The Cheerleaders(76)
The backs of my eyes prick. “I wish I could talk to her. I just want to ask her what happened.”
Allie’s fingers go still around her straw. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Even before her friends were killed, I noticed something was going on with Jen.” I collect my cappuccino off the coffee table, keeping my eyes on the cup. “There was this other cheerleader my sister couldn’t stand—Carly Amato. She was kicked off the team.”
There’s a brief flash of something ugly in Allie’s expression. “I never kicked Carly off. She quit.”
My thoughts swirl. Patrice had sounded so sure that Allie had kicked Carly off the team. “Oh. It’s just that I heard this rumor….”
“I know the rumor.” Allie’s bubbly voice has gone flat. “Is that why you asked me here? To find out if my boyfriend cheated on me with Carly?”
My throat has sealed up. I can’t find the words to defend myself, if there even are any.
Allie stares at me, her expression frosty. “I don’t know why you care, but no, it’s not true. The whole thing got blown out of proportion. I found Carly’s earring in my boyfriend’s car,” Allie says. “Obviously I asked him how it got there. He said that his best friend had met Carly over the summer, and they’d been hanging out. One night Carly called them up asking to buy her beer. They picked her up, and her earring must have fallen out in my boyfriend’s backseat.”
“And you believed him?”
“His friend backed the story up. And this might sound mean, but my boyfriend never would have gone for a girl like Carly.” Allie’s eyes flash. “It was still really stupid of them. I mean, hanging out with a high school girl and buying her alcohol? They could have gotten in a ton of trouble.
“Anyway, I didn’t kick Carly off the team. Before I knew what really happened I said some horrible things to her. I just kind of lost my mind. She quit and the rumors started.” Allie stares back at me. “What does any of this have to do with your sister?”
It’s exactly what I came here hoping she could tell me. Allie is one of the only links left between Carly and my sister and her dead friends, and all I’ve done is piss her off.
Connect the dots. Maybe Carly and Allie and her boyfriend were never dots to begin with.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I didn’t mean to waste your time.”
“It’s fine. I have to go teach now.” Allie stands up, looking at me as if she’s not quite sure how she got here. “Good luck with Oneonta. If you even really want to go there.”
My mom can’t pick me up until the rehearsal she’s supervising at the playhouse is over at 7:30, so I have to kill time in the library. I grab a chair in the magazine section and text Ginny.
I pause, thinking it over.
An ellipsis appears and disappears. Appears again. As if Ginny keeps typing out a response and deleting it. Then finally:
* * *
—
It’s almost ten o’clock, and Ginny hasn’t texted me an update. She messaged Carly as Elizabeth Lewis hours ago, inviting her to coffee to talk about the International Honor Society of Nursing.
The society doesn’t exist, which Carly could figure out very quickly from Google. Our plan to lure her to the college student activity center relies on Carly not being the brightest bulb in the box.
There’s also the chance that her guard is still up after my visit; Carly may not have thought twice about adding Elizabeth Lewis as a friend, but the invitation to meet up in person might be suspicious to someone with something to hide. And ever since I talked to Ethan at Osprey Lake, I’ve been convinced that everything Carly told me is a lie—and that she holds the key to figuring out what really happened the night Juliana was killed.
If Ginny and I can’t pry anything out of Carly, I don’t know where that leaves us. We can try to track down the guy she was seeing—Allie’s boyfriend’s friend—but after Allie’s abrupt exit after I brought him up, it’s clear she’s not interested in indulging my poking around into the events of five years ago.
When Ginny calls me, I pick up on the first ring.
“She’s free Friday at six-thirty,” Ginny says. “She has practical exams this week, so that’s the only night she can do.”
“That’s fine.”
Ginny hesitates. “You’ll have to miss a good part of float building.”
“I don’t give a crap about float building if you don’t.”
“Monica, I’ve never once gone to float building,” she says. “I could not give less of a crap about it.”
* * *
—
There is still the issue of faking enthusiasm for Friday’s pep rally, and Saturday’s parade, game, and dance. I don’t know how long Alexa and Rachel will tolerate my moodiness.
If anyone else has noticed how unpleasant I’ve been, apparently it doesn’t bother them. On Thursday morning, the student council president announces that I’m on the junior class homecoming court.
I sit up a little straighter, cheeks burning from a dozen sets of hands in my homeroom clapping for me. I strain my ears to hear the rest of the girls’ names.