I hoped things would change after that, but Nicole was in the restaurant with the girls the very next weekend. She didn’t laugh as loud at Shauna’s jokes and barely looked at me, but she was still there, and in my mind that was enough. Then one day Mike saw me choking back tears in the kitchen—after Shauna had made a comment about my boobs being like fried eggs, while she poured ketchup all over her plate, making loud squirts with the bottle—and asked what was wrong. I tossed down the rag I’d been using to wipe the counter and told him what had been going on. He headed over to Shauna’s table, motioning for me to follow. He placed both his hands on the table, his big body looming over them.
“You girls are going to have order meals if you want to keep coming in here. And Toni won’t be serving you anymore. If you give any of my waitresses a hard time again, you won’t be welcome back. Got it?”
Shauna’s face turned red and angry. The other girls looked mortified. Mike stared hard at Shauna, his eyebrows raised. Shauna finally nodded. Nicole’s eyes were big and scared. I thought Shauna would make some snarky comment after Mike walked off, but they left the restaurant right away. Mike told me that if they gave me any more trouble I should come see him immediately—he didn’t care that Frank McKinney was Shauna’s father. I loved him for believing me.
The girls stopped coming in after that. But Nicole was going to Shauna’s house almost every weekend and a lot of nights during the week. One afternoon I came home and they were all in our living room. I stopped still, caught off guard. Shauna was sitting next to my mom, flipping through one of our photo albums while Mom pointed out a picture of us as babies.
“Oh, my God. How cute!” she said, then looked up at me. “Hi, Toni.”
Rachel, Kim, and Cathy all looked up with smiles and said, “Hey, Toni,” like we were best friends.
Nicole seemed worried, glancing around at all of us. I stared at them mutely for a few seconds, trying to convey my anger with my eyes: What the hell are you doing in my house? My mom shot me a dirty look, so I mumbled, “Hey.”
Shauna said, “I was telling your mom how bad I still feel about what happened at school, and how glad I am that we got over it.” She smiled at me.
So that’s how she was going to play it.
“Yeah, me too.” I smiled back. “Great to see you.”
I grabbed something from the fridge, trying to look casual, though my heart was beating fast, then went up to my room. My bedroom door was open. Had they been in there? I quickly looked around. Some of my stuff seemed to have been moved. I didn’t keep a journal and didn’t notice anything missing, but I was sure they’d been in my room. What were they looking for? Did Nicole tell them about the knife? Luckily that was in my packsack.
I didn’t know what they were looking for, or if they found it, but I hated thinking of them in my room, touching my things, laughing and giggling. I hated thinking about what they might be planning for me next.
Maybe that was the point. They wanted me to be scared, wanted me to know that no place, not even in my own home, was safe from them.
* * *
For the rest of May and into June, we settled into a grudging routine. They stayed away from the restaurant, and I stayed away from them at school. I tried to focus on graduation, getting our caps and gowns, rehearsing. Nicole was still spending all her free time with them and sneaking out at least once every weekend. Because she was careful not to alarm our parents, they never thought to check on her. I kept waiting for the fallout, for her to have some sort of fight with the girls, but they seemed to adore her, treating her like she was their little sister, walking with their arms around her, braiding her hair. She also seemed happy, happier than she’d been for a while. I noticed she’d started playing love songs over and over in her bedroom, sometimes softly singing along. I didn’t see her with any boys at school or at any of the parties where I occasionally saw her when Shauna and the girls brought her. But I wondered if she’d started seeing that older boy again.
With both of us working, Ryan and I didn’t have a lot of time together on the weekends anymore, but we’d leave notes for each other in our lockers, and we were counting the days until school was finished. Then we could work full-time and hopefully get a place together by the end of the summer. We were collecting things already, hitting flea markets and buying towels and dishes if Walmart had a sale. It made me feel grown up, shopping together, Ryan’s arm slung around my shoulder as we pushed the cart through the aisles, comparing prices, talking about what we needed. I could see our lives unfolding, could feel how great it was going to be. We just had to get through the summer.
