Kitabı oku: «Mean Girls», sayfa 14

“No, I understand perfectly well what you’re saying. I don’t know that I understood half of what you said, but I get that you’re frustrated. But you’re okay, you say?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded, and then opened his mouth to say something before closing it again. He leaned in on his desk and looked at me. “Listen. Kids your age love to obsess. Half of them didn’t even know Becca. But once she was missing, they all appropriated the pain and suffering. It’s just what people do. Also, they’ve idolized her. They took her from being a normal human being, and turned her into some kind of deity of popularity. I’m not saying anything negative about Miss Normandy. But you just have to remember that no one is perfect. Not even her.”

“Right. I’ll remember that.”

“All right. Feel better.”

“Thanks.” I stood to leave.

“Oh, and don’t sneak into the boys’ dorms again. If you want gossip started about you, that’s the fastest way to get it.”

When I got to my hall, I saw that almost all the doors were open, and everyone was talking.

“What happened?” I asked Madison when I saw her standing against a wall, her hand over her mouth.

“We should have known this would happen eventually.” She was shaking her head and looking upset.

“What happened?”

“Someone else was watching the tapes.”

Julia took over. “There’s this … slow guy who works with the security team, and he usually watches at night. Becca cut some deal with him last year. He usually points the cameras away for a little while or something. I guess he wasn’t the one watching tonight, or something. Or maybe he just doesn’t care anymore.”

Madison wiped the black tears from her cheeks. “At least last year he listened to Becca.”

“Listened to her how?”

Julia shrugged. “I don’t know, she talked to him one time and he agreed to keep quiet about seeing us walk down to the boathouse and everything on the other cameras. He works the overnight shifts on weekends. It was really convenient.”

I’d had no idea I’d been risking so much by going down to the boathouse those few times. I thought it … well, I guess I never thought about it.

“That sucks.” I tried to look sympathetic. “Anyway. I’m going to bed. I’m sorry you guys got in trouble.”

I pushed open my door and went in, threw off my clothes without bothering to find pajamas, and crawled into my stiff bed. A few minutes later, Dana came in. She said nothing, but started laughing. I lay there, without acknowledging her, until she sighed and went silent.

Welcome back to Manderley.

chapter 22 me

THE DINING HALL THE NEXT DAY WAS AWASH with “FIND BECCA” T-shirts.

I spotted my usual table easily in the sea of pink. I sat next to Blake, and ignored Max.

“Does it ever stop being cold here?” I asked, at a loss for anything else to say.

“Usually in April or May,” said Blake. “So did you hear about the bust last night? Cam and I almost went!”

“Yeah, I heard a little bit.”

“A bunch of people went down to the boathouse last night,” Blake explained to Max. “But apparently a bunch of people got caught. Professor Crawley came down with security guards, and then Crawley chased a bunch of people up to the school.”

“It’s crazy, dude,” Cam said, his mouth full of waffle. “Like fifteen people got a week study hall, and it’s going on their record.”

“I feel like it was more than fifteen.” Blake looked at Cam. “In any case, it’s a lot, and that so easily could have been us.”

Cam’s eyes were wide with the thought of it. “On any other day, it would have been us. I mean—”

Dana ran over before Cam could say whatever he’d been about to. She was wearing one of the pink shirts.

“I have to talk to you, Max.” Her voice was higher than usual, and her words were running together. She looked pleased.

“What?” Max asked.

“Just come with me.”

He followed her out of the dining hall, and the three of us sat watching the doorway until he came back in, looking green. None of us said anything.

Whatever she said, he looked to be taking it very seriously.

When they’d finished, Max came back to us.

“What happened?” Blake asked him as soon as he found his way into the chair.

He ignored her and looked at me. “Dana saw her last night.”

All of us froze, and I felt like I’d been punched hard in the chest.

“Becca.” Blake gasped her name. “She saw her? Where?”

“At the boathouse, apparently. After everyone got caught, Dana stayed behind to hide. When she came out, she says she saw her. Becca told her she’d been about to come into the boathouse when she saw Professor Crawley, and hid.”

Blake dropped her spoon and leaned back and away from her yogurt.

“If she’s back, why won’t she just come out?” she asked. “What’s she doing, just creeping around the beach? Seriously?”

“Come on,” said Max. “Can you not see how this would make perfect sense to Becca? She loves having people think about her. I can completely picture her just shrugging and saying it’s funny to watch everyone wonder.”

Blake nodded. “Okay, yeah, that is true.”

