I Swear (6 page)

That’s one of the main differences between us. I’m pretty much embarrassed about everything.

“What happened?” I asked.

“We were just walking down the beach,” he said.

“Just?” I asked with a laugh. “You don’t ‘just’ do anything, Jake.”

He smiled and pulled my hood over my eyes.

“Hey!” I punched him lightly on the arm.

“Don’t hurt your knuckles, Jills.”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. We stared at the water
some more, our elbows touching, side by side on the balcony rail. “Macie’s gonna be really mad,” I said.

“Macie’s always mad about something,” Jake said.

“She really likes you,” I said.

“Macie Merrick likes herself,” said Jake. “Lately she’s liked the way she looks standing next to me. Trust me, she’ll have a new crush on half the football team before the bell rings at the end of the first day. This is high school now.”

“Yeah, but Macie isn’t making this call,” I said. “You are.”

Jake was quiet for a moment. “I’m not making a call, Jills. I’m following one.” He smiled, but not at me. He was looking out there, somewhere, to the tracks on the sand that ran together, the footprints all mixed up.

•  •  •

My stomach was all mixed up now, sitting at the lunch table watching Macie watch Jake getting closer and closer. She had this way of looking up through her dark lashes, mascara perfectly in place, eyes expertly lined. It was the look she got when she was about to pull out the big guns.

Krista was sitting directly across from me, and I saw her peer over my shoulder through her vintage glasses. “Look out,” she said. “Incoming.”

I didn’t turn around until I heard him say my name.

“Jillian.”

It wasn’t exactly a question. It wasn’t exactly an accusation.
I turned around and saw Brad standing at Jake’s elbow. Jake’s eyes were wet and bright, and his jaw was flexed. He was trying not to say more.

“Jake . . .” I jumped up and tried to hug him. He stepped back, waving me off.

“I need to talk to you,” he said intently. “Alone.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Jake.” Macie said, batting her eyelashes. “We’re all friends here. We don’t mind.”

Jake placed both hands on the table and leaned toward her, slowly. “We are not friends, Macie, and I don’t give a shit what you mind and what you don’t.”

It was so fierce that everybody at three tables around ours went silent and turned their heads. Of course, when Macie has an audience, it’s over. It’s like saying “Sic ’em” to a pit bull, or “Amen” to a Baptist preacher.

Macie slowly pushed her tray back and slid her chair away from the table. She tugged the hem of her black skirt toward her knee, then crossed her legs so that her sheer black hose caught the light from the window overlooking the football field behind her. She leaned back with a sweet smile on her face and crossed her arms over her chest. Then, as if addressing a kindergartner, she spoke very slowly to my brother.

“Jake. You’re obviously very upset. And Jillian isn’t going anywhere with you while you’re acting like a crazy person. So, I suggest that you say whatever it is that you have to say to her right now, right here, in front of me and Brad, and Katherine
and Krista and Beth, and then we’ll all be able to give you a hug, or hold a little prayer meeting, or whatever the hell it is you need to get your shit back together.”

My heart raced. I realized that I was biting my tongue between my teeth. Hard. So hard it hurt. Jake was leaning over the table toward Macie, breathing like he’d just run a mile in five minutes.

“Macie, you are my best friend’s girlfriend,” he said slowly. “So I’m going to be kind about this. You hated Leslie because I liked her. She knew it and everybody else here did too. Since ninth grade, you’ve been an outright bitch to her, and now she’s dead. I’m going to find out how you were involved in this. When I do, you are going down, and I’m taking your daddy down with you.”

There were screams from the freshmen three tables away who were making the goalie of the JV soccer team drink a mixture of ketchup, milk, and beef Stroganoff. Apparently he’d lost a bet. There were bells ringing and announcements being made, but none of us could take our eyes off Macie. Her eyes narrowed at Jake as she slowly stood and leaned against the table toward him until they were nearly nose to nose.

“Let me recap the morning news for you, Jake. Leslie Gatlin committed suicide. Nobody pushed her in front of a bus. Nobody tied her up in that car and locked the garage door. She made a choice, Jake, and she didn’t choose you.”

Then Macie’s eyes softened, and the tension dropped
out of her body. For the first time all day, she looked tired.

“Leslie made the wrong choice, Jake,” she said softly. “Anybody with half a brain and one eye open would have chosen you.”

