New Girl

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE



I KNEW SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT THE SECOND I stepped off the bus at Manderley. Everyone was talking very importantly to each other, and I was getting a lot of looks. More than ever. At the end of a break it makes sense for there to be an excited, catching-up buzz about the school.

This wasn’t that.

It got weirder when I walked through the doors and saw a line that ended in Dana, Madison and Julia sitting at a table. Madison had a cash box, Julia was taking money, and Dana was handing out T-shirts. They were pink with black writing and had a picture on them I couldn’t make out from where I was standing.

I dropped my phone off at the office and walked over to the line. All of them watched me as I approached.

“I’m not butting or anything,” I explained, a bit uselessly, to some of the waiting students as I walked past.

I looked at one of the shirts Dana handed to a girl. The picture was of Becca, I could see now, and I read the words.

FIND BECCA





Dana had boxes of the shirts behind her. “Do you want one?”

It took me a moment to realize she was talking to me.

“You can even have one for free,” she offered, not sounding generous at all.

I shook my head and looked around to see that I was being swallowed by a sea of pink. Everyone around me was either wearing or holding a pink shirt. I walked quickly from the table and toward the stairs. I stopped when I saw Max. He was holding a shirt and looking a little dazed.

“Max.”

He tried to smile, but barely pulled it off. His jaw was clenched tightly again. “Come here.”

He pulled me in for a hug. I didn’t stop him, even in light of how uncertain everything was with him. He put his cheek to my hair and didn’t let go for a few seconds.

“What’s going on?” I asked. I never wanted to let go of him, but something had clearly happened.

“You didn’t hear, then?”

I shook my head. My heart was beating fast. “No, hear what? What’s happening?”

He hesitated. “They think…Becca’s alive.” He looked hopeful and regretful all at once.

“Why? Who thinks so?”

“Her Facebook…she had a status update, and it said she was alive. And…it was right after there was a sighting of someone who looked like her.”

“What?” I was breathless suddenly. Everything was going to change. Would they kick me out? Would she come back? “Where? What did it say?”

“They saw her here in town somewhere. The status just confirmed that it was her…I don’t know.”

Blake and Cam approached us a moment later, neither of them holding pink shirts.

“Can you believe this?” Blake asked, looking only at Max.

“No.”

“I don’t even know what to think. I guess we’ll hear more at the assembly. They’re holding it tonight instead of tomorrow.” She looked at me. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” My voice was much higher than usual. “What time’s the assembly?”

“Eight-thirty. Come in uniform.” Cam winked at me, apparently remembering my first assembly.

I smiled weakly. “I should go get situated. That’s only an hour from now.”

I needed to breathe, and to stop feeling that a seventeen-year-old missing girl being alive and well was a bad thing.

“Okay,” Max said, “meet me outside of the auditorium at eight twenty-five.”

I hated myself for getting excited by his willingness to meet me in public and that he wasn’t ignoring me. Maybe I was being Dumb Girl. But I couldn’t care.

Max paused and looked at me, like we’d never see each other again.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just… Never mind, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

As soon as I walked away, I heard Blake start talking quickly and quietly to the other two.

I arrived at my room only to find that the few pictures I’d pinned to my bulletin board last semester had been taken down and put on my bed. So had the thumbtacks. All but the four tacks that held up an eleven-by-seventeen poster pinned in their place. It was a poster printed with the same picture and bold words as were on the T-shirt I still clutched absentmindedly. I threw it on the floor and took down the poster.

I gathered the thumbtacks Dana had intentionally scattered evenly all over my comforter and put them back up with the pictures. Including some of the new ones from the break. My mom had pulled into the driveway just before I left with my dad and Jasper, yelling for us to wait, and then handed me an envelope of pictures she’d just gotten printed for me.

I pinned up some of those, mostly the ones from New Year’s Eve—before it had gone sour—and tried to stop my throat from tightening with the desire to jump right back on a plane. I’d made the decision to come back. I had no choice.

I unpacked my bag, my heart still pounding. I felt guilty for every selfish thought that crossed through my mind as I imagined what it would mean for me if Becca came back. It was good that she might not be dead. Good.

