And When I Die, page 3
“Well, I do. Lauren’s bringing the official invitation over in the morning, so I can surprise Jordan with it tomorrow when she gets home from school.”
“You should have stayed out of it.”
“Oh…” Erica scoffed and rubbed her eye beneath her sunglasses. “You don’t understand. Being snubbed from the biggest event of the year is the kind of thing that can have a major impact on a girl’s social life. These things can stick to you like gum to your shoe.”
“Jordan’s fine,” he said. “Stop worrying about her so much.”
“But these things can turn on a dime, Jay. One minute, you’re best friends with the most popular girl in school, people want to be your friend, people want to be around you and the next minute, you’re a freak and everyone turns on you.”
“Listen, babe, I know you were ‘Most Popular’ and homecoming queen and all of that in high school and this kind of stuff is important to you, but Jordan could give a shit. Let it go.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Trust me, Jordan’s going to thank me for this.”
“Said the iceberg to the Titanic.”
“Now you’re just being negative.”
He sighed. “All right, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. Now, what do you want me to pick up for dinner?”
3
WHITNEY
Whitney swabbed her mouth with Pink Pow, then applied a dot of Gold Glow gloss to the center of her bottom lip. She’d read somewhere doing that made your lips look sexier in pictures or something. She pressed her lips together several times as she examined her reflection, mock-frowning as she leaned back in her desk chair. She subconsciously arranged her hair over the barely visible dime-sized purple splotch of birthmark high on the back of her neck, and snapped a selfie, her stainless-steel water bottle in front of her. Within seconds of posting the picture to Instagram, it lit up with likes, fluttering hearts, emojis, bitmojis, and comments wanting to know what she was drinking, what lipstick she was wearing, Evan Collins commanding her to hit him up later. She smiled when Peyton’s post with a dancing Beyonce gif about how she couldn’t wait to see her killer choreography at pom-pom practice next week popped up. She posted a kissing emoji and liked the post. Lexi and Madison liked the post too and her comments were flooded with people saying they couldn’t wait to see her moves at the next home game.
As her Spotify playlist droned quietly in the background, she wrote down her volunteer schedule at the public library for next week, excited they were going to let her do two children’s story times a month with games and crafts. The kids were so cute the way they called her Miss Whitney. She was still waiting to hear back from the community center about teaching a few dance classes a couple of Saturdays a month. After updating her calendar, she flipped open the spiral-bound choreography notebook adorned with flowers laying on the desk in front of her. She scribbled some notes alongside rudimentary stick figures for the routine she was working on, humming to herself as she went over the moves in her head, excited to show them off at practice tomorrow.
Without even thinking, she stopped, picked up her phone, and pulled up a #ThrowbackThursday post from about this time last year of her and Jordan from the night of the eighth-grade dance, with their matching black and white dresses and same curly updo and red nails, one girl brown, one girl peaches and cream. She couldn’t help flipping through the mountain of photos she hadn’t been able to bring herself to delete. Pictures from pom camp, selfies from hanging out at Jordan’s house in Wisconsin, movies they’d seen together, sleepovers, pool parties, the beach. A lifetime of memories.
Whitney’s finger hovered over the trashcan icon, wanting so badly to delete Jordan out of her life forever. She’d ripped up everything that reminded her of Jordan: movie and concert stubs, notes passed in class. Even the silver chord friendship bracelet had gone in the trash.
One reminder of that girl had been one too many.
But for whatever reason, she couldn’t bring herself to delete the pictures.
As Whitney secured her hair with a yellow ponytail holder, there was a soft knock at her door.
“Is dinner ready?” Whitney asked as her mom entered the room.
“Almost,” her mom said, hanging back in the doorway before edging into the room and sitting on the corner of the king-sized bed. “So, how was school? How was practice?”
