Little Pretty Things

by Lori Rader-Day

  I sat up, reaching first thing for Maddy’s photo. Beck had dropped me off the night before without either of us deciding what we’d do next. Well, he had decided. He wanted out of it.

  As he drove me home, he kept glancing at the photo in my hands. “It bothers me,” he said. He seemed relieved to leave me on the curb in front of my house.

  I’d stowed the perfume bottle in my bathroom among my other things, but not in the secret space, where it would’ve probably spilled. I didn’t want to waste a drop. The key card to Maddy’s room, too, seemed special. After thinking about it, I slipped the card under a patch of loose wallpaper next to my bed and glued it down with clear nail polish. I imagined the card as a time capsule. Thirty years from now maybe someone else would live here, and they would pull down the flowered paper, horrified that anyone would have such taste, only to find a tiny mystery. Where would I be?

  I hated to think that I might still be here, but I had no better plans.

  Putting these things away, I was satisfied. But the real prize of the night was the photo. I couldn’t put it away. I couldn’t get enough of my own glowing skin, my own radiant smile. All these years I’d remembered the disappointment of second place, but Maddy’s gift to me was a reminder that second place had come with rewards, too.

  “Juliet,” my mom said against the crack of my bedroom door, sounding tired. “It’s the school.”

  I threw the covers over the photo. I hadn’t had the heart to wake my mother the night before and let her know about Maddy. I couldn’t bear to hear what she would say, or wouldn’t say.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said, waiting until I was sure she was gone before I picked up my bedroom extension. It had been a long time since I’d been called to substitute teach.

  “Good morning, Juliet.” The clipped voice of the school secretary put me right back in the principal’s office. Mrs. Haggerty, stationed at the helm of Midway High as long as anyone remembered, ran the school with an iron fist. Having to see the principal for some indiscretion wasn’t much of a punishment if you’d already survived Mrs. Haggerty’s displeasure.

  She didn’t wait for me to greet her. “We could use you in phys ed today,” she said. “Coach Fitzgerald called in sick—bereft, I’d say. So sorry to hear about Madeleine, of course. I can’t imagine you feel any better about the situation, but he requested you specifically. What do you think?”

  The scrap of paper with the numbers from the Mid-Night Bible had fallen from my nightstand. I picked it up, thinking that the last thing I wanted to do today was to stand around a steamy gym while hormone-charged teenagers preened and flirted without breaking a sweat. Fitz got to be bereft, while Coach could barely pull himself upright, and I … but I needed the money. My car had nearly reached its last mile. I lived so lean, and yet so many decisions I made in my life came down to this one fact: I needed the money.

  I also needed a ride. “I’ll be there. Thanks, Mrs. Haggerty.”

  I tapped the hang-up button and sorted through my options. “What you’re looking for,” the paper in my hand said. I’d assumed it had something to do with the Bible it had come from, but now I saw it was probably a phone number. I dialed it. The line rang and rang. I didn’t know what I expected to happen, but I found myself hoping that Maddy would answer the phone. Maddy, alive, and this would all be a big misunderstanding.

  No one picked up. Finally I hung up and dialed instead for what I was really looking for: emergency carpool.

  “I’m glad he asked for you,” Coach said when he pulled into the driveway. He’d stopped for coffee and picked up one for me, with milk and one sugar, just how I liked it. I sipped at the cup and leaned against the buttery leather seats of his car, feeling cradled and cared for in a way I hadn’t in a while. “When one of us is gone, they usually call in that insurance salesman who never finished his master’s thesis. We end up sending him out to the track to avoid talking to him. I have magnificent auto, home, and life coverage already, for one thing.”

  He threw a smile my way.

  “No offense, but I’m a little surprised Fitz is the one home today,” I said. “You were sort of a mess last night.”

  Coach’s smile slid away, his face going from game to weary in a few seconds. “We all grieve differently. Maddy’s … death. God, I can barely say that, can you? It was a shock. We were all shocked, of course, but last night, I was under its spell. I just couldn’t … but Fitz. Fitz is made of tougher stuff than I am, which is how he’s always able to take care of everyone else. Always taking care of things. But it wears on him.”

