The Girl Is Murder (11 page)

I eased myself into a stall and tried to figure out what to do next. Hadn’t they noticed my tears? Or had I miscalculated and smeared liver gravy down my face?

I wiped my cheek with a tissue to check for signs of food. My face was clean. I put my fingers against my eyes again and reignited the water. I sniffed, I sighed, and when that failed to stir any reaction, I blew my nose as loudly as possible.

The warning bell rang. We had ten minutes to get back to class. “You coming, Suze?” asked the nameless girl.

“I’m right behind you,” she said.

The door groaned opened and closed. My eyes longed to be flushed with water. I eased out of the stall and found Suze waiting for me.

“Everything copacetic?”

“I …” I squeezed my eyes tight and willed more tears. They didn’t come, and so I forced my mind to wander to the saddest thought it held: Mama. That did the trick. No longer did I need onions and cigarette smoke. The emotion was real now. “No. Not really.”

“Did something happen to your pop?”

I nodded to let her know that yes, that’s exactly what was upsetting me. “He’s been wounded.”

“Oh, no.”

“We got a telegram yesterday. They pulled me out of typing class to tell me. I can’t stop thinking about him.” I was a terrible person. At least part of it was true. I
had
been pulled out of class and Pop
had
been injured. It had just happened ten months before.

“Are they sending him home?”

“They didn’t say. I don’t know how bad it is. I don’t know if he can come home. I don’t know if he might …” My voice trailed off.

“Oh, baby, you must be sick inside.” She put her arm around me and I breathed in the scent of My Sin perfume and baby powder. Sick inside? She didn’t know the half of it. Someone knocked on the bathroom door and with the authoritarian tone of a teacher told us to clear out and head back to class.

“You better go,” I said. The onion was getting more potent, turning my waterworks into a waterfall. I tried to stop the flow, but without some water and alone time, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Suze got a wad of toilet paper from the stall and passed it my way. “I can’t leave you like this. You got someone you can talk to?”

I hesitated before shaking my head.

“Well, now you do. Meet me on the front steps after school. And try not to think too much between now and then. Seriously, baby—it won’t help anyone.” She wrinkled her nose and took in a whiff of air. “Do you smell onions?”

I mopped my eyes and shook my head.

“Must be this whole damn place. I can’t stand it when they serve liver and onions. Even when I don’t eat it, it follows me wherever I go.”

THE CLOCK COULDN’T MOVE fast enough. I had no idea how I was going to get Suze to talk about Tom, but that didn’t matter at the moment. Maybe I couldn’t get everything I needed in one day. This afternoon might be about building trust. Once she and I were true friends, I could figure out how to find out everything Pop might need to know.

I worried she might’ve forgotten about me at the end of the day—after all, it had been four hours since we last spoke—but after school she was waiting for me just where she said she would be. And she wasn’t alone—Rhona and the nameless girl who’d been with them in the restroom were with her.

“Hi,” I said, feeling uncomfortable that my audience of one had grown to three. The two girls gave me the once-over, their eyes at half-mast. The idea of spending time with me was clearly not high on their list of things they wanted to do.
Don’t worry,
I wanted to tell them,
I’m not looking forward to this, either.

From the corner of my eye I saw Pearl exit the school. She had a book with her and settled down on a bench to wait for me.

“Hope you don’t mind, but Rhona and Maria wanted to join us,” said Suze. So that was the girl’s name—Maria. I wasn’t aware there was a destination for this meeting, but the group started walking and I trailed along, wondering how on earth I could ask the three of them about Tom without appearing like I was digging for information.

It was obvious I couldn’t. At the very least Rhona wouldn’t appreciate my interest in her ex-boyfriend.

Rhona poked a thumb over her shoulder. “Aren’t you friends with that girl over there? Pearl Harbor?”

She and Maria shared a giggle.

“Not really.”

“I always see you two eating lunch together.”

“She’s tutoring me,” I said.

“In what?” asked Rhona. “How to gain fifty pounds?”

I wanted to defend Pearl, but I had a feeling that would do little to endear me to them.

“Why do you call her that?” I asked.

“Because she’s gotten big enough to be a target from the air,” said Rhona. “And she’s the worst disaster to ever strike the U.S. on its own soil.”

