The List (10 page)

anielle reaches for the tile marking the end of her swim lane. Then she twists around, presses her feet against the wall, and blasts the last lap of her heat.

Her mind is usually blank when she swims, clear and chlorinated like the pool water. But not today. Today her thoughts are murky and dark, like the water had been during the summer at Clover Lake.

The camp was nearly a hundred miles north of Mount Washington. Neither Danielle nor Andrew had been there before, but each had a relative who’d been a camper back in the day and who pulled strings to get them the extremely well-paying summer jobs.

The rest of the teen counselors were veteran campers, a tight clique who’d gone to Clover Lake as kids and knew all the campfire songs and the indigenous trees and probably didn’t care if they got paid anything, so long as they could spend another summer at the lake. Danielle and Andrew were the outsiders, and sometimes they’d share an eye roll when the other counselors critiqued the stability of their pinecone birdhouses or corrected their pronunciations of the Native American tribes who’d once inhabited the area. But it wasn’t like they were friends or anything.

The kids loved Danielle. The other counselors barely paid any attention to their campers, but Danielle included herself in
their activities, mainly so she’d have people to talk to. The girls in her bunk wove her a special lanyard for her lifeguard whistle. The boys constantly challenged her to impromptu races across the lawn or to swim to the buoys and back. At first, they seemed frustrated to lose, and lose badly, to a girl, but after a while, those disappointed feelings evolved into something closer to respect.

It was around that time that Andrew began to make himself more visible. She’d see him walking the edge of the lake while she sat in her lifeguard chair. She’d feel him standing close behind her in the food line. She’d catch him watching her through the flickering orange flames of the nightly bonfire.

It was the first time a boy had paid her attention.

She’d been writing old-fashioned pen pal letters to Hope for fun. But the topic of Andrew required more immediate communication. So she took to sneaking phone calls to give Hope a daily report on the comings and goings of Andrew.

“I feel like he wants to talk to me,” Danielle whispered to Hope one night, once her campers were asleep. She leaned against the cedar-shingled bunk and watched the stars in the sky, waiting for one to fall.

“So go talk to him first.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Danielle! Don’t be dumb. You talk to boys all the time. And we’re gonna be freshmen!”

“Never boys that may possibly like me,” Danielle clarified.

Hope said, “He’s probably nervous. You’re kind of … intimidating.”

Danielle closed her eyes and breathed the thick, humid air. She was nervous, too, which would hopefully level the playing field.

The next day, Andrew made his move.

Danielle was in the lake, up to her waist, leading a swim relay for the eleven-year-olds. She saw Andrew sitting on the dock, his legs dangling in the water. Maybe that was as far as he could go. She decided to swim over.

“Hey,” Andrew said when she reached the dock. “I came to warn you.”

“Warn me about what?” Danielle pulled herself out of the lake and sat next to him, far enough so that the water dripping off her wouldn’t get him wet.

Andrew kept his eyes on the lake. “Every boy in my bunk has a crush on you.”

Danielle wondered if Andrew counted himself among those boys in his bunk. She dropped her head to the left so the sun was not in her eyes and took Andrew in. He was tan with tufts of sandy hair. The sleeves of his navy camp polo were rolled up to his shoulders, exposing his lean, muscular arms.

“They were talking about you last night,” he continued. “Danny Fannelli said he was going to pretend to drown so you’d rescue him and give him mouth-to-mouth.”

Danielle burst out laughing. “Wow. Well, thanks for the tip.”

He waited a second, and then asked, “You’re going to Mount Washington next year, right? I think I heard someone say that.”

“Yup. Why, do you go there?”

“Yeah.” He scratched his head and squinted into the sun.

With that, the potential for a little summer fling, a chance to try out love with a boy for a few weeks, turned into a bigger, more exciting possibility. She struggled for something witty and funny to say back. Luckily, Danny Fannelli was near the shore,
flailing and splashing dramatically in water that maybe came up to Danielle’s knees.

“See what I mean?” Andrew grinned. “I told Danny that you probably have a boyfriend, so he shouldn’t even bother trying.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Danielle said with a laugh. She stood up and let her toes hang over the dock edge.

“Good to know.” He got up, too. “I’ll see you around, Danielle.”

