Pretend She's Here

by Luanne Rice

  * * *

  At school, most people circled me at a safe distance. It seemed they thought I might be dangerous. I felt stared at, like a creature at the zoo, as if I wasn’t quite human. Maybe they were right and I had turned into another species. Jordan and Alicia came straight over, though. They glued themselves to me while I put my coat in my locker.

  They looked different. Jordan had cut her platinum-blond hair really short—feathered around her face and the nape of her neck. She had gotten a pair of Harry Potter–style black-rimmed glasses, even though I was pretty sure she didn’t need them. She’d started wearing a shark tooth necklace that she never took off. Alicia had spent Thanksgiving with her cousins in Mexico City and gotten a tattoo of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the inside of her wrist.

  “I couldn’t sleep last night, I was so excited to see you, Em-girl,” Alicia said.

  “I was excited to see you, too,” I said, a semi-lie. Nervous dread better described my feelings the night before.

  “For once, my grades are the only part of my life that aren’t a mess,” Jordan said. “Nothing lower than a B minus so far this semester! On the other hand, Kirk is such a Scorpio, and I just can’t.”

  “Kirk?” I asked.

  “OMG, you haven’t met him!”

  “Her latest obsession. Prepare to hear everything,” Alicia said with an exaggerated sigh.

  Jordan shrugged and smiled. “He moved here from North Carolina just before Christmas. He had a minute with Monica, but what can I say? He saw the light.”

  “You’re going out?” I asked.

  “Yes, if I can overcome the Scorpio-ness of it all,” she said.

  “What about Eric?” I asked, trying to keep things straight.

  “The never-ending saga of Jordan’s boyfriends,” Alicia put in, rolling her eyes.

  “Eric and I ended before Thanksgiving. Whatever. Kirk gave me this.” Jordan touched the shark tooth.

  Whatever. I heard the word and remembered the email Mrs. Porter had written for me to send home, how she’d made me sound like somebody else—like Jordan, or anyone. Just not myself. I felt sad to think no one had noticed. My family, who knew me so well, hadn’t caught the fact I’d written a word I would never have used in a million years.

  The bell rang, and Dan walked straight over to me.

  “Hey,” he said. There was excitement in that syllable, so much, it took me aback. He stood a little too close. There was almost no space between us. He looked straight at me with a slack mouth but eyes searching and full of—what? Not questions, but happiness to see me. And behind that—wow—care.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “For so long,” he said, “we didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know what?”

  “If you were okay. Where you were. It wasn’t like you to run away.”

  “No,” I said.

  “I knew you hadn’t.” He put his hand on my shoulder. It was a gesture both comforting and odd, something a parent or teacher would do. Then he pulled me against him, so hard he almost crushed my not-quite-healed ribs, but I didn’t cry out. I felt his chest shaking with emotion. Dan was crying. I just squeezed my eyes tight and knew that in another world, a lifetime ago, this would have made me happier than anything.

  The bell rang, and the tide of everyone streaming toward class tore us apart. He lowered his eyes, as if ashamed of showing his feelings, or maybe upset that I hadn’t returned them. He went his way, and I walked into American history class.

  Jeff Woodley sat in the third row. My first instinct was to pretend I hadn’t seen him and walk to a desk across the room. Instead I took a deep breath and went to sit beside him. I could only imagine how he felt about the fact I’d just spent the last few months as a warped version of Lizzie. He was wearing the chain around his neck, her ring dangling from it. Our eyes met.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I never wanted to be her.”

  “Em, I know that. It freaked me out, but only for your sake. It must have been horrible.”

  “It was.”

  “You were in People magazine. They did this creepy compilation photo, your face merged with Lizzie’s.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked. My family had shielded me from that one. “When did it come out?”

  “Like two weeks ago.”

  “I’m sure my parents won’t show me, but I kind of want to see.” I took out my phone.

  “Okay, call me obsessed,” Jeff was saying, “but I couldn’t stop looking at it. Seeing Lizzie, well, it was a little like having her brought back to life.”

  I started to look up the article on my phone, but then he slid the magazine out of his backpack and opened to the page. I stared at the bizarre photo—it was like of those M. C. Escher drawings, where a flock of birds transforms into a school of fish. Half Emily Lonergan, half Lizzie Porter.

  It was hugely disturbing, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

  “I don’t want to look at it anymore,” Jeff said. “Now that you’re back.”

  “Me neither,” I said.

  He ripped the page from the magazine and handed it to me, and I shredded it into tiny pieces, balled them up in my hand, and walked them to the trash can in the front of the room. When I got back to my desk, Jeff reached across the space between us and linked his fingers with mine.

  Ms. Fowle began lecturing on Lieutenant Colonel William Ledyard, a local soldier who had fought during the Revolutionary War. Kids in our area had grown up with the story; most of us had visited Fort Griswold on class trips or with our families. I felt relieved that this was a familiar lesson, that I could ease myself back into studying with facts I already knew.

