The Girl in the Park (6 page)

Taylor has to get to the newspaper. I drift through the halls. No one’s going to homeroom—and so far no one’s making them. People are gathered in groups. Many are crying. I pass by a girl who’s collapsing on her friend’s arm as they hurry down the hall. Teachers are wandering, talking to people.

It’s like after an earthquake, I think. People in a destroyed world; they don’t have to run and hide, the immediate danger’s past. But no one knows what to do now.

I walk past Wendy’s locker, where people are gathering. There’s a big ugly scar of police tape over it. On the floor, people have put bunches of flowers, stuffed animals. Someone’s left a Starbucks cup, because Wendy was a caffeine addict. I smile at that.

I hear sniffling and turn to see a girl red-eyed and freaked. She can’t take her eyes off Wendy’s locker. She looks really young, I think she’s a freshman. She couldn’t have known Wendy. But she knows a girl just died and she doesn’t know why.

I should say something to her, a Hey, it’s okay.

But I can’t. Because really, it’s not.

I am not alone in trying to find out what happened that
night. There’s a weird buzz, a hum, an Oh my God, and Did you hear? A lot of kids have their phones and iPads out. I spot Oliver Welks, who works on the paper, as he peers at his cell, then slow down to hear him say, “Another woman is saying she was attacked by a sicko in the park …” People immediately crowd him, wanting details.

I pass a group of guys by the water fountain. One says, “I’d never go to the park at night. My cousin did once. These guys jumped him, took all his stuff.”

“Chick was seriously wasted,” another says.

“Yeah, that probably didn’t help.”

On the stairs, a girl clatters past me, saying, “My sister’s sick at home. She just texted me that when they found her, she didn’t have clothes on.” Her voice is almost gleeful.

There is outrage. Daisy Loring announces to her crew, “I just hope when they get the guy, they hurt him. I mean, because, you can’t … you can’t …” In my head, I finish her thought. You can’t make someone like me feel scared and unsafe. Because I have never felt that way before and I don’t like it. At all.

Then there are the kids who are out of it. The ones who either didn’t know Wendy or have no group to swap rumors with or make pronouncements to. For them, it’s just another party they weren’t invited to. Some of them march past the groups, glaring angrily as if to say, Who cares? Some of them just wander, hoping they’ll bump into someone. It occurs to me—that’s basically what I’m doing.

And I do bump into someone. Wilbur, another lost soul, ambles over to me, head down like he’s embarrassed. “Hey, dude,” he says.

“Hey, Wilbur.” I give him a hug. Wilbur’s easy, one of the few people who’s shyer than I am. He’s not someone I can shove my feelings onto, but I can at least listen to him.

“It’s weird,” he says, looking around. “Like—I didn’t know her, but …” He swallows hard. “She seemed sweet. Slightly twisted, but you know.”

I smile. “Yeah, I do know. Stay mellow, okay?”

“… trying,” says Wilbur.

Then I run into Deirdre, sweet, chubby Deirdre, who says, “I can’t believe it,” over and over as if someone will tell her she doesn’t have to.

She gulps, “I knew she lived on the edge, but this is way extreme.” She looks around, lowers her voice. “Do you think it had anything to do with all that Nico stuff?”

I go still. “What do you mean?”

Deirdre squirms. “No, just she was a girl who pissed people off, you know? The way she went after everybody’s guy? And she was way trashed that night. It’s kind of like …”

Like she got what was coming to her
. That’s where Deirdre’s going. She doesn’t mean to, she’ll feel bad about it later.

Rubbing her arm, I say, “It’s beyond strange,” and walk away.

Turning the corner, I see a huge crowd around Karina Burroughs. Karina who gave the party, Karina who always gives the party. She has a huge apartment. Her parents travel a lot and they don’t ask questions.

I despise Karina Burroughs. Hate, detest, loathe, and any other word you want to use. She tortured me when we were kids. Her particular kick was to let her jaw go slack and make grunting noises whenever she saw me. Gorilla? Stroke victim? I was
never sure. She can’t get away with that these days. Supposedly, we’re all more mature. She even has to let me into her parties, now that I’m seen as an official sane person.

Still, I slow down to listen. Because when you give the party, you know what went on at that party.

