We Know It Was You Page 14

  “I guess . . . make your own plans.”

  “Yeah, I mean, that’s what I figured.”

  The cafeteria, 7:15 p.m.

  They ended up at the cafeteria. Virginia didn’t ask if Benny wanted to go in; she just swiped her meal card twice and said, “You can eat on my tab.” He’d only walked her there to be polite, but now he’d missed his chance to say he was going home. He could imagine the scene: Rodrigo having his bourbon, Mr. Flax saying exciting, all-new words, Nana cooking a hot, delicious chicken pot pie in their bright, nice-smelling house. Meanwhile the cafeteria felt dank and depressing. The lighting clearly hadn’t been designed for use after dark—the ceiling lamps were weak and greenish without the sun to supplement them. The heat lamps buzzed over neglected-looking food.

  They must always buzz like that, Benny realized, except during the day the sound was smothered by the genial loudness of three hundred students. It was creepy—six hours ago this building had felt like a completely different place. Benny believed in the concreteness and the intransigence of human character—the idea that, fundamentally, people never changed. People were who they were, day in, day out, sunrise, sunset, forever. But places weren’t like that. They morphed and transformed based on the people and light inside them—or lack of people and lack of light.

  The resident kids were scattered across the room at different tables, not many talking to one another. The boarders were cooped up so much, Benny figured they were sick of one another at this point. He and Virginia sat near the windows, which reflected dingy images of themselves as the sky outside turned black. They ate tacos and drank milk. Benny checked the nutrition facts on the milk carton. Only twelve grams of sugar.

  “I didn’t even tell you the weirdest thing he did,” Virginia said. Benny knew she was talking about the detective.

  “What?”

  “He had this legal document that he waved in my face, and it had my name on it, but he wouldn’t let me read it. Is that, like, some interrogation tactic?”

  “Um . . .” Benny looked from Virginia to his tray and back to Virginia. Her face was blank. Was this a trick? Was she interrogating him? Did she know, somehow, that he’d read her file? “They’ll do anything to throw you off,” he said finally.

  “Huh.” Virginia went back to her dinner.

  Benny kept glancing at her, expecting her to suddenly seem mysterious or something. But she was just Virginia as usual, scarfing food, pointing at people and talking about them way too loudly, her face a total open book. Was it possible she didn’t even know about the restraining order? Either she didn’t know, or she was a more masterful faker than Benny could have ever predicted.

  He wished he could just ask her about it, but he knew he couldn’t. First, he couldn’t explain how he knew about the restraining order without admitting that he’d sleazily invaded her privacy and investigated her behind her back. Second, he didn’t want to force Virginia to discuss what was probably a very personal and embarrassing matter. To Benny, friendship meant allowing your friends to maintain their dignity even when you knew weird shit about them.

  Friendship? The word stuck out in his mind. Were he and Virginia friends? They were supposed to be colleagues. Maybe friendship was inevitable when you hung out with someone so much. Benny didn’t know. He’d never been great at keeping friends. To him, it always ended up feeling like work—the conversations, the commitment to another person’s interests and feelings—eventually it became draining. It didn’t feel that way with Virginia, though. She was weirdly easy to be around. But he didn’t want being friends to screw up their work relationship.

  “Look at Gottfried,” Virginia said, pointing. He was asleep at a table across the room, his hair falling into his taco.

  “Have you noticed how wherever we are, he is?” Benny asked in a low voice he hoped didn’t carry.

  “Not really . . . ,” Virginia said. “But I guess it always feels like that in the Boarders. People are always in your face.”

  “The football field Saturday morning. The Sapphire Lounge last night . . .”

  “He wasn’t at the game on Friday, though,” Virginia pointed out. “If he were there, I would have noticed.”

  “Unless he was hiding,” Benny said, remembering the cigarette butts he’d found under the bleachers. “Do you know what brand of cigarettes he smokes?”

  “No . . . They come in a blue box. Or green maybe.”

  “Do you think he imports them from Germany?”

  “No, he just goes to gas stations.”

  “Parliaments maybe? Newports?”

