I nod.
“Of what?” he asks. “That people will be angry? That absurd ‘no snitching’ rule?”
The rule for some kids isn’t no snitching, I want to tell Mr. Farrell. It’s no talking. No being.
“Are you frightened of Nico?” he asks gently.
This is closer, and I nod. “Maybe it’s just me. I know a lot of kids like him …”
Mr. Farrell threads his fingers together, focuses on the tight knot of his hands. “If I say something, Rain, do I have your promise you won’t repeat it? I’m about to be very unprofessional.”
“I promise,” I whisper.
“Nico worries me. He has since he arrived at Alcott. There’s an anger in him I find disturbing. He’s a young man very much at odds with his surroundings, yet he’s desperate to belong.”
I nod.
Mr. Farrell says, “I don’t wish to speak ill of him. But for many reasons, he doesn’t belong at Alcott. He knows it, and it makes him feel inferior. Which makes him angry. I know he’s had … incidents before this one.”
Stealing from Daisy Loring. Throwing a drink in Kirsty Pennington’s face. I want to tell Mr. Farrell about what Nico did to me, but I don’t want to ask for pity.
He’s waiting for me to say I’ll do it, I realize. Go to the police, tell them what I suspect. But I can’t. The thought of going to them, saying I know this! Put this person in jail! makes me sick.
He sighs; I hate the sound. It’s disappointment. Rain needs to participate more in class.…
“Is there something that would be the proof you need, something you could find out?”
The E pin. “I think so.”
“If you get it, that bit of proof you need—promise me you’ll go to the police?”
I hesitate. “The cops would have talked to him, right? She made her thing for Nico pretty clear. She even put it on her Facebook page.”
“Yes. They’ve talked to him. I gather they didn’t get much.” He sighs. “And there are a lot of kids who might be willing to lie for him. Or stay silent to protect him.”
I can’t argue with that. Even if Sasha did give him one of her pins, who would tell the police? Obviously not Sasha, if she won’t even talk to them.
“This is probably all in my head,” I say, half hoping he’ll agree with me. “I just feel like there has to be something I can do for Wendy.”
“Of course.”
“So, I’m deciding”—I let sarcasm into my voice—“that I’ve found her killer.”
“Or, you’re dealing with a very angry young man who reacts to any threat with violence. And if that’s what you’re doing, I don’t want you to be doing it alone.”
He reaches for a notebook, then picks up a pen. He scribbles something, hands it to me.
“My phone number,” he says. “If you’re worried, nervous, think you’ve learned something—call. Okay?”
“Okay.” I take the piece of paper, fold it carefully, and put it in my bag.
“Whatever you need.” I look in his eyes and it’s true. Whatever I need, this man will give me.
And as I look and keep looking, it becomes clear that what I might need is not so safe or easy; he sees that, but he’s not looking away. For a brief moment, I’m not a kid and he’s not a teacher.
Then Mr. Farrell stands up. The talk is over. I have to thank him, I think, as I agree to be led to the door. You have to say thank you when someone says they want to protect you.
“Just … talk to me,” says Mr. Farrell. “Okay, Rain?”
He slides his hand down my arm.
Then he ducks his head, steps back awkwardly, and shuts the door.
It’s nothing, I think. There’s nothing wrong with it.
Yes, there is, I think breathlessly as I hurry down the hallway. Mr. Farrell touched me. He touched me, when he didn’t want to, but he had to. And now he feels bad, and he wishes he hadn’t done it. That’s why he stepped back so fast, why he closed the door. Because he felt guilty.
But also thrilled.
Because that’s how I feel and I know. I know he feels the same way. There are things I know, things I feel. And this is one of them. I dared to speak. And look what happened. For once, I am totally rewarded. Which may be a weird way to think about it, but that’s how it feels.
Down the hall is Ms. Englander’s classroom. She teaches World Civilization. Her walls are covered with images from the Bible, Greek mythology, and fairy tales. Passing by, I see Eve at the tree, Pandora, Bluebeard’s wife. All those women in stories opening boxes they’re not supposed to, peeking through doors to see what they shouldn’t, eating forbidden fruit. They do it because they want to know what’s really going on. They want to feel alive.
