Outcast

by Susan Oloier

  Cassie never ate any of the crap they served at school. She brought her own food. While I poked at a pile of thin spaghetti coated with unseasoned tomato paste, she indulged in a pastrami sandwich and tortellini pasta. I pushed my tray aside, and we went to work.

  Mr. Wagner assigned each pairing of lab partners a household item to study as part of a project. We had to break it down into its components and explain the effects of the basic chemicals that made up the product. Ours was hair remover, the least exciting of all the options available to us. Comet cleanser sounded more appealing.

  “I’m going to get rid of this lunch. I’ll be right back.”

  I carried my tray down the center aisle to the trash can. Trina and Liana headed in my direction, their eyes glued to me. Fear surged, but I refused to let them get the best of me. I kept walking. But they didn’t let me pass. Trina pretended to trip, pushed her hand under my tray, and spaghetti noodles and tomato paste doused my white polo shirt and khakis.

  “Oh my gosh, I am so clumsy,” Trina overacted. She and Liana buckled with laughter.

  Everyone in the area stopped and focused on me, the center of attention.

  “We don’t mean to laugh.” They continued to anyway. “We know it’s not funny.” Another burst of cackling erupted from them.

  “You better get to the bathroom before that stain sets,” Liana added, and Trina broke into another laughing fit.

  The arteries in my head pounded with anger. I felt my face flush with hatred.

  I lifted the tangled web of spaghetti noodles and placed them back on the plate and, as if nothing happened, continued toward the trash can. Survival of the fittest.

  “You’re not going to let them get away with that, are you?” Cassie quizzed me as she lit her cigarette at the edge of the school parking lot. She was avoiding Father Timothy.

  I touched my stained shirt. Cassie extended a lit Camel to me, and I shook my head. “Come on. It’ll calm your nerves.”

  I studied her for a minute, wondering if a cigarette really would work that kind of miracle for me. Impatient, she forced it on me, lighting another one for herself. Like a good massage, the puffs of smoke seemed to instantly relax her.

  I held the cigarette for awhile, then put it in my mouth and sucked in. A cough sputtered from me like the sound of a flooded car engine.

  “You’ll get used to it,” she said.

  Get used to it? This would be my one and only cigarette. There wouldn’t be anymore after this. It tasted as bitter as aspirin.

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I told you, revenge.” Cassie looked inside the windows of a few of the surrounding cars. I wondered if she was planning to steal one.

  “I don’t know anything about revenge.” The cigarette teetered between my fingers; I allowed it to burn down on its own. “I have thoughts about doing things to her, but I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?” She motioned toward the Camel, prompting me to take another drag.

  I choked on the smoke, which stifled my speech. “Because the things I come up with are unrealistic.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like shoving her in her locker or making her eat a maggot-infested hamburger.”

  Cassie laughed. “I’ll help you.”

  “Make her eat a maggot-infested hamburger?”

  “No.” She took the final drag of her cigarette, threw it in the gravel, and stamped it out. I imitated her gesture, but not as elegantly. “Get revenge.”

  “How?”

  “There are lots of ways.”

  “There are?”

  “Oh sure.”

  I studied her for a moment. She seemed to relish some upturned memory of her own.

  “Why do you want to help me?”

  “Let’s just say she reminds me of someone I used to know.”

  I finished out the school day, humiliated. When Chad asked, I simply said Trina. I figured it would make him hate her even more. I went home, too exhausted to tell Becca about the pregnancy test. I needed to resolve things with Grace, so I figured the bit about the EPT test could serve as a peace offering between us. I called her and was surprised when she asked me over.

  “You’re kidding? Your mom’s pregnant?”

  “She hasn’t officially told us, so don’t say anything to anyone.”

  “I won’t.”

  We avoided the topic of Chad for a long time, concentrating on our homework. I looked up from my book, studying Grace. She and I were so different. We valued separate things. I wondered what actually held our friendship together.

