The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett

by Chelsea Sedoti

  I think she ran away to start a new life somewhere. Like, one day we’ll be watching a movie, and she’ll be the lead actress, only her name won’t be Lizzie Lovett anymore, and she’ll never talk about her past.

  I think her boyfriend killed her. Did you see the picture of him? Total creeper.

  I heard she was working as a waitress at some dive in Layton. How pathetic. I’d run away too.

  My cousin knows a detective working the case, and he said she might have gone into the woods to go the bathroom or something and got ripped to shreds by a wild animal.

  I half listened but mostly didn’t care, because the people I go to school with pretty much have no imagination.

  I was especially not surprised that Mychelle Adler and the nameless jock were talking about Lizzie in first period. While Mr. Bennett collected our homework, they droned on and on behind me.

  “She looks totally different,” Mychelle whispered.

  “Still hot,” the jock said.

  “If you’re into that kind of thing, I guess. My sister’s boyfriend has a friend who ran into Lizzie at a concert, like, a year ago, and he said Lizzie was saying all this weird stuff about how people need to connect with nature and open their eyes to what’s really important, like she’s some kind of flower child now.”

  I knew what was coming next, like it was scripted and we were performing in a play. Exactly on cue, the jock leaned over his desk and said, “Maybe Hawthorn can tell us more about that. Huh, Hawthorn? How’s Sparrow doing?”

  Mychelle laughed as if it was the most hilarious thing anyone had ever said, which it clearly was not. I ignored them and hoped Mr. Bennett would hurry up and start class.

  It’s not fair that kids get made fun of for the stupid choices their parents make. For example, changing their name from Meredith to Sparrow, which is even more embarrassing than being named Hawthorn. My mom said it’s the name her spirit mentor gave her when she was in college at Kent State, a school she chose because it was “important to the movement” after some hippie kids were shot there while protesting the Vietnam War. My mom is too young to have been a real hippie. She missed out on all the sit-ins and peace marches, which I’m pretty sure is something she’s always resented, even though she claims that resentment is a negative emotion, and she purges negativity from her life.

  Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to have a normal mom. A mom who’d tell my friends to call her Mrs. Creely, not Sparrow. A mom who always wore a bra, had pictures of Jesus in the house instead of Buddha statues, and took real classes in college, not Intro to Basket Weaving and How to Ruin Your Child’s Life 101.

  It also isn’t fair that Rush never got made fun of for having a hippie mom. That leads me to believe I’m not actually being taunted because my mom made a stupid choice, but because people are looking for any reason to mess with me. Which is much worse.

  Mychelle didn’t know when to let a joke die. “Maybe Lizzie and Sparrow are, like, running around the woods naked and communicating with tree spirits at this very moment.”

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” the jock said.

  I wished Mychelle and her stupid jock buddy would win the lottery and lose the ticket. I wished they would only ever be able to take cold showers. I wished every glass of lemonade they drank for the rest of their lives would be just a little too sour.

  Before my list of curses could get any longer, Mr. Bennett cleared his throat and started class. Mychelle and the jock leaned back in their seats and forgot about me. For once, I was happy to hear about equations.

  • • •

  Emily was waiting by my car after school, which was weird until I remembered we were supposed to go to the library together. I wasn’t in the mood. I wished I’d walked to school instead of driving. That’s what I got for wanting a burrito.

  “You forgot, didn’t you?” Emily said.

  I sighed melodramatically. “This paper is so stupid, Em. The whole thing is stupid. I don’t see why we’re spending an entire quarter on Ohio’s history anyway. Nothing interesting has ever happened here.”

  “Well, maybe you should make that the focus of your paper,” Emily said, laughing. She opened the passenger door of my Rabbit, which she could do before I unlocked it, because my locks haven’t worked for well over a year.

