SO NOT THAT ANYONE’S ASKED me about it since I got home (really all anyone seems to care about is that I bring the laundry downstairs), but today was actually a very interesting day at school.
And by interesting, I mean stressful.
Basically, in gym today, Shirley Mason and Laurie Calberg were the team captains for volleyball, because Laurie and Shirley are always team captains. Shirley because she’s popular and Laurie because she’s super fucking competitive at even volleyball.
Not me.
First round, Shirley picked Carrie to be on her team. And Laurie, near the very, very end, picked me. Because I suck at volleyball as everyone should suck at volleyball because it’s a horrible sport.
“Have fun,” Carrie said, as she ducked under the net to the other side of the court.
“Always,” I said, with I think an appropriate amount of dry wit.
I figured Shirley picked Carrie to be on her team to piss off Laurie, because Carrie can actually PLAY. I chalk Carrie’s overall ability to play sports to her years as a popular person. I’m pretty sure a huge part of being popular is a knowledge of sports that are professionally played in fashionable Lycra short shorts, but played in green track pants and golf shirts at our school, because that’s sort of the punishment of being at this school. Mostly everyone wears their shirts too big or way too small so you can see everyone’s nipples in this way I find really distracting.
Everything was volleyball status quo until the point in the middle of the game (which was a tie because Laurie was basically playing every position on our side of the net) when I looked across the gym and I saw Shirley and Carrie talking. Not obviously, like, they were still looking ahead with their arms in the volleyball position, but they were clearly talking to each other. In between serves, Shirley inched closer to Carrie, then away and then closer. Carrie looked dead ahead. But I saw her lips moving.
It looked like how you would talk to someone if you don’t necessarily want anyone to know you were talking.
And like, suddenly, the whole day fell into my stomach like a ton of rocks, a feeling I think is a pretty common feeling for teenage girls, the feeling that goes with watching someone you think is your friend do something that means they might not be your friend anymore.
I’m sure Shirley Mason never had this feeling. It smells like wet tinfoil and drool on a pillow.
After gym, I pretty much felt like complete shit, and I kind of stalled in this way I used to do all the time by walking around the gym, pretending to look for something. (I usually tell gym teachers it’s an earring.) When I got to the changing room, Carrie and Shirley were gone. Like, they must be the fastest changers ever. I threw on my clothes and left the locker room and walked down the hallway. And because I’m the second-fastest changer ever and fourth period wasn’t over, the halls were all quiet. Like all you could hear was the odd squeak of a sneaker, the jangle of a locker door. And then I heard something else; an echo tumbling down the hall, bouncing off the shiny white walls. Shirley’s voice.
And Carrie’s.
I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but it was coming from the stairwell at the end of the hall. It sounded kind of … tense. I tiptoed over to the door, and I spotted them through the little webbed glass window. The side of Carrie’s face. Shirley’s arm.
That’s when my shoe squeaked against the floor and they both looked up. The glass was murky, but I could see Shirley’s eyes as she spun around and charged toward me.
She slammed open the door with both hands.
“Mind your own business, GEORGIA!” she spat, and charged past me down the hall.
“What was that?” I looked at Carrie, who was standing in the doorway.
Carrie rolled her eyes. “It was nothing. Shirley freaking out. Fuck her.”
Then the bell rang and everyone poured into the hallway. Carrie shrugged and headed back to the gym.
Fuck Shirley?
I gotta say it, hearing Carrie say that was basically like the best thing I’d ever heard.
Whatever Shirley’s bullshit was, Carrie was MY friend now, hooray.
I practically skipped to my next class.
After school, Carrie came by my locker to tell me she couldn’t hang out because she had to go to the dentist.
“I might have dentures tomorrow,” she said, tightening her scarf. “So. That might affect our friendship, I don’t know.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, dragging my coat out of my locker while holding back the ton of crap in there with my foot. “Plus, I heard dentures are cool now.”
“I mean, that’s what they tell you.” Carrie stopped and looked behind me into the chasm that is my limited private space in the school. “Your locker is like … a mess.”
“I know,” I said, slipping into my coat with as much grace as a coat this size allows.
“Later.” Carrie grinned, punching my purple sleeve.
“Later GUMS.”
I thought that was a pretty good one. Also because … gum.
Carrie snorted and trotted off to have her teeth pulled. I headed to the bus stop past Shirley and her crew of girls all huddled around her. She gave me a squinty look, but it pinged off my massive coat like my massive coat was suddenly armor and not embarrassing, and I trotted out the front door.