  “September 6, 1781, the Battle of Groton Heights,” Ms. Fowle said. She was small and compact, with straight dark hair and tattoos of roses on her wrists. She wore a fringed black leather vest over a flowing beige tunic, with leopard-print leggings and pink cowboy boots. Her big brown eyes were kind. Rumor had it she reenacted local battles and also that she was obsessed with zydeco music.

  “Colonel Ledyard refused Benedict Arnold’s command to surrender Fort Griswold,” she was saying. “The British had eight hundred soldiers, Ledyard had about a hundred and fifty. The Americans held the British off for nearly an hour.” She paused. “Now, Benedict Arnold. We all know his name is synonymous with what?”

  “Being a traitor!” Liana Hagen called.

  “That’s right. He was born twelve miles from the fort in Norwich. He was a Connecticut native who became known as the Dark Eagle—why would he have been given that name? Anyone?” She looked straight at me.

  “Because he switched allegiances,” I said. “Because he pretended to be one way, but he switched sides, fighting against his neighbors and country for Britain. He burned New London, a city he must have known well. It was the ultimate … going to the dark side. Hating. Abusing everyone’s trust.”

  “That’s good, Emily,” Ms. Fowle said.

  My mind reverberated, just as if I’d been in an intellectual earthquake. Trust, pretending to be one way, going to the dark side: the Porters. I struggled not to squirm, not to think about anything but this class.

  “In any war, with all battles, there are legends,” Ms. Fowle said. “Accounts written, passed down through word of mouth. Some battles inspired poetry. At the centennial of the Battle of Groton Heights, they read a poem by New Haven poet Leonard Woolsey Bacon. Here’s a line: Where the foe had entered the fort, / Lay Ledyard, gallant knight, / His bosom gored by his own brave sword.”

  I heard the word gored, and my whole body hurt.

  “What does that sound like to you?” she asked.

  “They killed him with his own sword,” Marty Lambert said. “Benedict Arnold did.”

  A horrible gasp filled the classroom. Whose voice was that? I looked around, along with everyone else, then saw that the entire class turned to look at me.

  “Great,” I said, to Jeff, trying to laugh.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You
r first class back, and the subject is stabbing.”

  I made it through the rest of the class without making a sound, and I am pretty sure I kept a smile on my face, even at the kids who kept staring at me. It made me sad. They didn’t get it. They didn’t get me.

  * * *

  Home, even though it still didn’t quite feel like home, was my refuge.

  The guitar began to feel right in my hands. I got used to the rhythm of strumming, and the strings started to sound melodic instead of discordant. Holding the guitar made me feel as if I was embracing something, someone, alive. The wood was fine and contained warmth. The shape curved into my body. When I played, I’d feel a slight, comforting vibration, almost like a heart beating against mine.

  “Do you have schoolwork?” my mother asked, poking her head into my room before dinner.

  “A little,” I said, fingerpicking the strings.

  “I know you’ll get to it,” she said.

  “I will,” I said.

  She smiled. “You sound good.”

  I smiled back. “Thanks,” I said.

  Our words were mother-daughter normal. So were our smiles. But so much had changed. The song I had in my head was full of mourning and anger. I had no idea those two emotions ever went together.

  The song was about a ghost girl, but that spirit was me—the ghost of my old self. I half wanted to sing it to my mother, but I held the words inside and just focused on the notes.

  * * *

  That night Casey and I FaceTimed. He sat in the living room of his house in Royston, surrounded by his father’s instruments. I sat on my bed. He held his mandolin; I held the guitar.

  At first, we just stared at each other. It was such a relief to see him. I reached toward the screen as if I could touch his face. He was bundled up in a down vest with a plaid scarf around his neck. I saw and heard the fire crackling behind him.

  “You look cold,” I said.

  “You look beautiful,” he said.

  I blushed and shook my head. “I’ve been practicing,” I said, lifting the guitar.

  “Let’s hear you,” he said.

  Of course I felt nervous as soon as he said that, but I started off with an A chord, then E, then D, and next thing I knew, he was playing with me. I made a lot of mistakes, but he was slow and patient. After a while, I sounded better. Playing with him lifted me up—both my spirit and my ability.

  “Do you have lyrics to that song?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Want to teach me?” he asked.

  A huge bang and crash startled both of us. Casey’s phone moved, and the camera showed that the front window had cracked open—the curtains were blowing wildly.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Another shutter came off in the wind,” he said. “Smashed into the glass.”

  I watched as he ran over, out the door, and I heard him on the porch and saw him trying to get the shutter back into place. With no pane, the icy air had to be howling through the house. He returned a few minutes later, shivering, holding his upper arms.

  “Can you fix it?” I asked.

  “My dad’s on his way back from a gig,” he said. “We’ll get it replaced then. Man, this house needs work. I might have to become something other than a musician to get it repaired right.”

  “It’s too cold for you to stay tonight,” I said. “Can you go to Mark’s?”

  He shook his head. “No, I have to stay here to make sure the pipes don’t freeze. They did last winter, and that was a mess, and it cost a fortune to fix. You know what’s weird?”

  “What?”

