And When I Die, page 26
“Jesus,” she muttered as she looked at her phone and saw Lauren Dean battering away like a mad woman. She opened the door and Lauren pushed past her into the house, her hair jutting away from her face in wild spikes, her red-rimmed eyes bright and savage with hysteria.
“Lauren, what’s—?”
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“Jordan. I know she’s here, I saw her car.”
“Lauren, Jordan—Jordan’s not feeling well—”
“Yeah, well, my daughter’s dead, how’s that for not feeling well?”
Erica blanched. “I think you need to leave.”
The woman ignored her, beelining for the stairs, wielding the pink book she held in front of her like a weapon as she screamed for Jordan to come downstairs. Erica took a few deep breaths, willing herself not to grab the woman and throw her out of the house. She was grieving after all. Instead, she touched Lauren’s elbow, which ignited her into whirling around, her eyes popping out of their sockets, her lips twisted into a snarl.
“You go up there and bring that girl down here or so help me—”
“Mrs. Dean?”
Her and Lauren’s heads both flicked up at the meek squeak of Jordan’s voice at the top of the stairs. Lauren scrambled around Erica, waving that pink book in the air as she dashed up the stairs toward her daughter.
“What did you do?” she demanded of Jordan, who looked helplessly at Erica as she trailed Lauren on the stairs.
“Lauren, what’s going on?”
She whirled around and pointed that book at her. “Whitney wrote in her diary that Jordan was threatening her and I want to know what in the hell your daughter did to my daughter.” Lauren pivoted back to Jordan. “I’m going to ask you again, what did you do?”
“Lauren, you need to calm down, please—” Erica tried again.
“I will not calm down,” Lauren hissed. “Your daughter was threatening my daughter and now my daughter is dead. For the last time, I want to know what the hell Jordan did.” She turned on Jordan once more. “You killed her, didn’t you?”
Tears streamed down Jordan’s face as she stumbled backward. “Mrs. Dean, I would never do something like that. Whitney was my best friend—”
“A best friend who’s Sweet Sixteen you ruined with your ghetto trash antics—”
“Lauren, I can call Steve or call the police,” Erica said, her own temper ratcheting up a few notches. “Your choice.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time before I call the police and have them come here and arrest you and throw you in jail for the rest of your life,” Lauren screamed, ignoring Erica. “Confess. Confess right now that you stabbed my daughter, that you murdered Whitney.”
“Okay, that’s it, I’m calling the police.” Erica put her finger on the nine. “You can’t come over here harassing my daughter—”
Lauren licked her lips, ignoring Erica. “Why did she say you were threatening her? We all know you’re nothing but a jealous bitch—”
“Mom—?”
“—who could never, ever be as good as my daughter. Second best Jordan. That’s what you’ll always be. Second best. You couldn’t touch, Whitney. You could never, ever be as smart, or as beautiful or as special—”
“Do you want to know what your special daughter did to me?” Jordan screamed.
Erica lowered the phone, her senses on high alert. She gulped, watching tears gush from her daughter’s red, twisted face.
“What are you talking about?” Lauren asked in a pained whisper.
Jordan’s jaw cranked beneath her skin as she seemingly weighed whether to keep pushing forward. “Well—”
“I knew it. She didn’t do anything,” Lauren snapped. “You’re just trying to get out of admitting what you did.”
“Whitney put my picture on one of those sugar daddy websites.”
Lauren’s grip on Jordan’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “She did what?”
Jordan closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. “There was—she had a crush on some guy, some guy we met at the mall who goes to U of C and she had a huge crush on him and was totally throwing herself at him, but he—” Jordan gulped. “He asked me out instead, but he was like a hundred and I thought it was gross, but she went nuts and to get back at me, even though I didn’t do anything … she put my picture on one of those sites and planned to show it to him.”
“No.” Lauren shook her head frantically. “Whitney wouldn’t do that.”
