Good Girls Lie(71)

The seat where Camille normally holds court looks so empty, so out of place. Because so many have crowded the table today, it is the only open spot. I stop behind it. “May I?”

After an interminable moment, Vanessa nods and I sit, fiddling with a piece of my ponytail. My arm feels like it’s on fire, and I force myself not to scratch. The will it takes not to claw my skin to shreds is Herculean.

“Are you okay?” Piper asks.

“Yes. It was a long night.”

Laughter, loud and harsh, filters over from Becca’s table.

“Becca pissed at you?”

“She thought it would be better for me to sit with you today. A show of solidarity because of Camille.” The lie flows from my lips as easily as my breath.

Breakfast is served. I push the eggs around my plate, unable to eat. The girls are talking about Camille, primarily, but there are a few who seem nonplussed and are planning their attack, how they’ll usurp the juniors when they try out for the fall play, Sophocles’s Antigone. It is only in the past decade that the school dropped the requirement to have the play done in its original Greek.

I hear a name that makes my radar prick up. Rumi. Who’s talking about Rumi?

It is the table next to me. Girls who live on the other side of the sophomores’ hall.

They are whispering in a staccato shorthand; I only catch every other word.

“Do you...think... I mean, he did it?”

“Who else could... Someone... Rumi stole the keys.”

“Come on, guys. You’re... It’s stupid... Like Camille would fuck a townie.”

“Well, the dean—”

Raucous laughter drowns out the rest of the conversation. The seniors, amusing themselves.

“How inappropriate,” Vanessa sniffs. “It’s like they’re happy about it. Oh, someone died, how sad, at least we get out of classes. Fucking bitches.”

While I agree, I tune out Vanessa’s complaints. I can’t help but cast glances toward Becca as the laughter continues. I try to catch Jordan’s eye, two tables over, but she is engaged in some sort of conversation with her roommate and doesn’t look up. A few other faces from that side of the dining hall look vaguely familiar. Relief washes through me.

None of the Swallows of Ivy Bound are sitting with their Falconers. This must be a part of the hazing. Open rejection.

Lovely.

“Why did she do it, Ash? Do you know? You were the closest to her.”

This from Dominique Rodrigue, a sophomore who lives at the end of our hall, right by the kitchen. We haven’t spoken more than ten words all term.

“I really wasn’t. And I don’t, Dom. I don’t know anything.”

The whispering chatter at the adjacent table begins anew, drawing me back. What does Rumi have to do with Camille? I’ve seen nothing, nothing, to indicate they even knew each other. Hell, Camille warned me away, said he was dangerous. A pedophile.

I can hardly believe that was yesterday. Yesterday, Camille was alive and warning me away from Rumi. Yesterday, Becca and I were friends. Yesterday, I was still protected. Safe.

I can’t do this. I can’t sit and eat and pretend it’s all okay. Can’t gossip and can’t laugh. But to get up and leave now will draw every eye in the place.

Camille did this to herself. So why do I feel so very responsible?



53

THE AFTERMATH

Some of the girls see the counselors, others sit in circles crying in jags, bemoaning the loss of a friend, but most just congregate in the sewing circle to tell lies about Camille and her suicide. Word of the abortion has spread, and speculation runs rampant. There are no secrets in a school as small as Goode, and with Camille gone, it seems all intimacies she shared are now fair game.

Vanessa and Piper act shell-shocked enough, keeping to themselves in their room, but how else did word of Camille’s indiscretions get out? I didn’t say anything. Maybe Becca, she was there. But I can’t help but think it was Vanessa and Piper who leaked the news. It makes them seem important, ties them to the tragedy. It helps the school make sense of why Camille died.

Alone, I finally get in a nap, then pop in my earbuds, select my most hard-core London ’80s punk scene playlist, and try to read a book by a programmer named Peter Seibel, a collection of interviews with famous coders. Dr. Medea handed it to me last week and suggested it might be a fun read, offered extra credit for a report. In normal circumstances, I’d agree and already be outlining the paper. But today, the text is dry as dust, the interviews boring and repetitive. I’m not in the mood.

The room feels so empty. My thoughts stray to Camille, looking for any signs that she either was depressed or truly hated me enough to sabotage my life at Goode, and finding none that stand out in my memories, I turn them, inevitably, to Becca.

Even though none of the Swallows had been with their Falconers this morning, I can’t help but wonder...was the banishment this morning because I missed my appointment, or was it because I didn’t jump right into Becca’s bed last night?

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

My mum said that to me once, a very long time ago.

I try out some adjectives ahead of the noun: hell hath no fury like a privileged, spoiled, imperious, conceited, false girl scorned.

Had I scorned her, though? No, not really. I was honest in my surprise and confusion. Surely Becca won’t hold this against me.