Between (35 page)

“Might as well be,” he says, looking at her. “I knew it was going to happen, though. When I found out Liz got voted onto the court, I knew the faculty would do something like that.” He half smiles. “If she’s around, I’m sure she’s on cloud nine. Leave it to Liz to get elected homecoming queen after she’s dead, right?”

“Huh.” Caroline kicks off her shoes to reveal swollen, red feet. “These heels are killing me.” She slides onto the ground next to Richie. “You have no idea what girls go through to look pretty, Richie. I should have just stayed home. Chad’s a jackass.”

“I could have told you that.”

“I know.” She gives my boyfriend a sideways smile. “You doing okay? Must be tough getting arrested.”

Richie doesn’t say anything, not even when Caroline rests her head on his shoulder. It is a sweet, innocent gesture that doesn’t make me feel the slightest bit jealous.

“I can’t believe you had a gun, Richie,” she says. “I mean, were you really going to kill someone? That guy you think Liz was seeing?”

“Vince,” he murmurs.

“Right.” She wiggles her toes, staring at their shimmering pink polish. “Vince.”

Richie stares at the ceiling. “I wouldn’t have used the gun. I wanted to, but I couldn’t have gone through with it. But I’ll be honest, Caroline. I liked having it. Just to be able to hold it, to
imagine
doing something with it. It made me feel … I don’t know, like I was finally in control of something for once. Everything has been so crazy lately.”

“I know,” she says. “It sure has.” Then she asks, “Did you have those pills when the cop busted you?”

“The pills you gave me to sell? Yeah, I did. They’re in evidence now.” He pauses. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I could have used the money, though.” She’s chewing a piece of gum. She snaps it nervously, each crack breaking the eerie quiet in the hallway.

“How much do you need?” He starts to fiddle with his boutonniere, unpinning it from his jacket, then removing the petals from the red rose, one at a time, and letting them drift onto the floor.

“Why?” She half smiles. “You want to loan me some money?”

“I would if I could.”

“I stole the pills from Liz’s bathroom, Richie.” She pauses. “That’s not all. I stole some money from her, too.”

My boyfriend drops his boutonniere. It falls among a mess of petals between his legs. “You what?”

“I stole money from her. It was in her bathroom with the pills.” Caroline closes her eyes as she continues her confession. “Five hundred dollars. Do you know what she would have been doing with that kind of cash?”

Richie scratches his head. I can’t help but smile at the fact that he’s done next to nothing with his hair; it’s the same pile of messy curls that he usually has, only tonight it looks like he took a moment to run a comb through them. “I have no idea,” he says. He hangs his head again. “But she was keeping lots of secrets. From me. From everyone.”

“Right.” Caroline nods. “She’d been different for a while.” She bites her lip. I can tell she’s thinking hard about something. “Hey, Richie?” she says. “Do you remember the party I had last year, when my parents were out of town?”

He nods slowly. “Maybe. Which one? You have a lot of parties … they all start to blend together after a while.”

“Yeah,” Caroline agrees, “I know. But this one … oh, never mind.” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Forget I mentioned it, okay?”

“Okay,” Richie agrees, without much interest. “Sure.”

Caroline stands up. She smoothes her dress and shoots a wary glance at her shoes, which are still on the floor. “Richie, she wasn’t a bad person. Everybody knows about her and that other guy, but I just keep thinking there has to be some kind of an explanation. Don’t you?”

He looks up at Caroline. He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been over it a thousand times.”

“Did you really start seeing Josie before Liz died?”

Richie shrugs. “Kind of. Not really. Josie was the one who told me about Vince. She thought I had a right to know. She was looking out for me. I guess I was so angry with Liz, and Josie was just kind of there … and now we’re together, I guess. She reminds me of Liz, you know? They’re sisters. Sometimes, if I really pretend, it’s almost like being with Liz.”

Caroline blows a tiny bubble. It pops, leaving shreds of pink gum on her glossy lips. “I guess that makes sense.”

He smiles. “It drives my parents crazy, too. My mom
hates
Nicole. She calls her a home wrecker, which I guess she kind of is. But that’s history. It wasn’t Josie’s fault.” He peers up at Caroline again. “It’s not awful, is it? My being with Josie, I mean? It feels okay. Josie’s nice enough. It almost feels natural.”

