My Best Friend's Exorcism(55)

“Wallace can’t keep his hands off of me,” she bragged, sitting Indian-style in the October sunshine on the Lawn.

Winter was late, and the grass was packed. Circles of girls ate their yogurts and the boys in Juggling Club flashed pins over their heads, making them squeal. Hacky sacks bounced between boys. Bocce players stood with their hands in their pockets, watching one another’s bowls. Some seniors were down at the far end playing touch football in their T-shirts.

Sunglasses were on, sweaters were off, shirts were unbuttoned. Everyone was basking in the sun, growing tan and juicy. Humors were good, tolerance was high, laughter was easy, and Margaret was beautiful. Now she could pull off a black dress at winter semiformal, something only a few of the skinniest senior girls would ever dare. In Charleston, you wore solid colors or prints; black was considered too urban. If you were going to wear black, you really had to own it. Margaret could, and she owed it all to Gretchen.

“Seriously,” Margaret said, closing her food notebook and stretching her legs in front of her, sunglasses aimed at the sky. “If he keeps dogging me, I’m going to be preggo by January.”

“We’ll all be so proud,” Glee said.

“One day you’ll grow up, too,” Margaret said. “And then you’ll experience the mature pleasures of boning.”

“That reminds me,” Gretchen said, sitting up.

She’d been lying on her back, Wordly Wise held in the air as she raced through the lessons. Their English class was on Chapter Four. Gretchen was doing the crossword puzzle at the end of Chapter Twenty-One. Her bookbag was shoved under her head as a pillow, the end unzipped, and when she raised herself on her elbows her books spilled out, the paisley daybook sliding to the edge of the jumble. Abby couldn’t take her eyes off it.

“Here,” Gretchen said, and she handed a folded piece of paper to Glee. “It’s from Father Morgan. About vestry.”

“Oo,” Margaret said. “Bone note.”

Glee ignored her and slipped it into her books.

“Do you have any more of that milkshake I could try?” Glee asked Gretchen.

Gretchen wrinkled her nose underneath her sunglasses.

“My dad got ticked my mom wasn’t drinking them,” she said. “He threw out the box.”

“Is there—” Glee started.

“Mine,” Margaret said. “Whatever’s left is mine.”





In Biology class, Abby raised her hand and asked to use the bathroom. She didn’t have to go; she just needed to smell fresh air for a minute. They were dissecting fetal pigs, and the vinegar fumes made her queasy.

Voices droned behind each closed door as she passed them in the dim hall. The door to Madame Millicent’s French classroom was open and she could hear chalk tapping the board as Madame explained something to students who didn’t care. Abby didn’t know where she was going until she stopped at Gretchen’s locker.

Out of curiosity, she tried the combination. It had always been Abby’s birthday, the same way Abby’s locker combination had always been Gretchen’s birthday. She spun the combination to 12-01-72 and lifted the latch. It didn’t budge. Hurt, Abby decided she was

going to make this work. Gretchen couldn’t keep secrets from her.

She thought for a second, then spun the combination to 05-12-73, Gretchen’s birthday. The latch lifted with a clack, the door swung open, and the first thing she saw was Gretchen’s daybook sitting on top of her textbooks. Before she could reconsider, Abby grabbed it and ran for the parking lot.

Gretchen would guess her combination in a flash, so Abby’s only hope was the Dust Bunny. She avoided classroom windows, reached her car in two minutes flat, and hid the book under the driver’s seat. Then she raced back to class, caught her breath outside the door, and went back inside. Teachers never commented on how long girls stayed in the bathroom, especially when they took their purses.





“It’s like the Beverly Hills Diet,” Gretchen said to Margaret. “Only all fruits and veggies. Combined with the milkshakes, you’re going to lose ten pounds before the semiformal. Easy.”

Gretchen and Margaret sat next to each other at the picnic table on the Lawn, elbows propped on the silver sun-warmed wood, going over Margaret’s food diary. Gretchen’s German textbook lay forgotten in front of her. Abby noticed that Gretchen was already on the second-to-last chapter.

Glee sat across from them, facing the auditorium, looking for something. Abby was perched at the far end of the table, trying to stay on top of her biology homework, listening to the conversation, wondering why Gretchen was so concerned with Margaret’s diet.

Margaret looked like those skinny, pale girls in the Robert Palmer videos—complete with high forehead, sharp jawline, and dramatic cheekbones. She was buying new clothes every week as her old outfits got baggy and loose. Her mom was prouder of Margaret for losing weight than she’d ever been about anything in her daughter’s life. She bragged that Margaret was finally having a second growth spurt and “filling out.” Her friends agreed. Margaret was turning into a real beauty, they said. Mr. Middleton didn’t notice because he hadn’t gotten his credit card bills yet.

“I’m barely even hungry anymore,” Margaret said.

“You don’t have a butt anymore,” Glee said.