You see, Thatcher…your sister wasn’t really all that nice. She filmed some poor self-conscious girl making out with a Farnswood guy at a party….It was a real shit show.
And could someone like Thatcher—smooth and smart and even-keeled, I could tell from our one meeting at Taylor’s memorial—understand that kind of thing? And why was he named Thatcher? What were the other kids in the family named? I was trying to remember. Thatcher, Taylor, Tinker, Spy. Something like that, probably. People with money were so weird to me sometimes.
“How’re you girls?” someone said behind me.
I turned to see our residential director standing there. She slipped into the empty seat next to me. I did my best not to suck in a breath as Anna’s glossy brown lipstick formed an overly sincere smile.
“Haley, I haven’t talked to you in ages. I didn’t even hear how your holidays were.”
“Not bad,” I said. “My grandmother always has a nice Christmas Eve.”
“Well…wonderful.” Anna touched the back of her hair, near her ear. Maybe she was checking to see if her bobby pin was perfectly secure. She always wore her hair like this—neat bun behind slicked-back brown hair that matched her lipstick startlingly well—like she was drawn by a cartoonist who had only one shade of brown. She was maybe trying to look the part of the housemother from central casting. But she was a little too pretty for the part, in my opinion. A stereotypical housemother would be older than Anna—who was about thirty—and would maybe have a wart somewhere on her face.
Alex looked at her phone and said, “Oh! Haley, are you done eating? Still okay to help me with that thing in the greenhouse?”
I hopped up. “Yeah. Nice chatting, Anna.”
“Alrighty,” Anna said. “That works. I wanted to touch base with Maylin anyway.”
Pulling our backpacks on, Alex and I made our way toward Dearborn’s front door.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“No problem,” Alex said.
There was, of course, nothing happening at the greenhouse right now, but Anna didn’t need to know that. And Alex knew Anna wasn’t my favorite person.
Alex and I quietly understood each other most of the time—even though we had a weird history. When we were roommates freshman year, we didn’t talk to each other much. Alex was shy, and studied constantly. We didn’t hang out with the same people back then. She only started to come out of her shell, and begin showing people how supersmart she was, the next year. By then we weren’t roommates anymore. But we sort of reconnected last year through our mutual friendship with Maylin.
Maylin, who was now stuck talking to Anna. Really, it wasn’t fair of me to dislike Anna. I’d barely spoken with her. She was new to Windham. Last year’s Dearborn residential director, Tricia—who was also the soccer coach—was quietly let go after the Taylor tragedy. She didn’t do anything wrong. The school just wanted the appearance of a fresh start, clearly. Anna, a counselor, was brought in as a new and calming presence. Maybe it had something to do with the way I was raised pre-Windham, but I didn’t really trust people in the “feelings” professions.
“She means well,” Alex added, just because someone had to.
“Yeah,” I replied, so she wouldn’t feel the need to elaborate. “I wonder what she wants with Maylin, though? Is Maylin in trouble?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Alex said quickly.
I nodded, chastened. Of course. None of our business. Alex’s default. Gossip ignites pretty easily at a girls’ school, and Alex always refused to fan the flames.
We headed toward the science building, as we did most mornings, although we didn’t have the same class. I was in AP Bio. Alex, overachiever that she was, had taken it last year, and was taking both AP Chem and Physics this year.
She asked how bio was going and I said okay, grateful for the small talk. It kept me from turning around and looking at the old brick building from which we’d emerged. It could be pretty on an early fall afternoon. But in the morning in midwinter, it usually looked to me like a movie mental hospital.
* * *
The bio lab had a huge window with a good view of the oak tree near the entrance. While Mr. Cortes talked about stem cells, I stared down at the snow-covered bench beneath the tree. Taylor and I used to spend a lot of time under there my sophomore year.
One time I was especially exhausted because I’d stayed up all night writing a history paper. She had a thermos full of the strong coffee she always used to brew in her room. On that particular morning, I drank most of it. I was chugging the last of it when Taylor said in a low voice, “Look at that squirrel. It’s, like, scratching its armpit.”
I’d followed her gaze to a spot in the leaves where a squirrel was, indeed, scratching its armpit. More slowly and deliberately than one usually associates with squirrel movement—although the Windham squirrels tended to be more casual and less human-cautious than regular squirrels. It seemed to notice us looking, then seemed to scratch more aggressively and deliberately, its little black eyes challenging us somehow. Taylor started to snicker quietly, muffling her laughter as if it might offend the squirrel. I started laughing too, maybe not because the squirrel was funny, but because I was giddy from lack of sleep. And because almost everything Taylor did—at least back then—was sort of contagious.
“It reminds me of when we caught Eric Hale touching himself in the closet at that party last year after midterms,” she said. “He was so drunk he didn’t even stop.”
Those words dashed the giggles out of my mouth. Taylor loved to laugh at simple, silly things. She watched endless “Funny Cat Video” compilations. She liked jokes about farts and foul-mouthed parrots. But she also had an insatiable appetite for gossip—the darker and dirtier the better. So I suddenly felt sorry for Eric Hale. I felt sorry for anyone who Taylor knew too much about.