Whitney wrinkled her nose. Something was up. Her mom’s eyes kept ping-ponging around the room and she had a kind of dazed, distracted look on her face. Hopefully she wasn’t about to give her a hard time about the pom gear everywhere or why her shoes weren’t in the closet or how come the corners of the hot pink duvet were sagging on the floor because Whitney hadn’t made the bed. It was so aggravating when her mother hassled her about cleaning her room. It was her room. She could do whatever she wanted.
“School, you know, school. Practice was amazing,” she said slowly. “And so, remember I told you Coach K and Lizzie were going to let me start choreographing some routines?”
“Yes.”
“So, I got to choreograph my very first routine at practice today. Isn’t that awesome?”
“That’s wonderful, honey. I’m so proud of you.”
Whitney nodded, still waiting for whatever bomb her mom was about to drop. “Thanks.”
Her mom bit her bottom lip, then smiled. Whitney realized she was holding her breath. It had to be something about the party. Something she wanted that her parents were now saying she couldn’t have. Whatever it was, they’d just have to figure it out and make it happen.
“Honey, listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Is this about the party?”
Her mom hesitated. “Yes.”
Whitney folded her arms across her chest. “What?”
“I ran into Mrs. Mitchell today.”
Whitney shook her head slowly, knowing where this was going. “Don’t even say it.”
“Listen, Jordan is really upset you didn’t invite her and … you girls have been friends your whole lives and—”
“Mom, I already told you under no circumstances is Jordan Mitchell invited to my party. She’s totally void.”
“Okay, Whitney, I understand you two got into it about something—”
“We will never ever be friends again. I am done with her. So done.” Whitney grabbed her water bottle, which was full of Gatorade, taking a healthy swig.
“I told Mrs. Mitchell Jordan could come.”
Whitney lowered the water bottle, narrowing her eyes. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if her mother was high. Her parents thought she didn’t know that they huddled together in the hot tub in the backyard a few times a month and got completely toasted, giggling and falling all over themselves like wobbly toddlers.
Instead, she asked, “You did what?”
“Whit, listen, it’s one night. One party. It’s not that big a deal—”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Whitney, calm down.”
“I will not calm down. No. No way—”
“Whit—”
“I told you, I’m totally, totally done with her. Like, are you deaf or something?”
Her mother unfolded herself off the bed. “Look, Jordan’s invited and that’s the end of it.”
Whitney threw her water bottle across the room. It exploded against the wall, bright green Gatorade tears weeping down the length of the hot pink and white striped walls.
“How could you do this? I hate you!” Whitney screamed.
“You keep this up, there won’t be a party.” Her mother cocked her head. “Got it?”
Whitney stood in the middle of the room, her arms still locked across her chest, tears poking the back of her eyes. She wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction and instead, sniffed them back.
“Clean up this mess,” her mom said, heading out to the hallway. “Dinner is in ten minutes.”
Whitney shook her head, her face pinched in disgust, tears brimming in her eyes as she sat down at her desk and stared at the blank spot on her wall where Jordan used to be.
4
CARLY
Carly twirled in front of the full-length mirror as she examined the flouncy red dress she’d found at the back of the closet her mother suggested—insisted—she wear to Whitney’s party. It was a cute dress, even if it was a year old. At least no one at school had ever seen it, so she could totally pass it off as new. Maybe Whitney would also think it was cute.
She took off the dress, and laid it carefully on the full-sized bed before turning on her phone’s flashlight. Still in her white cotton bra and panties, she bent over the dress, running her fingers along the soft fabric in search of stray threads, ripped seams, weird stains, or anything out of place. She couldn’t afford to have even one tiny little thing wrong with this dress.
Her phone chirped in her hand. Her heart leapt at the text from Whitney. She smiled in spite of herself and took a few deep breaths to calm down before reading it.
W: My mom is a total bitch.
Carly screwed up her face.
C: What happened?
W: She fucking invited Jordan to my party.
Carly chewed her bottom lip, her heart pounding. Jordan? Jordan was going to be there? That would ruin everything.
