People Like Us(10)

As I scan the recipe, the corners of my lips begin to turn up. It has to be a joke.

Take a chicken, white and red

Mock it till it’s good and dead

Brand it with a 3.5

Burn it if it’s still alive

Stuff with Sharapova’s shame

Take her out and watch the flames.

Nola looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “I’m no master of poetic imagery, here, but it looks like Jessica had some grand plans for Tai Carter. What did Tai do to her?”

I frown. “I don’t think they really knew each other.” When we found the body, Tai couldn’t even remember her name. How much damage can you do to someone whose name you don’t know?

Nola shrugs. “Poetry gives me migraines. The way everything means something else. According to Mr. Hannigan, anyway. But look at it line by line, Hannigan style, starting with the title.” She runs a finger along underneath the text, assuming our English teacher’s slight Irish lilt. It’s unfortunate that she doesn’t have his rugged handsome features, because that might soften the disturbing imagery. Her fingers are slender and delicate and her nails painted a glossy eggplant color, and the blue light issuing from my laptop just makes her look paler and thinner as she peers into the screen.

‘Tai Burned Chicken,’ she reads. “Thai’s spelled wrong, unless it really means your girl. Burned. It’s a food blog but it’s about revenge, right? And chicken. Again, food, but also coward.”

“Tai’s no coward,” I say.

She looks at me, interested. “Oh?”

I have zero interest in defending my friends to Nola Kent, of all people. “Trust me,” I say.

Nola looks disappointed. “Okay,” she says, rolling her eyes elaborately. “I trust you.” She moves on to the next line. “‘Take a chicken, white and red.’ Bates school colors, obviously. ‘Mock it till it’s good and dead.’ Now, I don’t know her as well as you do, but does your bosom buddy not have something of a reputation as a wiseass?”

I grin. “She does.” Tai isn’t just funny, she is incisively clever. It makes it that much more painful when she turns her acerbic observations on you. She’ll be the next Tina Fey or Amy Schumer, there’s no possible doubt about that. But even Tina Fey admitted she was a mean girl in high school. Not that I’m calling Tai mean. It’s just that the truth hurts, especially when people laugh about it. And Tai is egalitarian. Everyone gets their turn. I’m the perennial borrower. That’s her bit for me. A sort of icy wave of nausea washes over me when she begins a borrower routine, but everyone gets theirs. People laughed when I gave Lada Nikulaenkov the nickname Hodor, because she’s about six feet tall and so shy you never hear her talk except to correct teachers on the pronunciation of her name. But I couldn’t do it if I didn’t also force a smile every time Tai pointed out that fact that I can’t afford to buy the clothes I wear. It’s a two-way street. Fair is fair.

“Also,” Nola adds, “there’s that insufferable ‘mock’ thing from Henry V Hannigan was harping on last month. Tennis balls, right?”

“Oh my God!” I tend to cram for exams and then let the information whoosh back out of my brain, but Shakespeare did write a speech where he used the word mock repeatedly to imitate the sound tennis balls make smacking around the court. “So I guess Jessica did like poetry.”

“Or Mr. Hannigan,” Nola says, raising an eyebrow archly.

“Stop.” I suddenly feel ashamed for discussing Jessica so casually, as if she were just another classmate we were free to bitch about. So what if she had a crush on a teacher? Hannigan is the clear choice if you had to pick one. He’s new at Bates this year, extremely sexy, and at times flirtatious. There have been rumors about more than flirting, but no proof. I don’t believe it. That accent, though. I turn back to the “recipe” and read the next line. “‘Brand it with a three-point-five.’ That’s Tai’s GPA.” This is public knowledge. GPAs are posted in the Great Hall to motivate/shame us.

“‘Burn it if it’s still alive,’” Nola continues. She looks to me.

“A burn. An insult. Tai’s specialty. Blurring the line between funny and painful.”

“How is a burn different from a mock?”

“A mock is a sport. A burn is deadly.”

“Then there’s ‘Sharapova’s shame.’ Which sounds like bad community theater.”

“Seriously? Maria Sharapova is a tennis superstar. There was a huge scandal a couple years ago when she was suspended for doping. But it’s complicated, because the drug she took is a legitimate medication, too.”

“Whatever, I couldn’t care less. What this says to me is your girl Tai is pulling a Sharapova. The question is, how did Jessica know?”

“Well, if it were true, all she would have to do is hack into Tai’s email to know anything Tai ever mentioned there, right?”

Dance like no one’s watching.

Nola nods. “Jess was a solid coder. Those computer skills training programs she built were legit.”

“But I don’t believe Tai did this. People like us don’t use drugs. It’s automatic expulsion.”

Nola favors me with a slightly contemptuous smile. “People like you?”