Three Quarters Dead (17 page)

She was sure-footed enough for both of us. She was part of the dark. We were between houses, drifting through a scent of lilac, that clean spring scent. She knew the way. She so knew the way.

Another path around a garden shed, another gate, and we were in the grounds of the Haverkamp estate, the back way in. Gardens like rooms with high hedges for walls and the starry sky for a ceiling. Very French, like Versailles or someplace.

And through the openings in the hedges the party pulsed and strobed. People in the pool and strings of colored lights above a crowded terrace. A band, blaring, and people dancing, their hands pointing out the stars. People making their final senior statement.

We stood, shadowed by the hedge in the empty garden. In the center was a lily pond, round as a big silver coin, catching the drifting moon.

“Go get Spence,” she said in my ear. My rhinestoned ear. “Bring him to me. I only need that moment. It’s the least you can do.”

“What if I can’t find—”

“He’s right there.”

He was. Right there beyond the walled garden, framed by an opening in the hedge. This side of the glowing turquoise pool. You could see his blondness and the white blur of his shirt. The moon was out. All the guys had shed their tux coats. They were in shirtsleeves. Their ties were loose. Cool. Keeping it real.

“Get him,” Tanya said in a fading voice.

I waited. I tried to wait her out, to stall. Maybe she might just . . . go now. This minute. But of course time wasn’t going to run out until she’d said good-bye to Spence. I saw that. She’d made me see that.

So I turned on the glittering gravel of the path. I couldn’t feel my feet in these torture shoes. And why hadn’t I broken a heel by now? I didn’t want to do this, but it was just easier to do what she wanted. Get it over with. I took one step, and the night exploded.

A terrible, erupting sound bounced off the night. Birds rose in clouds out of the trees, birds black against dark blue. Only the blaring band muffled the sound for the party people. I didn’t know what it was, not at the time. How could I? It was the Cadillac, ablaze. And the flames had reached the gas tank. It went off like a bomb and burned down to a rusty frame.

I whirled around, not knowing this, not knowing what that sound meant. And my backpack was at Tanya’s feet. And in her hand the longest knife off the wall of Aunt Lily’s kitchen. The knife that had come all this way in my backpack.

Tanya was nearer now, half out of the shadow. The moon caught all the pale lights in her hair. But her forehead was darker than night now. Darker and deeper.

“If only you hadn’t looked back,” she said in a voice not faded at all. “But then you never could get anything quite right, could you, Kerry? Now I’ll have to go get Spence myself. You didn’t really think I’d leave him behind, did you? For Alyssa? Please.”

The knife flashed in her hand, quick as one of her questions. The moon struck blue fire off it. She was going to kill Spence. And me too. I was in her way, and she had no more use for me. I’d seen the knife. I knew too much. I’d gone from not knowing anything to knowing too much.

This was either the last moment of my life, or the first. I needed the knife. And had one second to get it. Not even. And this time it had to be my time. For the first time.

She was swooping to slash. I grabbed her wrist and caught her by surprise. We were both surprised. Who did I think I was? The knife was turning and turning between us. She was stronger than I was. She always had been, in every way, and she still was. And there was all this life in her.

And I’d never been in a fight with anybody, not even in middle school. But I sank my nails into her wrist, and the knife jumped out of her hand. We tripped each other up and were both on the ground now, tangled in our skirts, ripping the knees out of our stockings, groveling in the gravel, grabbing for shadows that might be the knife.

Then I had it. Don’t ask me how. It was in my hand, and I had it against her throat. I was up in a crouch over her, and she was on her back, and the point of the knife was against her throat. Some other me had her by the throat.

I couldn’t kill her. She was already dead. But I could send her—speed her on her way, without Spence. Or me. I shouldn’t have to die. I’d never lived. I’d only followed.

She made a little move, and I jabbed the knife. It must have broken the skin. She must have felt a line of blood run down her, into the scoop neck of her leotard. She never spoke, saving her strength. She never moved again, waiting for me to blink. Playing for time.

How long? And all in silence now, except for the siren of the fire engine whining in the distance, looking for the Cadillac. The band had stopped blaring, and the birds in their clouds never came cawing back. How long until there were silver edges on the shadows?

Daylight was coming, and I could see the line of black blood that had run down her. And I saw her eyes, watching mine. She wasn’t looking through me to the next thing she wanted. She saw me.

“The party’s over,” I told her.

And there seemed to be no more need for the knife. Her eyes were still staring, but not at me.

I heaved myself up on my feet, stiff as a board and cold to the bone. I walked over to the lily pond and had to pry the knife out of my hand. I threw it in the water.

That must be the quietest time there is, that silver-gray time before real daylight.

