The Girl in the Park (8 page)

I do. It’s both better and worse. Better because I’m near him. Worse because I’m near him. Wendy, I think. I’m here to talk about Wendy.

I mumble, “What you said about Wendy …”

“Yes.” I like how he says just enough to fill in the blank spaces, but not so much that I feel rushed.

“I’m really glad you said it.” Now I can look at him. “You know, that somebody did.”

He coughs a little, pushes at the papers. “Well, I appreciate that, because I thought it was pretty … inadequate.” He smiles, and that connection I always knew was there—two people scared to speak—hums between us. “I thought any friend of Wendy’s would think, Who does this guy think he is?”

“I was friends with Wendy, and that’s not what I thought.”

“Oh,” he says, clearly surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

“It was a long time ago.” He filled my silence before; now it’s my turn. “I know, people think, Hm, pretty different …”

“No.”

“But that was one of the things that was sort of great about Wendy. She didn’t …” I’m not putting it right. “She wanted to be popular? But she wouldn’t put other people down. She was into status, but she wasn’t a snob. Actually, she could get pretty fierce when people were snobby to her.”

“I wish you had said that at the assembly.”

Immediately, I shake my head. “Public speaking and me …”

“Why not?” he asks.

I check his face. He’s serious; he has no idea why I would be afraid to speak. It makes me think of Wendy in my kitchen:
Give up the silence
.

For no reason, I blurt out, “I already can’t remember what she looked like.”

“That happens,” says Mr. Farrell. “When my dad died, I kept all these pictures of him on my desk, so I could have him fixed in my head.”

I have this horrible impulse to tell him that I don’t have any pictures of my dad. That I might not even know when he dies.

Mr. Farrell’s briefcase is open on the table. Inside the top, there’s a photo of a little boy. Just past baby. He has big happy eyes and brown hair. He’s crazy about whoever he’s looking at, you can tell from his face. Total love.

“That’s your little boy?” I ask.

“Nathaniel.” He moves the briefcase so I can see better.

“So cute.”

“Thank you.” He glances at the picture. “He … Well, he’s mine. So he must be the most wonderful, perfect kid ever born, right?”

“That’s how dads should feel,” I say.

Looking at the picture of Nathaniel and thinking of Wendy reminds me of Ms. Geller. She has the same picture of Wendy—hundreds of them, I’ll bet.

Without thinking, I say, “I said totally the wrong thing.”

“When?”

“Wendy’s mom called me. That morning. She wanted to know if I knew where Wendy was. And I was all like, Oh, she’s fine, don’t worry. Now I feel horrible.”

He leans in. “That’s what she needed to hear, Rain. You sensed that, so you gave it to her. There’s nothing wrong with that. It was kindness.”

I shake my head. “You should call Ms. Geller. Tell her what you said.”

He smiles, breaking up the sadness. “What, that her daughter talked too much in class?”

“
No
.” I smile back. “The part about Wendy laughing, caring. That stuff. She’d like that.”

“Really?” He looks unsure, and I love that he’s so cool and doesn’t know it.

“Really,” I say. “Hey, made me feel better.”

He laughs. “Well, then I’m really glad I said it.”

I twist my hands together. “Mr. Farrell?”

He leans in. “What?”

“I don’t want to gossip or anything. But … do you know what the police are …? Like, if they have a suspect? You probably can’t tell me things like that.”

“I can’t,” he says gently. “Because I don’t know myself. They’re keeping a very tight lid on this.”

“Why were they here?”

He considers his answer; I wonder what he might be hiding. “Primarily so that Mr. Dorland could introduce Detective Vasquez. We felt it would be easier for students if they saw him before they got a call from the police.”

“Do you know who they’re calling?”

He shakes his head. “Why?”

I stare down at the ground. “No, I just hope they talk to people who …” I look up. “Not everybody liked Wendy. Some people are into trashing her, saying, like, she deserved it, ’cause
she …” I wave my hand, not wanting to list the reasons people think Wendy deserved to get killed.

Mr. Farrell says, “When disaster strikes, people get scared. They want to find a reason it won’t happen to them. Something the victim did wrong that they would never do.”

