Promise Me Something (24 page)

There was only one sentence on the page. It said:
Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.

“Just something I was thinking about,” I said.

The teacher frowned. “It’s a quote by Sylvia Plath.”

“I’ve been missing the notebook for a while,” I lied, thinking fast. “Somebody stole it. They must have had it in their backpack when they pulled the alarm.”

“Who would have stolen it from you?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “It’s been missing for months.”

Triumph flickered in her eyes. “Flip to the last page, please.”

I did and immediately felt my stomach sink. There was a date on top: February 21. The day I saw
White Heat
with Levi. Olive’s last day in the world.

“Excuse me while I page Mr. Mancuzzi to discuss this.” She turned and spoke into her walkie-talkie, which important members of the faculty carried on their belts in case of emergencies. The minute she was facing away from me, I slipped the folded pages out of the notebook and shoved them into the pocket of my sweatshirt, linking my hands together inside the pocket to cover the bulge. No sooner had I pressed the wad of folded paper closer to my stomach than the teacher turned back to face me, her mouth set in a grim line.

“Mr. Mancuzzi is busy,” she said. “I’m to confiscate the journal and send you back to class. If we determine that
is
your journal—which I doubt—then you’re in serious trouble, Reyna. In the meantime, I’d urge you never to lie to an administrator just to get your hands on someone else’s private journal.” She looked immensely pleased with herself.

“Sorry,” I said, handing over the journal with one hand and holding the papers inside my sweatshirt pocket with the other. “I won’t do it again.”

“You’re dismissed,” she answered, slipping the journal into a binder.

I left without looking back, stopping only after I rounded the corner to duck into the girls’ bathroom by the stairs. It smelled like cigarette smoke in there, but I locked myself in the handicapped stall anyway and pulled out my cell phone. I knew it was a long shot, but I had an idea.
Did you pull the fire alarm?
I typed carefully. Then I found the number that had texted me on Sunday and hit Send.

I didn’t expect an answer right away, so when the phone vibrated in my hand a moment later, I nearly jumped. The text was short:
Who is this?

Rachael Ray
, I typed.
Who are u?
If Grace was as close to Olive as I was beginning to suspect, then she would get the hint. But this time the phone was silent for a while, and I began to wonder if my clue was too obtuse. Finally, just as I moved my thumb over the keypad to close the screen, a reply rolled in:
The cookbook gal?

My heart rose and sank in quick succession, first because she’d replied at all, and then because Grace would never have used the word
gal
. It probably wasn’t even her phone in the first place. She’d probably stolen it from some old man, and now I’d sent him a text. I could have pinched myself. Of course Grace wouldn’t have her own phone number. She was a runaway.

There were five minutes left before the end of the period, and I had to get back to History to grab my backpack. But the folded wad of paper in my sweatshirt pocket stopped me. I knew it was probably just a bunch of old homework, but still—I had to know. Pacing back and forth inside the handicapped stall, I pulled it out of my pocket and unfolded the pages one by one.

It wasn’t a bunch of homework. It was a series of conversations—twenty or thirty in total—some printed from g-chat, others from a forum called LGBTeen. The two people writing called themselves JarOfBells and KamikazePigeon. As I flipped through the pages, my eyes darted over the words. There was something about jumping into a pool on the count of three. Something about gay boot camp. Something about reading Sylvia Plath poems under a full moon. JarOfBells was obviously Olive.

The bell rang, but I didn’t move. Feet frozen, I put the pages in order by date. Then I read them from beginning to end. A handful of the conversations revolved around me. Olive had dubbed me “Asshole of the Day” six times and referred to me once as “feckless.” But most of the time, she spoke about me with a mild, wistful sort of regret, as though I was part of a pattern of sadness in her life that she couldn’t figure out.

At a certain point, maybe two-thirds of the way through the conversations, the skunky smell of the bathroom ceased to bother me. I grew vaguely aware of the sneakers coming and going outside my stall as I read, the second bell ringing in the hallway, the pipes creaking in the walls. I don’t know how long I stayed there.

I didn’t expect Grace to be waiting for me at the Talmadge Hill train station like some kind of lost child swinging her legs on a bench, looking for a ride home. But I did hope—maybe foolishly—that she was trying to make contact with me, just like I was trying to make contact with her. After all, who was bringing her food now that Olive was gone? Maybe she wanted to text me again, but she couldn’t find a phone.

But when I got to the train station, it was empty. Talmadge Hill was a commuter neighborhood, and the station serviced the local businessmen and women who left for Grand Central every morning around eight o’clock and returned at night in time for dinner. At three in the afternoon, it was practically a ghost town. Only one ticket window was open for business, and there was a tall, clean-shaven man sitting behind it, reading a book.

I walked up to him and cleared my throat.

“Where to?” he asked, barely glancing up from his book. He was younger than he looked from across the room.

“Nowhere,” I said. “I just have a question.”

He looked up this time and put down his book.

“Would it be possible to talk to someone who was here on Friday?” I asked. “One of the people who was on the news, I mean?” I recalled two interviewees—a conductor and a janitor. The janitor had a potbelly and a white moustache.

“After the suicide?”

I nodded.

“Sure,” he said. “That would be our janitor, Joe.”

I set my backpack down on the floor next to my feet and gathered my courage. I was here to look for Grace, after all—or at least find out if anybody had seen her around. As for me, the last time I’d seen her was at the Valentine’s party, where she’d been wearing the long purple raincoat.

