The Reckless Club

by Beth Vrabel

  “No,” Ally says. “I can’t be one of them.”

  “Oh, is Sports Barbie too special for that? Too strong?” Rex goads.

  “Maybe.” Ally shrugs. “I need a different part.”

  “That’s impossible,” Lilith says. “I’m playing all of the other parts.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jason says quietly to Lilith, but his eyes are on Rex, who is now leaning against the far wall glaring at Ally. “Ally can have my part.”

  “An old guy? No, thank you,” Ally responds. She twists her neck, making the tendons pop.

  “So much for being a team player,” Lilith snaps.

  Ally shrugs. “I can’t do it.”

  “But you have to,” Lilith commands.

  “Look,” Ally blurts, “Opal—any of these residents—I don’t want to be them. I don’t want to even pretend to be them. They’re weak and lonely, and no, thank you.”

  Jason leans forward a little more in his chair, like he might have to jump out of it any second. His eyes are locked on Rex whose mouth is a pinched white slash across her red fury-filled face. Her fists are curled at her sides. All her attention is on Ally.

  “Come on!” Lilith says. “We’re all going to be like them one day.”

  “Not me.” Ally crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “I’ll never need someone to spoon applesauce into my mouth.”

  “Shut up,” Rex says, but it’s so low Ally doesn’t seem to hear.

  “I’ll never be weak and drooly and pathetic. I’d rather die.”

  Wes believes Ally. He had been to a track meet earlier that year. It had been crazy hot out—more than ninety degrees. Ally had been the last runner in the relay race. She had been poised, ready to run, but the girl who was supposed to hand Ally the baton had tripped and it had slipped from her sweaty grip. Ally had lunged for the baton, already midstride. Her knee had hit the track, splitting the skin, but she never paused, just hopped to her feet and sprinted ahead full force, making up the time and passing everyone.

  By the end, Ally’s sock had been soaked with the blood streaming down her leg from a cut made much bigger by her running. After the meet, Wes had been waiting for the rest of the guys outside the locker room when Ally had come out, showered and changed. Her knee wasn’t bleeding anymore, or at least it didn’t seem to be from behind a big white bandage. Ally had looked around and then limped toward the parking lot. But when she saw Wes, she had straightened. Limp gone.

  Yeah, Wes had to agree, Ally couldn’t—wouldn’t—pull off being weak.

  “You stuck-up, stupid little—” Rex’s feet are planted on the floor now and Wes knows that at any second, she’s going to storm toward Ally.

  But Jason is the one who stands. He closes his sketchbook and shoves it into his bag. Then he goes over to Ally and stands behind her. No one moves or even seems to breathe. Whatever insult Rex is about to hurl like a grenade toward Ally is swallowed down. Jason’s fingers flex at his side, and then, like he’s checking to see whether an iron is hot, he touches Ally’s shoulder. When she doesn’t move, he lets his arm rest around her shoulder. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “This isn’t you. I mean, this doesn’t have to be you.”

  Wes doesn’t know what’s going on. He glances at Rex, who’s holding her locket in a fist against her heart. Lilith stares down at her notebook but isn’t writing, just listening. A sob erupts out of Ally. At the sound, Rex pulls herself up and goes to the door. With her thumbnail, she loosens a screw from the hinge and tosses it onto the table as the door swings shut.

  And Wes knows: they’ve all changed after all.

  “You don’t know why I did what I did,” Ally whispers.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jason says. “You don’t have to be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Closed off. Cold.” Jason squeezes her shoulder. “You don’t want to be like this, do you?”

  Ally shakes her head. “You don’t know.”

  “So tell me.”

  Ally leans into Jason’s side. Everything she’s feeling, everything she’s hiding, everything she’s running from, bubbles up inside her and streams out of her eyes in hot tears. Her shoulders shake, but Jason’s grip keeps her upright. “I’m not weak,” she stammers.

  And Wes is convinced that Ally falling apart in front of them is the strongest thing she’s ever done.

  1:56 p.m.

  ALLY “The Athlete”

  “What’s going on?” Mr. Hardy barges into the room. Rex slinks into her seat. Quickly Jason drops the arm he has around Ally and she falls back against the wall, squatting so she can bury her face into her knees. Jason sits beside her, looking at Mr. Hardy straight on.

