Killing Britney (4 page)

seven

Adam
lit a cigarette, his first of the day, and contemplated his various employment options. If he had to work, he wanted to at least work at a cool store.

Kicking along State Street, he took in the sights. Since arriving in Madison, he’d been up and down this street numerous times, and he always compared it to his memory of what the street had been like back when he’d come to visit as a kid.

He still had a hard time getting used to the college bars that had proliferated in the past eight years. Long Tall Sally’s and Kegger’s and The Watering Hole. They weren’t crowded now, but he imagined that they would fill up with Greeks and girls gone wild—people like Britney and that obnoxious guy she dated, Ricky—once the sun started to set.

In his memory, this street had stood out as an exotic never land where people in dreadlocks, reeking of patchouli, lingered in front of dark, tapestry-shrouded stores called things like The Mad Hatter and Liquid Sky.

One time, during his visit to Madison when he was nine, he and Britney came down here with their families. They’d wandered up and down the street for a while, taking in the sunshine and warmth of the day. There had been some sort of farmers’ market, and that was why they were there: the grown-ups had wanted to buy homemade jams or something. But to him, the farmers’ market hadn’t been as interesting as all the weird people up and down the street.

While the adults looked at the vegetable stands, he and Britney wandered off together to find something more interesting. A shirtless guy with long hair and batik pants had been playing acoustic guitar on a bench and, Adam remembered, he’d wanted to join the small circle of people listening to him.

Britney was scared of the guy, though—at that time, she’d seemed scared of most everything. When Adam asked her why, she said, “He’s dirty.”

“You’re dirty,” Adam said.

She glared at him. “I’m not dirty,” she said.

“Your mom told me you were dirty.”

This had made her cry. He felt bad, thinking back on it. Her mother had been an odd, nervous woman. And now she was dead. At the time, though, he hadn’t been able to resist the urge to get under Britney’s skin. It was too easy. She always took things so much more seriously than they needed to be taken. In that regard, she hadn’t changed.

As he wandered up the street, he kept an eye out for places he remembered from his earlier visit. The ethnic restaurants were still there: Mamood’s Shawarma, Zulu Ethiopian Cuisine, Rayne’s Macrobiotic Burrito Stand, but for every one of these, there was a chain restaurant too: Quiznos, Chipotle, Johnny Rockets, Wendy’s.

He knew exactly where he wanted to work: Amoeba Records, if it was still around. Approaching the corner where he remembered it having been, he was relieved to see the big drippy Day-Glo sign still there, a little worse for wear, but he could deal with that.

He leaned against the counter and filled an application form out on the spot. In answer to the question asking what music he liked, he said.
Air, Tricky, and old-school hip-hop, especially Kurtis Blow. Mos Def is pretty good too.
He hoped this would impress them. When the form asked him what music he didn’t like, he said.
Anything that’s not real.
He figured they’d know what he meant. And as for why he wanted to work here, he said.
Because Amoeba’s the coolest record store in town.
A little kissing up never hurt anyone.

The guy behind the counter was dressed in a retro-seventies style. Hip-hugger rust-colored polyester pants. A tuxedo T-shirt. His mop of hair hung down so far into his eyes that Adam couldn’t believe he could see through it. He nodded as he read Adam’s application, though, and when he was done, he said, “Air’s cool, but London Underground are cooler.”

Adam was pretty sure that the guy’s dismissive tone was his way of showing that he was impressed, so in response Adam shrugged. “Yeah, they’re all right too,” he said, even though he’d never heard their music.

Then the guy said, “So, can you start tomorrow?” and Adam grinned.

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

Back out on the street, he felt the need to walk out his excitement. He walked past Ragstock used clothing and Big Billy’s Brat Shop and a store called Essence that specialized in scented candles. On and on he walked, three, four, five blocks, and while he was walking, he thought about Britney and her cliquey friends. Now that he was an Amoeba employee, he had certifiable proof that he was a hundred times better than they thought he was. He could only imagine how upset she would be when she heard that he’d pulled off this coup.

State Street was only eight blocks long. It started at the edge of the UW campus and ran on a diagonal until it dead-ended at the lush, expansive capital lawn. He could see the marble dome up ahead, and he wondered if he should call Ed Johnson and ask him to pick him up. He didn’t want to. He was enjoying State Street. At Mr. Johnson’s house, there wasn’t much to do but IM his golf buddies back home, and that just reminded him how much he missed them.

Coming up on the end of the street, he stopped in front of the Camara Theatre, a regal old movie palace that had passed its prime. The marquee was missing lights. The red carpet that spread from the front door to the street had long ago been worn threadbare. He was surprised it was still there. In Manchester, New Hampshire, where he was from, all the theaters like this one had been torn down years ago and replaced by multiplexes.

A black-and-white poster out front proclaimed that the theater was having a horror festival. Over the next two weeks, they would be showing
The Exorcist, The Omen, Children of the Corn, Carrie, Halloween,
and about thirty other screamers. Today was
Psycho.

