Three Quarters Dead (2 page)

Then there at the far end of the lunch table in the food court were Tanya Spangler and Natalie Davenport. Tanya and Natalie, the Ground Zero of senior year, if that’s the term. Senior Year Central. There they were, unscrewing the lids off bottles of designer water. And Makenzie Kemp was with them, a junior. In fact she could have ruled junior year if she’d felt like it or had the time.

At first I thought they might be mean—Mean Girls. Not to each other. They were like sisters to each other, but better. But the Mean Girls of seventh grade had sat that close, texting each other across the table, their thumbs flying. They could give you the finger with their thumbs, and all their smiles were sneers. I’d spent middle school keeping out of their way.

But you couldn’t even picture Tanya and Natalie and Makenzie ever
being
in seventh grade. Ever. They were like the cast of characters from a TV show about how awesome the teen years are. Tanya, ash blond and completely coordinated—organized beyond belief or reason. Natalie, dark with those double-lashed violet eyes. And more graceful moves than
Swan Lake
. Makenzie with tously hair a color she called “ginger.” She was English, or possibly Scottish—whatever—and petite like a little piece of bone china smiling down from a shelf.

They sat there in full color, in a circle of their own private jokes, gusty with laughter, picking at salads, finishing each other’s sentences. I could see how it was with them. I had eyes in the side of my head. Natalie was actually the prettiest. Breathtaking, in fact. And Makenzie was the cutest. Not quite life-size, though full of life. But the entire senior class agreed that Tanya was the best looking. Not that I knew any seniors, but she sure looked famous to me.

You could be famous around here even for what you didn’t do. And Tanya wasn’t running for anything: senior class president, student senate. Whatever it was, she wasn’t running for it. “I don’t do politics,” she said. “I don’t compromise.”

I didn’t even know what that meant. But I knew what Tanya meant. Natalie wasn’t political either, of course. But surely she’d been born to be Homecoming Queen her senior year. That face. That body. Those moves. Who else could you see on a throne with all her court around her, in a tiara right out of
The Princess Diaries
?

Homecoming court was a little bit of a joke and somewhat down-market, even though you got your own double-page spread in the yearbook. But Homecoming Queen or not, Natalie was the most beautiful girl in school. She didn’t need a crown or a sash to prove it. She had absolutely nothing to prove.

Still, Tanya seemed to be encouraging her. “Try out for Homecoming Queen, why don’t you, Natalie?” she’d say. “You’re a shoo-in. And you can pick Sandy Bauer as your escort. You’re a little taller than he is, and it’ll make you look more regal. Try out for it by all means,
if you want to give it the time
.”

But then Natalie realized she didn’t. And as Tanya always said, “It’s important not to spread yourself too thin.”

I didn’t know about Makenzie trying out for things. I don’t think she ever did. Maybe she’d have been on the prom committee. I don’t know. I’ll never know now.

But as Tanya said, “Junior year is just basically waiting in the wings for senior year. It’s about getting ready. And it’s important not to peak early.”

Being this close to the three of them at the other end of the table was like sitting at the foot of Mount Everest. I could see the top from here. And even I, two light-years away, felt Tanya’s heat warm on my ear. I was
all
ears, eavesdropping to learn the language, to crack the code.

I didn’t know why they were even having lunch at school. Why didn’t they drive into town for lunch? Seniors had all these ways of not being there. And Makenzie could have ducked out. People probably forgot she wasn’t a senior already. I did sometimes.

Not that they were at the table every day. I’d have these dark days when they weren’t there. They had committee meetings to sit in on once in a while. But they didn’t spread themselves too thin. As Tanya always said, “Don’t get overinvolved with people you won’t want to know later.” She was a real believer in that.

Most days they were there. On my best days, October days with the world turning red and gold behind them out in the courtyard. Natalie tucking her sensational hair behind her ears. Makenzie swinging her fringed boots just above the floor. Tanya working through her calendar, point by point by point. Running a manicured finger down the page, checking something on her phone. Networking. Multitasking. She didn’t text quite as much as you’d think. She phoned, and she wanted you to be there at the other end. They were all three on their phones a lot. Who wasn’t?

Even I was, or seemed to be. Even after Abby Davis got too far off and in her world to call me, or call me back, I’d just hold my dead phone to my ear and pretend. I didn’t know how to make it ring like somebody was calling me. So I just held it to my ear. How pathetic was that? I know. I know. I probably even moved my lips. But it’s what you do when you’re fifteen and that far out of the loop.

Who was I even kidding? Who even noticed whether I was on my phone, or the moon?

Actually, somebody did seem to notice. Maybe somebody saw right through me from the other end of the table. Somebody who never missed a trick. All the way into October I never thought they could see me back, the three of them in their sacred circle. But guess what? I was wrong. Somebody spoke from the other end of the table.

“How would you like to friend us?” this voice said. This voice I knew so well. My turned-off phone jerked away from my ear and dropped in my lap.

“What?” I said. Because it was Tanya’s voice. Her warmest one.

The friend thing was a joke, of course. Tanya did very little Facebook and no MySpace. I’d heard her say that “friend” is not a verb.

“Me?” I said. Dumb. Dazed. Dry-mouthed. For the first time I looked at them without sneaking a peek. And Tanya was looking back. She had changeable eyes, and now they were sparkling. Inviting.

