And When I Die, page 28
“Mrs. Dean.” She smiled and shook Lauren’s hand. “Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me.”
“Thank you for the opportunity.”
“When is this going to air?” Steve asked.
“We’ll do a quick edit after we talk and do some teases tonight, then it will run in its entirety tomorrow morning.”
“Seems pretty fast,” Steve said.
“There’s so much interest in this story and so many people want to hear from Whitney’s family,” Wendy said. “This could even help provide a clue to police.”
Steve frowned. “Like what?”
“Who knows?” Wendy shrugged. “Someone might be watching who saw something, remembers or knows something, and they might be compelled to come forward with new information.” She turned to Lauren. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Let’s do this.”
They were seated on the couch as the makeup fairies continued to float around, their magical brushes filled with magic dust, while someone miked them and asked them to say “testing, testing,” three times. Lauren worried the glare of the lights would cause sheets of sweat to cascade down the inside of her suit, or worse, send all that makeup sliding down her face. Doubtful the makeup fairies could fix that.
Wendy flashed her high wattage smile one final time before a woman with a mike attached to her headphones called for quiet before counting them down.
The questions were all as Lauren expected. Tell her about Whitney. What she was like. What things she liked. Her favorite memory. A funny story. What did she want people watching at home to know about her daughter. She’d chosen to have Whitney’s old teddy bear, Sniffles, in her lap as the personal memento Wendy had suggested. Steve teared up discussing his grief, how their son was coping. About Mr. Byrne. About the day of the murder. Please, Lauren, Steve, relive that horrible night for our viewers.
She’d answered every question carefully. Measured. Tears quivering in her voice, even when she smiled at an anecdote. Her guilt about how irritated she’d been with Whitney that day.
And then the question Lauren had been waiting for.
Her shot, as it were.
“Lauren, Steve,” Wendy asked with breathy sincerity, her head tilted in sympathy. “Can either of you think of anyone who would want to hurt Whitney?”
Next to her, she saw Steve take a breath, prepared with his pat answer of, “No, of course not. Everybody loved Whitney.” A tired banality she’d heard him utter over and over again.
He wouldn’t get that chance today.
“I do have an idea,” she said, cutting him off. From the corner of her eye, Steve’s head swiveled toward her, and though she couldn’t see the expression on his face, Lauren knew confusion—maybe even a little shock, a little irritation—was smeared across it.
Wendy, however, perked up, as she leaned closer. Lauren had to give it to her. The woman was no dummy.
“You’re saying you think you know who murdered your daughter?”
“Whitney was a stunningly beautiful girl, perfect in just about every way. She was kind. Funny. Smart. She had the world on a string and I have no doubt she would have made a positive and indelible impact on the world. In sixteen years, she already had.”
Wendy leaned even closer, almost as if she knew Lauren was about to drop a bomb, that she should simply keep quiet and let Lauren pull the pin.
“The person who murdered my daughter was jealous of all her gifts. This is someone who would never measure up to my daughter and hated her for it. Someone who was second best.” Lauren looked directly at the camera. “A classmate. A classmate who is well aware of what they’ve done.”
“You believe a classmate murdered Whitney?” Wendy asked. “Another student?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a name that you could give us?” Wendy asked, panting practically, like a child grasping for a forbidden cookie just out of its reach.
“The only thing I can tell you is that I expect the police to do their jobs. They know. They know who murdered my daughter.”
The air in the room hung still and heavy. Someone coughed. The cameramen all stole glances at each other, one of them shaking their head in disbelief. She knew Steve was fuming silently and would rip into her when they were locked in the confines of their bedroom.
“Well.” Wendy leaned back, obviously disappointed she wasn’t getting the true scoop of the century. “We can all hope the police will do just that. Thank you for your time today, Mr. and Mrs. Dean.”
The stagehand called cut. Wendy shuffled her notecards while Steve and Lauren were unmiked. They all stood.
“Lauren, I hope you’ll call me when the police make an arrest,” Wendy said. “We’d love to do a follow-up.”