“See you,” she said, before diving back into the water. Clover Lake had never felt so warm.

Danielle pops to the surface and pulls off her goggles to get a look at the timing clock. Seconds later, the girls in the lanes on either side of her splash up.

Mount Washington’s varsity swim coach stands over Danielle’s lane with her clipboard and whistle. Coach Tracy is tall and thin, and she wears her blond hair cut close, like a boy in the army, except for a few long pieces in the front that curl behind her ears. She’d swum through college on a full scholarship before tearing both rotator cuffs during a butterfly sprint for Olympic trials.

Coach Tracy has sat in a few other freshman practices before, watching from the bleachers, but this is the first time she actually participates, relegating their freshman coach to the lifeguard chair. Danielle heard a few of her teammates whisper in the locker room that Coach Tracy wants fresh meat to round out the varsity relay teams.

“Nice one, Dan,” Coach Tracy tells her. “But you’re losing at least a second on your flip turns. You need to be tighter.”

Danielle doesn’t hear the compliment. Or the critique.

As Coach Tracy steps over to address another swimmer, a bubble rises up in her throat. “It’s Danielle, actually,” she finds herself calling out.

Coach Tracy turns and raises her eyebrow. “What was that?”

“I’m sorry,” Danielle stammers, this time a little quieter. “I would rather you call me Danielle. That’s … my name.”

The freshman coach shouts from his perch. “Did you hear what Coach Tracy told you?”

“Yes. Got it. I was only —”

A shrill whistle silences her. Coach Tracy spits it out and calls, “Alright. Girls out, boys in. Let’s hustle.”

Danielle paddles over to the ladder. She tells herself not to feel bad about correcting Coach Tracy. After all, her name
is
Danielle.

But the nickname given to her by the list has taken on a life of its own. Despite the fact that she’s wearing makeup today, and flatironed her hair, people she doesn’t know have been calling out to
Dan the Man
in the hallway, offering fake hellos, mimicking what they assume to be her husky voice. Except Danielle doesn’t have a husky voice. They’d know that if they bothered to talk to her. Each time, it’s been a fight not to spin around and scream
My name is Danielle!
at the very top of her lungs.

But she hasn’t. And what she said to Coach Tracy is as close as she’s come to defending herself. But even this little stand makes her feel guilty, especially after the things that Andrew said. Plus, she wants to impress Coach Tracy. And yet, for some reason, Coach Tracy is the only person she feels okay correcting.

Hope grabs Danielle’s foot and pulls her backward through the water. “Way to kick ass,” she says, and splashes Danielle as she makes it to the ladder first.

“I blew my chance,” Danielle responds, following Hope out of the water.

“Please. It’s obvious that Coach Tracy came down just to see you swim.” Hope takes a sports bottle from the bleachers and shoots a stream down her throat. “I’m almost positive you’re getting called up to varsity. I’m thinking about lodging an anonymous complaint and getting your DNA tested. I swear, the way you swim, you must be part mermaid.”

Danielle smiles meekly as she runs her hands fast over her flat stomach, flicking the water off her bathing suit. When she looks up, she sees Andrew lurking near the door in his practice jersey and football pads. And her heart, which had started to slow down from the sprints, revs right back up.

She spent an entire summer wearing her bathing suit around him without a second thought. But before walking over, she stops to grab her towel from the bleachers and wraps it tight around herself.

“Nice job out there,” Andrew says, folding his arms. “You’re as fast as a fish!”

A fish is different from a mermaid, but Danielle doesn’t let it bother her. She’s glad he’s seen her this way. At her best.

“Thanks,” she says. “Aren’t you supposed to be at practice, too?”

“I pretended that I had to use the bathroom so I could see you.” His eyes go to the concrete floor. “We didn’t get much of a chance to talk in school today. Sorry about that.”

Danielle says, “It’s fine,” though she’d been hurt about it for most of the morning, after looking unsuccessfully for Andrew in all the usual places. By lunch, Danielle had accepted that Andrew was probably avoiding her. Strangely enough, this made her feel relieved. It was hard for her to pretend that she didn’t care about the list around Andrew, and especially around Andrew’s friends, who’d tease her worst of all. So in a way, it was good that Andrew was lying low. It made things easier on her. And on him, too.