“Rhona’s just sore because Pearl was going around telling everyone she was knocked up last year,” said Maria.

Rhona shot her a look that should have struck her dead.

“Are you sure it was her?” I asked. “She doesn’t strike me as a gossip.”

“Trust me—your little friend is more than happy to go around talking about me and anyone else who catches her eye.” Rhona stepped toward me until I could smell the cigarette still on her breath. She put her index finger into the center of my chest and pushed with so much force that I had to fight to stay upright. “You tell her that the next time she opens her mouth to say my name, she’s going to find my fist in it.”

“Shush,” said Suze. Rhona lifted her finger and looked ready to deliver another blow to my sternum when Suze shot her a look that made her instantly step away from me.

Was Suze defending Pearl? Or me?

My chest burned where Rhona had poked it. I rubbed the spot, certain I was going to find a hole that went all the way through me. “I’m sorry she said stuff about you. Her brother was killed in the spring,” I said. “I think that’s why she eats so much.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wished I could take them back. I shouldn’t be talking about Pearl, not even if I thought I was defending her. I certainly wouldn’t have been happy if Pearl was going around telling everyone her theories about why I acted the way I did.

Maria rolled her eyes. “What a bringdown.”

“Grief does weird things to people,” said Suze.

Rhona’s scowl remained fixed. Nobody in high school wanted to be talked about. Nobody.

“I’m sorry about your pops,” said Maria. “What branch is he?”

“Navy,” I said.

She lit a cigarette, discarding the match on the pavement beneath her.

“Rhona’s got a Navy boyfriend,” said Suze.

I saw my opportunity and leaped at it. “I thought you went with that boy Tom Barney.”

“Not anymore. He took off and I took up with someone new.” Rhona threw her head back and laughed. The other girls echoed the sound. “It’s about time I found someone more mature.”

“Rhona’s Jim is twenty-three,” said Maria.

“Wow,” I said, unable to hide my surprise. Could this really be the same girl who’d been crying about Tom just a few weeks before?

I realized they were all staring at me. How long had I been musing on this in silence? “How old is Bill?” I asked Suze.

“Nineteen,” she said. “He graduated last year.”

“And what about you?” I asked Maria. “Do you have a boyfriend who’s joined up?”

“Maria likes a little chocolate in her milk,” said Rhona. “She goes with a boy from a colored school.”

“But he’s talking about enlisting when he graduates,” said Maria. It was funny how defensive she sounded. What was so great about dating someone who had joined up? It wasn’t like you could step out with them once they were overseas. Wouldn’t you rather they were here, safe with you?

As though she’d heard my thoughts, Suze told Maria, “Don’t wish for it. Staying home doesn’t make him less of a man.”

“And it won’t turn him pale, either,” said Rhona. “You stuck on someone?” It took me a minute to realize the question was directed at me, and even longer to figure out what she meant.

“No,” I said. “I mean, I don’t really know anyone.”

“That’ll change,” said Suze.

The group turned and entered Normandie’s Pharmacy on Catherine Street. Suze snagged a booth in the back and we each slid across the red leather upholstery, Maria and Rhona on one side, Suze and me on the other. “You like egg creams?” Suze asked me.

“Sure.” I didn’t have any money on me, and even if I did, I could hardly afford to spend it on soda. “I think I’ll just have a glass of water,” I said.

“Don’t worry—it’s my treat,” said Suze. She held up four fingers and the man behind the counter caught her signal and nodded his acknowledgment. Across from him, the pharmacist worked with a mortar and pestle to crush pills into a powder.

Rhona killed her cigarette and lit a fresh one. Maria followed suit. They both looked my way like I was a circus animal they were hoping would entertain them. Why had they come? Had Suze suggested they join her just in case spending time with me bored her to death?

Maria leaned over and whispered something to Rhona. The two women slid out of the booth, telling Suze they’d be right back.

“They don’t like me,” I said.

“Rhona’s just sore about Pearl. And Maria doesn’t like anyone Rhona doesn’t like.”

“So was it true?”