“You’ll be the first person I call,” she said.
Wendy smiled stiffly and shook their hands, thanking Steve a little more profusely before she summoned her producer and they exited the set. Lauren grabbed her purse and Sniffles as Steve clutched her hand under the guise of supporting her. No one knew his hand was a vise around hers, cutting off her circulation, crushing the bones of her fingers.
The stiff pleasantries continued, though no one would look at her directly. Finally, they were outside and in their car.
“Steve—”
“Be quiet.”
“Look, I know I should have told you what I was planning, but—”
“I said be quiet.”
Lauren folded her arms across her chest, as she stared out the front window, Steve peeling out of the parking lot. Well, it was done. There was no snatching the words back from the ether.
Jordan Mitchell had murdered her daughter and tomorrow morning, the whole world would know it.
71
RUTHIE
For the next few weeks, every day after rehearsal, Shannon gave Ruthie a ride home. They sang songs on the radio, talked about the play, and riffed on Mr. Ford, their fat, sweaty English teacher with the creeping crud around his neck. Shannon waved hello to her in the halls when she saw her in between class. She hadn’t invited Ruthie to sit with her at lunch yet, but she could be patient. With each new interaction, Ruthie was certain it was a matter of time before she usurped Lyz and Sharla and Abby as Shannon Kendall’s sole best friend.
It was a thrilling thought, the imminence of it taking Ruthie’s breath away.
Then there was the day she scored an invite to Shannon’s house. Ruthie hadn’t even been angling for one. It had just … happened.
They were in the restroom after rehearsal. Ruthie leaned against the sink and stared in longing admiration as she always did while Shannon expertly swabbed her lips with gloss.
“That’s such a pretty color on you,” Ruthie said.
Shannon smiled. “That is so sweet. You always say the nicest things.” She smacked her lips together a few times. “How come you never wear any makeup?”
“Oh.” Ruthie shrugged. “My mom said not ’til senior year.”
“God. I would die. Absolutely die.” Shannon teased her bangs in the mirror with her fingers. “My mom let me when I was thirteen.”
“I know,” Ruthie murmured.
“What?”
“Where’d you get that lip gloss?” Ruthie said, hoping she’d adequately covered her slip. “Maybe I’ll get it as a birthday gift to myself.”
Shannon gasped and turned to Ruthie, her eyes wide as saucers. “Oh, my God, I have a spare. Come to my house and I’ll give it to you.”
Ruthie was sure she hadn’t heard right. Had Shannon Kendall—the Shannon Kendall just invited her—Ruthie Stowers to her house?
She had. She really had.
“Uh, yeah, uh, sure,” Ruthie stammered. “That sounds great.”
“I mean … you don’t have to be home or anything, do you?”
Ruthie shook her head. “No, no, I’m totally free.”
“Awesome. We can listen to the new Pet Shop Boys cassette, too. I got it this weekend.”
Blood rushed to Ruthie’s head and she had to grab the sink to steady herself before she hurried out of the bathroom to catch up with Shannon, who jabbered on about her father having a fit when she bought a new boom box along with a bunch of new cassette tapes. Ruthie barely heard any of what Shannon said, her mind racing, images of Shannon’s house cramming into her head at a dizzying, wonderful, breakneck speed.
Ruthie continued to smile faintly as they reached Shannon’s car and sang along to “What Have You Done for Me Lately” on the radio. They drove past Ruthie’s street and crossed Lessner Lane, the dividing line between small, comfortable homes like the Stowers’s and grand, luxurious homes like the Kendall’s, winding their way through the spaghetti bowl of serene, curvy streets shrouded in lush, imposing trees. Ruthie had never been back here and it was hard to believe these quiet, stately homes with pillars out front and swimming pools out back shared pieces of her zip code.
Shannon expertly navigated her car up a long driveway, stomping on the brake as she shut off the ignition, not bothering to turn off the radio. “Home sweet home.”
