’t supposed to take prom too seriously, but people were giving it serious thought. You didn’t even have to have a date. Guys in a bunch could go. Girls in a bunch, as long as everybody understood you had a choice.

  If you did go with somebody, you didn’t have to be in love with him. It was cooler if you weren’t, though it was good if he was in love with you. Who you were on prom night became your final senior statement.

  People wondered who Tanya would go to the prom with, if she bothered to go with anybody at all.

  “Not Spence Myers,” Tanya said, though they’d look perfect together. Blond god. Blond goddess. “We know each other too well.”

  Which I thought was the most sophisticated thing I’d ever heard in my life. Of course, I didn’t know what it meant. If their families were friends or something, that could have been the problem. Tanya put up with very little from family.

  “Besides, Spence has some growing up to do,” Tanya said. “I’ll get back to him later.” Which I thought was the second-most sophisticated thing I’d ever heard in my life. Though how much more growing up did Spence Myers need to do? He was writing his optional senior thesis on PACs and GSEs in the last two Congressional elections. What were PACs and GSEs? And how much more evolved could Spence get?

  Some noons we just had to wait for the guys to go away before we could get back to ourselves. One time Tanya got caught in the crossfire between Noah Brolin and Bob Silverman. They were debating about which was a better backup college, Bucknell or Tufts. Something like that.

  Finally Tanya had heard more backup college talk than she needed to hear. “Guys, please,” she said. “It’s not like you’re looking at Harvard or Princeton. Bob, your father went to Brown. He gave them a building. You are so in there.” Her eyebrows arched their highest. “And Noah, you and Nate are looking for swimming scholarships. You’ll go where the money is. End of story.”

  This sort of left Bob and Noah just standing there. Tanya could talk guytalk better than the guys. And she put up with very little from them. She was amazing. “Enough with the colleges. We’re seniors. Let’s be seniors,” she told them. “Let’s live in the moment, okay?”

  Because Tanya was definitely the Queen of Now.

  But what did we spend all that time talking about when the boys weren’t buzzing and butting in? Why can’t I remember more? Why can’t I live in that moment? I reach for us, and we slip through my fingers. I strain to hear, but we’re fading now and farther off. The four of us, our heads close, just out of earshot.

  One thing I remember that really impressed me was about prom dresses. The subject came up a lot even in October. Also, who would you shop with for your dress?

  “I’ll take Joanne,” Tanya remarked, and Natalie stared at her.

  “Joanne?”

  “Why not?” Tanya said. “Not the first round, of course. Not for actually picking the dress. We’ll do that first, at Nordstrom. Maybe we could all go into the city and have a look at Bergdorf—do lunch upstairs there. Stay overnight at my aunt’s. We’ll make the basic dress decision. But then I’ll take Joanne back later—let her think she’s part of the process.”

  I wondered as long as I could, then had to ask. “Is Joanne a senior?” I limped along behind as usual, and they all screamed, even Makenzie.

  Because Joanne was Tanya’s dad’s live-in girlfriend. Tanya’s parents were divorced. So were mine, but in Tanya’s perfect life she lived with her dad. Her mother was an archaeologist. She was always on a dig in Syria, or someplace. I wished my mother was on a dig in Syria, or someplace.

  THEN THERE WERE other noons when the girls were too busy for much talking. They’d be texting the questions on some Algebra II or science test from that morning for people in the afternoon class. “It’s my take on community service,” Tanya said. “It’s not like we owe the afternoon people anything in particular. But we have to keep some control over the teachers. Really, the way they make us grovel for grades. Honestly, who do they think they are? Could they even get real jobs in, like, business?”

  Tanya put up with very little from teachers.

  SO I SUPPOSE I actually remember quite a lot about those noons, and what was said. What Tanya said. But surely there was more to the code than I ever cracked. Moments I missed. Clues. An hour here, an hour there, now gone forever.

  There’s one thing I almost noticed. Lunch at Tanya’s table sometimes seemed to go on longer than regular time. Of course the bell at the end always went too soon, right in the middle of a sentence, which was annoying.

  But for lots of lunches, time just seemed to stand still, the clock locked at high noon. The rest of the food court and school, and the world, kind of fell away. It was funny. Odd. We hung there in Tanya’s special space, this island in time, because she said so. She really, truly was the Queen of Now.

  But then came that miracle noon I hadn’t even dared to hope for. It was the last golden day of October, and all three of them turned to me. Me. Just like that.

  They’d been talking about Halloween. Their own take on Halloween. I couldn’t picture them going door to door, holding out their little plastic jack-o’-lantern pails. Anyway, I’d never been included in anything but lunch. I had the idea they thought maybe I wasn’t quite ready for . . . prime time.

