Projection (10 page)

Ariel smirked. “What? You don’t want me to tell anyone
about you and your girlfriend? Is that why you’ve been flirting with Nick Ford all summer? So nobody will suspect that you like girls?”

“I don’t … it’s not like that,” Gretchen argued. Even in her anger, she couldn’t help but note how Ariel said Jessica had been flirting with Nick
all summer
.

“Oh, I think it’s just like that.”

“I know you were involved in my—in Gretchen’s mom’s murder. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth shut—”

“Oh, so now it’s you, too?” Ariel interrupted. “I didn’t know you and your best friend were both insane.”

This was not going as planned. Gretchen heard Jessica’s words echoing in her head:
If she shows that to anyone, our social lives will be over before they even start. And the Oculus Society will go down with us
. Gretchen took a deep breath and tried to start over. “I’m sorry, okay? That’s not what I meant. I don’t think you did it. It’s just, if you know something about it, then you might be able to help, and then I could convince Gretchen that she’s wrong about you.”

Ariel scoffed at her. “Don’t try to suck up to me now. Do you think I don’t see right through you? And do you think I care what your stupid friend thinks?” She picked up a stack of towels and pushed the cabana door open with her hip. “I liked it better when you ignored me,” she whispered, then walked away, leaving Gretchen standing there, alone.

Gretchen burst through the
heavy, dark doors of the clubhouse and made a beeline for the ballroom. She had made a mess of everything, and she needed a quiet place to think, away from everyone. She’d been to countless events in the ballroom over the years, from Christmas parties to birthday parties to
musicals put on by the Club’s theater group, and she knew that at this time of day, it would be dark and empty. As she’d assumed, the room was dark. But it wasn’t empty. There were sounds of people moving, then whispering. She flicked on the light switch.

In the back of the room near the stage, were Michelle and a man Gretchen had never seen before. Michelle was clutching her bikini top to her chest. The man was shirtless. Gretchen’s eyes widened.

“Oh, my God,” Michelle said when she saw who it was. She strode toward the front of the room. “What are you doing here, Jessica? Were you spying on me?”

“What? No! I was looking for somewhere quiet. I didn’t know you were in here.” She eyed the shirtless guy, who by now had turned the color of rare meat. He returned Gretchen’s withering look with a feeble smile. Gretchen turned back to Michelle. “What are
you
doing?”

“Um, I’ve gotta run,” the guy mumbled. He pushed open an emergency exit door in the back of the room and bolted through it. Michelle glared at her. “You are
not
to tell Rob about this,” she hissed. “This is none of your business.”

Gretchen thought fast. Jessica was going to have questions, and she wouldn’t be able to bring this up with Michelle again. Now was her only chance. “Who is he?”

“I just told you this is none of your business.”

“It’s my business now, and if you don’t answer my questions, I’m definitely going to tell Rob.”

Michelle crossed her arms in front of her chest and frowned. “Fine,” she spat. “You get two questions. That’s it.”

“So?”

“His name’s Mike.”

“And how long has this been going on?”

Michelle sighed and rolled her eyes. “Since June. I met him at Gretchen’s graduation party.”

“
What
?” Her voice rose. “When?”

“I just told you, I met him at the party. He knows Gretchen’s dad.” Gretchen’s mind raced. She hadn’t recognized Mike, but then again, her dad had dozens of colleagues and clients that she didn’t know, and it was true that he’d invited most of them to the party. Michelle looked up at the ceiling. “We were, you know,
together
, when they found her mom.” Michelle lowered her voice to a whisper as she adjusted her bathing suit. “Look, it doesn’t mean anything. I’m just having a little fun, that’s all. But you can’t say anything, okay? I didn’t want Rob to find out, so I lied to the police about where I was during the murder. I told them I was outside in the tent when I heard the screams, but—”

“But you weren’t,” Gretchen interrupted, feeling sick.

“No. I was in the laundry room with Mike.”

Gretchen sat on the
ground inside the teepee at the park. She was early. Jessica wasn’t supposed to meet her for another ten minutes. She leaned back against the wall and took a few deep breaths. Her head felt jumbled, as if someone had gone inside of it and rearranged everything without her permission. All the neat ideas about who she was and where she stood in the world had been rifled through and left in disarray.