I jumped when a little while later there was a knock on the door. I was expecting Becca at every turn now.

“Come in.”

Madison and Julia floated in, both wearing expressions of great sympathy.

“This must be hard for you.” Madison sat down on Dana’s bed, moving the poster carefully out of the way.

“Why do you think that?”

Julia looked to Madison and then to me. “Becca coming back? You like Max…right?”

“No.”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry but…” Madison ignored me, and laid a hand on her chest, over her heart. “I’m your friend. We are your friends. But we know Max. We know Becca. And…we just don’t want you to have your heart broken by surprise when Max goes back to her.”

“And chances are…” Julia trailed off.

“Maybe he won’t.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt. “And we’re not even, like, together, so if he wants to be with someone that’s not… I mean he’s allowed to do whatever he wants.”

She shrugged. “Look, we’re just trying to look out for you. If you don’t want our help then just say so.”

I didn’t know what to say. But I figured the only way to get them to stop feeling sorry for me was to agree.

I nodded. “You’re probably right. I’ll try not to get too close.”

“Good. Because he really loves her,” Madison said, smiling sadly at me.

Okay, got it.

“You guys going down to the assembly now? It’s soon, isn’t it? I’m meeting Max—” I paused as Julia raised her eyebrows. “I’m meeting Max out front of the auditorium.”

“We’ll walk down with you, sure! Don’t forget your uniform.” Madison couldn’t quite pull it off like Cam without sounding a little mean.

I grabbed my Manderley polo and khaki skirt from the closet, and they stepped outside. To talk about me, I was sure, rather than out of some sense of my privacy.

I was out in a few seconds, and we walked down the stairs silently. I felt relieved when I saw Max.

He nodded a hello to the other girls, and then looked to me. I stepped toward him. He shook his head slightly, looking around, and held open the door for us instead of taking it. I was sure Madison and Julia were exchanging yet another look behind my back.

We walked into the dim auditorium. No one was talking, but everyone watched as we found a place to sit. Soon after we did, the house lights dimmed down to nothing, and Professor Crawley took the podium.

“Welcome back, students. I hope everyone had a good Winter Break. Classes will start up tomorrow as usual, at 8:00 a.m. I want to ask you all to remind yourselves of the rules, and to make sure you ready yourself for school and to shake off the holiday mentality.” He cleared his throat, and carried on with a reminder of what those rules were. I checked off the ones in my head that I’d broken.

Most of them.

The room was filled with the anticipation of what exactly had happened concerning Becca. But we had to wait a full forty-five minutes before all of the administration had spoken and Crawley had taken the microphone again. The room stiffened and went silent.

“There’s been a…progression with the Rebecca Normandy case. I’m sure most of you already know, at least those of you who knew her, but for those of you who do not, Dana Veers is here—once again—to explain. Miss Veers?”

She took the stage, looking even slighter than ever, squinting in the stage lights. “Hi. I think a lot of you bought the T-shirts we’ve been selling outside, and I was glad to find that many of you took our suggestion to buy more than one and to send them to your friends and family members. We want to increase awareness everywhere we can, and the more people who wear her picture the better. Becca Normandy is alive, everyone.”

Cheers immediately broke out. Max was still and silent, as was I. Professor Crawley made a movement toward Dana, but then allowed her to go on when she gave him a scathing look.

“Make it quick,” he said, his voice carrying just enough to get to the microphone.

“As some of you know, Becca updated her Facebook with the following—I am alive, and I will be back to Manderley soon. Love you, Max.” I felt him stiffen next to me. She went on. “I don’t know when she’ll be back, but obviously she will be. Because of this update, her parents have funded advertising in newspapers and magazines nationwide. She has become an icon in news stories practically overnight, and I’m sure it’ll be no time until she’s back. So what I’m saying is, tell your friends and family to keep an eye out for her. All of the money from the T-shirts is going to the cause.”

She stepped down, to applause. Professor Crawley took the podium over again. “Actually, in line with that, there is no way to know if this posting was really by Becca or not. The police are searching, but please, I implore you not to get your hopes—”

But Professor Crawley could hardly be heard. Everyone in the auditorium was talking noisily.

