The Girl in the Park

by Mariah Fredericks

  “You wanted to talk,” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  “All of a sudden, you like to talk.”

  Sensing a trap, I shake my head.

  “Like you talked to the cops.”

  I feel a desperate need to apologize, to throw up a wall of I’m sorry before he lets loose with rage.

  Then, suddenly I’m calm, almost chilly. I don’t have to apologize to Nico Phelps.

  “I thought you killed her.”

  “And now?”

  “Not sure.”

  He shifts slightly. I have made him uncomfortable. Good, I think.

  “You said you knew something,” he says. “That could maybe help.”

  I nod. “But I need to know something before I tell you.”

  “Like what?”

  Like did Sasha kill Wendy? Yeah, right. I’ll lose him entirely if I start that way.

  Instead I say, “Like what really happened between you and Wendy that night.”

  He rolls his eyes. This is a guy who seriously resents having to do things for other people. “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because what I know is important.” I see him hesitate. “It would change things, I promise.”

  “Oh, I guess you feel guilty,” he sneers.

  “No. But Wendy was my friend.”

  “And obviously I killed her,” he says sarcastically.

  “Would you tell me if you did?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t.”

  Nico’s been saying these words his whole life, I think. They’re the same words he gave the cops when they busted him for drugs over the summer. Same words he gave to teachers who accused him of cheating. Same words he probably gave to his mom when she asked if he stole twenty bucks from her wallet.

  “Will you tell me the whole thing?” I ask. “Everything that happened that night?”

  “Sure.” He shrugs again. Who cares? Whatever.

  “Even things you just felt, but didn’t necessarily know?”

  That surprises him. “Sure.” He pulls at a thread on the blanket. “One thing I felt? Thought, whatever? There was something going on with Wendy that night,” he says softly. “Something weird.”

  He hesitates, then blurts out, “So you know the whole deal, how we got together a few times in summer?” I nod. “Then this year, I’m with Sasha and Wendy’s like, I’m not letting go. You’re mine. We’re trashy. We belong together. But she was funny about it, you know? No big deal. I kind of thought it was a game, almost.”

  There’s something important there. I file the word game in my brain.

  He sighs. “Then I start hearing about the Facebook thing. And like … that was a little much.”

  “Did Sasha have a problem with it?” I ask.

  “Not that she said, but all of a sudden I was getting a lot of static about other things. I’m sure it bugged her.”

  That scans. I say, “So, that night …”

  He crosses his arms, looks toward the TV. In a rush, he says, “That night I left the party to hook up with Wendy.” He gives me a You happy now? grimace.

  “But you weren’t going to end it with Sasha?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Like I said, Sasha’d been giving me a lot of grief. ‘You need to focus. Grow up, don’t drink.’ Stuff about my mom. Kind of like, ‘If you’re going to be one of us …’ ” He shrugs. “I liked Wendy. She was cute, sexy. She wasn’t going to get you anywhere special in life.…”

  In other words, not connected. When you’re shooting for Brown, you want a girl who can lend you her E pin to wear on college interviews.

  Then Nico says, “Anyway, I wanted a break.”

  “And Wendy was the break.”

  He nods. “So, we’re talking at the party, and I’m like, Yeah, cool, let’s do it. That’s when she starts with the demands. Starts pushing real hard for us to leave together—like that moment.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “I told her we couldn’t leave together, but that I’d leave right after her. She wasn’t happy, but she accepted that. Then when she was gone, I waited ten, fifteen minutes. Made sure Sash wasn’t around. Then I left.”

  His face is bland, his voice casual. Lying to the girl you’re lying to your girlfriend about, I think. Wow.

  “Where did you meet?”

  “On the corner. By the newsstand.”

  “What were you guys going to do?” I ask.

  “We were going to go to her house. Her mom wasn’t home. And it was close.”

  I think. Karina lives in the upper Eighties, Wendy in the low Seventies. Not that close. Not close enough for them to have made it to her apartment and have Nico back at the party that fast.

  “But you didn’t go.”

  He shakes his head.