It was a category that included me, I was certain.
Taylor’s gaze had shifted from the squirrel to me. Her eyes looked as dark and primal as those of the animal before us—maybe more. She knew her words scared me. Even though they didn’t have, on their surface, anything to do with me.
This was one of the many things about Taylor that none of the memorials said. That she was intensely interested in people’s secrets and especially their vulnerabilities. She liked to step into them—to splash around in them like puddles.
“Haley, are you with us?”
“Yes,” I said, snapping my attention back to Mr. Cortes, smiling as studiously as I could manage without looking like a smart-ass.
“Remind us what the three general properties of stem cells are?” Mr. Cortes asked.
I glanced around the room. Several kids were looking at me expectantly—among them, my friend Anthony, staring through his weird flap of curly overgrown bangs. Like me, he used to go to off-campus weekend parties with Taylor—often thrown by her day-student friends. And like me, he was a bit of a loner now that that crowd was pretty much gone and graduated. We were closer this year than we’d been in the past. Now that we were both leftovers.
There was a vague concern—or at least sympathy—in his expression that helped me regulate my breath and focus on Mr. Cortes’s words. I cleared my throat, glanced down at my notes, and answered the question.
* * *
“Nice save there,” Anthony said when he met me outside the science building. “Cortes is such a sadist. I always like it when he thinks he’s going to get a delicious little charge out of humiliating you and then he…doesn’t get there.”
Sadist is one of Anthony’s favorite words. He has a strangely dark worldview for a rich kid with happily married parents.
I shrugged. “Let him try. In a few months, it won’t matter.”
“Are you okay today?” Anthony asked. “I was thinking in class that you don’t look so great.”
“I didn’t really sle
ep last night,” I admitted.
“Oh,” Anthony said. “I’m sorry. All-nighter?”
“Not exactly. But it’s not a big deal.”
“Do you like my stubble?” Anthony asked, running his fingertips over his cheek. “Did you notice it at all?”
I reached out and touched his chin line.
“It’s…downy,” I remarked.
“That might be because I’ve been exfoliating while I’m growing it.”
“Weird,” I said, my shoulders relaxing at the silly familiarity of being with Anthony. “Is that a thing?”
“I don’t know. It’s my thing, I guess.”
I led him to the humanities hall and pulled the door open for both of us.
“What were you doing up all night?” he asked.
“Not all. Just, like, half. I watched YouTube videos on my phone way later than I should have. You know I have a complicated relationship with sleep.”
We started to part ways—me for my first-floor classroom, him for the stairs.
“Text me later,” he said.
“Yup,” I said, went into my class, and slid into my back-row seat. I still had a few minutes before the bell and Ms. Holland-Stone often traipsed in a minute or two late, sucking down a latte from the overpriced café across from campus. I took out my phone and clicked on Thatcher’s email again. I sighed, eyeing the attached video file.
Muting my phone, I held it close to my face. I’d click on it really quickly, just to verify: the video of the dim room, Jocelyn and Charlie barely visible as they started to kiss. The whole dark and dirty business. And then I would just go ahead and lie. Dear Thatcher. Glad to hear you’re okay. Yes, I remember this. Taylor showed it to me. She accidentally left her camera running at a party, and she thought it was kind of funny. I know she meant to erase it, I guess she never did….
Lies, lies, lies. It’s not like I’d never lied before, and this would at least be sort of for a good cause: a grieving brother who didn’t need to know how nasty his sister could be sometimes. But then…how could he not know?
I clicked on the video.
It started with blackness. And then more blackness. Not the dimly lit couple fumbling around on Charlie’s unmade bed.
And then a flash of a window, with a little light leaking through its blinds. A moment later there was some jouncing of the phone, and then light, and then a glimpse of Taylor’s face.
I felt my stomach drop at the sight of her. I hadn’t seen her in almost a year. I had even avoided looking at photographs of her. And this wasn’t the video I was expecting at all. I had no idea what it was. But it wasn’t the infamous party video.
Ms. Holland-Stone walked into the room, tossed her black coat on her desk chair, and took a long sip of her coffee, closing her eyes for several seconds as if she couldn’t bear the sight of us until the caffeine kicked in.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said once her eyes had fluttered open. “We’re only halfway through the French Revolution. The heads are still rolling.”
I clicked my phone off, pausing the unknown video, and shoved my phone into my backpack, taking a breath and trying to focus on Ms. Holland-Stone instead of the pulsing in my ears.
4
“Hey, Haley. Are you getting the pasta? I really shouldn’t. But it’s been a while since I carbo-loaded.”
I hadn’t seen Maylin sneak up behind me at the lunch bar. I sucked in a breath, wondering how I was going to shake her off. My plan had been to find a quiet corner table and watch the full video. I had a feeling I wouldn’t want anyone else to see it but me.
“You should have pasta whenever you want, Maylin.”
Maylin grabbed a plate from the salad bar, scooped some chickpeas and spinach onto it, but then frowned at her selections.
