I Swear

11. BETH

The memorial was a nightmare. Mrs. Gatlin was drunk, which I know only because she tottered past me when I was talking to Coach Stevens, and she smelled like champagne. Can’t blame her. I was a little jealous. From the time we left the student assembly on Monday morning to the time we showed up at the memorial service on Saturday, I’d spent over fifty hours at school. If I wasn’t in class, or cramming for Chem II in the library with Jillian, I was at practice working my floor routine.

And then there were the meetings. When Macie smells opportunity, she can be a spaz—or, as Krista calls it, “A real pain in my ass.” This week she was in rare form. If she wasn’t texting us about another last-minute meeting to get kids involved in the volunteer effort for the TeenReach Hotline, we were helping her design and print posters for the counseling outreach she’d convinced Principal Jenkins to hire two extra contract guidance counselors for.

It was ridiculous.

And it was working.

People were lining up for counseling sessions, and every time Macie walked by the guidance office, she’d check the sign-up sheet, text her dad’s press contacts, and email Principal Jenkins with updates. Jenkins was totally in her hip pocket. He was no dummy. Having the state senator’s daughter in student government had been good for the budget.

The truly amazing part was that Macie showed no sign of slowing down. She was a machine. I was so glad when she sat down at the memorial because I thought for sure she’d take the rest of the night off, but just as the choir finished singing, I felt my phone buzz and saw a text that was more of a command than a request:

Meet you at Marv’s after the memorial. Get the booth in the back.

Krista got the text at the same time. She looked at me and smiled, then squeezed my shoulder. “Let’s get back to normal, shall we? This is getting a little maudlin, and I need a cigarette.”

She was right. I was so tired of the second-guessing, and jumping every time Macie barked an order. And there was a place right behind my sternum that felt like it was holding a boiling pot of water that might bubble over at any moment. Last night after practice, I’d scrolled through the messages on Leslie’s Facebook wall from the whole week.

The one that she’d posted to me was buried underneath the almost four hundred wall posts that had started the next morning and continued nearly unabated.

No one had commented on it—yet. I was hoping to keep it that way. Surely at some point Facebook would delete the page. Right? Wasn’t someone putting up a memorial page? Should I?

I saw Katherine across the gym. She had a pageant tonight, a regional for the Miss Seattle Teen competition. Usually we all went as a group. We were supposed to be there to cheer her on, but usually we just laughed our asses off at the other girls. The lower-level competitions were Macie’s favorite. She liked to play the game Find the Biggest Bangs. Tonight I couldn’t deal, and I didn’t want to have to explain if it came up, so I steered Krista out the side entrance.

As I got into the car, Katherine texted me.

“Who is that?” asked Krista, turning up the radio and checking her lip liner in the mirror above the passenger seat.

“Katherine,” I said as I texted her back.

“Where has she been all week?” Krista asked. “She hasn’t been at a single one of the student council meetings. You’d think Macie would whip her into line.”

I pressed the send button. “I think she’s just been busy with pageant stuff,” I said. Katherine had been noticeably absent from anything after class hours this week. She’d skipped out on our weekly Brit lit study group during sixth-period study hall on Wednesday, and it had been her turn to outline the chapter. That left us to our own devices for learning the high points about Oscar Wilde. Luckily Josh had been there to give us a crash course.

I couldn’t imagine that after everything that had happened already this week, she’d show up to hang out at Marv’s when she had a pageant to prepare for.

As we pulled out of our parking space after the memorial, I saw Jillian walking across the parking lot with Jake. His eyes were hidden by sunglasses. I knew from Jills that he was taking this pretty hard.

“Ugh. When is he going to stop moping around?” asked Krista. “He’s so much cuter when he smiles.”

I didn’t say anything. I just turned up the music. Krista has no filter. She says everything she thinks, and she thinks some awful things.

“Think he’s coming with Jillian?”

“No,” I said. Jake wasn’t interested in hanging out with us right now. Of that much I was certain.