“Yes, you, Kerry. Why not come sit with us?”

She knew my name.

She knew everything. I expect she probably knew the phone in my lap was dead as a doornail. She glanced down at it in my lap. Just a quick look. Did she feel sorry for me? I didn’t think I saw any pity in that sudden glance. No, there was no pity.

Natalie looked up and smiled at me. Makenzie grinned my way. It was like the first glorious day of some new season. It was the first day of everything, for me.

And from that day on until . . . when, forever? From that day on it was the four of us, two on a side, Tanya and Natalie, Makenzie and—Kerry. It was like a story that jumps straight to a happy ending.

Somehow I was there with them, a deer in their headlights, their dazzle. I never wondered—why me? After all, I’d moved from reality to a reality show, and what could be better?

I hung on their every word, hoping for the day I could finish one of their sentences. It took me a while. They remembered things from last year. They remembered people who were seniors when they weren’t. Mindy Cashman, who was world-famous with a trophy across from the principal’s office because she’d been a gymnast who’d gone to the Olympics. Tanya remembered her well as a sweet girl with a skin condition, but somewhat driven. I limped along behind their conversations. “Try to keep up, Kerry,” Tanya would tease me.

“Yes, Kerry,” Natalie would say, “really try.”

And Makenzie would only smile her private smile and look away. Maybe she remembered being me. And anyway, if there weren’t any followers, where would the leaders be? Maybe I was their stake in the future. I’d be here when they were gone. Something like that.

Now that I was this close, I saw why everybody said Tanya was the best looking. The blond hair definitely worked, and the perfect skin unlike Mindy Cashman’s. But it was Tanya’s eyes: that gaze. Up her eyebrows would arch—perfect arches, and then that gaze that went right through you to the next thing she wanted. Nobody could ever remember what color Tanya’s eyes were. They were changeable, but she wasn’t.

I lived for lunch. Suddenly it was
High School Musical 4,
and I was in the chorus. In the back row, but working up my moves. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why. I only knew I was there, trying to keep up.

Only lunch mattered, and I couldn’t wait to get out of bed in the morning. As my mother said, I seemed to be settling into high school.

Other girls sat near us, as near as they dared. Even seniors, though B-list seniors like Emma Bentley and Samantha Jennings. The cheerleaders had their own table, of course, run by Shannon Grady, who was going to be Homecoming Queen even before she knew she was going to be Homecoming Queen.

And one thing I noticed about Tanya—she kept her lines of communication open with everybody, even when she was keeping her distance. “You never know who you’ll need,” she said.

I SUPPOSE THE drama people ate in their own bunch, maybe backstage. I don’t remember seeing Alyssa Stark at lunch. But then I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Guys buzzed around our table like crazy. They were there for a glimpse from Natalie’s sensational eyes. And a word or two from Makenzie to hear her accent. Makenzie was really hanging on to the accent.

But with guys, it was basically all Tanya all the time. Always guys trying to distract her from her phone to notice them for one measly, magic moment.

I wasn’t really that ready for boys. My hair felt funny around them, like it wasn’t falling as smooth as Natalie’s. And here were all these senior guys swooping their trays, reaching for cool. Even some of the more evolved jocks. Several swimmers like the Brolin brothers. A couple of track-and-field types. And student government leaders like Bob Silverman. Once in a while Spence Myers, who edited the school newspaper and had taken it online:
www.pondscum.edu
. Once in a
rare
while Spence Myers.

Sometimes I wondered why we didn’t see more of Spence. He was so much like Tanya, at least in my head. Spiritual twins or something. Bookends holding up the whole senior class. In any group of guys, Spence was the one you noticed. In any group of girls, Tanya was the only one you saw. On a TV soap they’d be a couple—hooking up, breaking up, getting back together—all the fun stuff in a lollipop-colored world. Why weren’t they a couple here in reality? Or were they?

I listened a lot to all the conversation buzzing around our table, whether I could process it or not. SATs were behind them. Now the buzzing boys were talking college : how to put together a great essay to promote yourself to colleges, and how to pad your profile. How to package yourself.

And early admissions. And winter term community service that would look good on your application. Building clinics in Guatemala or Sierra Leone or wherever. Also peer counseling and inner-city tutoring. But more important than all that, the prom. And who’d be giving the A-list after-prom parties.

Tanya wasn’t into colleges, though I hadn’t noticed that yet. But the prom was a different matter. Juniors give the prom in honor of the seniors. And last year Tanya was naturally head of the prom committee. She and Natalie were co-chairs, and it was the greatest prom ever. The theme was “Evening in Paris,” and Tanya had the ballroom of the Beekman Manor done over like Versailles or somewhere, with crystal Eiffel Towers. And she had the fathers of the juniors parking the cars in tuxedos. Then when the juniors’ mothers wanted to help with coat check and serving refreshments, Tanya barred them completely. Evidently it was great. Those seniors were probably still talking about it.

NOW, HERE IN October, there was already prom talk about next spring. At the time it seemed that the prom would be the major event of the season.

You weren’t supposed to take prom too seriously, but people were giving it serious thought. You didn’t even have to have a date. Guys in a bunch could go. Girls in a bunch, as long as everybody understood you had a choice.