Adam had never seen it. He remembered reading something in
Premiere
magazine last year about how the movie was based on a real-life serial killer, a guy named Ed Gein, who, Adam knew, was from Wisconsin. He thought it would be kind of cool to watch a bit of spooky mythology about the local culture.

It started at three, in half an hour. He figured he should call Mr. Johnson to let him know he would be home late.

As he fished in the pocket of his green windbreaker for his cell phone, a pair of hands clamped onto his shoulders. He let out a shriek and jumped. He spun around ready to fight.

There, looming uncomfortably close, was a pudgy, pasty guy in a tattered army coat glistening with buttons—a smiley face with a bullet hole in the forehead, a bloodred anarchy symbol, the outline of a hand with the middle finger raised. His hair was styled into a greasy bowl cut, grown out so it hung in daggers over his eyes, which were further hidden behind brown plastic glasses. Underneath his coat, Adam could see a black T-shirt on which had been stenciled the sentence,
Just be glad I’m not your kid.
He was smiling maniacally.

“Scared you, didn’t I?” he said. His voice had a high reedy quality to it, as if he had to squeeze it out of his throat.

Taking a deep breath, Adam backed up until he bumped into the wall.

“You’re that kid from New Hampshire, right?” the guy said.

Adam wasn’t sure what tack to take. He knew he could beat this guy in a fight—in his ugly last few months in New Hampshire, he’d taken much bigger, tougher guys than this—but he wasn’t convinced it was worth it. The best thing to do would be to walk away, but the guy’s arms were stretched out in front of him, his fingers extended, poised to catch Adam whichever direction he darted.

Tensing and straightening up against the wall, Adam spoke calmly, as if he were talking to a vicious dog. “How’d you know that?”

“New Hampshire’s supposed to be almost a nice place to live. Why’d you decide to come to this stinking town?”

“I’m …” Adam thought of his parents, of the for-sale sign in the front yard, of the sterile motel where his father was now living. “I’m staying with some friends.”

“Oh, yeah?” The guy sneered. “Who?”

“Britney Johnson.”

When the guy heard her name, he acted like someone had hit him on the back of the head with a baseball bat. He buckled at the waist and bent almost to the ground. He sounded like he was wheezing. Laughter. Copious laughter.

“I knew that,” the guy said through his laughter. “You’re Adam Saft. I know all about you.”

While the guy was doubled over, Adam took his opportunity to slide out from against the wall. He mumbled to the guy, “You’re a freak,” and began walking briskly away.

“Hey! Wait! Where you going?” The guy suddenly had him by the elbow. His grip was tight, and Adam began to think he might have underestimated the guy’s strength. “We were having an interesting conversation.”

“Okay.”

“I was going to go see that movie.
Psycho.
You were too, no?”

“What, are you a mind reader now?”

“Oh, come on. I saw you digging in your pocket for money. Don’t lie to me. I think we’re going to be great friends.”

“I doubt that.”

Pulling on Adam’s elbow, the guy said, “We are. You can count on it. Come on, let’s go.”

Not feeling like he had any other choice, Adam followed him back toward the ticket counter.

“Britney Johnson.
Little
Britney Johnson.” The guy stretched the words out into grotesque balloons and chuckled again. “I’m so sorry you’ve got to be stuck in a house with her.”

Adam couldn’t help but smile. There was a teasing quality to this weirdo that was beginning to appeal to him.

“You don’t like Britney?” Adam asked.

“Let’s say I find her
very
interesting.”

“How come?”

“Oh, that’s a long story.” The guy’s mouth twisted into a tortured smile. “I can’t tell you that. Not right now. Suffice it to say that we used to be the bestest of buddies, but sadly, all good things come to an end—especially when other people are involved. Ask her about Bobby Plumley when you get home. See what kind of reaction you get.”

“That’s you?”

“That’s me, Bobby Plumley.”

Yanking his wallet from the back pocket of his black jeans, Bobby flipped it open and pulled out a twenty.

“This one’s on me,” he said. Then, turning to the pretty brunette behind the ticket counter, he said, “Two
Psychos.”
And in they went.

eight

The
three of them, Britney, her father, and Adam, sat around the kitchen table, eating lasagna. Or, her father and Adam were eating it. Britney just picked at her food, separating the meat from all the other stuff that wasn’t on her diet and pushing the food around on her plate. She had no appetite. She was too upset.

Throughout most of the meal, an awkward silence had cloaked the room. Now that the whole household knew about Ricky’s death, it was as if he were sitting with them at the table, bloody and disfigured and staring at them with wet, mournful eyes. Of course, he wasn’t, but everyone felt his presence anyway and no one knew what to say about it.

Straining to make conversation, Mr. Johnson asked Adam what he’d done this afternoon. The two of them had already talked about this. The real purpose of the question was to provide a neutral topic and a sense of normalcy around the table.

Adam swallowed his bite of lasagna, wiped a strand of mozzarella from his chin, and said, “I went to a movie.
Psycho.”

Britney glanced up at him. The last thing she wanted to hear about right now was
Psycho.
Her father, of all people, should have realized this.

“And he met a friend of yours,” her father said with a helpful smile.

