The Screaming Season (13 page)

And the one time I’d been alone with her in the hospital, the one time I could have talked to her about it without my dad around, she’d started talking incessantly, just babbling, and I hadn’t had the chance.

Didn’t make the chance,
Jane would have said.

But these tears weren’t about my mom. They were about Troy. It was just that every time I was sad about anything, missing my mom came along for the ride. I didn’t know if I could ever get rid of it. I didn’t know if I wanted to. Missing her was almost like having her with me.

As I was wishing for a tissue, my phone rang. We didn’t usually get phone coverage on this part of the campus, and I was startled. I jerked, grabbed it, and connected.

“Lindsay,” Troy said.

I closed my swollen eyes.
He’s changed his mind,
I thought. I felt as if someone had just strapped me into a roller coaster. I was so nervous I couldn’t make a sound.

“Lindsay ?”

I tried to clear my throat.

“I’m so sorry,” he rushed on.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

“I hated doing that on voice mail.”

I imploded. He hadn’t changed his mind after all.

“But you did it,” I said, and disconnected.

I turned around and saw Julie and Elvis heading toward me. The others were lagging behind, watching. Rose was swinging her petticoat in little half circles. I smelled bacon and coffee. And mud. I heard a bird trilling. I was hyperaware of everything, and I knew this was a moment I would never forget.

Then my phone rang again. I wasn’t going to answer it. If he heard me crying, I would never forgive myself.

But I glanced down at the faceplate and saw that it was Heather again. I looked up at Julie and Elvis, just a few feet away, and held up a hand. Julie blinked and smiled, clearly assuming I was talking to Troy.

Turning my back, I swallowed hard, took a breath, and connected.

“Hey,” I said hoarsely.

“Oh, my God, I’m so glad you picked up. My mom dropped me off early because I have this stupid yearbook meeting, which I did
not
want for my elective, but who cares because you are
not
and I mean
not
going to believe what happened two minutes ago.”

I sniffled. “You gave birth.”

“Fea!”

“Taylor Lautner asked you out.”

“Are you
ten
? You won’t guess. Lindsay, Riley threw down with Jane. In front of everyone. He dumped her and then he turned around to all their friends—you know,
your
old friends—and he told them that she was a poser and a user and she didn’t really care about any of them. And that he was sick and tired of hearing her diss the world and he was sorry for every time she had said something mean about one of them and that he had not told her to shut the hell up.”

“You shut up!”
I cried.

“Are you
nine
? Who says that anymore?”

“What did she do?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Telling off Jane. I couldn’t imagine doing it. It would be like standing in front of a tiger and telling it to shoo.

“She laughed and said he was lying because she wouldn’t have sex with him anymore.”

“ What?”
I wiped my eyes. Julie gave me a questioning look and I waved my hand to let her know it wasn’t more bad news. I wasn’t sure what kind of news it was.

“Well, you know they’re all pretty free about admitting they’re doing the deed. She started talking about how
bad
he was at it. I think she convinced a few people. You know Jane. A total actress.”

“What did Riley do?”

“Walked away.”

“Well,” I managed, “good for him.”

“The point is, Lindsay, that I think he did it because he still has feelings for
you
. I think he’s been sorry ever since it happened. And then you had the breakdown, and you left. But when you came home for Christmas and he saw you again, you flipped out again. So I’m thinking he blames himself that you keep going crazy.”

“Wouldn’t that make you want to run if you were a guy?” I asked, thinking of Troy.

“Not if you really cared,” she replied firmly. “It might make a
nice
guy feel guilty. He really did like you.”

“I thought,” I began, and then I faltered. I had never told anyone what I thought. I lowered my voice. This was one of my deep dark secrets.

“I thought maybe Jane ordered him to hang out with me. Like, give the nerd a thrill. Or maybe to test his loyalty or something.”

“Oh, my God, you have no self-esteem.”

“This is news ?” I asked. She was Heather. She had known me best. She’d understood when I started being so horrible. She’d known I’d been driven by the crazy promise of acceptance by Jane and her golden elite. Driven, and driven crazy. If she could see me now, in my jeans and my hair, surrounded by
Teen Vogue
models and bona fide, professional actresses, she’d know how hard I was fighting to prove that I was over and done with all that nonsense.

Troy.
No more walks, or photography sessions, or meeting at my house for Monopoly and movies. Ever.
Troy.

“Heather,” I said, “this guy I really liked up here ? He just broke up with me. I mean, we hung up and then you called.”

Heather was quiet for a moment.

“That is entirely freaky,
fea
,” she said. “But maybe it’s fate. Maybe you’re supposed to end up with Riley.”

“A cheater.”

“He made a bad mistake. But I think he regrets it, Linz.”

Julie came forward and pulled out her cell, tapping the faceplate and frowning. Rose zoomed up and darted around her and swung her pocket watch back and forth, back and forth. Julie mouthed,
Going to be late.
I nodded at her.

“Maybe you’ll come home
now
?” Heather asked me.

“Maybe,” I said. If Celia was gone and Mandy—or someone else—had staged that accident . . . maybe I could just leave. Maybe the nightmare was finally over.

ELEVEN

THE GIRLS AND I walked into the commons for breakfast, and I made a concerted effort not to look in the direction of Mandy’s table. Jessel sat together: Mandy, Lara, Alis, and Sangeeta. There had been five, with Kiyoko. Five of the possessed girls:

Belle Johnson

Lydia Jenkins

Anna Gomez

Martha St. Pierre

Henrietta Fortescu

First Kiyoko, and then Julie, and then Rose had been possessed by number six, Pearl Magnusen, the nicest of the batch. I didn’t know where she was now. Neither Julie nor Rose remembered anything about it. And Kiyoko was dead.