It stayed like that through dinner. I sat at a table with Cam, Blake, Max and some others I barely knew. Most of them were talking about Becca. I was poking at my spaghetti and meatballs, and Max was staring at his meat loaf.

I tried to formulate a million different questions and things to say before landing on, “What do you think?”

We couldn’t be heard over everyone else.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Where would she have been all this time?”

“I don’t know.”

I waited for him to say something else. When he didn’t, I took a deep breath. “Max, you must be able to guess. You have no idea if this is something she might do?”

He raised his eyebrows. “It’s definitely something she would do.”

“It is?” My heart fell a little. Then guilt squeezed it.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Attention probably. Or something else. I don’t know.”

I took a small bite of my spaghetti. A moment later, I got up the nerve to ask him what I had been thinking. “Max, do you think she might have been pregnant?”

He froze. “I don’t know.”

“Really?”

“No. I have no idea.” His tone had sharpened.

I stared at him for a moment. “I’m not very hungry. And I’m tired. The plane, you know.” I waved my hand, as if to say, Oh, planes, they put me right to sleep. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He said nothing, and let me walk away. I said good-night to everyone else. Blake gave me a kind smile and waved.

I ran into Johnny on the steps.

“Hey,” he said.

“Johnny.” I breezed past him, not stopping until I got to the rotunda. I slumped down in one of the seats with itchy fabric.

“What’s wrong?” Johnny had followed me.

I shook my head. “Do you think Becca might come back?”

“It’s something she’d do.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like the trait of a very lovable person, does it?” The question flew from my lips before I could stop it. “I mean…I mean…”

Johnny sat down across from me. “She wasn’t all simple charm. She had more to her. Yeah, this is something she’d do, but…I don’t know.” He looked thoughtfully down at his own fingers. “If she did, there’s more to it than just attention. I’m sure of that.”

“I asked Max if he thought she was pregnant.”

He looked stony. “Yeah, I’ve wondered that, too. Most everyone has.”

We were silent for a moment. “Was he…really that in love with her?”

“I don’t know what it was. It was something…different.”

My heart sank. “Okay.”

“He just couldn’t tear himself away from her. I don’t know why. But I mean, he wasn’t the only one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean that…everyone was fascinated by her. She looked like a movie star, but partied like a rock star. I don’t know. She was just endearing in that way.”

I bit my lip and stared down at the floor. I’d never felt more drab in my life. I was like the gray, rainy skies outside, only less threatening and full of no mystery at all. Before coming to Manderley, I’d always thought I was worth knowing—certainly not worth admiring or obsessing over like Becca clearly was—but now I just felt like a mess. I bet Becca never had a hole in her socks, or a bad face day. I bet she never had puffy eyes in the morning or got hungover. She probably looked good in glasses—not that she’d have to wear them because she’d surely have perfect vision—and still look gorgeous without makeup. Probably had sexy, messy, bed hair instead of just ratty, messy hair.

She was the kind of beautiful we’ve all been comforted into thinking was just airbrushing in magazines. I was the “real” girl they always show before the airbrushing with a caption like, “But here’s what the average real girl looks like! Can you even believe it? She was walking around like that!”

“I can’t compete with that.” My face was getting hot. “Everyone looks at me like they think that I think that I’m as good as her, and I’m not even saying that I am. And yet, why should it be just so obvious that I’m not?”

I couldn’t figure out what exactly was driving my jealousy. I didn’t want to be fawned over and obsessed over. But I envied that she was.

“Look. Look at me.” He waited for me to look at him. “Call Becca the most beautiful and charming girl in the world, and it has nothing to do with who you are. You hardly pale in comparison. Everyone here, they’re just shallow. Becca wasn’t a bad person on the inside, but no one here got to know her, either. They all liked her because she was unique. She was a new toy they never really got to play with. And now that she’s gone, they just want her more than ever.”

I looked up at him, not noticing my eyes were filled with tears until some fell from my eyelashes. It was nice of him trying to console me. But I knew what he was saying was just that. Consoling.

Johnny smiled a little, furrowing his eyebrows. “Don’t. You have no reason to cry. You’re bigger than this whole school and everything anyone might think about you inside of it.”

“I never worry about this kind of thing. I’ve never been this person.”