  Lilith’s hand darts out and swipes the screw still on the table. Cupping it, she crosses her hands and smiles. “What do you mean, sir?”

  Mr. Hardy’s eyes flick around the room, starting with Rex. “Why is this door closed?”

  “It doesn’t stay open,” Wes says.

  “Of course it stays open. It’s been open since I left.” Mr. Hardy opens the door. It immediately swings shut. “Did one of you mess with this door? It could stay open a moment ago.” Mr. Hardy stares at them through his thick eyebrows. No one moves. “Answer me!”

  Rex crosses her ankles and smiles at the principal.

  Mrs. Mitchell’s clapping footsteps echo down the hall. “Is there a problem with your students, brother?”

  “Of course not,” Mr. Hardy says. He’s staring at Jason, who gazes steadily back. Mr. Hardy releases the door, and it swings shut behind him.

  Mr. Hardy grinds his teeth. “Okay, so, the door’s broken. But that doesn’t mean I won’t have an eye on each of you.” He opens the door, backing out the room.

  Once the door slams shut, no one speaks. Rex smiles at Ally. In what world would she and Rex Gallagher ever be friends? Ally thinks.

  Rex snorts, which sets off Ally giggling. Soon Jason joins in, too. Wes grins, his dimple in such full force that Rex has to look away. Soon he’s laughing, too.

  “About the skit—” Lilith starts, but is cut off by a booming chuckle coming from Jason.

  Wes moves to the back of the room, where Rex is slouching in the chair pushed to the corner, near to Ally and Jason, who are laughing hysterically. Wes extends a hand toward Rex.

  She pauses for just a second and then grabs his arm, allowing him to help her up. Together they join Ally and Jason. Rex slumps against the wall next Jason, Wes next to Ally.

  “Come on, Lilith,” Jason calls. “Join us.”

  Lilith drops her pencil. “Fine, but you better give me decent material.” And with that, they’re all laughing again. Rex pats the floor next to her. Lilith delicately lowers herself beside Rex, smoothing out her dress and fluffing her hair.

  Ally’s smile falters a little as they each look her way. It’s going to hurt when we stop being part of this group.

  “So, why are you here, Ally?” Wes prods.

  She rests her chin on her knees. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  Wes nods. “We’ll all spill.”

  Lilith twists the hem of her skirt. “I don’t know that we’ll have time—”

  “Yeah,” Rex murmurs, ignoring the way Jason is watching her. “We should probably focus on the—”

  “Deal.” Ally holds out her hand to shake Wes’s.

  Without really thinking about it, Ally scoots a little closer to Jason. His arm next to hers is like an anchor, holding her skin in place so she can think about what she did and why she’s there. She’s still not sure she’ll really be able to say it. Jason leans a little into Ally. Suddenly she’s again thinking about that trust fall between the two old friends. The only way to know if someone will catch you is to fall. Ally spits out the words, “I filled Amelia Richard’s locker with soap after the last field hockey game.”

  “That was you?” Lilith asks.

  “You know her?” Ally’s jaw clenches.

  Lilith blinks at Al
ly. “Yeah, we met.” Lilith pulls in a deep breath and stares up at the light. “Kind of hard to ignore the person sobbing in the bathroom stall behind you while you’re putting your makeup on in the morning. She was there every morning the last week of school.”

  Ally’s leg jiggles up and down.

  “Yeah.” Rex crosses her arms. “I know Amelia, too. Geez, Sports Barbie, why not just kick a puppy?”

  “Okay, I don’t know her,” Wes says. “Fill me in.”

  Rex sighs. “So the guidance counselor comes and gets kids who need ‘socialization guidance’ and takes us to lunch with her once a week.” Rex snorts. “Because getting plucked from the cafeteria at lunchtime is a surefire way to make the rest of you all see who to invite to your next party. Anyway, Amelia’s one of the losers like me.”

  Jason murmurs, “That’s not—”

  “Save it, Picasso. Anyway, at first I thought Amelia was, like, super ironic, wearing unicorn sweatshirts and talking nonstop about sparkly vampires and angels from that series—you know, the one everyone’s mom was obsessed with a few years ago?”

  Wes laughs. “Yeah, I remember.”