Jessica
. They’d always been equals—well, in Gretchen’s mind, she’d always had a slight edge over Jessica—but now, Gretchen felt like she was trailing behind, with no chance of ever catching up. She had been home all summer, wallowing in grief and obsessing over Ariel Miller. Meanwhile, Jessica had blossomed. Not only did she hang out with everyone at the Club and flirt with Nick Ford, but she’d been invited into the innermost sanctum of the Oculus Society and had been given power—real power—that had been meant for
her
. Jessica had literally replaced her.

Still … she’d lived Jessica’s life for twenty-four hours, and
yes, in many ways she was jealous. But she didn’t want to
be
Jessica. There was a difference.

Gretchen checked the time on her phone, and her eye caught Jessica’s raggedy, chewed fingernails. She took another deep breath. She could feel the panic elevator starting to rise. What if the Plotinus Ability didn’t work this time? What if they couldn’t switch back? Gretchen imagined herself being stuck as Jessica forever. Living in Jessica’s house. Having Jessica’s children. There was a very real chance she could be buried alive inside of Jessica’s body.

Crunching footsteps on the wood chips outside the teepee shattered her claustrophobia; a few seconds later, Jessica ducked inside.
Finally
. Gretchen never imagined the relief she’d feel at seeing her own face and body again.

“Hey,” Jessica said, breathlessly. “How’d it go?”

“You first,” Gretchen said. “What did you do all day?”

“Okay. First of all, your life is super boring. I don’t know how you’ve gotten through the whole summer without tearing your hair out. I basically sat in your house all day. Except for dinner. Your dad and I went to Vito’s.”

“You did?” Gretchen gasped. She and her dad hadn’t been out to eat since the murder.

“Uh-huh. I suggested it, and he agreed. He said it was probably time to start going out in public again.”

“He
did
? Did he notice that you—that I—seemed different at all?”

“Sort of. He said that I seemed happier than I’d been in a long time. I told him that I was starting to feel like I could maybe move on a little bit. So you’re going to have to start acting a little cheerier when you get home, or he’s going to think something’s up.”

Gretchen frowned.
Great
, she thought.
Leave it to Jessica
to ruin the one place where I don’t have to be fake
.

“Anyway,” Jessica continued. “We talked a little bit.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gretchen asked. “What did you talk about? Did he tell you he’s worried that Spain might have to leave the EU because of their staggering debt crisis?”

“No. We talked about the anklet.”

Oh, God
, Gretchen thought. She and her dad never talked about anything having to do with her mom. This was exactly the kind of slip she’d been worried about.

“You heard me. I asked him what the deal was and why he had been looking for it.”

Gretchen was too amazed to be panicked anymore. She wished she had half the nerve Jessica did. “What did he say?”

“He said that Tina Holt had called asking about it, just like we thought.”

“Are you serious? Did she tell him why she wanted it?”

Jessica made a
pfffffft
sound. “Of course not. She made up some story about how the anklet is given to the outgoing President of the Oculus Society when her term is over, and that it’s passed on to the next outgoing President in some kind of ceremony. So Tina said they needed it back for when her term is over and they elect someone new.”

Gretchen couldn’t believe what Jessica had done. “And did he believe her?”

Jessica shrugged. “Hard to say. Tina’s called him three times to see if he’s found it, so I think he’s starting to get a little suspicious. He seems to think that maybe it was more valuable than your mom realized. It was all I could do not to tell him the truth. And that I think Michelle killed your mom for it.”

Gretchen chewed on her bottom lip. “Yeah, about that. You’re wrong.”

Jessica cocked her head the way she always did when she
was confused, and Gretchen was struck by the strangeness of seeing her friend’s mannerisms in herself.

“What do you mean? How do you know that?”

“I was at the Club today,” Gretchen said, pausing to let Jessica take in everything that statement meant and implied. Jessica looked down at the floor. “Anyway, I went into the ballroom for something, and I found Michelle in there. With another man.”

Jessica’s head snapped up. “
What
?”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” A smile broke on her face. “That’s
awesome
. Maybe now she’ll leave Rob.”

“Why do you want her to leave Rob?”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “Because he’s never going to leave her. He’s too dependent on her. But if she leaves him, then I can live with him by myself, and I won’t have to deal with her anymore. It would be the best thing ever.”