Caroline leans over, scoops her shoes off of the floor, and lets them dangle from her hand. She doesn’t answer Richie’s question about Josie. “It’s only a rumor that they’re sisters. Nobody knows for sure. And you know Liz didn’t think it was true.”

“My parents believe it. And Josie and Mr. Valchar sure do look alike.”

Caroline starts to walk away. “I’ll see you in there, okay? The dance is almost over. I’m sure Josie’s looking for you.” She pauses. “And, Richie? Parents don’t know everything.”

He lets out a deep breath. “Ain’t that the truth,” he murmurs.

I watch my friend stroll toward the double doors to the gymnasium. She and Richie are still alone in the hallway. Just before she reaches out to open the door, Caroline pauses. She looks over her shoulder at my boyfriend. He’s picking up the pieces of his shredded boutonniere, collecting the wilted rose petals in his cupped hand.

“Hey,” Caroline says, “can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Richie looks like he has no plans to get up and rejoin the dance anytime soon. He opens and closes his hand around the petals, watching as they shrivel from the heat of his palm.

“When you voted for homecoming court, did you write in Liz’s name?”

He leans his head against the wall. He closes his eyes. For just a second, I almost think he’s going to cry.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he keeps his eyes shut. He tilts his head toward the ceiling. He smiles. I know he’s thinking about me.

“Yeah,” he says, “I did.”

Caroline’s hand is on the door. She pulls it open a few inches. Noise from the gymnasium spills into the hallway, a din of teenage voices and a loud Black Eyed Peas song blaring, the poor acoustics in the room making everything sound a little bit fuzzy.

“Me, too,” she admits.

Richie opens his eyes. He looks at Caroline. The two of them are almost grinning at each other.

“She was something,” my boyfriend finally says. “Wasn’t she?”

Caroline keeps smiling. But she doesn’t say anything. She kneels down and slips on her shoes. She stands in the open doorway, visibly adjusting her posture, smoothing her dress, patting her updo to make sure everything is in place. Then she steps into the dance, leaving Richie alone in the hallway.

Only then, once there is nobody else around, does he allow himself to cry. He doesn’t make a sound.

When the dance is over, my friends make their way back to the limo waiting outside. As soon as the driver sees them, he quickly tucks a bottle of liquor—poorly concealed in a paper bag—into his jacket pocket.

“All riiiight,” Chad says, smirking. “Been having some fun while you’re waiting for us?”

The driver leans against the limo, crosses his arms. “What else am I supposed to do?” He snorts. “Read a damn book?”

“We’re ready to go,” Caroline says. She has taken off her shoes again, and has given them to Chad to hold. “Can you drive us to a party without wrecking the car?”

“You want to go to a party?” The driver looks at his watch. “It’s eleven already. You’re only paid up until midnight.”

“So we’ll pay you a little extra,” Topher says. “It’s not a problem.”

“Wait.” Josie grabs Richie’s arm. “I’m not getting into that limo if he’s been drinking.”

Richie looks bored and tired, his buzz from the schnapps long gone. “It’s like two miles to Chad’s house,” he says. I assume that’s where the party is. “It’s nothing. We’ll be fine.”

Josie shakes her head. “No. I’m not doing it. I’ll walk before I get into a car with him.”

“Josie, you’re overreacting.” Topher lights a cigarette, completely unfazed by the fact that there are faculty chaperones milling around in the parking lot. “He’ll go slow. It’s fine.”

“It will take forever if we walk,” Richie tells her. “Besides, you’re in heels. Come on, Josie. Just get in the car.”

“No!” She steps away from the group and looks around the parking lot, which is full of students getting ready to leave, most of them probably heading to after parties. “I’ll get a ride from someone else. I don’t care. I’m not riding with him. Richie, please. Stay with me?”

Caroline stares at her. “It’s not like you’ve never been in a car with a drunk driver, Josie.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the driver interrupts. “Let’s get something straight. I’m not
drunk
. I’m
buzzed
. I had a few nips to keep myself from dying of boredom out here. This isn’t exactly the greatest gig in the world, kids.” But his words kind of slur together as he protests, which seems to make Josie even more determined to go nowhere near the limo.

She looks at Richie. When she speaks, her voice is firm. “Are you staying? I see Shannon and James right over there.” She points across the parking lot. “They’ll give us a ride to Chad’s, I’m sure of it.”

