Beckoners (25 page)

“Oh, God. She didn't. Oh my God.” Janika pulled away from the phone. “She did!” She screamed at the others. “She killed herself!”

Zoe waited quietly.

“What are we going to do?” Janika screamed down the phone. In the background, Heather and Lindsay yelled at each other.

“It's your fault!” Lindsay screamed.

“It wasn't even me!” Heather screeched, her voice tight with fear. “It's Brady's fault! If he never hit the dog none of this would be happening.”

“Yeah?” Brady's voice wavered dangerously close to tears. “Who told me to head straight for it, huh? Don't play all innocent, Heather. You're just as covered in shit as the rest of us.”

“Janika?” Zoe said her name softly.

“Shut up! Everybody just shut the fuck up!” Janika's voice shook. “Yeah?”

“She left a note, Janika.”

“I have to go.”

“There was a note, with your names...”

“I never meant—” Janika's voice caught. “We didn't mean—”

“Mean what?” Zoe tried not to sound icy.

Janika couldn't talk. She just cried and cried while Zoe happily listened to the Beckoners rip each other apart in the background.

“I can't deal with this,” Janika finally choked out before hanging up the phone.

Zoe set the phone down. Janika would call back. They would want to know what the note said.

When Janika called back
late that night, Zoe made sure she spoke clearly and calmly.

“It would be best if you all went to the police.”

“We can't do that!” Janika said in between sobs. “We already got assault charges!”

“You have to. The note blames all of you. By name.” Zoe had written down what she wanted to say, just in case she got swept up in Janika's very real fear and blurted out the truth. She was
almost tempted, hearing how upset Janika was, but she kept to the script.

“If you don't go, they'll come for you.” Zoe touched the words with her finger as she said them. “That would be worse. You want them breaking down your doors and cuffing you in front of your parents? Wouldn't it be better if you all went and explained yourselves as best as you could? It would look better for all of you, especially after what happened in the park.” There was a long pause.

“You think so?” Janika blew her nose.

“Yes.”

“We have to tell our parents?”

“First, yes,” Zoe said. “And then the cops. Tell them about the mannequin, and Shadow, and April. There's no other way.”

“You think the others will agree?”

“You have to do it together, Janika. You're all in it together.” That was the last thing Zoe had written to say. She wanted to hang up the phone before she said anything more, anything that might make Janika suspicious. “I'm sorry that you—” Zoe stopped herself. “Look, the sooner you do it, the sooner it'll be over with.”

There was a long silence. Janika had stopped crying.

“Janika, are you there?”

“I'm here,” Janika whispered. “We'll go tomorrow.”

Simon knew of a
café across the street from the police station that would be perfect to watch from. The Coffee Snob was still decorated for the holidays, sort of. The entrance was strung with lights, but red ones in the shape of chili peppers, green ones like cacti and yellow ones like cowboy hats. There was a tree, but it was a solstice tree, a sign on it said so, and it was decorated with anarchist symbols and peace signs twisted out of pipe cleaners, and little anti-Christmas manifestos written by various patrons on construction paper. The sole barista was curled up in an easy chair by an electric heater under a wall plastered with posters
advertising political rallies and literary readings. He was reading Proust, which he reluctantly put down after Zoe, Leaf, Simon, Teo and April had been waiting at the counter for ages, eyes on the door to the kitchen, expecting someone to come from there. He rolled his eyes at the other customers, who all looked like they were doing downtime between anti-globalization protests.

“Help yourself next time you come, okay?” He made their coffees, walking them through how the espresso machine worked, and then he showed them how to work the till, which had a sticker on it that read, Karma kills short-changers.

There were no tables available by the window. At one, an elderly couple dressed in brown cords and matching thick wool sweaters played chess. At the other, a student was sluggishly highlighting an enormous college textbook.

“Excuse me, sir? Ma'am?” Simon approached the elderly couple after the student scowled at him when he got within five feet of her table. “We're conducting a bit of a stake-out here, and we need to keep our eyes on the police station. Do you think—” before he could explain further, the couple pushed their chairs back and stood.

