The Girl in the Park (7 page)

“Ciao.” The door swings shut.

I walk out of the bathroom to find the halls quiet. People have started heading to the assembly. Then I see Rima Nolan by her locker.

Rima and I were friendly for a little while after our chat on the stairs. But then I moved on to Taylor, and Rima moved on to Sasha. These days, we mostly do the hallway hi thing.

Over the summer, Rima traded her dark Brontë tresses for a short, chic bob. Now she’s a flapper in Paris, a silent-film star, or one of those eerie children in a Japanese horror movie.

“Hey, Rima.”

She smiles. I pause, wait for her to say something.
God, so sad. Really horrible
. But she doesn’t.

I wait for myself to say something.
This must be kind of weird for you, Rima
. But I can’t tell where Rima is, what she’s feeling.

Still smiling, she says, “Ding dong. The bitch is dead.”

She walks past me and down the stairs.

“Hey, hey.” In the crowd, a hand reaches out, pulls. Taylor hugs me. “Found you.”

As we climb the stairs, Taylor fumes, “Dorland won’t let me write word one about the murder. A nice ‘We Remember’ article on the front page, and something about safety tips—that’s it. The whole world’s on this story and I can’t touch it, because he doesn’t want Alcott to look bad. Can you believe it?”

I can. Emile Dorland. The headmaster of Alcott. A man who
lives surrounded by books. My mother swears he taught at the school when she went there, and while I think she’s kidding, he does seem to live in another world, alongside Shakespeare and Tennyson. He never calls students by their first name, it’s always Ms. or Mr. His primary human contact is his ancient secretary, Ms. Laredo.

Then Taylor says, “The police are here. I saw them outside Dorland’s office.”

“Do you think they caught the guy?”

Taylor shakes her head. “No news when I last checked, and that was, like, five minutes ago.”

“Right.” Still, I can’t help hoping the police will make an announcement.
“I’m happy to report that we have a suspect in custody
.…”

Or maybe it’s not an announcement. Maybe the police are here because they suspect someone at the school.

Taylor says, “Poor Laredo was taking all these calls from parents. ‘The school’s doing everything we can to keep your child safe.’ ” Her voice goes high and quavery as she imitates Ms. Laredo. “Parents are going nuts. Like the killer’s walking the halls or something.”

As we come into the assembly hall, I see the stage and catch my breath. To one side of the podium, someone’s placed a table. On it, a framed photograph of Wendy and a small votive candle.

“Where do you want to sit?” asks Taylor. “Back or—”

“Front,” I say. I want to be near Wendy’s picture.

The hall is packed. The entire upper school is here; well, at least everyone who came to school today. I keep an eye out for Nico, wanting to see: does he look sad? Smirking? Nervous?
Is he with Sasha? Are they really just fine? But I don’t see him anywhere.

“No sign of Nico,” I say, wanting Taylor’s take.

“Yeah, like he’d miss a chance to ditch.”

Taylor is probably right, I think. No huge guilt, just a day off school.

I hear Taylor say, “Oh, God.”

“What?”

“Ellis.”

She nods and I see Ellis Patel standing on the sidelines with his friends. He’s sobbing so hard, his shoulders are shaking. His best friend, Lindsey Adams, has her arm around him, while Leo Berger and Bonnie McDermott pat his arm, stroke his hair.

Ellis Patel. Wendy’s last—maybe only—real boyfriend. They started dating at the beginning of this year. Ellis is a senior, Wendy a junior, and it was another weird senior year couple. But a good one. I remember thinking, Finally, someone who doesn’t belong to somebody else! Ellis is not only cute with the black hair, and captain of the chess team smart, he’s also laid-back and has a totally goofy sense of humor. In that way, he and Wendy were the perfect match.

But a month ago, Wendy broke up with him.

I check out Daniel Ettinger, who hooked up with Wendy in ninth grade. He’s smiling and laughing with Fredo Lowell, as if we’re all here to hear about fire drills. Malcolm Liddell—he’s sitting with his arm around his girlfriend, staring off into space. Cute Seth with the shoulders seems to have cut along with Nico. All these guys knew Wendy. Not one of them is crying for her
today. Only Ellis—the one she dumped. I look back, wish there was something I could say to him.