I stood and ran after Dana. I caught up to her in the rotunda, where she was sitting in one of the itchy chairs and writing in a notebook.

“What’s up?” She looked at me with all kinds of smugness in her smile.

“If this isn’t true, you know that it’s really wrong to lie, right? If she wasn’t here, and she’s somewhere else, then everyone will be looking in the wrong place.”

She smiled toothily, and I noticed her canine teeth were sharp and looked threatening. “What’s wrong, new girl, you afraid of what’s going to happen to you and Max?”

“Stop calling me that! And I’m not. But if you’re sure, don’t you think you should tell someone?”

“I was just about to. Is that all right with you?”

“I’m just saying it’s pitch-black out there, and I know you miss her. You were probably drunk, and maybe you just … saw what you wanted to see?”

I didn’t know why I was saying it, or what I expected to gain. I felt my cheeks go hot with embarrassment. Dana’s face, on the other hand, went paler than usual. Her eyes narrowed, and I could hear her heavy breathing.

“Why don’t you just back off? What is wrong with you? It’s like you’re obsessed with her or something!” All of a sudden she was screaming. “You’re just psycho! Aren’t you? You just want to be her! You don’t want her to come back because you want to be the new girl! You want to marry Max instead of her! You want to—”

Johnny walked out of the dorm and came over to her, and I felt Max come up behind me. I suddenly felt okay. I wasn’t alone in this.

“Dana, hey,” Johnny said as he grabbed her. “Chill out.”

She shifted her gaze to him, looking crazed.

“Calm down. It’s okay.” He was speaking to her like an overemotional child.

But it was working. Her breathing slowed a little, and she collapsed into him. Johnny looked at Max and gave him a small shake of the head.

We all stood there for a minute with a quiet dining hall behind us. I could feel eyes on me. Then, very suddenly, Dana covered her face and turned to run up the stairs.

“What happened?” he asked Max.

“Becca. She saw Becca.”

Johnny looked steadily at Max and I saw the vein throb in his forearm as he clenched his fist. “Really.”

“Apparently.”

Johnny looked like he didn’t know what to do with the information. He was staring at the floor with wide eyes.

I wondered, as I looked at him, if he’d had real feelings for her. He certainly looked as though he had. I remembered the way he’d talked about her in the study room. He had said that there was more to her. That not everyone had gotten to know her. He and Becca had hooked up—but had it been more than that for them?

By the time I came back to reality, Max and I were alone.

“I have to go study.” He didn’t look at me. “I’ll find you later.”

I went back into the hall, and took my and Max’s barely touched trays to the kitchen.

I wasn’t hungry anymore.

The school was buzzing with gossip for the rest of the week. Everyone was whispering about how she had been seen again. She was back.

For whatever reason, the increased theorizing of Becca’s imminent return made me a target of even more stares. Why this was the case was a mystery to me. It’s not like if she came back, we’d have a Godzilla versus Mothra fight and she’d take back her old bed and send me out onto the curb to wait for a cab. If she came back, she wouldn’t even be able to finish out the year, surely. I didn’t know what her return would mean. Still, people looked at me as if that was exactly what would happen.

When Friday night came and there was no boathouse to sneak down to, every girl on the hallway had to scream and shout in their dorms. It was nearly impossible to sleep. Eventually I drifted into unconsciousness, my head killing me and my blankets wrapped tightly around me to ward off the chill coming through the shut window.

Time passed, and finally everything was quiet and dark. In the hall, in my room, in my head. But then something was stealing me from my nothing-dreams.

It was a small voice, practically a musical whisper in the blackness. My eyes snapped open like a baby doll’s as I realized first that I was awake, and then that the sound I heard was real. I couldn’t make it out at first. But finally I realized this was Dana’s voice. Singing “You Are My Sunshine.” To herself.

I felt paralyzed.

“… you make me happy when skies are gray …”

I felt a little panicky, and fully awake.

“… please don’t take my sunshine away …”

And she finished singing, and went silent. As if it had never happened.

chapter 23 me

THE PINK BECCA SHIRTS WOULDN’T GO AWAY. Particularly when Valentine’s Day rolled around. I just wore my uniform, making me stand out even more than usual. I kind of wished the administration would ban those shirts, but apparently they didn’t mind.

Everyone’s minds were on love, and so that’s most of what people were talking about. Every time I heard the words love, perfect or romantic I wanted to punch something. Perhaps because every time I heard those words I, and everyone else, thought of Becca and Max.

