I Swear

2. KATHERINE

I knew Leslie was dead before I opened my eyes. It was Beth’s crying that woke me up, and my very first thought was Leslie’s gone and killed herself. As I lay there listening to Beth cry, I felt that familiar knot in the pit of my stomach. It’s the same one I got the day we left Atlanta almost two years ago. I had cried that day while I was hugging my old aunt Liza good-bye.

“No use crying when life hands you different cards than the ones you wanted,” Aunt Liza always said when I was little. “Besides, if you show folks your hand by the look on your face, they’ll call your bluff.”

I lay as still as I could on the pull-out couch in the corner of the TV room in Jillian’s huge upstairs suite and listened for clues. Krista tried to comfort Beth on the edge of the air mattress across the room.

“Beth, it’s okay,” she said.

“No, Krista, it’s not okay. This is not okay.”

I heard a rustling as Jillian jumped up and closed the door of the TV room all the way. “You guys, we have to keep it down.”

“Keep what down?” Beth was crying so hard that she could barely choke out the words. “This isn’t a secret, Jillian. It’s all over Facebook.”

Beth was sobbing too loudly to ignore, and even though I didn’t want to, I opened my eyes and sat up. They had forgotten I was there, because Jillian jumped about three feet in the air, and Beth stopped crying for a second.

“Leslie is dead, isn’t she?” I said.

No one moved for what seemed like an eternity. I realized later that this was the first time any of us had said the word “dead.” For some reason, saying it out loud made it real. The word hung there in midair and I wished that someone, anyone, would grab it and hide it, or hurl it out the upstairs window into the pool out back. Instead it tumbled end over end with a gathering velocity, like a frigid wave, and as it crashed over us, Macie walked into the room from the bathroom that Jillian shared with Jake.

Macie was showered and dressed and looked like she’d stepped out of the window at the Barneys in Pacific Place. Her dark-blond hair was perfect and framed her face in long, shiny layers.

“Yes, Katherine. Leslie killed herself. She died last night huffing exhaust in her own garage.”

Macie took a box of tissues from a shelf next to the television and handed it to Krista.

“Beth, darling, when you dry your eyes, feel free to leave a post on Leslie’s Facebook page along with the hundred and seventeen of us who have already done so. I can’t help but think that our true sympathy should go to her parents, though. I simply can’t imagine how anyone could be so selfish.”

She turned around and fished a small zippered pouch from her Louis Vuitton overnight bag on the floor. She produced two diamond stud earrings, which she put in as she made her way to the full-length mirror next to the couch, where I was sitting. She narrowed her eyes as she surveyed her own reflection. When no one spoke or moved, she suddenly turned and looked at each of us in turn.

“What?” she asked.

Beth grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. Jillian looked at me; Macie followed her gaze and smiled.

“I know it’s only seven, but you need to look alive, VP. You’re going to want to join me at school early this morning. There may be news crews. This sort of stuff is a local anchor’s wet dream. Dress for the cameras.”

She picked up her bag and headed toward the hallway. When she reached the door of Jillian’s suite, she turned back toward Jillian and frowned.

“I don’t know what Jake’s issue was last night,” she said, “but I know I can count on you, right, Jillian?”

There was a tense silence, and I watched as Jillian sputtered and blushed under the heat of Macie’s gaze.

“Wha—? Yes, I mean, yeah. Of course,” she choked out.

Macie nodded once. Then she was gone.

Jillian glanced over at me as I stood up and walked toward the bathroom. I shook my head and smiled at her, then rolled my eyes after Macie with a little sigh. Jillian almost smiled at me, and took a deep breath—the first one I’d seen her take since I sat up and opened my eyes. Her relief was like the wiggle of the catfish my grandpa used to take off my fishing line and toss back into the water at the pond out behind his house during the summer when I was little.

You can always read Jillian’s cards. That girl’s face is a full house.