My Best Friend's Exorcism(49)

Now the rain came crashing down, and there was no one calling Abby and no one she wanted to call. She was completely alone, and she couldn’t imagine a future where it wasn’t raining.

She woke up Monday morning and decided she had to fix things. She took a hot shower and put on her face, then steered through the darkness, tires barely clinging to the old bridge, wind shoving the Dust Bunny from lane to lane; she vowed the whole way that by the time the day ended, she and Gretchen would be friends again.

Abby waited outside Mrs. Erskine’s English room for Gretchen to show up. As the last echo of the second bell died, the stairwell door swung open and Gretchen entered the hall. Abby had her statement all planned out, and then she saw Gretchen and couldn’t say a word.

Gretchen had cut her hair. The long blond frizz was gone, replaced by a tight halo of curls that hugged her scalp, showing off her neck, suddenly giving her cheekbones. There was a lump in Abby’s throat—she would never make such a huge move without consulting Gretchen first, and Gretchen had gone and done it without talking to Abby at all. Even worse, it looked great.

Gretchen’s skin wasn’t perfect, but it was clearing up and makeup concealed the rest of the damage. Her eyes were bright. She was wearing black stirrup pants and black Capezios and a leopard print sweater with a black turtleneck underneath. Her posture was perfect, spine straight, shoulders back, and she’d done her nails with French tips. Most of all, she glowed. She was beaming. She was healthy. She was beautiful.

“What?” Gretchen asked, hand on the classroom door, noticing Abby for the first time. Her voice wasn’t hoarse; it was thick and southern and sounded like normal.

“Are you all right?” Abby asked.

Gretchen wrinkled her brow.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked.

“All that stuff,” Abby said. “Last week? Everything that was going on?”

Gretchen raised an eyebrow and gave a half smile.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I’m fine. But maybe something’s wrong with you?”





New Sensation


“No way is that dillweed sitting here,” Margaret said.

It took Abby a second to realize that she was the dillweed in question.

Abby wanted to say “Up yours” or “I didn’t want to sit with you anyways,” but to her profound disappointment she found herself looking down at the grass, embarrassed, desperate to be allowed to sit at the picnic table.

The tropical storm had missed Charleston and veered out into the Atlantic, and Monday was humid and clear. It had rained the night before and the grass was still spongy. Margaret and Glee had commandeered the picnic table in the middle of the Lawn and there was plenty of room, but apparently it was for non-dillweeds only.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Gretchen said. “I don’t know why she’s following me around.”

“Whatever,” Margaret said. “But I don’t want that thing speaking.”

Abby watched in shock as Gretchen sat down with Margaret and Glee and the three of them started talking as if she didn’t exist. Too humiliated to leave, too uncomfortable to stay, desperately wishing she could make up her mind, Abby started to sit, then stopped. She looked at everyone walking across the Lawn, throwing Frisbees, running and sliding over the rain-slicked grass in their dress shoes, and then she looked back at the picnic table and finally decided to perch at the far end. So it was like she was sitting with them, but not close enough to make anyone angry. Was that okay for dillweeds?

“I need a faculty advisor for the Environmental Awareness Club,” Gretchen said.

“Ask Father Morgan,” Margaret said, then she lowered the green apple she’d been toying with for the past few minutes and looked at Glee. “Glee would have to join.”

“Stop it,” Glee said, blushing.

“Father Organ,” Gretchen said, and she and Margaret collapsed onto each other’s shoulders, laughing.

“Father Morgasm,” Margaret said, and they laughed even harder.

“Father More-Than,” Abby said.

They both stopped laughing and stared at her.

“What?” Gretchen asked.





In fifth grade, Elizabeth Root had peed her pants during the Founders Day concert. The theme was “The Roaring Twenties” and the elementary school chorus was right in the middle of a chanted song about Al Jolson and the stock market when Elizabeth just couldn’t hold it anymore and the front of her gray skirt blossomed black. She tried to run offstage but the stage-left exit was blocked by the entrance of a giant papier-maché Tin Lizzie. The stage-right exit was blocked by the boys’ choir.

Mrs. Gay tried to cover by playing her upright piano louder. The more obedient chorus members sang along, and for sixty seconds the assembled parents watched as a little girl, blinded by tears, stumbled around in circles, trailing urine across the stage as an enormous Model T Ford rolled toward her.

Everyone talked about it for weeks afterward. People made “Pssss . . .” sounds whenever Elizabeth Root walked by in the halls. At lunch she was demoted to sitting with two very kind but deeply unpopular girls. The lower school headmaster finally sent home a note telling parents how to discuss Elizabeth’s pants-peeing with their children. Two years later, when Elizabeth transferred to Bishop England, everyone knew it was because of that time she’d peed her pants.