Lessons from a Dead Girl(24)

A few days after the shirt incident, I sit next to Jess at practice. She smiles at me and says, “Hi.”

“Hi,” I say back, a little too friendly.

This is the extent of conversation number two. But at the next practice, we sit beside each other again. This time she nudges me when Mrs. Hathaway, the band director, claps her hands and tells us we’re all brilliant.

“Must be deaf,” Jess whispers.

I snicker.

Two practices later, Jess asks if I want to share stands with her.

“Sure,” I say nervously. But when I put my music away to share hers, we realize she plays second clarinet and I only play third, and both sets of music won’t fit on the stand.

“Oh, well,” Jess says. “We can still push them together. That way Hathaway can’t see us write notes.”

Hathaway? Notes? Apparently, Jess has decided we’re friends.

I slide my stand next to hers so our music folders touch and Hathaway can’t see us. Jess gives me a satisfied smile.

After practice a few days later, Web Foster is waiting in the hall for Jess. I didn’t know they were friends, but it’s obvious they’re close by the way Web grins at her when he sees us. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me with Jess. He even knows my name and says hi.

The next day we’re sitting in chemistry, and Web sends Jess and me the same note.

I dare you to scream as loud as you can at 10:05.



We both look over at him like he’s crazy, but he winks and points to the clock.

I don’t think any of us will really do it, but as I watch the minute hand slowly making its way to the five, I decide I’m going to go for it. It’s the end of the school year. What’s the worst thing that could happen? What do I have to lose?

As the second hand nears the twelve, we exchange looks and nods. Then, just as the hand clicks onto the twelve, I take a deep breath and let out a “Wooh!”

Jess and Web echo my own pathetic, but victorious, howl.

When we stop, the room is deadly quiet. We look at one another, our faces bright red. I feel like I’ve just lifted a huge weight off my chest, and I’m smiling like a nut. I’ve never done something like this before. Leah would never do it. She’d say it was totally lame. She’d probably roll her eyes and say how juvenile we are, which is basically what the rest of the class does. No one looks at us. Mrs. Fiske, our teacher, just says, “Enough!” But no one in the class even acts like it was an odd thing to do.

After class, the three of us meet in the hall and burst out laughing.

“That was the weirdest experience I’ve ever had,” Jess says.

“Jess, you live a boring life.” Web sighs.

“But nothing happened,” I say. “No one did anything! We didn’t even get in trouble!”

“We freaked them out, that’s all,” Web says. “It was beautiful, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Jess and I say at the same time. Then we all crack up again.

I have passed their initiation test. I have friends. I wonder what Leah would say to that.





Just when I finally make friends, they desert me. Two weeks after the scream, school vacation starts and Jess and Web go away. Jess goes to Maine with her parents, who run a dive shop there all summer. Web’s parents are making him go to private school in the fall, so he has to go to their summer-school program before he can enroll.

I’m alone again.

I decide to work in my parents’ antique store. Mostly I dust and polish things. My dad plays fifties music off the restored jukebox because he thinks it makes customers feel nostalgic. Within two weeks, I’m walking around with Buddy Holly and Fats Domino songs in my head. It is so pathetic. I’m convinced that I’m a complete failure and will be a hermit the rest of my life after all, humming to the tune of “Ain’t That a Shame.”

But then Jess IMs me and asks if I want to come spend a weekend with her.

I write back in all capital letters: YES!

She sends back a smiley face.

When I step off the bus, she hugs me close. I hug back and glance over her shoulder at the small wharf and quaint little shops by the water. As we embrace, I feel odd, like people are looking at us. I pull back quickly, but Jess doesn’t seem to notice.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” she says. She has a dark tan. Something about her is different. She looks great. Maybe it’s because she seems so much more relaxed than at school. Maybe it’s just the tan.

“We’re gonna have a blast!” She grabs my backpack off my shoulder and drags me up a narrow street. Her parents’ summer place is right in town, a little apartment over the dive shop. Jess’s room is a tiny, renovated attic painted white with a round window with a view of the ocean. There’s a single bed under the eaves with milk crates stacked on top of each other for a side table.

“It’s not much, but we won’t spend time in here anyway,” Jess tells me. “C’mon. Get your suit on and we’ll hit the beach.”

She pulls her tank top up over her head and begins to unfasten her bra. I quickly turn away. My cheeks are hot.

“What’s with you, Laine? We’re both girls,” she says matter-of-factly.

I try to laugh and fumble through my backpack for my bathing suit.