For all Nan and Pops talked about the “safety” of smalltown Grinnell, I happened to know Pops kept a gun in his nightstand drawer for intruders, and he was always worried about me. The irony was that it was the gun thing more than anything else that made my parents very anxious when it came to me living with Nan and Pops.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “You didn’t need to wait up.”
Pops hugged me, his sweater smelling like Nan’s beef stew and Suave. “What else do I have to do? I’m retired.”
Pops had been a structural engineer for the state of Iowa most of his life. Now he played bridge twice a week and watched TV and went to church.
“Still. It’s pretty late.”
“And you’re a seventeen-year-old girl,” he said, giving me his shrewd look, which meant he was checking to see if I’d been drinking. “I’m always going to wait up for you.”
I considered letting my hair curtain fall, but Pops would pick up on it in the same way Mateo had. I don’t want you to hide around me.
“Well, it’s late. We should both go to bed.”
Pops nodded, hugged me one more time, and then headed down the hall to their bedroom. I wanted to take a shower, but with us all on one floor, there was no way that wouldn’t result in a whole lot of questions at breakfast from Nan and Pops. They monitored showers in the way most parents monitored their kids’ social media accounts. Showers at the wrong time, more than one shower a day, showers that steamed up the hall too much or lasted too long—they all resulted in a third-degree grilling. Eve used to think it was cute how old-fashioned my grandparents were, but it’d been ages since she’d been to our house, and I knew Nan and Pops noticed and didn’t think much of her because of it.
I paused in front of the bathroom, and Pops asked, “Everything okay, doll?”
I swallowed. “Yep. Just tired.”
“Well, get to sleep then. And don’t stay out so late next time,” he said with a laugh. “Nothing good happens after nine o’clock.”
So, no shower in the cards for me. I’d have to suck it up and wear the filth from the night along with my pajamas.
* * *
Nan and Pops had gone off to do Saturday errands—Hy-Vee, post office, sandwiches at Subway—when Eve showed up at my door the next morning. As if I’d somehow willed her there by thinking about how long it’d been since she’d come over. She wore yoga pants and a hoodie and looked like a plate of warmed-over crap.
“Hey,” I said, holding the door open for her. It felt awkward and too formal with her standing on the threshold instead of waltzing in and putting her shoes in Pops’s fussy closet. “Everything okay?”
“Are your grandparents still running errands? I need to talk to you.”
That was the thing about having a best friend who knew everything about you—she also knew when you’d be alone.
“They’re at the Hy-Vee. Come in. You want some water?”
Her skin was pasty and sick looking, the post–Jack Daniel’s wilt obvious enough I was surprised her mom didn’t ground her.
“Water would be great.” She followed me to the kitchen, without taking her shoes off first—had she forgotten Nan’s rules about shoes?—and hopped up on the counter while I got her a glass.
“Where’s Holly? Didn’t she stay over last night?” I asked, not that I actually cared about her whereabouts, but I’d learned to fake interest in Eve’s plus-one.
“She said she had pointe class this morning so she left early.”
I handed the water to her—room temp, no ice, how she always drank it—and she gulped down the entire glass before putting it to the side and saying, “I need to tell you what happened last night.”
She adjusted her hair band—acne-free forehead, even after three shots of Jack Daniel’s—and took a deep breath. The pause was long enough to give me a chance to come clean, to admit I’d witnessed the whole thing. But my tongue seemed to have swollen a hundred sizes because I couldn’t speak. I worried I’d lose Eve completely if I admitted I not only watched her like a creepy stalker but also didn’t do one thing to help her. So I just nodded and let her tell me the entire story about Cam, and pretended I didn’t know the part of the story she’d left out—the part with his hand up her skirt.
“I don’t know what to do,” she finished, dropping her elbows on her knees and her face into her hands.
“It wasn’t your fault. Cam tricked you. Holly will understand.”
Eve jerked up and looked at me with wide eyes. “Holly will not understand. She wouldn’t even believe I was tricked. She’d think I was trying to steal her boyfriend on purpose. She’d never speak to me again. You have to promise not to tell her. Swear.”
