Eve took the whole batch-Paige Hawthorne’s paper, Perri’s, the letter-reasoning that this caper should be played according to reverse logic: The more missing, the less suspicious it would be. No, better, an entire folder. She would take the folder, secure it inside her oversize binder and-
“I’m so sorry about that interruption, Eve. Jocelyn was very upset.”
“No problem. But I really should get to class. I have…a paper due.”
“For health? So late in the semester?”
“I’m behind. It’s on STDs-sexually transmitted diseases. Did you know that babies can be born with that stuff, even though they never had sex?”
“Well, they can be infected by their mother in utero-”
“They can be born blind.”
“All the more reason to use a condom.”
“Then there’s no baby at all.”
“Exactly, Eve. Exactly.”
Teachers were always bringing up condoms to Eve in this roundabout way, which amused and disappointed her. Even the teachers, even Ms. Cunningham for all her disavowal of gossip, thought she was a slut. Whereas her only true sexual adventure was that time on the bus, almost two years behind her now. Eve wanted a boyfriend, although no one really had them anymore. The problem was, the boys all thought she knew so much more than she did. Virginity, once gone, could never be reclaimed, a point that was made repeatedly in health class. But it was worse, Eve thought, to be a virgin and have everyone think you were this superslut who knew how to do everything. The only way she could keep her reputation intact was to stay out of the fray completely.
She almost wished she could be who she used to be. She loved hanging with Val and Lila and had no affection for her old outcast status. She was proud to be a skeezer. Still, there was something about the girl who had gotten on the bus to Philadelphia that day, the girl in her mom’s crocheted vest, with her uncool lunch of preserves on lumpy homemade bread. The girl who had taken second place in the juvenile fudge division the year before. She was nice, that girl. Nice and maybe even pretty. Talk to her. Get to know her. You’ll be surprised by how much fun she can be.
Yet Eve had abandoned that girl at the first opportunity, finally seeing her as everyone else did-out of it, stupid, queer, a social liability. It was bad enough dropping an old friend for such reasons, but you could take the friend back or make it up to her in other ways. Once you dropped yourself, you could never go back.
29
Josie was lying on the sofa in the family room, clicking idly through the channels. This mundane afternoon activity was almost exotic to her, given how many extracurriculars she had pursued over the years. She had started with soccer as a six-year-old, then gymnastics, which had led to both theater and cheerleading. The last had meant not only practices and games but also endless fund-raising activities.
Josie had never much cared for the “spirit” part of cheerleading-the car washes, the bake sales, the pep rallies. In fact, Josie didn’t really care if the Glendale Panthers won or lost. She liked leaping into the air, pooling her hoarse voice with the others, the crowd roaring back at their command, completely in their control. She loved her purple-and-white uniform, the way the pleats brushed her thighs as she walked through the halls, but she barely noticed if the boys in purple and white heeded the exhortations to fight, fight, fight. At dinner Josie sometimes had to think for a moment when her father asked her the score. The only way she could remember was by recalling what she had done, in the final moments. Had she jumped up and down squealing or stood in pretend dejection, hands on hips? Some of the girls cried over games, shed actual tears, but Josie never did.
She studied her bandaged foot, propped up on a pillow. Although she was not quite five-two, her right foot looked very, very faraway and alien, as if it were not truly attached to the rest of her body. The prognosis was uncertain, the doctor had said when she left the hospital. So many bones and nerves in feet, so many possible outcomes. She would definitely walk again, probably do everything again. Yet she was cautioned to be patient and let the foot heal before she started pressing it, testing its flexibility and strength.
“When you come off the crutches,” the doctor said, “it may even take time for your leg to believe it can come all the way down to the floor. It’s almost as if your foot needs to learn to trust itself again, to remember that it really does have the capacity to make contact with the ground, to support you.”
Her mother’s car pulled into the garage. Josie could tell it was her mother because the muffler on the Honda Accord was beginning to go. She could hear her mother coming from a block away sometimes. Her parents kept saying the Honda would be Josie’s car when she went to college, a car being pretty much a necessity at the University of Maryland. Josie hoped they would get the muffler fixed first.
“You’re home early,” Josie said as her mother came through the door from the garage, burdened with purse, tote, and two bags of groceries.
“My boss is cutting me some slack right now. No one likes the idea of you here alone, hobbling around by yourself.”
“Matt and Tim are here somewhere,” Josie said, even as part of her mind focused on that one word, “alone.” “Although maybe Marta took them out.”
Josie had never been expected to care for her younger brothers. When she did baby-sit, her parents paid her the going rate-not as much as Marta, of course, but what other teenagers made to baby-sit.
“Besides, I have some good news. Enormous news.”
“Hmmmmm?” Josie was still flicking through the channels, looking for something decent. TRL was on, but Josie hadn’t watched that since she was fourteen or fifteen. She was in the mood for something quasi-real yet not truly real, and not too mean-spirited. The show where they redid a dowdy woman’s wardrobe would be good, or something competitive, as long as it didn’t involve eating gross stuff.
“Mr. Hartigan called me today-”
Josie’s stomach clutched a little.
“Remember the scholarship his family endowed for the school? Well, it’s going to be the Kat Hartigan Memorial Scholarship now.”
“Hmmmm.” Josie had landed on the show about people who had too much stuff and their makeover included a garage sale where they were forced to divest themselves of their clutter. A very large woman was swearing she couldn’t give up a single Aladdin toy. She had seventeen Princess Jasmines alone.
“And you’re going to be the first recipient.”
Josie muted the television. “Why?”
“Well, he didn’t say. But you were her best friend. You tried to take the gun from Perri. And you stayed with her. Mr. Hartigan said that meant a lot to him, that you wouldn’t leave her.”
“Is that going to be the requirement every year? Hanging out with a dead body? Because there are plenty of kids at Glendale who would kill someone if that’s the case. Kill someone and just sit there waiting for the paramedics.”