  “I don’t know. I just know Camels have the camel, so not those.” Virginia shoved another taco into her mouth. Then she swallowed a huge bite and asked, “What do you think’ll happen to Gerard?”

  Benny shrugged. “He’s not our responsibility. But I hope this whole thing has proven my point about sharing information. Imbeciles like Gerard can’t handle themselves. The fewer people whose idiocy we have to deal with, the better.”

  Virginia nodded, dumping hot sauce on a third taco.

  “You did fine today. It would have been better if you hadn’t dropped my note, but all circumstances considered, you did fine.”

  “Fank woo,” she said with her mouth full.

  Benny leaned back in his chair and examined Gottfried across the room. He had moved in his sleep, his face smushed into a taco like it was a pillow. Benny would never understand the way some people lived. If he were caught sleeping in a taco, he would probably die of shame. But Gottfried just didn’t care. Sleepy? Go ahead, rest yourself upon this comfy taco. Nighty-night!

  Next to him, Virginia wasn’t that much better. Her table manners were atrocious, and she was scarfing her food like one of the orphans from Oliver! Maybe it was the lack of adult supervision. The boarders had all gotten used to the idea that no one was watching.

  I’m watching, Benny thought. But he knew that, to most people, he didn’t count.

  The road, 8:00 p.m.

  It was dark now. Their steps crunched along the gravel road toward the Boarders. Gottfried’s hand kept brushing against hers, holding it for a second, then dropping it. What is wrong with him? Virginia thought. It was like he could barely stand. He was shuffling along, leaning against her occasionally, like he was still drunk from last night. If Virginia hadn’t bothered to wake him up and help him home, he probably would have slept all night in a plate of tacos.

  “Walk straight, Gottfried,” she said, steadying him with her arm.

  “I am so tired,” he moaned. “And so sad.”

  “Aw, there’s no reason to be sad, Gottfried,” Virginia said.

  “But I’ll never see that woman again. The beautiful woman in cheetah skin. I lost her phone number!”

  “Oh, I have it,” Virginia said, fishing in her pocket. “You dropped it last night in the common room.”

  Gottfried’s face lit up instantly. “Oh, danke!”

  He kissed the paper, and then kissed Virginia’s cheek. Virginia stumbled a bit, surprised, and Gottfried’s lips slid across her face and sort of landed in her hair. Virginia looked around in case anyone was watching. The way Gottfried was acting, it would seem like they were together or something. Which maybe wasn’t the worst thing, considering. Gottfried was by far the most exotic guy in school. But he was too handsome, in Virginia’s opinion. People would think she was superficial if it seemed like she liked him.

  THWUMP!

  Gottfried tipped forward. Virginia half fell trying to catch him. He was holding his head, like something had hit him. Then Virginia saw it rolling in front of their feet: a half-deflated football.

  “Hey! Who’s there?” Virginia shouted, whirling around. “Who just threw that?”

  “Aww . . . ,” Gottfried groaned, holding his head.

  “Shhh!” Virginia said. “Listen.”

  She heard someone running in the woods. Virginia trained her ears for a second, then bolted into the trees. Branches scratched her arms a
s she flew between their black silhouettes. Within moments she’d passed the reach of the streetlamp. The darkness was sudden, and Virginia felt swallowed by it. Almost immediately she had to stop running. She couldn’t see anything, and she couldn’t hear anything either, not over the sound of her own pounding feet.

  “Hey!” she shouted.

  They were still running, whoever it was. Virginia could hear leaves crunching, but only faintly. They were far ahead of her now. Then the sounds stopped; they were gone. Or hiding. What was she supposed to do, stand there all night and wait for them to come out? She sighed and started trudging back.

  “Gottfried?” she called, stepping out of the trees. She looked around. The street was empty; apparently Gottfried was gone too. The puckered football lay in an orange circle of lamplight. Virginia went over and picked it up. It was old—the leather was hard and misshapen. She gave the ball a throw. It bombed to the ground with zero spiral, landing about a foot from where she’d aimed. She stared at it, feeling weirdly certain it had been meant for her head.

  The Boarders, 2:00 a.m.

  This is the last time, Zaire told herself. I swear to God this is the last time.