  “Chloe helped me last year. My dad was playing a show in Washington, and I was alone here. See, the water inside the metal pipes expands when it freezes, and if I didn’t melt it somehow, the pipes would burst—and leak once it thawed. So I missed school because I had to open all the cabinets under the sinks, literally light candles in the small spaces to try to heat the pipes enough to keep a trickle of water running through them.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” I said, picturing the old wooden house going up in flames from one of those candles.

  “It was. Chloe stopped over when she got off the bus, to make sure I was okay. She found me running back and forth between the kitchen and bathrooms, checking on the candles. And she wound up staying with me till after dark, helping me keep an eye on them.”

  “So you both saved the pipes from bursting?” I asked.

  “Most of them, yes, but I forgot about the one that went to the back bathroom upstairs. After the thaw, we had a huge leak—it ran through the ceiling, and there was plaster everywhere. But still, it would have been much worse if Chloe hadn’t been here.” He paused and glanced at the door. “I’d better go, nail up a tarp over the broken window for now.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I wish we lived closer so I could help.”

  “So do I. I miss …”

  “What?”

  “Having you next door. But that’s probably not cool to say.”

  “It is. It’s fine.”

  “L,” he said.

  “L,” I said.

  When we ended the call, I kept playing. I thought of Casey in that old ramshackle house. I pictured him and Chloe lighting candles. Even the small warmth from each one had made a difference. Just a little helped.

  * * *

  The library was my second-favorite place to study in school—after the Apiary. I loved the smell of books, the stacks that reached to the ceiling. I used to be happiest when I needed a volume from the top shelf and would get to wheel over the small oak ladder and climb it. Lizzie and I each had a favorite carrel.

  I pulled out Lizzie’s envelope addressed to Mame, removed the letter, and smoothed it on the desk with my hand. My idea was to research Sarah Royston. Even though she was prominent in Maine, and this was Connecticut, I had the feeling there hadn’t been many women mill owners or industrialists in the nineteenth century. Our library had a big section on New England history.

  I could have gone online, of course, but for this, I wanted to read real books, find actual pages. I wanted to hold dusty volumes in my hands, have the authors’ words right in front of my eyes instead of filtered by a screen.

  Instead of starting to work, I texted Casey.

  Me: Are you there?

  Casey: Always.

  Me: Big sigh of relief. I wish I were in Maine.

  Casey: I wish I were in Connecticut

  Me: Hmmm.

  Casey: Did you hear about Chloe?

  Me: What?

  Casey: She got attacked in her cell.

  I froze to read those words, to think of what had happened to her. My hands were shaking when I typed again.

  Me: Is she okay?

  Casey: Yes, aside from a black eye. Another inmate beat her up.

  Me: Why?

  Casey: Her nickname there is “Kidnapper.” The other kids think she should be punished for what she did to you.

  Me: I don’t want that.

  Casey: I know.

  There was a long silence between us. My stomach flipped. I felt sick, thinking of Chloe locked up, as I had been, beaten up and unable to get away and go home. Unlike me, she had no home to go to.

  Me: What will happen to her?

  Casey: There’s a hearing on Friday, to figure it out. They’re going to send her to a group home. They’re saying she’s not really a criminal, that in some ways, her parents abused her, too.

  Me: Where’s the hearing?

  Casey: Portland

  The biggest city in Southern Maine. It was where the United States district court was located—the place the Porters would go on trial. And I knew the Casco Bay Youth Development Center was near there, too.

  Me: I want to go to her hearing

  Casey: I was thinking of it, too

  Me: Let’s try

  Casey: If you’re going, consider me there.

  I was sixteen now; I could get my license, but I needed to take d
river’s ed, get some practice driving in before that could happen. I looked up and noticed Dan in the library. He stood in the earth science aisle, trying to catch my eye. BR—Before Royston—I would have been over the moon. But now it didn’t matter.

  I googled Portland, Maine on my phone. I saw images of the Atlantic Ocean and a bay full of small islands, brick buildings on the waterfront, a planetarium, and six different lighthouses.

  Then I searched for the Casco Bay Youth Development Center. I pulled it up on Google Earth, looked at the tall walls and small windows, the narrow outdoor recreation area. I read an article about how the youth offenders attended high school inside. Bullying was rampant. Passing notes—incarcerated kids’ version of texting—wasn’t allowed. It was called illegal mail.

  There was no question I would attend Chloe’s hearing on Friday. I just had to find a ride.

  On Wednesday, Bea and I went to the Apiary. It was the last room on the second-floor corridor, with its comfy chairs for studying and glass bubble that contained the beehive. In spring, bees flew in and out from the outdoors, forming a colony and making honey. Now, during the winter, the bees clustered on the frame, deep in hibernation.

  The bees were in a state of suspended animation. I stared at them, immobile in their cells. Each cell was private, enclosed. I wondered if the bees felt trapped, if their wings twitched, longing to fly. Did they remember that each year spring came again, that there were meadows and flowers and wild thyme? I suddenly felt sure, as positive as I’d ever been about anything, that these were Casey’s mother’s bees, that they had swarmed down from Maine, joined the colony already living in the hive. They were safe right here in my school.

  Bea scrolled through her phone and made an impatient-sounding exhalation.

  “Mom, jeez,” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “She joined Twitter and now she’s following all our friends.”