  “Remember how we met?” I asked.

  “How can I forget?” She seemed to find the visual memory of it on the pages of her text book.

  “You saved me that night,” I said.

  “I was in the right place at the right time,” Grace said to me, sadness creeping in a bit. “Anyone would have done the same thing.”

  “But it wasn’t just anyone,” I told her as I closed my place in the book. “It was you.”

  A smile crept onto her face. “You know, I still have the pictures.”

  “You do?”

  She nodded, mischievously.

  “You were amazing.”

  “It was the blackmail photos. The one of him dressed in a lacy bra next to what’s his name.”

  “It was more than that,” I said, trying not to cry. “It was you.”

  There was a long pause as we both relived the moment back in junior high.

  “What happened to the old Grace?” I finally asked. “The one from seventh grade?”

  There was a long period of silence. “People change,” she said.

  “Some do,” I said mostly to myself—thinking of Trina. “Some don’t.”

  I felt Grace’s stare on me. I looked up and it felt like she was dying to ask me something. “Are you two a couple now? You and Chad?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, scribbling partial answers in my notebook while half-watching Sex in the City reruns.

  “Because I didn’t think you liked him.”

  “I didn’t either, but he’s really…” I stopped myself. I wanted to share with her how great, how sweet, how beyond incredible he was. But I was afraid it would just make her all the more upset. “…nice,” I finished.

  Grace doodled on a blank sheet of paper.

  “How are things with Henry?” I asked, trying to redirect her thoughts.

  “Great.” By the inflection in her voice, it would take a lifetime of acting classes for her to convince me that was true. I turned back to the TV.

  “So is everything okay between us?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Again—not all that convincing.

  Revenge. It was all I thought about. I asked Cassie about her plans in class; I was so anxious to get back at Trina.

  “Friday night,” Cassie whispered. “Ten o’clock.”

  “What happens Friday night?” I kept a watchful eye on Mr. Wagner.

  “The first phase of the payback.”

  “I don’t understand.” My pen drew over the same line until the ink bled through to the other side.

  “That’s when we strike.”

  I felt like I entered in the middle of a movie, missing the whole set up. “But what are we doing?”

  “You’ll see. I’ll pick you up at your house at ten. Make sure you wear black.”

  Mr. Wagner patrolled the classroom like a prison guard, and we pretended to be engrossed in our project.

  “I have a ten-thirty curfew,” I whispered. In retrospect, it would have been easier to wear a shirt that read, I am the biggest loser in the history of the world. “My mom is way overprotective. It’s really annoying.” I covered as best as I could.

  “So you’ll skip out.”

  “Right.” I had absolutely no clue how to do that.

  “How?” I asked.

  Cassie rolled her eyes. It was up to me to figure it out.

  “Just meet me on the corner.”r />
  “Girls,” came the warning voice of Mr. Wagner.

  Meet her on the corner. That was easier said than done.

  Revenge seemed to be the only solution to end the torment with Trina & Company. It was all I thought of on the way to seventh period gym class. I plotted and schemed throughout the whole day, desperately wanting to repay Trina for her piece of artwork on my school clothes. We had track, even in the scorching Arizona heat. I felt prepared since I ran all the time.

  Trina and Liana slithered over, whispering to each other. They glanced at me, then snickered.

  Their laughter fueled me. I refused to let them use me as a doormat anymore.

  Coach Childers was our P.E. teacher. She was the one instructor I knew of at Saint Sebastian High who wasn’t Catholic. She showed no pretensions and made no attempt to persuade us to embrace her religion. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know what her religion was. She never discussed it.

  “You know that woman is Protestant.” My mother hissed the last word like it was foul.

  “So.”

  “She’s teaching at a Catholic school. That doesn’t bother you?”

  “No.”

  “She’s not even married. She must be close to forty. Something’s not right there.”

