The Couple Next Door(37)
“Mean to her how?”
Janice looks away and blows her nose delicately. Then she looks up at the ceiling and tries to compose herself. “We teased her. About her looks, about her clothes. We thought we were above her—above everyone, really.” She gives him a wry look. “We were fifteen. Not that that excuses anything.”
“So what happened?”
“This went on for months, and she just took it. She was always nice back to us and pretended it didn’t bother her, but we thought she was just pathetic. Actually, I thought it was a kind of strength, being able to pretend you’re not bothered, day after day, when she obviously was, but I kept that to myself.”
Rasbach nods, encouraging her to continue.
She looks down at the tissue in her hands, sighs heavily, and looks back up at Rasbach. “One day she just lost it. The three of us—Debbie, Susan, and I—we’d stayed late after school for some reason. We were in the girls’ bathroom, and Anne walked in. She saw us and froze. Then she said hi and gave a little wave and went into one of the stalls to pee. That took a certain amount of guts, I have to admit.” She pauses, then continues. “Anyway, we started saying some things.” She stops.
“What kinds of things?” Rasbach asks.
“I’m ashamed to say. Things like ‘How is your diet coming along? Because you look like you’ve gained weight’—things like that. We were pretty awful to her. She came out of the stall and went right for Susan. None of us were expecting it. Anne grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall. It was one of those cement walls, painted a glossy cream, and Susan hit it hard with her head. She just kind of slid down. There was a big smear of blood all down the wall.” Janice’s face twists, as if she is back in that school bathroom seeing her friend crumpled on the floor, the blood smeared on the wall. “I thought Anne had killed her.”
“Go on,” Rasbach encourages.
“Debbie and I were screaming, but Anne was completely silent. Debbie was closer to the door, so she ran for help. I was terrified to be left alone with Anne, but she was between me and the door and I was too scared to move. Anne looked at me, but her eyes were blank. Like she wasn’t really there. I didn’t know if she was even seeing me. It was creepy. Finally one of the teachers came, and then the headmistress. They called an ambulance.” Janice falls silent.
“Did anyone call the police?”
“Are you kidding?” She looks at him in surprise. “That’s not the way things are done in private schools. The headmistress was all damage control. I know they worked something out. Anne’s mother came in, and our parents, and it was all just . . . handled. You see, we had it coming, and everybody knew it.”
Rasbach says gently, “What happened after they called the ambulance?”
“When it arrived, they put Susan on a stretcher and took her down to the ambulance. Debbie and I and the other teacher followed Susan. Debbie and I were crying, hysterical. The headmistress took Anne to her office to wait for her mother. The ambulance took Susan away, and Debbie and I waited in the parking lot with the other teacher for our parents to come.”
“Do you remember anything else?” Rasbach asks.
She nods. “Before the headmistress took Anne away, Anne looked at me, like she was completely normal, and said, ‘What happened?’”
Rasbach says, “What did you think when she said that?”
“I thought she was crazy.”
? ? ?
The mailman is outside the front door trying to push the volumes of mail through the slot in the door. Anne stands in the kitchen and watches. She could open the door and take it from him, to make his job easier, but she doesn’t want to. She knows all that hate mail is for her. He looks up then, through the window, and sees her. Their eyes meet for just a second, and then he looks down and works on pushing more envelopes through the slot. She and this same mailman used to exchange pleasantries, less than a week ago. But everything is different now. The letters have dropped onto the floor by the door in a jumbled pile. He’s struggling to push a large, thick envelope through the slot, but it won’t go. He pushes it halfway in and then turns and goes back down the walk and on to the next house.
Anne stands staring at the pile on the floor, at the package stuffed in the slot. The package is holding the slot open. She goes to the door and tries to pull it through. It’s one of those bubble envelopes. It’s stuck, and she can’t unwedge it. She will have to open the door and grab it from the outside. She peers through the window to see if anyone is out there. The reporters who were there earlier in the morning while the police were packing up have cleared off. Anne opens the door and yanks the package out of the slot, quickly slips back inside, closes the door, and relocks it.
Without thinking, she opens the package.
There’s a mint green onesie inside.
SIXTEEN
Anne screams.
Marco hears her scream and bolts downstairs from the bedroom. He sees her standing by the front door, a pile of unopened mail at her feet, a package in her hand. He can see the green onesie peeking out of the package.
She turns to him, her face white. “This just came in the mail,” she says, her voice strange and hollow.
Marco approaches her, and she holds the package out to him. They look down at it together, almost afraid to touch it. What if it’s a prank? What if someone thought it would be funny to send a mint green onesie to the awful couple who left their baby home alone?