Hyacinth Girls (16 page)

At dinner that night, Callie and I had discussed Robyn's motives. Callie had promised she'd finish writing everything by the time I came home. I still didn't know exactly what happened with the paint—I'd read only as far as last Christmas.

“I think she wants revenge,” Callie said. “If she blames us, we'll be murderers. And we won't ever be able to forget. She'll be a part of us forever.”

“Like Autumn Sanger,” she added, and for a moment I shivered. I remembered how she'd brought up Autumn after we'd found Robyn's first note. She'd said that Autumn was bullied and her bullies killed her.

“Well, I won't let her jump,” I told Callie. “So nobody's going to be a murderer.”

As I waited for Robyn, I chewed the side of my knuckle. Then I glanced down at the road, fearful of spotting her body. It could happen that quickly. You wouldn't always see it coming. Sometimes you lost everything before you realized what was at stake. Then I couldn't help it. I was thinking about Joyce. I'd lost a friend, too, and I'd betrayed her first.

On the night Joyce died, Lara called me.

“Rebecca?” Lara sounded confused. “Did Curtis call you?”

“Oh, Lara, hey.” I hadn't planned what I'd say if she called. Joyce and Callie had gone out to meet Curtis about twenty minutes earlier. It was the first time they'd done it openly, the visits no longer a secret from me. Joyce had hurried Callie to put on her shoes, giving commands on an
imaginary walkie-talkie. “Agent Callie, do you read me?” She made the sound of static using her mouth, and I tried not to feel resentful about being left behind.

“Did my husband call you?” Lara was insistent.

“No. Why?”

“I just hit redial on our phone and now I'm talking to you.”

“Okay, but I haven't talked to Curtis in ages. It must be a mistake.”

“Is Joyce there?”

“Sure,” I said, and then regretted this immediately. I should've just said she was out getting milk.

“Can I speak to her?”

“She's busy.”

“She's busy? What's she doing?”

I panicked. I froze. Then I hung up the phone.

I had never hung up on Lara before. The phone started ringing. It rang, then stopped. It rang and rang again. I realized this would be proof to her. Another betrayal. I cursed my own stupidity as I lay on the sofa. Eventually the phone stopped ringing. I thought it was over. But then fifteen minutes later the banging began.

Lara stood in front of our apartment door, holding her stomach. She grimaced at me unhappily, her eyes red from crying. But her voice was strong. Bitter as coffee.

“You were lying, weren't you? She's out screwing Curtis.”

Lara doubled over suddenly, like she was about to vomit on our doorstep. But instead of puking, a painful howl came out. I looked around our well-lit hallway, expecting neighbors' doors to start opening, complaints about the noise, but nobody came out. Lara's howl tapered to a moan, and I made as if to touch her, but her hair was unwashed and she looked like she hadn't slept.

“Lara, no. Just listen.”

She lifted her eyes to my face. “What did I ever do to you?”

Here was the cool, beautiful girl who I'd once admired, hunkering down like she'd been shot, coming to me for help.

“It's not what you think,” I said, trying to block the doorway with my body.

“You never liked me,” she said. “It's the same as last time. You act like you're my friend so they can keep cheating.”

Lara's hands went to her pockets and I recognized this gesture. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tried tapping one out. Her fingers were clumsy. There was a small hole in the seam of her T-shirt. She started flicking her lighter and then took a deep drag.

“You're wrong,” I said more steadily. “She's just out getting milk.”

“What store?” Lara asked.

“I don't know. You're not supposed to smoke here.”

“Guess I'll just have to wait until she gets home.”

Lara glowered and kept smoking. I wondered what she'd do when Joyce came back. How would she react to seeing Callie here in the flesh? On the one hand, I could empathize. I'd been suspicious of Joyce until recently. My mind had buzzed with betrayals that were so much worse than reality. I knew how Lara felt, and I could so easily fix it. But I'd promised Joyce that I would keep her secret.

“I think this is a misunderstanding.” I cleared my throat. “Do you want to come inside for a second?”

Lara followed me into the apartment, ashing her cigarette on the floor, stumbling over our rug, moving like a caged animal. She looked at our stained brown couch. Callie's rain boots next to the door. I could hear her hiccup as she brought her cigarette to her lips.

“They're not cheating,” I told her. “Callie's out with her. If she was fooling around with Curtis, do you think she'd bring her daughter along?”

We were standing in front of the couch. Lara didn't move to sit down. She narrowed her eyes at me, as if this was a trick.

“Callie's not here?”

I shook my head, waved at the empty bedroom.