“You’re still not, you’re just being massacred by a popular girl’s posse. It makes sense.”

I took a deep breath and laughed. “Thank you.”

Johnny looked over my shoulder and I turned to see Max.

“Are you f*cking joking?” Max asked, looking at Johnny.

“Max, stop before your imagination goes crazy. I wasn’t—” Johnny began.

Max clenched his jaw, and stared straight at Johnny. “I’m not going through this whole thing again, especially not with her.” He threw a finger at me.

Johnny shook his head. “Max you gotta—”

“F*ck it, do what you want.” He walked through the dorm door, and was gone.

Johnny and I both sat silently for a moment in the now very still air.

I didn’t know what had just happened. I wanted to cry all over again.

He put a hand on my shoulder when he saw the expression on my face. “It’s okay, you haven’t done anything.”

“I have to go to sleep. Thank you so much, Johnny.”

I stood and went back to my room. I got under my covers and tried to sleep. Before I knew it, hours had passed and I was still not asleep. Finally my desire to talk to Max outweighed my desire to try sleeping.

I ran to the boys’ dorm and then through it. I knew his room number. It had been a small, embarrassing fantasy of mine to sneak into his room for months.

He opened it after a few seconds. He was in shorts and no shirt. I collected myself and then said, “What’s wrong with you? Why were you so mad earlier?”

“I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have acted like that.”

“But why did you? I was just talking to him.”

He nodded. “Yeah. So was Becca.”

“What do you—what?”

He opened the door he stood in front of. “Come with me.

“Becca and Johnny were hooking up for…I guess most of my relationship with her.”

I practically did a double take. “What? Johnny?”

“Yeah. So that’s why he and I aren’t friends anymore.”

“Weren’t you two friends for a long time? I can’t believe he would just do that to you.”

“He wouldn’t usually. It was just Becca. Just how she was.”

I nodded. I was barely even aware of how cold it was outside.

“So when I saw you two,” he went on, “it just felt like déjà vu.”

“Well, I’m not… I don’t have any interest in Johnny at all. I hardly even know him.”

“You don’t have to say that. We’re not together.”

He may as well have slapped me. “I know.” My words were hard and restrained.

He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about that. I really am.”

“I never said—”

“No, I know you didn’t. I’m sorry. I’m just…” He looked at me. “I like you. And I want to be with you. But I just can’t.”

“Max, I never said I wanted that. What makes you think you’re the one deciding you and I aren’t more than we are?”

He looked surprised, and that only made me madder.

“Seriously,” I went on, my voice rising a little. “When do you imagine I said anything about feelings for you?”

His face fell a little but I had to ignore it. I opened the door and said, “I’m going.”

A couple of guys were coming down the hallway. I felt my cheeks go red, and I closed the door behind me. They stayed silent, but I heard them start to laugh once I was past them. I flew out of the boys’ dorm door, and heard a lot of noise coming from the hall below. I leaned over the balcony.

“Miss Tobias!”

Professor Crawley, in khakis and a Harvard sweatshirt, was standing and breathing hard at the bottom of the stairs. Susan turned around when he called her name. “Stop running, I’ve already seen you—all of you—so just stop running.”

Susan Tobias was trembling and white as a sheet. “P-please, Mr. Crawley, I—I… My p-parents will kill me!”

“Come with me, and we might be able to work something out.” He ushered her with his hand. “There are only, what, five hundred students at this school? I know who you all are.”

He looked up and caught eyes with me. He crooked his finger to beckon me downstairs.

“We might have been out of bed after curfew, but she just snuck out of the boys’ dorms!” Susan was saying as I descended the stairs.

My heart was pounding. I hated getting caught doing anything. It always mortified me.

“You come with me, too,” he said, once I was next to them.

He led us through two heavy wooden doors and down a hallway. He switched on the lights and opened his office door with a key. “Sit.”

He indicated the seats across from his own, where he sat.

“I’m sorry, I—”

Professor Crawley cut me off. “I’ll talk to you in a second.” He turned toward Susan. “Miss Tobias. You’ve had a lot of detentions lately, haven’t you?” He turned on his computer and typed her name into a search box. “Yes, you have. Six in the past three months. I’m not going to ask you what’s going on. I just need you to stop messing up. You’re going to interfere with your own chances of getting into Northwestern. Also, I hate being dragged out of bed.”