  I turned to look at the town rushing by, trying to think if Fitz had ever taken care of me. Maddy, sure. But that was small thinking, and I didn’t want to be that person anymore. Maybe I’d never needed Fitz’s help the way other people did. Maybe a pep talk once in a while was all he thought I needed. But then he’d requested me to cover his classes today, just as my job was in danger. I saw Coach’s point.

  “You remember,” he said. “That day at state—well, with Maddy being so ill and you wanting to run, deserving to run. I don’t know what I would have done without Fitz. You know how many times I’ve had the chance to say that over the years? More than I like to admit.”

  For a moment, I let myself imagine me and Maddy, years into the future but still the kind of friends Coach and Fitz were. Maybe she and I could have taken over the phys-ed classes when they retired, coming to school in Midway-red tracksuits and whistles on lanyards.

  Nothing about this picture made any sense. Maddy had bigger plans, and I’d never finished college. And tracksuits? By the looks of her clothes, Maddy wouldn’t have been caught dead—

  “Something has been bothering me,” I said. “Something you said. Why did you think Maddy’s dad—why did you think he was such a creep?” I tried to keep the puke-colored sweater at bay.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “All this, whatever it was or wasn’t, is long over.”

  I waited, watching his profile.

  “Your coffee smells better than mine,” he said. “Like cookies.”

  It was Maddy’s perfume he smelled. I’d dabbed a little on my wrists, for good luck—which made no sense, now that I thought about it. I pulled down the sleeves on my fleece. “But—”

  He sighed, shook his head at the road. “OK, I understand you’re confused, because you didn’t notice anything. But remember, you were just a kid. You can’t expect yourself to have noticed anything. Let it go. To dwell on it, you’re only going to find fault with yourself. It’s too late for Maddy. I wish I’d done things differently—but you let me have the regrets, OK?”

  I thought of standing in Maddy’s room at the Mid-Night, turning in a circle in the wreck she’d created, trying to survive. She’d fought so hard. I couldn’t just let that go. I didn’t want to. There was something about how torn up that room was, how hard Maddy struggled, that made me want to fight for my life, too. I could never say that, not to Fitz, not to Coach, not to anyone.

  She’d done everything, every possible thing, to survive. It felt like an insult not to dig my heels in, at least a little.

  Anyway, I had no better prospects. Maddy couldn’t get me out of this dead end I’d created for myself, but maybe I still could. How had Courtney put it? This wasn’t what I’d had in mind for myself.

  “I already regret what I said last night,” Coach said. “About doing something. I mean—what can we do? We need to move on. What’s done is done, as hard as it is to accept. But that’s what we have to do. Promise me, Juliet.”

  After a long stretch of silence, I realized he was waiting for me to say something, to make an actual promise. I nodded and smiled, but I didn’t mean it. I’d already realized what I could do. I could figure out who killed Maddy. I’d already turned up the photo when Courtney and the whole team of cops hadn’t. I could find her killer. And if I did, things would be different. Maddy would save me, after all.

  The day’s first class was made up of a group
of soft freshman girls who insisted they’d been playing rough sports the entire year and were too tired to do anything exerting. The ringleader pulled up her sleeves to show me a bruise she attributed to last week’s volleyball game.

  Lucky for them, I didn’t feel like dealing with nets or locked equipment cabinets.

  “You’re going to run laps,” I said.

  “For how long?” asked the bruised girl. Her eyes were the same dark color as the fresh bruise.

  “Until I say you’re done.”

  The crowd of them, their ponytails all hanging just so, stared at me. Their shorts were too short, their bra straps visible. When the boys’ class marched through on their way outside, the girls shrank into shapes of studied apathy. “I’d rather play volleyball,” one of them said.

  “We’re going to use what you have,” I said. “Energy. You’re young, and it’s eight in the morning. Come on, let’s move.”