“He's still cheating.” Lara sank down on our couch, and then she said the most miserable thing. Later, I'd wonder if she meant it at all. She knew me well enough to choose words that would instantly move me. She remembered my old hyacinth-girl days, and was aware of my weakness.

“I'm going to kill myself,” she said. Then she started describing the rope she'd been saving. “I want him to find me hanging next to our bed.”

Lara's threat was melodramatic, but I immediately believed that she meant it. That she would leave our apartment and go home and do it. Wrap a rope around her neck, climb up on a chair. For just a second my mind went to Autumn, recalling how desperate I'd been to help her—when her private despair had leaked like gas into my life. My heart was pounding, and maybe Lara knew exactly what she was doing: hooking her misery into my skin, giving me one last chance to fix it. Did she think that I could save her? That I could save anyone? That I could untie the piece of rope she'd just looped around both of us?

Robyn was late or her mother had stopped her. It was already one-fifteen and she hadn't arrived. The clock had jumped forward as I ran my flashlight over the bushes, and I wondered if she was watching us, waiting for us to leave. We couldn't stay here all night, but I told myself to be patient because how would Callie feel if Robyn jumped? I still hadn't forgiven myself for what happened to Joyce. “Your husband isn't cheating,” I told Lara. “He's visiting Callie. They get ice cream at the beach, that's all it is.”

After Lara left that night, I opened all the windows, as if this would clear the anguish that still lingered in the air. She'd believed me. She'd cried. She stopped talking about killing herself. I agreed that they should've just told her instead of sneaking around. Lara drank the tea I gave her. She said she'd go home and rest. She said this sincerely, and then I watched her turn to leave.

It was a balmy September night, and apparently the beach parking lot was busy. Music drifting from car windows, people inhaling the salty air. Curtis and Joyce didn't even notice the blue Chevy that was idling nearby. They were engaged in a delicate maneuver: getting Callie into the car. She had fallen asleep after a boisterous hour in the playground, streaks of ice cream crusting her face. Curtis kissed his sleeping child, bending to place her in the car seat, while Lara watched, feeling as though her heart might burst. Here was her husband with the child she couldn't give him, with the woman who'd had his daughter. He cradled his own flesh and blood with a tenderness Lara craved. She would never have this. She couldn't share it. It was worse than cheating. She squeezed her own neck with both hands. She would do it and he'd find her hanging. That's how she would end it. But instead of driving home, Lara put her foot down on the gas.

I held my cell phone in my hand. It was one-thirty. I had a sudden profound urge to hear Callie's voice. I would tell her to get some sleep. Robyn wasn't coming. She had to be waiting anxiously, hoping her friend was okay. Our home phone rang and she didn't pick up, so I dialed a second time. Then I tried her cell, keeping an eye on the approach to the bridge. No answer. I texted. No response. When our answering machine picked up for the fourth time, my heart started racing. What if Robyn had lured
me here? What if she knew that Callie would be alone? I started flashing my light at Danny. S-O-S. S-O-S.

“I need to go home,” I yelled. “Callie's not picking up.”

“You want me to come with you?”

“No. You stay here.”

Everything flipped in a single instant. I ran to my car, still dialing Callie. When Lara hit them, Callie was safe in the car, asleep already. And we didn't want her to know—to imagine how it must've happened. Her father flying through the air, her mother bleeding on the asphalt. Callie safe in the car, dreaming of ice cream, fairies. We couldn't allow her to feel guilt. We couldn't add to the nightmare. Curtis in the ICU, and Joyce, how could I say it?

I tried to remember how Joyce had looked when she'd said good-bye to me. Was there anything special? A wink, a smile? Did she raise her hand as she said my name, tossing her golden hair over one shoulder? I couldn't remember her exact words, the look on her face. I thought of the way we'd rehearsed this moment in my backyard years ago, and I was trapped in an ant hole. Circling gray doom.

I visited my cousin only once. I was afraid to see him. I felt I was pulling apart at the seams; I had given them all away. I looked at my cousin, my old protector, bandaged and bruised, and I couldn't admit to him what I had done. I'd thought that I knew Lara, but I hadn't seen that she was dangerous. And she'd known me better; she'd tricked me into this. Curtis looked frail, despondent, and I never told him. Perhaps if I had, he could've blamed me instead of himself. I stood by the plastic rail at the end of the bed and described Joyce's funeral. I asked if he was in pain. I told him that Callie was with the McKenzies. I said I'd come back and
see him, but I never got the chance. After Curtis got out of the hospital, he went to Bea's house to recover. But he quickly went downhill as he struggled with the facts. His wife had tried to kill him. She was going to prison. He'd put his daughter's life in danger. And Joyce was dead. One day Curtis went into the bathroom and opened a bottle of painkillers, then he swallowed them until he was gone.