I’m good at being invisible; the group doesn’t notice me at all. I know these girls. They replaced me in Wendy’s life. They were the girls she gossiped with in class, the girls who laughed at her crazy stories in the cafeteria.
“So, then I was like, oh my God, Mr. Security Guard, I must have fainted! Of course I had the bracelet down my pants. Good thing no strip search. Although he was cute …”

I hear Karina say, “The thing that kills me? Is let’s face it. You knew it was going to happen. I mean, how many times did we say, Wendy—too much. You gotta chill out.”

I know: these girls never told Wendy to chill out. They never told her, Too much. They laughed, they said, Wendy, you’re insane! Maybe I didn’t say things I should have to Wendy; but neither did they.

“And”—Karina lowers her voice—“of course she leaves this giant freaking mess behind. The cops called my parents in Europe, and they’re like, Party? What party? So
I’m
totally busted.”

I am dying to step forward, dying to say, “Yes, Karina, you’re so right. The worst thing about Wendy’s death is no more parties. Wow. How deep.”

Just then I hear sobbing. Not Look at me, I’m so sad tears, but full-out crazy crying. I follow the sound down the hall and find Jenny Zalgat. Jenny who became Wendy’s best friend after Wendy and I were done. I used to envy Jenny. Jenny was fun, Jenny got it about guys, Jenny didn’t take it all so seriously. In
my more evil moments, I thought, Jenny’s about as deep as a piece of toilet paper, only not as smart.

Right now she’s a wreck. She’s leaning against the wall, her head hanging down, her hair in her face. Snot dripping from her nose, face red with tears. The sound of her crying is like vomit; you can tell it hurts to let it out. But she can’t stop. Oh my God, she keeps saying over and over. Oh my God, oh my God. A few girls are standing around her, patting, making moo noises.

Slightly nervous, I approach, say, “Hey, Jenny …”

She pushes through the little crowd like I’m the one she’s been waiting for and grabs hold. Startled, I wrap my arms around her, and for a moment we stand there, a soggy, miserable pair.

Jenny coughs. “She’s not gone, right? Like, this is some horrible, disgusting nightmare. I just can’t …”

I hug her tighter. The other girls drift away.

Jenny says, “I can’t believe someone would do that.…” She stares off down the hallway and I can tell she’s focusing on the stairs, the exit sign, whatever, to keep from losing it again. “She was the sweetest thing ever. You know? Would not hurt anybody. This makes no sense,” she finishes forlornly.

“I know,” I say. “She had a huge heart.”

“Totally.” She smiles, grateful that I get it. “Wendy always said you were the smartest person she knew.”

“Ah …” That’s all I can say. I had no idea Wendy even talked about me.

“ ‘Way too smart to be friends with me’ was what she said.” Jenny smiles sadly. “She was always putting herself down. And she
was
smart.” She sniffs. “I’m so mad at her that she didn’t know that.”

“Me too,” I say. The idea of being mad at a girl who’s dead strikes us both as funny and we laugh—sort of.

Jenny says, “I feel like it’s my fault.” I must look puzzled, because she adds, “I left her, you know? I was her ride home, and …”

She breaks off, unable to say it. But she wants to tell me something about that night. If I press, she’ll shut down. I just have to wait.

Then she blurts out, “I
would
have left with her, if she’d asked. But I thought … I mean, she told me …”

“What?”

She looks around, nervous that people are listening. “I don’t want to say it. Everybody thinks she’s Superslut as it is.”

“I don’t think that, Jenny.”

“No, I know.” She lowers her voice to barely a whisper. “Just … I thought she was leaving with Nico.”

A chill goes right down my spine, even as I think, No. Not possible. Taylor said Wendy left alone, and Taylor does not get her facts wrong.

Only she didn’t say she knew it for a fact. She said
from what I saw
.

And while Taylor is way smarter than Jenny about most things, the one subject where Jenny’s got the edge is Wendy.

“Why’d you think that?” I ask, keeping my voice low so Jenny feels safe.

Jenny sniffs as she remembers. “At the party, I saw Wendy talking to Nico. I saw Sasha … nowhere. Like she’d just given up. Next thing I know, Wendy comes up to me all hyperexcited and says, ‘Leave, split, I’m cool.’ I was like, Yay, call me tomorrow with the juicies.”

“Did you actually
see
Nico and Wendy leave together?”

She thinks. “No. Zoe Wavel wanted to do a cab, like, that second, and I had to zoom.”

“So what do you think happened?”