I heard Mandy laugh, and Julie said under her breath, “She’s pretending everything is fine.”

“She’s trying to retain some dignity, no?” Marica said, which was fairly close to defending Mandy. But Marica was a perpetual defender of class under pressure. Mandy
was
retaining her dignity.

“Everybody stay close to Lindsay,” Julie ordered. “Mandy might not know . . . the circumstances.”

“You mean that they’re mutual dumpees,” Rose said. “Might blame Lindsay for the breakup and challenge her to a topless whip duel.” She flounced in her skirt.

Julie frowned and started to say something, but Rose jetted off for the serving lines. We sat down at our table and I could feel my head—and my heart—spinning.

I felt disoriented for the rest of the day, as if I were the new girl all over again—the irony being that we were all new. Marlwood had reopened after a century of serving as a retreat for the descendants of Edwin Marlwood. I wondered who they were and where they lived. If they minded that their school was back in session.

If I wasn’t the only new girl, I was the newest. I had arrived later than everyone else, wait-listed until someone else decided not to stay. I had arrived academically behind everyone, and now, because of my time in the infirmary, I was desperately behind.

I lost track during discussions about all the academic camps and summer enrichment courses my fellow students were already enrolled in, both because they were so unattainable and because I was unfocused and dizzy. I didn’t respond to the glossy gossip that Jilly Maguire, the actress who was in my biology class, was having some major plastic surgery done during break. I didn’t even blink when someone mentioned that Lourdes Caprio had gotten a Porsche Boxter for her sweet sixteen.

All this was their version of normal. It was like watching a movie; I felt strangely detached. I grinned to myself when I thought of Riley calling Jane out. And then I found myself aching and heartsick when I remembered that Troy’s message was still on my phone and that I should erase it.

But I couldn’t—not yet.

ONE WEEK TO the night since the accident and the breakup, I was studying in the library. Rose was due to help me with math. We were doing probability theory, which I did not understand at all.

She darted over to my study carrel and leaned over me. I showed her the problems I was working on and she said, “Hmm, hmm,” like a doctor examining my tonsils. “Okay, good. Keep going.”

“Thanks.” Most of our tutoring sessions were like that.

“Guess who wants to see me,” she said in a low voice.

Troy?
I almost blurted. But I just raised my eyebrows.

“Dr. Morehouse.” She made a face. “Is this because you went loony on Valentine’s, do you think?”

Of course she knew what had happened in the operating room even though she hadn’t been there. Rose was a first-class observer and spy.

“It probably is,” I told her. “Or else he wants to know if you still believe you’re the lost princess of Atlantis.”

“Or a virgin,” she said, snickering. “Whoops, sorry,
you’ve
still got the white hat, huh. Troy didn’t—”

“Rose, please, let’s not talk about it.” I picked up my pen. “I’m sure Dr. Morehouse just wants to make sure everything’s okay.”

She scrunched up her face. “You can’t like Dr. Freud, Lindsay. He sounds like a Norwegian. And he’s so weird.”

“You think so ? I
do
kind of like him,” I ventured, waiting to see her reaction. I was surprised that she thought he was weird. He seemed nice, even though he was a therapist.

“Eww.” She made a show of shivering. “He’s got you fooled, baby. Didn’t you notice his eyes? Dead.” She made her face go slack, and a chill ran down my spine. She did look dead.

“Well, anyway, don’t worry. I won’t say a word.” She mimicked zipping her mouth shut and throwing away the key.

“A word about . . . ?” I looked up at her, and she blinked as if I were being deliberately clueless.

“Like, how, well, let’s call it all the pure and total dysfunction.” Mine or everybody’s?

Rose ticked her gaze from me down to my hands. I was clenching the ends of the pen in my fists, as if I were going to snap it in two. My knuckles were white.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Like I said, I’ll cover for you.”

“But you don’t need to cover for me,” I insisted.

“Okay.” She patted the top of my head. “It’s all good.”

She turned to go.

“Rose,” I said, and she turned back. “When’s your appointment? I have to see him too. Maybe we’ll run into each other there.”

She sneered. “Tomorrow during free period. Does that not suck? I have to see him on my own time.”

“That sucks,” I affirmed. “Suckily.”

“They’re probably charging the parents. Not us, of course. But if money is involved, those super-rich moms and dads are going to want to see results.” She made claws of her hands. “No more wackadoo, baby.”

“Thank God we’re poor. We can still be wackadoo,” I replied.

I made a point of going back to my studying. She danced away, disappearing among the stacks. The library was busy, filled with other girls studying and whispering, catching up on e-mail on the library’s computers. Even their after-school clothes were beautiful—cashmere sweats and hoodies, Italian silk scarves draped around their necks, diamond bangle bracelets and perfect, perfect nails.

About two minutes later, Mandy walked out of the same area of the library where Rose had gone. I ducked my head, avoiding contact, but I watched her. Mandy bore watching, always.

She was dressed in ghostly, foggy gray—gray sweats, gray turtleneck, gray hoodie lined with what I hoped was faux fur. Her hair hung like a platinum veil, concealing her profile, and she was walking stiffly, like someone who had been bedridden—like me this past week, like Memmy was before we knew what was wrong with her. Everything about her snapped into hypersharp focus. My heart pounded, and I shivered. I was afraid that if Mandy pulled back her hair, I would see Belle’s face—white and dead, like Celia’s.

She sailed past, unaware of my presence.

That’s not Mandy,
I thought, my stomach pulling at my backbone.
And whoever it is, she’s done something to Rose.