  Rex continues. “But the thing is, Amelia’s not ironic. She’s like, more kid than the rest of us. Like, just a sweet kid. No cynicism or anger or…” She gestures vaguely at herself and then at all of them. “Her parents are like her, too.”

  Ally’s face jerks toward Rex for a second, then dips back down to stare at her lap again. “I saw them once,” Rex says, “in the guidance counselor’s office. The mom smoothing her hair. The dad holding her hand. They’re like, I don’t know…”

  “Pure,” Lilith finishes. “I saw them picking her up once. Amelia’s like that, too. Except…”

  Rex snorts. “Yeah. Except…”

  “Except what?” Wes says when neither of them finishes.

  “She stinks,” Rex says at the same time that Lilith says, “She’s hygiene challenged.”

  “What?” Jason and Wes say at the same time.

  Rex takes a deep breath. “She’s not on board with the whole deodorant thing. The counselor brought it up once at our lunch. Talked about our changing bodies and looking and feeling our best. Amelia said her skin’s too sensitive for deodorant. That it makes her have hives and besides, ‘Mom and Dad say I’m too young to worry about all of that.’”

  “She doesn’t shave, either,” Lilith says. “My mom and dad are super boring and dumb about stuff like that, too. Won’t let me officially wear makeup or even shave. When she was crying her eyes out”—Lilith pauses to glare at Ally, who still won’t look at any of them—“I offered to sneak her a razor and some deodorant. She said she’s scared of cutting herself.”

  “I think,” Rex says, “and I’m not sure I’m going to get this P.C. enough for you guys, but I think she’s not entirely…”

  Jason picks up the thought. “Her mind works a little differently?”

  Rex smiles. “I like the way you put that, Picasso. Anyway, the counselor kept hounding us to be joiners. And, of course, Amelia’s the one who listened. She tried out for field hockey and told us that she didn’t need to come to our lunches anymore because she made the team.”

  “Everyone made the team,” Ally says. Her voice is emotionless and she’s still staring at her bouncing legs. “Coach didn’t cut anyone. Not enough people tried out.”

  “So did she sit with you at lunch?” Lilith asks. “With the rest of the team?”

  Ally doesn’t say anything.

  “Let me guess,” Lilith says. “Your table was full.”

  Ally’s shoulders rise and fall. “Yeah, okay? I sat with Stacy, Avani, Rachelle… the strongest players. My friends. How’s that a bad thing?”

  “You mean, Stacy, Avani, and Rachelle sat with you, and you didn’t make room for Amelia,” Lilith says. “You’re the star player. You’re the popular one. It was your choice.”

  “I’m not popular,” Ally says.

  All four of the others laugh.

  “Sure, you’re not,” Wes says. “Me, either.”

  Ally’s nostrils flare as she pulls in a deep breath. “I don’t try to be popular. It’s just because I’m the best player. It’s not like anyone likes…”

  “Likes what?” Jason prompts.

  “Likes me,” Ally barks.

  “Yeah, poor popular you. The struggle.” Lilith rolls her eyes. “The point is, you could’ve been nice. Or, I don’t know, not make fun of her. But instead, the soap.”

  No one speaks for a second. Ally’s legs are bent now, and she’s jiggling them so fast her whole body seems to be vibrating.

  When Ally doesn’t speak, Wes asks, “Why’d you do it?”

  “Because she stinks!” Ally blurts and Lilith’s hands clench into fists. “I mean, not just literally, either. In field hockey. She missed every goal. She shouldn’t have been in the game!” Ally leans back and crosses her arms. “Every game, the whole way home all my dad would do is talk about how Amelia is the weakest link. About how I had to play twice as hard to make up for her slack. How he couldn’t stand to see Amelia out there, her weakness out there on display and that, since I was team captain, I had to get her up to speed or shut her down.

  “Meanwhile, her parents were there every single game, just cheering for her. Holding up stupid ‘Go, Amelia, go!’ signs for her. Saying stupid stuff like, ‘Good try!’ and ‘Well done’ if she so much as swung the stick in the direction of the ball. I got so sick of it!”

  Ally’s eyes flick toward each of them. No one speaks.

  “It’s not like I planned it. Coach asked the parents if anyone could donate soap for the locker room. Dad got a huge box from Costco. It was in the locker room, right outside of Coach’s office.” Ally ducks her head, and her voice is a little muffled. “It’s not like I planned it.”

