Take the Fall(72)

I wince, but manage to make it look like a smile. Serving as Gretchen’s charity case was one thing. I think I’d rather find a dress in a discount bin than let the rest of my classmates take up the cause. Today I’m sporting a concert T-shirt and the same pair of worn cutoffs I’ve been wearing all week. I bagged up most of Gretchen’s clothes the other day, and so far I haven’t been tempted to dig back into them. It hasn’t been easy, trying to dress like me, but I haven’t changed my mind about it.

“Are you girls talking about prom?” My mom appears next to me with an empty tray. “I thought you had a dress, Sonia.”

I guess prom is one of the few subjects worth speaking to me about. I’ll take that over hearing what a disappointment I am. “I . . . don’t.”

She frowns, and I’m afraid she’s going to remember the one Gretchen gave me and insist it’s a perfectly good gown, but she just sticks her pencil behind her ear and says, “It’s so late in the season, there are probably some great sales. You should go shopping this afternoon.”

Haley raises her eyebrows as my mom walks away. “Want company?”





THIRTY-THREE


I CAN’T WORK MYSELF UP to enter the mall or any of Gretchen’s usual favorite boutiques, but I end up finding a dress at Decades, a vintage store in Ithaca that Gretchen hated. The fabric is teal chiffon layered over bright yellow taffeta, which had me skeptical on the hanger, but once I tried it on, the colors worked. The zipper is a little tricky and the lining has a tear, but it has a shawl collar that drapes in a pretty way over the neckline and there are no stains on the skirt. It’ll never be the dress Gretchen gave me, but that’s kind of the point. I end up paying fifty dollars, which is about twenty-five dollars more than I’d like, but Haley tells me I’m crazy, that it’s a steal since it’s authentic, and she won’t stop talking about how good it’ll look with my hair up.

She drops me at the diner on her way home, and judging by the number of occupied tables in the restaurant, we’re already in for a busy evening. This is fine with me. My mom and I leave for Philadelphia at eight in the morning. I’ve done everything I can think of to ready myself for the meeting—gathered documents, transcripts, rehearsed—and now I just wish I could work all night since I know I’m not going to sleep. I hurry up the back stairs, ready to throw the dress in my mostly empty closet before heading down. My mom calls something up the steps after me, but I don’t put the words “Kirsten” and “upstairs” together until I walk into my room and find her perched on my bed.

“Sonia, hey.”

She stands, tucking her hair behind her ears as soon as I walk in, but it takes my brain about fifteen seconds to catch up. Kirsten—in my room. Gretchen always seemed at odds with my bedroom, but in a different way, like she was too big for it or something. Not literal big, but presence big. Sort of how when there’s a full moon the stars in the sky don’t seem as bright. Seeing Kirsten here . . . she’s too blond, too quiet, and she was sitting too straight when I walked in. I take a careful step into the room, looking around for something to indicate why she’s here, but nothing strikes me as out of order.

“I didn’t realize you were here,” I say once I manage to find my voice.

“Your mom invited me up—I hope you don’t mind.” There’s something odd about the way she’s standing, how she’s looking at me.

I set the plastic bag containing my dress on the purple chair. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Not really.” She smiles, but the way she holds herself is more crooked than relaxed, her movements so repetitive, it’s like she’s doing everything she can to appear at ease.

A heavy feeling twists through my gut. “Kirsten, is something wrong?”

She shakes her head with a nervous laugh, looking everywhere around the room but at me. “I stopped in downstairs for a milk shake and just thought I’d say hello.”

I narrow my eyes. I’ve spent enough time at the Meyers’ house to know Kirsten can’t drink milk. But why would she lie about something like that? The clamor of banging pots and Dina singing some old U2 song drifts up from the kitchen. I reach behind me, gently closing the door.

“What’s going on?”

She clutches her hands tightly in front of her, looking past me at the door. Then she takes a deep breath and reaches into her purse, pulling out a Hidden Falls postcard exactly like the one I got. She flips it over with a trembling hand and holds it out, but I don’t need to touch it to read the dark red words.

My breath hitches. “How did you get that?”

She doesn’t say anything, her face a mix of unreadable emotions.

I snatch it out of her hands, turning it over, but there’s no fingerprint anywhere. I hesitate, relieved at first, but then my heart starts pounding again. “You got one too?”

Kirsten opens her mouth.

“I got one just like it. Where did you find this?” I ask again.

“It came in the mail yesterday, in an envelope, but I thought—” She stops, a flash of accusation in her eyes.

“You thought I sent it?”

“Not exactly . . .”

I close my eyes. “Why would I ever do something like that?”