My Best Friend's Exorcism(28)

This time, Abby was doing it alone.

Gretchen wasn’t in school Thursday or Friday. Abby knew she hated skipping, so she kept calling Gretchen’s house, desperate to find out what was wrong, but Gretchen could never come to the phone. Over the weekend, Abby tried to convince Margaret and Glee to drive over with her, but Margaret wasn’t having it.

“She can call me and apologize or she can kiss my rooster,” Margaret said. “Did you hear what she said about Wallace? Who even thinks shit like that?”

Also, she was going out in the boat that weekend.

“I can’t come over,” Glee said. “It’s too upsetting.”

“And you’re going out in Margaret’s boat this weekend,” Abby said.

There was a long silence.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Glee asked. “Stay home?”

Abby kept calling Gretchen’s house until finally Mrs. Lang got sick of it.

“Honestly, Abby, you have to stop calling. It’s becoming inappropriate.”

After that, she let the machine pick up.

On Monday morning, Mrs. Lang called Abby’s house and explained that she would be driving Gretchen to school because they had a doctor’s appointment. Abby was tempted to ask what kind of doctor but didn’t want to be called inappropriate again—it was a polite way of saying she was tacky—so she kept her mouth shut.

A tropical storm was clawing its way up the coast, pushing massive thunderstorms toward Charleston. It was so dark that Abby drove to school with her headlights on. An angry gray wind ripped down the breezeway, and during first-period Intro to Programming it rattled the door all through class, then changed direction and started screaming through the cracks.

It wasn’t until fifth-period Ethics that Gretchen finally arrived. Father Morgan taught the class and he was way too young and looked way too much like a blandly handsome TV weatherman to be taken seriously. So when Gretchen straggled in well after the second bell, holding a late slip, Abby had no problem waving to her while Father Morgan was talking.

“Every week for fourteen years,” Father Morgan was saying, “we’ve been taken on a wonderful journey to a place called Lake Wobegon, a little town of five hundred souls somewhere in Minnesota.”

Gretchen looked dully around the room, and Abby waved again.

“Gretchen!” she whisper-hissed.

“It’s a town with—yes, Abby?” said Father Morgan.

Abby wilted under the attention of an interrupted teacher, even a lightweight like Father Morgan. “I saved Gretchen a seat,” she explained.

“Wonderful,” he said, grinning. “Now, while Lake Wobegon feels as real as Charleston, some of you will be surprised to discover that it exists only in the imagination of Garrison Keillor . . .”

Gretchen looked up and down the rows, and Abby waved again.

“Abby?” Father Morgan grinned. “Is this about Lake Wobegon?”

“No, sir,” Abby said, dropping her hand.

Gretchen took an empty desk by the door. While Father Morgan went on about Lake Wobegon and the power of storytelling, and the wind rattled the windows, Abby tried to figure out what was wrong. Gretchen looked pale, her hair was lank, and she wasn’t even wearing lip gloss. Something white and crusty was caked in the corner of her mouth. Abby worried she had mono again.

Thirty-nine interminable minutes later, the bell rang and everyone ran for the door, shoving their desks back and grabbing their books, overjoyed that they didn’t have to listen to Father Morgan anymore. Abby caught up with Gretchen in the crush by the door as the class spilled out into the breezeway.

“What happened?” she asked. “I’ve been calling you all weekend.”

Gretchen shrugged and tried to push her way through the bodies, but Abby would not be denied. She pulled Gretchen up the breezeway, past the waist-high brick wall and into the garden in front of the auditorium. The ground was paved in dark brown brick; the garden was screened from the breezeway by a wall of trees and scattered with benches for private reflection and making out. A cold wind rattled the crepe myrtle branches.

“Leave me alone,” Gretchen said.

“What is going on?” Abby asked. “Where have you been?”

Gretchen rubbed her arm where Abby had grabbed it.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Why haven’t you called?” Abby asked.

“I don’t know,” Gretchen said, and she seemed genuine.

“Why’d your mom drop you off?” Abby asked.

Gretchen stared over Abby’s shoulder.

“Doctor’s appointment,” she mumbled.

“What kind of doctor?”

The seconds ticked by.

“Did you ask about the flashbacks? Did you tell him you threw up?”

“It wasn’t that kind of doctor,” Gretchen said, and on the last word her face turned bright red and her forehead furrowed.

Abby didn’t understand. “What kind of doctor was it?”

Gretchen sucked in a big whoop of air and began to cry. “To see if I was a virgin,” she wailed, covering her mouth with the crook of her elbow to muffle her scream. Then she bit down hard on her arm, her teeth sinking into her sweater as tears slicked her face. Abby pulled Gretchen’s arm out of her mouth and led her deeper into the chapel garden, getting her to a bench and sitting her down.