  “You changed your mind.”

  “No—she changed her mind.”

  Surprised, I say, “Excuse me?”

  “Seriously,” he says. “She flipped out on me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He frowns, irritated by the memory. “Like I said, I waited to leave the party. Because I didn’t want people thinking—”

  “That what was happening was actually happening,” I say.

  “Yeah. So when I finally meet her, she’s totally pissed. Like, Where were you? You kept me waiting. All this crap. And I’m drunk, not thinking. So I say, It’s fine, nobody saw me leave. But of course, she’s such a drama queen, she wants everyone to know everything. So she got all snotty with me, like, Oh, well, thank God nobody saw you leave, because that would be the end of the world, right? She kept asking me: Was I sure, how was I so sure? Somebody must have seen me. And I got mad and yelled, No, nobody saw me. ’Cause I was careful. And I guess that pissed her off even more because that’s when she really lost it. Starts hitting me.” He waves his fists weakly in the air, lets out a little Eeehhh, an imitation of a girl fighting.

  “What’d you do?”

  “I laughed, to be honest. Then it got annoying and I held her hands. That’s when she broke free and scratched me.” He holds up his hands and I see the faint lines.

  That explains why they found Nico’s skin under Wendy’s nails. “What then?”

  Nico thinks. “She’s screaming at me, ‘You all think you can just keep handing me crap and I’ll keep eating it, well, I won’t, blah, blah …’ ”

  Something strikes me. “ ‘You all’? What, you and Sasha?”

  He sighs. “All men, who knows. She said she was tired of being a secret.”

  It almost makes sense. The school mattress hating guys she gives it up to. Only, Wendy was never a secret. Everything she did—every guy she stole—it was all out in the open. She certainly wasn’t a secret with Ellis. And her Nico obsession couldn’t have been more public. But I guess this time she wanted more than the bathroom. She wanted Nico to make a big statement to Sasha and all the snobs who looked down on her by leaving with her. To tell the world she was a real girlfriend now. And when he didn’t, she was pissed.

  Then Nico says, “So, I said I was sorry. ’Cause by then I was tired and not really up for drama.”

  “What’d you say? Exactly?”

  He pauses, concentrating. “I told her, ‘Okay, I get it, I’m sorry. Let’s call it off.’ ” He looks away. “I felt a little bad. I had told her things weren’t cool with Sasha. Maybe I let her think … I don’t know.”

  “And what’d she say when you said sorry, let’s not do this?”

  Nico nods as he remembers. “This was weird. One second, she’s scratching me, screaming at me. Next minute, she’s totally cool.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Once I said forget it, she just laughed.”

  “Laughed?”

  “Yeah. Cheered right up. Even said she was sorry for the scratches.” He sees I don’t believe him. “Seriously. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and said ‘Bye, lover man.’ Walked off all happy.”

  “She was putt
ing on a show.”

  “Nope. She was happy.”

  Impatient, I say, “No offense, Nico, but how would you know? I don’t get the sense you spent a lot of time worrying about Wendy’s feelings.”

  “You weren’t the only one who got Wendy,” he says slowly. “The whole pool cleaner thing, I could relate to that. Maybe you don’t know this”—a nasty glint in his eye tells me he’s being sarcastic—“but some people can’t get over the fact that my mom’s a nurse. Or that we used to live in Queens. Wendy and me used to talk about that, how full of it people were at school. How weird it was to be with these kids who’d never been anything but rich, had no clue any other life existed.”

  I don’t think Nico’s lying. “Bye, lover man.” That’s pure Wendy. Nico couldn’t invent that.

  So, why would Wendy tell the guy she supposedly wanted more than anything to get lost?

  That whole Nico thing was just a joke. She never meant any of it. ‘Don’t believe the hype’ was what she said.

  Remembering Ellis’s words, I say, “This is a weird question.…”

  “Yeah, I’m charged with murder, so ask.”

  “Do you think Wendy was ever really into you?”

