A shot of nerves twists my stomach. Or maybe it’s the naproxen. My sloppy performance at tryouts yesterday is reason enough for our coach to drop me, if she felt like it. Coach is not known for doling out second chances. Forget your dance shoes? Go home, and don’t bother coming to practice tomorrow.
I wonder if I’ll even care if my name isn’t on that list. I tilt my head against the window. Rachel rolls to a stop at the sign at the end of my street. She looks both ways, counts silently to herself, ever the perfect, cautious driver, always looking twice at my house to see if Tom is watching.
Tom is the sergeant of the local police department. Having him for a stepdad is a really easy way to figure out how many people you know have a deep-rooted fear of law enforcement.
Rachel pulls into Alexa’s driveway, and of course she isn’t ready; she never is. I’m about to text her, ask why she has to make us late every damn morning. But her front door swings open, and she flounces down the driveway, wearing her Sunnybrook Warriors hoodie with skinny jeans.
Alexa pours herself into the backseat and immediately whips out her compact. She starts applying her Merlot-red lip stain.
“Seat belt!” Rachel yells.
I catch Alexa’s eyes in the side mirror. “What do you even do all morning,” I ask crabbily, “if you always have to do your lipstick in the car?”
Alexa rakes a hand through her hair, shaking out her freshly ironed waves. “Well, Monica’s obviously getting her period.”
I almost make Rachel pull over so I can walk.
We get to school with a few minutes to spare before the first bell. The side doors by the gym are propped open and we step into the hall and right into chaos. There are buckets scattered on the floor, catching steady drips of water leaking from the ceiling. A custodian is on a ladder, attempting to tape a trash bag over the hole. I hear him mutter something about all the goddamn rain this year so far.
“This place is so ghetto,” Alexa announces, and I want to hit her, because she has no idea what the word actually means. Besides, we’re one of the wealthiest school districts in the county.
A bunch of trophy cases outside the locker room have been moved into the center of the hall. We sidestep them, but not before I see her. My sister.
She smiles at me from the largest photo in the biggest trophy case. She’s posing for the camera with four of her friends. Their mouths are painted cherry; their cheer pleats are blue and yellow. The photo is from the first home game of the season, five years ago when there was still a cheerleading squad.
A wave of nausea ripples through me. Every day after gym, after dance team practice, I go out of my way to avoid this picture.
I knew all the girls in it, some of them better than others. Juliana Ruiz and Susan Berry were Jen’s best friends and fixtures in our house for as long as I could remember. When they made the cheerleading squad their freshman year, they became friends with two sophomores: Colleen Coughlin and Bethany Steiger.
They all smile at me: Jen, Juliana, Susan, Colleen, and Bethany. It really is a beautiful picture.
By the end of the season, everyone in it was dead.
A small crowd is gathered outside the main office, where Coach said she would post the list this morning. As we approach the bulletin board, a pack of freshman girls walk away, dejected.
Next to me, Rach sucks in her breath. We step up to the bulletin board. I scan the candy-colored papers tacked to it—a list of people who got callbacks for the fall play, a flyer advertising the girls’ soccer team car wash, information for a weekend SAT prep course.
“There’s nothing here,” Alexa says.
“Yeah, there is.” A familiar voice. I turn around; the Kelseys are behind us, iced lattes from Dunkin’ Donuts in hand. Kelsey Butler rattles the ice in hers. She points—her nails, painted apricot, popping against her dark skin.
I look where Kelsey is pointing—a sheet of paper tacked to the bulletin board. On it, a single line:
DANCE TEAM LIST WILL BE POSTED AT NOON
Kelsey Butler’s best friend, Kelsey Gabriel, sidles up next to her to get a better look. Kelsey G’s usually fair hair is sun-streaked even lighter, and her skin is freckled. “Ew. Why?”
“More people tried out this year,” Kelsey B says. “Maybe she needed more time to decide.”
The Kelseys walk off together. They’ll be on the list; they’re seniors, and both of them were in classes with me at the Royal Hudson Dance Studio when we were younger. The Kelseys, with their inhumanly high leaps and whip-fast pirouettes, are the closest things Coach has to favorites.
My friends and I stay close together and head for the second floor—we’re Rayburn, Santiago, and Steiger, and homerooms are assigned in alphabetical order. As we file onto the stairs, I catch a glimpse of Rachel. She’s picking at the corner of her mouth, where her lipstick is flaking.
“It’s fine,” I say, softly enough that only she can hear. “You’ve got this.”
She’s no doubt thinking about what Kelsey B said. Rachel is haunted by the triple pirouette she hasn’t mastered—the one Coach threatened to put in our competition routine this year.
Before I can find my seat in homeroom, my teacher says my name. “You’re wanted at guidance.”
My stomach plummets to my feet. “Why?”
“Dunno. I’m not your secretary,” he drones.
I take the slip from his grasp, eyeing my guidance counselor’s almost-illegible scrawl.
I choose the longer route to the guidance office so I can pass a bathroom. I dig out the plastic baggie of naproxen my mother left on the counter next to my Tupperware of veggies and ranch this morning. She’s doling out the pills to me four at a time, as if they’re Oxys or something. I open the baggie and knock them back with a sip of water from my bottle.
Mr. Demarco is sitting with his back to me when I rap on the doorframe of his office. He swivels around in his chair, his face brightening when he sees me. He’s in an ice-blue polo that makes his matching eyes pop. Rachel and Alexa call him a silver fox.
“There she is.” Mr. Demarco sets his Starbucks cup, marked PSL, on his desk. “Sit, sit.”
He drags a chair next to his desk. He moves a box of pamphlets off his seat; I catch a glimpse of a campus quad, bright with fall foliage. I sit down, pressing my chem textbook into my abdomen.
“So.” Demarco smiles without showing any teeth. “How are you?”
“Fine.” I grip the chem textbook. Press harder. Does he know? There’s no way he could have found out. Not unless my mother told him, and I made her swear, my nails digging half circles into her arm, that she wouldn’t even tell Tom.
Demarco takes a sip of his coffee. “I’ll cut to the chase. Mrs. Coughlin is trying to put together a memorial ceremony, in the courtyard.”
Mrs. Coughlin, the health teacher. Colleen Coughlin’s mother.
Mr. Demarco doesn’t give any further explanation; he doesn’t need to. Colleen Coughlin was in the passenger seat of Bethany Steiger’s car when she hydroplaned during a storm and drove into a tree. The car was so mangled that supposedly the coroner had trouble figuring out which girl was which. One of the paramedics at the scene vomited.
The first two cheerleaders to be killed that year.
“A memorial.” I take off the ponytail holder on my wrist and wrap it around my fingers, cutting off the circulation in the tips. “Like a religious thing?”
“No, not at all,” Demarco says. “Just a small ceremony in the courtyard. Mrs. Coughlin asked if you’d like to be a part of it.”
At my stricken expression, Demarco picks up his empty cup, taps the base of it against his desk. “Obviously you don’t have to say yes. Mrs. Coughlin did pick out some poems she thinks would be nice for you to read.”
He hands me a stack of paper held together by a butterfly clip. I don’t look at it. “It’s just…,” I mumble. “It would feel weird. I didn’t even know Colleen and Bethany.”