Lessons From A Dead Girl Part 4

At the end of the school year, Leah sends out invitations to a swimming and slumber party for her closest friends. It's early June, and the water is sure to be freezing. But Leah says anyone who won't go in the water is a wimp, so none of us complain.

We meet at her house on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. The Greenes' house is on a small private lake that can only be used by residents who live on the road that surrounds it. There's a beach house and a raft you can swim to.

None of the girls act surprised when Paige Larson gets dropped off in a rusty Ford pickup, even though we're all in shock, which I'm sure is exactly what Leah was going for.

I don't like it. I have a bad feeling.

Paige Larson isn't popular. She's hardly even known, except to be made fun of for coming to school wearing the same thing almost every day. Or smelling like stale cigarettes and sweat.

Paige Larson doesn't say much. I think she tries to stay invisible. She hasn't lived here that long, and no one knows where she came from. I don't think anyone has ever asked.

Not long after she moved here, Paige and Charlie Briggs were paired up as lab partners in science. Charlie is another kid no one really likes for the same reasons they don't like Paige. He smells and he's poor. I hate to admit that those are the reasons, but I know it's true. Paige laughed because Charlie dropped the earthworm they were dissecting and he screamed. When she opened her mouth, her lips stretched out across her brown and yellow teeth. She quickly covered her hand with her mouth, but it was too late.

"Look at Paige's teeth!" Charlie squawked - probably because he wanted to divert attention from his own embarra.s.sing scream.

Everyone started urging her to open her mouth. "Come on, Paige - show us!" they taunted. Paige looked like she was going to cry. She pushed back her stool at the lab table and took off for the bathroom.

Ever since that day, Paige only smiles with her mouth closed.

She smiles that way now as she says good-bye to her mother.

"Be good," her mother says in a gruff voice. Paige nods and watches her mother drive away. She looks scared. I don't blame her.

"Hey, Paige," Leah says, almost skipping over to her. "Ready for some fun?"

I catch the other girls exchanging looks. I'm sure, like me, they're wondering what the joke is.

"Let's go, girls!" Mr. Greene calls from his giant SUV. We climb in with our towels and flip-flops, nudging each other and giggling.

At the beach, Leah parades around in her new white terry-cloth robe that her mother gave her for an early birthday present. All the girls carefully take off their clothes and pull self-consciously at their new bathing suits. I frown at the thought of revealing my faded hand-me-down suit that Christi wore two summers ago.

Paige stands off to the side, smoothing the sand with her toes.

Leah notices her the same time I do. "What's wrong, Paige? Didn't you bring a suit?" she asks.

They stare at each other. Paige seems to say something, even though no words come out. Leah nods, then turns to her mother.

"Doesn't the beach house have extra suits?" she asks.

"Of course," says Mrs. Greene, almost too sweetly. "Come with me, Paige. I'm sure we can find something that will do."

The other girls look curious, but they don't ask Leah why she invited Paige to the party. It's clear Leah has chosen Paige to be in our group, and none of us are going to risk Leah's disapproval by making some snide comment.

That's when it occurs to me that when I first became friends with Leah, I wasn't all that different from Paige. I didn't have any friends. I was quiet. Unpopular. We weren't as poor as Paige seems to be, but we obviously didn't have anywhere near what the Greenes did. Back then, no one seemed to like me any more than they like Paige now.

Is Leah planning to replace me?

We stand around quietly, as if the party has to go on hold until Paige returns.

She comes back a few minutes later, following Mrs. Greene. She's holding a clubhouse towel tightly around herself.

Comfortable to continue the party now that Paige is back, the other girls start shouting, "Let's go! Last one in is a rotten egg!" as if we're in the first grade.

But Leah, Paige, and I just stand there. I wait for Leah to go first, knowing full well that if I go anywhere near the water before Leah, I'll get splashed.

Paige stands awkwardly behind us.

"Does the suit fit OK?" Leah asks.

I've never seen Leah show so much concern for someone before. I don't even recognize her tone of voice.

"Come on - it can't be that bad," she says gently, reaching for Paige's towel.