  My car has a lot of idiosyncrasies like that, things my parents would refer to as broken but I call quirks. My mom was always pointing them out to me because she really wanted me to regret buying the car. She couldn’t get that I wanted a car that was a little broken. When something starts out perfect, it usually lets me down.

  That’s why I never mind the broken locks or it taking four tries before my car sputters to life.

  “I can’t believe this thing is still running,” Emily said.

  I sighed. “I can’t believe I’m about to spend my afternoon at the library researching Griffin Mills.”

  • • •

  It turned out that by “researching Griffin Mills” I really meant sitting at a table with a stack of books in front of me and whispering to Emily, who was actually trying to research Griffin Mills.

  Emily had a notebook open and was using one hand to jot down bits of information while the other hand twisted the strand of pearls around her neck. The pearls were something Emily got teased about, along with her sweater sets and penny loafers. At some fancy boarding school, she probably would have fit in just fine, but the Mills doesn’t have much tolerance for sophistication.

  Sometimes, I wondered how Emily became so cultured. Her parents own a drugstore. They aren’t the kind of people who know what’s playing on Broadway or what wine goes with what entrée. But I guess I’m not all that much like my parents either, so maybe it’s not that weird.

  “I just keep wondering about him,” I said to Emily.

  “Who?” she asked, her eyes not moving from the book in front of her.

  “Him. Lorenzo Calvetti.”

  Emily looked up at me, clearly drawing a blank.

  “Lizzie’s boyfriend.”

  “Oh, jeez, Hawthorn. Let it go.” She went back to making notes in her neat, cramped cursive.

  “He didn’t look special. Just a regular boy. Man, I guess, not boy. The paper said he’s twenty-five. But there was something boyish about him, you know? Anyway, I keep thinking he must be special for Lizzie to be with him.”

  Emily looked up again. “I know plenty of guys Lizzie has been with, and there’s not a special one in the bunch.”

  “Really? Like who? She dated that Kyle guy through most of high school, didn’t she?”

  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. This is stupid gossip.”

  “People I know? From when we were in high school together?” Then a thought struck. “My brother?”

  Emily sighed. “I don’t know, Hawthorn. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t think I ever heard about her and Rush.”

  “They were in the same clique. I think he was in love with her. Or in lust with her at least.”

  “Look. I’m really trying to get my work done, OK? I don’t care who some girl who used to go to our school might have slept with.”

  “I don’t care either. I was just making conversation,” I said.

  Emily raised her eyebrows. I decided to busy myself with the stack of books in front of me. I grabbed one about the Ohio canals, which a lot of people have never heard of. I found the section that mentioned the Mills and almost started reading.

  “Those guys were special though. The guys like Kyle or even Rush. Not that they’re super interesting or bright, but they’re talented in their own athletic way. They look like models, and everyone loves them.”

  “Not me. Or you.”

  “But you understand what I mean. Lorenzo Calvetti isn’t like them.”

  Emily slammed her book shut, and the pe
ople around us turned to stare. That’s how I knew I’d crossed a line. Emily wasn’t one for public displays of emotion.

  “Hawthorn, you’re my best friend, and I’m glad you found something to care about so deeply. But I don’t have a parent who teaches at a university. I don’t have guaranteed acceptance into a good school. I work hard to keep my grades above average, and right now, I just want to do my research paper, not talk about Lizzie Lovett.”

  I felt my face flush. “You’re right. I should go.”

  “You probably should.”

  “Will you be able to get a ride home later?”

  “It’s fine. Just go.”

  “Why can’t we do the research online anyway?”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Hawthorn.”

  I walked out of the library with my shoulders slumped and decided the incident was one more reason to hate Lizzie.

  • • •

  Both Rush and I were pushing food around on our plates instead of eating. I was doing it because I wasn’t a fan of Indian food. I suspected Rush still had no appetite because he was pouting over Lizzie.

  “Then he goes on to argue that putting Clarence on the throne would have actually kept the Plantagenets in power,” my dad was saying.

