The Herd(68)

Her backstory was the stuff of legend: Jinny, the story went, had hopped a train north to escape from her family, squashed in a trailer home in Appalachia. She’d stopped in New York but hated the vibes there, so she continued north, settling somewhere outside Boston. She was a few years older than us, and Eleanor had met her during her high school years. We rule-following Harvard students all had girl crushes on her—we were honored when she chose to hang around after making a delivery, shooting the shit and enjoying her wares with us. She’d dropped out of high school the moment she turned eighteen, had lived on the streets when she and her crust-punk boyfriend had split, and there was an aura of danger around her, a thrilling rebellious streak. She lived somewhere between Cambridge and Beverly—we were never sure where, and it probably changed by the week—so it was a no-brainer to hit her up while the three of us were in Eleanor’s hometown.

We’d all been giddy that night—it was finally warm and graduation was a few weeks away, and Eleanor had just scored her investment meeting to get Gleam off the ground. In fact, it was a celebration: Eleanor’s parents were out of town, so we’d have a secret party, not telling anyone or posting on social media so that our other friends wouldn’t feel left out.

In my mind, the little figures on the patio milled around: Booze was everywhere, splashing into cups with pours of Sprite or Diet Coke. Coke, real coke, from Jinny’s backpack, little lines Mikki expertly arranged on the patio table. Tabs of Molly, of course, and some ketamine, though I was too scared to touch it. Jinny had had a little of everything, and she was rolling, seemed genuinely happy to be there with us.

We were playing music from somebody’s phone, dancing next to the swimming pool. I could feel it all: the dizzying hum of the season’s first cicadas, wafts of lilac eddying around, a few fireflies strobing in the lawn. Mikki cueing “Empire State of Mind” on her iPhone and clapping in delight as Eleanor stood to shout-sing along: “Let’s hear it for Neeew Yooork…”

Someone had had the great idea of going for a swim. And Eleanor said it was fine, as long as we left everything how we found it. So we’d peeled the pool cover back halfway, folded it on itself, then stripped to our underwear and jumped in. Diving and doing handstands and dunking each other, so full of life and liquor. Jinny’s eyeliner bled down her cheeks. I had the dizzy notion we were all best friends that night, Jinny was one of us, although we only saw her every few months, although she knew much more about our lives than we did hers.

I watched as the imaginary Hana below me had another idea, the decision that would change the course of our lives. Pizza. I’d wanted frozen pizza, volunteered to make it, climbed out of the pool shrieking about the cold. I’d closed the patio doors behind me and stumbled to the basement, holding on to shelves and things to keep from falling as I made my way to the chest freezer in the back. And I’d found a box, pepperonis and sausages and tiny squares of red and green peppers glistening on the front, and hugged it to my chest idiotically before beginning the climb back upstairs.

The lights in the kitchen had been on, and using up my full, drunken concentration I’d found a pan, sliced at the pizza’s plastic covering—careful, careful with the knife, I told myself. The other three were still outside, music blasting. I managed to get the pizza onto the cookie sheet and slide it into the oven without burning myself, and I’d celebrated that small victory for a moment before realizing I hadn’t turned it on.

I was still fumbling around the kitchen when someone banged against the glass door, and I screamed and dropped the Coke and rum I’d been clutching. Then Mikki threw open the sliding door and stepped inside, tripping over the base.

The next part was hazy, the timeline unclear.

Jinny fell, Eleanor cried, slurring and sobbing as she stumbled inside. They were dripping everywhere, trembling from the wetness and the terror. Jinny had slipped and hit her head on her way into the pool, they said again, and they’d tried to get her out but she’d gotten herself tangled in the pool cover, fighting them off as they tried to yank her out. And then she’d gone limp. By the time they’d pulled her onto the cold cement, she was already gone, already cold, already dead.

If I’d been out there…well, we’d never know. But it was easy to imagine things would have turned out differently. I’d have noticed her more quickly, coordinated our rescue effort. I’d have run inside and dialed 911. But even then, standing just inside the sliding doors, drunk and damp and high, I’d done nothing.

I’ve thought about it a lot since then. Perhaps I didn’t protest because my inebriated mind was performing some unspoken calculations. Four drunk women, three of them white. The cops who’d come knocking if we dialed those three numbers.

All at once, as I stood in front of the second-story window, sparkly static whooshed in front of my eyes, and my hands and feet screamed out with fizzy tingling. Holding on to the wall for support, I shuffled back into Eleanor’s room, closed the door, and sank to the floor.

My eyes fell on her grade-school yearbook, still leaning out from the shelf. It snapped into place, like popping a single bit of bubble wrap. Eleanor’s Gleam On article, the one we’d worked so hard on together, me pushing for more details until it was just right: The Herd’s origin story, how she’d hated this junior-high-only Adventure Camp, ropes courses under the male gaze, the long yarn from that to New York’s premier all-female coworking space and community. But if she hadn’t gone to middle school…?