Jake caught a breath and looked quickly out at the bleachers on the far side of the football field. He was blinking and pulling at his right eye. He was trying not to cry.

“C’mon, man. Let’s walk it off.” Brad grabbed Jake’s elbow and propelled him toward the door.

I watched as they walked past the vending machines and back toward the stairs. Brad turned around and caught my eye as they left. He jerked his chin up just slightly and winked once, then he turned, tossed an arm around Jake, and headed up the stairs.

“Whoooooo.”
Macie blew out a deep breath and ran a hand through her long hair. “Wow. That was intense.”

For a moment, no one moved or spoke. Then Krista tossed back the last sip of Diet Coke in her can and sat forward with a bright smile. “Hi. I’m Krista Abernathy and you’re watching Teen Suicide Week with Jake Walker on Lifetime. Television for Boring Women.”

Macie laughed hard. Maybe too hard. Too hard for Beth’s and Katherine’s taste anyway.

“Jesus, Krista,” whispered Beth.

“What?” Krista said in her typical monotone flatline. “Too soon?”

Macie was still laughing and now wiping tears from under her perfect eye makeup with a napkin. “Oh my God,” she gasped.

Katherine stood up abruptly and began gathering her things.

“Oh, c’mon, everybody. Comedy equals tragedy plus time,” Macie said.

Katherine looked at her. “It’s been five hours, Macie. We need some more time.”

Macie was incredulous. “Oh, puh-leeease.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t everybody go getting all uptight on me now. This is exactly the time to start capitalizing on the silver lining here.”

“Silver . . . lining?” Beth was frowning, confused.

I felt confused, too, but not for the same reason. Not for any reason I could put my finger on. I knew what was coming from Macie. She always had an angle. I knew her almost as well as I knew Jake.

“Oh, please. My Harvard application essay just wrote itself this morning. Yours did too, Katherine. And the extracurriculars this is going to generate . . .” Her voice trailed off. “By the time the student council meeting ends today, we’ll all be running a committee formed around teen suicide. Ladies, our college applications just moved to the top of the short-list pile.”

“Look, I didn’t like Gatlin any better than any of y’all did,” Katherine said. “But—”

“You don’t say.” Macie cut her off with a short, incredulous laugh. “I think Leslie thought you were her best friend for the first few weeks last year.”

Katherine’s eyes flashed, and she hissed at Macie through clenched teeth. “I’m just saying a little sensitivity is in order here.”

“I’ll tell you what’s in order, Katherine, is a PowerPoint of photos that we can use at Saturday’s memorial service in the gym. As yearbook editor, I hope you’ll be on top of that. Krista, I can only imagine the Photoshop work that is going to be required to make pictures of Leslie suitable for public consumption.”

“I’m on it,” Krista deadpanned. “There’s this little thing called the Healing Brush. It does wonders for sun damage.”

Katherine sighed heavily, picked up her tray and her bag, and wordlessly clicked across the cafeteria linoleum like it was a runway.

Macie smiled after her.

“What’s her deal?” asked Krista.

“I don’t know, exactly,” said Macie.

She turned to me, and I felt my cheeks burn even though I willed them not to. “Put Katherine on suicide watch, will you, Jillian? Can’t have my VP cooking her own goose before we get the call-center volunteer program off the ground.”

10. KATHERINE

Krista Abernathy makes my skin crawl. ’Course, I’d never say that to her face or anything. Aunt Liza taught me early on that nice girls don’t let on when they don’t like somebody.

“It’s part of keeping your cards close to your chest,” she said. “If you can’t find something nice to say about somebody, you just smile and say, ‘Well, bless your heart.’”

It was hard to find something nice to say about Krista, in my opinion, so I generally just tried to say nothing to her at all. She was the first one I ever met—first one I ever laid eyes on at this sorry-ass school where I wound up junior year. She’s one of those white girls who will not eat: skin and bones, constantly smoking cigarettes, and has these bangs cut just a little too short in a line straight across her forehead. She claims they make her look like Bettie Page. Personally, I think they make her look like Porky Pig’s girlfriend from Looney Tunes.

Regardless, Macie thinks Krista looks cool and “retro.” “Krista is a hot hipster chick,” Macie says, giggling about her bright-red, cat’s-eye glasses. “She found those at this supercool vintage store over in Capitol Hill. I love it. She’s fierce.”