At that point, Mr. Dorland steps up onto the stage. The man is struggling. He’s probably in his sixties, and it looks like he turned eighty overnight. As he places his hands on the podium, I notice them shaking. His eyes, as he looks out at us, are blinking and nervous.

In a tentative voice, he says, “Before I begin, I would like to introduce Detective Sergeant David Vasquez.” He nods to a small, bald man who raises his hand in greeting. “He is investigating this matter. Some of you have spoken with him and his team already. He may wish to contact others at a later date. I trust you will give him your full cooperation.”

A murmur goes through the crowd as people try to figure out who has been contacted, who will be contacted, and what it all means. I make my own list: Karina, maybe Jenny. I feel a lurch of anxiety: will they want to talk to me?

“And so you left your friend at this party, when you knew she was in trouble?”

“Yes, yes, I did, Officer.”

Then Mr. Dorland tells us we can visit Ms. Callanan, the school shrink, if we need to. She stands and waves a little too eagerly, as if she’s excited to get her hands on all this emotion.

“Special teams of counselors will also be assisting Ms. Callanan in this task.” Then, bowing his head, Mr. Dorland says, “Finally, we turn our attention to the true reason we are here today: remembering Wendy Geller.”

I sit up, as if Wendy, wherever she is, can see me and know
that remembering her is important. It occurs to me: I don’t know if I believe in heaven.

“Students, this is a terrible day at Alcott. A young woman’s life has been taken, and we who knew her are left to grieve the loss. I … I confess I cannot quite believe it.” He glances toward the closed doors of the assembly hall. “I expect to see Ms. Geller walking in at any moment.”

I feel a ripple in the crowd, an energy wave of agreement. From some parts of the room, sniffing, a sob.

Then Mr. Dorland says, “Ms. Geller was relatively new to our school, and while I knew her, of course, and admired her wonderful spirit—”

Fake, I think without wanting to. Wonderful spirit—it’s something a teacher says about someone they didn’t know. Or didn’t like.

Mr. Dorland starts talking about loss. He quotes a poem. But none of it feels like Wendy. Which I guess he realizes because he finally says, “I wonder if now is the time for those who knew Ms. Geller to come forth and say a few words.”

Now the wave has a different energy. Anxiety. Awkwardness. Mr. Dorland’s been so uptight and formal, no one wants to follow him.

Taylor nudges me, but I shake my head. I do not do public speaking. When I was ten, my mom dug up these old home videos and got them transferred to disc. I was all excited. Ooh, I get to see myself as a little kid.

Then I saw this three-year-old running around, yelling, “–i, Mom. ’Ook a me.”

My mom was getting all misty, saying things like “You were so cute!” And all I could think was Why didn’t I know I sounded
retarded? Why didn’t anybody tell me? How could she put me out in the world sounding like that?

But someone has to speak for Wendy. Jenny’s gone home. Ellis looks too broken up to say anything. I think of all the girls who thought Wendy was so “hilarious,” the boys who thought she was “hot.” Why won’t they speak for her?

Well, why won’t you, Rain? Wendy was the one person who said your cleft palate didn’t matter, so why are you letting that stop you? Raise your hand
.

But I can’t. My pronunciation is much better than when I was little. But when I imagine myself talking, all I can hear is
Wendy wash a ’ood fend
.

Raise your hand, Rain, I order myself. I chant this over and over in my head. But my hand doesn’t move.

Mr. Dorland is looking around the room. The longer the silence goes on, the weirder it gets. Now even someone who might have wanted to say something feels strange.

Then I hear, “I’d like to say something, Mr. Dorland.”

A man’s voice, not a kid’s. Light, precise, intelligent. I don’t even have to look to know. It’s Mr. Farrell.

“Go for it, tigress.”

All of a sudden, Wendy’s in my head, vivid, real, laughing. Only it’s two years ago and we’re standing in the hallway outside history when Mr. Farrell comes out of his classroom. He’s rushing down the hall, but stops to nod to us. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

And when he’s gone, I say, “Now,
he’s
hot.”

I don’t actually want the word
hot
, though. I want the word
beautiful
. I want
tall
, want
lean
. I want to say, I didn’t know how to want until the universe showed me T. H. Farrell.

Wendy would laugh if I told her that. Which is why I say “hot.”

But Wendy gives me a long, strange look. As if my choice reveals just how little I know about men and sex. As if I had said, “I want to date Luke Skywalker.”