“Yeah.” I nod gratefully. “I think there’s a lot of that going around.” Then in a burst, I add, “It’s like when people pick on a kid, they know it’s wrong? But they always find some reason the kid deserves it.…”

Too much. Way too much. I stop talking, stare at the floor. What am I doing, blathering like this?

I mumble, “I guess I’m just freaked by the whole thing.”

“Of course.” A pause. “Do you feel like you could talk to Ms. Callanan?”

I shake my head. Freshman year, when I was having a really rough time, I went to her once. All she did was grip my hand and say things like You must feel so SAD. You must feel so ALONE. I was like, Well, yeah—and?

“I think I have to get through it myself,” I say.

“No, you don’t,” he says.

Something in that statement gives me the guts to look up. We sit there looking at each other. It occurs to me that if the silence lasts one more second, he will know how much I like him and this will go from wonderful to deeply embarrassing.

Actually, he probably already knows and the only thing left is to show him that it’s cool, I’m not a moron.

So I get up. “I’ve wasted a lot of your time.”

“You have not,” he says.

“Well … at any rate”—I start toward the door—“thank you again and …”

“Rain?”

“Yes.”

He hesitates. “You’re welcome. First. And …”

I wait.

“Come talk to me anytime.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t mean it. I do get that. He’s being nice.

“And I’m not just being nice.”

I laugh. “Okay.” Wanting this to last, I glance at the bare walls. “You don’t like pictures?”

“I don’t like pictures,” he says, grinning. “I like words. When people are in my class, I want them to listen. Really hear the words and feel the emotion. Not get distracted by a picture of the person or their life. Listening—it’s an old-fashioned concept, I know.”

“Yeah, I do know.”

He smiles.

Most Alcott kids live near school, in the Seventies and Eighties, either on the pretty wealthy West Side or the flat-out rich East Side. I live on 110th, up near Columbia University, which is a different scene. My mom got a huge apartment there when she wasn’t making a lot of money. The neighborhood’s changed since then, but a lot of professors and writers and artists still live here. My mom says she’ll never leave because this is where she brought me home after I was born. Plus our building has gargoyles. “How can I leave the gargoyles?” she asks. Not to mention St. John the Divine, the Hungarian Pastry Shop, and V & T’s, which has the best pizza in the city.

As I walk, I think about what Mr. Farrell said about Ms. Callanan. Maybe I should try again. The thing is, the one time I saw her, she was so busy feeling sorry for me, she never even
heard why I was there in the first place. I feel like I could have told her exactly what happened with Nico in the stairwell and she still would have gushed on about SAD and LONELY. She would have made it about me and not him.

Right after the thing with Nico, I thought about it every day. I would play it over and over in my mind; what Nico said was always the same. What he did was the same. But in my imagination, I fought back.

Which was not what happened, of course.

I haven’t thought about it in a while. Now the whole rotten memory comes back in a rush like vomit.

“Come on, I want to see.”

It was in ninth grade, during that not-great time when my two friends, Layla and Sophie, had left. I would walk/run through the halls, praying no one would speak to me. It had been years since kids deliberately said hello just so they could make fun of whatever I said back. But why risk it?

So why did I risk it with Nico Phelps? Maybe because he was new to the school. A year older than me, he’d never made fun of me. Probably because he had no idea who I was—but still. I knew who he was, of course. Everyone knew Nico Phelps, the moody blond guy whose worn cashmere sweaters stretched tight across the elbows and shoulders.

I’d noticed those sweaters. They were expensive, but not new. Hand-me-downs? Not something you saw at Alcott every day.

I think that’s why, when he said hello that afternoon on the stairwell, I felt … excited. Happy. I was on my way to chorus practice. We were alone on the stairs, one of the smaller, windowless stairwells that leads down to the basement. They’re old-fashioned, cramped. I remember thinking, Yeah, he would
want to wait till no one was around. He is breaking the rules by talking to me.

Which is why I said “Hi” back.

“Rain, right?”

He knows my name, I trilled to myself. He cares who I am.

“Right. And you’re Nico.”

He smiled,
Um-hm
. Then said, “I want to see the hole.”

I didn’t get it right away. His voice was still friendly, his shoulders relaxed. I felt no threat; it just didn’t make sense.

I must have shaken my head, because he continued, “They say you’ve got a hole in your mouth. That’s why you talk like a retard.”

