Good Neighbors Page 8

  Then: The air against her hands got hotter and wetter. It blew like breath. The entire slab rattled, screws singing with vibration. Something lunged. She yanked back. Not in time. The pain was strangely clean. She screamed for real. Her hand tore free. Steaming fumes shot up through the knothole as she fell back and rolled off.

  “It bit me!” Julia cried, except her voice didn’t come. She’d inhaled some of the fumes. Her lungs were hot; burning! She didn’t feel the warm blood running down her wrist, or even the pain. Just this adrenaline sense of something clean and thoroughly done to both sides of her palm. A bite that had met in the bony middle.

  —CRACK!—

  Something punched the slab from underneath. The wood went convex.

  “It’s alive!” Sam shouted. “Holy cow! It’s alive!”

  The Markles jogged a few feet away. So did Ella.

  Larry made this terrible sound, this mewl, his hands over his ears.

  CRAAAACK!

  The whole slab popped, spitting out its anchors and wrenching free from its sonorous rivets.

  Sam started running back toward the houses, then Ella and the Markles. Dave’s expression registered unease at the sight of Julia’s hand. He weaved on his feet like he was going to faint. You couldn’t see her wounds for all the blood. “I’ll get help,” he said, staggering back. Then he was running, too.

  Only Larry and practical Charlie stayed. “Are you okay? What can I do?” Charlie sputtered. “That definitely needs stitches, plus tetanus shots and maybe rabies. You have health insurance, right? It’s okay if we call an ambulance, right?”

  “Go away,” Shelly rasped. “It’s never gonna happen. She thinks you’re a sphincter.”

  Julia’s hand was gummy. Her breath short. By the time she had the presence of mind to speak, Charlie had backed up. “I’ll get help,” he called, soft and nearly inaudible.

  “Get up,” Shelly said once he was out of earshot. “That hole’s still barfing steam all over us. I can’t stand it.”

  Julia shook her head and pointed at her chest, which was burning.

  “Come on!” She pulled Julia by the upper arms and made her stand, then walked with her, step by step.

  Julia looked ahead and behind. She couldn’t see Larry. Was he near the hole again? Had he gone with the rest of the kids? She couldn’t catch her breath! She pulled her hand from the cradle of her chest to look at it. She could see puncture wounds, two on each side. Fangs. Was she infected? she wondered crazily. Would she turn zombie?

  She lost her center of gravity and sank down, feeling faint. “Go,” Julia coughed out. “Just get Larry. I’ll be fine.”

  “Larry’s gone already, like we should be.”

  “I can’t move, Shelly.”

  “I’ll get in trouble if you die,” Shelly answered as she dragged Julia along the tar-sticky grass. “Come on!”

  Julia helped, using one arm to scoot. Pretty soon they were forty feet out. She’d left a trail of blood, which worried her. Because maybe the thing down there had caught her scent.

  Shelly got down and scooted alongside Julia.

  “Move!”

  Julia went faster. She could breathe a little deeper. She knew she was supposed to hate Shelly, and mostly, she did. But being alone with her felt comfortable. It felt like something missing, suddenly returned.

  “You’re such a liar, Jules,” Shelly said as they scooted. But her voice was much warmer than before, like she was thinking the same thing.

  Fifty feet, maybe more. A safer distance. Julia took a deep breath, and a little more air got through. Her rational mind returned. It had to be an animal down there. A scared dog on some ledge, trapped and trying to break out. Ralph the German shepherd had bit her… right?

  “What are you talking about? I don’t lie,” Julia said.

  Shelly stopped scooting. Red veins skittered across her pupils. Those tufts of black hair were now slicked to her bony scalp with sweat. “You never told your parents that I wanted to live with you. You lied.”

  “I did so ask them.”

  “Bull.”

  Was Larry ahead of her? He had to be. She wanted to call for him but her breath and throat, her everything hurt too much. “Lady, I need stitches and Larry’s AWOL. I can’t deal with your drama right now.”

  “You think you’re so tough. Brooklyn girl from New Lots Avenue. You don’t know anything.”

  “I know you’ve been badmouthing my whole family.”