Andrew pats her on the back, and then wipes his hand on her towel. “Well, I’d better go before Coach sends the guys to find me. I’ll call you later.”

“I’m supposed to go shopping with my mom for homecoming dresses. Hey … do you guys have a plan yet for Saturday night?” She isn’t sure how the dance thing works in high school. If people who are dating go together, like junior formal or prom.

Andrew shakes his head and starts to walk backward for the door. “I’m not sure what’s going on. Chuck has his ideas … We’ll probably hang out, but I’m not sure where yet. Everyone’s pretty focused on Saturday’s game right now. I mean, we have to win this one, or else we’ll be the laughingstock of the whole division. But I’ll let you know when things firm up.”

Danielle feels better as she walks away from Andrew. She can keep up the tough act a little longer, till this whole list thing blows over. Tonight, she’ll get something beautiful to wear to the dance. And then there won’t be a doubt in anyone’s mind, least of all Andrew’s, that she’s a girl.

heer practice is much more fun than it was a few weeks ago.
This is what Margo thinks as she gets dressed in the locker room. She changes into her workout gear — leggings, a tank top, tennis shoes, and a sweatshirt for the warm-up run outside. Dana and Rachel wear essentially the same thing. Tri-captains. They like putting on a united front.

Today the dance coach, Sami, is coming to do the final run-through of the halftime routine. The squad already has the moves down. This practice will be about fine-tuning. Making sure things look perfect.

Margo says, “Maybe one of us should sit out each time we run through the routine, to make sure everyone’s looking sharp.”

“Yeah,” Rachel says. “Sami can’t watch everyone.”

“Good call,” Dana adds. And then she laughs. “Anyway, when Sami dances along with us, she’s only looking at herself in the mirror.”

There are only a few more practices before the homecoming game. It will be the biggest game of the season. Students who graduated will come back for it. Last year’s cheering captains will be there, too, and they’ll expect the squad to look great. All except Maureen, who won’t be coming home. She might not even make Thanksgiving, depending on midterms. But it is still a lot of pressure.

Most of the cheer squad is already outside, waiting on the bleachers.

The younger girls start clapping for Margo when she gets close. It’s awkward, especially because Sami is there. Also because they’d done it the day before, too.

“What’s this about?” Sami asks.

The girls tell Sami about the list, which they shouldn’t. The list isn’t a thing to talk about in front of teachers, and Margo is paranoid about her encounters with Principal Colby. But it ends up being okay. Sami gets bashful and admits to the squad that she’d made the list once herself. Nine years ago, when she was a junior. Then the whole squad applauds Sami, and Margo is happy to have the attention off her for a moment.

But then Sami says, “As a prize, Margo gets to sit out the laps and hang with me. Alright, ladies, let’s hustle up!”

Margo thinks she sees Dana and Rachel roll their eyes at each other.

“I bet your friends are jealous of you,” Sami says when the squad takes off running.

“Nah. They’re not like that.”

Sami laughs drily. “Your sister, Maureen, had a lot of trouble with that last year. I don’t think people understand how hard it can be on us pretty girls.”

Margo watches as the squad reaches the other side of the field. She pushes herself up off the grass. “I’ll be back,” she tells Sami. And then she runs the laps anyway. It feels weird not to.

After cheer practice, Margo stops at her locker to trade her pom-poms for her books. Then she walks to the parking lot to meet Rachel and Dana at her car. The plan is to shop for home
coming dresses and grab dinner in the mall’s food court. Her mom has given her a charge card to use. Margo never abuses the privilege. She always hits the sale racks first. But tonight, she won’t hesitate to buy herself the perfect dress. Not when it’s the very last homecoming of her life. A year from now, she’ll be away at college, the dance just a memory. She wants it to be a good one.

She pulls up the hood of her cheering sweatshirt against the breeze. Maybe she’ll go someplace warm for college. Of course, that is months away. She hasn’t even filled out one application yet, or given her personal essays any thought. But the inevitable future looms over her, clouding everything with a sad nostalgia. She wonders where Dana and Rachel will end up. If they will still talk. She hopes so. They’re good friends. She loves them both.