Ruthie tried to act cool as Shannon grabbed her purse and book bag, slamming the door shut as she bounded up the brick walkway and two short steps, keys jingling in her hand. She unlocked the front door and a whoosh of cool, flowery-smelling air flooded out of the house.
“Come on in, make yourself at home,” Shannon said nonchalantly as she threw her keys into a brass bowl on a table in the entryway and dropped her purse and book bag on the floor.
“Hola, Miss Shannon,” a cheerful Spanish accent called out from somewhere in the house.
“Who’s that?” Ruthie asked as she quietly closed the front door behind her.
“Our housekeeper, Yolanda,” Shannon whispered in response. “Como estás, Yoyo?” she yelled out.
Yolanda responded in Spanish, but Ruthie barely heard her, and further, didn’t care about the woman. As she crept further into the house, barely able to drink in the details spinning around her like a carousel whirling off its axis, she kept pinching herself that she was here. Her presence inside Shannon Kendall’s house was a surreal, wonderous reality. The glass wall that had separated them was forever shattered, because Ruthie was here.
And here was a fairytale. Beautiful deep blue velvet couches, vases of fresh flowers she didn’t know the names of, antique lamps, the shimmering blue of the backyard pool peeking through French doors leading to a patio, Oriental rugs, oil paintings on the walls, ornately carved coffee and side tables, wallpaper—wallpaper! She didn’t know anyone who had actual wallpaper. And glinting with tiny lines of gold on top of that. There wasn’t even a TV in the living room—they probably had a room just for that.
She bet their garbage didn’t even stink.
Ruthie followed Shannon into the kitchen, another dazzling room full of all white appliances, one wide countertop housing a glass bowl of green apples too shiny to be real, and gleaming white floors. A petite Mexican woman was emptying the dishwasher, a fast-paced song in Spanish humming softly from the small clock radio on the counter. She came over and kissed Shannon’s cheeks before waving to Ruthie, greeting her with a cheery, “Hola.”
“Yoyo, this is my friend, Ruthie,” Shannon said, turning to her. “Want something to drink?”
Friend? Did Shannon Kendall just say Ruthie was her friend? The blood rushed to her head in a giddy stream.
“Ruthie?”
“Huh, what?”
“Did you want something to drink?” Shannon opened the refrigerator, the wood door painted white to match the rest of the kitchen. The bottom shelf was a sea of green Perrier bottles, while clear, neatly labeled containers filled the remaining clean shelves. Not like the misshapen, foil-covered Tupperware that populated the Stowers’s refrigerator.
Ruthie gulped. “Sure. Whatever you have is fine.”
“We have juice, sparkling water. You can have one of my mom’s Diet Cokes if you want.”
“A Diet Coke sounds good,” she managed, her breath quickening.
Shannon smiled and took one out of a bottom drawer filled with the silver and red cans and set it on the counter. “You want it in a glass with some ice?” she asked.
“Out of the can is fine,” Ruthie said, popping the top after Shannon handed it to her. “Thanks.”
Shannon grabbed a Perrier for herself and an apple out of the bowl. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”
“Goodbye, Miss Shannon, goodbye Miss Ruthie.” Yolanda waved to the girls as they departed the kitchen.
Ruthie didn’t respond to the woman, still on a cloud as she obediently followed Shannon, who slung her purse and book bag over her shoulder before heading up the stairs, each step covered in plush beige carpet. Shannon Kendall had called her a friend. It was too much to handle.
The walls leading up to the second floor were filled with pictures of the Kendall family through the years, adorned in beautiful, dust-free frames behind streak-free glass. The Stowers’s had a handful of school photos hung crookedly and displayed haphazardly around the house in cheap plastic frames. Most of their photos and negatives lived in big, dusty blue plastic bins in their garage that her mother swore every year she’d put into a photo album and get frames for, but never did.
Ruthie took several deep breaths, inhaling the scent of all those fresh flowers and lemon polish, and another smell she couldn’t quite place, but couldn’t get enough of nonetheless. She counted six closed doors upstairs and Ruthie’s heart beat a little faster at the thought of running over to one and turning the knob, just to see what it looked like inside.