I ran up our staircase and opened our front door. It was quiet, and I could smell the chrysanthemums in the kitchen as I called out her name, rushed through the rooms. Callie's door was open, and I pulled back her covers, already aware that her bed was empty. Her sheet was on the floor, but she wasn't here. Then I was running from room to room, a hollow wail cracking my nerves.

“Callie! Callie! Oh my God!”

She wasn't here. She wasn't home. She was gone. Taken. I was trapped again, and each second was sucking me deeper.

I almost didn't notice her phone on the floor. It was just lying there in the hallway, on the floor outside my room. I bent down and the noise was brutal, like bones crushed inside my throat.

Beneath her phone was a single sheet of paper.

Red ink, pink lines.

Sorry Rebecca. It was me. C

 

If you called my name underwater, it might sound like anything.

A frog belching. A fish singing. Green leaves flapping on a tree.

It could even sound familiar, like a nickname they called me when I was a baby that I'd forgotten long ago. Or just a second ago, because names disappear underwater.

I might hear you, but I'd still sink. I can't swim.

In the lake behind Ella's house, the mud swallows everything—leaves and bugs and fungus and fish bones and bird bones and mold and dust. Last July, I stood in the shallows and let it swallow my feet while Dallas and Ella raced. I blew the silver whistle and then watched them chop the water with their arms. Ella was winning because she always won. She'd been captain of our middle-school swim team and had a row of trophies that made a hollow ting when you tapped them. When she kicked, the brown water turned white, and when she reached the floating Styrofoam ball that was the finish line, she treaded water and waited for Dallas.

They never swam right back to me. They both wore goggles, and I could see them ducking under the surface to flutter their arms like hula girls and blow giant silver bubbles at the sky. My toes sank past soft, squishy animal brains and I waited to turn to stone. The skin on my
feet would become syrup and my bones would turn into fossils, sinking lower and lower into the watery waste.

“You've got to at least learn to float,” Ella said, when they finally came back to where I stood.

She squinched her little fox's nose at me, and because I'd known her forever I followed her into waist-deep water. At school, Ella practiced her signature “I don't give a shit” runway walk—shoulders rising, feet crossing fast to the beat of a playlist only she could hear—but in the lake she glided smoothly in front of me.

I lay back when she told me to. Cold water pressed me down; poking fingers held me up. The sky spread out to the edges of the universe and a fat gush filled my ears.

I thought I heard laughter, then words. “Top Russian mops.”

I struggled for a moment and water trickled out.

“What?”

“Stop tensing up.”

I dropped my head back. Ella kept her hands underneath, holding me up as she floated me deeper. I turned enormous and weightless at the same time: an iceberg, an ark, the algae drifting in the sun. Dissolving, my fingers dragged the surface while a thousand living things passed through. Sky reflected lake, lake reflected sky. Ella smiled down at me. I billowed out with the ripples and was half asleep when she pulled her hands away.

I flapped, kicked toward the bottom, sank. Gulped a dirty mouthful, sank. Ella was already miles away.

“You have to swim to us,” Dallas called.

My head tilted, choked. Brain sizzled. Arms slapped up and down. Words washed back down my throat like mud while panic stole my legs, dragging me under. Pulling, swallowing, deep, deeper, deepest.

They were still laughing when I started to kick. I thrashed and pushed and then my foot hit something. The bottom. I drooled scummy water and walked the rest of the way back.

Ella and Dallas didn't look sorry.

“Ella,” I shouted. She turned her back to me, shaking with silent laughter.

I hiccupped, burped wetly. Dallas glared with slitty snake eyes. “You swim like a baby shits.”

“Baby shits,” Ella gasped, laughing harder. Dallas puckered up and squeezed her eyes shut like she was trying to push one out.

I didn't know the name would stick. Babyshits. That's what they called me. That's who I became.

I didn't go home that afternoon. Instead, I lay down with the dandelions, the ants, and the pimpled dirt while they went to get three Bacardi Breezers from the fridge in the basement. The sweet liquid fizzed in our stomachs, and when the world started spinning we held the grass tight in our fists so we wouldn't fly off past the sky and clouds to the black frozen galaxies beyond. I kicked my feet in the air and Ella caught one, looked at my small white toes. “You have fetus feet,” she said, and smiled.

I felt okay for a minute, and then Dallas pointed at my half-finished drink. “Do you like milk better, Babyshits?”

