We Know It Was You Page 18

  “Hm,” Virginia said, and Benny felt his cheeks heat up with annoyance. Hm. It was way too similar to his mother’s classic Mm-hm. He was so tired of being around people who hm’d at him like he was insane. How did the world get so messed up that having compassion made you a person to be hm’d at?

  “And anyway,” Benny added, “Zaire’s sabotaging herself enough without our help. She’ll bring herself down.”

  “You think so?” Virginia asked.

  Benny paused for a moment, then said, “Yeah. She’s out of control, even her own control. I got this vibe from her. . . . I don’t know. I think she’s going to do it again—another ‘halftime show.’ It could even be me or you, now that she knows we know.”

  Virginia shivered. “Omigod, you just gave me goose bumps! See? Look, do you see?”

  “It’s an issue of public safety at this point. Someone’s going to get hurt.”

  Virginia wondered at what point a normal person would have called the police and handed over their information. Probably a while ago. But she knew Benny well enough to know he’d rather die than hand a mystery over to adults. It was kind of scary, his willingness to endanger his own life—and hers—to stay in control.

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t tell someone?” she asked.

  “What would we say? That we think a straight-A student hypnotized a teacher to jump off a bridge? No way. There’s no proof. They wouldn’t believe us, and even if they did, they’d just screw it up and make it that much harder for us to figure out anything. We can handle this ourselves. It’ll be easy. Zaire’s weakness is that she’s a perfectionist. Her plans only work in a perfect world where everything goes perfectly. All we have to do is remove some element of the equation, and the whole thing will fall apart. . . .”

  Benny’s voice trailed off. The element was obvious.

  The Wildcat.

  The gym hallway, 4:00 p.m.

  Virginia stepped between the enormous banners lying on the floor. Half-empty cans of paint sat nearby with abandoned brushes sticking out of them. The banners looked like they’d been painted by illiterates. Wilscats killing you!! Go Wiltscat. Rildcats Roars! WILDdogd, one even read.

  “Does Winship have the stupidest cheerleaders on the planet or what?” Virginia said, shaking her head.

  Benny looked down at the jumbled slogans. The mistakes were beyond spelling errors—whoever had made these signs was obviously on drugs or something.

  He stopped at the door to the girls’ locker room. “This is as far as I can go. You think you can do this?”

  Virginia nodded. “As long as the hallway stays empty.”

  “I’ll keep a look out. If someone’s here, I’ll knock. Knocking means don’t come out.”

  “Okay.”

  “What does knocking mean?”

  Virginia rolled her eyes. “It means come on out and sing a loud song.”

  Before Benny could say anything else, Virginia pushed the door open with a swoosh and disappeared inside.

  It smelled like mildew and swimming pool, with an aggressive top note of body spray and vanilla air freshener. Virginia wondered if the boys even bothered trying to keep their locker room smelling nice. Probably not.

  Pom-poms sat on the benches next to quilted Vera Bradley bags and pairs of Kate Spade clogs. It was a wonder any of the cheerleaders ever managed to go home with their own possessions—all their stuff was interchangeable. As Virginia passed the rows of gray lockers, she realized she was tiptoeing. Act natural, she willed herself. She had every right to be in there, after all—she was a girl, wasn’t she? Which was the entire reason Benny needed her, apparently. Not because she was brilliant and talented, but because she was a girl and could go into the girls’ locker room. But Virginia was trying not to feel too annoyed. At least Benny was letting her do something.

  Someone was in the shower, and the hiss of the water echoed off the walls.

  “Hello?” she said.

  There was no answer.

  She turned the corner to the pom-pom closet. She pulled the door handle, half hoping it would be locked so she wouldn’t have to do this. It opened.

  The mascot head was sitting in the middle of the floor. Virginia hadn’t seen it close-up since it washed up from the river. It had obviously been vigorously scrubbed—it was scratched and faded and smelled faintly of bleach. One of the teeth had chipped off. But mostly it looked the same, its creepy mouth still grinning, its bulging eyes staring relentlessly ahead.