  She felt it was a travesty on the part of the school to allow a non-Catholic to teach Catholic high school students. She ranted about the injustice, the unfairness of it all. My mother always attempted to gain support for her position. In her mind, she’d leverage the nuns, priests, and Catholic teachers against Coach Childers. It didn’t matter what any of their habits or teaching practices were. It didn’t make a difference if they even knew their subject matter. They were Catholic. That was the defining principle my mother clung to.

  Coach gathered us together near the bleachers where we stretched. When she felt we were limber enough, Coach had us make a timed run twice around the track. The warm-up elevated my adrenaline as well as my heart rate. Trina’s smug face energized me even more.

  Coach gave us the cue, and we started our run. I began steady and strong, determined to finish first. Trina and Liana dashed from the line at an escalated pace. They would burn out quickly and fall to the back. I watched Trina, the way her hands flailed at her sides like two fish out of water. The wound tendrils of blonde hair lashed in the air like Medusa’s head of snakes. Her legs were linguini noodles, bending in heated water. I picked up my pace and moved behind her. Trina was the source of all the hatred toward Grace and me. It was time for a payback.

  I sidled next to her at the head of the swarm. I maintained a steady pace beside her. Liana had fallen back; Trina had no one to protect her now. I had to move fast before the opportunity escaped me.

  As Trina and I turned the farthest corner from where Coach stood, and I felt confident no one would see, I sideswiped her. She faltered, and I took out her ankle. Her feet tossed out from under her, and she tripped and fell at the sidelines. A surge of triumph coursed through me. I wanted desperately to hurl insults and threats at her, but knew I needed to cover myself at the finish line. Of course, I would feign an apology, plead it was all an accident. And Coach would believe me. After all, I was an honor student with no prior record. That was the beauty of it all. Cassie was right: Revenge felt pretty good.

  “What the hell, loser?” Trina seethed in the locker room.

  Liana was conveniently at her side. Her words were like a shove against my gym locker.

  “Sorry.” Sarcasm found its way into my voice. “It was an accident, I swear.” I don’t know where my nerve came from.

  “Chad must be totally blind to not see you for what you really are. A loser. And no matter what you do, who you’re seen with, or how you change your appearance, you will always be a loser. And I’m going to make sure the whole school knows it.”

  Both Trina and Liana stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for me to respond. All I offered them was silence. I didn’t know what to say, but I was definitely going to tell Cassie all about it.

  Friday night. Time to collect on an unpaid debt, so I knocked on Becca’s door. She reluctantly let me in.

  “I need your help.”

  “What is it?” She seemed annoyed by my presence.

  “Remember how I helped you out in Florida?”

  Her eyes searched the air as if she was scrolling back over all the events of our vacation, looking for that Good-Samaritan moment.

  “The night with Bay,” I jogged her memory.

  “Oh. That.” She rolled her eyes, disgusted.

  “I need you to do the same for me.”

  Curiosity infused her voice. “I didn’t think you were the type.”

  “It’s not a boy.”

  “A girl then?” She raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

  “A friend and I have something to do.”

  “Who’s the friend? Grace?”

  “What’s with all the questions? I didn’t quiz you like this when you went out. Just forget it.” I turned to leave.

  “No, no, no.” She stopped me with her protestations. “I’ll cover for you. Just tell me one thing.”

  “What?” I stood cross-armed and annoyed.

  “You’re not doing stuff, like drugs or sex, are you?”

  “No.”

  She nodded. “When do you need my help?”

  “Tonight. Ten o’clock.”

  “Okay, but how do you plan to get out of here without Mom finding out? You know she stays up and watches Jay Leno.”

  “The window.”

  “Yeah all right. Just be careful.” She studied me. “And in case it is a boy, make sure he uses a condom.”

  I was grossed out as I headed back to my room.

  Slipping out was much easier than I thought. It was the getting-back-in part that had me a little concerned. From the outside, the window was higher than it initially seemed.