I’d heard so much about how “perfect,” “in love” and “romantic” they were. I knew they were “adorable together.” So when the words were flying around like cupid’s arrows, I felt like all I could do was duck for cover.

Max and I were not speaking. He asked to talk to me a few times, but I couldn’t bear to be told again that he just couldn’t be with me. I’d heard that enough. I also resisted the urge to ask him what he and Becca had done last year. Probably flown off to Paris and fed each other chocolate croissants while getting silly and light-headed off mimosas.

I headed to the Black Box Theater in the art department, where they were airing a movie about romance in Paris.

I passed by Susan Tobias, who said nothing to me. She tossed her long, straight blond hair over her shoulder. It did look a lot like Becca’s hair.

No one was in the theater, but the lights were down, and the movie had just started to flicker on. I could hardly see around me. I sighed, feeling more lonely and pitiful than ever, and sat down in one of the seats.

The movie was slow, overacted and impossible to pay attention to. I hadn’t even been tired, but I found myself falling asleep. At a certain point, I realized I didn’t even know what the plot was. I was just watching this woman have emotions about something or other.

Then, quite suddenly, the lonely woman in her flat vanished and was quickly replaced by—what looked like—burning paper, and then a white screen. It stayed that way.

I looked around. I got up and looked in the projector box. The guy running the projector was gone.

My Valentine’s Day date with myself even sucked. I trudged sadly up the stairs and into my hall.

It was filled with people, going in and out of rooms, laughing and dancing, looking woozy, making out, and/or fighting. Like any good party. Almost all of these things came to a halt as I rounded the corner.

Like any Manderley party.

Madison and Julia, never to be seen far from each other, came over to greet me.

“Hey, where have you been? All the guys snuck over while they changed the tapes in the security office.” Madison smiled genuinely.

“I didn’t know anything was going on. I was just downstairs.”

“Oh, well, yeah it was kind of a spur-of-the-moment … thing.”

Right. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Anyway … Max seems a little down,” Madison whispered to me.

“Does he?”

Julia nodded. “Yeah, he probably feels guilty, because he knows he shouldn’t have … you know.”

“Shouldn’t have what?”

“You guys … everyone said you were in his room … he probably just feels guilty ‘cuz he did that.”

“What am I doing, Madison?” It was Max.

She cowered under his glare. It was obvious she regretted saying anything. She shook her head, looking sorry.

“No, go ahead,” Max went on. “What am I doing? Furthermore, what horrible thing could I do that she didn’t?”

It was quiet around us as people listened. We all knew who she was.

“Nothing. I’m sorry.” Madison was struggling to keep her words and voice steady.

Dana crept, as always, from some unseen corner. “She can make up for it when she comes back. Especially after everything she’s done in the past … Oh, how long has it been now?”

“Shut up, Dana.”

I saw Johnny coming through the crowd. Good. He was always good at calming Dana down.

“I mean I’m just saying, things will change when she’s back, won’t they? It won’t matter what she did last year or what you’ve … chosen to do in the interim.” She looked at me.

“Maybe he actually likes me,” I said. “Have you ever thought of that?”

I was hot in the cheeks, and I just wanted to yell at Dana. This desire heightened when she started to laugh. Everyone was listening now. Johnny put a hand on her shoulder, but she swatted him away.

“You are kidding me, right?” She looked gleeful.

“No, I mean he is choosing to spend time with me, isn’t he? If he was just moping around he could do that alone. He doesn’t need me for that.”

“Is he with you?” she asked, looking skyward as if puzzling it out. “Because I thought you weren’t actually his girlfriend. Couldn’t give you that label, isn’t that right? Why do you think that is?”

No, he hadn’t. And she knew it. We never were actually together. I said nothing, but felt my cheeks go redder.

“Dana, cool it, okay?” Johnny’s voice was low and personal. “You can’t keep attacking her.”

“You really can’t.” This came from someone I didn’t expect. Julia.

Dana looked as surprised as I felt for a second, but collected herself.

“Oh, see, there it is. I always said you weren’t her best friend. You and Madison always thought you were, but when it comes down to it, you really aren’t, are you?”

Johnny took hold of Dana’s shoulders. “Come on, that’s enough.”

He took her back to our room, a place I really didn’t want to go back to.

Then, as if he’d read my mind, Max asked Julia, “Can she sleep in your room tonight?”

“No, no, it’s—” I began.

“Of course she can,” Julia said. “I still have the futon that Bec—”

She stopped herself, and Madison took over. “Yes, you can come sleep in our room whenever you want.”