I wanted to ask her why she’d be best friends with someone who didn’t trust her. But then I thought about Chloe Donnelly, and how she’d dazzled all of us in a way, and how even as I remembered the things I liked about her, I wasn’t completely sure I trusted her. So instead, I shrugged. “I won’t tell her. I mean, why would I? She’s not really my friend.”
Eve swatted the air. “Don’t be stupid. Of course she is. We’re all friends. Anyway, you have to tell me what to do about Cam. He’s gonna use this against me the next time we play.”
I shoved my pinkie in my mouth and bit the cuticle for a few seconds before saying, “Well, we could just not play again.”
“What? No. No way. Chloe would be so pissed. And she’s just starting to be friends with us. We’re this close to being officially pink.”
So Chloe Donnelly remained firmly on a pedestal. And evidently being pink was our new life goal. “I don’t know, Eve. I don’t think I want to play again. I mean, I like Chloe, but . . .”
Eve stared me down. “You should have heard her the night you guys came over for manis and you left early. She said all these really nice things about you. How amazing and strong you were for choosing to stay in Grinnell without your parents. How smart she thinks you are. I can’t believe you’re considering backing out. She thinks of you as her new best friend.”
I scanned Eve’s face to see how she felt about that. To see if it bothered her at all that I was well on my way to getting a BEST FRIENDS charm bracelet with Chloe Donnelly. But all I could read was relief with a hint of guilt. Eve, happy to be rid of me, and guilty about how happy she was. “How can she say all that? I’ve known her a week,” I said.
Eve shrugged. “Holly was my best friend in that amount of time.”
Ouch. “Then probably you should tell her the truth about Cam.”
She played with the BEST charm on her bracelet. “I sort of want to keep her as my best friend, so there’s no way I’m telling her I hooked up with her guy. Even accidentally.”
“I think she would understand.”
“She wouldn’t. I told you, she’s different from you.” Then why stay with her? I wanted to scream. I didn’t understand the Holly mystique. Who cared if she was brave and up for anything.
“Whatever,” I sighed. “You guys can figure it out without me. I’m not playing again.”
Eve hopped off the counter, the color returning to her pale cheeks—whether it was from the water or her sudden pissy-ness at me was hard to tell. “You’re for real? Even after what Chloe Donnelly said about you? Chlo-e, come on. You have to play. You’ll ruin it for everyone if you quit.”
“I don’t matter. You could get someone else.”
Her mouth dipped into a frown. I wanted her to say I did matter. I wanted her to say it wouldn’t be the same without me. I wanted her to say she wouldn’t play if I didn’t. I wanted her to care that I was bailing. Her eyes narrowed and she licked her lips in a way that seemed contrived and a little weird. “We could find someone else, but I don’t think you could. I mean, Chloe, not to be harsh, but I’ve been carrying you for most of this year, going out of my way to make sure you’re included. And it hasn’t always been the easiest with your gross nail biting and how you always seem so prudish and you barely say anything unless you�
�re blurting out some random awkward thing. But we have a history together. We’ve been friends for a long time. Do you really want to let go of that?”
It was the most calculating thing I’d ever heard Eve say. It didn’t even sound like her. At her worst with Holly, she’d never made me feel like I was nothing, easily replaceable. I felt like I’d been butt-ended with a hockey stick. Evidently, opting out of the game was opting out of our friendship. God. Why was she doing this? My mom would tell me I didn’t need friends who gave me ultimatums. She’d tell me to break up with Eve and find a best friend who saw me as more than just an obligation. But my mom was fifty-seven hundred miles away. Eve’s words sank in like tiny stones falling into Rock Creek. If I quit the game, I’d lose all my friends. What did I really have to offer anyone else in terms of friendship? I lived with my grandparents and didn’t do any after-school activities. I bit my nails and got patches of acne on my forehead. I blurted. None of these things was a strong selling point.