  Cassie waited at the corner in a black 2011 911 Carrera. I expected to see her on foot, not in a car, much less a Porsche. I slid onto the graphite gray leather interior. It had a six-speed, manual transmission, a phenomenal stereo system, and an electric sunroof. I felt inferior to its rich design.

  She didn’t even have her temporary permit. According to Cassie, her parents didn’t care that she drove without a license as long as she never got a speeding ticket or into a car accident. I wondered if she stole the keys and took the vehicle without them knowing about it. No matter how rich her parents might be, I doubted they would allow her to drive illegally.

  “So where are we going?”

  “Patience.”

  I scanned the innards of the car. “Your parents must make a lot of money to own a car like this.”

  “Money is overrated.” Cassie shifted gears.

  “Then why are you driving a Porsche?”

  “Because I can,” she smiled.

  We pulled into the Pinnacle Peak neighborhood. I wondered if we were going to her house. I bet it was just as rich as the car.

  Cassie stopped in front of a series of mailboxes, obviously belonging to the members of the subdivision.

  “Are we going to your house?”

  “No, Trina’s. It’s a shame her parents didn’t fork out the money to live in a gated community.”

  She popped the trunk and stepped out of the vehicle. “Come on.” I followed her. She removed a Miu Miu shoe box from the truck and quietly closed it.

  “What’s that for?”

  “You ask too many questions.”

  With her mystery box in hand, we both stalked the residential streets in our matching black clothing. Hers looked like Donna Karan. Mine—Target.

  We came to a halt in a darkened section of the street, across from a tri-level home with immaculate landscaping and a three-car garage.

  “This is it.” Cassie whispered.

  “How’d you know where she lives?”

  “Money may be overrated, but it comes in handy when you need it.” It was the only explanation she offer
ed and the only one I needed. I still wasn’t sure what we were doing there.

  Cassie, still holding the box, dashed through the yard. She motioned for me to follow, and my stomach twisted into fusilli.

  We stopped outside a lit bedroom window that was level to the ground. Sheer ashen curtains hung closed on the glass. Cassie stood on one side of it, while I stood on the other. She mouthed to me, Trina’s, while pointing to the window. Then she moved her index finger to her lips.

  “Isn’t this trespassing?” I whispered almost inaudibly.

  She rolled her eyes, then opened the box. I nearly shrieked when I saw the dead rat inside. It had matted gray fur and a tail that fell from its body like a string. She lifted a pair of gloves from her pocket and put them on. When she took the rat out, she did it by pulling on a cord that was fastened around its neck like a noose.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” She dangled it in front of me.

  “It’s gross.”

  “I know,” she smirked.

  She handed me a note, which was written in pieced-together magazine letters. It simply said, Trina, R.I.P. I knew it was a prank, but it seemed so wrong.

  Cassie stabbed a thumbtack into the stucco, securing the note and the noose to the house. The rat swung in silhouette against the window.

  “How do you know she’ll even see it?”

  “Trust me, she’ll see it.” Cassie stood up. “Now let’s go get something to eat.” We dashed across the neighbor’s lawn back to the vehicle like we were never there.

  “We’re not actually planning to do that to…” I motioned in the direction of Trina’s house.

  “Of course not. But she doesn’t know that. Hopefully, she’ll be scared shitless once she sees it.”

  “How do you even know that’s Trina’s room?”

  “They use the same maid service we do. I guess we tip better.”

  It was my first act of revenge. I should have felt satisfaction, but instead I was uneasy. Sneaking out of the house, riding in an alleged stolen car, leaving the ominous message at Trina’s window. I was supposed to relish the retaliation, but I didn’t. The P.E. stunt seemed more my type. But maybe it would just take time.

  It was midnight by the time we finished eating at Village Inn. After the whole scenario with the rat, I didn’t have much of an appetite. I merely drank a cup of coffee. Cassie inhaled a garden salad, a bowl of soup, half of a turkey sandwich, and a piece of French silk pie. It was as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. She completed her meal by toking on a cigarette outside the restaurant.