  A rough start was soon rewarded. The girls fell into line after a couple of laps, too out of breath to complain. Their smooth cheeks flushed pink.

  I counted them off as they rounded the corner, the bruised girl the fastest.

  “Are you on the track team?” I yelled as she passed.

  “Me?” she turned and ran backwards.

  “You should be,” I said.

  She shrugged, turned back, and kept going. The rest of the girls herded past. Average speed, average effort. And then one last girl, splotched red.

  “Are … we … done?” she gasped.

  “You haven’t even done a half mile yet,” I said. “You’re, what, fourteen, fifteen?”

  “And fat!” she huffed, smiling.

  The other girls looked back, giggled.

  “No, you’re not,” I said. “Anyway, you can still be healthy.”

  “Not today,” she panted.

  “Every day.” I waved her on. “Girls, try not to think about what hurts, or how long you’ve gone, or how long is this woman going to make us do this. Try not to think. Feel your body—” The herd giggled again, but I noticed the bruiser out front remained quiet. She had fallen into the loping gait of a jungle cat. She had grace as well as speed. If she had stamina, Fitz had better be moving to get her on the team. “Feel the mechanics of your legs, your arms. Reach your arms, left, right. Lift your knees, left, right. Feel how your body is built, how all the pieces move together to do this one thing. You were made to do this.”

  The bruised girl—a gazelle—ran past again with a look on her face I recognized. She’d hit her stride. She was beyond listening, beyond my voice, every muscle in her body finding its peak level.

  After a while, I realized we were being watched. A petite girl with a thick, braided ponytail had wandered into the gym and was leaning against the stairs to the upper deck. She was outfitted in running tights and her shoes, bright and as high-tech as a computer, were probably worth more than my car. “Hey,” I called. “You might want to jump into the pack, there.”

  She pulled headphones out of her ears. “Where’s Fitz?”

  “I’m Fitz today.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Typical. Where’s Coach, then?”

  I noticed the pace of the other girls had slowed to take in the scene. “Keep it up, ladies,” I said. To the girl: “What do you need?”

  “I have independent study this hour,” she said. “Or I’m supposed to. I’m in training.”

  “Well, then, like I said—jump in.”

  “I don’t run now.” She sneered at the girls as they passed. “It’ll throw off my schedule.”

  These girls. How did Coach and Fitz do this every day? The attitudes. The back talk. The responsibility, and for what? Generations of Midway girls with quick retorts and complaints, and before that, probably more of the same from the other schools they’d worked for. Coach and Fitz were better than Midway. I had no idea why they’d chosen to teach the likes of me, Maddy, these saucy girls.

  The girl watched the others for another minute, then stripped off her jacket and headphones and left them in a pile on the floor.

  The middle herd was breaking up into girls trying to keep up with the pack leader, then girls who could probably keep up their steady, slow gallop all day, followed by girls who’d decided they hated me, hated life. The new addition inserted herself into the circuit, bursting through the middle of a group barely holding their own, then up through the ranks until she and the gazelle were in step.

  I found myself watching their feet—perfectly synchronized, each foot coming down weightless. After a while, I realized the pace was increasing. I looked up. The other girls had slowed, but the two leaders were pounding through the circuit. The entire gym seemed to be holding its breath.

  “Come on, ladies,” I said to the others, but watching the pair out front. “Give it your all for your last lap. Just once, put yourself all in. What are you saving it for? Yearbook pictures aren’t today, are they?”

  A few of them braked and turned to me, alarmed.

  “No—” The pudgy-cheeked girl at the back thudded and panted toward me, and stopped.

  “I didn’t say we were done,” I said.

  “No, the pictures … I can’t—” She planted her fists on her knees and coughed until I wondered how fast the nurse could be fetched.

  “OK, OK, you can stop,” I said. “Point taken.”

  The two frontrunners pounded around the last turn, each footfall thundering. It was a race to the death. They tied, passing me fast enough that a breeze whipped across my cheek.