  Lilith huffs through her nose.

  “We had just finished our last game of the season. Only a few seconds left and Amelia was in a perfect position. Perfect! I got the ball to her. I even kept everyone else away. All she had to do was take a straight shot. I set her up! But she got the ball and just sort of batted it around, looking for the pass. The other team swooped in, nabbed it, and that was that. ‘That’s okay,’ her mom shouted. ‘Next time!’ That’s okay? I never hear that. Never. She messed up. But Dad was going to ream me out for passing to her. How is that okay?”

  Ally takes a breath and continues. “You don’t understand. Dad started in, yelling at me as I walked to the locker room.” Lilith rustles and turns away from Ally, who continues, “I was tired of cleaning up after her. Cleaning up her messes. The soap was right there.”

  “And you could get away with it because you’re the star player.” Rex shakes her head. “Bet the whole team was cheering you on.”

  Ally forces herself to look up—to meet her eyes. She nods. Then she scrunches shut her eyes. “Yeah, they did. We were all laughing, all of us, ripping open the boxes of soap and filling Amelia’s locker. She was always last to come in, since her mom and dad insisted on taking a ton of pictures of her after each game. Every single game. They probably went and thanked the coach, too, for a good season, even though it wasn’t.”

  “Yeah, they were proud of their little joiner.” Rex snorts.

  “They think she’s so perfect!” The words are jagged as they leave Ally’s mouth. “They act like she’s the best thing to ever happen. She’s not—she barely even tries and her parents just stand there and cheer like being there is enough. They tell her, ‘We just like watching you play.’ Like that’s all she has to do for them to…”

  “To what?” Jason asks, his voice a whisper.

  Ally shakes her head. “I wasn’t thinking. I was so angry and she’s always so happy and—”

  “And you took that from her.” Lilith’s eyes narrow. “You were angry. She was happy. So you took that from her. It was hers, and you took it.”

  Ally’s mouth opens like she’s going to reply. Before she can, Lilith burst
s out again. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to be happy? How much work it takes?”

  Wes interrupts. “What else?”

  Ally looks away.

  “What else?” he asks again, his voice sharp despite the casual way he leans against the wall. “I know that’s not it, or the whole field hockey team would be in here with you. What else did you do?”

  Ally closes her eyes for a second. Her chin wobbles and then she crosses her arms. “I took her clean clothes and I dumped them in the toilet. Her hairbrush, her bag, her phone. All of it. I threw it all in the toilet.”

  “You treated her like trash,” Rex says.

  “Look, I was wrong. I know it! I know it was mean. But it’s not fair.” She shakes her head as she speaks, like the words are water in her ears. “I can’t get anyone to care about me—about me me—but they love her anyway!” Ally spits out. “They love her anyway, no matter what.”

  “You’re probably the most popular kid in school,” Jason says. “Who are you talking about?”

  “They probably hugged her. They probably told her ‘it’s okay.’”

  “Who?” Jason asks again.

  “Her mom!” Ally screams. Softer, she adds, “Her dad.”

  No one speaks as a shadow in the shape of Mr. Hardy pauses by the window. After a moment, it retreats.

  Lilith turns back toward Ally. “You thought it wasn’t fair, so you targeted the one person on the team who knows all about life being unfair. And you sit there, and you cry, and you think it matters?”

  “It was wrong,” Ally whimpers. “I know it was wrong. And I’m so, so sorry.”

  “You were putting her in her place. Amelia dared to join one of your teams and you just had to show her she didn’t belong. Just like people who say they can’t picture me as Dorothy, that I’m so different than a Midwest girl like her—even though I was born in Missouri—because my look is vibrant, so—” She closes her eyes, her face crumbling for just a second. When she opens them, her face is smooth again.

  Ally opens her mouth to deny it. But she meets Lilith’s eyes, and they aren’t glaring at her. They’re wide and open and raw. Something sharp and brittle splinters from inside Ally’s chest. Though goose bumps burst up her arms, Ally doesn’t feel stone-cold anymore. She nods. “I was jealous of her. I was jealous of Amelia Richards.” Her arms droop at her sides. Her legs fall still to the ground. She slumps back against the wall. “I… I keep thinking about how she told them, how she had to look at her mom and dad and tell them…” She buries her face in her hands. “What did I do?” she whispers.