Richie looks from the limo to Josie. He seems puzzled by her adamant refusal to get into the car. Everyone does.

Finally, he shrugs. “Okay. Let’s go ask Shannon.”

Alex and I watch my friends pile into the limo and drive away. We watch Josie and Richie climb into the backseat of Shannon’s car. We stand together in the cool night air as the parking lot slowly empties, the party over, until we’re alone outside the school. The lights are now on in the gymnasium, the metal double doors leading to the outside are propped open, and I can see the school janitor beginning to clean up the mess from the evening.

I look at Alex. “Well? What do you want to do? We could go to the party and watch everyone get sloppy drunk.”

He doesn’t smile. “No. I have a different idea.”

“What’s that?” The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees since the beginning of the evening. I’m beyond freezing.

“There’s someplace I want to take you.”

“Okay,” I say, smiling. “Let’s go.”

But he only stands there, staring at me. His gaze is so steady and lasts for so long that I begin to feel uncomfortable, and my smile slips away. “Alex, what is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I just want to tell you,” he says, “that I had a really great time with you.”

“Thanks.” I flash another, more tentative smile. “You’re a good dancer.”

He shakes his head. “I wasn’t just talking about tonight. I was talking about everything. All of this.” He swallows. “And there’s something else I’ve been meaning to tell you. It’s about the memory we saw together, the one of me at work.”

I can’t believe he’s bringing it up. “Yeah?” I ask.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” he says, “and I think I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have said those things to Chelsea. I should have taken her out. But it’s just—I just couldn’t. I was scared.” Suddenly, he seems embarrassed. He puts his head down. “I’m being dumb. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not being dumb. I think you’re right about Chelsea. You probably would have had a good time.” I pause. “Anyway, I’m glad we’ve had fun together. You deserve it.” I stare at the sky. It’s a cloudless night, the stars bright and fat. The moon is almost full. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll know when we get there.” He puts a hand on my arm. “Ready?”

I close my eyes. When I open them, there is an immediate sense of disorientation. I am surrounded by dirt, in the woods somewhere.

“Alex?” I can’t feel his hand anymore; I don’t see him anywhere. “Where are we?” I start to feel sick to my stomach.

When he speaks, he sounds far away. “I want you to find a memory,” he says. “Whatever comes to you. Just close your eyes and let it in.”

“Where are we?”

“This is where I died.” It feels cold and desolate, the earth around me damp and littered with dead leaves and broken sticks. The tree branches all hang low. I have a horrible feeling in my gut. I’m afraid of what I might see.

“Close your eyes,” he says, still sounding far away. “I’ll be right here, Liz. I’ll wait for you. Go.”

Twenty-one

I’m alone in the memory; Alex is nowhere to be seen. Immediately, I recognize that I look different. I’m younger, sure, but that isn’t all: I’m at least fifteen pounds heavier than I was in the weeks leading up to my death. My long blond hair is full of life and bounce. My cheeks are flushed.

And I’m drunk. I’m standing in Caroline’s foyer with my palm pressed to my forehead, staring at the ceiling. When I follow my gaze, I see that I’m staring at an enormous, twinkling crystal chandelier. My eyes are tight; I’m trying to focus on the light despite the chaos surrounding me. The house is packed with bodies in motion, teenagers dancing and bumping against each other, everybody holding big red plastic cups with their names written on them in black ink.

“Oh God,” I mouth, swaying slightly as I stand there, holding my cup so crookedly that it’s threatening to spill its contents. Nobody can hear me; nobody notices that I’m distressed. Sublime’s “40 Ounces to Freedom” blares from speakers in the living room, the sound infiltrating the entire downstairs. The music, which is upbeat rock, is such a contrast to Caroline’s otherwise stately house. The foyer’s wallpaper is patterned with dark green ivy. The floors are a deep, rich hardwood, covered with antique oriental rugs. On the wall next to the front door, there’s an actual fountain, a stone angel poised in silent watch over the party’s happenings, water flowing in a pool that surrounds her dainty bare feet.

“There you are! Liz, I’ve been looking everywhere—oh no. What’s wrong?” It’s Josie. My stepsister is positively giddy, holding her own cup, looking at me with wide, curious eyes that have the glazed look of somebody who’s under the influence.