  My mom chuckled like my dad’s student was totally absurd, but I was pretty sure she didn’t actually know or care one way or another. She was probably thinking about her garden.

  “So I reminded him Clarence had been off his rocker for years and drowning in Malmsey was a better end than he deserved.”

  “Malmsey?” my mom asked, though I was sure my dad had told this story before.

  “A type of wine. See, George of Clarence was quite the drinker. So when his brother, King Edward, ordered him executed for treason—”

  “My car is making really weird noises.”

  “Hawthorn! Your father was talking,” my mom said.

  “Sorry. I guess I don’t feel like talking about Edward IV all night.”

  Sometimes, I felt like I knew Edward IV better than I knew my dad. I’d heard the story about his brother, George, drowning in a barrel of wine. Just like I’d heard all about their other brother, Richard, the hunchbacked murderer. These were the bedtime stories I grew up with. I didn’t get how my dad could give lectures on medieval history all day and still have energy to talk about it at home.

  But maybe he did get bored with it, because instead of being annoyed with me like my mom, he said, “It’s fine, Sparrow. I’m sure there are more interesting things in Hawthorn’s life than dead kings.”

  “I doubt it,” Rush muttered.

  “Rushford,” my mom said in her warning tone.

  My dad tried to keep dinner from going completely downhill, which was a role he took on a lot. “What sound is your car making?”

  “It’s sort of roaring, like it’s on the verge of taking flight.”

  “It’s an old car,” my mom reminded me. “You knew this was a risk.”

  “I’ll look at it this weekend,” my dad said.

  “No, James. She can take it into the shop or learn to work on it herself. That was the deal.”

  Rush sighed loudly to let us all know how tired he was with the conversation.

  “I don’t have the money to take it to the shop,” I said.

  “Whose fault is that?” I could tell my mom was in an unreasonable mood and I should stop pushing her, but winter wasn’t that far away and I couldn’t walk to school in the snow. Which would mean the bus. Every day.

  “Really, Sparrow. It won’t take me long to open the hood and take a look.”

  “No. She wanted the car. She has to deal with the consequences.”

  The tension in the room was rising, and I started to feel really awkward, but apparently not as awkward as my brother, because he suddenly pushed his chair back from the table.

  “I can’t believe the three of you are just sitting here talking as if everything is normal. Lizzie’s missing, and all you care about is car problems and some guy who lived five thousand years ago.”

  “Edward IV lived five hundred years ago, you idiot,” I snapped. “And excuse us for not spending every second crying for some girl we don’t know.”

  “Hawthorn,” my mom scolded.

  “I knew her. I guess that doesn’t mean anything to you,” Rush said.

  “Knew her, past tense,” I said. “You haven’t thought about her for years. If she hadn’t disappeared, you probably wouldn’t have ever thought about her again.”

  Now my mom was angry. “Hawthorn, stop.”

  “Why? He’s not sad about Lizzie. He’s sad because it’s just one more reminder high school is over and he’s nothing but an ex-football player who’s stuck taking classes at the community college.”

  “Fuck you,” Rush said. He stomped out of the room, and a moment later, the front door slammed.

  The dining room was quiet. Then my dad cleared his throat. “I don’t want to ever hear you talking to your brother like that again.”

  I guessed I’d crossed some sort of line. Not that what I said wasn’t true. But just because something’s true doesn’t mean it’s OK to say, as my dad frequently told me.

  “As for your car,” my dad said, “your mother is right. If you want it fixed, take it to a mechanic. If you don’t have the money, get a part-time job.”

  A job was the last thing I wanted. I was still feeling scarred from working at the mini golf course over the summer.

  The problem wasn’t the screaming kids or the monotony or that I had to give up most of my weekends. What frustrated me was thinking about how little money I was making compared to how much I was doing. And that made me think about how some people end up working at a mini golf course for their entire lives. And then I realized if I didn’t hurry up and figure out what I wanted to do after high school, I might turn into one of those people.

