Lessons From A Dead Girl Part 9

I don't think any of us will really do it, but as I watch the minute hand slowly making its way to the five, I decide I'm going to go for it. It's the end of the school year. What's the worst thing that could happen? What do I have to lose?

As the second hand nears the twelve, we exchange looks and nods. Then, just as the hand clicks onto the twelve, I take a deep breath and let out a "Wooh!"

Jess and Web echo my own pathetic, but victorious, howl.

When we stop, the room is deadly quiet. We look at one another, our faces bright red. I feel like I've just lifted a huge weight off my chest, and I'm smiling like a nut. I've never done something like this before. Leah would never do it. She'd say it was totally lame. She'd probably roll her eyes and say how juvenile we are, which is basically what the rest of the cla.s.s does. No one looks at us. Mrs. Fiske, our teacher, just says, "Enough!" But no one in the cla.s.s even acts like it was an odd thing to do.

After cla.s.s, the three of us meet in the hall and burst out laughing.

"That was the weirdest experience I've ever had," Jess says.

"Jess, you live a boring life." Web sighs.

"But nothing happened," I say. "No one did anything! We didn't even get in trouble!"

"We freaked them out, that's all," Web says. "It was beautiful, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Jess and I say at the same time. Then we all crack up again.

I have pa.s.sed their initiation test. I have friends. I wonder what Leah would say to that.

Just when I finally make friends, they desert me. Two weeks after the scream, school vacation starts and Jess and Web go away. Jess goes to Maine with her parents, who run a dive shop there all summer. Web's parents are making him go to private school in the fall, so he has to go to their summer-school program before he can enroll.

I'm alone again.

I decide to work in my parents' antique store. Mostly I dust and polish things. My dad plays fifties music off the restored jukebox because he thinks it makes customers feel nostalgic. Within two weeks, I'm walking around with Buddy Holly and Fats Domino songs in my head. It is so pathetic. I'm convinced that I'm a complete failure and will be a hermit the rest of my life after all, humming to the tune of "Ain't That a Shame."

But then Jess IMs me and asks if I want to come spend a weekend with her.

I write back in all capital letters: YES!

She sends back a smiley face.

When I step off the bus, she hugs me close. I hug back and glance over her shoulder at the small wharf and quaint little shops by the water. As we embrace, I feel odd, like people are looking at us. I pull back quickly, but Jess doesn't seem to notice.

"I can't believe you're here," she says. She has a dark tan. Something about her is different. She looks great. Maybe it's because she seems so much more relaxed than at school. Maybe it's just the tan.

"We're gonna have a blast!" She grabs my backpack off my shoulder and drags me up a narrow street. Her parents' summer place is right in town, a little apartment over the dive shop. Jess's room is a tiny, renovated attic painted white with a round window with a view of the ocean. There's a single bed under the eaves with milk crates stacked on top of each other for a side table.

"It's not much, but we won't spend time in here anyway," Jess tells me. "C'mon. Get your suit on and we'll hit the beach."

She pulls her tank top up over her head and begins to unfasten her bra. I quickly turn away. My cheeks are hot.

"What's with you, Laine? We're both girls," she says matter-of-factly.

I try to laugh and fumble through my backpack for my bathing suit.

I turn my back to Jess while we both get dressed. I'm sweating.

Please don't let me have any weird feelings.

Please don't let her look at me.

Please don't let her be like Leah.

I dress as fast as I can, trying to hide myself as I do.

But when I turn around, suit on, Jess is already in her bikini, not even paying attention to me. I tell myself to get a grip. I put my T-shirt and shorts back on over my one-piece and we head out.

We spend the day on our towels, pushing our toes into the hot sand as we watch the waves. Jess rates the guys that walk by us and I say higher or lower. Usually I say higher. Jess tells me I should be more picky. But I doubt any of the guys we see would be interested in me. A few of them check out Jess, but their eyes pa.s.s right over me.

The first night, we walk down the pier and buy cheap jewelry. Jess wants to get a tattoo, but you have to be eighteen. The whole time we're walking she keeps brushing up against me. The first few times, it surprises me and I flinch.

Jess isn't Leah, I tell myself. She isn't. Is it too much to ask to have a normal friend?

I'm starting to think there is no normal. Not for me.

That night in Jess's room I spread my sleeping bag out on the floor.

"There's room for you in here," she says, patting the bed.

My body tenses.

No. Not another Leah.

I shake my head. Too confused to speak.

"Oh, phew. I was hoping you'd say no." She laughs. "This bed is way too small." She takes a folded quilt from the foot of her bed and arranges it under my sleeping bag. "At least let me give you some cushion. I'll trade if you want."

"No, that's OK," I say, giddy with relief. "I'm fine."

The next night we walk out on the beach. We lie down next to each other on a blanket Jess brought and look up at the stars. A group of people have a bonfire party going down a ways, but we don't join them. I watch the half-moon above us and listen to their music. Every few minutes there's a collective laugh.

"School's gonna suck with Web gone next fall," Jess says.

"Yeah," I agree.

"It sucked enough with him there last year. You two are, like, my only friends."

I don't answer at first. The two of them are plenty for me. So I say "Yeah" again.