  But then Tanya turned to me, like I’d been on her agenda all along. From that day she’d overlooked the phone in my lap and drew me with her eyes into the group. “Tonight at my house, Kerry? Just dessert and coffee. Decaf. Then we’ll see where the evening takes us.” Just like that.

  Me? Time really did stand still then, like my heart. And the countdown till tonight started ticking. They’d decided on jeans and bulky sweaters.

  “What a pity,” Makenzie said. “I can still get into my old Tinker Bell costume.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Picture of Alyssa

  BEFORE MY PARENTS’ divorce, we lived so near Tanya’s house I could have walked up there. Now my mother had to drive me. Which I didn’t particularly like. But anything to get there. Halloween was already happening all over town.

  Some people went a little overboard on the house decorations. Life-size scarecrows beside doors and floodlit
ghosts escaping from dormer windows and plastic tombstones on lawns, reading REST IN PIECES. Fake cobwebs by the ton.

  It was still the kiddy time of evening. The crosswalks were crowded with parents and nannies leading tiny trick-or-treaters. Little Brides of Frankenstein and one Snow White after another. Dinosaurs and flop-earred Eeyores. Mini-mummies unraveling along the pavement. Small, toddling Draculas with their black tailcoats sweeping the pavement behind.

  Waiting for a light, my mother said, “Remember the year you wanted to be the Little Mermaid?”

  “Turn left at the top of the hill,” I said, because you could almost see Ridge Road from here.

  The Halloween decorations were all professionally done. Not an artificial cobweb in sight. Nothing floodlit. Only a few front lights were on to welcome trick-or-treaters. Now we were at Tanya’s, because Natalie’s Audi and Makenzie’s Scion were parked out by the curb.

  “Don’t turn in the drive,” I told my mother.

  “I have to turn around,” she said. “Call me when—”

  “I’ll get a ride home.” I was out of the car already, heading up the curving flagstone walk over all that rolling lawn, not a leaf fallen on it. Not a plastic tombstone. It was a long, rambling house, country French, probably. At the entrance was an arrangement of squashes and gourds and ears of corn in designer colors. A florist had done it. Very restrained.

  I rang the bell, and lights flickered inside, through the leaded-glass window of the door. A tall, willowy figure was coming closer, a silhouette. I wanted it to be Tanya, but when the door opened, it was a really thin, really glamorous woman in a white turtleneck sweater.

  “You must be Kerry,” she said. “I’m Joanne.”

  She led me through the fabulous house, up a step, down a step, over Oriental rugs glowing in dark reds and blues on polished floors. If you were going to imagine the house Tanya would live in, here it was. We moved toward warm light and laughter. It wasn’t the formal dining room. It was another one, and I could see them from here, around the table: busy at something, leaning over to each other, being in their zone.

  And here was the great part. They were all three wearing these towering, black, pointy witch hats: black felt with wavery brims and half as tall as the room. It was great. They were.

  Joanne turned just at the door. “Watch your back,” she murmured. But I looked behind me, and there wasn’t anything there.

  THEN IT WAS the four of us. “Here’s Kerry finally,” Tanya said, though I was on time. “Joanne, you can bring in the dessert now.”

  They were sitting around this table in their witch hats, she and Natalie and Makenzie, and I’ll never forget one thing in particular. Laid out on the table in two neat rows were miniature black coffins. Nine of them. Little coffins with handles. The rest of the table was littered with orange and black ribbon, note cards, little parchment scrolls like tiny diplomas, rolls of tape. All kinds of stuff, but the little coffins were what I really noticed, after their hats.

  When I’d sat down, I saw the coffins were gift boxes of Belgian chocolates, from Neiman’s. The three of them were dressing up the boxes even more, tricking them out with black bows. Makenzie was writing on a little scroll.

  “It’s our annual Halloween Hotties award for the top ten senior guys,” Tanya said. “A tradition.”

  “Which we’ve just started this year,” Natalie said.

  Makenzie sat on her foot, carefully lettering away, busy as a bee.

  They put me to work on the name tags. Then Natalie tied them onto the coffins with orange and black ribbon and little grinning pumpkins on pipe cleaners:

  Liam Buckley

  Ben Chou

  Sandy Bauer

  Bob Silverman

  Chase Haverkamp

  Austin Zeller

  Grant Carmichael

  Sasha Cole

  Nate and Noah Brolin

  They decided to give Nate and Noah Brolin a joint award. Tanya said that as individuals, they didn’t quite make the grade. And Nate was seeing a girl from some other school. Greenwich, people said. So Tanya thought Nate wasn’t really committed to Pondfield. But being identical twins added interest, and Nate and Noah were co-captains of the swim team.

  Makenzie lettered a special card for the Brolin brothers:

  Halloween cheers

  And Halloween yelps

  Put the two of you together

  And, voila—Michael Phelps!