  His mouth quirks up. “What, did she truly ‘love’ me or was it a status thing or—”

  “No. I mean, did you ever feel she was making more of it than it was? Almost on purpose? As if people knowing she liked you was more important than—”

  “She was pretty needy in the attention department,” Nico points out.

  “Yeah, and she liked annoying girls like Sasha. But this seems different. Even more out there.”

  Wendy setting down her drink. Could you ’scoose me?

  “She even made a big show of letting me know,” I realize. “And then …”

  “What?” says Nico tensely.

  “And then she tells you to get lost. When she had made it so public that she was going to get you. I mean, why not at least take the scalp?”

  Nico says slowly, “You think the whole thing was a scam to cover for something else?”

  I nod. “When I was friends with Wendy, she used to tell her mom she was with me when she wanted to sneak out to parties. Using one person to cover for something else—she knew how to do that. She was mad when no one saw you because she wanted people to think you guys were together. And then she needed to get rid of you without making you suspicious.”

  Nico shows me his hands. “She was pretty seriously mad.”

  “Sure,” I say simply. “You weren’t very nice to her. But I don’t think you were the point of that evening.”

  “So she gets rid of me so she can meet this other guy without people knowing.” He shakes his head. “So, she met this guy in the park and then what?”

  “I don’t know.” I shudder. “I don’t know.”

  But Nico can see a way out now. Excited, he demands, “Who else was she into?”

  “You’re thinking the person she was meeting was the person who killed her,” I point out.

  “Kind of obvious.”

  “Is it? Where was Sasha?”

  He turns his head sharply, wrinkles his nose. “Come on.…”

  “Wendy got a kick out of annoying her, you admitted it. I can tell you personally Sasha has a temper. She’s not afraid to get physical. Maybe your little game with Wendy wasn’t so funny to her.”

  “Then she’d kick my ass,” he says simply. “She has before.”

  “Do you know for a fact she stayed at the party while you were gone? Maybe she followed you.”

  “What, then followed Wendy to the park so she could kill her? I’m not worth all that.”

  “You’re not, but her pride is. Sasha’s got a lot of it; haven’t you noticed? Or maybe she just lost it. She didn’t have to plan on killing Wendy, just let her have it. Everyone was waiting for that—when would Sasha kick Wendy’s ass?”

  He’s silent.

  “Maybe it just went too far.”

  He leans forward, puts his chin on his fist. “I don’t see it,” he says finally.

  “You don’t want to.”

  “Believe me,” he says, “I’d be real happy to find someone else to pin this on. But it’s not Sash.”

  “If it is, they’ll find out,” I warn him. “Someone will have noticed she left.”

  “She didn’t leave. And she didn’t do it. Leave her out of this, I’m serious.”

  He’s shouting now. And he’s almost off the bed. I gasp, pull myself in tight.

  A knock at the door. Nico’s mom calls his name. Her voice is gentle, as if she knows he’s in trouble.

  Nico settles right down. Says, “Yeah, Mom, I’m fine.”

  When he’s sure she’s gone, he says in a calmer voice, “Anyway, a girl couldn’t have done that.”

  “Wendy wasn’t that big,” I remind him.

  He looks at me. “Maybe the person she was meeting did it. Only maybe she wasn’t meeting a guy.”

  It takes me a moment to get what Nico is saying. “Come on.”

  He shakes his head. “Maybe Wendy got tired of the guy thing. She used to joke about it. ‘Women are so much cooler than men, why do I waste my time?’ Only maybe she was with somebody who wasn’t so into people knowing she was gay. Maybe that’s who was keeping her a secret. Maybe they had a fight about it.”

  Nico is relaxed now, shoulders comfortable, feet up. He’s looking right at me.

  It’s almost funny.

  “Are you serious?”

  He shrugs. “I’m way off?”

  “Way, way.”

  “You have an alibi?”

  I don’t, as a matter of fact, which is weird. I was probably home or on my way home when Wendy was killed. The doorman was off duty. My mom was asleep. No one knows when I got in.

  As lightly as possible, I say, “What, you’re going to pin this on me?”

  “You say anything about Sasha, I just might.”

