They Wish They Were Us(2)
I squeal at the sight of real Quentin and fling the car door open, throwing myself at his middle.
“You’re here!” I say, burying my face into his doughy chest.
“Aw, Jill,” he says with a laugh. “C’mere, Nikki.” She launches herself into our hug and I inhale the dewy scent of Quentin’s laundry. Nikki leaves a sticky kiss on my cheek. In seconds, the others appear. Robert, with his slicked-back hair, takes the last puff of a mint-flavored Juul and shoves it into the pocket of his leather jacket. He should get a handful of demerits for wearing it in favor of his blazer, but he never does. “I can’t believe we have to do this again,” he says.
“What? School or Shaila?” Henry comes up behind me and rests a hand on the top of my butt, nipping my ear with his teeth. He smells overwhelmingly male, like freshly cut grass mixed with expensive French deodorant. I blush, remembering this will be the first time we’re seen at school together as a we, and inch closer to him, tucking my shoulder into his armpit.
“What do you think?” Robert rolls his eyes.
“Shut up, you idiots,” Marla says, whipping her platinum-blonde braid over her muscled shoulder. Her face is tanned from a summer spent training at the best field hockey camp in New England. Her stick hangs low over her back in a tie-dyed canvas bag, its taped handle peeking out the top. The ultimate sign of varsity realness. She wears it well.
“Whatever,” Robert mumbles. “Let’s get this over with.” He walks ahead, leading us onto the grassy quad, manicured and untouched after a summer without students. If you stand in just the right spot, below the clock tower and two steps to the right, you can glimpse a sliver of the Long Island Sound just a mile down the road and the tall sailboats swaying carefully next to one another. The salty air makes my hair curl. There’s no use owning a flatiron here.
I bring up the rear and gaze at my friends’ backs. Their perfect silhouettes set against the sun. For a moment nothing exists outside the Players. We are a force field. And only we know the truth about what we’ve had to do to get here.
Underclassmen—Nikki calls them undies for short—trot along the paved walkways, but no one comes close to our little unit. They keep their distance, tugging at their too-stiff white button-downs, tightening belt buckles, and rolling up their pleated plaid skirts. None of them dare to make eye contact with us. They’ve learned the rules by now.
I am sweating by the time we reach the auditorium, and when Henry opens the door for me I’m filled with dread. Most of the velvet-covered seats are already taken and big bug eyes turn to see us walk down the aisle to our places in the front row next to Mr. and Mrs. Arnold. They’re both dressed in black. When we approach, they stand and dole out pursed-lipped air kisses to each of us. The smacking sounds echo through the cavernous room, and the scrambled eggs I had for breakfast curdle inside my stomach. The whole thing reminds me of my grandfather’s funeral when we stood for hours, receiving guest after guest until my puckered mouth wilted like a flower. I am the last to greet Mrs. Arnold and she digs her crimson nails into my skin.
“Hello, Jill,” she whispers into my ear. “Happy first day of school.”
I manage a smile and wriggle my arm from her grasp after a moment too long. When I squeeze in between Henry and Nikki, my heart beats fast. Shaila stares back at us from a gilded frame, sitting on an easel in the middle of the stage. Her golden locks fall in full, beachy waves and her deep green eyes have been made more electric with some help from Photoshop. She looks the same as she always did, forever fifteen, while the rest of us have acquired additional pimples, more painful periods, nastier dragon breath.
The theater smells like freshly xeroxed paper and sharpened pencils. Gone is the musk that had settled in by the end of last spring’s school year. This place was the one thing the Arnolds got right for her memorial. The auditorium was Shaila’s favorite spot on campus. She starred in every class play she could, emerging from afternoon rehearsals on a euphoric high I couldn’t understand. “I need the spotlight,” she said once with her deep, full laugh. “At least I can admit it.”
“Good morning, Gold Coast,” Headmaster Weingarten bellows. His bow tie is slightly askew and his salt-and-pepper mustache looks recently trimmed above his pointy chin. “I see many new faces among our ranks and I want to say welcome from the bottom of my heart. Join me.”
People turn to the newbies, kids who had spent their previous lives in public schools and up until today thought the first day of school meant homeroom and roll call, not saying what’s up to a dead girl. Now, in this new and strange place, their bewildered expressions betray them. They are obvious. I was one of them once, back in sixth grade. My scholarship came through only a week before classes started and I came to Gold Coast Prep not knowing a single soul. The memory nearly gives me hives.
“Welcome!” the rest of the auditorium says in unison. Our row stays silent.
“You may be wondering why we are here, why we start every year in this very space.” Weingarten pauses and wipes a tissue across his forehead. The air-conditioning whirs on overdrive, but his brow still glistens with sweat under the bright stage lights. “It is because we want to take time to remember one of our best, one of our brightest, Shaila Arnold.”
Heads turn toward Shaila’s portrait, but Mr. and Mrs. Arnold keep their focus on Headmaster Weingarten straight ahead.