C: Are you serious? Why would she do that?
She waited, the phone staying agonizingly dark and quiet.
Finally, it pinged.
W: I told you, because she’s a bitch. You’re so lucky your mom’s so cool. She’d never pull any shit like that on you.
Carly wasn’t sure what to say to that. It’s true, her mom was kind of like the cool mom. Everyone was always saying it. Weirdly gorgeous with her big brown eyes, smooth skin, and snub nose. Okay, she wasn’t all the way perfect. The bottom row of her teeth was super crooked and she was missing the tip of one index finger, accidentally cutting it off with a kitchen knife when she was thirteen while slicing potatoes. And she could be all kinds of snarky sometimes. But beyond that, she was funny and awesome. A cool job that required her to travel all around the world. Tall and pretty with a kind of careless chic. More than once in her life, her friends would say she was so lucky to have Ava as her mom.
She weighed her phone in her hand as she contemplated what to say to Whitney. She took a deep breath.
C: Just because your mom invited Jordan doesn’t mean she’ll come.
Carly chewed on her bottom lip as she waited for a response, growing less confident in her answer as time ticked on. It seemed like a good thing to say. Just because somebody asked you to do something didn’t mean you had to do it. Kind of like when her Aunt Benny asked her dad to call their dad more often and he’d always lie and say he would, then wouldn’t. Grandpa was kind of mean, so Carly totally got why her dad avoided him as much as possible.
But maybe Whitney didn’t think that. Maybe she thought it was a stupid thing to say and would tell her so. Maybe she would say she really couldn’t believe Carly would say something so completely and utterly moronic.
Her phone pinged.
W: You’re totally right. That bitch knows better than to show her face at my party.
Carly’s heart stopped its gallop as she read and reread Whitney’s text. Everything was okay. They were still cool. She smiled and responded with smiley face and thumbs-up emojis.
W: I gotta jet. Bitch is calling me for dinner. Hit me up later and we’ll rip on the new season of Black Mirror. You’re all caught up, right?
She groaned. Black Mirror was Whitney’s favorite show. Like, obsessed. So, when Whitney asked her over the summer if she watched it, gushed about how she totally had to if she wasn’t already, she lied and said she’d seen every episode. Whitney was so wrapped up in talking about the show, she didn’t notice Carly barely said two words about any of the episodes. Carly promised herself she’d set aside one whole Saturday to binge some episodes.
Except she hated it. Absolutely hated it. A man fucking a pig? People as roaches? Mechanical dogs? It was straight-up bizarre and she could not get into it. Sci-fi was so not her thing and after a few episodes, she gave up. Instead, she skimmed recaps and analysis of different episodes so she’d know enough to make Whitney think she was totally up on it and totally into it. Anything she wasn’t sure about, or couldn’t remember, she just agreed with Whitney that yeah, that was so weird or no, I totally didn’t see that coming either, or OMG, how crazy was that? Truthfully, she’d rather be watching Lifetime movies.
She’d started the lie and now she would have to keep up the pretense.
C: Yeah, totally caught up. I’ll text you later.
Whitney sent back a string of dancing bitmojis and Carly grunted. The last thing she wanted to do was waste time texting about Black Mirror.
But for Whitney, she would.
It was crazy that she and Whitney had gotten back to being friends. They’d been kind of friends when they were kids. Not super close—Whitney and Jordan had always been besties—but Carly had been invited to sleepovers and birthday parties at the Dean’s and Whitney had been to her house many times after school to swim in her pool or do homework.
All the alliances shifted in junior high and as Carly got uglier and geekier, Whitney completely lost interest in being around her, which meant the whole crew did. No one made fun of her or anything like that. She just stopped getting invitations to slumber parties or the mall on the weekends for a slice of pizza and a Coke after getting spritzed with perfume samples at the makeup counters. Carly joined band and French club, while Whitney did cheerleading and pom, being named Queen of the Court every year in junior high to boot. Carly still had friends, but her childhood ties to Whitney Dean were a distant memory.
