From: Catha Lugner
To: Doe Callender (bcc) +15 more
Subject: mandatory all-staff meeting
There will be an all-staff meeting tomorrow in the main conference room at 10am. Thank you in advance for your enthusiastic attendance! Let’s impact the future! CSL
“Hey.”
Doe looked up. Annie stood hesitantly in the doorway. There were splashes of red on her thighs and cheeks from sunburn. She hadn’t seen much of Annie this summer. Lark had taken over her nights. Sometimes she’d pass Annie on her bike, riding home from the farm stand. Last summer they’d shucked corn together, paper bags between their knees. Last summer she’d been welcome at the family table.
“Hey, dude. Enter.”
Annie came in with a show of reluctance. Her hair was red and curly and barely tamed in a ponytail. Pretty green eyes, freckles, the shoulder-hunch of the bullied.
“How’s life?” Doe asked.
“Sucks to be me, basically,” Annie said. “Used to it, though.”
Doe nodded. “I had a crap fifteenth summer, too.”
“Why?”
Doe searched for the way to wrap the truth in a lie. “My mom. She decided to let me down on a regular basis. I was supposed to go to…” an art program in Savannah “Europe that summer, everything was all arranged, and she…” cashed in my tuition and spent it on cocaine “decided I needed tutoring instead, so I had to stay home, and…” she got this new boyfriend who hit on me “my best friend decided to let me know that she’d been waiting for me to go to tell me she was fucking my boyfriend.” Truth at last! If Doe ended up at a truth, it made her feel better.
“Wow,” Annie said. “Harsh.”
“How about you?”
“I had a fight with my mom.”
“Yeah. I remember those days. You’ll make up, your mom is cool.”
“She sucks.”
“Okay,” Doe said, silently agreeing. “What else with you? How’s the job?”
“Job is okay, I like making money. But, I don’t know, I’m becoming friends with Jem again, kinda. Proximity friendship. We used to be friends in elementary school, along with this girl Olivia? But then, you know, high school. There’s this girl, Meret?”
“You told me. The queen of Teenworld, right?”
“Ha, exactly. Jem was all friends with her, and now Meret is like doing the thing she does where she makes fun of her and everybody laughs. I swam with them one day, and Meret was totally being an asshole to Jem, and Jem was just taking it. And there’s all this groupchat drama about how Jem is going to lose her virginity this summer, only they call it ‘mayflower’ like some inside joke. The thing is…”
Doe knew better than to ask what the thing was, because the answer would be Nothing or It’s stupid, and Annie would change the subject. She just put on an I’m curious but it’s cool if you don’t share kind of face.
“I feel bad for Jem. She dropped off all the threads, so I don’t think she knows how bad it is. Meret gets people to do things. It’s like hypnosis or something.”
“Probably more like fear. I mean,” Doe added, when Annie looked confused, “they’re afraid she’ll burn them.”
“Yeah. Exactly. Jem isn’t like Meret. There’s this guy, this older guy, who comes to Lawlors and buys one thing—just one thing, like a peach—and he waits until Jem is free. It’s so creepy. I’m just afraid I guess.”
“What’s the guy’s name?”
“Lucas somebody. We call him Mr. McManPants. I’m guessing he’s just playing with her. Except. I think he texts her, too. Meret knows because she’s psychic, or maybe she just guesses. She’s super jealous. It’s all, you know, material for her to punish Jem. She used to call me Rags in elementary school because she said I looked like Raggedy Ann? So I even called myself Rags, just because I wanted to own it, right?”
“That’s why you’re cool,” Doe said. She felt something winding inside her, tightening with every turn.
“Anyway we’re in high school, so we’ve all forgotten all that crap, but not Meret. She still calls me Rags! Especially if she sees me with a boy or something. Not that I’m ever with a boy. Then she pretends that we’re super-good friends and that’s why she has a pet name for me. That’s the kind of asshole she is.” Annie picked at the table. “Anyway. It’s just a pain to even be a bystander to all this stupid mean shit.”
“That’s the best summary of life I’ve ever heard,” Doe said.