Embarrassed, I mumble, “I’m just saying … if I had to pick someone at school.”

Wendy snaps out of her stare and smiles. “No, no, I get it. Not my type, but he’s sort of …” She pauses as she looks again.

Then she does laugh. “Hey—why not? Go for it, tigress.”

“Yeah, he’s a teacher. Not to mention married.”

“Oh, like that matters.”

I miss you, Wendy, I think as Mr. Farrell replaces Mr. Dorland at the podium. Right now, if you were here, you’d be whispering, “Sit up, lady. Show yourself.” And I’d tell you, Quit it, but I’d love that you were trying to make me try.

I look up at Mr. Farrell. Dark hair, huge gray eyes. A face that’s somehow Irish and Native American both. He’s a little nervous to be speaking in front of this big a crowd, you can tell. Maybe because he went to Alcott when he was a kid, sometimes he seems a little more one of us than a teacher. Kids like him, which is probably why Mr. Dorland made him acting head of the upper school when Ms. Johnson went on maternity leave. I’ve never had him for class. Taylor has him this year. I try not to be in total agony that he will fall madly in love with her.

He starts off by saying, “Wendy Geller was not my best student. In fact, I think the first thing I ever said to her was ‘If you have something to share, Ms. Geller, please share it with all of us.’ ”

People laugh. Part of the problem has been Dorland talking about Wendy as if she were some nice white-bread girl, just
because she’s dead. It feels good to remember how ditzy she could be.

Now Mr. Farrell says, “Wendy was a person who had a lot to share.” He pauses. “Even if she didn’t always pick the best times.”

Or the best people, I think.

“She had laughter, she had warmth, she had a … genuine caring. I often felt bad that she didn’t seem to realize how rare those qualities are, how special.”

I find myself nodding. Mr. Farrell sees me, smiles a little. I smile back.

Then Mr. Farrell drops his head as if what he’s feeling is too private to show. “I don’t want to talk about how we lost Wendy, about … anger and … rage and … stupidity. I would rather be grateful that Wendy did share her laughter and her love with so many of us. And feel sad that she will not be able to share them with the rest of the world.”

I’m crying. Taylor’s staring into the distance, trying not to cry. And we’re not the only ones. Someone’s finally said:
Hey, this girl wasn’t perfect, but I liked her. I’m really mad that she’s gone
. All around, I can feel the energy’s opened up. No more embarrassment or fakeness. Just sorrow. Loss. The things that really are. I look at the photograph on the table, the little light flickering in front of it. The big brown eyes and the friendly smile.
Hi there!

Wendy.

Later, as we file out of the hall, I notice there’s a table with flyers on it. Wendy’s picture in grainy black-and-white. If we know anything, we’re supposed to contact the police.

Why? I wonder. If the killer was some random crazy guy, why ask us?

*   *   *

I’m standing outside Mr. Farrell’s room. The school is mostly empty. Most people cleared out after the assembly.

I have never spoken to Mr. Farrell. My tongue is twisted up with nerves, and for a moment, I feel panicked that an ugly mess will come spitting out of my mouth.
Mithder Faruhl?
Not that he would be mean about it. If anything, he would be horribly kind.

So what?
I hear Wendy say.
Take it from me, babes. You only live once
.

Impulsively, I knock on the door. A weird moment of silence. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he’s gone home.

Then I hear, “Come in.”

Mr. Farrell’s is one of the smaller classrooms, with high windows on one side. Most teachers cover the walls in pictures and posters, but his are plain, just the white plaster and dark wood molding. To look, you don’t know; are you in a German class? Trig? Art history? Mr. Farrell teaches English, but there’s nothing in the room to tell you that.

In the center is a big round table. Mr. Farrell is sitting near the window. There are papers on the table. But it doesn’t look like he’s touched any of them.

I stay half in the hallway as I say, “Mr. Farrell? I don’t know if you know me, but …”

He smiles. “Rain, of course I know you.” He gestures. “Come on in. You can shut the door.”

How happy this makes me, that he lets me in, says close the door, as if we need privacy. You’re sad, I tell myself, really sad. But it doesn’t stop me from being happy.

Of course, now I have to speak.

“I, uh …” I had words. I rehearsed them on the way here. They were perfect, wise, mature … and now they’ve vanished. “I …”

He pulls out a chair. “This has been a very hard day. Why don’t you sit?”