“What’s with you and Rob, anyway? He said something weird about how he needs you on his side. His side of what?”

“Gretch, in case you haven’t noticed, Michelle is a total bitch. It’s me and him against her, always.” Jessica narrowed her eyes. “What did you do to make him say that?”

“Nothing. I just, I don’t know, I guess I was acting more like me than like you. He thought it was weird that I was reading, and that I went to bed early, and that I didn’t want to play Halo with him. Oh, and that I cleaned up your room.” She allowed herself a little grin. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Oh, God. How am I going to explain all of that?”

“I told him that I’m starting high school in a few weeks and that it’s time for me to grow up a little bit.” Gretchen smiled. “So you’re going to have to start acting a little more mature
when you get home, or he’s going to think something’s up.”

“Touché,” Jessica said, dryly. “But wait, you didn’t finish telling me about Michelle. How do you know she wasn’t involved with the murder?”

“Because when I caught her with that guy—his name’s Mike, by the way, and apparently, he’s a friend of my dad’s—I asked her how long it had been going on. And guess where it all started?”

“Your party,” Jessica said, flatly.

“Mmm-hmm. And she made me promise not to tell anyone, because she lied to the police about where she was when she heard the screams.”

“She was with Mike,” Jessica said in the same tone.

Gretchen nodded. “In the laundry room.” Jessica chewed on Gretchen’s thumbnail. “Can you not do that?” Gretchen asked, pointing to her hand. “It’s disgusting. Maybe you don’t mind your fingers looking like they’ve been through a meat grinder, but I do.”

Jessica removed Gretchen’s hand from her mouth and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, I don’t even realize when I’m doing it. But let me ask you something: do you believe her? About Mike?”

“Of course I believe her. I
saw
them.”

“No,” Jessica said, shaking Gretchen’s head from side to side. “I mean, do you believe her that she was with Mike the night of the party? How do you know she’s not just making that up?”

“Why would she make that up?”

“Why
wouldn’t
she?” Jessica asked. Funny: her voice cracked in the same way Gretchen’s did when Gretchen was upset. All of a sudden, Gretchen felt a palpable hunger to return to the body where she belonged. She’d go insane if
she spent another second arguing with herself-as-Jessica or Jessica-as-herself. “You don’t know her like I do. She lies all the time. She’s a freaking news reporter; it’s her
job
. Look, maybe she thinks I suspect her. Maybe she’s trying to throw me off of her trail with this Mike story—”

“Listen, Jess,” Gretchen interrupted. “I also talked to Ariel Miller. It didn’t go well. And that sucks for both of us. And I’m sorry. I thought that if I talked to her while I was you, I’d be able to stay calm. But I was still me, and it was too hard for me to control my emotions. But can we please just …?”

“Switch back?” Jessica nodded. Gretchen’s own disapproving eyes stared back at her, filled with disappointment and anger and what? Agreement, at least. “We have to. Now. Look, I’ll talk to Ariel tomorrow, and I’ll apologize. For both of us,” she added. “Let’s just switch back.”

Jessica closed her eyes first. This time it was easier for Gretchen to let go. She closed Jessica’s eyes and breathed deeply. It was almost as if she could feel her body pulling her back, like they were magnets.

“
Écho exorísei aíma egó dió xei ostó n, proválloun ti n psychí mou se állo spíti,”
Jessica whispered. She leaned in and placed her mouth on top of Gretchen’s, and Gretchen felt that thick warmth inside of her, as if her body were being filled up with sand that had been sitting in the hot sun.

When she opened her eyes, she looked down to find her own familiar hands resting on top of her own, familiar legs. She exhaled with relief.

“Oh-my-God-I’m-so-glad-that-worked,” Jessica exhaled in a rush. Her eyes were moist. “Gretch, I had a moment there. I wondered if I’d have to live out the rest of my life as you.”

Gretchen nodded. She’d never felt so relieved and ecstatic
and confused. “Same,” she managed in a hoarse whisper.
My own voice, in my own head!
She wiggled her own fingers and toes, swallowed with her own throat, blinked her own eyes. She felt calmer already. But she also knew something: she’d never look at herself the same way in a mirror again. Staring at her own body talking back at her was nothing like looking at a reflection. It was like looking at another person. A person she could judge and criticize and form opinions about. Videos and pictures were one thing …