Dare Me Part 20

"No," I say. "You said you were going to make make something happen." something happen."

"Well," she replies, "turns out I didn't have to."

"Why would Will do that?" I ask.

"Why wouldn't he?" she answers, her voice animated, gossipy-like we have finally hit upon the thing itself, something she's been waiting for.

"Maybe, Addy-Faddy, just maybe he saw the pointlessness of all matters of the heart and said I won't just sink in, I won't let her grab me by the ankles. f.u.c.k me, I'll look her in the eye. I'll jump."

There is a pause, and I hear Beth's fast breaths, her tongue clicking in her mouth.

I have the sudden feeling that she might say something that will alarm and hurt me. Something I don't want to hear. About the way we are linked, my cheer shoe lodged in her steely palm. About last summer, when I said I was tired of being her lieutenant, tired of being her friend, and it seemed like the two of us were over forever, but we never could be.

"Beth," I say, my arms over my head. "I can't talk to you anymore."

"Addy," she says, somberly, intimately. "You have to."

Something has pa.s.sed between us, a secret knowledge about us, and what she needs from me. But I blink and I miss it.

21

WEDNESDAY: FIVE DAYS TO FINAL GAME

Meet me @ 7 at coffee place.

Coach's five a.m. text scissoring into my sleep.

I feel hung over, have felt hung over for two days straight, the early morning light laying dew and mystery on me as I walk the five blocks, wary of starting my car at 6:55 in the morning. Sometimes I see my dad then, lurking in the hallways, robe flapping, surprised to see me, like I'm his errant boarder.

Coach is leaning against the milk and sugar station, but when she sees me, her body seems to lift upward, her eyes jittering into focus.

She goes to the counter to get me a matcha green tea and when I reach for a pink packet, she smacks it from my hand, that familiar gesture of hers, and I almost smile but can't seem to.

We take our drinks to her car and sit there, windows rolled tight.

She tells me the police called last night and said they had some questions for her, just routine, but they thought she might wish to handle it discreetly and come to the station house.

At first, all her words just flap at me. I listen and nod and slide my drinking straw behind my teeth, grate it along the roof of my mouth until it hurts.

"Luckily, Matt's out of town," she's saying. "Did I tell you that?"

I shake my head.

"He flew to Atlanta yesterday for work," she says, eyes lifting to the rearview mirror.

I hadn't even been thinking of Matt French. Or how she was going about her life with him amid all this, hiding such a monumental secret. But maybe it wasn't that different. Maybe it wasn't different at all.

"So I got Barbara to stay with Caitlin and I went to the police station. And it wasn't like I thought at all. The detective told me that...he told me what we knew. And he said that they were conducting a routine investigation and they had found my phone number in his call log."

She pauses, her chest heaving a little. That's when I realize her voice is faster than yesterday, with a new wariness to it.

"He asked me if I thought Will was depressed. And if I knew whether he kept any firearms in his home. And about how we knew each other."

"Did you tell?" I ask, sinking my chin into the plastic lid of my drink. "What did you tell?"

"I was as honest as I could be," she says. "It's the police. And I have nothing to hide, not really."

I lift my head and look her in the eye. I wonder if I've heard her right.

"I mean, I do. do. Have some things I'd rather...," she says, shaking her head, like she's just remembered. "I told him we were friends. And that Will probably did have firearms, which is all I really know." Have some things I'd rather...," she says, shaking her head, like she's just remembered. "I told him we were friends. And that Will probably did have firearms, which is all I really know."

"If he saw the call log," I say, trying to get her to look me in the eye, "wouldn't he know you're more than friends?"

"Will and I didn't really talk on the phone that much," she says, briskly. "Besides, all that has nothing to do with what happened."

I don't know what to say to this.

A voice spins from me, small and wild. "Will the police call me? Will they be calling all of us?"

It suddenly seems like it could happen, and I think: this is how your life can end.

"Listen, Addy," she says, turning to me. "I know this is all really a lot for you to take. I know it all seems scary. But the police are just doing their job, and once they confirm that this is...what it is...then they're not going to need to be bothered with me anymore. It's going to be just fine. Matt will come home, and it'll be like before. Before Before before. Believe me, they're not interested in my little life." before. Believe me, they're not interested in my little life."

It's not until a long time later, standing at my school locker, that I think, But I was asking about me. Will the police call me? But I was asking about me. Will the police call me?

But, Coach, what about me?

When we walk into school, Coach loops her arm in mine for a second, which she has never done and doesn't suit her. Still, I feel her strain and want to clinch her tighter, but I don't. Now we share something. At last. Except it's this.