Paige looks pale. More than that, she looks scared.

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," Leah says lightly. Before Paige can answer, Leah pulls off her new robe and hands it to me.

"Come on," Leah says again. "Trust me."

Paige clutches the towel tightly to her body, then takes a deep breath. Her bottom lip quivers as she slowly lets Leah take the towel from her.

Leah gasps, and yet she doesn't seem surprised by what she sees. She shakes her head.

I don't say a word. I don't move a muscle. I stand there, frozen, still clutching Leah's soft robe.

Paige's body is covered with bruises. Most of them are on her upper arms and shoulders. I swear I can make out the shape of the hand that made them. Yellow and deep purple, it's clear they're all in different stages of healing. That as soon as one started to disappear, another took its place.

Leah quickly tears her robe from my hands and gives it to Paige.

"Here, put this on," she says.

Paige does. She looks at the ground.

The other girls squeal and splash in the distance. Mr. Greene kicks water at them from the sh.o.r.eline, and Mrs. Greene jokingly hollers at him to stop.

We stand absolutely still, not looking at each other.

Leah puts her shorts back on. "I'm too cold to go swimming, anyway. I'm not in the mood."

"Me, neither," I say.

Paige gathers her things and goes back inside the clubhouse to dress in private.

Leah paces while Paige is gone, biting her lower lip.

"Leah," I say, "we have to tell."

She stops pacing and looks me in the eye. "No. I told her she could trust me."

"But that was before she took the towel off. You mean you already knew?"

The door of the clubhouse opens, and Paige steps out.

"How did you know?" I whisper.

But Leah turns away from me and waves Paige over.

Paige returns, holding the suit, which Leah tosses through the open window of her dad's truck. Then the three of us go down to the sh.o.r.eline and join Mr. Greene, kicking water at the other girls.

Later, Leah, Paige, and I sit under a tree and make designs in the sand with our fingers.

When Paige leaves briefly to use the bathroom, I try again. "We have to tell," I whisper. "Someone is hurting her."

"No," Leah says. She shakes her head and digs her heels into the sand. Her feet are already slightly tan, making her heels look whitish pink. Even her toes are graceful.

"But someone should know," I say. "We have to do something."

"We can't," she says.

"Why not?"

"Everyone has secrets. They aren't ours to tell. Besides, telling could make it even worse for her. We can't risk it. All we can do is be her friends." She rubs out the lines in the sand she made with her foot. "Be glad you don't have secrets like hers."

I notice she said "you" and not "we." I immediately think of Sam, but Leah's expression tells me not to go there.

"But if we know someone's being hurt, we should tell!" I say, thinking about both Paige and Leah. "Who cares about stupid secrets!"

"No." She gives me one of her piercing looks.

I squirm, digging my own heels into the sand.

When Paige comes back, none of us say anything. I give Leah one last pleading look. She glares a silent no back at me.

I get up and leave the two of them sitting there.

When we get back to the house, Leah acts especially cheerful, urging everyone to have a second piece of birthday cake. She makes sure Paige has a seat next to her. Later we climb into our sleeping bags spread out on Leah's bedroom floor. Leah puts Paige's sleeping bag next to hers before I can spread mine there. This is it, I think. Paige is the new me. Maybe I should be relieved.

Leah reads scary stories from that same stupid book, even though she knows them all by heart. That thing is like a bible to her. The other girls listen closely, but all I do is watch Leah and Paige sitting in their sleeping bags as if they're best friends. Best friends with a secret.

After the other girls fall asleep, I lie awake listening to them breathe around me. I wonder if Paige is awake, too, safely next to Leah and away from whoever it is that gives her those bruises. I pick my head up and look over at her sleeping peacefully in the soft moonlight coming through the window. Then I see Leah. Her eyes are open, watching the ceiling.

I quickly put my head back down, hoping she didn't see me.

I wonder if she's worrying about Paige's secret, too. I wonder how she seemed to know about it before she saw the bruises.

I think about that night with Sam. How Leah stayed awake crying. How I should have asked if she was OK. How I was too afraid to learn the truth.

