*
Dad talked to Nicole when she got home—Mom was still out. They came to my door afterward and Nicole said, “I’m really sorry that I’ve been bothering you at the restaurant. I won’t do it again,” while Dad stood beside her. Her words sounded sincere but her eyes were angry. She was pissed that I’d involved Dad.
“Maybe we should just keep this to ourselves,” Dad said. “There’s no reason to worry your mom.” In other words, he didn’t want to deal with Mom flipping out. Nicole and I agreed.
I hoped things would change after that, but Nicole was in the restaurant with the girls the very next weekend. She didn’t laugh as loud at Shauna’s jokes and barely looked at me, but she was still there, and in my mind that was enough. Then one day Mike saw me choking back tears in the kitchen—after Shauna had made a comment about my boobs being like fried eggs, while she poured ketchup all over her plate, making loud squirts with the bottle—and asked what was wrong. I tossed down the rag I’d been using to wipe the counter and told him what had been going on. He headed over to Shauna’s table, motioning for me to follow. He placed both his hands on the table, his big body looming over them.
“You girls are going to have order meals if you want to keep coming in here. And Toni won’t be serving you anymore. If you give any of my waitresses a hard time again, you won’t be welcome back. Got it?”
Shauna’s face turned red and angry. The other girls looked mortified. Mike stared hard at Shauna, his eyebrows raised. Shauna finally nodded. Nicole’s eyes were big and scared. I thought Shauna would make some snarky comment after Mike walked off, but they left the restaurant right away. Mike told me that if they gave me any more trouble I should come see him immediately—he didn’t care that Frank McKinney was Shauna’s father. I loved him for believing me.
The girls stopped coming in after that. But Nicole was going to Shauna’s house almost every weekend and a lot of nights during the week. One afternoon I came home and they were all in our living room. I stopped still, caught off guard. Shauna was sitting next to my mom, flipping through one of our photo albums while Mom pointed out a picture of us as babies.
“Oh, my God. How cute!” she said, then looked up at me. “Hi, Toni.”
Rachel, Kim, and Cathy all looked up with smiles and said, “Hey, Toni,” like we were best friends.
Nicole seemed worried, glancing around at all of us. I stared at them mutely for a few seconds, trying to convey my anger with my eyes: What the hell are you doing in my house? My mom shot me a dirty look, so I mumbled, “Hey.”
Shauna said, “I was telling your mom how bad I still feel about what happened at school, and how glad I am that we got over it.” She smiled at me.
So that’s how she was going to play it.
“Yeah, me too.” I smiled back. “Great to see you.”
I grabbed something from the fridge, trying to look casual, though my heart was beating fast, then went up to my room. My bedroom door was open. Had they been in there? I quickly looked around. Some of my stuff seemed to have been moved. I didn’t keep a journal and didn’t notice anything missing, but I was sure they’d been in my room. What were they looking for? Did Nicole tell them about the knife? Luckily that was in my packsack.
I didn’t know what they were looking for, or if they found it, but I hated thinking of them in my room, touching my things, laughing and giggling. I hated thinking about what they might be planning for me next.
Maybe that was the point. They wanted me to be scared, wanted me to know that no place, not even in my own home, was safe from them.
*