Suze shrugged. “About Pearl being behind the rumor? Who knows? Rhona wants to blame someone, so she blames your friend. And if Pearl gets the blame, so does anyone who knows her.”

I thought about once again claiming that Pearl wasn’t my friend, but I didn’t want to feed Suze another lie, not when I was hoping she’d be honest with me.

“Maybe I should go.” I slid toward the edge of the booth and dragged my purse after me.

Suze snagged my bag and gently pulled me back. “They don’t know you, baby. That’s all. When you’re a senior, fresh meat seems like a thousand years ago.”

“So why did they come?”

“Rhona wants to talk to me and didn’t want to wait. Where Rhona goes, Maria goes.” Her eyes drifted toward the ladies’, where the two girls had disappeared. How many hours did they spend in public restrooms? “Don’t worry about them. Let’s talk about you. You feeling better?”

I shrugged, uncertain of how far to take this charade. “Just scared, I guess. I don’t know whether to hope there’s another telegram at home or to be terrified of the same thing. I almost didn’t come to school today.”

It was a telegram that had told us Pop’s fate right after Pearl Harbor. I had come home from Chapin to find Mama in tears, the brief scrap of paper clenched in her hands. She never let me read it. Instead, she told me what it said, trying to frame it as potentially good news since it meant Pop finally got to come home for good.

I remember wanting to share her tears, but I couldn’t find it in me to cry. Instead, I buried my head in her shoulder and pretended to sob until Mama’s own tears dried up. It was the last time she ever held me.

“I was that way when all Bill was giving me was radio silence,” said Suze. “But you can’t sit home and suffer. It doesn’t change the way things are going to turn out, you dig? Besides, they got you out of class once for news. If there was more, they would’ve done it again.” Suze was so mature. I always assumed public school girls grew at a different rate, lacking access to knowledge those of us of privilege were exposed to. But while it was clear that I might have been more book smart than the average girl at P.S. 110, they possessed a world-weariness that made me seem like a baby in comparison.

“Right,” I said. “But it’s not like I have much choice. All I have is home and school.”
And Pearl,
I should’ve said.

“Not anymore, baby—you’ve got me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Come on now, Suze. It’s swell of you to take care of me like this, but you have to admit, you don’t want to spend every afternoon babysitting someone like me.”

She cocked her head to the right. “How old do you think I am?”

“Eighteen?”

“Try sixteen.”

“How come—?”

“I’m hanging with the big fish? You don’t choose your friends, they choose you.”

Suze was sixteen, only a year older than me. And yet with all our differences, she might as well have had a hundred years on me.

“You’re still thinking like a private school girl, where everyone stays in their neat little rows, wearing their pressed plaid skirts. You’ve got to get out and live a little, baby. It’ll take your mind off your pops and it will make the day go a heck of a lot faster.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’d like that.”

The dark-skinned soda jerk came over with a tray of glasses. He set the four egg creams on the table and offered Suze a wink. “You off today, Suze?”

“Yeah, Reggie.”

“You work here?” I asked after Reggie had disappeared.

“Only three days a week.” She played with one of her wooden bracelets. “It’s mainly coffee and doughnuts, but it’s enough to keep me in clothes and out of trouble. You got a job?”

I shook my head no.

“Must be nice,” she said in a way that made me wish I’d invented something.

“I guess most everyone at P.S. 110 works, right?” I said. How could I turn the conversation around to Tom?

“Some do, some don’t—just like anywhere else. You know what—you should come out with us Friday night,” said Suze.

My heart skipped a beat. What did they do on Friday nights? Prowl the streets? Rob the elderly? Shoplift? “Are you sure Rhona and Maria want me to?”

“I’m asking, not them.”

I tried to squelch the excitement building inside me. “What about the others? Won’t they mind?”

“What others?”

“Those boys I always see you with. Tom Barney and those two Italians?”

“Tommy’s AWOL. As for the other cats, they do what they want to do, just like us.”

“What do you mean Tom’s AWOL?”

“Absent without leave. He’s been missing for weeks now.”

“Missing? Is he all right?”

“Knowing Tommy, he’s fine. School’s not his game. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

The questions I wanted to ask fought for supremacy. Before I could decide which one to voice first, Rhona and Maria returned.