“Yes, Professor Crawley. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to your future if you screw it up.”

“Yes, Professor Crawley.”

He gave a nod. “Go on to bed now.”

“Thank you, Professor Crawley,” she said quietly, before walking out the door and leaving us alone.

“So what happened with you? The boys’ dorms, really? This surprises me.”

“I wasn’t doing anything—I just had to talk to Max. Holloway. Max Holloway. I had to talk to him about something.”

“Couldn’t wait until the morning?”

I shook my head. My eyes suddenly started to burn, and I surprised myself by getting the urge to cry.

“What’s goin’ on?”

I shook my head and fought back the tears. “I don’t even know. I’m just so frustrated. I feel like all he thinks about is Her, and everyone’s always talking about it—Becca this, and Becca that—and I’m just not trying to be her—I don’t want what she had. Well, I mean, I do, I want him but that’s just a coincidence, it wasn’t on purpose. And everyone thinks it is, I feel like. And I went home and even Michael knew. Michael! He doesn’t know anything, and yet he knew about Her. And then we got in that big fight, and it’s just like even if I wanted to, I can’t even go home, and I don’t want to go to school with Leah anymore, because she’s just…ugh sometimes, you know? Plus then every time I go up to my room here, there’s Dana, just waitin’ to be weird as hell. Blake’s nice and everything, so that’s cool, and I mean, you know, sometimes it really does feel like Max likes me. But why does Dana care so much? It’s like I get sticking up for your friend, but… And what if she really comes back? Not that I don’t want her to be okay or anything.” I took a deep breath. I’d been staring at a spot on the desk, my words getting faster and more high-pitched as I spoke. I looked up at Professor Crawley and shook my head again. “I’m sorry.”

“Quite all right,” he said.

“I’m okay. Really. Like…all that stuff is just pissing me off. It’s not like I’m troubled or anything.”

“No, I understand perfectly well what you’re saying. I don’t know that I understood half of what you said, but I get that you’re frustrated. But you’re okay, you say?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded, and then opened his mouth to say something before closing it again. He leaned in on his desk and looked at me. “Listen. Kids your age love to obsess. Half of them didn’t even know Becca. But once she was missing, they all appropriated the pain and suffering. It’s just what people do. Also, they’ve idolized her. They took her from being a normal human being, and turned her into some kind of deity of popularity. I’m not saying anything negative about Miss Normandy. But you just have to remember that no one is perfect. Not even her.”

“Right. I’ll remember that.”

“All right. Feel better.”

“Thanks.” I stood to leave.

“Oh, and don’t sneak into the boys’ dorms again. If you want gossip started about you, that’s the fastest way to get it.”

When I got to my hall, I saw that almost all the doors were open, and everyone was talking.

“What happened?” I asked Madison when I saw her standing against a wall, her hand over her mouth.

“We should have known this would happen eventually.” She was shaking her head and looking upset.

“What happened?”

“Someone else was watching the tapes.”

Julia took over. “There’s this…slow guy who works with the security team, and he usually watches at night. Becca cut some deal with him last year. He usually points the cameras away for a little while or something. I guess he wasn’t the one watching tonight, or something. Or maybe he just doesn’t care anymore.”

Madison wiped the black tears from her cheeks. “At least last year he listened to Becca.”

“Listened to her how?”

Julia shrugged. “I don’t know, she talked to him one time and he agreed to keep quiet about seeing us walk down to the boathouse and everything on the other cameras. He works the overnight shifts on weekends. It was really convenient.”

I’d had no idea I’d been risking so much by going down to the boathouse those few times. I thought it…well, I guess I never thought about it.

“That sucks.” I tried to look sympathetic. “Anyway. I’m going to bed. I’m sorry you guys got in trouble.”

I pushed open my door and went in, threw off my clothes without bothering to find pajamas, and crawled into my stiff bed. A few minutes later, Dana came in. She said nothing, but started laughing. I lay there, without acknowledging her, until she sighed and went silent.

Welcome back to Manderley.