People Like Us(44)

“I had one of those.” I absently pick up a picture of my family from my desk and slide it behind my back.

“A flawless sister?”

“Sibling. A brother.” I turn the picture facedown, not wanting to get into the had part. “He was the baby who slept through the night and potty trained himself while he was still crawling. According to my parents, I screamed through the night, wet the bed, needed braces, and got into schoolyard fights. You know. He was the easy one.”

Nola groans and kicks a pillow. “Why does easy equal good? Everything worth doing is hard. Like, I really struggled out there on the soccer field.”

I purse my lips. “Maybe that one isn’t worth it.”

She blinks. “We have a deal.”

“We have so much else going on. You’re a dancer, right?”

She curls her legs up under her and casts her eyes down. “Bianca was a dancer. I do theater. I don’t even know why I’m trying.”

“Bianca’s your sister?”

She nods. “Unfortunately.”

I notice her lower lip trembling and sit down next to her. “Granted, I haven’t seen you perform onstage, but you are a dancer. You don’t walk to class, you ballet to class. You plié without realizing it. It’s obvious how much time you spend practicing.”

She laughs, but shakes her head. “It’s not enough. My parents need me to be Bianca.”

That strikes a nerve. I haven’t been able to shake the feeling since Todd died that the only way to make things right is to fill every gap his death left, to accomplish everything he would have accomplished. To meet every expectation my parents had of him. In essence, to become him. “Believe me. I know the feeling.”

She squeezes my hand tentatively and for a moment there’s an awkward silence. Then she sighs and pulls my laptop over and places it half on her lap and half on mine.

“The timer waits for no one,” I echo.

She unlocks the password to the revenge blog and the oven opens, bringing up the dessert recipe for Madd Tea Party. There’s a nauseous tilting feeling in my stomach. That means the main course is either me or Brie, and one of us is not on the list. Whoever is left is going to be a top suspect. I scan Maddy’s poem, feeling slightly dizzy.

Madd Tea Party

Girl in teacup, shoulder deep

Pour the water, start to steep

There’s nothing wrong with feeling sad

Or going just a little mad

So pop a pill or maybe twenty

There’s room in hell for you, dear, plenty.

I turn to Nola in a panic. “This is bad.”

She frowns. “Is it telling us to commit suicide?”

I shake my head. “The clue is about Maddy, not us. What if it’s a threat? The killer made Jessica’s death look like a suicide, too. Pills, water.”

Nola stands shakily. “Jessica was wrists and water. But this would mean—”

“That Jessica didn’t write the blog. The killer did.” I grab my phone and coat, dialing as I head out the door. “We need to find Maddy.”

My head spins as we race down the stairs. There’s another fear I didn’t mention to Nola. The fear that it might be real. My last conversation with Maddy rushes back to me. I thought she was trying to be there for me, but what if she was asking me to be there for her? She asked me to call her. She told me she felt shut out, completely alone even when she was surrounded by people. Why didn’t I reach out to her after that conversation we had? I should have known after Megan. After Mom. I should be an expert. But I made so many mistakes in the aftermath of Todd’s death, it became my policy to shut up. When my mother overdosed on the sedatives that were supposed to help her navigate the depths of her grief, Dad said mental health is private. No one is supposed to know anything about anyone else’s pain.

Mom spent three months in a hospital in New Jersey. Dad and Aunt Tracy and I drove four hours every weekend to visit her, during which I would listen to music and pretend to sleep and Dad and Aunt Tracy would talk about her wedding plans. At the hospital, we would talk at Mom about all kinds of stupid things she didn’t care about. She would never look up at us, and she would never say anything back. Until the Christmas morning when Aunt Tracy’s fiancé showed up drunk and called her a whore, and Mom suddenly stood from her chair by the window and broke his nose with one clean swing.

Everything shattered back to normal after that. The doctors could see that she wasn’t a danger to herself or others. Just that asshole if he came near Aunt Tracy again. It’s funny how violence to protect a loved one’s honor is so deeply ingrained in our culture, how accepted it is. Also ironic, considering why Mom was in the hospital in the first place. She was suddenly eager to hear about all the soccer games she missed. And school and every stupid detail of my life that even I didn’t particularly care about. And then my parents hatched the perfect solution to all of our problems: sending me away to boarding school.

Outside, the temperature has dropped even further, and light, feathery flakes fall as we hurry along the winding path across the green toward the lake. The seven missed calls from Maddy this afternoon are making me feel sick. I continue trying to reach her as I sign into Henderson and shuffle up the stairs, scraping the icy moisture off my shoes on the carpet as I go. Maddy’s room is on the third floor, and since she’s a junior, she has a roommate, Harriet Nash.