I clenched my hands to keep from biting and looked at my bare feet, allowing the hair to drop in front of my face.
“I could play maybe one more time,” I said, my voice sounding like I’d single-handedly caused my team to lose a hockey tournament. I hated myself for being this weak. I hated Eve for putting me in this position.
Eve clapped her hands as if she hadn’t just ultimatumed me, and then said, “Yay! It’ll be so pink next time. I am determined to get at least two of the guys’ letters.”
I went to the cabinet and got myself a glass for water—crushed ice in half of it and as cold as the tap could get. “You’ll have to find out how Chloe Donnelly got Aiden’s and Mateo’s letters.” Because God knew I couldn’t find it in me to ask her.
Eve filled her glass at the tap again and hopped back on the counter. “How do you think she got Aiden’s? I mean, she wouldn’t do anything. She knows I’ve liked him forever. I mentioned it at lunch. And it’s not like she can cook better than my mom, so she didn’t ply him with baked goods.”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t know how she got Mateo’s letter either.”
I almost told Eve about what happened with Mateo by the South Campus dorms, about giving him my letter and him not telling the guys. I wanted to tell someone, to find out if it meant what I hoped it did, but Eve gave me such a pitying look. And she’d proven that any weakness of mine was fair game to get what she wanted.
“Chloe has a lot of experience,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Do you know I heard she has her labia pierced? God. I wonder what that feels like.”
“Labia?” I whispered. “Do you know where that is? It’s down in her . . .” I pointed vaguely to the area between my legs—what Mom insisted I call my vulva—feeling a little sick.
“Yeah, I know. Did she mention it to you? Can you imagine spreading your legs for someone with a piercing gun?”
My mouth dropped open. “Why would she pierce her labia?”
Eve kicked her feet against the cabinet—thank goodness Nan wasn’t home or she’d throw a fit—and said, “I guess it makes orgasms better.”
Well, this was not something Mom had ever told me. “Really? How would that work? I feel like you’d either be stimulated all the time or become totally desensitized so you never had orgasms.”
The whole thing was so unimaginable that I almost forgot about how Eve had been so crappy to me and essentially blackmailed me into playing Gestapo if I wanted to still hang out with her. And yet this whole conversation proved why I wanted to keep her as my friend. I missed having Eve around to talk about all this stuff with.
“I know, right? She’s so advanced, she probably even owns a vibrator or whatever. Though maybe that wouldn’t work with the piercing. My God. I’d never be able to get anything down there pierced,” Eve said, her voice a mixture of fear and awe.
This was the Eve I knew. Curious and a little afraid. Always speculating but never willing to get hands-on experience. Not until Holly. And now because of the game, she had even more hands-on experience. With Cam.
My gut churned again at the mental image of his hand up her skirt and her choked out stop.
“Chloe might be a little too advanced for me,” I said.
Eve set her glass down and jumped off the counter, getting herself ready to take off. “Don’t worry. You’ll catch up. The game will help.”
I didn’t say anything, but I decided if I had to play Gestapo again, I was going to spend the entire time hiding in a tree.
* * *
At church the next morning I bumped into Cam and Aiden and their parents on the way into the sanctuary. Their parents were friendly and chatty; they had been as long as I’d known them. They were the type of couple who’d complete each other’s sentences because they’d been living and working together so long. Or rather, their mom completed their dad’s sentences. The twins’ dad was handsome in that way older guys who worked out and spent a lot of time outdoors could be. Their mom was tiny—tiny bones and tiny face—but she had a big voice. They had a handmade furniture company they ran together where they custom built stuff that looked like it belonged in the Amana Colonies. Neither of their sons really seemed anything like them, with the exception of Cam’s skill at building stuff.
I dropped my hair and choked out a hello when I saw them. Cam leered at me. Aiden elbowed him and then offered a stiff “good morning” to me and my grandparents. Then they followed their parents into the church.
Inside the sanctuary, I saw Melissa McGrill sitting in the back with her mom. I turned to Nan and said, “I think I’m going to sit with Melissa today.”
