The Basic Eight (42 page)

She blinked. “Well, OK. It
is
like it sounds.” We both giggled nervously. “It’s
just
like it sounds. We–well, not
me
, I was getting rid of my dress. But Adam was put in the trunk, and Douglas and V drove her gorgeous car to–”

“Why did you have to get rid of your dress?” I asked.

“There was–” She gestured like she was wiping her hands on an apron. “All
over
him.
Me
. I mean, it was, well–”

“
Evidence
,” I said.

“
Messy
,” she said. “To a bad neighborhood. They drove the car–”

“But they’ll find the car, won’t they? I don’t get it,” I said. Still not being able to remember this gave me a cushioned pad, so I could talk about things like they weren’t already happening, like it was some TV movie. Which of course it
is
, now. “Why did you put the bod–Adam–whatever–in the trunk of V ’s car? They’ll find the car, and then they’ll–”

“That’s why I’m talking to you,” she said. “We’ve got to think of something, Flan. When we all saw you were freaking out–”

“I wasn’t
freaking out
,” I said. “I just didn’t–”

“We need
everybody
for this,” she said. “Kate’s organizing it, of course, she’s such a–well, I shouldn’t complain. They’re getting you out of it, but–”

“
Me
?”

Natasha bit her lip. “Don’t you see, Flan? We shouldn’t have done the thing with the car. They’ll
find
the car, and then they’ll–”

“Why did you put it in the car in the first place?”

“We
had
to,” she said defensively. “There was still a party going on when you ran in, screaming and with blood–”

“
Me
?”

“Yes,” she said. “You’d
seen
me, and I guess some of the–so, anyway, we quickly ended the party, and we had to get rid of–well, for safekeeping–”

“And now,” I said, “he’s in the trunk of V ’s car in a bad neighborhood, is that right?”

“Well, not anymore,” she said. “Douglas and I moved it to the student lot.”

“At
Roewer
?” I asked incredulously. “Have you gone mad?”

Natasha seesawed her hand,
so-so
. “Actually there’s a method behind it.” She looked at my finger and then at the sand. “Does that hurt?”

“You know, oddly enough I can’t seem to concentrate on my finger injury because I’m suddenly seized with the notion that we’re all going to go to
jail
!” I said. Panic was running out of each strand of my hair so it must have been sticking out like static. I spread my arms out wide. “What are we going to
do
?”

“
Something
,” Natasha responded instinctively, and then looked at me. “Look, if they found V ’s car in some neighborhood they’d just suspect
us
. If Adam’s–death–”

“
Murder
,” I corrected. “You
killed
him, Natasha.”

Her gorgeous hand seesawed again. “It doesn’t matter. The point is that now the car will be found at Roewer, so
anyone
could be suspected. Not just you.”

“
Me
?” I blinked and I felt the bullet slide into the chamber, or cock the gun or whatever I mean:
click into place
. I saw myself, clearly, a scorned woman drunk and angry at a party. Hell hath no fury etc.

“I mean, not just
me
,” Natasha said quickly. “Don’t worry. As Kate would say, we can
do
this.”

“They’re going to suspect
me
!”

She twisted a strand of her hair around her sharp, stern finger. “No they won’t,” she said quietly. “Not with the car at Roewer. Now it could be
anyone
who did it, don’t you see? If we all work together–”

“Natasha,
why
did you–
how could you
? I’m sorry, Natasha, but I don’t think a
high school clique
can–”

“We
have
to,” she said. She stopped moving and looked at me, slit-eyed. “I’d do it for you,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“We did it when you let those fruit flies go.” “Oh,” I said. “
Well. That’s
comparable.”

“I’d do it for you,” she said again.

“
How do you know? How do you know
you’d do it for me?” “Believe me,” she said. And then: “Please.”

As the sun rose the beach just got uglier and uglier. What had looked like rocks, in the foggy dim, were broken Styrofoam coolers. Dog mess mingled with lazy seaweed dotting the land- scape like spent condoms. The roar of the traffic was hitting its stride, easily competing with God’s ocean, and everywhere, everywhere were bits of broken glass. “Natasha, why did you do this thing?”

“He’s a dick,” she said. “
Was
a dick. I don’t know. Baker’s Rule, or something.”