Why are they always told no?
But I have to be fair about this. Not jump to conclusions. First thing to do: account for all the other E pins. The kids who have graduated are off my list. I’ve seen one of Sasha’s, I’ve seen Taylor’s. Of the kids still at Alcott, that leaves Peter Dorkey and Lorelei Haneke.
I have chorus that morning. So, as it happens, does Peter. He sings bass. I’ve already told my mom she’ll probably run into him at Lincoln Center one day. He’s that good.
And a really good person. Always helps the new guys feel okay about singing in chorus by bellowing, “We are the MEN, MEN, MEN! of the Alcott Cho-rus!” in Gilbert and Sullivan style. I can’t imagine what grudge he would have against Wendy. But still, I have to check.
As we warm up, I check his hands, spread under his music folder. No rings. Some people put the pin on a chain, wear it around their neck. Peter’s wearing a sweater today, but I don’t see a jewelry bulge under the wool.
How else do people wear their pins? I wonder as we sing. Then I remember seeing Taylor’s on her bag strap.
As we gather our stuff at the end of class, I check out Peter’s backpack. No decoration anywhere.
Peter sees me looking. Smiles. “New sack. You like?”
Shy and embarrassed to be caught, I give a thumbs-up.
And then wonder: When did he switch bags? Why did he switch bags?
Wendy’s murder is doing strange things to my head.
Ran into N at the beach. Was wearing my briefest bikini and looking bodacious. Yeah, I think he noticed!
I am reading Wendy’s Facebook posts from the summer. If I do go to the police, they’ll want to know that Wendy’s connection to Nico was more than gossip. And I want to get a sense of what happened between them.
I read:
Here I am, stuck in Amagansett, working in my cousin’s restaurant for the summer. How many words for boring are there? Call, text, whatever! Save me!
A few days later: Check out my new pics from Momo’s, a halfway-decent dive where they don’t check ID.
I look at the pictures. Wendy in skirt and bikini top, her arms around some guy at a bar. Not Nico. But in July, I find what I’m looking for.
Ran into a most interesting person at Momo’s the other night. Alcott peeps, do the initials NP ring a bell?
According to school scuttlebutt, Nico and Sasha met in the Hamptons in August. But apparently, in July, he was happy enough with Wendy in Amagansett.
Another insane night at Momo’s with N. He’s most impressed that I can keep up with him. We discussed the girlfriend sitch. He’s dating some snob bitch in the city and has his eye on another one out here. Hilarious.
Ridiculous fun last night. Amazed I’m not in jail! Check out my pics.
I do. Wendy and Nico at a party on the beach at night. Everyone’s sitting around a campfire. There’s only one picture of the two of them. They’re next to each other, but not actually touching. Wendy’s holding a marshmallow over the flame, Nico’s in his swim trunks holding a beer. She looks pretty, her hair dark in the firelight. They’re both laughing.
But things take a bad turn at the end of the month when Nico’s girlfriend—Isabel something—comes for a visit.
Saw N with snob bitch gf. Totally acted
like he didn’t know me. MEN SUCK. PARTICULARLY MARRIED MEN.
Called N on the other night. Got the old What do you want from me line. Why are men never surprising?
No N at Momo’s. Man, I’m sick of this scene.
I sit back. So there it is: proof that Wendy and Nico connected at least over the summer. The police will see that, won’t they? They’ll figure it out.
Maybe, I think. Maybe not.
I feel restless, like I should do something, but I’m not ready to do the one thing I need to. I need to know more. Understand more. Getting my coat, I leave the house and take the subway downtown.
Wendy died in the Sixty-Seventh Street Playground, just off Fifth Avenue. According to the newspaper, her body was found in a circle of greenery planted to give shade and attract butterflies. She didn’t get too far into the park, just far enough for someone to grab her and kill her without being seen.
That morning, a jogger taking a rest on a bench noticed a leather bag lying on the ground. Then the body, half pushed under the bushes—as if whoever did it had tried to hide what he’d done, but had run out of time. She saw the back of Wendy’s head, but the face was turned away. She saw her shirt and her bra pushed up around her neck. Her arm just lying there in the wet leaves.
