My Best Friend's Exorcism(57)

Abby looked up quickly.

Gretchen was still staring at her, totally unaware of what her right hand was doing, a sweet expression of concern on her face.

“What’s bothering you, Abby?” she asked. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Gretchen’s hand stopped moving, and Abby couldn’t help herself: she looked down. Rushed letters were written upside down so that the words faced her.

not me not me help me not me

Abby looked away, but not fast enough. Suddenly Gretchen tore the page from the notebook, her face filled with fury. She crumpled it up and was about to say something when Wallace Stoney appeared beside them.

“How’s it hanging, G-meister?” he asked.

She beamed up at him.

“Hey, Wallace,” she said. “Is everyone still going to Med Deli after?”

“Only if you figure out my Deutsch,” he said. “I should never have signed up for Nazi.”

“It’s easy,” Gretchen said. “Give it here.”

He started to sit in Abby’s chair, as if she were invisible. Abby flinched and got up, careful not to touch him.

“See you later, Abby,” Gretchen said. “Think about what I said.”

Then she and Wallace bent their heads over his German book. As Abby left, she could hear Gretchen explaining to Wallace Stoney just how easy everything was.





“It’s Julie Slovitch,” Margaret said during lunch. “God, that pig is delusional. She fantasizes about humping him all the time.”

Christ, Laura Banks agreed, Julie Slovitch was so gross. She’s definitely the person who must have had that bouquet of white roses delivered to Wallace during fourth-period break that morning.

“Now look at him,” Margaret said. “Acting like he’s King Stud.”

Abby sat with her back against the lamppost on the Lawn, next to the dark green Charleston bench where Margaret was ranting at Laura Banks. Glee didn’t sit with them anymore. At lunch she went to Chapel and took Communion instead. Gretchen was spending her lunches on the benches outside the now-shuttered Senior Hut with all the upperclassmen. Margaret dismissed Glee as a “Jesus freak” and ignored her defection, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that she was losing Wallace. It ate away at her from the inside.

Indian summer was making everyone slap-happy. Wallace worked the Lawn, passing out his white roses to all the girls, bestowing them with courtly bows and kissing their hands. Eventually, he wandered over to Margaret, Laura, and Abby and offered Margaret a rose.

“Here,” he said. “You looked so lonely, and you know, I have so many flowers because I’m such a stud.”

Margaret regarded him for a moment.

“Why don’t you shut up about your fucking flowers?” she finally suggested.

“Jealous much?” Wallace asked.

“I feel sorry for you,” Margaret snapped. “Julie Slovitch is a dog. If you loved me, you’d dump those in the trash.”

Abby knew exactly what Wallace was going to say before he said it.

“Who says I love you?” he asked.

Then he realized what he’d said. A single second of silence passed, and then Margaret laughed, harsh and braying. The sound echoed to the breezeway.

“You did,” she said. “When I almost dumped you and you begged me on the phone to stay with you.”

“I never begged shit,” Wallace said.

“You begged me like a little girl,” Margaret said, darting her face forward.

Her cheeks were bright red and the tendons in her neck popped. Her forehead was bony, bisected by a single pulsing vein, and the muscles along her jaw twitched beneath her translucent skin. Her knuckles were huge. On the volleyball court it was clear that her knees were wider than her thighs. The flesh was melting from her bones.

“You’re a bitch,” Wallace said. “Even Julie Slovitch has a better body than you. My dog has a better body than you.”

“Then why don’t you fuck your dog,” Margaret snapped.

That’s when Gretchen appeared, and instead of sitting with them, she put her hand on Wallace’s shoulder.

“Come on, Wallace,” she said. “You’re just chapping Margaret’s rooster. Why don’t you go?”

To Abby’s surprise, he left.

But not before getting in the final word.

“Fucking Skeletor,” he said.

Then he was off, high-fiving Owen Bailey, handing out the rest of his roses. The next afternoon it was written on one of the mirrors in the girl’s upper school bathroom:

“Skeletor gives good bone.”

Margaret had a new nickname.





There was one last person Abby hadn’t tried. As much as she hated to admit it, one other person might know Gretchen the way she did. So on Saturday night she finished her TCBY shift, and the second she got home she slammed her bedroom door, laid the pink blanket along the bottom, and opened Gretchen’s daybook. There was Andy’s phone number. She reached for Mickey Mouse and dialed.

The phone rang, short and shrill, twice, three times, then the click of someone picking up.

“Hello?” Abby said.

Silence. Outside her bedroom window, a moth batted against the screen.

“Is this Andy?” Abby asked. “I’m Abby Rivers. I’m a friend of Gretchen Lang?”