Chapter Fourteen
“That fucking asshole Tim got a 1580,” she said a few days after most students had received their results. “It’s no wonder because Sutherland has a hard-on for him.”
“I think he’s got one for you too,” Maggie said. “And every other girl in school.”
“I don’t mean it that way,” Carly snapped. “I mean it’s obvious that he gives Tim the special treatment. Spends way more time with him. My session is right after Tim’s, and Sutherland’s usually running fifteen minutes late by the time I go in. And then he always lets me out early. I’m telling my dad he should prorate what he pays for tutoring because I’ve been keeping track of the exact number of minutes he spends with me.”
“So why would he care so much?” I asked. “About Tim?”
“Duh, he’s a guy. Guys are always looking out for each other. The system is so rigged against women.”
I’d never spoken to Tim since the incident in health class, but he did strike me as slightly arrogant. Entitled even, as though he occupied a different hemisphere of intellect than the rest of us mere mortals. Tim seemed to me the kind of guy who felt that women weren’t his equal. Just like Mr. Sutherland, the way Carly explained him.
“Tim really screwed me over last year,” I said. “In health class.”
Carly’s angry face unscrewed into curious wonder. “In what way?” she asked.
I obliged her and the other two girls with all the facts, which I was still able to recall in visceral detail. I left out the only humanizing anecdote—the one where Tim turned his back to me, ignobly concealing his shame. Tim’s shame had been my shame that day. It had been the day I had unwittingly and unconsciously cast my lot with the girl I had yet to meet.
“Oh, Grace,” Jane said when I finished telling the story. “I’m sorry for you, that must have been so embarrassing. Tim’s locker is right next to mine, and he’s a little annoying, but he’s never been mean. In fact, he’s usually super nice.”
“But everyone’s nice to you,” Carly said, and I thought I detected a sour undertone in her delivery. “Because you’re so nice.”
I had to admit I would never put the name Tim in a sentence with the word nice.
“Carly, I don’t get it,” Jane said, ignoring Carly’s sarcasm, if indeed that’s what it was. “You should be thrilled. If I got your score I’d be doing a happy dance right now. 1500 is awesome. You’ll get in everywhere, for sure.”
A week later, Mr. Sutherland announced the winner of our school’s National Student Essay Contest. The winning essay would be sent to state finals where it would be judged against other local winners. The winner’s name was announced over the school’s intercom system right before the bell rang at the end of first period: Timothy LeClerc.
Maggie and I exchanged nervous glances—once again Tim had triumphed over Carly. I think we both knew there would be hell to pay, and one of us would have to pay it. I had already fulfilled my obligation to the Kitty Committee, but Maggie and Jane hadn’t, nor had Carly. We had two new enemies. Mr. Sutherland, who was instrumental in selecting the winner of the essay contest, along with a handful of the junior and senior class teachers. Mr. Sutherland, whom Carly was sure had demonstrated favoritism, costing her at least eighty points on her SAT. And Tim LeClerc.
Of course, we all knew that Jane’s locker was next to Tim’s. I avoided Jane’s locker because Tim made me acutely uncomfortable ever since the health class fiasco. I never believed his explanation. Sometimes I had felt his eyes on my back and imagined his delight at having pulled one over on the new girl. I noticed other students also avoided him in health class. He had his own tight-knit group which I saw at lunch, but to most people he was off-putting. Arrogant. That’s why he had selected me.
Carly avoided Jane’s locker because she instinctively disliked Tim for the competition he presented. Without Tim at Indian Springs High, Carly would have cleaned up. She would have been the brightest, most successful student in our class without a doubt—the shining star. But Tim was always a dark cloud hanging over her. And as clouds are wont to do, particularly the dark variety, Tim was stealing Carly’s thunder.
But Maggie had neither of our issues, and Maggie loved Jane. So Maggie spent as much of her free time as possible in the company of Jane. Maggie cared for me too, but she didn’t respect me the way she respected Jane or Carly—one out of admiration, the other out of need and years of habit. Maggie and I were close, and I never doubted she’d do anything for me. I think she believed I’d acted selflessly to defend her honor against Kerry, although she never knew or asked exactly what I’d done. She was never anything but lovely toward me—nurturing as well. But I was the kid sister, at least in my own mind.
I suspected that Carly-free zones (like Jane’s locker) were especially enticing for Maggie, who must have grown tired of Carly’s occasional wrath and fierce judgments, although they went hand-in-hand with her unshakeable devotion. Maggie had been the one for nearly her entire life, and it must have been a heavy burden for her to shoulder alone before the Kitty Committee came along. I sensed Maggie reveled in her newfound freedom. She could still count on Carly’s strength and vision as well as what passed for her love. But now she could share that with Jane and me. It must have been a tremendous relief.
“Everyone has to have some skin in the game,” Carly said one night. “Not just Grace. There has to be some risk to yourself, and we have to stick together. If we don’t, who will? These people shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what they do to any one of us.”