“You know, Mr. Baker was talking about
math
.”

“I don’t know,” she said again. I could almost see her, in full detail. Almost clear as day. How long had we been here? Past the shore the ocean sat, waving listlessly, and past that there wasn’t anything. With the clouds so low you couldn’t see anything at all. Any boats or islands were obscured in the foggy air, so that not even the horizon was evident anywhere, just the sea leaking into a smoky nothing. “Our lives are over,” I said. Some
thing
in my head rose to the surface and threatened to pop like one of those domes of lava you see in active volcanoes, near boiling. A watched pot. All my friends, my best friend, me: we were incred- ibly screwed. “Our lives are–”

“I heard you,” she said quietly. “Will you help me?”

She had stepped so close to me that when I looked at her I saw the texture of her lipstick, stretched and

cracked slightly from talking. She was vulnerable. “
Would
I?” I said, reducing the proceedings to a joke from which I could al- ways get a laugh. The grimy water stretched out, almost catching my foot. The drops of blood were washed away like a symbolic moment only writers are sensitive to.
To which they’re sensitive
. “Would I? Would I?”

Wednesday November 3rd

I was dripping in my towel, opening my drawer, when the cancer hit. A black clump of memory, a little velvety bubble of carbona- tion, stretched against the confines of my skull, squatting and sulking like a bad plum. Everything I’ve forgotten is still balled up behind my eyes, inscrutable and sensitive to the touch, a cold, impenetrable marble of truth. I’ve already taken four aspirin.

There in my drawer I found my plain white shirt with the small flower embroidered on it. At the party Natasha was dressed like me, remember? “I want to wear something
regular
,” she said. “But, you know, sarcastic regular. Ironic. You know, for Hal- loween.” There the shirt was, stark clean, blinking white. If Natasha had been wearing my shirt, why had she burned the dress? It was a mistake, I was sure, that we’d pay for later.

I was already running late but I decided to look for Natasha’s nail file and give it back to her, thinking I should try to set this jigsaw as right as I could and return things to their proper places. My tumor throbbed in my head as I overturned sofa cushions and peered underneath tables but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there. You remember the nail file, don’t you? The one with the claw at either end, one claw striking a faint bell in my head and the other stretched out into the ether, invisible and irrevocable. Like–
shit
!–the bus.

Millie and Jennifer Rose Milton were running late too, Millie applying her makeup in the rearview mirror at the red light where I stood shivering. “Get in, get in,” she called, but Jenn just glared at me.

“I don’t want to interrupt anything,” I said cautiously, as Jenn looked on, her lips taut and tight. That’s right, taut
and
tight.

“We’ve already been
un
interrupted,” Millie said. “I forgot to set my alarm. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Or
Jenn-Jenn
, for that matter. I found her asleep on the
floor
of her room, in yesterday’s clothing.”

“
Yesterday’s clothing
?” I asked, mock shocked. “How passé, Jenn.”

Millie shrieked with laughter; even little Jenn-Jenn snorted and turned to roll her eyes at me. “Oh Flan,” Millie said, capping her lipstick with a brisk click. “No wonder you’re a writer. You always have a line.”

“Yes, well,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Oh, I’ve been trying to ask Jenn-Jenn this, but she’s been so
touchy
lately.” Millie spoke lightly, but I saw her meet Jennifer Rose Milton’s cold eyes in the mirror. “We need to choose a new opera. Do you have an opinion on
Tosca
versus
Faust
? Hard to choose between murder and the Devil, eh?”

Lightning could strike anytime now. Any time at all would be fine.

“Flan?”

“Um–”

“
Shit
!” Millie said, jamming on the brakes. We all nodded for- ward, like praying Muslims. Traffic was stalled in front of school. For some reason the student parking lot was blocked and the parking guards were waving people away with useless arm sweeps. “What
is
this?” she said. “The faculty lot’s full again, and we’re not allowed in the

student lot–where are we supposed to park? The union’s going to go
crazy
.”