* * *
Finally it was the end of June and we graduated. Mom cried through the whole walk-up ceremony—I was pretty sure it was in relief. There was a dry grad the next weekend, like a prom, but I wasn’t sure if we were going to that or up to the lake, where a lot of the kids would be partying. Ryan was pushing for the prom, then the party—he said he wanted to slow-dance with me and see me in a dress for once. But I was worried about what Shauna and her friends might do—a big school dance would be the perfect place to humiliate me one last time.
The week before we graduated, Amy had called me at home one night. I was surprised when my dad handed me the phone and said who was on the other end. I took the phone to the living room and said a cautious, “Hello?”
“Hi, Toni. How’ve you been?” She sounded nervous.
“I’m okay.” Why was she calling? Was it a setup? I waited for the telltale laughter in the background.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for how I treated you. Fiona, she’s mad at Shauna right now because Shauna’s been flirting with Max.” Fiona was another girl we used to hang out with, until she got a new car, better clothes, and started hanging out with the popular kids. Fiona and Max had been going together since the ninth grade. “So Fiona told me that Shauna told her that she was the one who really called Warren.”
“I tried to tell you that it wasn’t true.”
“I know.” Now she sounded embarrassed. “He was just so convincing.”
“I was your friend—you should have believed me.”
“The way Warren said it, it sounded so real. And then all that other stuff he told me you’d said about my family and all … It just made me so upset I couldn’t even think straight. I’m sorry I said those things about you and Ryan.”
I was quiet. I could imagine how convincing Shauna had been, but it still hurt—and I didn’t know if I could trust Amy anymore.
“Some of the stuff you said, that was harsh,” I said.
“I’m really sorry.” Her voice was thick, her nose stuffy, like she might be crying. “But you also said some mean things.”
“I know. I’m sorry too.”
“Can we be friends again? And go to the dry grad together? I’m dating Chad now, and he hangs out with Ryan sometimes at the pit.”
“I don’t know. A lot has changed.” I wanted to forgive her, but I felt tears come to my own eyes when I remembered how devastated I’d been when she dumped me, how humiliated I felt standing in the hall while she called me a liar.
She sighed. “Okay, I understand. Just think about it, please. I really miss you.”
* * *
I talked things over with Ryan, and he thought I should forgive Amy. Part of me still wanted to be angry, another part wanted to show Shauna she hadn’t taken everything away from me—and I had missed Amy a lot. I called her and we got together a couple of times, but it was different, and I wasn’t sure if we’d ever be close again. I was cautious now, scared to reveal anything personal to her. I did tell her Nicole and I hadn’t been getting along, and she also thought it was weird that Shauna would even want to hang out with someone younger.
“I mean, your sister’s really cool and popular and pretty, but Shauna doesn’t usually like anyone who could be competition. I wonder what will happen after they graduate. I heard that all of Nicole’s old friends are pissed at her.”
/> “Yeah, me too.” Ryan had told me the rumors. I felt a pang for my sister, who was so caught up in Shauna’s world she wasn’t seeing how many bridges she’d burned or what Shauna and her crew might do to her one day—how brutal they could be when they decided someone had wronged them. Then I remembered her looking away when the girls said mean things to me at the restaurant. She was one of them now, and there was nothing I could do about it.
* * *
In the end, I decided to go to the dry grad with Amy and her new boyfriend. Ryan really wanted to go, and in a way, so did I. Ryan told me it would be stupid to miss out on something just because of Shauna. When he looked at me with his brown eyes all hopeful, sliding his hand up my shirt, talking about how we could bring a blanket out to the lake for later, I had to say yes.
I found a dress at a consignment store, a simple sheath in a deep red, kind of 1950s old Hollywood glamour. I also found some long gloves and a beaded clutch purse. I felt good when I brought it all home, but the night of the grad I started second-guessing everything. Maybe my outfit wasn’t glamorous, just weird and old-fashioned. I regretted not taking Amy up on her offer to get ready together but I’d thought it might be too distracting, and there was a part of me that was still holding back a little from her.
