So we picked on Alice Franklin. A nobody, a slut, a killer.
And then the craziest thing happened this afternoon. Maggie and me and some of our other girlfriends were sitting in the bathroom cutting French class or Chemistry class or whatever class we had that period. I was sort of trying not to think about the fact that I was starving because I’d only had a granola bar for lunch. Kelsie Sanders was with us. Now I could sort of tell that Kelsie was feeling really super tentative about hanging out with us—I mean, she was Alice’s best friend. I think she was worried that maybe we wouldn’t accept her, but Kelsie’s always been cool with me. She’s always been super sweet and everything. You could just tell, though, that she was thinking that any second we were going to tell her to get lost. Like the way she hesitated before talking. Or the way she laughed a little too hard at everything I said. It’s weird, the feeling of power you get sometimes when you’re popular, but I guess I try to use my power for good, not evil. So I’ve been letting Kelsie Sanders hang out with us.
Anyway, so this afternoon we were all sitting there talking about whatever when Kelsie suddenly said all dramatically, “Okay, so I have to tell you something. About Alice.”
“What, she did it with the entire football team last weekend?” I said, fishing in my purse for my lipstick.
“No, it’s way worse. I think she got an … abortion.”
Kelsie lowered her voice to a whisper when she said the word abortion. I let my lipstick drop.
“What the hell?” I said, and before I could say anything else, Maggie said, “Oh God, did your mom make you protest again?” Maggie goes to the same totally whacked-out church as Kelsie, so I guess she figured out what was up.
“Yes,” Kelsie said, rolling her eyes. She told us how her mom was always dragging her and her little sister to the Women’s Care Clinic in the city to protest abortion and how she tried to get out of it whenever she could, but on some Saturdays she found herself standing behind the gate of the clinic, holding up posters.
“Like, ones with dead babies on them?” somebody said, and Kelsie shuddered a little and said yes.
“So, what? You saw her go into the clinic?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Kelsie said. “Last weekend. With her mom. She didn’t see me. They just rushed in there.”
“Well, maybe she was just going for a check-up?” Maggie asked.
I arched an eyebrow. “Like they don’t have doctors in Healy who do check-ups?” Naturally, everyone agreed with me.
“Do you think it was from … that night?” someone else asked.
“Do the math,” I said. “My party was what, close to three months ago? Perfect timing. I’m sure it was from that night.”
“And the really gross and scary thing is…” Kelsie continued, and for a second I could see how much she was loving this, just getting to be in the center of our little group with all of us listening to her, “… I mean, she would have no idea who the father is. Tommy or Brandon? Isn’t that so totally skanky?”
“Totally,” Maggie whispered.
“I can’t even believe she used to be my friend,” Kelsie said. “It’s just, like, that was another time in my life, you know?”
“Totally,” I said.
“So you don’t miss her?” Maggie asked. “You don’t even feel a little sorry for her?” I thought Maggie was acting weird. I mean, Alice was responsible for Brandon Fitzsimmons dying. And it wasn’t like Alice had to sleep with him at my party.
What Kelsie did next really surprised me. We were just standing there in that girls’ bathroom with the green-and-white tile and the scummy sinks and instead of answering Maggie, Kelsie searched through her bag until she found a black Sharpie, and she opened up the stall next to us, the middle one. She uncapped the marker and wrote right there on the wall to the left of the toilet in letters that were at least two inches high.
ATTENTION!
ALICE FRANKLIN IS A HO SLUT WHORE WHO DOES IT WITH EVERYBODY!!!
We all laughed, all of us, and then I said, “My turn.”
ALICE FRANKLIN HAS GIVEN 423 BLOW JOBS!!! NOW THAT’S A LOT OF DICK!
I stared at the graffiti and watched how quickly the shiny Sharpie writing dulled into a permanent black stain. The other girls behind me lined up to take their turns.
Josh
I’ve been thinking about the accident pretty much all the time. The sounds of the ambulance. The sun beating down on me as they pulled me out of the car. How it’s really true that time speeds up and slows down and your brain goes all whacked out in moments like a car wreck. I wouldn’t say I think about it constantly, but basically I think about it pretty much a lot. I think about Officer Daniels interviewing me in the hospital. I think about Mrs. Fitzsimmons sitting on my dad’s recliner asking me all those questions.
It’s weird, the things I think about when I remember the wreck and everything that happened afterward. Like maybe my brain is trying to make it so I don’t think about what happened right before the accident and Brandon’s dying. It just focuses on the stupid stuff instead. Like Officer Daniels’s chewed up pencil. Or Mrs. Fitzsimmons’ glass of sweet tea.
But I still think about it. I think about it during football games (we lost our last one against Johnston) and I think about it while eating mystery meat in the cafeteria and I think about it in English class. We’ve been reading a book about the olden days when this lady supposedly did it with some guy and they weren’t married and she had his baby, and that was a huge deal back then. So she had to wear a red letter A on her dress all the time. Kind of messed up, I guess.
I think about it until I can’t think about it in any new kind of way. Until my brain gives out and goes fuzzy or blank.
Sometimes I think about the ride home from Elaine O’Dea’s famous party. The one where Alice did what she did. Anyway, Elaine made this big deal about me not driving home drunk. I think she promised her parents, but I just wanted to go. After that text about Alice, it just felt like it was time to leave. Brandon kind of mumbled could I give him a lift? Could he crash at my place? “Okay,” I said.
He was so wasted I had to help him into the car. Sometimes, when my brain remembers this night, it remembers little things, too. Like Brandon smelling of booze, and the prickle of his stubble rubbing against my face as I tried to hold him up and get him into my dad’s Chevy S-10. And the way he kept laughing at everything even when nothing was funny.