“I don’t know,” she wails. “I don’t know and it’s making me crazy. I mean, I guess he blew her off at the last minute. Which would completely freak her out. So she went …”

Into the park. Upset, drunk. Wearing shoes she couldn’t run in. Expensive clothes. The perfect victim.

Now I lay me down to sleep
.

A question is forming in my head, but before I can bring it into focus, Jenny says, “I think I’m going to get out of here. I thought it’d be better, being with people who knew her?”

But they don’t, so it’s not. I nod. “Yeah, sure.”

She takes a few stumbling steps, then turns. “Guess I’ll see you at the …”

It takes me a moment to understand. Funeral. Wendy’s funeral. The thing they do before they burn you or put you in the ground to rot.

“Yeah,” I manage to say to Jenny.

I have to go into the bathroom after that. For a long time, I just sit in one of the stalls, eyes closed, head buried in the V of my arms. Little bits of random fact float around my brain. The expression on Wendy’s face when I saw her in the kitchen.
“Have you ever been in love with completely the wrong person?”
The jolt of energy when Nico walked in the door.

Is Nico in school today? I don’t remember seeing him.

A possibility: Wendy says come be with me. Nico says no. She gets freaked, gets trashed, and wanders into the park.

But no, Wendy was happy. Jenny said so.

Come be with me, Nico
.

Nico says yes …

One of the things about staying quiet? You think too much. All that chatter that normal people share gets bottled up in your head. And you start thinking the craziest things because, hey, it’s not like you’re going to say them out loud.

Nico says yes. They go into the park, and—

No. I cut myself off abruptly. I don’t like Nico. I think Nico’s a jerk. But there’s a big difference between jerk and …

The outer door opens and I jump. I hear the soft sound of a bag being settled on the sink. Carefully unlocking the door, I go out, hoping I can sneak past before whoever notices me.

“Whoever” is Sasha Meloni.

She’s shaking out her mane of hair, a clip in her teeth, and when she catches my eye, there’s a spark of humor.
Yes, me, beautiful Sasha, I hold my hair crap in my mouth like everybody else
.

Or maybe it’s
I’m such a dork, please don’t tell
. Sasha Meloni could secretly think she’s a dork—but I doubt it. For one thing, she’d be wrong. And Sasha is not usually wrong.

Normally, the sight of someone as prima as Sasha would send me scuttling out the door. But despite our vast differences in school status, Sasha and I have this odd little connection because of our moms. There aren’t a lot of people who get the weirdness of having a mother who calls Lincoln Center the office. Sasha’s mom doesn’t dance anymore, but she fund-raises for New York City Ballet. Sasha and I have been at a few of the same events. There’s a guard at Lincoln Center we both hate, a dancer we both think is to die for—even though, as Sasha said, “I don’t think either of us has a chance.” At the time, I thought
Wow, beautiful Sasha, nice Sasha, to pretend we would ever have the same chance with a guy.

So, does Sasha look like a girl who lost her boyfriend to the school skank Saturday night?

No, she does not.

But Sasha is not the kind of girl to look like that girl.

For a moment, we both fix our hair—Sasha brushing, me rearranging ornamental chopsticks. Like Taylor, Sasha has an E pin. Only she had hers set in a ring, black and gold on her long, strong fingers. I’m sure she got the pin for art; she’s a sculptor. A seriously good one. No hiding for Sasha; she puts her elite status right out there for everyone to see.

Then Sasha says, “Strange day, huh.” Her voice is deep, not accented, but exotic somehow. Sophisticated. As if she speaks many languages, keeps many secrets. You have to work hard to read Sasha.

“It certainly is,” I say. Then, taking a chance to see how she’s feeling about Wendy: “Are you going to the assembly later?”

“I don’t know. It’s awful what happened …” Hair done, she’s putting on lip gloss. “But it’s all kind of fake, you know? The crying and …” She waves her hands in the air.

I wait for her to say the words:
Slut stole my boyfriend. Why should I care?

But she doesn’t.

She picks up her bag. “I’ll probably go. It would be tacky not to.” So Sasha—not rude, not cold,
tacky
.

Then she frowns. “It’s just … all the stupid
drama
.” Angry, she pokes in her bag. “People with no lives, you know?”

Realizing what she said, she sighs. “Yeah, well.”

Then: “I’m sorry; you knew her, right?”

“Right.”

She nods slightly, makes a guilty little
click
with her tongue. “Well, I’m really sorry.” She holds up a hand as she leaves. “Ciao.”