Margo’s mind wanders back to her first homecoming dance three years ago. How she’d almost burned herself with the curling iron while fighting with Maureen for space at the bathroom mirror. How amazing it felt to be dancing next to Dana and Rachel in dresses, drinking sodas and hoping older boys would talk to them.

She’d been on the list that year, too. Bry Tate had made homecoming court for the senior boys, and he gave her his rose when the DJ put on a slow song. He was no Matthew Goulding, but more than a fine second choice. Bry had worn his football jersey to the dance and Margo remembers it smelling of grass when they did the slow dance shuffle underneath the disco ball. The rest of the football team had worn their jerseys, too, because they’d won the homecoming game, beaten rival Chesterfield Valley to a bloody pulp. Later that night, Margo
kissed Bry in his car, while Dana and Rachel kissed other boys in other cars. When she got home, she pressed his rose inside her diary. She still had the petals.

Everyone was so happy. Everyone had a great time.

Jennifer had been on that list, too, and she’d skipped the dance for obvious reasons. Still, Margo had kept an eye out for her. And though Margo didn’t want to admit it, Jennifer’s absence from the dance was a big part of why she was able to enjoy herself. Hopefully, Jennifer won’t show this year, either. There are only so many good times left.

Rachel and Dana sit on the trunk of her car. Margo waves.

And then, from the corner of her eye, Margo sees a round shape make a beeline for her. It’s Jennifer, waving, too.

Why is she still at school?

Margo strolls over, trying to appear unnerved. “What’s up?”

Rachel hops off the trunk. “We invited Jennifer to come shopping with us. She doesn’t have a homecoming dress yet.”

“I wasn’t even planning to go,” Jennifer says quietly.

Dana pushes her books into Jennifer’s arms, freeing her hands to tie her shoelace. “You’re
going
to the dance, Jennifer. You are definitely going. This is your senior year!”

“Maybe, if I can find a dress,” Jennifer says, hugging the books that aren’t hers.

Dana stands back up and pats Jennifer’s back. “We
will
find you a dress.”

The girls turn to Margo, waiting for her to unlock her car. Margo squeezes the keys tight in her hand. “I’m so sorry, you guys, but I have to bail.”

“What do you mean?” Rachel whines. “It was your idea to go shopping today in the first place!”

“I know.” Margo sighs, giving herself a second to think up an excuse. “But my mom just texted me. She wants me to come straight home. We’re meeting my dad for dinner near his office. She’s upset about how we never spend time together as a family now that Maureen’s in college. I think she’s having empty nest syndrome, you know, because I’ll be leaving next year.”

Too many details,
Margo thinks to herself. Rachel and Dana eye her, visibly annoyed. But Margo is annoyed with them, too. Why didn’t they mention that they’d invited Jennifer along? Did they want to blindside her? Didn’t it occur to them how uncomfortable this might be for her? Of course, Margo couldn’t get into any of that now. Especially not with Jennifer right next to her.

Dana takes her books back from Jennifer. “I thought the plan was to buy our dresses together to make sure we didn’t clash. So we’ll all look good standing together in the pictures.” There is a definite edge to Dana’s voice, hung entirely on the word
all
. And she doesn’t even register how screwed up it is to say that in front of Jennifer. Who wouldn’t be going with them to homecoming. Who wouldn’t be in any of their pictures.

Margo is about to suggest they go shopping tomorrow instead, even with the risk that Jennifer will elbow her way into that outing, too, but Jennifer turns away from Margo and speaks only to Rachel and Dana before she has the chance.

“If you guys still want to go shopping … I could drive us. My car’s parked right over there.”

Margo sits behind the wheel, thinking for a long time.

She should have gone with them. She could have played along, helped Jennifer find a dress, pretended that everything
was fine. Like they had no history. Like they were never best friends.

It had been the last day of school, minutes into no longer being an eighth grader but a high school girl, and to Margo, everything felt different. All that had happened earlier — the gym class water-balloon fight, the good-bye pizza party with soda served in little paper cups — were memories written in a kid’s diary. She’d suddenly grown out of her life, even though she could still see the rounded tip of her middle school’s flagpole from where she stood, like a doorknob for the sky.