I tipped the bottle to my mouth. Dallas was good at making names stick. Pubic Monster, Double Dick with Cheese, Tit Rash. Bullets. She'd smile and say it to your face until it caught. Her dad had a show on the radio and when she was little, he recorded her talking about the red piss cherries we'd thrown at Alex Penders, who lived next door. She called Alex “Piggy Kibble” because he ate dog food, and after her dad broadcast it on the radio he got so many calls about how funny Dallas was, he decided
to talk about her each week. Even though nobody we knew listened to the radio, Dallas said her dad had more than a million listeners, plus people who downloaded the podcasts, so when Dallas told him something millions of her fans might hear about it.

Like in seventh grade, when there was this girl Josie Dixon who had these wiry black hairs sprouting out of her chin.

“She got the five-o'clock shadow,” Ella said. “And it's not even ten.”

“That bearded lady needs a razor.”

“Hobo Joe,” Dallas said, and the name was so perfect it stuck, and then it went viral.

Every time Hobo Joe walked into a classroom, there was a paper cup waiting on her chair. We filled it with nickels and pennies—whatever we had. Dallas once left a dollar with a message on it. “Pluck it. Wax it. Get those chin pubes OUT!” Hobo Joe finally waxed off all the ganky hairs, but it was already too late. We started leaving razors, and then a bottle of Nair.

Josie told one teacher that Dallas had started it, but Dallas knew exactly how to play it. Blue eyes wet with tears, breathy and innocent, lower lip puffy and trembling. She didn't even get a detention, and afterward she went up to Josie. “You should listen to my dad's show,” she told her. “You might get a shout-out soon.”

When we heard that Hobo Joe was transferring to another school, Dallas raised her hand to me for a high five.

“Credit,” I said, slapping her hand.

“Full-frontal credit!” Ella said, shaking her hips. And I knew we weren't supposed to feel bad at all.

We called ourselves DH, which stood for Double Hockeysticks. Like hell, we each carried a sharp pair of sticks in our name: daLLas, eLLa, caLLie. You didn't cross us. When Ella leaked period on the back of her
pants, no one tried calling her Spot. When I served at volleyball and it flew backward instead of up and over the net, no one started laughing—they just passed the ball back to me for another try. Together we were DH and when the three of us walked down the hall, it was like all the sweatballs shrank even smaller, wishing they were us, but also scared of what we might do. We could do anything. Everyone knew, and if you didn't know, you soon learned. Ask the kids in our grade, ask teachers. Ask the school secretary—she found out.

On the last day of eighth grade, Ella lost her school yearbook. Like me and Dallas, she'd spent the morning handing it to the A-listers and even some of the blah-blahs, telling them, “Sign it,” and then checking to see if they'd written anything juicy. The teachers were playing DVDs that nobody bothered to watch, so we wandered in and out of classrooms, practicing our autographs, posing for pictures, and eating candy. Then at some point that afternoon, Ella noticed her yearbook was missing. When it wasn't where she thought it would be, we realized it was stolen.

Dallas set up a blockade in the hall, and we marched up to people, telling them to open their books. We scanned the front page for Ella's name and slammed it shut when it wasn't there. Some kids held their books open before we even said so, but one little mouse cheese stuffed his away in his bag and wouldn't take it out for me. Dallas stormed over, total odium. “What's wrong with you? Are you a thief?”

He stared at her and then handed it over. When I looked inside, I saw no one had even signed it. It was just his own name. I banged it shut and passed it back at him.

“Maybe it's in lost and found,” Ella said. We went to the office, where Mrs. Lutz, the school secretary, was talking on the phone.

“Did you have a yearbook handed in today?” Dallas called out.

Mrs. Lutz raised a finger for us to wait, and Dallas gave her flea eyes. The secretary had no idea who she was dealing with; she was still on the phone.

“Um, she lost her yearbook, so it's kind of important.”

Mrs. Lutz put one hand over the phone. She was triple ganky: her skin was picked at, and her plastic glasses made her look like a frog. “You need to wait,” she said.

“You need to check lost and found.”

Mrs. Lutz turned her back to us and kept talking. “So annoying,” Dallas said loudly. Ella looked at the ceiling and bounced her shoulders back and forth like she didn't mind waiting; she was dancing.

Forever later, Mrs. Lutz got off the phone and came over to the window. “What did you girls want?”

“She lost her yearbook, so you need to check lost and found.”

Mrs. Lutz looked at us straight. I remembered how she'd bought cupcakes at our class bake sale and gave everyone a big hulky smile, but she wasn't smiling now. “Nobody's turned in a yearbook. Why don't you check your locker?”