It was like a pep talk before the big game. Maggie had been wronged, and I’d taken care of it. Now it was established that Tim had wronged me. And Mr. Sutherland had wronged Carly. Maggie listened intently, probably already aware she’d be the next to be called upon. Jane was skeptical.
“How about you? What are you going to do?” Jane asked, but Carly was unruffled.
“I haven’t decided yet, but it’s going to be something big. Bigger than any of you.”
“Yeah? Well, let us know when you decide,” Jane said, and I was shocked by her boldness.
A few days later, Rita invited us all over to Jane’s for a barbecue. The weather was changing—we’d already had the first rain of the season, and the nights were too cold to go without a jacket. Mr. Swanson braved the cool temperature to tend to the barbecue, eventually delivering a plate heaped with chicken, lamb, and sausages to the kitchen table. After we ate, Leann turned to me.
“Wanna help me feed Frosty?” she asked, knowing I was the only one who shared her interest in the horse.
Frosty had a stable that protected us from the wind, and Leann went to work, cleaning and refreshing Frosty’s supply of hay and oats, while I mainly just stroked Frosty’s neck. “Do you wanna ride?” she asked once she was done.
Riding for me meant sitting bareback and clutching Frosty’s mane while Leann led me around the corral. I loved it.
“Something’s going on between Jane and Carly,” she said during our third circle around the corral. “Jane won’t admit it, but I can tell.”
The wind was picking up, driving dust and small bits of hay up my nose. I sneezed three times in a row. “I don’t know,” I said, sniffling. “Nothing that I can tell.”
But I had noticed. Things were tense. It was clear to me there was no love lost between Carly and Jane. They seemed to be play-acting for the benefit of Maggie and me. Mostly Maggie, if I were to be completely honest. Maggie’s soul was the prize. If Leann had noticed it too, things must be worse than I realized.
After that, things moved quickly. Carly announced she’d be fulfilling her pledge to the rest of us by getting back at Mr. Sutherland. She’d be striking a blow for every girl he’d ever groped (including Maggie), and every girl whose aspirations he’d crushed in order to give the advantage to some boy. She wasn’t squeamish about sharing the details of her plan with us the way I had been. Her plan was twofold. First, she informed her father that she’d been cheated out of tutoring time and given him a detailed accounting, adding up the number of minutes she’d been shortchanged. Carly’s dad promised to look into it and have a talk with Mr. Sutherland after the holidays. But that was only part one.
Knowing that Mr. Sutherland’s daughter (a freshman at Indian Springs) was usually doing homework in the sitting area outside his office while she waited for him to drive her home, Carly made a final appointment to discuss her test results. At just the right moment, she turned to leave his office and drew the back of her hand roughly across her lips, smudging her lip gloss in the process. She quickly unbuttoned her blouse to below her bra, having worn an easy-access blouse that day for just that purpose. She assumed an expression of shock and surprise when she exited, as though caught totally off guard, while fumbling with her buttons and drawing a hand up to cover her lips. Carly got extra lucky that day. Mrs. Sutherland was in the waiting room with her daughter as Carly hurried past them, hanging her head in feigned disgrace.
All of this she shared with only Maggie and me. Jane was around less and less, drawn more to her drama friends than to the Kitty Committee those days.
“That’s cold-blooded, Carly,” Maggie said. But we laughed. It didn’t seem possible Carly could have maneuvered the Sutherland situation exactly the way she claimed. She was prone to exaggeration, and the whole thing seemed absurd. But even if it was true, didn’t he deserve it? He had bra-strap-groped Maggie. Maggie said he was a perv, and all the girls knew it. The part about not paying for the time Carly was shortchanged justified it in my mind.
The week before Christmas break, we all went to watch Jane in a production of A Christmas Carol. Jane had the role of the Ghost of Christmas Future. She was spellbinding up there on the stage, in possession of more charisma than I had ever suspected. I couldn’t take my eyes from her, captivated as I was by her ethereal ghostlike beauty; I couldn’t imagine she wasn’t the focal point for everyone in the audience. Although she didn’t speak, her gestures evoked more emotion than any of the other actors, even the actor who played Scrooge. And when she finally disappeared into a rumpled mess of bedsheets, I inhaled sharply, suddenly aware I’d been holding my breath. Carly laughed out loud.
“Carly,” Maggie elbowed her. “Shut up; it’s not supposed to be funny.”
“I’m sorry.” Carly wiped at her eyes. “She just looked ridiculous. It’s such a sappy play.”
“I think she likes that guy who plays Scrooge,” Maggie whispered.
And, just like that, the magic of Jane’s performance was nothing but a joke. The dire warning of the consequences of an evil heart was just a bunch of words in a sappy play. Scrooge was just a guy Jane had a crush on.