It took a moment, the jogger said, to understand that she was looking at a dead girl.
In warm weather, this playground is crazy with kids zooming down the big slide, hopping in the sprinklers or digging quietly in the sand. But on a late afternoon in near winter, it’s empty. It rained earlier in the day and the paths are still slick and damp. It’s already growing dark. Soon the park lamps will glow to life. But now, the whole world feels gray.
I stare at the spot where Wendy’s life ended, trying to feel how it happened. Yellow tape. That’s the first thing that tells you, Stay away. It stretches from tree to bush, wrapped around their branches a million times, piss-colored lines crisscrossing this way and that. It looks messy, as if someone didn’t care. I hate it, want to rip it all down.
I stand staring at the taped-off area. Wendy lived near here; she and I came here once. It was after school, almost spring. She was smoking a cigarette, legs crossed. Every so often, one of the moms would give her a dirty look for smoking and she’d wag her leg at them. Yeah, I wear short skirts, too! Total slut, that’s right!
She asked me if I wanted one and I said no. To excuse myself, I said, “It’s not like I have much of a singing voice, but …”
She frowned, inhaled. “You have a great voice. You’re lucky, you have things,” she said. Stubbing the cigarette out on the gray stone, she said, “I got squat.” She tossed the butt on the cobblestones.
I remember not liking her then, the way she just threw her trash anywhere, felt so sorry for herself. We were already having a lot of bored silences by that time. Uh, so what do you wanna do? What do you wanna do? Because we didn’t want to do the same things anymore and it was obvious.
I sighed. “What do you want that you don’t have?”
“Something that’s mine,” she said fiercely. “Totally mine that I don’t have to share or wait for. Hey, Mom, can we? Not now, honey, gotta work. Hey, Dad, let’s … Meet my new girlfriend, sweetie. It’s like, Take what you get and be happy. Never mind if it’s not enough. Never mind if it sucks.”
She sighed. “Just for once, I want someone to want me more than anybody else. To put me first.”
I wanted to ask Wendy why, if that was what she wanted, she always picked guys who were taken. But that would sound like I was blaming her.
Angrily lighting another cigarette, she said, “My mom treats me like I’m this spoiled bitch who demands everything under the sun. And I’m like, Not everything, just what I need, okay?”
This made me uneasy. I did think Wendy asked for too much. You can’t have everything you want, I thought. By pushing all the time, you make it so people don’t want to give you anything. I wanted to tell her, If I went around demanding things the way you do? Forget it. Someone would slap me back so fast I wouldn’t know what hit me.
But I said nothing to Wendy. I was too afraid of hurting her.
Chosen, I think, staring at the yellow tape. You wanted to be chosen, Wendy. That’s why you always picked guys who were taken. It wasn’t enough to have someone like you, they had to reject someone else. Because that’s how it works, right? Someone wins, so someone has to lose. One person’s happiness is another person’s hurt. That’s how you know it’s real, when you can look at the girl who didn’t get the guy and think, Yeah, he chose me.
Someone chose Wendy that night. Someone saw a thin girl with high heels who couldn’t run. Maybe she was stumbling a little bit. Maybe she was crying. So lost in her own unhappiness, she wasn’t paying attention to anything else.
That’s what everyone else thinks.
Here’s what I think. Nico and Wendy go to the park. For a gag, they climb the fence. “Hey, let’s do it on the slide!” Maybe Nico gets high. Maybe they both do. Wendy gets silly, makes one of her jokes …
Or no. Not a joke. Wendy demands that Nico break up with Sasha, be only with her. Nico gets angry …
And the next morning a jogger finds a dead girl in the park.
Staring up at the buildings on Fifth Avenue, I wonder, Why didn’t anyone hear? Why didn’t anyone notice? I turn around, face the playground gate, which they always keep closed. And that’s when I see him. A man standing in a navy blue duffle coat, his hands in his pockets. Only, men don’t wear duffle coats. Boys do. Beautiful blond boys who look like they attend English boarding schools and ride on the weekends, stealing a nip of brandy from a flask when no one’s looking. Boys named Hugh or Rupert who date girls named Sarah and Fenella …
But this boy used to live in Queens. With his mom, who’s a nurse. His name is Nico Phelps.