“Mrs. Dean, she stole pictures of me off my phone and my private profiles and put them on a sugar daddy website. All because some guy liked me instead of her.”
“That’s not true.”
“You wanna know how I found out?” Jordan spat. “Huh?”
“How?” Lauren whispered, seemingly afraid of the answer.
Jordan glanced at Erica before continuing. “My dad was having one of his last-minute dinner parties and one of the guys … he saw my picture and then when he saw me here at the house … I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about and then, he showed me. I knew right away that it was Whitney.”
“Oh, God.” Lauren’s face plummeted into her hands, tears gushing into her palms.
“When was this?” Erica asked quietly.
Jordan wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Last summer. When Dad had all those guys that did that travel app over here. The guy was like sixty and he got all excited when he saw me and I finally had to threaten to tell Dad if he didn’t calm down. That was the only reason he did.”
“It could have been anyone else that put your pictures on that site, any one of those girls,” Lauren said, weak defiance lacing her words.
“I confronted her and she owned up to it. Showed me all the fake profiles she’d created, the accounts. She thought it was funny. She actually laughed about it. She thought it was one big joke.”
Lauren seemed to wilt at this information as she faltered backward and leaned against the banister. Erica fumed as Jordan continued crying softly, though her hysteria had subsided.
“Jordan, why didn’t you tell anyone about this? Me? Your father?”
“I just wanted to forget the whole thing. She didn’t even apologize. She told me it was no big deal, to ‘chill out,’” Jordan said, making air quotes with her fingers. “She didn’t care that some guy could have done I don’t even know what to me.”
“So, Whitney did all this and you threatened to tell everyone about it,” Erica said. “That’s why you stopped talking. That’s what you meant when you said you were going to tell everyone what she did.”
Jordan fidgeted as her gaze dropped to the floor. “I didn’t even want to look at her face, I was so angry. So, I quit pom, unfollowed her, just totally disconnected from her. I couldn’t believe my best friend would do that to me.”
“And that’s why you came to the party, isn’t it?” Lauren had reared back up, seeming to find a new angle to her ire. “You wanted to ruin her, you—”
Jordan’s eyes filled with tears again. “I should never have gone to the party, Mrs. Dean. I’m so sorry—”
“And when that wasn’t enough—”
“Okay, Lauren, that’s it,” Erica said. “Please leave.”
“This isn’t over,” Lauren hissed, pointing a finger at Jordan. “I’m going to make sure you pay for what you did, for lying, for slandering my daughter—”
“You know, Jay’s going to be furious when he hears about this,” Erica warned.
Lauren’s eyes grew wide with seeming disbelief. “Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying, your daughter put my daughter in danger and my husband, her father, has really deep pockets.” Erica leaned closer, lowering her voice. “You sure you want to go there?”
“Are you threatening me?”
Erica marched over to the front door and flung it open. “Goodbye, Lauren.”
Lauren snorted before following the directive. “Get your daughter a good lawyer,” she sneered as she slammed out of the house.
“Mom, is she going to send me to jail?” Jordan asked, bursting into tears all over again. Erica rushed over, gathering her in her arms, rocking her as she stroked her hair.
“Oh, sweetie, it doesn’t work that way. She’s—she’s upset about Whitney. She’s not thinking straight.”
“But she said—”
Erica pulled back, cradling her daughter’s face in her hands, eye to eye. “Jordan, honey. You’re not going to jail.”
Jordan threw herself against her and Erica wrapped her arms tight, rocking her back and forth in an attempt to soothe her girl.
Jay could deal with Lauren. He relished fights like this, the chance to swing his dollars around in order to bring a rival to their knees, crush them beyond all comprehension. Let him have his fun.
After Lauren’s embarrassing little tirade and Jordan’s reveal, any doubts she’d had were scrubbed clean now.
She’d done the right thing.
67
RUTHIE
Midterms came and went and Ruthie was no closer to Shannon than she’d been at the beginning of the school year. Though they had four classes together, all the seating was alphabetical, so she couldn’t even finagle a seat next to her. If Shannon noticed she and Ruthie had so many classes together, she never acknowledged it.