Even then, I accepted it. He wasn’t being mean, just explaining. It was what people said about me. I had a hole in my mouth, I talked like a retard. It was the way it was. How could I be hurt by that?

Maybe, I thought, the hole is like his sweaters. The way they don’t fit right.

“Come on,” he coaxed. “I want to see.”

And so I did it. I opened my mouth. I even tipped my head back to give him a better view. That’s how much I wanted to believe this was about connection. Not humiliation.

Nico leaned down—he was taller than I was. For a moment, his curiosity felt real, as if he were looking at a scar left by a car wreck. His gaze made me feel ugly—but powerful. I thought of saying, “When I was born, I didn’t have a roof to my mouth. There was just this little ridge of tissue. So they puullled a little from one side, puullled a little from the other, and kind of tied it all together. But there wasn’t enough. And that’s why the hole. There’s a space where it doesn’t connect.”

When he stood up, the little smile was back. Lifting his hand, he pointed a finger, then stuck it in my mouth. He wiggled it roughly, the knuckle knocking against my teeth, the nail scratching. A taste—blood or the salt of his skin? A fingertip, blunt and rough, worked its way into the shallow indentation, pressed hard. Harder. A brief terrible moment of no air.

Panicked, I twisted away, batted uselessly at his arm. He pulled the finger out.

For a moment we just stood there. Jumbled, upset, I thought, Will he apologize? Kiss me? What?

He said, “Aw,” in a long sneer that felt like a snake slithering heavily across my body. Then he continued down the stairs.

I thought of crying. But who would listen? In the end I just went home.

Turning on 110th Street, I imagine the park at night. Tree branches waving against a dark sky. Buildings towering over you, windows blank and indifferent. Streetlights to brighten the path—but not the shadow areas among the trees and bushes.

How long were you without air, Wendy? I wonder. Did you scream? Could you scream? In the darkness with those hands around your throat? Did you pray someone would hear? Pray they would come running and help you?

After a while, there probably was no air. And no sound.

Just the silence as he finished.

My phone buzzes. Taking it out, I see it’s my mom. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, honey. Listen, sweetie?”

“Yeah?”

“The police would like to talk to you.”

*   *   *

“Just tell them what you know.”

“I don’t know anything.”

My mom squeezes my hand. “Honey.”

It’s evening, but we haven’t eaten dinner yet. Just as well. Food would never make it into the twisted mess that is my stomach right now.

A moment ago, the buzzer rang. It was the police. Any second, they’ll ring the doorbell.

“They’re taking a long time,” I say. “Maybe they got lost.”

The doorbell rings. Hurrying to answer it, my mom says, “They’re just going to ask you some questions.”

Just, I think. Questions mean answers. Which I don’t have.

I hear my mother say, “Detective …?” Murmurs back and forth as she lets him in. Then: “My daughter’s in the living room.”

They appear, my mother and the detective. It’s the guy from the assembly, Detective Vasquez. He is rounded and bald. When he comes close, I see that his skin is pockmarked. I like him for that.

“My name’s Detective Vasquez.” He raises his hand awkwardly. “Good evening, Ms. Donovan.” Which sounds very weird; Ms. Donovan is my mother, not me.

As he sits down, I say, “You can call me Rain. I mean, if you want.”

“Rain,” he says easily. “So, Rain. First of all, I’d like to thank you for speaking with me.”

“You’re welcome.” My mother sits down next to me. The detective notices that.

He opens his hands. “Is there anything you would like to tell me to begin with? Anything you’d like to ask?”

“Just … I don’t know. The obvious. Do you know who—?”

“No,” he says promptly, “but we’re doing everything possible to find the individual, I promise you.”

He says that to everyone, I think. To Wendy’s mom, her dad, the newspapers.

Shifting slightly in his chair, he gets down to business. “I understand you attended the same party as Ms. Geller that evening?”

I nod, wondering who told him. Wendy’s mom, I bet.
“A very reliable girl, Detective. You’ll want to speak to her.”

“Did you speak with her at all?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“Can you tell me what you talked about?”

Have you ever been in love with completely the wrong person?
Part of me really wants to tell the detective about Wendy’s insane crush on Nico. But I don’t want to add to the crazy slut story. I want the police to know about Nico—but I don’t want them knowing it from me.