I worried for a moment that I’d scared her off, but as I walked her to the front door, she asked me if we could start up our tutoring sessions once school picked up. I was saddened by the fact that I wouldn’t see Alice for two weeks, but I told her we could start tutoring again as soon as classes started back, and she thanked me once again for all the help.
As she headed out, I asked her if she needed a ride, but she said she wanted to walk.
“After all, what could happen to me in beautiful Healy, where everyone knows your name and your business?” She said this with sarcasm cutting through her voice, and I smiled at her.
“Now Alice,” I joked, “don’t you know nothing ever happens in Healy?”
“Not unless you’re me,” she said with a sigh, rolling her eyes, and after she turned, I watched her back as she made her way down the driveway. Then it hit me when she got to the street that she was going to have to walk in front of Brandon Fitzsimmons’ house to get home. When we’d shown up at my house after school, we’d come in through the side door into the kitchen.
But right then she had to walk right past it. Right past his house and right past the red and white yard sign that read “BRANDON FITZSIMMONS * HEALY TIGER * WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!”
I watched as she headed down the sidewalk, and as she crossed in front of Brandon’s house, I thought maybe it was the late December cold that made her reach back and pull her hood up over her head so far up you couldn’t see her face anymore. But probably there was another reason.
Elaine
The Slut Stall has taken on a life of its own. I don’t think Kelsie or any of us ever meant for it to get out of hand the way it did. I mean, it was so completely gross by Christmas I couldn’t believe the stuff some people were writing. I only wrote in it that one time, the day Kelsie told us about Alice’s abortion. But once was all it took. I told you people are always copying the things that I do.
I can’t believe the school never cleaned it off. I can’t believe Alice’s mother never complained. It’s weird how things can just get out of control sometimes. And it’s weird how, like, when it’s your job to be a popular bitch you just feel compelled to keep doing it sometimes. That sounds so lame and like a total excuse, I get it. But it is what it is.
Not too long ago, just before Winter Break, I saw Alice walking out of school with that super weirdo Kurt Morelli. They’ve been hanging out. Before everything happened, Alice walking around with Kurt Morelli would have been the equivalent of the Queen of England walking around with a homeless person or something. I wondered if Kurt knew about the Slut Stall or the abortion. I think even he’s clued in enough to know about that stuff. When I watched them heading out of the building, I wondered if they were dating. I really wondered if they were sleeping together. Which would be kind of gross, but … anyway, it was odd to see them like that, together.
But in this strange way, it kind of made me feel less bad about everything. Don’t get me wrong. There’s this part of me that still really can’t stand Alice and thinks she got everything that was coming to her. For fooling around with Brandon back in eighth grade. For standing there while Brandon read my diary. For sleeping with two guys at my party. For being responsible for Brandon’s death.
But I guess there’s this other part of me that wonders if maybe things have gone too far. I don’t know. I keep thinking about that question my friend Maggie asked Kelsie that day we found out about Alice’s abortion.
Don’t you feel even a little bit sorry for her?
It’s sort of hard not to. Feel sorry for her, I mean. At least a little.
Something else that’s happened recently other than Alice hanging out with Kurt is I stopped writing in my diary. I eventually dug it out of the closet and tried to write in it again, but it just felt stupid somehow. A diary is supposed to be private, and even though the only person who’d read it other than me was dead, it still felt weird, so I ripped out every page and sent it through the shredder my dad keeps in his study. And then I put all the shredded pieces in a bag and dumped it in our neighbor’s trash can. Just in case.
Despite how odd this year has been in many ways, the thing is, I like it here and I don’t ever want to leave. I want to go to UT and then marry a guy who wants to stay in Healy forever and I want him to take over the business from my dad and I’ll help run it, and I want to have a daughter who’s just like me, and I’ll join Healy Boosters and be the dance squad mom and help out during the Christmas Carnival and all of that.
I know what you’re thinking. So lame. So small town. But why is it lame? Why is it lame to want to be in a place that feels safe to you and that you like? I’m not an idiot. I have a B+ average and and I watch the local news every morning while I’m eating my oatmeal and blueberries (Weight Watchers points = 4). I can name both of my senators and I understand how payroll taxes work on account of I’ve worked at my dad’s shop every summer since I was thirteen and I can probably find most major countries on a map if you give me a second.
I remember sophomore year when the Fashion Club went on a school trip to New York City. And our tour guide at the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology smiled in this super pitying way when we told her where we were from. I mean, it’s one thing to be from Texas, but they really think you’re a hayseed if you’re not from Houston or Dallas or something. Or at least San Antonio.
“Healy? I think you’re my first group from there. And how many people live in Healy?” She was talking super slowly to us. I thought New Yorkers were supposed to talk fast.
“A little over 3,000,” my teacher said.
“Oh my! I think that’s how many people are in my building!”
Ha-ha.
Alice Franklin had been on that trip. She’d saved her babysitting money and her Healy Pool North money to pay for it. I remember how when the tour guide said that, I looked over at her and we both rolled our eyes at each other.
If I’d grown up in Manhattan and I wanted to stay in Manhattan and never leave because I felt safe there and I liked it, nobody would think twice. People would think I was sophisticated, probably. And why? Because they have a subway system? Because there’s more than one movie theater? Because of the lions in front of the New York Public Library? (Yeah, I know about those, too.) I honestly don’t get the difference. If I’d been born in Manhattan, I probably would have wanted to stay there just like I want to stay in Healy. And honestly, even in Manhattan I think I still would have been considered popular. And I’m not so small town that I don’t realize that even in Manhattan, a girl like Alice Franklin would still have been considered a slut.