“I’m here because of the interview Joe gave on TV,” I told the man behind the counter. “He mentioned a girl who came around here on Friday a few hours before the suicide. He said she was wearing a purple raincoat.”

“Sure,” said the man without missing a beat. “I sold her a ticket.”

I felt my mouth drop open.

“To Grand Central,” he added. “One-way. Paid in cash.”

It took a minute to sink in. So Grace wasn’t living in the Bartons’ tool shed after all or even sleeping like a hobo at the Talmadge Hill train station. She was in New York.

“Joe!” The man behind the counter called over my shoulder. “Joe, come here!”

I felt my arms prickle as I turned around. Sure enough, the janitor with the bright white handlebar moustache was standing across the room holding a mop. He’d just come out of the men’s bathroom and was moving a yellow caution cone away from the entrance. When he looked up, I noticed that one of his ears was missing.

“Joe, this girl’s been looking for you,” said the man behind the counter. “She wants to know about what happened here on Friday.”

“Is she a reporter?” called Joe. “I’m done talking to reporters.”

I shook my head.

Sighing a little, he picked up his mop and rolled the bucket across the room. I walked toward him, and we met in the middle.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I began as politely as possible. His missing ear was creepy, like something that belonged on a serial killer or Vincent Van Gogh. “I was just wondering about the girl you saw here on Friday,” I said. “The one in the purple raincoat.”

He squinted at me.

“Do you remember anything about her?” I asked. “Like whether she was carrying any bags? Or maybe a suitcase?”

“No bags,” said Joe. “A hat. Gloves. What’s it to you?”

“I know her.”

“Knew her.” His mouth twitched.

“No,
know
her,” I said. “The girl in the purple raincoat was a girl named Grace. She wasn’t the one who died.”

“That’s not what the conductor said.” Joe was standing in front of me with his arms crossed now, his potbelly a whole foot in front of his body. “He said the train split her face right down the middle but the mother recognized the purple jacket. That’s how they knew it was their daughter.”

I felt a wave of nausea.

“I’m just saying,” he said.

But it didn’t make sense. Why would Olive’s mother recognize a rain jacket that belonged to Grace, a girl she’d never met? Then it hit me: the jacket probably didn’t belong to Grace at all. Olive had probably loaned it to her on the night of the Valentine’s party. Everything clicked into place with a sickening clarity: Olive, dead, her purple jacket torn to pieces on the train track. Without that jacket, Grace would be even harder to track down—just an anonymous girl of medium height and shoulder-length blond hair.

There was still something I didn’t understand. “Did the girl say anything about getting a ticket to New York?” I asked.

Joe looked at me like I was delusional. “The only ticket she got was to someplace else, if you know what I mean.”

“But did she say anything about it?”

“Look.” He shifted his weight to his other hip. “She just sat there in front of the schedule for a long time. Then I had to go clean downstairs, and when I came back she was gone. A few hours later, everybody was saying there was a body on the tracks. Was it the same girl? I don’t know. All I know is what the conductor said.”

“Thanks, that helps,” I said, even though it didn’t. All it meant was that Olive—not Grace—must have purchased the ticket to Grand Central Station. Why, I had no idea.

“Good.” He grabbed his mop. “’Cause you just put me behind schedule.”

“Thanks for your time,” I said, but he didn’t seem to hear me. He just lifted his mop and sloshed it back and forth over the tile floor. I left without saying good-bye, just like Grace.

R
EMEMBERING
O
LIVE
B
ARTON

By Emily Benz
, Managing Editor

Freshman Olivia Francesca Barton, known to most as Olive, passed away on Friday night outside her home in Springdale, Connecticut, at the age of 14. She is survived by her parents, Bill and Melissa Barton.

“She was such a light in everyone’s lives,” said Freshman Lizelle Bluth, Barton’s friend from middle school. “I’m going to miss her more than words can express.” Bluth went on to describe Barton as a kind, quiet, sensitive soul who loved to draw and write.

“She was always writing poems in her notebook,” said Freshman John Quincy, another close friend of Barton’s. “I used to tease her about it, but she was actually really good. I wish I could tell her that now.”

Barton, an honors student who played the piano and tutored elementary school students in math, was loved by peers and teachers alike. “She was an excellent student and a fine thinker,” said history teacher Mike Murphy. “She’ll be missed.”

Barton’s family plans to hold a private funeral service at their home in Springdale. Students wishing to send condolences may do so via the Guidance Office in room 204. Principal Mancuzzi is expected to announce a memorial service for the freshman class by the end of the week. We’ll miss you, Olive!

I spent most of first period wandering around the basement of the school with an old hall pass. I had Gym first period, but Gym meant facing Levi, and that I couldn’t do. Everybody had already seen the obituary. Copies of the
Beacon
were stacked next to the main entrance of the school, and people tended to grab them first thing in the morning when they walked inside. At this rate, they were probably all gone. Too many people like Gretchen Palmer were using them as snot rags to wipe up their tears while they made an exaggerated show of grief. Never mind that the real Olive Barton hadn’t played the piano or tutored math since seventh grade; nobody questioned Emily Benz’s obituary. In her half-baked effort to fill the article with the requisite diversity of quotes—one from a boy, one from a girl, and one from a teacher—she’d destroyed any resemblance to the truth. The real Olive Barton was tough as nails, full of rage, and eerily self-possessed. But who would dare speak out against the sweet, sad girl Emily Benz had immortalized?