“Maybe I will. Look…Haley?” Maylin inched her tray toward the pasta bar. “Alex wasn’t sure I should tell you why I was talking to Anna this morning. But I told her I should tell you because I accidentally told like three other people and you would probably hear anyway.”
Maylin clearly had an agenda, and it was not to talk about her diet.
“Uh-huh,” I said, scooping myself a generous helping of penne with red sauce.
“I don’t know if you noticed how cold it was in the hallway this morning in Dearborn. I was the first one up. I wanted to be the first one in the big corner shower before the hot water was gone, you know? Like I do? But when I left my room, the hallway was freaking freezing, like worse than usual.”
“Yeah, uh, I noticed, too.”
“Well, it probably wasn’t as bad once you were there, because by then everything was closed up again.” Maylin straightened the utensils on her tray, oblivious to the two girls behind her waiting to serve themselves. “But when I was on my way to the bathroom, I noticed that the supply closet was open. And the window in there was open, too. Now, Anna thinks Ms. Engels must’ve left it open to air it out yesterday, or something, and that the door must’ve come open overnight from the wind, or something, and she’s going to make sure it never happens again.”
Maylin finally took a breath, plus a small scoop of pasta. Her rushed storytelling was hard for me to follow, especially when it felt like the unfinished video was burning a hole in my pocket.
“Look, um, Maylin?” I said, getting out of the way of a redheaded girl who was trying to reach for the pasta sauce. “I hate to say this, but I’ve got some calculus I forgot to do that I thought I’d cram while I eat.”
“Oh!” Maylin put a dramatic drizzle of olive oil on her pasta, her long, willowy arms looking ridiculously elegant as she did so. “Okay. Sure. We can talk about this later. Where should we sit?”
We. I held back a sigh. I didn’t want to hurt Maylin’s feelings—but I really wanted to watch the video in private.
“I was…um, thinking I would sit by myself? Just this one time, to get the stupid calculus done.”
Maylin studied me, pushing her hair behind one ear. “Are you…upset?”
“No. Why would I be upset? I’m just afraid of getting a zero for calculus homework.”
Maylin hesitated. “Oh. Okay. Good.”
I brought my tray to the only empty table in the room—the corner one that didn’t have any windows near it. For show, I had to take out my calculus book and tablet. But then I put my phone in my lap and earbuds in, watching the little screen from behind the tablet. Before I hit Play, I glanced up to see where Maylin was. She’d found Alex, and was eating with her along with a couple of other seniors. As Maylin picked up her fork, I saw her eyes wander toward me, then dart away when she saw I was looking. It was only then that what she’d been telling me registered. The supply closet was open. And the window in there was open, too.
The “housekeeper’s supply room” used to be Room 408, Taylor’s old room. The room she’d jumped from. The school had repurposed it into storage for brooms and mops and window cleaner so no one would have to sleep there this year. It was a weird move on the administration’s part—there was already a similar supply closet on the first floor—but I supposed they thought the grim optics were better than simply keeping it unoccupied and locked.
Maylin had said “supply room” instead of “Taylor’s old room.” Maybe because it was easier to say. She’d woken up this morning and found Taylor’s old door open, and the window open, too, frigid air flooding the fourth floor.
Just the door open was one thing. Maybe Ms. Engels, the housekeeper, hadn’t closed it hard enough. Or forgotten to lock it. Maybe she never locked it, since all it contained was cleaning supplies, presumably. But the window? Why would she open the window? In the freezing January weather? Taylor’s window?
I pulled my plate of pasta toward me, then slid it away. I clutched my phone in front of me and hit Play.
At first the video was just blackness. But it was a
ccompanied by a couple of deep, trembling breaths, and then Taylor’s voice saying, “Say it again. Say it again, bitch.”
The voice was low, but it was definitely Taylor’s.
She took another breath.
“Say it again,” Taylor repeated. “I dare you.”
Then there was silence.
A long silence. More darkness. More breathing.
I paused the video, glancing around the lunchroom. Everyone was just going about their business, eating their pastas and chicken-avocado wraps, chatting—which was reassuring. Maylin was talking to someone at her table, laughing, no longer interested in me.
When I hit Play again, there was a gasping noise coming through the earbuds, and then the phone camera seemed to be somersaulting for a second. Then the picture actually showed something. A window. Taylor’s window. You could see a little light coming in around the blinds.
There was a thump and then a scratching sound.
The picture lingered on the window for a moment. Then there was more jolting. And a light came on, revealing Taylor’s old room as I remembered it—with the red rug and the concentric circles of the dark tapestry on the wall.
And there was Taylor herself, looking into the camera. She was more wide-eyed than I remembered her ever being. It seemed like there was a little mascara smudged on one of her temples—like she’d not been looking in a mirror when she’d wiped her makeup off.
Stunned, I paused the video. I wondered if Taylor had ever told her brother about the ghost that supposedly haunted the Dearborn dorm. Or if this was some kind of prank video related to that.
Probably it was just that, I told myself, pressing Play again.
“I was all the way across the room. It was coming from the window,” Taylor was whispering now in the video.
When All the Girls Are Sleeping Page 2