“Well, we did. That's why we're here. But you won't even check the box,” Dallas said. “Someone might've slipped it in there when you were on the phone.”

“I don't like your tone.”

“Please, will you check, Mrs. Lutz?” Ella begged.

If Mrs. Lutz had laser eyes she would've burned Dallas right there on the spot. She had no idea who we were. How could she? She was stuck in the office all day, a complete disconnect. She finally turned around and stuck her hands inside the big cardboard box marked
Lost and Found
.

When she looked back at us, her cheeks were red and Ella giggled. “I told you it's not there,” Mrs. Lutz huffed. “Why don't you get back to where you belong now?”

We might have gone somewhere else—wandering around, checking other kids' yearbooks—but just then Dallas sucked in her breath and pointed. There was a stack of brand-new yearbooks on a chair in the corner of the office.

“Whose are those?”

“Those all belong to someone,” Mrs. Lutz said. “They haven't been picked up yet.”

“Can I have a look?”

“I'm going to have to ask you to return to class now.”

“How do you know they're not ours? I just want a look.”

We could see that Mrs. Lutz was about to go bizonkers. “I DON'T want to have to call the VICE PRINCIPAL on the last day of school.”

Dallas started laughing. Ella joined in. Me, too. Mrs. Lutz came up to the window.

“You're being very rude right now. I'll need to get your names.”

Ella turned her back, she was shaking so hard. Dallas snorted and started to walk away.

“You have to guess our names, Irene Lutz!”

Ella and I followed Dallas, falling into one another, sick with it. When we were partway down the hall, Dallas screamed out in a high-Lutzy voice, “I don't want to call the VICE PRINCIPAL on the last da-ay!”

“I need to get your naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaames!” Ella shrieked.

We ran and screamed. We were DH. The opposite of Lutz. We were ultra-people, sharp as sticks, while ganky Lutz-Butz was probably crying and shaking and waiting to go home so she could pick all the skin off her face.

On the day they named me Babyshits, I remembered Mrs. Lutz. I remembered Alex and Josie and all the rest. They were like blobs of mud I'd swallowed. They bubbled inside me, oozed out through my pores, and I wondered what I'd done to become someone like them.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: (no subject)

Date: Thu, Jul 16 2009, 21:56:14

Robyn

There's something I need to tell you even if it makes you hate me. Even if it makes you want to cut off my head and stick it up on a rusty post.

It was my fault about your name. I was the one who first said Bullets. And if it makes you feel any better I've got a name now, too. They've started calling me Babyshits, but I bet that won't make any difference. You'll say what goes around comes around and you'll be happy I almost drowned.

Sometimes I wish we could both be Evil McFrenzy, getting revenge on all those liars, but then I'd need to get revenge on myself too, because of how I lied to you. That whole story about Christmas, it wasn't even true. I never put ketchup on myself and ran around the tree screaming. I only told you I did because I wished it was true. C

Maybe they were just bored that summer, but after they tried to drown me, DH still texted me to meet at the mall. They'd changed their phones so when I texted, my name came up as BABYSHITS on their screens.
They wanted me to see, and they held their phones out while their mouths collapsed into laughter.

“Epic,” I said, laughless.

“Babyshits, your shirt's really cute,” Ella cooed. I was wearing a green Abercrombie tee I'd worn a thousand times before.

“ 'Course it looks good on her. It's the color of babyshits!”

“Credit!”

Ella rolled onto Dallas's lap, gooey with laughter, and they watched me with hungry eyes to see what I would do next. I stuck my hand in my pocket and squeezed the twig I'd started carrying.

“I don't give a shit what color it is,” I said.

Dallas's tongue hung loose from her mouth as she lisped, “I don't give a shit.”

I pressed the sharp end of the twig against my thumb and waited for them to stop laughing.

When I got home, I went behind the shed in the backyard where some trees were growing. This was my place. I pressed my hand against the trunk of the biggest tree and waited to feel something. Not a heartbeat, but a hum. The cool calm that grew up from its deepest roots to its tallest boughs. I pressed hard against the bark, and when I pulled my hand away there were ridges on my skin. Bugs clicked in the air and I waited for the air to become my lungs, the earth to become my body. Trees sucked mud and rain and air—turned them into bark and branches and leaves. Then they were mud again. I wished no one could see me. I walked over to the smallest tree and wrapped my hand around the cold trunk—it was the size of Dallas's wrist. I squeezed. I picked up a yellow-and-brown leaf from the grass and slipped it into my pocket.