Nicole came to the bathroom door when I was staring at myself in the mirror. “Wow. You look so pretty—that dress makes your body look amazing.”
I thought she was being sarcastic and spun around to tell her off, but she looked sincere, had this proud sort of smile on her face. I muttered, “Thanks,” and turned back to the mirror, holding my hair up, trying to decide what to do with it.
“Do you need help? I can do your makeup,” Nicole said.
I wanted to tell her to screw off after how she’d been treating me for months, but she sounded like she meant the offer—and she was really good at makeup. I wanted to look different that night, classier, so I said, “Okay. Thanks.”
Nicole put my hair in a loose chignon and did some cool things to my eyes with pencil, shadow, and mascara. When she was done, she said I looked like a dark-haired Marilyn Monroe, and I felt beautiful. I couldn’t wait to see Ryan’s face. While Nicole was working on me, we laughed and joked for the first time in a long time. It was so nice I almost forgot everything we’d gone through, until my mom called out, “Phone, Nicole. It’s Shauna.” And she ran downstairs, after giving me a guilty look. I felt sick, wondering if they’d planned something for that night. Was that why Nicole had helped me? Just so Shauna could humiliate me later? I stared at myself in the mirror, at the girl I barely recognized. For a moment I was tempted to take all the makeup off and let my hair just go loose, but then the doorbell rang.
Ryan looked handsome in his tuxedo as he made small talk with my mom and dad, and confident, like he’d worn one all his life. The expression on his face as I walked toward him—stunned, proud, awestruck—made me glad I hadn’t undone all of Nicole’s work. He gestured down at himself, his eyebrows raised. I gave a thumbs-up and he laughed. In the other room, I could see Nicole still talking on the phone. She smiled, but there was something in her face now that I didn’t like, a nervous guilt. Dad took our photos, Mom calling out, “Come on, Nicole. I want one of you girls together.”
Finally Nicole put down the phone and we got a picture together, but her body language was different now, tense, almost like she thought being nice to me was the betrayal.
* * *
At the dry grad Shauna stayed to one side of the gym with her girls and I stayed on the other with Ryan, Amy, and her boyfriend. I tried to relax and have a good time, but I was tense, waiting for something to happen. I was even nervous about being there with Amy. Though she was being like always, and if anything a little nicer, still trying to make up for our fight, I couldn’t help wondering if it was all an act. Shauna looked really pretty in a tight white satin dress with her hair curled, and seemed to be enjoying her date, who was the captain of the hockey team. Cathy and Rachel were also beautifully dressed, though I noticed Shauna had made sure her dress was the tightest, and each had dates—other players on the team. Kim had brought one of the guys who was part of the drama club.
Whenever Ryan and I danced, we stayed out of Shauna’s sight. I buried my face in his neck and tried to let myself get carried away by the music and the feel of his body against mine, but I kept taking little peeks, trying to see what Shauna was doing. Once, she danced by me and mouthed, I’m going to get you, skank.
Ryan told me to brush it off and spun me away, but the night was ruined for me after that. What had she planned? How was she going to get me this time? Was there something else she knew about me, some other lie she could make up?
Finally, the teachers announced the night was over. I watched Shauna and her friends filter out, still shocked that they hadn’t done anything. I half expected them to have written something on Ryan’s truck, but nothing seemed to be wrong with it.
“I told you they weren’t going to do anything,” Ryan said.
“There’s still the party.”
“Nothing will happen.”
I appreciated that he was trying to make me feel better but I couldn’t help thinking, You can’t keep me safe forever. Not from her.
In the front seat of the truck we changed into jeans and tank tops and I let my hair down, then we headed out to the lake. I tried to get into things at the party, tried to enjoy the roaring fire, getting high with our friends, drinking beer after beer, but I had a hard time catching a buzz, my fear pulling me down, making me edgy and tense. I could tell Ryan was getting annoyed, he kept telling me to relax. But I couldn’t because Shauna had also come out there with the girls and their dates. This time, though, Shauna didn’t even glance in my direction as she laughed with her friends and danced to the stereo someone had set on the hood of a truck. But I couldn’t forget she was there, couldn’t stop wondering what she had planned, couldn’t stop waiting for the hammer to fall.