Nan worked her mouth like she was chewing on a fatty piece of meat. “Not today, Chloe. Let’s let that die down a bit before we put on our Good Samaritan hats.”
Small-town Grinnell: where even my seventy-year-old nan had heard about Melissa’s miscarriage.
“The Good Samaritan didn’t wait a few weeks before he helped that guy on the side of the road,” I mumbled.
Nan’s lips tightened even more. “The guy on the side of the road hadn’t been having sex with God knows who before he’d gotten ill and asked for aid.”
And that was Nan and Pops’s helping philosophy in a nutshell—help others, but only if they’re family or they’re “worthy” of receiving help. I’d heard countless battles as a child between my parents and grandparents about this. Arguments about welfare and the homeless, with my parents throwing out words like unconditional mercy and my grandparents countering with words like enabling.
“You helped me when I needed you,” I offered.
She patted my hand. “And we always will. You’re our family and we’ll take care of you the best way we can. But we know you’ll always make good choices because we’ve instilled those values in you. We can’t be responsible for other people’s lack of morals or poor parenting.”
I could only imagine what Nan and Pops would say about my choices with respect to playing Gestapo. But I didn’t want to fight with her, so I dutifully followed her to the front pews, where her octogenarian friends all sat. I waved to Melissa as I walked down the aisle and told myself I’d make sure to cross the sanctuary to find her during the passing of the peace.
Only we didn’t end up doing the passing of the peace because it was Youth Sunday and the Sunday school kids were running the service. Which meant mass chaos, a skit at least half the sanctuary didn’t hear a word of, and a bunch of toddlers singing “This Little Light of Mine.”
Near the end of service, our priest got up and said, “It has been a wonder to see our church youth put together such an incredible program. God is good all the time, indeed. We have one last special treat from a member of our senior high youth group. Campbell Ahers, will you please come up?”
I said a prayer of gratitude my grandparents only insisted I attend service and didn’t mandate my participation in any of the youth programming. Then I watched Cam settle into a chair, cradling his guitar in his lap. Of course Cam play
ed guitar. No skirt-lifting bad boy was complete without a dumb guitar to round out the image.
I glanced at Aiden, who was staring impassively at his brother. Then Cam started to play and sing Psalm 40. I was probably one of the few people who recognized the U2 version of the psalm—Dad being a U2 addict, though preferring their early albums like War, when they were still pissed-off Catholics—but it didn’t matter. No one moved when Cam sang. His voice filled the sanctuary and it wasn’t smirky or sleazy or sweetheart-y. It was beautiful in this way that made me so sad. I couldn’t really even explain why. He looked so happy, so content, like this was what he was meant to be doing and all the rest of the dumb stuff he did was just killing time while he waited to sing like this. It was a voice someone who hadn’t been leered at could fall in love with.
Crossing the street to the parking lot after church, I saw Holly sitting on the hood of Cam’s car. Of course Cam never drove with his parents, even if it was a huge waste of gas for him to take his car too. Holly’s lean, muscular legs dangled over the side of the Volkswagen hood, her heels bouncing against the tire. I had no idea how she got out of going to Catholic mass. Her parents had obviously been devout enough to send her to parochial school in another town for most of her life. Maybe she’d been to one of the Saturday evening masses.
I squinted and lifted my hand to wave at her, feeling like I should make an effort since she had such a crappy boyfriend. But she either didn’t notice me or chose to ignore me. She kept her eyes trained on the door behind me, and as soon as Cam exited the church and crossed the street, she bolted for him. He slid his guitar behind his back and lifted her up to kiss her. If I hadn’t watched him do the same thing to Eve, I’d almost think he was being romantic, but I couldn’t believe that. Then he put her down and touched her face. I was too far away to see, but from where I stood, it looked like he was wiping away tears. Did she know about what happened with Eve? But then why would she be coming to Cam for solace? He hugged her and tucked her beneath his arm as he led her to the passenger side of the VW and helped her inside. His hand lingered on her shoulder and he leaned in to kiss her forehead.
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