  “It’s not badmouthing if it’s true.”

  “It’s not! Larry’s smart. You know that. And my dad? Come on! He’d never do that to you.”

  Shelly didn’t bother denying it. With the Rat Pack gone, there wasn’t anybody left to perform for. She squeezed her hands, then squeezed her forearms. She left pale marks against the pink.

  “Why’d you even want to live with me?” Julia pushed. “You told Lainee Hestia my house is a pigsty. You’re just flexing. I’m not one of your Maple Street followers.”

  She put her head between her knees and talked from there, soft this time, like the real Shelly. “You said we were like family. Best friends forever.”

  “We were. And then you fucked me over. Every time I tried to hang out with the Rat Pack you made it a shit show. You said those things about Larry. You know how hard I’ve been working to make him normal. How could you do that?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair. Seemed alarmed that there wasn’t much. “It was a joke. You Wildes’ve never been able to take a joke.”

  “You hurt him. He trusted you.”

  Shelly let out a breath. Felt for her hair again. Her hands seemed lost. “She’s gonna be so mad,” she mumbled.

  “What?”

  Head bowed, hands reaching, Shelly kept feeling for her hair. It was all patchwork—some cut close to the scalp, some farther away. “I wasn’t asking just to flex. I told you it was bad. I shouldn’t’ve needed proof. You were supposed to be my friend. You said you believed me.”

  Julia looked ahead. The Rat Pack had slowed down but was still running. Everything felt foreign and unsettled, like this whole town was on Mars. “I believed you. I mean, you’re sensitive. You have a lot of feelings. I always believed your feelings.”

  “Then why didn’t you help me?”

  “I mean, I get it. Your mom and the red wine and Ella’s annoying. Everything at your house is about nice clothes and Harvard. You can’t eat with a plate on your stomach and even if you could, the sofas are like rocks. I get it. But my house is hard, too. They put on a show when you were around. It’s not like, if you moved in with me, your life would suddenly get better.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My parents can’t handle things. My mom goes to la-la land. She shuts off like a robot. You saw her drive away this morning. If I ask her about it tonight, she’ll fuck me over. Won’t even say she’s sorry. She’ll just pretend it never happened. My dad’s a phony. I push him. Like I don’t do what he tells me or I climb all over the couch with dirty shoes. And I’m not allowed, but he doesn’t say anything. He gets so mad he grits his teeth. He curses and walks away. Sometimes he yells. I can tell he wants to hit me. But he doesn’t. I can’t explain, but it makes me feel sorry for him… I didn’t ask either of them because it’s impossible. They’d never let you live with us. Even asking, my mom would tell your mom, and then it’d be a big thing. I’d get in trouble for stirring the pot. I’m always the one who gets in trouble. Your mom protects you. Nobody has my back.”

  Shelly pulled strands of her short hair, like she was trying to make it stretch. “I get in trouble.”

  “I never see anybody raise their voice at you, Shells. Your mom treats you like a glass princess. You don’t even have to take care of Ella. I don’t get why you’d want to leave that to live with me.”

  Shelly burst into tears. “You’re wrong. She’ll kill me for this. She loves my hair.”

  Julia touched her shoulder and she collapsed, crumpling into her arms. A
larmed, wondering if this was a trick, Julia held her. But then Shelly was sobbing. The sound of her old friend’s pain was too much, so Julia hugged back, sticky with grime, keeping her bleeding hand at a distance, so as not to stain.

  “It was too long before. This is better,” she crooned.

  “I see myself doing these bitchy things,” Shelly said, her voice muffled by Julia’s shoulder. “I can’t stop. It’s like a… a monster inside me that I can’t control.”

  Julia breathed Shelly in—that strange smell of someone who’s nothing like your family. They eat different foods and they use different detergents. She felt herself crying, too. She’d missed this. You turn twelve, and suddenly it’s not cool to hug. The best you can get is sitting extra close during carpool or sharing a blanket while playing Deathcraft.

  “Why didn’t you do a tampon?” Julia asked. “You know the Markles and your sister are gonna tell everybody.”

