TWENTY-NINE
DEAR DEAD GIRLS
The school in the morning is quiet. The building settles here and there— a pop, a squeak, a banging pipe behind the walls. And the wood beneath Miriam’s feet creaks and groans even when she’s walking on the dusty old rugs that line the floors.
Filmy gray light, fractured by rain, comes in through the windows, dim and watery. For some reason, it calls to Miriam’s mind a feeling of drowning.
Hair dyed with river water. Capillaries burst in yellow eyes.
Motes of dust drift in the pillars of wan light.
The girls’ cubbyholes are labeled, not with swatches of tape but rather with little plaques screwed to the wood, a name engraved on each.
The school has only five hundred girls across seven grades (sixth through twelfth), but that’s still five hundred cubbyholes—culminating in what looks like a big version of a wine rack, the holes turned on their sides like empty diamonds.
She would have to look through them all. That is, if Katey didn’t tell her where to look. Good having an ally on the inside.
First, drop off the note to Wren. Then, Tavena White.
Miriam floats along the cubbyholes like a nervous hummingbird.
“Elizabeth Hope. Gwen Shawcatch. Trisha Barnes.” No, no, no. “Molly Deerfield, Carla Rodriguez, Becky, Nellie, Lakeesha, Cristina—”
And then she sees it. Lauren Martin.
She squats down, slides the note into the hole.
Behind her, someone clears his throat.
Oh, goddamnit.
Miriam turns.
She sees Beck Daniels standing there. Jeans and a black V-neck T-shirt. His lips forming a firm line across that prodigious jaw.
I could swing on that jaw like it was a jungle gym.
“I know you,” he says.
“’Sup, Ninja Warrior?”
“Find anything interesting in the girls’ cubbyholes?”
“That’s an awfully dirty question.”
Beck remains unflustered. “You should probably get away from those.”
“I’m just leaving a note. For my sister.”
“Uh-huh. That train has left the station, Miss Black.”
She stands up. Crosses her arms. “Oh. Right.”
“Mind telling me what you’re doing here?”
“The sister part was a lie, but the note part is on the nose. I want to talk to Wren Martin. Just one more time.” And Tavena White, but no need to give that away. “Hey, give me a heads-up: Did you call five-oh on me again?”
“You mean the guards.”
“I mean Doctor Steroids and his Italian plumber porn-star buddy.”
“Sims and Horvath. Respectively.”
“No respect here, chief.”
Is that a smile? “No, I didn’t call them. Seems the other day you did a pretty good number on Sims—I watched the security footage. Pretty impressive.”
“It was.” She winks. “Still. I’m kinda busted here, aren’t I? You gonna haul me off to the hoosegow yourself ?”
“Hoosegow?”
“It’s a word. Means prison.”
“I know what it means.”
“What? Don’t you like words? I like words.”
“Good for you. No, I’m not going to haul you in.”
“You could call the real police. I’m a little surprised nobody called them the other day. Especially if there’s video footage of my little cafeteria romp.”
He shrugs. Gets closer to her. Just one step, but the threat is there just the same. An exciting threat. A threat Miriam likes.
“We don’t bring the cops around here if we can avoid it. Some of these girls have seen far too many cops. We don’t want to disrupt the progress we’re making with the more troubled ones. So, no, I won’t call the police. Not as long as you tell me why you’re leaving a note. Why do you want to talk to her? What’s your deal? Why’re you so fascinated with her to begin with.”
Slowly, Miriam begins to pace to the right. He moves to the left. They’re circling some unseen point, some maypole to which they’re both invisibly tethered.
“I’m trying to protect her.”
“Protect her? From what?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“Not in a million years, Kung Pao Chicken.”
Circling, circling. Moths around a light. Blood down a drain.
“I like to think I’m her protector,” he says. “Not you. Me. And the other teachers here. We’re the ones who watch over these girls.”
“You’re doing a shit job.”
That stings him. He folds in a little bit. Like an invisible hand just popped him in the gut. Surprising. And strange. Is he really so committed?
“Tell you what,” he says. “I saw the footage. You got some moves. Let’s go to the gymnasium. We’ll spar a little. You beat me, I’ll let you go, won’t ask any questions.”
“And if you beat me? Which, by the way, won’t happen.”
“Then I call the police.”
“Deal.” She thinks, No deal, dummy. What are we, two gentlemen about to duel? Honor doesn’t mean a sack of slippery dicks to Miriam Black. It’s just a nonsense idea people made up. Honor. It calls to mind an old drinking toast—
Here’s to honor—
*clink*
—get on her and stay on her.
And then wrap her mouth in barbed wire and cut out her wagging tongue.
Her hands coil to fists.
“You okay?” he says. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Quit your jawing,” she says. “Let’s do this.”