Then from behind me I heard a sound. A shoe scraped gravel. A sound of shaking leaves and the crackle of branches. I heard her behind me . . . Tanya. And I didn’t have the knife anymore. The pond was all lily pads, overlapping, and the knife was nowhere.

I didn’t know which way to run, and now one of the heels of my shoes had broken off, finally. I couldn’t run. I spun back to where we’d been there on the ground, where I’d held her on the point of the knife.

And she wasn’t there.

She was hanging on the hedge. Her head—her face was embedded in all that spiky, prickly greenness. Her arms were flung out, woven into the branches. Like the apple tree out by the Country Club Road. Her body hung there.
She
was gone. Then not even her body. I saw the mismatching skirts settle against nothing and droop down the leafy hedge.

I stood there in the silver-gray morning, all on my own.

THE SUN SLANTED across me, all the way down through town. Sunday morning, with church bells tolling. I walked down the curving roads and then the straight streets. Past empty porches and swing sets and front walks bordered in masses of pink and white flowers. Everything hemmed with golden sunlight and dew on the lawns like a billion diamonds. I’d never been this awake this early.

Downtown, I walked a block out of my way, to the thrift shop. “Second Act” or “Encore.” Some name like that. You weren’t supposed to leave donations outside the door when it wasn’t store hours. But I left my backpack there, and they could take it or leave it. Inside were my Fabian’s clothes—the slinky skirt, the sequin top, the broken shoes. And another pair of strappy shoes and two mismatching skirts and a leotard, a little stained.

I was back in my school clothes from . . . when? Friday? My American Apparel sweatshirt was tied in a knot around my waist.

I turned away from my bulging backpack, and a car pulled up at the curb. The only car in sight. Spence Myers at the wheel, leaning out of his dad’s Acura. Spence Myers, one of the rare seniors who could get away without owning his own car. Except he wasn’t a senior now. He’d graduated. Had I?

“You again.” Spence propped an elbow out of the car window. And he was grinning because there I was again, this time disguised as myself.

“You again,” I said. I wanted to smooth my hair—do something with it. But that was Natalie, not me.

“It’s got to be fate,” Spence said.

I laughed. I doubted it, but I laughed.

“What are you doing out this early?” he said.

“Just running an errand.” I nodded back at the thrift shop.

“Me too.” He jerked a thumb at the backseat. Two other senior guys were back there, Ben Chou and Grant Carmichael, in their tux shirts, curled up and sound asleep. Zonked.

“You the designated driver?” I asked him.

“That’s me,” Spence said. “Eagle Scout to the end. But they’re not going to Georgetown, so I’m not stuck with them forever.”

“Was it a good party?” I said.

“You weren’t there, were you?”

“You could hear it all over town.”

“It was good,” Spence said. “Same old crowd, but saying good-bye this time. Letting go and moving on.”

We made that sunny morning moment last, though I’d never be able to tame time like Tanya. But I was there on the curb, and Spence was leaning out of the car, and it ought to be awkward, but it wasn’t.

“I’ll e-mail you from Georgetown,” Spence said. “Tell you all about it.”

“Sure you will,” I said, grinning.

“No, really. And hop in. I’ll drive you home. Plenty of room up front.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m practically there.”

So he nosed the Acura out into the street, doing his designated-driver thing. His take on community service. And I peeled off toward home, not wanting to show up in his rearview window, watching him go. And just now remembering that he and I were both here and alive, breathing in this morning, because of me.

I headed on down Linden Street in my flip-flops. I had my phone, so I called my mom.

THE DOOR TO our apartment was standing open, and she was there in the hall. Fuzzy slippers. Bathrobe. But she’d been up for a while. She didn’t look mad. Relieved, yes. And maybe curious.

She breathed in. “Arpège? That’s a blast from the past,” she said, “and are those diamonds in your ears?”

“What? Oh.” I reached up and took off the rhinestone earrings, which really didn’t go with anything. “No. They’re not real.”

“You weren’t at your dad’s,” she said. But it wasn’t like she was accusing me.

“No,” I said. “I was nowhere near him.”

“He’s not that easy to get near,” she said with a small shrug. A coffee smell drifted out of our kitchen. Yes, she’d been up awhile.

“Where were you an hour ago?” she said.

An hour ago?

Then I knew, to the very minute. That was when I was turning back from the lily pond, to . . . the hedge.

“Why?” I said.

“I was in bed,” my mom said. “I hadn’t slept, but an hour ago I knew I’d get you back.”

“How?”

She turned up her hands. “I’m your mother. Are you going to tell me about it?”

“Yes,” I said, “when I’m an old woman and you’re a
really
old woman.”

“I can wait.” She smiled a small smile. “We’ve got the time.”

Then—right then, in my pocket—my phone rang. It rang and rang. I let it.