“If that’s really okay.”

“Of course.”

Julia walked over and pulled out a rolled-up cushion from her closet and gave me a pile of blankets. She was just handing me a pillow when Madison emerged from the bathroom.

“I think I have f-food poisoning or something,” Madison suddenly hiccupped and ran into the bathroom.

“Uh-huh.” Julia rolled her eyes and got into her own bed. “I’m going to sleep. Don’t step on our guest next time your ‘food poisoning’ says hello.”

Max nudged me in the arm. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“I guess.”

I followed him back out of the room and down to the end of the hall, which was darker.

“I’m sorry.”

I almost said that I didn’t care how sorry he was, when I saw the look in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I get it.”

“I wish we’d hung out tonight.”

I shrugged. “It’s just another day. Whatever.”

“Yeah. Well. I wanted to give you something.” He reached in his pocket and laughed quietly. “It’s really stupid. But I got my mom to help me with it over winter break. She used to own a jewelry store. I wanted to give it to you, but I didn’t know if I should. Or when, or whatever.”

He pulled out a small, delicate-looking bracelet from his pocket. It was black ribbon with a silver plaque in the middle, flanked by a pearl on either side. It had a small, silver clasp. He handed it to me and then ran a hand through his hair, looking embarrassed.

On the plaque, my name had been engraved.

“All the girls wear pearls here. I don’t know, I just thought it was right that you should have some hint of Manderley on you, but … you’re different, so I didn’t want to just give you pearls.”

“It’s so pretty. It’s gorgeous. Thank you, Max.” I couldn’t even believe that it was really happening. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to have it. Here, I can help you.”

I held out my wrist and he clasped the bracelet for me. “Thank you,” I said.

He shrugged again. After a second he said, “I’m going to sleep. So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow or something?”

“Okay. Good night.”

“Night.”

We walked in our separate directions. A moment later, he caught up to me, turned me around and kissed me.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” He smiled, and then walked out of the hall.

chapter 24 becca

“OH, MY GOD, IT’S GORGEOUS!”

“Isn’t it?”

“I can’t believe Max bought it for you! It’s got to be expensive. I mean I know he’s got money, but still—it’s so nice!”

“Yeah, and look what he engraved on the back.” Becca turned over the locket and showed it to Madison and Julia.

“To Eternal Love,” read Madison. “Oh, my God! That’s so sappy! It’s crazy how he is with you. He’s so not like that!”

“Yeah, well.” Becca returned the necklace to her neck. “He wanted to spend the day with me today, but I couldn’t lead him on like that. Especially on Valentine’s Day.”

She sipped her lobster bisque.

“Wow, he’s so hung up on you, I can’t believe it,” Julia said.

“Oh, my God, you guys.”

Julia and Becca looked at Madison, and then followed her gaze out the window. It was Max. He was sitting on a bench, leaning on his knees.

Had Becca’s words come true?

“Oh, I’ll go talk to him.” She rolled her eyes, like she’d just been waiting for this. But she hadn’t. In fact she was downright shocked to see him.

“Max?” she said when she walked outside.

“Sit down.”

She did as he said. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Let me see your necklace.”

“Max—”

“Let me see the necklace, Becca.”

She removed it, hesitantly, and gave it to him. She watched as he read the inscription on the back.

“I just—” she began.

“Stop. Just … stop. I didn’t give this to you, and now I’m wondering why the rumors going around all have to do with my undying love and how I’m obsessively buying you gifts.”

She was all too aware of how they must look to Madison and Julia, who could surely see them on the bench.

“I’m sorry, Max. Please. Just let everyone think that I wasn’t dumped.” She looked at him with pleading eyes.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because I just don’t know what I’ll do. Please. I’ll stop. This’ll be the last time. But please don’t tell anyone anything.”

Max and she were done. He’d ended that. She was no longer part of the golden couple.

But she and Johnny were done, too. That, however, had been ended by her. She just couldn’t be with him. Dana was her friend. And Becca had never been a real friend to anyone. She had to do this for her. She couldn’t be with the one guy Dana had feelings for. It just didn’t feel right.

“Please,” said Becca again. “I just can’t look like that big a loser.”

“You’re not a loser, everyone likes you.”

She shook her head. “I just can’t have everyone looking at me like I should be embarrassed. Please.”

She looked him in the eye, and tried to show him how much she needed this.

“Fine,” he said. “But this is the last thing.”