Around two in the morning, parents were picking kids up, and some of them, who were supposedly sober, were driving off. Finally Shauna and her date, and Rachel and her date, got in a car. They were leaving. I took what felt like my first breath of the night. But then I saw the window rolling down as they drove past Ryan and me. I flinched, waiting for something to be thrown at me. Ryan tried to pull me behind him. Shauna, her head out the back window, said, “Hope you had a nice night, loser.” Then she collapsed back inside, everyone laughing.
Ryan threw his bottle at the back tire rim and the glass exploded. The car stopped, like the driver might get out and fight, but Ryan picked up another bottle as if he were going to throw it, and the car took off. Ryan gave me a hug.
“I’m sorry, baby. At least she didn’t screw up our whole night.”
But then I realized she had—or actually I had. Just like she wanted.
* * *
Ryan drove up to the highest cliff at the lake and we sat in the truck, looking out over the water, smoking another joint. We had music playing softly, our hands entwined, my head on Ryan’s shoulder. We could see headlights from other trucks and cars in the distance, the glow of campfires.
Ryan said, “Do you want to join them again?”
“Not really, but we can if you want to.”
He pulled me closer and whispered in my ear, “You’re the only person I want to be with.”
I closed my eyes, smelling his cologne, feeling the heat of his body, the solidness of his shoulder under my cheek, and let the music wash away Shauna and Nicole and my parents and everything that had happened that year. We had graduated. It was over. Shauna was over.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ECHO BEACH HALFWAY HOUSE, VICTORIA
MARCH 2012
The halfway house was on a quiet tree-lined street two blocks from the ocean. Whenever there was a crime in the neighborhood, the police came knocking on our door first. The house was old and drafty but big enough—three stories high—to house twenty-five parolees.
The staff had offices on the main floor, and we had to sign in and out at the front desk. The kitchen was also on the main floor and we were responsible for our own food. Everyone had a set of dishes and cutlery, and a small cupboard. Until I found a job I’d get a minimum allowance of $77 per week. Once I was working, I’d have to pay a small rent.
I’d arrived in the afternoon, feeling exhausted and messy. The first thing I did was take a shower. It had been years since I’d had one to myself, since I could actually lock the door and blast the hot water. I didn’t have to watch everyone around me, my body tense. Even now, I still caught my breath when I heard a movement out in the hall. I paused, listened. It was nothing, just someone walking to her room. I lathered my body again and again, face up to the water, eyes closed, glorying in the moment, the strong water pressure that hadn’t turned to a freezing cold trickle after five minutes. Last year, when I was still on temporary absences, I’d never been able to relax long enough to have a shower, just took sponge baths in the sink—I could hear easier without the water running.
My skin, pale from lack of sun, was getting red and splotchy, so I turned off the shower now and stepped out, taking my time as I toweled dry, savoring even this moment: a decent towel, peace and quiet, a feeling of what it might be like once I had full parole and a place of my own. I thought about what to do that day. I had to start looking for work soon—that’s where most of the other parolees were, the house was empty—and there were some programs in the community I needed to attend. But for now I thought I might go to the beach, or maybe a coffee shop.
I’d found one on my last UTA, had stood in line and stared at the people ordering their lattes, mochas, and cappuccinos with such ease while I studied the chalkboard and all its offerings in a panic. I settled on a black coffee, only to be thrown again when the clerk asked which size: tall, grande, venti. I muttered, “Large,” but then, feeling trapped by a man standing too close behind me, pushed my way out of the line, stumbled to the bathroom, and hid in a stall until my heart rate settled down. I left without getting my coffee. Today I wanted to try again, wanted to order one of the drinks with the whipped cream on top.