  After that, the job changed. Instead of just being a way to make spending money during the summer, working at the mini golf course became a purgatory of cleaning up spilled ice cream cones and fishing stray golf balls out of the algae-filled pond. That was about the time I started to dread going to work every day. Then I started to dread the idea of having a job at all.

  On the other hand, if I had a job like Dad suggested, I wouldn’t spend so much time sitting around the house thinking about how boring my life was.

  “I didn’t mean to say that to Rush,” I said, partly because it was true and partly because I knew my parents would be angry until I apologized. “I’m sorry. Really.”

  My mom put her hand over mine. “I know you didn’t mean it, honey. This situation with Lizzie is making everyone tense.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  Noticed but didn’t understand it. How was it possible for Lizzie to have such a strong hold on everyone? She could be a hundred miles away for all we knew. But still, our lives were centered on her. She was causing fights, creating tension, making people worry. Even when Lizzie was absent, she was the star.

  Chapter 5

  The Hundred Deaths of Lizzie Lovett

  By Friday morning, people were starting to think the worst. The search parties had been at it for four straight days. There was nothing—not a footprint, not a piece of fabric torn from Lizzie’s clothes, not a strand of her long, blond hair. It was like she just snapped her fingers and poof, disappeared.

  From the start, people said all sorts of stuff about how maybe Lizzie was dead. But as the first week of her disappearance neared its end, I realized none of them had really believed it. They’d been talking just to talk, trying to shock each other with gruesome scenarios. It was more of a game than anything else. But on Friday, it was different.

  Maybe it was because five days was a long time for someone to be missing. Maybe it had to do with the vigil planned for that evening. Maybe it
was because when the reporters interviewed Lizzie’s mom, she didn’t seem urgent anymore. She seemed defeated. Whatever sparked the change, the whole school was grim that day, and it made every second seem as long as an hour.

  Personally, I was getting for-real bored with Lizzie Lovett. I got why everyone was so upset, but I just couldn’t buy into it. If anything, it seemed like no sign of Lizzie should be good news. If Lizzie had died in the woods, there’d be some evidence. But there wasn’t. Which is exactly what I would expect from a girl who slipped away from camp, trying to make sure no one would follow her.

  Unfortunately, no one in school cared what I had to say, no matter how logical it was. That’s why, on Friday, I didn’t hear anyone debating where Lizzie ran away to or what had made her run in the first place. Instead, I heard the Hundred Deaths of Lizzie Lovett.

  She was mauled by a wild animal.

  She was killed by her boyfriend.

  She fell into a ravine and wasn’t able to climb out.

  She was butchered by a serial killer.

  She was butchered by her boyfriend.

  She ate some wild berries and was poisoned (or possibly bitten by a poisonous insect).

  She got lost and died of starvation, thirst, or exposure.

  She was stabbed, shot, strangled, bludgeoned, drowned, hanged, burned. By her boyfriend.

  At school that day, everyone had a theory of their own. And most of the theories involved Lorenzo Calvetti.

  Some people thought he accidentally killed her and panicked. Others thought he must have been planning it from the moment they met. I even heard a story about how he proposed to Lizzie that night, and when she turned him down, he murdered her in a fit of rage.

  I kept thinking of the picture in the newspaper and how boyish Lorenzo Calvetti looked. Young and in love. Not like a killer. The police chief had even made a statement about how he wasn’t a suspect. The cops thought Lorenzo Calvetti was innocent, and my gut told me they were right. But most of Griffin Mills High School disagreed.

  First period came and went, then other equally boring hours passed, and everyone talked about the girl they were sure was dead and the boy they were sure had killed her. I wanted to tell everyone Lorenzo didn’t do it. He was the real victim, ditched in the woods by the girl he loved. But I knew what people would say and how they would look at me, so I kept my suspicions to myself. I figured Lizzie would turn up soon, and everyone would forget the whole thing anyway.