A week later, the yearbook comes out. All the graduating eighth-graders had to submit a favorite quote or poem or something to go next to their photos.

It doesn't take long for everyone to find Paige's letter to the cla.s.s on page 32, just under the photo of her sad, closed-mouthed face.

To all the eighth-graders but one, I won't see any of you again because I am moving to Texas. You will never have to look at me again. I am glad I won't have to go to the same school as you from now on. Leah Greene is the only nice person in this school.

- Paige Larson I expect Leah to gloat when she reads Paige's note, but she doesn't. She closes the yearbook and stares at the cover. Even though the teachers who decided to print that letter now have Leah on an even higher pedestal than they already did, Leah seems sadder to me. I'll never know if she was going to replace me with Paige or if she was only trying to be nice to a girl who needed a friend.

I think about Paige and her mother driving all the way to Texas in their rusting-out pickup. How they'll be all squished together with their things. I wonder if it's Paige's mother who beats her, or someone else. Maybe her father. Or her mother's boyfriend.

I realize I don't really know anything about Paige. I don't know if she lives with both of her parents or only her mother. She seemed to suddenly come into our lives and then, just as quickly, leave.

I feel afraid for her. I want to find her and ask how I can help. I want to force her to tell someone what's happening to her. I want to tell someone myself. But I'm afraid. Especially now, when it seems way too late.

I reread Paige's letter quite a few times that summer. Every time I read it, I feel sadder. Part of me feels a little betrayed. After all, I was there, too. I saw the bruises just as Leah did. I kept her secret, too. Why didn't she put my name on that letter?

But I know why. Leah went out of her way to invite Paige to the party. I don't want to admit it, but I know I never would have done that. Leah made sure we kept the bruises a secret. And I know I wouldn't have done that, either.

We never see Paige again. Leah writes to her once, but the letter comes back, saying there's no such address. Leah frowns when she shows it to me. She pulls out a tiny sc.r.a.p of paper Paige had left in her locker.

"I don't get it," she says. "I wrote the address exactly the way it is here."

"Maybe they decided to go someplace else." Or maybe they're in hiding, I think. I hope wherever she is, she's away from the bruise-maker. No thanks to Leah or me.

It's midsummer and hot, and we're sitting in Leah's bedroom waiting for Mrs. Greene to put her swimsuit on so we can go down to the lake.

"I guess we'll never know," Leah says quietly, as if she's going to cry.

I start to move my hand toward her shoulder. I mean to place it there softly, just to let her know - I'm not sure what. That I'm here. That I understand. But as my hand is about to touch her, Leah takes it. She squeezes it so hard it hurts, but I don't pull away.

It's been a long time since the doll closet, but now it's as if we're back there again. Leah taking my hand.

You're my wife.

My stomach goes all funny again. But it quickly moves into the back of my throat, and I feel like I'm going to throw up.

Leah lets go of my hand. "I'm sorry," she says. Then she stands and leaves me there by myself.

I stay where I am, staring at the white spots on my hand until they slowly regain their color and fade away.

I know at this moment that I will never understand Leah Greene. Maybe no one will. But I also know that Leah isn't the strong, untouchable person I always thought she was. I've seen her weak side twice now, and I know that when Leah feels pain, it goes deep into her soul.

The following fall, Leah and I get Mr. Mitch.e.l.l for freshman English. He is surprisingly beautiful, and all the girls love him. Even Leah acts somewhat goofy in front of him.

He says stuff other teachers don't. He writes swear words on the board and makes us stare at them until they become meaningless. He tells us stories that make us think. He asks us questions and actually seems to want to hear the answers. Our answers. Not his.

One day, we're sitting in cla.s.s, and he asks us what a true friend is. We all raise our hands, but he motions for us to put them down. "I'll tell you," he says seriously.

"I have this friend, Jake," Mr. Mitch.e.l.l says, sitting on the edge of his desk. "One day, I needed a favor. It wasn't a big favor, but I called him and told him I needed something. Know what he said?"

We shake our heads.