She and Jennifer stood at the end of Margo’s street. Jennifer was finishing up a story about Matthew, how she’d heard him admitting to the other boys that, once he got to high school, he would only date girls who had at least a B cup. Otherwise, what was the point?

It didn’t sound like something Matthew would say, but when guys talked with other guys, all bets were off. Margo glanced down at her chest, barely an A.

Almost immediately after Margo called out “See you later” to Jennifer, her lips still warm from the words, from finalizing the sleepover plans Jennifer had made for them weeks ago, it occurred to Margo that she did not want to go.

Not only that, but she did not want to be friends with Jennifer anymore.

It wasn’t something Jennifer had done.

Not exactly.

But once the thought was there — or rather, once Margo finally accepted the feelings that she’d tried for months to talk herself out of — she couldn’t ignore it for one minute longer.

Instead of walking home to pack her sleeping bag and pajamas, Margo edged the toes of her Keds until they were cantilevered over the curb and watched Jennifer lumber up the hill with a lumpy backpack filled with relics of the past year: old binders, stale gym clothes, notes they’d passed, book reports from the first marking period. Margo herself had stopped carrying a backpack months ago, and everything that had been in her locker, she’d pitched into a trash can.

This image, juxtaposed with the lightness Margo suddenly felt, seemed to encapsulate everything, their entire friendship, the whole history, and why she wanted to let it go.

But letting go, she knew, would not be easy.

When Margo got home, she went to her sister’s room. Margo entered quietly, sat on the corner of Maureen’s bed, and waited for her to get off the phone. Maureen usually screamed at her to get out, but Margo supposed she looked upset, because her sister let her stay.

After Maureen hung up, she reached for her comb and began brushing her hair. “What’s up, Margo?”

“It’s Jennifer. I … I just …” She struggled to put today’s revelation into words.

“You don’t want to be friends with her anymore.” Maureen said it plainly, matter-of-factly.

It was a relief.

Margo had brought her diary with her, tucked into the waistband of her shorts, so she’d be ready to explain herself. If pushed for reasons, she could recall specific moments when Jennifer had been annoying, made her feel bad or guilty, acted weird around her other friends. It comforted Margo to have this proof pressed against her. It helped her feel like what she wanted to do was right.

It wouldn’t be necessary. Maureen didn’t need any convincing. If anything, Maureen looked relieved that she’d made this decision.

“Just prepare yourself, because Jennifer’s going to freak out. I mean, the girl is obsessed with you.”

“She’s not obsessed with me,” Margo said, even though it had felt that way lately.

“Please. She gets so jealous when you’re with your other friends. You try to include her, but she ends up holding it against you.”

Their friendship hadn’t always been like that. They’d had years of fun, years of good, easy times with each other. Margo resisted the urge to say as much, because it would just complicate things. She leaned back into the bed’s pillows. They puffed up around her.

“If I were you, I’d do it as soon as possible,” Maureen went on. “I mean, you’re about to be in high school. You can’t have Jennifer holding you back, making you feel guilty about meeting new friends and being invited places where she isn’t.”

That very thing had happened that afternoon.

A couple of girls invited Margo out for the night to celebrate the end of school. They were going to walk to the ice cream shop, see who was hanging out, and probably go night swimming in someone’s pool.

Dana and Rachel had waited to mention it until Jennifer left class to use the bathroom. All their invitations were like that. Secretive. Exclusive.

Margo was glad for their discretion. Because if Jennifer knew that Margo had been invited, she’d absolutely expect to come along. Jennifer seemed to think that, because they were
best friends, they could never do anything apart. And maybe that was true. Maybe that was how best friendships were supposed to work. But to Margo, it just felt suffocating. It was another reason to want out.

“I’m supposed to sleep over at Jennifer’s house tonight. I guess I could do it then,” Margo said, even though the idea of a face-to-face confrontation with Jennifer made her incredibly anxious. What was she supposed to say? List off all the reasons she didn’t want to be friends? What if Jennifer put up a fight? Argued with her? That definitely felt like a possibility. She would certainly cry. Margo, too, because it was sad. And after they’d had it out, would Margo still be expected to spend the night? For old times’ sake? She couldn’t imagine anything more uncomfortable.