  “Hey, Delia,” said the gazelle, hands at her hips and hardly out of breath. The other girl shot her a look and headed for her stuff at the door. “Are the pictures really today?”

  “No … I’m trying to say … ” Delia came up from the ground, her face red and pouring sweat. She had red, curly hair, now plastered to her neck in dark ringlets. “Group pictures are next week … whew … I’m OK.” This last addressed to the girls finishing their last lap, none of whom seemed the least bit concerned about their classmate.

  “All right, ladies. Go get cleaned up and changed.” They turned on their heels, ponytails swinging. A few even found the energy to jog toward the dressing rooms. No whining about running if it came in the service of getting their hair fixed. The gazelle’s eyes flicked in my direction as she passed, appraising.

  This left the last, red-faced girl. She shifted her weight back and forth, hands on her hips, catching her breath. “You OK?” I said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Don’t worry. I just have a free period next, so I usually wait until all the others are done.”

  I knew who this girl was now. Smart, funny, but wearing her humor as protective armor. She would probably do anything to go unnoticed. The space she took up might as well be a favor she was forced to ask, over and over. So, the tricks, the extra period planned after gym class to avoid the moment when she had to drop her gym clothes and live up to her body being too this or too that. The big persona, because she thought she couldn’t be exactly who she was.

  Girlhood could be such a piece of crap, if you were just a little bit different. And every one of us was.

  “Second hour is pretty early for a free period, isn’t it?”

  “I guess. It’s boring, so I usually get a pass to go do stuff for Tracks.”

  “The—oh, right. The yearbook.” Panther Tracks, technically, the trail we left behind as Midway High Panthers.

  She looked at me, keen. “Did you go to Midway?”

  “Many moons ago,” I said.

  She was nodding. My answer matched how old she thought I must be. I was sorry I’d phrased it that way.

  “Hey,” I said. “Are there old—I mean past Tracks stored anywhere? In the yearbook room, maybe?” A tickle had begun in the center of my palms.

  “The library,” she said. “They keep a whole set there, I think. Really far back.”

  “Well, I don’t need that far back, just ten years.”

  She looked me up and d
own. “Why don’t you have your own yearbook? That’s weird. Did your house catch on fire?”

  “It’s not that weird.” We stared at each other. Was it? Not everyone at Midway had the extra twenty bucks. Some, like Courtney, must have thought twenty bucks was too much to spend on memories they’d rather not keep. And then some of us would have been happy to shell out a twenty, if only the yearbook staff hadn’t been such an insider clique allowed to print anything they wanted about other people.

  I felt the hot shame all over again, even though I couldn’t really remember precisely what the yearbook had said about me. Something about … a third wheel. I felt my own cheeks go pink. “Never mind,” I said. “Go get cleaned up.”

  Delia dragged herself past me to the hall, but only seconds later came running back to the door opening. “Hey, hey,” she said. “I don’t—hey, they’re fighting.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Mickie and Jessica,” she cried. “Come help!”

  I ran, following her into the stuffy locker room and into a ring of yelling and jeering girls. On the floor, the independent study and the gazelle were at war. Running shoes kicking, fists of hair pulled. Terrible things were coming out of both their mouths. I blinked at the sight until Delia yelled, “Knock it off, you guys. The teacher’s here!”

  This seemed enough of a threat to the girls watching, who pulled back to let me closer to the middle of the brawl. I reached into the pile of girls on the floor and came out with the tiny one’s arm. She was light, and so I was able to pull her off the other one.

  “Slut,” the gazelle said, rising from the ground on her own.

  “Keep it up, you whore, and I’ll knock your teeth in,” screeched the girl in my arms, swinging out of my grasp. Her fist struck my face as she shook me off, then she grabbed her things from the floor and let the locker-room door slam on her way out.

  “What was that about?” I tried for scolding authority but was shaking too hard. I tested the spot on my lip where the girl had clocked me. Bleeding.