Shannon walked into the only upstairs room with an open door and Ruthie’s heart stopped as she crossed the threshold. The bedroom was even more magnificent than in Ruthie’s dreams. A striped pink canopy over a brass bed, a window seat, gauzy white sheers barely hiding the view of the pool below. Outsized posters of Madonna, Prince, and Janet Jackson sprung from every corner, and a huge framed replica of Duran Duran’s Rio album cover dominated one rosy pink wall. Her makeup table was crowded with lipsticks, powders, eye shadows, perfume bottles, and cans of hairspray. Dried mums from dances past were bunched together alongside the mirror, the faded ribbons brushing against the wood frame. Smiling photos of Shannon, Lyz, Abby, and Sharla were everywhere and showed them everywhere—AstroWorld, South Padre, the River Walk, school dances, football games, slumber parties.
“Wow,” Ruthie said, doing a slow spin around the room, about the size of three bedrooms in her own house. “Your room’s huge.”
Shannon shrugged. “I guess.” She walked over to her brand-new boom box and flipped it on, “Manic Monday,” blasting out of the speakers. She mouthed the words and danced in place for a few seconds.
“Doesn’t your mom get mad for the music being up so loud?”
“She won’t be home until late. Eleven at least. So … no.”
“You have the house to yourself?” Ruthie asked, a tinge of jealousy lacing her words. There was usually always somebody at her house.
“Yeah, except for the days Yolanda is here. Sometimes, my dad is here and we cook dinner together and watch my mom’s shows. Otherwise, Sharla, or Lyz or Abby are here, or I go to their house. Actually tonight, my dad and I are going to Strawberry Patch for dinner.” She clicked her tongue and took a swig of her Perrier. “Every Thursday.”
“Wow. I never go to dinner with just my dad. I think he’s scared to go anywhere with just us and not my mom.”
Shannon laughed. “Oh, my God. That’s sooooo funny. My Dad and I are super close. My mom, too. We go shopping or to the movies and lunch on Sundays after church, just the two of us. Daddy and I play tennis every Saturday morning. The rest of the time, he plays golf.” She plucked the promised tube of lip gloss from the drawer of her makeup table and handed it to Ruthie. “Here you go. Happy Birthday,” she said, winking.
“That’s so nice of you, Shannon. Thank you.”
“So not a big deal. I’d already gotten one the last time I was at Town & Country and totally forgot and got another one when I was at The Galleria a few weeks later.” Her watch beeped. “Ooops. I gotta check my insulin, then page my dad. Need anything?”
Ruthie shook her head and Shannon bopped into the bathroom next to her closet, still singing to herself. Ruthie sipped her Diet Coke and took another survey of the room, imprinting the details into every crack and crevice of her memory, not wanting to forget a fiber of carpet or a bump on the wall.
Shannon’s pink Princess phone trilled from the bed stand next to Ruthie and she jumped, fizzy Diet Coke jerking out of the can and spilling down her chin. Shannon came flying out of the bathroom past Ruthie to grab it, slightly out of breath when she answered.
“Oh, my God, are you serious?” Shannon asked whoever was on the other end. “Really? Like seriously. Holy shit. Okay, okay, no, I’m coming. Seriously, I’m coming. Okay. Okay, yeah. Okay, bye.”
Shannon slammed down the phone and squealed.
“Everything okay?” Ruthie asked.
“Sharla just called and said she and Lyz are hanging out and now Chad is coming over and that he’s bringing Mikey and I have to get over there.”
“Mikey Gold?”
“He’s seriously, the hottest guy in school.” She slapped her hands against her thighs. “Ugh. I look gross. I need to change.” Shannon ran over to the closet and disappeared. Ruthie frowned that she didn’t hear hangers swooshing across metal poles. She stood up and followed, gasping when she realized Shannon hadn’t just gone into a closet, but into an adjoining bedroom designed to look like a closet. Racks of dresses, shirts, and pants lined the walls alongside shelves of sweaters and shoes. It was like stepping into a department store.