  “What?” she said, realizing how dumb it was trying to sound tough for a plastic head. She took a deep breath and bent to turn the head around so its lunatic eyes faced away. The fuzzy suit was stuffed inside the hollow plastic.Then she picked it up with both arms, leaning back to support its huge bulging girth. It felt gross to be touching it, to be holding it against her body. As she passed between the two walls of mirrors in the locker room, the Wildcat’s lewd, psychotic smile reflected back at her seemingly into infinity. She stuck her tongue out at it. Which only made the Wildcat seem more nasty and gleeful in response.

  Suddenly she noticed how quiet it was. The shower had turned off. She looked over her shoulder toward the showers to see if someone was coming. But it was too late. Someone was already there.

  Virginia whirled around, the huge mascot head throwing her off balance. It was Corny Davenport. She was standing in a tiny towel in front of the sink, holding a pair of pink kiddie scissors.

  Is she cutting her hair off?

  “Corny?”

  Corny’s face looked deadened and blank. All the pink softness was gone from her cheeks. When their eyes met in the mirror, it was like Corny didn’t even recognize her.

  Snip. A little blond tuft floated to the floor.

  “I’m just stressesed,” Corny said, slurring a little. “It’s normal. A lot of girls do it.”

  Virginia nodded slowly. Except obviously it wasn’t that normal, or why was Corny bothering to explain herself when Virginia was the one absconding with a giant mascot head? If anyone should be explaining herself, it was her. A beat too late, Corny seemed to realize this.

  “Who is that man?” She looked dully at the mascot head.

  “What . . . man?”

  Corny didn’t answer. She turned back to the mirror and held the scissors up to her hair.

  Snip.

  As she raised her arms, the towel started to come undone. Her boobs threatened to spill out at any second. Her legs were brown and glistening wet, and her little feet had tan lines from flip-flops. It was sort of a competition among the Winship girls, who could keep their summer tans the longest. But despite her eternal bronze glow, Corny’s face looked wan and sick.

  “Are you okay?” Virginia asked.

  “I have so much power,” Corny was whispering. “I could cut all my hair off. Would anyone still love me? If I were bald?”

  “Um, maybe?” Virginia said, trying not to laugh.

  Then Corny threw off her towel and was completely naked. Virginia watched, sort of stunned, as Corny stumbled across the locker room, her round, tan butt jiggling as she hopped clumsily into a pair of blue cheerleader panties. It was one of the weirdest things about being a girl—other girls just got naked in front of you. We’re all girls here, you heard all the time, as if that meant something.

  “These aren’t my clothes,” Corny announced. “I’m just wearing them to blend in.”

  “Okay . . .” Virginia adjusted the mascot head in her hands. “Well, I have to go now. Bye.”

  “Good-bye. Forever.”

  At that Virginia burst out laughing, unable to help it any longer. Corny didn’t seem to care. She was staring at herself in the mirror. Her stare was so intense, Virginia stopped laughing almost immediately.

  “Have you ever seen yourself for the first time?” Corny asked. Virginia couldn’t tell if she was talking to her or to herself. Her voice was raspy and hoarse, like she’d been screaming.

  Virginia glanced from Corny’s face to her own in t
he mirror. It was weird sometimes, looking into your own eyes—being inside and outside of yourself at the same time. For a second she almost knew what Corny was talking about. Have you ever seen yourself for the first time? But then the gross, lecherous look of the Wildcat caught her eye, and the moment was gone.

  The bridge, 4:30 p.m.

  All around them, birds chirped and leaves rustled in the breeze. The clouds moved silently above their heads. The water surged below the bridge, hurtling over the rocks and frothing white, the same river it had been a hundred years ago. A thousand years ago. Benny felt intrusive, bringing their human drama into the serenity of nature like this. But there wasn’t another option. He couldn’t take the mascot with him without his mother asking a billion questions, and they couldn’t leave it in the Boarders without Zaire inevitably finding it. And besides, there was a satisfying symmetry to dumping it back into the water.

  “It was bizarre,” Virginia said for the hundredth time. She’d been chattering excitedly the whole way to the bridge. Benny was only half listening at this point.

  “She was cutting her hair off, but not, like, dramatically. Just creepy little snips. I guess she’s having a nervous breakdown. Not that I blame her. It’s probably hard to be that stupid.”

