The St. Ambrose School for Girls(99)
I think about the boiler room in the basement and am aware that that last sentence is more bravado than conviction. But I’m riding a buzzy crest of exemption, and it’s making me feel optimistic.
“You’ve been to a place that’s helped you, correct?” the detective says.
“A mental hospital, you mean.” I nod. “Yes. I tried to kill myself. Twice. I was an inpatient at a facility that’s an hour away from my small town.”
He gets points for looking subdued, as opposed to judgmental, and I wonder, if he happens to have a son or a daughter at home, whether or not he’s going to hug that kid a little tighter tonight.
“Have you ever tried to hurt someone before?” he says. But he already knows the answer.
“No. Never. You can check all my records. I have no history of violence toward anyone else.”
He nods like this is new information, but I sense it’s an act. He probably already has a copy of my essay. They’ve been here for seven or eight hours, haven’t they. Talking to people, talking to administrators.
“Well, I think that’s all for now. Thank you, Miss Taylor.”
The other officer, the one in uniform, heads for the door like he was done with the interview about ten minutes ago. Detective Bruno talks a little bit more. I am no longer hearing him.
As he turns away, I think about Greta’s domino taunt, the one she made a lifetime ago. I’m still angry at her, even though she’s dead—especially as I recall her threatening to get at Keisha.
And it’s easy to be courageous, given that the whole back-from-the-grave nightmare is something that only happens in George Romero flicks.
“You do know that Nick Hollis was sleeping with Miss Stanhope, right?” I say.
chapter THIRTY
The following day, everything is in chaos. Church services on campus are canceled. Grief counselors are brought in. Girls jam the phone room, crying to their parents. Several mothers and fathers even come by and remove their precious cargo from the proverbial overhead compartment. Clearly, in the minds of most of the community here, the airplane is going down in a ball of fire.
From the window of my dorm room, I am watching one such evacuation roll out. The parents are rushing around the BMW like flies on chicken salad, moving, always moving. They’re inefficient as they put toiletries and a suitcase in the back seat, and then have to transfer the pink, and no doubt fragrant, load to the trunk.
Obviously, they aren’t putting their darling daughter in the boot.
The girl who is getting out while she’s still alive is one I recognize from my history class. She is red-eyed and puffy-faced, but her hair is curled and she’s wearing a coordinating outfit of Black Watch plaid extraction.
She looks honestly scared, though. I know how she feels.
After the family unit gets into the sedan, father behind the wheel, mother on the front passenger side, progeny on the bench seat in the back, the doors of the BMW shut all at once, as if they coordinate these things as a rule. Then they do several rounds of back-and-forthing in the parking lot and take off as if there is a murderer with a raised knife about to jump on their rear bumper.
I flop back on my bed. When it comes to Greta’s death, there are two camps in the dorm. Half of the girls, led by Francesca and Stacia, are the ones who once idolized Greta—and also likely resented her in private. They’re vocal in their mourning and have turned Margaret Stanhope into a beacon of style and goodliness that the world has been tragically cheated of. This is a solid platform on which to shed many theatrical tears, and having watched them wrench their fistfuls of Kleenex in their hands, but dab carefully at their made-up eyes, I believe that although there is some real grief there, getting swept away in the drama is their main driver.
The rest of the dorm is quiet but respectful, falling into a line of “We didn’t like her, yet we certainly didn’t want her dead.” The bunch of us are young, and by definition self-involved, so we’re actually fairly okay now that the shock has worn off. In fact, we’re doing better than the adults around us. Anybody on campus over the age of eighteen is looking like they’ll never sleep again.
Come to think of it… there may be three groups, and it’s likely that this final catchment is a subset that encompasses portions of the larger two: There probably are some people who happen to be glad she is dead. I know I’m one. I’m fairly sure Strots is, too, and of the Brunettes, at least Francesca is, not only given the skirmish at Mountain Day and the stuff about “Mark over the summer,” but, more important, due to her sudden ascendance to social supremacy. Francesca has taken over the leadership of the pretty girl group, the right-hand lieutenant assuming the stars of a dearly departed general thanks to the latter’s unexpected mortal wound.
“Taylor, your mom’s on the phone downstairs.”
I twist around from the window. Strots has come in. She’s got a six-pack of Cokes, and undoubtedly some fresh packs of cigarettes in her jacket pocket.
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
I look at my roommate and will her to meet my eyes. When she does, and seems as unflappable as usual, I take a deep breath. Forcing stare-to-stare contact with Strots is my new obsession. People who can look others right in the face have nothing to hide, and I want Strots to be hiding nothing. I need her to have no secrets about the night Greta died.