  She sat up on her bed and started putting on her slippers. She knew Gottfried was awake. She’d heard the soft squeak of his desk chair in the room above. Gottfried was an insomniac. It was different from what Zaire was, which was a night owl. Night owls stay up late because it’s what feels natural to them. Insomniacs do it because they can’t control the way their brains switch off and on.

  She slipped silently up the stairs and knocked softly on Gottfried’s door.

  “Ja? Come in.”

  He always let her in. A lot of guys wouldn’t do that with their exes. Or whatever she and Gottfried were. There was an unspoken rule among the boarders: Never date other boarders. And now Zaire knew why—because when you break up, there’s no escape. Regular kids got to go home at the end of the day, but at the Boarders all they went home to was each other. And emptiness. Zaire used to like the quiet. It helped her study, and since studying was her main focus in life, she had no reason to complain. But now the quiet made her insane, because it meant she could hear every move Gottfried made.

  Zaire pushed the door open. Gottfried was at his desk, half-hunched over a drawing pad. There was a bowl of canned pineapple chunks with a blob of mayonnaise on them. Gottfried would eat anything, like seriously anything. A week-old sandwich with mold on it, or an entire barrel of cheese puffs. He even drank Tab, which Zaire had only ever seen old-lady teachers drink.

  “Can’t you sleep?” she asked him.

  He shook his head.

  “Do you want us to . . . ,” she started awkwardly, “you know . . .”

  Gottfried shrugged good-naturedly. “Ja, sure . . . I mean if you want to; if you are okay wiss it. . . .” He pushed back from the desk, the chair’s wheels bumping on the uneven wood floor. He arched his back a little, stretching. His knees spread open. Zaire’s eyes ran hungrily up and down the long, lean shape of his legs. Gottfried was the only boy in school who wore jeans. All the other guys wore khakis and corduroys.

  Zaire sat on the bed across from him. “Are you relaxed?”

  “No,” Gottfried said. “People are all driving me crazy today.”

  “God, me too,” Zaire said, thrilled. Gottfried usually liked everyone—it had been the main point of conflict in their short-lived relationship. Zaire had wanted to spend all their time making out in his room and planning for the day they’d escape this clubby preppy shit-hole and return to Europe where they both belonged. But the more they were together, the more it became evident that Gottfried actually liked it here. He liked playing lacrosse and going to dances and eating hot dogs. He liked American cigarettes and American movies and American girls. He’d actually said that when they were breaking up, unbelievably—that he liked American girls.

  “American girls?” Zaire had said back, appalled. What the hell did that mean? What was so great about American girls?

  “Not American girls . . .” Gottfried had tried to explain. “You know . . . happy girls.”

  Happy girls? American girls weren’t happy; they were fake. Corny Davenport wasn’t happy; she was a pathological ditz who needed everyone to love her. Virginia Leeds wasn’t happy; she was an insecure attention whore who had no life. American girls were vapid and asinine and fatuous, especially the ones at Winship. No Winship girl could come up with three synonyms for “stupid” that quickly, if they could at all.

  “You’re being very insulting,” she’d said to him, her voice shaking. At which point Gottfried had apologized and began aggressively complimenting her to make up for it, saying she was beautiful and smart and that her name “rolled off the tongue very pleasing.” And after that the conversation became such a humiliating nightmare that Zaire could hardly bear to remember it. Zaire demanding to know why, if she was so beautiful and smart, he didn’t want to be with her. Gottfried awkwardly insisting that he didn’t know; he just didn’t want to be her boyfriend anymore. The relationship had only lasted a month. Zaire had expected dating Gottfried to be challenging—he was aloof and inarticulate and strange and hard to read—but she hadn’t expected to fail quite so miserably.

  That had been six months ago, and now they were supposedly friends. But Zaire was still in love with him. It was so stupid. She hated herself for it. And her self-hatred made it even harder to get over him. If only she could siphon some of that love back to herself, recover a bit of her self-esteem. Gottfried didn’t need her love; he’d certainly made that clear. But there was something else he needed, and she was the only one who could give it to him. Only he wasn’t aware of the price he was paying for it.

  “Just close your eyes,” she breathed. “Let me help us both relax.”

