“It’s not an accident if it could have been avoided.” Tom would share the stories over dinner, while he had a captive audience. He wanted Jen and Monica to know, he said, for when they started driving. He wanted them to understand that even the worst-case scenario could be avoided through skill and by paying attention.
Ever since Bethany Steiger drove into a tree, killing herself and Colleen, though, Tom hadn’t said much at all.
No one could explain what had happened. Everyone who had ever been in the car with Bethany had said she was a good driver, and her phone records showed that she hadn’t been texting Friday night.
That night, after her mother woke her to tell her about the accident, Jen had waited up until Tom came home. He walked past the living room couch where she had curled up, listening to her mother on the phone in the kitchen. He walked right past Jen as if he didn’t even see her.
She caught pieces of what he told her mother. Worst I’ve ever seen. Couldn’t even tell which girl was which. One of the paramedics puked everywhere. She heard sobbing, but it was Tom.
That was Friday. It was Sunday evening now, and Jen was staring into her closet. The only black dress she owned was the one she’d worn to her cousin’s wedding over the summer. Could she wear the same dress to both services? Would anyone notice?
Jen didn’t know what the etiquette was because no one she had ever known had died. She considered it strange that in fifteen years, she hadn’t experienced death. She’d almost started thinking that tragedy couldn’t touch her. And then Bethany and Colleen happened.
Allie canceled cheer practice for the week and Bethany’s memorial happened first.
Mr. Steiger was Jewish and Mrs. Steiger was Catholic, and Bethany had been raised with neither religion. Her family had chosen to have a memorial service at the funeral parlor instead of a traditional wake and funeral.
Since Petey and Monica had both gotten strep throat over the weekend, Mrs. Berry had called Jen’s mother the night before, offering to drive Jen to Bethany’s memorial service.
Jen couldn’t bear the thought of telling her that she and Susan weren’t speaking to each other, so she’d made an excuse about how she and Juliana had to do a project together; she’d take the bus home from school with Jules and get a ride to the service with Juliana and her neighbor, an older girl on the squad.
For her part, Jules played along, even though she made it clear how she felt about being in the middle of Susan and Jen’s fight. They barely spoke on the bus ride to Juliana’s house; the shock and horror at Bethany’s and Colleen’s deaths hung over them, but in a way, it felt like they were grieving Susan’s absence too.
Now Jen sat on the edge of Juliana’s bed, tugging on a pair of stockings her mother had bought at the drugstore that morning. Jules was cross-legged on the center of her bed, jewelry box in her lap, picking through its contents. Her big brown eyes were tinged with red. She had been crying a lot the last few days—much more than the other cheerleaders, even though Susan and Jen were closer to Colleen and Bethany than Jules was.
Juliana held up a pair of gold stud earrings in the shape of bows. “Is it inappropriate to wear jewelry to a wake?”
“No,” Jen said. “It’s not a wake anyway.”
“I’ve never been to one of these things.” Jules put the earrings back and looked at Jen. “I need you to do something for me tonight.”
Something slithered in Jen’s stomach. “What?”
“Will you talk to Suz? For me?”
Jen picked a pill of fuzz off her stockings. “I don’t think tonight is the appropriate time.”
“Why? All of this just proves life is short,” Juliana said. “What if something happened to her while you guys are fighting? How would you feel?”
Juliana stopped pawing through her jewelry box, settling on a golden cross. She draped the chain around her neck. Fumbled a bit with the clasp before lifting her eyes to meet Jen’s. “Help?”
Jen crawled over and fastened the chain behind Juliana’s neck.
“You know it’s all bullshit, right? The stuff about me and Ethan?”
Jules’s shoulders tensed at his name. She was silent a few moments. Just as Jen was about to explode, Juliana spoke. “I know you’d never want to hurt any of us.”
Jen’s heart dropped. It wasn’t good enough. “The other stuff, though. About me and him—it’s not true.”
Juliana shifted so she was facing Jen. “I know. But, like, you have to see it from Suz’s point of view. Being on someone’s hit list is pretty freaking scary, Jen.”
“I know,” Jen said, but of course she didn’t. How would she? She wasn’t on it. “It was still shitty she didn’t ask me about what she saw at his locker before she went to Heinz.”
Juliana’s eyes moved to the cross at her throat. She fingered the chain. “What did you put in Ethan’s locker?”
“Nothing.” Jen flushed. “It was nothing. The issue is that she assumed the worst without even asking me.”
“Maybe she felt like she couldn’t ask you.”
“Did she say that?”
Juliana wasn’t looking at Jen. “I noticed it too. You’re just not the same.”
“The same as what?”
“I don’t know how to describe it.”
“Can you just try?” Jen asked.
“The old you would have told me the truth when I asked what you put in Ethan McCready’s locker.”
A knock at the door; Mrs. Ruiz popped her head in and asked if they were ready to go.
* * *
—
Jen didn’t have to seek out Susan at the memorial service. Before it started, while Jen was waiting in her chair, Susan sat down next to her. Across the room, where Jules was speaking with Bethany’s parents, Jen caught her sneaking a glance at them. She wondered if Juliana had spoken to Susan too.
“I don’t like this,” Susan said to Jen.
“Me neither.”
Jen heard Susan suck in a breath. Then, gently, she rested her head on Jen’s shoulder. Susan was rarely affectionate.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Me too.” A messy, mascara-stained tear dripped from Jen’s face, onto the front of Susan’s dress, but she didn’t say anything, or seem to mind at all.
* * *
—
A week had passed since Colleen and Bethany’s car accident, and Jen was noticing a shift in the atmosphere at school. Almost like the sky lightening after a storm. With each day since they started again, cheer practice became less serious. The girls began to laugh again, in fits and starts.
Allie had finally rearranged the pyramid to account for the void left by Bethany and Colleen.
It shouldn’t be this easy, Jen thought. Grief isn’t supposed to be easy.
She knew it was different for Mrs. Coughlin, who was rumored to have taken the rest of the year off, and for Mr. and Mrs. Steiger, who were talking about selling their house and leaving Sunnybrook. Jen couldn’t fathom how the holes in their lives could be repaired by shifting, rearranging.
Even her best friends seemed to have moved on from the accident. Susan was back to chewing the erasers off all her pencils in anticipation of getting her PSAT scores.
Thursday was the last practice before the game. Friday night was dedicated to the pageantry of the coming weekend—the float building, the announcement of the homecoming court.
When Allie released them for the afternoon, Jen plopped onto the bleachers with Juliana and Susan. The rrrip of Velcro as Susan removed her knee wrap. Jen kneaded her own neck, sore from the swift kick one of the fliers had landed in a botched basket toss.
“So,” Juliana said. “There’s a party Saturday night at Osprey’s Bluff.”
Jen’s stomach tightened. After homecoming last year, they’d gone to Levi Heckman’s house. Levi was number one in their class, and they’d been friends with him since elementary school. His parents didn’t care about drinking as long as everyone stayed outside. Jen, Susan, and Juliana had gotten tipsy on wine coolers and fed Cheetos to the horses in the stables.
“I thought we were going to Levi’s again,” Jen said.
“Everyone is going to be at the bluff,” Juliana said.
Everyone you feel is important, Jen felt like muttering.
Susan pumped the water bottle in her hand. “Who’s going to drive us to the bluff?”
Susan, always concerned with the mechanics of things.