Jane spent winter break at the Lake Tahoe home with her family. None of us were invited this time, although it was a skiing trip and, in fairness, Carly, Maggie, and I didn’t ski. But two other kids were invited—Russell, the boy who played Scrooge to Jane’s ghost, and a girl named Missy, a drama friend who was also in the play.
“Missy doesn’t ski,” Carly said one day over lunch at the mall. “So I’m not sure why she was invited and we weren’t.”
“My parents wouldn’t have let me miss Christmas with the family even if she asked us,” I said.
“My mom didn’t care,” Maggie said. “But I hate snow.”
An enormous Christmas tree was resplendent in the atrium of the mall, shoppers taking turns posing for pictures under its magnificence. Tiny fairy lights were strung in every conceivable nook and cranny, which gave the impression of wandering through a giant snow cave glistening with ice crystals. Canned Christmas carols played tunelessly in the background while shoppers swarmed purposefully out of one store and into the next. It was an ideal place for people-watching or catching the Christmas spirit, at least the commercial side of it. For us, it was just our hangout transformed in a fun way for a different experience. My modest Christmas shopping was done, and even if it wasn’t, I didn’t have any money left—barely enough to pay for the hamburger and fries in front of me.
“I think you’re both missing the point,” Carly said. “Jane has abandoned us for a new group of friends. Probably even a boyfriend, if Maggie’s right.”
“Why shouldn’t she have a boyfriend, Carly?” Maggie said. “It’s not like we haven’t in the past and won’t in the future.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having a boyfriend. I never said that,” Carly snapped.
I knew Maggie’s reflexive wince by then. It was a subtle tightening of the muscles around her eyes, but it was unmistakable. To her credit, Maggie never hesitated to speak out against Carly when she disagreed, but Carly’s rebukes caused her to cower like a dog that had been beaten too many times.
“I just mean,” Carly lowered the tenor and tension in her voice, “she’s not putting us first. Or even second or third at this point. So why is she even part of the Kitty Committee?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and I didn’t. Why was she part of the Kitty Committee? Jane had clearly moved on, although it was apparent she wanted to maintain a friendship with Maggie. I twirled a French fry between my thumb and forefinger before plunging it into a puddle of ketchup.
“Maggie,” Carly said as though just waking up from a profound dream. “Did Jane invite you to go with them?”
Maggie glanced evasively at a woman pushing a stroller with twins. It was obvious to me that she was unnerved by the question, but I don’t think she had the ability to lie to Carly.
“Yeah,” she said softly enough that I had to strain to hear above the cacophony of Muzak and random shreds of dialog trailing behind the shoppers who passed our table. “But I didn’t want to go.”
“That’s what I figured,” Carly said. “She’s trying to break up our friendship. Don’t worry, I don’t blame you for hiding it from us. I just think it’s really a crappy thing to do.”
“I don’t think she’s trying to do that,” Maggie said, but she offered nothing to back up her statement.
“Well I do,” Carly said, and I had to agree. “You might think the Kitty Committee is a silly thing, but when we drew up our rules, we were promising something really important to each other. We were promising to put our friendship above everything and to always have each other’s backs. Call it what you will—the Kitty Committee was just a dumb name I came up with. But the fundamentals are what count. Who’s going to look out for us? Parents, sure, but there’s only so much we can share with them. I view our friendship as a lifelong commitment, but Jane doesn’t see it that way, which really hurts me.”
Carly was good. So good that I was moved to put my arm around her. So good, Maggie was moved to clutch Carly’s hand and stroke it soothingly with her thumb. Tears sparkled in Carly’s eyes, and I heard the unmistakable quaver in her voice that signified a monumental struggle to control uncontrollable emotions. I’m sure Maggie heard it too. Carly was on the verge of tears. This was real. This was almost earth-shattering. Carly had never before been vulnerable in front of us.
“Don’t worry, Carly, you’ll always have me,” Maggie said. “I didn’t want to go at all . . . I never even considered going.”
“Maggie’s right,” I said. “You’ll always have us.” The power I derived from consoling Carly was nearly impossible to describe. For once, I was strong and Carly was weak. I felt such tenderness for her at that moment. I thought I knew how much it must have cost this girl, so supremely self-possessed and confident, to bare her weakness to us. It was a gift.
Fractured by the mall’s sound system, a carol crackled and felt brittle in my ears. Twenty yards away, a tired-looking Santa stood in front of a bucket, incessantly ringing his bell for donations. This was my first Christmas in Indian Springs, and it had none of the warmth, love, or merriment to which I’d become accustomed. Images flashed through my mind—the Ghost of Christmas Past. A dead manzanita bush, its spare tropical beauty supporting our hand-made decorations. A tiny church filled with voices raised richly in devotion.
I felt the warmth of Carly’s body, close to my own, and willed the peace of my memories into her soul.
“Let’s wait until Jane gets back from vacation,” Maggie said. “I promise I’ll talk to her and see what she’s thinking.”