  “Cute,” Tanya said, but there wasn’t time to make a special rhyme for everybody. The rest got citations on little scrolls, reading:

  Congratulations for being

  a Halloween Hottie,

  One of 10 and 10 only Pondfield

  Senior guys as judged by

  4 Classy Witches

  Four.

  I saw that, and my eyes stung. Was I one of them, one of four classy witches? They watched me see that. Tanya did. Her eyes reeled me in. Once again it was like a story that jumps to a happy ending.

  Now Tanya was reaching down under the table to bring up another witch hat. For me. She handed it over the table. So I thought, this is it. I’m in the magic circle. I wasn’t quite, but I thought I was. Makenzie glanced up at me in the hat, then back down at the scroll she was finishing. And there we sat, with our tall black hats pointing at the ceiling, and the future.

  “I know, I know,” Tanya said. “The Hotties thing is a little bit ditzy. It’s a little like Shannon’s cheerleaders poking all that crepe paper into a homecoming float. But it’s for a good cause. Guys love awards—remember all those Cub Scout badges? They like their gold stars. It’s not that much work for us, and it helps with their self-esteem.”

  Also it meant that the guys didn’t decide who was top ten. Tanya did. If I’d noticed that, I’d have thought it was great.

  Somewhere in all this Joanne brought in the dessert and a silver pot of coffee.

  “She won’t be joining us,” Tanya said when Joanne was barely back in the kitchen. “Eating disorder. The only way you can be that thin at her age is to keep sticking your finger down your throat.”

  “Gross,” Natalie said as Makenzie reached for the bowl of whipped cream for the pumpkin pie. She was our heartiest eater, but Natalie was always hungry.

  “Is your dad dating again, Kerry?” Tanya said, out of the blue. She could catch you off guard every time. You never saw Tanya coming.

  Dating again? How did she even know my parents were divorced? But then, she knew all kinds of things about adults. She practically was one.

  “No, Dad’s not dating,” I said.

  “Don’t be too sure,” Tanya said. “They always start sooner than you think. And they always go for somebody younger. And younger. And younger, till they’re practically your age.” She looked at the kitchen door. “Or think they are.”

  She held up the silver pot. “How do you take your coffee?”

  And of course I didn’t know how I took coffee.

  “The best thing about you, Kerry, is that nothing ever happened to you before you met us,” Tanya said. “You don’t have to be retrained.”

  I REMEMBER NOW how that part of the evening seemed to go on longer than it could have. And the little black candy coffins and the pumpkin-shaped gift bags we were going to deliver them in: orange and green foil with handles to hang on doorknobs. I saw that far. We’d drive all around town, delivering the coffins to the Halloween Hotties’ houses. We’d be going in Natalie’s Audi because Makenzie’s GPS had a bug in it.

  Then when we were slipping the coffins into the pumpkin bags, I realized something. I don’t know why.

  “Isn’t Spence Myers a Halloween Hottie?” I said, surprised. “How come he’s not on the list?” He was surely up high in anybody’s top ten. Editor of the newspaper and into a lot of things. Triple 800s on his SATs. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was good. And the looks. He so had the looks.

  Makenzie and Natalie watched Tanya, waiting.

  “We’re talking really just
top ten, Kerry,” she said, explaining, patient. “Spence isn’t quite there yet. He falls a little short. Let’s think of these not only as awards to the top ten, but as an incentive to others, maybe to work a little harder, like take closer looks at themselves.

  “You know how un-self-critical guys are. They really do let themselves off too easy. You see?”

  I guessed so. But not really. Besides, there was more to the evening. Another part of the . . . agenda.

  I THOUGHT WE were ready to go. But Tanya was looking for something among the coffee cups and clutter. For once she wasn’t holding me with her gaze. “Where’s the baby?” she said.

  Baby?

  But she must have known, because she reached under some ribbon ends and held up something. It was a plastic baby doll, three or four inches high. Naked and too pink. Like something from the dollar store. Natalie was watching me, and Makenzie was looking away. I think so. I was mainly staring at this cheapo little doll that looked all wrong for the room.

  Tanya held it up to the light, and there was a line of red across its neck and a drop or two of red, like blood. Maybe nail polish. It was the first really eerie moment of Halloween.

  The room got too quiet, so I said, “What’s that an award for?”

  “You could think of it as an award, I suppose,” Tanya said.

  “Please,” Natalie murmured.

  “You really could.” Tanya came up with a plain little cloth bag with a drawstring top. She slid the plastic doll into it, up to the bloody neck, and drew the drawstring tight.

  “Kerry, you’re going to deliver this one personally to a girl named Alyssa Stark. Think of it as kind of a joke thing. We don’t have time to go into it. Let’s just say it’s a long story, and Alyssa has this coming to her.”

  Me? “Me?”

  “Yes,” Tanya said. “Kind of an initiation type thing.”