I fall asleep in chem, my cheek on the tall tabletop of our lab station, a TV movie unreeling in my head: cheerleaders lined up at the police station in full uniform. On TV they always wear their uniforms all day long, and never stop smiling.

When I wake with a jolt to the sight of David Hemans flaring the Bunsen burner inches from my hair, I feel like I've just touched the tip of knowing, of realizing.

But then it goes away.

"You're the worst lab partner ever," he says, eyes on my Eagles letter jacket. "I hate all of you."

Second period, two minutes before the bell, and Beth slips into the seat next to me.

"Miss Ca.s.sidy," Mr. f.e.c.k says, hand on his hip like he does. "I don't believe I see you until fourth period. And not always then."

Full-on cheer-glamour mode, a la RiRi, Beth crinkles her nose with just a whiff of naughtiness and jiggles her index finger like a little inchworm, mouthing, One second, Mr. f.e.c.k, please!!! One second, Mr. f.e.c.k, please!!!

f.e.c.k nearly bows his a.s.sent.

They are so weak. All of them.

Dragging my desk toward her, Beth whispers greedily in my ear.

"Did she tell you about it? Spill, soldier, spill."

"Did who tell me what?" A routine that's getting old, even to me.

"f.u.c.k me, Hanlon," she says, hand gripping my wrist until both our tan hands turn white.

"Yes," I say, clipping my voice. "She can't believe it. It's terrible."

"Suicide is no no solution," she says, and she says it lightly, cruelly. solution," she says, and she says it lightly, cruelly.

Then she seems to catch herself, and something tangles messily in her face. For a second.

Seeing that, I feel my chin wobble and heat rising to my eyes. Therein, somewhere, beats the heart of Beth.

"But, Addy," she says, looking at me low-eyed, like c'mon, give it up, girlie, c'mon, give it up, girlie, "did she have any "did she have any more more information? How did she find out? Who told her?" information? How did she find out? Who told her?"

"I don't know," I say.

"Miss Ca.s.sidy...," singsongs Mr. f.e.c.k, eager to reengage.

"Yes, m'lord," Beth says, and she curtsies. She really does.

Turning around at the door, her waist swiveling, she pokes two fingers out at me.

Later, be-yotch.

Later.

My finger poised over my phone, the text message screen blank and taunting.

UR nt gona tel abt Coach n Will...I start to type.

But then I don't.

And I start thinking of all the text messages Beth must have about everything.

One by one, text by text, e-mail by e-mail, I delete everything on my phone, my breath loud in my own ear. But I know it doesn't matter.

You can't erase it all, not even half of it. Half my life surrendered to gray screens the size of my thumbnail, each flare carelessly shot from my phone to another now rocketing back, landing in my lap like a cartoon bomb, its wick lit.

The thing is, when this happens, you just have to give Beth the thing she wants.

But what does Beth want?

Yet Coach goes on, and I marvel at it.

At practice, she hustles us while Beth sits on the top bleacher deck.

Perched up near the rafters, black wings tucked tight, she's staring at her phone, her face lit by it.

Counting off our beats, Coach is focused, intense. She rides us hard.

"I've got to move things fast," she shouts. "I have to pick up my daughter. Don't drag on me, dollies."

At first, the hurting is not the good kind, and I can't pound my way to it. And when Mindy fishhooks me during a tumbling pa.s.s, knocking me to the mat, I'm embarra.s.sed to feel hot tears popping from me. For the first time ever on the mat.

"G.o.d, Hanlon," Mindy says, surprised. "You are are Lieutenant Hanlon, aren't you?" Lieutenant Hanlon, aren't you?"

But there's no time to feel the shame, and I make sure to hold nothing back when I jam my shoe into Mindy's hidebound shoulder next time around.

Soon enough, as we leap and tuck and jump, I start feeling better and my body starts doing astonis.h.i.+ng things, tight and rock-hard, nailing it.

But then Beth starts talking loudly on her phone. I see Coach looking up at her, again and again, and everything starts galloping back, hoofs up.

"Cap'n," Coach calls out to her, and I feel myself tense. "Can you run some tumbling?"

Beth looks up, a strand of hair slipping from her mouth.

We all look up.

She does not remove the phone from her face.

I feel like if I were closer, I'd see her baring her teeth.

"I'd like to, ma'am," Beth shouts, in her whiniest teen girl voice, "but I only have one tampon left and I've had it in all day, all day, so I think if I do mat work, it'll come loose." so I think if I do mat work, it'll come loose."