He’s standing at the gate. Blond hair whipping in the wind. Staring at the place where Wendy died, as if it’s a scene in a movie he’s watching.
Why are you here? I wonder. Are you looking for her?
Thinking of her? Remembering?
Remembering what you did?
Nico and I have never spoken since that afternoon on the stairwell. Now for a moment, our eyes meet.
You hurt her, I think. You hurt people, and this time, you don’t get away with it.
I imagine screaming it out loud, so loud that all those people in all those buildings hear it, so loud that the people walking past this spot stop and remember. So loud that the fact that Nico Phelps killed Wendy Geller can never be not known.
Nico turns, starts walking away. In my head, I’m screaming.
In real life, I utter a small, timid, “Hey …”
Nico doesn’t hear. No one does.
Walking home, I think about couples and E pins. People do give them to boyfriends or girlfriends they’re serious about. But it’s not really a cool thing to do. Nice, boring kids do it. Other kids consider it a little … tacky.
One thing Sasha’s not? Tacky.
But she must have given Nico her pin. It’s the only explanation.
Only two people would know for sure. And I certainly can’t ask Nico.
Which means I have to ask Sasha.
DAY FIVE
The Alcott School built the Darklis Perry Art Center three years ago. The school added a new floor to the building, a beautiful glass dome with curtains that come down to protect the art from the sun. The equipment is all so fabulous, it makes you yearn to have artistic talent just so you can touch it. State-of-the-art potters’ wheels, easels that stand as gracefully poised as dancers, the finest oils, the most delicate brushes, the best drawing pencils. And of course, a huge space dedicated just to sculpture and installation. Generously donated by Sergio Meloni, Sasha’s dad.
This might explain why, when after-school time in the studio is a hard-won privilege for most, Sasha can always be found there, working away on her latest creation. It could also be her talent, because Sasha is talented. Or her
will. What Sasha wants, she tends to get.
Do I dare do this? I wonder. Confront the gorgeous dragon that is Sasha?
Well, you’re going to have to, I tell myself, if you want to help Wendy.
Earlier today, I talked to Lorelei in English class. We chatted about African elephants; saving them is her big passion. It felt ridiculous to be checking out an animal-loving girl in a wheelchair for murder, but I told myself it was possible Lorelei had lost her ring. But no, there it was, hidden under her blouse on a chain. I couldn’t see the whole thing, but from the shape and shadow, it was clearly her E pin.
There’s no one in the art studio as I come in. The curtains are half down to keep out the glare. The tables are cleared, the wheels still. All the “wets”—paint, clay, ink—are put away or covered. There’s a prayerful feeling, the calm before creation.
And in the back, a scraping sound.
The Sculpture Circle is set off from the rest of the studio, in a private space farthest from the door so you’re not disturbed by people coming and going. As I approach, I see various pieces, some covered, some not. Some nearly finished, some just started. Some, I can’t tell, to be honest.
Sasha is standing by a vast window, holding a piece of wire in her hands. She grips the ends in her fists, twisting it, pulling it taut. In front of her, a mass of clay, nearly her own height. It’s an endless coil—ropes, muscle, wave, I’m not sure—all tangled and fighting. She fixes the edge of the wire to one particularly thick curve and pulls. Strong, hard, determined. Clay peels off, falls to the ground.
I wait till she’s done, then say, “Wow.”
She knew I was here all along. Stepping back, she says, “Wow good or wow crap?” Her voice is matter-of-fact. She’d rather know if something is crap.
“It’s good, Sasha.”
She shoots me an amused smile. Like you would know. Then she sets the wire aside, wipes her hands with a rag. She’s wearing an old black T-shirt and jeans. Her head’s wrapped with a piece of cloth, the ponytail high and wild. As she gets ready to work the clay with her fingers, she takes off her rings, drops them into a coffee mug for safekeeping. I watch as they fall in. Some worked silver bands. A pink opal, cloudy and mysterious. The E pin, black and gold.
The Girl in the Park Page 10