“Anything to keep thumbs on the pigs, son.” The man winked behind his wire-rimmed glasses, carefully lifting the board so the pieces wouldn't slide. “We'll sit over there.”

After two rounds of coffee the five of them were buzzing, barely able to sit still. They took turns watching for the Beckoners. Except for Simon, who could not sit still at all. He was making the rounds, dazzling the customers with his slick wit, sidling up to them with a smooth, “So what brings you here?” Soon, he had everyone gathered around their table, which they'd pushed together with the college student's, who'd finally given up studying. Simon had everyone engulfed in a rowdy game of Go Fish using two decks the barista produced, one with Fidel Castro on the back, the other with nude fifties pin-up models. Even April was laughing, cheeks flushed, probably from all the caffeine and the space heater beside the table. When she smiled
her eyes pinched up a little and she tilted her head to the side in a way that was almost cute.

The barista, Zoe was astonished to see, was definitely checking April out. Zoe wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, but when he came back with yet another tray of lattes, Tim hovered until Teo got up to pee, and then he swooped in and took Teo's chair, which just happened to be the one beside April. In between his turns, Tim leaned on his elbows and took off his glasses and asked her questions, which she answered easily. It was as if that café, that humid, low-ceilinged stuffy room was a chrysalis, and April was transforming into a new version of herself right before Zoe's eyes.

“Is that them?” Tim nodded at the window.

Zoe and the others rushed to the glass, their breath fogging it up. They wiped it clear and watched. Five cars. All the Beckoners, all at once, which was better than Zoe could've hoped for, complete with various attending adults, all with the same moist-eyed fury and shoulder-slumping disappointment.

Beck climbed out of the backseat of her parents' car and stood on the sidewalk alone for a moment while the others were ushered into the station, parents gripping their children's elbows. Beck watched her friends go ahead of her. April and Zoe watched Beck, noses to the glass like little kids watching the first snow fall. The others had stepped away and were talking behind them, voices hushed, as though Beck might hear all the way across the street, through the brick walls and thick glass.

In his travels around the café, Simon had told the story to everyone, and now they were united in rage and sympathy and angst, each of them reciting their own bullied histories with comraderie they'd normally reserve for protest highlights: paddy wagon moments, the first time they got hauled off to jail, bodies civil-disobediently limp, arms linked for peace.

Beck's mother finally got out of the car. A small woman with an angular face, she stood on the sidewalk, clutching her purse strap tight with both hands. She stared at Beck's back.

Beck's father leaned across the interior of the car and rolled the passenger window down to say something to her mother. Beck's mother looked away from her husband and Beck, down the sidewalk in the other direction, shaking her head at whatever he was saying. He raised his voice, craning his neck out the window to address Beck, who did not turn to receive his words. He hauled himself back in front of the wheel and took off, tires slashing through puddles.

Beck stood still as her mother passed her, chin up, still clutching her purse, hugging the side of the building like she didn't want to get too close to her daughter. Then Beck was alone, eyes on the ground. She looked naked despite her down jacket, her scarf, her clunky winter boots, like she was a paper doll underneath: flat, flimsy, easily stripped.

That night Harris and
Leaf built a bonfire on the beach at Mill Lake. Alice brought a bag of turkey sandwiches. Wish brought thermoses of hot chocolate. Simon and Teo brought marshmallows and slabs of chocolate and graham wafers to make s'mores. Tim brought cherry and almond biscotti. Zoe brought colored markers for everyone to sign April's cast, which no one had thought to do yet. April brought Shadow's ashes in a small cardboard box.

Barb and John did not believe that animals had souls, or could go to heaven, but they had agreed to pay for the cremation anyway. When the fire was down to embers, and Cassy and Connor were asleep on Harris's and Wish's laps, and Lewis had to fight to keep his eyes open, April hobbled to the water and let Shadow's ashes scatter in the night. Zoe had brought one other thing from home—her travelling star. She shone a flashlight on it for a couple of minutes, and then walked with the boys down to the water. She threw the travelling star into the trail of ashes, where it floated and glowed, a bright star slipping away on the black water, as a gentle snow began to fall.