We were inching closer and closer to the entrance of the student lot. There was a small crowd of people, mostly students, with a few impatient teachers trying to herd everyone out of the way. But what was going on? The parking guards kept waving away, and cars were trying to inch out of lanes, trying to turn around in driveways. Then suddenly somebody tall moved, and a flashing red light shone in my eye, spinning DANGER and explaining the backup. We inched closer. Policemen waved us through, their eyes squinting in the fog-filtered sun, their jaws set in an official grimace. Occasionally they’d call out something inaudible, but you know what it was. What it always is. Move along, move along. There’s been a problem. The police are here. The culprits will be hung.

Jennifer Rose Milton and I glanced at each other. My stomach dropped like a cartoon anvil. “Maybe we should get out of the car,” she said hesitantly.

“Yes, OK,” Millie said, looking distractedly in her rearview mirror. Yellow police tape was being unwound and wrapped around posts and trees like some big kite had tangled itself up in my high school.

Jennifer Rose Milton opened the door and jammed it into V ’s chest. “Oof,” she said, holding her stomach. “
Watch
it.”

“Sorry.”

“Well,
watch
it.”

“She said she was sorry,” I said, still marveling that somebody had actually said “oof” out loud, like we were in a comic strip.

“Fuck you,” V said, looking at the cops. I guess it wasn’t a comic strip; I guess it was reality. In a comic

strip V would have let loose a string of asterisks and exclama- tion points.

“V !” Millie said amazedly.

“I was just kidding,” V said, halfheartedly remembering herself. “I’m sorry, Millie. My car was stolen and now they found it.”

“It was
stolen
?” Millie said. “That gorgeous car? That’s awful.

Jenn-Jenn, you didn’t tell me V ’s car was stolen.”

“V ’s car was stolen,” Jennifer Rose Milton said stonily. “But
now
,” V continued, her dark eyes on me, “it’s in the

student lot.”

“I’m confused,” Millie said. A car behind us honked. “You all get to homeroom and we’ll talk about it later. I’ve got to find parking, preferably within a five-mile radius. Oh, V –do you have an opinion about the next opera we do? We were talking about
Tosca
versus
Faust
. Hard to choose between murder and the Devil, eh?”

“I don’t know,” V said. “It doesn’t matter, I guess.”

Honk
. Move
along
, Millie. “OK,” Millie said, looking at V
curiously. “I’m glad they found your car, V .”
HONK
. Millie moved off and we walked to the sidewalk.

“Flan?” V asked with elaborate casualness. “Do you mind telling me what exactly the car is
doing
in the student parking lot?”

I was trying to remember what Douglas had said. “Douglas and Natasha moved it.”

“Why?” Jennifer Rose Milton said.

“Ask them,” I snapped. Why was everything about
me
all the time? I opened the door of the school; inside it was pandemonium. Kids were yelling and yelling, while teachers waved their hands above their heads and the loudspeaker squawked something. A locker crashed open

and somebody’s life toppled out: books, papers, photographs, all trampled beneath everyone’s expensive shoes. Some people were crying, and others were shouting; suddenly a knotted whirlpool appeared in the crowd as somebody, her hands over her face, became the center of attention. Mokie, his glasses crooked on his face, pushed his way through the crowd violently, actually thrusting people aside like they were clothes of the wrong size, muddling the rack. He reached the person everyone was swarming over, and grabbed her. Her hands slapped him, each one a tiny wicked claw like Natasha’s emory board. Mokie grasped her by the shoulders and began to move her like a shopping cart; she turned around and I saw it was Rachel State. Her eyes were wide open and raccoonishly made up, her face was gummy black with all her Goth makeup melting under her brother’s death. Her mouth was open in a drowned-out howl. Mokie dragged her to his office door, opened it, shut it behind them.

“They must have opened the trunk,” I said, and Jennifer Rose Milton glared at me and put her finger to her lips. With difficulty we made our way up the stairs where the din was quieter and better organized. Clumps of students were seated in circles on the floor, leaning against lockers. A few of the more star-struck freshman and sophomore girls were crying, but mostly everyone was talking very fast, spreading the crumbs of gossip in grating high voices. It was the sort of scene I always pictured going on inside Kate’s brain.

Right on schedule Kate ran up to us, with a wan Douglas scurrying after her.

“
There
you are,” she said to me. “Douglas was just telling me this whole thing was
your
idea.”