The kids near the wall dissolve, and there is Liv near the curb. She stands stiffly, feet together, wearing a cropped puffer jacket and pencil jeans, an arc of space between her legs. She spots me and holds my eye, her mouth a line of fear. I close my eyes for a second and try to shed the anger from last night’s stupid dream. I start toward her. At the same moment, the crowd follows the boys and Ari, and I am swept onto the lawn, pressed in among morning smells of body spray and clean hair. Everyone ignores the drunken sounds of Ligand garbling into his megaphone. Ari scales the back of the sign and pokes his head over the top, balancing on his stomach and waving his hands over a reporter’s head. When the camera light trained on him dies, the reporter shoves up the sleeves of his logoed half-zip and charges behind the sign. Ari and the two boys fly back across the lawn to cheers.
A black SUV pulls up on the grass. Everyone buzzes and cranes to see if it’s really her, because everyone in Shiverton claims to be six degrees from Paula Papademetriou. The thrill of seeing Paula in her official capacity is infectious. They speculate that she’s in her own car because she probably came straight here, maybe from Starbucks, because someone saw her there in her tennis skirt last week. And in the long line for the pharmacy at CVS. Buying kale at the farmers’ market on the town common. A lot of TV people are tiny in real life, but Paula is tall—not Madonna-sized, not fun-sized, they say. Serious and real.
Her hair is the color of espresso and brushed straight back from her face, which is made of angles and hard planes. We jam our hands in our pockets and huddle against the brisk November morning air, but she looks at ease, coatless in a pantsuit. She holds notes that she passes to a man crouching nearby as the camera starts to roll. Her camera voice is lower than in real life; I know this because I’ve heard her at the organic pizza place, holding a glass of chardonnay at a tall table. Mom and I were on the other side of a hedge of plastic plants. That night, her voice matched the high, shrieky voices of the other mothers. This voice is much better.
“A real-life horror story is unfolding here in Shiverton, now that police have identified the body of eighteen-year-old Ana Alvarez, who went missing while jogging in a remote section of the Middlesex Fells Reservation in August 2013. The police will not say exactly where she was found, only that her death is suspicious. Alvarez was a freshman at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, and sources tell me that officials have seized her computer and smartphone in their investigations into whether or not she knew her killer. I’m here at Shiverton High School, where the two students who were attacked last November by the man many believe is the prime suspect in Alvarez’s murder are enrolled as juniors. That man, Donald Jessup, committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial. This latest development only intensifies the scrutiny local law enforcement faces, as new questions are raised about this predator who many say should have been under the strict surveillance of the police.”
The light dims and Paula crouches, shuffling papers. She holds a phone to her ear and looks up at the cameraman, wrinkles layering her forehead.
Liv appears before me. Up close, I can see that her pupils are a shade too large, and her hair hangs in matte clumps.
“What do we do?” she asks, her voice pitchy.
“We stay together,” I say.
My phone vibrates in my back jeans pocket. I wonder if it’s Mom, mobilized and ready to dismiss me from school. My hand drifts to my phone. Paula pops up and peers into the student mass. The cameraman follows her gaze and rips off his baseball cap. The mob swells as Ligand’s voice grows hoarse. I step back and get shoved from behind, taking Liv with me. A circle widens around us. A pug-faced senior named Seamus points at me.
“She’s over here! They’re both over here!” Seamus yells toward the vans.
“Oh my God,” murmurs Liv.
Paula charges toward us holding her mike like a torch trailed by the man balancing his camera on his shoulder. The reporter in the half-zip follows behind. To my right, I feel the sounds of a scuffle, thump-thump-oomph, less a noise than a vibration, someone shoving and someone shoving back. I turn to see Seamus bouncing on his toes and snapping his head to his shoulder like a boxer. Strings of spit fly from his mouth as he curls his fingers, beckoning a boy with his back to us, hair curled around the edges of a purple hoodie.
I know that back.
Kellan MacDougall aims a roundhouse punch at Seamus’s skull, and Seamus ducks just in time, covering his head with his arms. Girls scream. Seamus sends a hook to Kellan’s sternum while he’s off-balance. Kellan staggers for a second, then lunges for Seamus. They lock arms and teeter like drunks. The circle around them widens, and I step back numbly along with them. Kellan bear-hugs Seamus, whose face turns white as Kellan draws his knee into his gut and leaves Seamus crumpled on the grass.
Liv shrieks. The reporters are almost upon us.
A hand grabs me by the waist. I grasp the inside of Liv’s arm and squeeze, thumb to bone. We follow the back of Kellan’s head, past bookish types clutching books to their chests and musical types holding their instruments in front of them like shields and more boys, intoxicated by Seamus’s blood, swinging wildly at anyone who will swing back at them. Kids scatter to the student parking lot, taking advantage of the distraction to hit Starbucks. When we reach Kellan’s dented Jeep Cherokee, I rest my arm on the car to catch my breath, but Kellan pushes my head down cop-and-perp-style and shoves me into the backseat.
“We can’t leave,” I say.