  Shelly looked ahead, at the neatly lined houses along the crescent. “I ran out. She was too boozy to drive. I was going to just put a bunch of toilet paper or something, but I forgot…” Her mouth screwed up and she looked at her knees. “That’s not even true. I saw it was bleeding and I didn’t care. Last night was so bad. It took so long for those braids. I woke up and couldn’t be home. I knew the blood would happen and you’d all see and I didn’t care.”

  “Oh…” Julia didn’t know what to say to that. It didn’t make sense. Periods are mortifying. They’re giant, blood-soaked pads of shame. Julia spent at least ten minutes a day checking to see if her first had come, making sure there was no way, if it ever happened, that it would show. Nobody wants to get caught with a period. “Brooke Leonardis had it happen in school and nobody even talked about it. Sienna Muller saw it all over her lunch chair. You weren’t that bad. It’s deniable. I’ll deny it with you. We can just act like the people who say it are mental.”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She was still looking at her knees, tufts of hair sticking up. “It’s like I see my life from far away. The real me’s stuck, and the rest of me, it’s just this body that walks and talks and screams at people. The real me’s dying.”

  Julia felt her eyes go hot. She remembered how much she used to love Shelly. Right now, in this moment, she still loved her. “Please don’t talk like that.”

  Shelly sniffled. “I think about a razor. I keep this Pain Box that has my proof. It’s got all the evidence. I’d leave a note on top.”

  Julia blanched. Proof? What kind of proof? “Don’t talk about razors,” she said.

  Shelly’s voice got low and steady as a wishful incantation. “It’d say: You made me do this. Now I’m dead just to get away from you. I hope you’re happy.”

  Julia tried to be brave. To be firm, because maybe Shelly needed firm. “Stop it. You’re being a drama queen. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  Shelly’s jaw opened like she was going to gag and her eyes got wide, and Julia could almost see a terrible nothing inside her, wasting and strangling, eating her up from the inside out. She dry-cried, no sound and no tears.

  Julia took her friend in her arms. Squeezed as hard as she could.

  “Stop. It hurts.”

  Alarm. A jolt of a thousand volts. Julia loosened.

  “No one wants to hear it,” Shelly said. “If I told them, they wouldn’t believe. You were my best friend and I couldn’t tell you anything. You still don’t want to know. How can Miss PTA be anything except perfect? I’m the one they don’t like. I’m the one who’s mean. Unstable. There’s nobody to back me up. Even my family, they don’t see it. Or if they do, they pretend not to. I just, I’m all broken and nobody else is broken. Nobody else is in this.”

  The words jumped and bounced, and Julia kept trying to fit them together differently, so they’d tell a kinder story. But there wasn’t one. “What’s happening to you?” Julia asked.

  Shelly’s lips trembled. “She’s killing me,” she whispered.

  “She?” Julia asked.

  “Her,” Shelly answered.

  Tears burned Julia’s eyes and she stanched them, trying as hard as she could to be strong. If this was true, it was bigger than too many rules. Bigger than getting yelled at or not being allowed on playdates unless you got straight As. It was even bigger than getting slapped around when you didn’t deserve it. It was marrow deep.

  “Your mom,” Julia said.

  Shelly’s voice broke. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Julia looked across the hot, empty park, and the hole behind them, which kept getting bigger. Nothing made sense. Nothing was how it was supposed to be because the world was upside down. All the grown-ups were kids, and the kids were on their own, and maybe that’s how it had been all along.

  “Show me your hurt,” Julia said. “I have to see.”

  Shelly’s eyes watered. “You won’t think of me the same.”

  “That’s not true. I know you exactly. We played Truth or Dare a thousand times. I know you.”

  Shelly leaned forward and slid her shirt up her back. Her skin wasn’t pale but bruised yellow. Every part was marked by pinprick bruises aligned into oval shapes. Most were in a state of healing—just blended shadows. There were four recent ones. Bright red with trapped blood, like the hickey Dave Harrison had given her last year behind the 7-Eleven as a joke but not a joke.

  Julia touched the center one very gently. Index and middle finger, tracing a soft line down Shelly’s spine. Shelly eased at Julia’s touch. She sighed out. Happy, almost.