  Benny shrugged. He disagreed. Stupid people had it easy—they lacked the mental capacity to comprehend the true miserableness of the world.

  “Ready?” He heaved the mascot head onto the low rail of the bridge. Its toothy smile was deranged, as if the prospect of being thrown over a bridge were one it met with utter excitement.

  “Let me do it,” Virginia demanded, jumping up and down like a kid about to ride a pony. The 150-year-old bridge groaned under her feet. It was a wonder it hadn’t buckled and collapsed under the weight of all those cheerleaders and football players last week.

  Virginia braced herself and gave the head a violent shove. It soared toward the water in an almost elegant arc, then hit the surface with a splash. Virginia clapped delightedly. Benny looked down. He almost expected the Wildcat’s face to change, to suddenly look sad and anguished. You killed me! You betrayed me! But as it rushed away on the current, it looked as ecstatic as ever. Wheee! it seemed to say. This is fun!

  He turned back to Virginia. “Hey, does your door lock?”

  “No, they removed all the locks after . . . you know . . .”

  Benny did know. In eighth grade one of the boarders had tried to kill herself by swallowing pain pills with liquid drain cleaner. They’d had to beat the door down with an ax because Mrs. Morehouse’s master key snapped in half. What happened to the girl, Benny didn’t really know. Her parents had picked her up the next day, and no one ever saw her again. Benny couldn’t even remember her name.

  “The front door has a lock,” Virginia said. “We’re pretty much fine.”

  Benny looked at her, and the sight of her stuff-strewn floor flashed in his mind. We’re pretty much fine? Maybe the front door locked, but obviously that didn’t make any difference; the windows were wide open half the time. It was creepy enough that her room had been opened up and trashed, but even creepier that Virginia didn’t seem especially perturbed by it. It was like she’d lived in the Boarders so long, she’d forgotten she was entitled to normal things like privacy and nutritious food choices and basic safety. He felt a huge gulf between them suddenly. Of course, everyone was a little weirded out by the boarders, but Benny had never felt it as strongly as he did now. You couldn’t feel sorry for them, because they were probably richer than anyone. But every year that they spent in that gloomy brick house, their potential to be normal diminished, while everyone else was forced to watch.

  Benny cast a final look at the Wildcat head, which was just about to round the river bend and disappear. As it bobbed in the water, he could swear its bulging eye was winking.

  See you soon!

  Benny’s house, 5:30 p.m.

  “Light . . . cup . . . cloud . . . I think on Tuesday he said ‘cloud.’ ”

  Benny hunched over his calendar, filling in all the blank boxes. His shoulders were tense, and his stomach was growling. He’d forgotten he’d thrown up his lunch. He ignored his hunger, determined to fill in the calendar, grab his flute, and get back to school as soon as possible. He’d ordered Virginia to avoid Zaire until the game tonight. But Virginia hardly ever seemed to listen to him, and imagining her wandering around and getting herself hypnotized off a bridge made him incredibly anxious.

  The calendar was taking longer than usual, because he hadn’t updated it in three days. He’d been so preoccupied with the case at school that he’d completely neglected his one duty at home. Inexcusable, he berated himself.

  Rodrigo sat next to him on the sofa. Mrs. Flax and his grandma were at temple for a pancake supper, so it was just Benny and Rodrigo and his dad in the house. Mr. Flax sat in the La-Z-Boy fiddling with a Styrofoam model of a plane. Every once in a while he would try to fly it, his clumsy hands pelting it into the TV or the wall. Then Rodrigo would go pick it up and hand it back to him, saying, “Crash landing, Mr. Flax. Try again.”

  “Wait, he said ‘cloud’ twice?” Benny asked. He scanned the month of October looking for “cloud.”

  Rodrigo squinted, thinking. “I’m not sure. . . .” He set his bourbon down.

  Benny took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The whole system was garbage if he missed a day. He had an urge to throw the entire calendar in the trash.

  “Hey, it’s okay! Relax,” Rodrigo said. “Don’t stress. You’ve got your life going on, and your dad knows that. Hey. Listen. It’s good that you’re doing this. It’s good that you’re paying attention. But you know what I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time?”