She rolls over on her side to face me. "You used to have lots of friends in elementary school and stuff, though. Weren't you and Leah Greene best friends or something? What ever happened to her, anyway?"

One of the bonfire people squeals and I hear splashing. I close my eyes and see myself with Leah and the other girls, thinking we're so special. We were awful.

"She went to private school," I say. I sit up and move to the edge of the blanket so I can push my feet into the sand. "After she left, the girls we hung out with kind of drifted apart."

I don't admit to her that they were never really my friends. It sounds so pathetic.

"Oh, yeah. Right," Jess says. "Now I remember. She was really screwed up, wasn't she? Didn't she try to kill herself or something? I always wondered if that rumor was true. Was it?"

"I don't know," I say quietly.

She sits up and joins me at the edge of the blanket. She nudges me with her shoulder.

"I'm glad I got to know you, Laine. I always thought you were such a sn.o.b." The side of her thigh touches the side of mine. "Now I know you were just weird."

She elbows me.

I move away a little so our legs don't touch.

"I was only kidding," she says, moving closer again.

"I know," I tell her. But I still don't want her touching me. All this talk about Leah. If she could see me now, she'd probably think I was a total loser, hanging out with Jess. Or she'd tell me I was attracted to her. But I'm not. I don't feel anything. Only scared.

I stand up and walk toward the water. I stop where the sand gets hard and let the ice-cold waves reach my toes. With each wave, my feet sink deeper into the sand. It reminds me of when Christi and I were younger and we pretended we were sinking into quicksand.

"You better pick up your legs, Laine!" Jess calls to me. "I'm not getting my feet wet to save you!"

But just then some guy runs by us and starts puking into the water. I turn and run back to our blanket. Jess and I pack our stuff and take off, giggling.

Jess walks me to the bus stop the next day. Before I get on the bus, she wraps her arms around me and squeezes me tightly. "I'll miss you, Lainey," she says in my ear. Her breath is warm and wet and familiar.

I jump back.

She looks confused. "Have a safe trip."

What just happened?

"Thanks," I say, trying to sound normal. "For everything. I had a great time."

I heave my backpack up over my shoulder and climb onto the bus. From my window, I watch her standing on the curb. She waves and holds her hands up, pretending she's typing. "Send me a message," she mouths.

All the way home, I feel her breath in my ear.

When we first met, Leah asked me if I knew what forever really meant.

"Of course," I told her. But I didn't.

"It's your whole life," she said. "Friends forever is friends always. No matter what."

I didn't know what she really meant. Maybe she didn't, either. Maybe she meant that some friends stay with you even after they're gone, haunting you forever.

Two weeks before school starts, Jess IMs to say she's back and asks me to go with her to Web's for a reunion.

Web's house is gigantic, like the Greenes'. He rushes out the front door and wraps his arms around me and kisses me on the cheek. "Hey, girlfriend," he says.

His arms feel good, holding me tight. He looks surprisingly pale, compared to Malibu-tan Jess.

"Me, too," Jess says, joining our hug.

Their arms pull me against them, and I don't know where to put my face. It ends up smooshed against Web's neck. He smells like expensive soap.

"I have a present for you guys," he says, breaking away.

We follow him inside. He gets his backpack from a large hall closet and puts it on the floor, then pulls a bottle of Kahlua out of it. He smiles, flashing us his freshly white-stripped teeth. "Got milk?" he asks, grinning.

"It's your house," Jess says. "Do you?"

He rolls his eyes at her and carries the bottle and his backpack down a long hallway. Jess follows, skipping behind him like a little kid.

"Where are your parents?" she asks as she follows.

"Away," he says over his shoulder.

I walk behind them, loving how normal it seems to them that I'm here, too.

We take a gallon of milk and three plastic c.o.c.ktail gla.s.ses filled with ice into Web's bedroom and shut the door. We sit cross-legged on Web's bed in a sort of circle.

Web makes the drinks. We forgot a spoon, so he cups his hand over the top of his gla.s.s after he's poured the ingredients in and shakes. He licks his palm when he's done and smiles at us. "Who's first?" he asks.

Jess trades her empty cup for the full one. Then Web makes two more.

"Cheers!" Jess says.

We click cups and drink. It's cold and thick and sweet. The liquid gently burns in my chest.

Web and Jess pretend to be at a c.o.c.ktail party, sticking out their pinkies as they drink, so I do it, too.

As I sit on the bed with them, I feel like I'm inside myself. Like I'm this miniature me standing inside my head, looking out through my eyes as if they're windows. I want to tap on the gla.s.s. To shout. But I'm trapped inside. It feels like something else is controlling me, making my arms move, my mouth swallow.

Don't screw this up, I tell the outside me.

I take another long drink.

Web turns on his stereo. We sit and drink and smile and drink.

"It's so good to be back together," Web says.

"Did you miss me?" Jess asks.

"Of course," Web says. "I missed both of you. Did you miss me?"

"Of course!" Jess says, leaning up against him.

"Of course," I say, mimicking Jess.

I tip my gla.s.s back and finish it off. I feel dizzy and deliciously happy. I lick the sweet off my lips.