Maybe she is. Maybe “hip” just isn’t “pretty.”

I’m not sure what Macie Merrick saw in Krista. Jillian tells me Krista’s daddy dropped dead of a heart attack at the dinner table. Turned out the autopsy revealed he was on so much OxyContin that he’d blown a clot and had a stroke right there over a petite filet.

Krista generally looks bored and above it all and like she can’t wait to have another cigarette, but she sure lit up the first time she saw me. Walked right up to me at the registration for new students the week before school started last year.

“Hi,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Krista.”

“Katherine,” I said, taking her hand and using my “evening gown portion of our competition” smile. “It’s a pleasure.”

Before I realized what was happening, she pulled me in close and whispered, “Thank God you’re black. I was hoping we’d get some decent color this year.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, smile frozen in place.

“I’m on the Welcome Committee for the student council,” she said. “C’mon. Wait’ll Macie gets a load of you.”

And that was how it happened. Macie smiled with her mouth right away that night, but her eyes were holdin’ back a secret. Maybe two. She or Krista was always at my elbow that
night, and Mama smiled like a possum eatin’ briars. “Look at you, Katherine. You’ve already made friends with the student council members. That’s just fantastic. Oh, sweetheart, I just knew that you’d make friends right away.”

I wanted to sass her. I wanted to say, “Mama, these girls are not my friends. These girls want to earn their race-relations badge.” But I held my tongue and thought about Aunt Liza.
Don’t show your cards, Li’l K.

Macie showed me to the right table in the gymnasium, and Krista tagged along with me and Mama, who insisted I take the tour of the whole damn campus. Finally, I waved good-bye and walked toward my car. Mama had met me at the school after stopping by a regional Miss Teen USA preseason orientation to pick up entrance forms and meet some of the other local participants. As soon as it was final that we were moving, she’d called to make sure we were all squared away with contacts and residency requirements.

As I beeped the automatic locks on the silver BMW Daddy had gotten me for my sixteenth birthday, I heard a voice behind me.

“Wow. Is this your car?”

I jumped a little as I turned around and saw Macie standing with her arms crossed, leaning against a jet-black model of the same car I drove. I was quick to push my smile back up.

“Oh . . . hey, Macie,” I said. “Didn’t see you there.”

Macie had a funny look on her pretty face. “Didn’t expect you to drive something this . . .”

I let my smile go. “Nice?” I finished her sentence.

Macie just stared at me in silence—like she was sizing me up for a gown. Mama’s stylist friend Darius, who always helps me pick out my evening gowns and swimsuits, uses the same look when he’s peering at me, trying to imagine me in sequins or bugle beads or a sheer black organza.

After a moment, she cocked her chin to one side and smiled at me with just her mouth again. “Meet us at Marv’s,” she said.

“Us?” I asked. When she spoke she sounded almost weary. “Katherine,” she said, “won’t you please privilege me and several of my dearest friends with the honor of your presence this evening?”

She was making fun of me. At least I thought she was.

“Oh, Macie, that’s so sweet of you. I think I’m just a little tired from the move this week and—”

“Katherine.” Macie’s voice stopped me. “Do I have to spell this out for you? We’re the cool kids. You’re the new girl. This is your invite.”

“You don’t even know me,” I said.

“I know enough,” she said. “Four-point-oh grade point average at Lithonia High School; daughter of Daysun Fraisure, lead litigator for Clarence, River, and DeKalb; first runner-up Miss
Atlanta Teen two years ago; winner Miss Georgia Teen last year.”

My eyes were wide, and I laughed a little in spite of myself. “But . . . how did you . . . ?”

“There’s an app for that,” she said, holding up her phone. “You’ve got quite a web presence, you know.”

I looked back at the school, then down at my watch.

“Come,” she said. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

When I looked up, she was smiling at me again—this time with her eyes.

•  •  •

Krista and Beth were both in the booth already when I arrived at Marv’s Diner with Macie.

“Here she is,” Krista said. “Beth, Katherine. Katherine, Beth.”

I shook Beth’s hand. She looked up at me, and then over at Macie, and back at me. “Oh. My. God,” she said quietly. “You’re, like, twelve feet tall.”