“Who?”

Adam tipped his head. “Guess.”

“I’m really not in the mood for one of your games,” she said.

“Adam, not right now. Just tell her.”

“Bobby Plumley.”

Britney sat back in her chair and glared at the two of them. Of all the things there were in the world to talk about, she wondered why they had to choose this one.

“Bobby Plumley’s
not
my friend,” she said.

Her father peered at her from below his bushy eyebrows. “I thought you and Bobby
were
friends. He used to come around the house all the time.” She knew he didn’t mean to take sides against her, but she couldn’t help feeling betrayed by his statement.

“Well, we’re not anymore.”

Unconsciously, she reached for the hockey pin on Ricky’s jacket and traced its shape with her index finger. She hadn’t taken the jacket off all day. She never wanted to take it off.

Adam brushed the hair from his face, and she saw a smirk pressing out from the corners of his mouth. “Why not?”

Just thinking about him made her head feel like it had flames shooting out of it. If there was one thing in her life she regretted, it was having spent so much time with Bobby Plumley.

“He’s a sociopath, okay? Can we …” She broke down in sobs. Pulling Ricky’s letter jacket tight, she hugged herself in it. “Can we talk about something else?”

The tortured silence descended again on the table.

After a while, a plaintive sympathy in his voice, Mr. Johnson said to Britney, “If you want to cancel with Dr. Yeager tomorrow, I’ll understand.”

Britney nodded. “Thanks,” she said. Dr. Yeager was the shrink who was theoretically supposed to be helping her deal with her feelings over her mother’s death.

After another long silence, he tried again. “When is the funeral, honey?”

“On Wednesday. They’re canceling school.”

“Well, that’s good, at least,” said her father.

She couldn’t bear it anymore.

“No. No, it’s not good,” she said. “Nothing’s good.

“ He reached his long bulky fingers out to touch her arm, but she pulled away from him and he instead patted the table. He couldn’t comfort her. No one could comfort her.

Jumping up, she ran from the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time toward her bedroom.

This seemed to be where she always ended up. Shut tight in her room all alone. She remembered what it had been like before her life was transformed by Ricky and the hockey wives. So many nights of watching
Law & Order
reruns. So many weekends spent sitting in her bedroom, telling her stuffed frog about her problems. Her father had brought the frog home as a present after his three-week business trip to New York City when she was six. She called the frog Wart, and she often felt like he was her only friend.

How many secrets had she shared with Wart because she couldn’t tell anyone else on earth? Wart knew all about her relationship with her mother. He’d comforted her after her mother’d slapped her face when, at eight years old, she’d poured chopped onions into the vanilla ice cream—she’d been just a kid; she hadn’t known any better! He knew how much they had fought as she grew into a teenager, but he also knew how much she missed her mother, how bad she felt about the strife that had existed between them now that she was dead.

Where had Wart disappeared to? He’d been a great comfort. Maybe he could console her over Ricky like he had back then over her mother.

She hadn’t seen him in months. He had to be in her room somewhere. She rummaged under the bed, pushing aside the shoe box full of photos from her childhood, the rolled-up posters that had plastered her walls when she was on that Hanson kick—she’d been such a kid then. She couldn’t find him anywhere.

Finally, giving up, she turned on her i-Mac and fired up her Yahoo Messenger account. Maybe Erin or Jodi or someone would be there.

A pop-up box told her she had four “friends” connected, and she immediately felt a little bit better. That’s right, she thought, she had a whole network of friends to comfort her. She didn’t need a stupid stuffed frog.

They were talking about Ricky, giving little testimonials:

Sunshine52 [Cindy]:
He wasn’t like your average jock because underneath the muscles, he could be real tender. I always had sort of a crush on him. (no offense, Britney) ☺

Sweet’n’Sassy [Erin]:
Don’t tell Troy, but-me too! But I had a crush on him BECAUSE of the muscles.

Sunshine52:
He was dreamy.

LittleOne [Jodi]:
I remember one time I was helping him with trig and he said, “The thing is, I actually want to learn this stuff, you know?” That said a lot about him, I thought.

Britney typed in,
You don’t know how much hearing all this is helping me! Thanx. I couldn’t ask for better friends!

DaffyD [Daphney]:
Hey, did you guys hear the rumor?

Sunshine52:
What rumor?

Sweet’n’Sassy:
There’s a rumor going around that I didn’t start?

DaffyD:
Digger told me that right before the game on Friday, Ricky told him he thought someone wanted to kill him.

Sunshine52:
You’re joking.

DaffyD:
No.

Britney felt like she was about to throw up.
Did he say who?
she typed.

DaffyD:
Digger said he wouldn’t tell him. He said Ricky told him he could take care of it by himself. They sort of argued about it, I think. Ricky told Digger to keep it a secret. He said he was just telling him in case something happened—he wanted someone to know.

Sweet’n’Sassy:
Then it wasn’t an accident.

DaffyD:
That’s what I’m thinking.

It was all too much for Britney. She turned off her computer and sat in the dark, gripped by a fear she hadn’t felt since the months immediately after her mother had died.