Since the class thing wasn’t working out, Ruthie tried to be strategic in her approach. She applied for a position at the country club where Shannon played tennis every Saturday with Abby Franklin (pom squad, varsity tennis, varsity basketball, banker father, university professor mother), but didn’t get the job.
Shannon signed up to go on the class trip to Galveston at the end of January and so did she, babysitting every weekend to subsidize the hundred dollars her parents gave her. Ruthie had visions of her and Shannon sharing a room and bonding over virgin piña coladas and inside jokes borne of the weekend. Except, of course, Shannon shared a room with Lyz, Sharla, and Abby, while she got stuck with Peggy Dubin, Autumn Frayzen, and Lori Tifton. Every time she turned around, Shannon and her cabal were off doing their own thing, usually with Skip, Chad, and Tyler Abbott (star point guard, track and field, realtor father, newspaper publisher mother) trailing after them.
Nothing was working. She and Shannon weren’t best friends. Not even close.
She still wasn’t special.
And then finally—finally—the opportunity presented itself in February.
That year, the drama department’s spring musical was Bye Bye Birdie. Auditions were open, so anyone could try out.
It was only a lucky coincidence that Ruthie even knew Shannon had signed up. She was coming out of her art club meeting when she saw Shannon, Abby, Lyz, and Sharla outside of Ms. Grazoli’s office, giggling and pointing to the piece of paper tacked to the wall. She lingered in the classroom until the girls sauntered off down the hall before wandering up to see what they’d found so fascinating.
Shannon Kendall’s name in looped and swirling script, announcing her intention to audition for the school play.
And so would she.
As Ruthie painstakingly printed her name underneath Shannon’s, her hands trembling, her heart racing, she knew—she knew!—this was going to change everything. This is how she was going to get close to Shannon. It didn’t matter that the other members of her gaggle had also signed up to audition. One way or another, by the time it was all over, Shannon was going to notice her. They were going to be friends.
She’d make sure of it.
She and Shannon, along with Lyz and Sharla and about a hundred other girls, took their shot at the lead. Not that Ruthie had a prayer of being cast as Kim MacAfee. How could she? She couldn’t sing, her dance moves confined to rhythmic bopping. She wasn’t much of an actress. She definitely wasn’t pretty enough. She could see Ms. Grazoli trying to stifle her quiet shock that Ruthie Stowers would deign to audition for something so prestigious, so high profile. They didn’t understand. No one would ever understand. It was enough to know she and Shannon were in proximity for the same thing, working for the same goal. It wasn’t a shock at all when Shannon got the lead. Not only was she a good actress—and pretty, of course—she had a beautiful singing voice. The drama teacher took pity on Ruthie and cast her as one of the four nonspeaking teenagers.
It was enough. More than enough.
Sharla and Lyz, both awarded bit parts, dropped out after the first rehearsal. But Shannon stayed, meaning Ruthie had her all to herself. Those girls were disloyal. Not like her. For the first time, they were part of the same team. Really on the same team. She and Shannon would share scenes together. Shannon might even need her help to run lines. They’d go to costume fittings together. They’d spend every afternoon together for the next six weeks. Shannon had to notice her.
And she did. She made a point of saying hi to everyone every afternoon before rehearsal and asked how they were doing and wished everyone a good night at the conclusion of rehearsal. She’d even waved to Ruthie the next day during her morning glide through the hallway, the tiny gesture stunting the dismay over the C+ she’d gotten on her chemistry exam earlier that week.
And then came the day—the day—Shannon spoke directly to her for the first time. Ruthie was standing next to one of the prop records she’d left backstage and Shannon asked if she’d mind grabbing it for her. Her hand shook as she passed it over, exploding with happiness when Shannon smiled and said thank you.
Ruthie thought she’d died.