Then, like magic, right before sophomore year, Carly blossomed. That’s what her mom called it. Blossoming. The braces were gone and the acne cleared. She had to settle for blowouts every couple of weeks to tame her naturally curly hair, as her mom wasn’t going for any keratin treatments. And Whitney noticed. She’d say hi to her in the hallways, asked her to sit at her table at lunch, invited her to hang out at the mall. At first, it was Whitney, Carly, Jordan, Madison, Peyton, and Lexi, and it was generally understood that Jordan and Whitney were the queens. The rest of them just followed along and did whatever the queens wanted. What Whitney and Jordan said was the law.
Both girls made her nervous, but for different reasons. Whitney, because she was always afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing and she’d realize Carly was still the geeky little baby with pizza skin and frizzy hair, that she wasn’t nearly as cool or together as she tried to pretend she was. Because everything about Whitney was perfect, from her clothes to her hair, her teeth, everything. Even her house was amazing, all glass and steel, and modern. Not like her house, which was definitely nice—really, really nice, since her mom believed in buying quality stuff—but it wasn’t a showplace like Whitney’s house. And her room! The big king-sized bed with the silky hot pink duvet, pink and white striped walls, furry white throw rug, and Chinese lantern chandelier—so cool in comparison to the pale blue walls, plain lamps and beige carpet runner of Carly’s bedroom. Everything about Whitney’s pretty perfectionism intimidated her.
But Jordan wigged her out for a whole other reason.
She kind of scared her.
Jordan had this edge to her, a hardness that petrified Carly. Moody, sarcastic. What her mother would call a tough cookie. Carly just thought she was a straight-up bitch.
The two had never been close. They were all in the same class, went to all the same birthday parties, play dates, and carpools. And while she and Whitney would hit up the mall or linger over lattes at Coffee City, she and Jordan would never call each other up to hang out. They definitely weren’t curling each other’s hair or painting each other’s toenails. Jordan had never gone off on her or anything like that. They were friendly-ish, but Carly would never say she was Jordan’s friend.
And she definitely didn’t want to be on her bad side.
Still, Carly had always kind of envied Whitney and Jordan’s friendship. Even though Hayley Clayton had been her best friend all through junior high, it just didn’t feel like they had the same bond as Jordan and Whitney. She knew they spent every weekend together, shared clandestine lipstick and eye shadow, passed dog-eared copies of Teen Vogue back and forth to each other, went out together for cheerleading in elementary school and junior high and pom in high school. They went on double dates, wore matching outfits, and styled their hair in the same bouncy ponytail tied with red ribbon.
And then, something happened over the summer and almost overnight, Whitney Dean and Jordan Mitchell went from BFFs to mortal enemies for eternity. And no one knew why. Neither one of them would talk about it. Jordan was out and Whitney had decided Carly was her new best friend, calling her, confiding in her, asking for her opinion on her shoes or purse or complaining about her mother. It was like a dream come true. Even Hayley seemed to understand when Carly drifted away from her. Who wouldn’t want to be Whitney Dean’s best friend?
She hoped Jordan and Whitney never became friends again. And if Jordan came to the party, the girls might make up.
And where would that leave her?
Carly’s breath quickened and she grabbed her phone, tapping her favorite meditation app, letting her eyes slide closed as she tried to force herself to calm down and stop thinking about Jordan.
5
JORDAN
Jordan Mitchell picked at the dry grilled chicken breast and limp asparagus in front of her. Next to her, her nine-year-old sister, Kennedy, happily dipped her cheeseburger into a pool of ketchup, while her father wolfed down his burritos, and her mother speared a cherry tomato from her side salad and popped it in her mouth. She looked around the table, disgusted as always by her freak show of a family. What in the actual F? Why did they all have to eat something different? Why couldn’t they just all eat the same thing for dinner like normal people? Why didn’t her mom cook?