  2:10 a.m.

  Virginia awoke with a jolt and trained her ears.

  Whoooo . . . Shhhwhooooo . . .

  It was the ghost.

  During the day it was easy to joke about the ghost. Ha-ha, the Boarders is haunted! Spooooooky! But at night it wasn’t funny anymore. It was a low, soft whistle that came from above their heads, always after the sun went down.

  Virginia had tried to get Benny to investigate it, but it was hard to get him interested. He hadn’t experienced its eerie crooning waking him up in the middle of the night, the way its signal traveled through the dead dorm like an invitation. Come out, come out. If he could hear it now, he wouldn’t be so dismissive.

  “Why don’t you just follow the sound and find out what it is?” That was always Benny’s impatient suggestion, like it was the simplest thing in the world, and Virginia was a moron for not thinking of it herself. She had thought of it herself. But every time it happened, she would lie in bed, frozen with dread, telling herself, In ten seconds I’ll get up. Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . Then, In twenty seconds I’ll get up. Twenty . . . nineteen . . . eighteen . . . At a certain point the ghostly noise would just stop, as if summoned back into its nocturnal realm. And only at that point would Virginia’s courage uselessly reappear. She’d berate herself for being such a stupid coward and vow that next time she heard it, she’d get up and face it once and for all.

  What made this night different from the others, Virginia didn’t know. Maybe it was the way she’d jolted awake. Usually the sound woke her gently, like soft fingers pulling her from a dream. But this time, as soon as her eyes were open, her feet were on the floor and she was darting across the room to fling open the door, no countdowns or psyching herself out.

  Whssshooooooooo . . .

  Virginia looked up at the ceiling. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she found the stairs leading up to the boys’ hall. She took them two at a time, on silent feet, then listened at the top of the landing.

  Wwwwwhoooooo . . .

  She crept out into the boys’ hall. It was dark except for one small bit of light coming from a cracked-open door. She immediately knew whose room it was. Everyone kept a mental map
of the rooms, particularly who lived above who. It was a weirdly intimate relationship, sharing the same vertical space with someone. You knew when they were out and when they were in; you heard their footsteps; you heard their phones ringing. If you got stuck with one of the younger kids above you, sometimes you’d hear them crying. The upper schoolers were supposed to reach out and mother the younger kids, but no one ever bothered. Virginia couldn’t remember anyone bothering when she first came. You either learned to keep your misery inside, or you begged your parents to bring you home and no one ever saw you or thought of you again.

  Virginia was lucky, because the room above her was empty. The one across from it, above Zaire, was Gottfried’s. She stepped toward the light, slowly inching her way down through the darkness so the ancient floorboards wouldn’t creak. She flattened herself against the dark wall and tilted her head. The door hung open a crack, just enough to see a slice of Gottfried’s room.

  Wsssshhoooooo . . .

  Zaire and Gottfried were staring at each other. Gottfried was at the edge of the unmade bed, Zaire facing him in his desk chair. In her hands she held an old-fashioned Coke bottle, and she was blowing across its lip, making a hollow, ghostly whistle.

  It’s Zaire! Virginia thought, partly relieved and partly annoyed. What was she doing, blowing in a Coke bottle at two in the morning? And why did she do it all the time? Didn’t she know it creeped everyone out?

  Zaire set the bottle down on the desk. “Are you relaxed?” she asked.

  Gottfried sighed contentedly and nodded.

  Then Zaire stood up and lifted her silky nightgown over her head. She posed in front of Gottfried, naked except for a pair of expensive-looking underwear. The lamplight reflected off the curves of her brown breasts with an unnatural sheen. Shimmery body lotion, Virginia decided. Her nipples were so dark they were almost black, sitting haughtily high on each plump mound. Virginia had seen so many boobs lately she thought she was immune to their allure. But Zaire’s were incredible, she had to admit. And obviously Zaire knew it.

  Virginia watched as Zaire straddled Gottfried on the bed and kissed his pale neck. Gottfried’s hands reached for her ass, and his fingers dug into their round cheeks. Soon they were making out really intensely, Gottfried fully clothed and Zaire almost naked.