As she watched Shannon during those weeks of rehearsal, she continued to be awed by her singular talent. It wasn’t just the purity of her voice, the limbs seemingly made of rubber, or her comic timing easily interspersed with dramatic talent. She sparkled, throwing a wink and a smile at the end of a rousing dance number, or knowing how long to hold a dramatic beat.
She was a superstar.
Opening night was coming soon and Ruthie knew she had to do something to move the needle on their friendship. Her chance came after a long rehearsal that saw them run through the complete show twice. Shannon was flawless, of course. Ruthie had dawdled after rehearsal, taking extra time to help put away props, carefully watching as Shannon bid everyone good night before floating down the hall to the restroom. She quickly followed her, making sure no one saw her, timing it so she made it in just as she did, waiting to exit the stall only seconds after Shannon.
“Hi,” she said, her voice squeaking as Shannon looked over from the sink where she was washing her hands, her voice echoing around the room.
“Hey.” She snapped her fingers. “Wait, tell me your name again?”
“Ruthie. Ruthie Stowers.”
“Right. Oh, my God, Ruthie.” She laughed and took a handful of paper towels out of the battered and rusty white metal dispenser. “I am soooo bad at names. Like so bad.”
“That’s okay.” Ruthie dried her own hands. “You were so good today. I mean, you’re good every day, but today you were like, amazing. Seriously, you’re like a star.”
“Awww.” Shannon’s face melted into puppy dog cuteness, Ruthie’s insides right along with it. “That is so sweet.”
“I’m just being honest. You could seriously win an Oscar one day or something.”
Shannon laughed again, reaching into her purse for a mint green tube of Estée Lauder lipstick. “I totally tried out for fun. My girlfriends were like ‘you should do it, you should it’ and ‘let’s all do it’ and then I got it and I could not believe it.” She puckered her lips a few times then smiled at Ruthie. “What do you think? Does this color look okay?”
“It’s great. Really, that color looks so good on you.”
Shannon threw the tube back into her purse. “I’m going with pink for spring. You know, totally lighten it up.” She turned to Ruthie. “I’m thinking of getting blond highlights for the summer. Do you think they’d look good on me?”
“Oh, yeah.” Ruthie nodded. “You should totally do that.”
Ruthie jumped when the pink Swatch watch on Shannon’s wrist sounded. “Ugh. I have to get home, take my medication,” she said, turning on her heel toward the bathroom door. Ruthie ran to catch up with her, afraid to let this moment slip through her fingers.
“Your medication?” she asked, panicked by this casually dropped tidbit. Was Shannon sick? Was she dying?
“For my diabetes,” she said nonchalantly.
“Wow. Really?” Ruthie asked, working to keep pace with Shannon. Her own heart pounded at the nearness of her. The sharp scent of Aqua Net, the Liz Claiborne perfume, sparkling white Keds, GUESS? jeans mini, and oversized black and white Esprit jacket she herself had coveted at Palais Royal just a few weeks ago.
“I was diagnosed when I was seven. I keep it totally under control. Take my insulin, get lots of rest, play tennis, swim. I’m in super good shape.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ruthie said, sobered by this chink in Shannon’s armor. “I had no idea.”
Shannon shrugged. “It’s no big deal. It’s not like I’m dying or anything.”
“No, it’s just … I thought only old people got diabetes.” Ruthie felt a flush of heat across her face. “Oh, my God. That sounded so stupid.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Shannon smiled. “Lots of kids get it, they don’t know why.”
“So, are you nervous about opening night?” Ruthie asked, desperate to steer the subject away from this grim discovery about Shannon’s not-so-perfect life.
“Huh? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a little, I guess. I probably won’t think about it until it’s here, you know?”
“Sure, yeah, that makes sense.”
Shannon grabbed her car keys from her purse. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good night.”
Ruthie’s heart plummeted to her feet, crashing as it hit the bottom. “Yeah, sure, have a good night,” she said, turning slightly away.
“Where are you parked?”
“Oh, I walk home. It’s not far.”
