The cheerleaders in the video formed a basket. At the end of the line, a girl climbed onto the shoulders of two of the bases. Launching herself forward into a front tuck, she dove Superman-style and landed in the outstretched arms beneath her.
“This is so dangerous,” Allie muttered, over gasps of Holy shit, that was insane.
Juliana was beaming, sitting cross-legged on the mat with her shoulder touching Carly’s. Jen pictured Juliana sailing through the air as if she weighed nothing, and her stomach knotted up.
She thought of Susan standing behind her, living in a world devoid of basket tosses and swan dives and filled with applications to Brown and Stanford.
Jen thought of her friends slipping away from her and how it felt like she was hurtling toward the edge of something they couldn’t be pulled back from.
When I wake up, my last message is still unanswered.
Be careful of what?? Read at 9:03 p.m.
I rub my eyes and look at the time. I stayed up too late, staring at the screen of my phone, waiting for a response. The faint sound of the shower from the master suite next door means I slept through my first alarm; Tom gets into the shower every morning at 6:30 on the dot.
I throw a clean pair of dance clothes into my gym bag and stuff myself into a pair of jeans. The SUNY Binghamton T-shirt Matt gave me before we broke up is at the top of my dresser drawer; I grab it and guide my arms through the long sleeves, fumbling my way into the bathroom to brush my hair.
Once I’m dressed, I sit on the edge of my bed and unplug my phone from the charger. I don’t have time to be dillydallying, but I pull up my thread with the mystery number and reread the messages. I tried searching the number online last night, but all Google could tell me was that the cell phone was registered in Ulster County—which I already knew from the area code.
I can’t get the owner’s name, but Tom definitely can.
Did. Tom must have had Jen’s phone for years. He would have seen that Jen spoke with someone the morning she died, and he would have used his omnipotent cop powers to look up the number’s owner. If he didn’t already know who it was.
But why did he keep Jen’s phone in the first place? Did he also think there was more to her death than the coroner’s conclusion—a nonsuspicious suicide?
Or is there a more fucked-up reason?
My mother’s voice carries up the stairs. I open my bedroom door and shout back. “What?”
“Rachel is here.”
I glance at my phone; Rachel is ten minutes early, today of all days. I grab my stuff and fly downstairs.
Chaos is waiting for me. Petey forgot about a sheet of math problems in his homework folder, and he flips a shit over his Cocoa Puffs.
“I’m gonna get a demerit!”
Mom is supposed to be at the playhouse early today, but she drops her toast and coffee and sits down next to Petey to help him with multiplying by six. Upstairs, Tom is stomping around, yelling about how Mango peed on the carpet and he’s going to be late for work. The whole scene makes me wish Jen could come back just so I could ask her why she left me with these people.
Even though she’s early, I don’t want Rachel to wait, so I grab my breakfast to go and head outside, travel mug of coffee and a cider doughnut in hand.
Once I’m buckled in, I take a greedy bite of the cider doughnut, feeling Rachel’s eyes on it.
“What is that?” she asks.
I imagine her breakfast of black coffee and half a cup of fat-free yogurt. The Unofficial Dance Team Diet. “A doughnut,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, like she’s never seen one before. In her cup holder, there’s a water bottle filled with something that looks like pee. Her quarterly cleanse of dandelion tea, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup. It’s supposed to make you drop ten pounds in a week. No doubt this was prompted by the way her chest strained against her new uniform top and the scorching look Coach gave her.
There’s a bus stop at the corner; the driver must be super late today, because a girl is still waiting. An oversized cardigan hangs off her slender figure. She nibbles on her thumbnail, eyes cast down so she doesn’t have to look at us.
Ginny Cordero.
“Pull over,” I tell Rach. “We should give her a ride.”
Rachel’s nose twitches. “Are you sure there’s room…?”
“Why are you being so weird? She’s on dance team.”
“I’m not being weird. I just…” Rachel doesn’t finish her thought. But she pulls up to the curb where Ginny is waiting. I lower my window.
“Hey,” I say. “Do you want a ride?”
“Oh.” Ginny looks at me, then at Rachel. The note of surprise in her voice and the mistrust in her eyes make me sad. Like she thinks this is a trick or something. Us being nice.
“That’s okay,” she says. “The bus will be here any minute.”
My stomach clenches. Is she thinking about what she heard—or didn’t hear—outside Brandon’s office yesterday? Does she think I’m being nice because I want to figure out what she knows?
“Thank you, though,” Ginny adds. “I’ll see you at practice today.”
“Yeah. See you then.” I raise the window. When we reach the light where my street meets the main road, Rachel massages her thumb until the joint cracks.
“You know my dad fired her dad?”
I relax a little; it’s natural Ginny would feel awkward around Rachel. “No. I didn’t even know he worked for him.”
Rachel’s dad owns Steiger’s, the auto body and tire shop in town. The business has been in their family for years; Rachel’s uncle—Bethany Steiger’s father—was co-owner.
Thinking about Bethany makes me think about the cheerleaders, which makes me think about my sister, which makes me think about the unanswered text message. All the thinking makes my head fog. As we pull up to Alexa’s house, I slip my phone out of the side pocket of my backpack.
While Rachel is busy texting Alexa to tell her we’re outside, I text the number again:
Rachel’s voice draws my attention away from my screen. “She’s running late. What a surprise.”
“Well, we’re early,” I say. I set my phone on my lap so I can open my travel mug. While I’m taking a sip of coffee, my phone shimmies.
“Is that Alexa?” Rachel asks. “Is she complaining about me for telling her to hurry up?”
I snatch it up before Rachel can look at my screen. “It’s my mom.”
While Rach is scrambling for her own phone, probably to hound Alexa again, I open the text.
Alexa climbs into the car and wrinkles her nose at the water bottle. “Is it this time again?”
“Leave me alone,” Rach says. “Not all of us can eat whatever the hell we want.”
Alexa rolls her eyes. “I don’t know how that doesn’t give you the shits.”
“I never said it doesn’t.”
Alexa gives the back of Rach’s headrest a playful smack. My phone vibrates; I have another text from the number, even though I never answered their last message.
I try to tune out Alexa’s manic cackling at something Rachel has said while I figure out how to respond. I decide there’s no reason not to go with the truth.
He/she texts back immediately:
Alexa leans forward, resting her chin on my shoulder. “Ooo, who ya texting?”
I wiggle away from her and turn my phone over. “No one.”
“Bitch, do you have a secret lover?”
“Bitch, it’s none of your business.”
“Knock it off,” Rachel says, and even though Alexa yawns and leans back in her seat, I suspect she’s straining to get a look over my shoulder. I slip my phone into my backpack.
We get to school five minutes before the first bell. I head straight for the bathroom, away from my nosy-ass friends, and shut myself in a stall. Grab my phone and reread the last message.
A whole minute goes by. Outside my stall, I hear Mrs. Brown, the hall monitor, doing her daily sweep of the bathroom, barking at the girls by the sink to finish doing their makeup and be on their way; the first bell is about to ring any second now.
I swallow a grunt of frustration and fire off another text:
The bell rings; I stick my phone in my jeans pocket and flush the toilet for show. Hurry past Mrs. Brown and upstairs to my homeroom. As I’m sliding into my seat, my phone vibrates.