  I’m about to say, Yeah, Nico, I think you’re going to have a problem getting people to believe that. Shy, no-life, always-listens-to-others gal, a killer? Not to mention you don’t have a shred of proof.

  But then I remember that picture of myself from freshman year. How angry I looked. It was a surprise to me, that I put that much rage out there. But maybe it wouldn’t be such a surprise to other people.

  In a softer voice, I ask, “Have you seen Sasha since …” It seems rude to mention his arrest.

  He gazes at his closet full of clothes. “We talk on the phone, but her parents are talking about sending her abroad for the summer, maybe even sooner if they can work it out with the school.”

  Which would get her away from Nico, I think. But also get her away from the police.

  It’s hard for me not to see Nico as a jerk. But I try to see him as a human being who needs help when I say, “Nico, you know Sasha really well. Seriously. You think there’s no way she did this?”

  “No way,” he says firmly.

  “Even if you go to jail?”

  He’s silent. Then says, “You said you knew something that could help me.”

  I look at him. He’s tensed up since we started talking about Sasha. No more lolling around on the bed. Now he’s sitting hunched and anxious, elbows on knees, hands gripped tight together.

  I say, “Have the cops talked to you about a pin?”

  I catch a wave of shame; Nico takes a deep breath, then nods. “Yeah, they said they found one of the school pins near Wendy. At first I was like, I don’t have one, you can check. Then they said, Yeah, we know your girlfriend gave you hers. I didn’t want them hassling Sash, so I admitted that she did give me one. That I wanted it for college stuff, to wear on interviews.”

  “I don’t get that: wouldn’t the college check with the school?”

  “People look at the surface. If they like what they see, they don’t ask questions.”

  Okay. “So what happened to the pin?”

  “I lost it. I told the cops, but amazingly
, they don’t believe me.”

  I don’t either. “What happened to it, Nico?”

  He ducks his head. “Okay. I didn’t lose it. I … there was this girl. At a bar. Said she had modeling connects. We were both fairly high.” He smiles bitterly. “She wanted it. I gave it to her.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tried asking for it back?”

  “She was Italian. Gabriella something. The lawyer’s working on it. Stupid bitch really screwed me up.”

  This is how Nico sees life, I realize. In his universe, all the things that go wrong for him—not his fault. These crazy women just keep screwing things up for him. I open my mouth, ready to demand how he can treat Sasha so badly when he actually does care about her. Then I remember Wendy. How every guy she went after was tied up with some girl she hated. Romance, rejection, and revenge—it was all tangled up for her. No wonder she understood Nico.

  Do I really want to help this guy?

  No. But in the end, Nico doesn’t matter. It’s about me making what I said right.

  “The E pin,” I say. “The one the police say they have. Ask for a picture. It’s not what Sasha gave you and you can prove it.”

  He straightens up. “Seriously?”

  I nod.

  “Thanks.” He says the word slowly, as if it’s a foreign word and he’s not sure he’s pronouncing it right.

  I stand up, raise my hand in good-bye. Nico does the same, staying on the bed.

  For a moment, we look at each other, both thinking the same thing.

  Nico says, “I guess you were kind of pissed at me. That’s why you called the cops.”

  His voice is casual, as if my anger is no big deal to him.

  “I called the cops,” I say, imitating his casual tone, “because of a lot of things. Including the fact you’ve got a serious mean streak.”

  Nico nods slowly. “Yeah, I figured it was because of what happened.”

  “It didn’t happen,” I say harshly. “It was something you did.”

  This, he hears. His mouth bunches up, like a sulky kid’s. He waves his hand, part apology, part whatever.

  “Why did you do that?” I ask. “I’ve never gotten it.”

  “It was a joke,” he says lazily.

  “No, it wasn’t. You picked me. Why?”

  He sighs. Shrugging, he says, “That place is weird, man. Alcott. Like, everybody’s rich, everybody’s already chosen, you know? The good life is already in place, laid out in front of them.” He shrugs. “Just sometimes, I felt like a freak, you know?”