A Lesson in Vengeance(25)

Not that I do that kind of thing anymore. If the postcard is lost, it will have to stay lost.

Later in the day, right before we’re meant to head to Art History, Ellis knocks on the frame of my open door and says, “Let’s skip.”

I’ve just finished packing my notebooks into my satchel; when I look back Ellis is leaning against my wall, arms folded over her chest and one heel tipped against the baseboard. She’s wearing trousers and a starched-collar dress shirt, the formality of her cuff links and suspenders somewhat undermined by the way her hair is pulled up in a messy knot, like she just woke up.

“Class, you mean,” I say.

“I was thinking we could go into town instead,” she says. “There’s this little antiques shop on Dorchester I’ve been meaning to explore.”

The whole thing smells suspiciously of pity. Bridget Crenshaw might have evaded the torment of being partnered with me for our project, but that hasn’t stopped her from trying to turn half the school against me. Incredible how much damage one girl could do in just two days.

I’d heard about it from Hannah Stratford, of all people. “You know you can talk to me,” she’d said, after accosting me in the cafeteria line. “If you want.”

I hadn’t understood what she meant, not until she went on:

“My sister was sick like that, too. She tried…you know. To”—Hannah had lowered her voice to a stage whisper—“kill herself. She’s better now, but I just…I figured, if you needed to talk—”

“I didn’t try to fucking kill myself.”

“Oh!” Hannah’s face had flushed the same mauve color as her fingernail polish. I doubted her embarrassment even had anything to do with the mistake; she’d just never heard me swear before. “I only…I heard…”

I’d stared at her, letting her fumble her way back to safer ground.

“It’s just, Bridget said—”

“Bridget said,” I’d repeated, and Hannah stammered an apology, finally flitting out of line to go join the queue for sandwiches instead.

Bridget said.

So now I wasn’t just a murderer; I was suicidal, too.

I didn’t understand how Bridget could have found out. Not the killing myself part—I’d never tried to kill myself—but…

The fact that I’d been gone last semester was no secret. I’d spent four months at a private residential facility tucked away near the Cascades, listening to people with rows of degree certificates on their walls explain to me that it wasn’t my fault, that I’d had no choice, that just because I took my knife and sawed through that rope and killed my best friend, that didn’t make me a psychopath. As if I didn’t know that already.

News travels fast at Dalloway. The rumors must have reached Ellis by now.

But even if this is pity, it doesn’t change the fact that I want nothing less than to go to that goddamn class and sit there and watch Bridget Crenshaw make tragic faces at me from across the room.

“All right,” I say, and take the notebooks back out of my bag.



* * *



—

The antiques shop is housed in an old Victorian positioned between a bookstore and a Thai restaurant. A narrow deck curls around the face of the house, a few ancient rocking chairs gazing out over the road. If we were nearer to the water, I could have imagined an old widow perched in one of those chairs, dressed in black but still peering through her binoculars at the sea, waiting for her love to finally come home.

Ellis precedes me up the stairs. The deck looks like it was whitewashed once, but it’s now more gray wood than white paint. A little bell tingles over the door as we go inside. Ellis smiles over her shoulder at me, and I can’t help grinning back; it’s so very Ellis to be charmed by something that old-fashioned and simple.

A shriveled woman sits behind the front desk. She gets to her feet when we enter, although that doesn’t make her more than an inch taller at most.

“Can I help you girls with anything in particular?”

“We’re browsing,” Ellis says.

The woman’s smile is as wobbly as her knees. Her hands grip the edge of the counter like she needs to hold on to keep her balance.

Alex will never be this old.

“Well, if you need me…,” the woman says, and I can’t look at her anymore. I turn away, pretending fascination with a nearby lamp carved in the shape of a naked lady.

Ellis wanders farther back into the store, and I follow, watching her pale hands drift over the shapes of old furniture and cloudy vases.

“I love these,” Ellis says. She holds up a handful of marbles, all different colors. She rolls a few into my outstretched palm. Each sphere has its own unique starburst at its center, dye exploding into glass and glinting in the lamplight.

“They remind me of my grandmother’s house,” I say.

Ellis gives me a quizzical look.

“She had vases filled with marbles and cut flowers. Seashells, too. It was a beach house.” I’d taken one of those marbles and swallowed it once, hoping, I think, that the magic they held would grow inside me like a seed, would become a part of me.

“Which beach?”

“Beaufort. On the Outer Banks of North Carolina.”

“I’ve never been,” Ellis says. “Maybe that’s embarrassing to admit since I’m from Georgia—I could have gone anytime.”