Screw you, Shirley Mason.
Carrie is cool and I am cool and we are friends.
At home, the first thing I do is get the laundry over with, my weekly chore based on my mom’s belief that a grown person should be able to clean up after themselves. Mark and I rotate. It’s my turn.
Normally Mark leaves his basket outside his room, but today it’s not there so I hammer politely but firmly on the door. “MARK! DUDE! LAUNDRY!”
On my fifth hammer, the door swings open and I realize Mark’s not home. He’s probably with Trevor.
I don’t like Trevor, though, because the first time I ever met him, he sized me up and then looked at Mark with this weirdo wide-eyed innocence and said, “Wow, you guys are like different … sizes.”
I spot Mark’s laundry basket by the bed and step inside.
Downstairs, I can hear my mom with her book agent and best friend, Debra, who is wearing her gold outfit and leaving a smear of lipstick on our wine glasses because she has to dress up like an extra from a Broadway musical every time she comes over.
I hate Debra because she calls me Molly, like I Am Little and You Are Big, Molly. I think she thinks it’s cute. It was also Debra’s idea, back in the day, to dress Mark and me up as our fictional counterparts for my mom’s lit tour. I’m not saying that’s a bad idea; I’m saying it’s clearly an open wound I no longer want poked.
Mark’s room is a jock room. There’s a set of dumbbells on the carpet and a bunch of other exercise stuff, including these huge rubber bands that just look like some giant took its hair out of a ponytail and left the band on Mark’s floor. There’s also the HUGE flat-screen TV Mark used his driveway-shoveling money to buy a few months ago. Which my dad totally lost his shit over (maybe because my dad is jealous because it’s a REALLY nice TV).
Grabbing the laundry basket, I notice Mark’s schoolbooks are stacked up on his desk with a bunch of papers next to a stack of thick envelopes from different colleges, which started arriving last year. On top of the books is a take-out bag that says Mac’s Burgers in bright red neon-style lettering.
I realize I haven’t stood in this room in, like, forever. It smells like boy. Like AXE body spray and BO. It feels super fucking weird. It feels like a hotel because of the TV that takes up the whole of the west wall.
What am I doing?
I’m standing in Mark’s room; I’m looking for something other than the laundry basket I already have in my hand.
Because this is not a normal laundry day. It’s the laundry day after I realized that Todd Mayer had been in this house.
Which is something I have been thinking about all day except for when I was thinking about Carrie and Shirley.
Todd Mayer was absolutely definitely in this house.
Does that make Mark’s room a crime scene? No.
If it did, I would be rifling. Right? In cop shows, the cop always walks into a room and starts rifling.
But I’m not going to rifle through Mark’s stuff. Because what’s Mark done other than lie about a kid he knew?
I hear my mom and Debra laughing downstairs. Caterwauling, my mom calls it.
I do not rifle. But I do turn in place, slowly, walking through my memory of that day like it’s the sepia-toned flashback in a movie.
They were at the door. Then I went into the kitchen? I think. And they definitely went upstairs. So Todd was here IN THIS ROOM.
My eyeballs graze over exercise bands, a stack of protein bars, resting on the Mac’s Burgers bag, perched on top of Social Movements in American History.
The bag is weird for two reasons. One, it’s weird because Mark is so super paranoid about what he eats. He ONLY eats like such specific stuff when he’s training, and he’s always training.
Two, it’s not greasy, which is what it would be if you had a big juicy Mac Burger in it or a large or even a small fries. I know this as someone who has left French fry boats in her pockets and in other places and so has many things that smell like grease in her closet and on her floor.
And it’s not crinkly, like how a bag would be if you put fries in it then grabbed it by the top. Instead it looks like it’s been folded in half and folded again. Like …
I step over to the desk, unfold the top of the bag, look inside and see … money. Lots of money.
“What’s all this money doing here?” asked little sister Molly.
“It’s just money,” big brother Wally said. “Lots of people have money. What are you doing in my room?”
The thing about Molly is, she literally doesn’t know anything, the whole walk through the woods. Then when they get to the old lady’s house at the end of the story, Molly thinks the old lady is a witch. Big brother Wally knows there’s nothing to be afraid of. Big brother Wally says there’s no witches, just old ladies with gardens who bake cookies.
But Molly won’t eat the cookies because that’s a big no-no, writing stories where kids eat stranger’s baked goods. While big brother Wally tells the not-witch about all the things they saw in the forest, Molly just sits there.
So maybe Molly’s not totally out to lunch.
“GEORGIA!”