  Shelly let her expensive Free People shirt fall back down. “I wanted this special French twist. You know, with braids all around. For my thirteenth birthday party.” Shelly looked to Julia. “September? Was it that long ago?”

  Julia didn’t know how she was supposed to answer. “That’s your birthday. Yeah.”

  Shelly seemed confused on a deep, unsettled level. “I think that was the first time. I think so. She did it as a joke because she was so frustrated and we both laughed. And then she did it again and it wasn’t funny… Sometimes I forget. I go someplace else when it happens,” Shelly said, her voice soft, like it was night and they were alone in Julia’s room, in sleeping bags. “It’s never outside where a bathing suit goes… When I see myself in the mirror it’s a surprise. It’s so crazy and so secret that I think I did it to myself. Maybe I turned thirteen and something happened that made me split personality or schizophrenic. I know I’m not right. But they’re too high up my back. There’s no way I did it to myself. That’s half the reason I started taking the pictures. So I can be sure it’s real.”

  A memory returned to Julia, and it made her weary. She felt as old as Shelly looked with that cropped hair and sunken eyes. “Do you remember that time we were rehearsing at your house?”

  “When?” Shelly asked.

  “When we did the Billie Eilish for the talent show. Your mom didn’t know I was in your room. She opened the door. Like, slammed it open. And it was so weird, because I’d just heard her talking on the phone downstairs and she’d been laughing. But she looked so mad all of a sudden. And then she saw me and it was gone. Like it had never happened. She was smiling.”

  Shelly didn’t say anything.

  “It was so crazy. I thought she was going to murder us, and then she was asking if I wanted a strawberry smoothie. I didn’t know what to think. It was unreal. I thought I’d imagined it. Do you remember?” Julia asked.

  Shelly shook her head. Without hair, her neck looked long and vulnerable, like a sea creature out of its shell. “No. But she does that sometimes, when people aren’t looking. People who aren’t me… I wanted to tell you. I kept thinking you knew. I thought because we spent so much time, it was like osmosis and you knew. That’s why you and your family were always so nice to me. You were trying to make up for it.”

  Julia tried not to cry, but Shelly’s bruise had been like any other skin, to the touch. It seemed wrong that it hadn’t been
like fire. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Shelly winced. “It’s okay. I think I just wanted to imagine that you knew, so I wouldn’t have to do something about it. I could pretend the whole world was in on it. Especially Maple Street. But then she said I couldn’t hang out with you anymore, and if you were with the Rat Pack, I couldn’t hang out with them. And I knew.”

  “Why did she do that?” Julia asked. “Is it because I stole those cigarettes?”

  Shelly smiled dark. “It wasn’t the smoking. She was afraid I’d tell you. That’s how I knew for sure it was real. The whole world isn’t in on it. Not even the whole block. It’s just her, and it’s real.”

  “But now you did tell me.” Julia’s voice broke, even though she wanted it to be kind, strong, an affirmation.

  “Yeah.” Shelly tried to smile again; failed. Her eyes were so sunken that it startled Julia.

  “What do we do?” Julia asked.

  Shelly shook her head. “I don’t want her to get in trouble. I love her. And sometimes, when she does it, it almost feels like it’s because she loves me most. It’s a thing we share. But it’s not right. I know it isn’t.”

  “Can you tell your dad?”

  “He’s invisible. Like you said. He’s a ghost.” Shelly bit her lip. Swiped the sweat from her brow that was trickling down into her eyes. “… What about your parents?”

  Julia thought about that. Felt sad to admit the truth of it. “No. They don’t always know what to do. We could tell Ms. Lopez, but she won’t be back at school until September. This can’t wait. I think we have to go to the cops.”

  Shelly went to smooth her hair again. Her hands came back disappointed. She looked at Julia’s with longing. “She’ll get in so much trouble. I don’t want that.”

  “She won’t,” Julia said. “That only happens in the ghetto. Here, they’ll just make her stop.”

  “What if they don’t believe me? What if they tell my mom I’m a troublemaker and then she hates me forever?”

  “I don’t think cops do that,” Julia said. “Look at your back. Nobody would call you a liar.”