  “What?” Benny said, holding his head in his hands.

  “What you’re doing, you’re sitting next to him, but you’re not even looking at him. You’re examining him. Maybe you could just hang with him.”

  “Hang with him,” Benny repeated.

  “Talk to him. Tell him how your day was. Give it a break with the calendar and the karate practice. Just hang. I’m telling you, he’ll benefit a lot more from that.”

  Benny put his glasses back on. Hold on, he thought. This entire time, did Rodrigo think the calendar was dumb?

  “I’m just—I’m tracking his language development,” he said defensively.

  “I know, and it’s great!” Rodrigo said. “But you can do more. You’re his only blood relation; did you ever think of that?”

  Benny shook his head.

  “Your mom, her mom . . . those aren’t his blood bonds. Family bonds, yeah, but not blood bonds. His parents are dead, right? No siblings? So yeah, biologically speaking, you’re the closest person to him on the planet. He recognizes you. He relaxes when it’s just the three of us in a room. You ever notice that?”

  Benny shook his head again. “No.”

  “There’s a lot of stuff you’ll notice if you just hang with him. Lose the highlighters and the bullshit. Talk to him.”

  “Talk to him about . . . what?”

  “You know, just whatever. You obviously got a lot going on or you wouldn’t have forgotten your calendar, right?”

  Benny shrugged.

  “Just relax. Have a bourbon. Well, don’t have a bourbon—you’re fifteen. Have a Coke.”

  An hour later Benny and his dad were alone. Benny found a Diet Coke Lime in the refrigerator, which didn’t have the same vibe as plain Coke, but it was all they had. He sat on the sofa and cracked it open.

  “Hi,” he said, not looking at his dad but at the wall. He took a long sip.

  Mr. Flax fiddled with the plane. He tossed it, and it hit a lampshade. Benny got up and grabbed it and placed it back in his father’s hands. Then he slumped down in the sofa, wishing it were six thirty so he could turn on the news. It was awkward, sitting in silence.

  What am I supposed to say? he thought. Suddenly the Coke felt stupid, like a sappy commercial. A son sits with his brain-d
amaged father while enjoying an ice-cold can of Coke. The father smiles, the first connection they’ve shared in over a year. With Coke, miracles happen.

  Mr. Flax tossed the plane again. Benny waited for it to crash into a piece of furniture. But instead it sailed across the room, slicing the air with a soft whoosh and landing gently on the carpet.

  “Whoa.” Benny picked it up and handed it to his dad. “Nice landing.”

  He sat back down. Mr. Flax’s eyes were doing that thing where they glazed over one second, and then became sharp and alert the next. Benny waited for him to throw the plane again, but he didn’t.

  Say something, Benny told himself. “I . . .” He stopped. “There’s this girl at school. . . . She’s really interesting. I wish I could know her better.”

  Benny sipped his Coke and snuck a look at his dad. He was glancing around vaguely.

  “She’s really closed off though. I don’t think she’ll let me near her. . . . I have a history test on Monday.”

  “Fine,” Mr. Flax said.

  Benny reached instinctively for a pen and a highlighter. “Fine” was one of Mr. Flax’s main words. But then Benny took the calendar and turned it upside down on the table so he couldn’t see it.

  “It’s on ancient Japan, so I already know everything. . . . This girl is so frustrating. She’s smart, but the way she’s using her intelligence isn’t right. She tries to problem-solve her life instead of dealing with her life. . . . I don’t know. Maybe I do that too, to a certain extent.”

  Benny took another sip of Coke. Once he’d started talking, it felt surprisingly easy. Why had he never tried this before?

  “She has so many advantages,” he went on. “A great mind. Incredible beauty. But she’s messed up. I think someone did something to her. I wish I could just ask her what’s going on, but she’ll never let me get close enough.”

  “Hrm,” Mr. Flax said. His face twitched, drawing attention to the deep craggy lines around his mouth. Mr. Flax’s face was old for his age, prematurely wizened as the result of testing planes at supersonic speeds in the ’90s. It made him seem more like a grandfather than a father sometimes. His current senility and lack of mobility made that feeling even stronger. It was getting confusing, who played what role in the family.