Dangerous Girls

  There’s silence, and then Dekker begins.

  “You already testified here before, Miss Chang.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you contacted my office yesterday to retract that testimony.”

  “I . . . Yes.” Mel meets my eyes briefly, then looks away.

  “So what you told this court several weeks ago wasn’t true?”

  “No, it was, I just . . . I didn’t tell you everything.”

  Gates leaps to his feet. “Objection! The witness has admitted perjuring herself. Anything else she has to say now cannot be seen as reliable.”

  “I’m inclined to agree.” Von Koppel flickers an eyebrow to Dekker.

  “I understand. However, given the gravity of the situation, and the fact that the witness voluntarily recanted her statements knowing full well the consequences she’d face. I believe her testimony should be heard.”

  I hold my breath until the judge nods. “Carry on, for now.”

  My heart sinks. I look desperately at Mel, but her gaze is fixed straight down on her hands, clasped in her lap.

  “Miss Chang.” Dekker approaches gently, his tone soft and encouraging. “What did you tell me, when you contacted me?”

  Mel looks up. “Anna knew. About the affair, that Elise and Tate were hooking up.”

  I freeze.

  “She says she didn’t, but she’s lying,” Mel continues, her voice ringing out. “She knew, and she hated Elise for it. She was so jealous, she couldn’t take it.”

  I grab Gates’s arm. “It’s not true,” I whisper. “She’s making it all up!”

  Gates shakes me off, staring intently at Mel.

  “How do you know this?” Dekker prompts her.

  “I heard them fighting about it, before she died.”

  “But you were on the dive trip, on the other side of the island.”

  Mel shakes her head. “This was the day before. In the afternoon. Everyone else was on the beach, but I came back to the house, and I heard them fighting. Anna was screaming and yelling. It was so loud. I stayed for a minute, but I didn’t know what to do, so I left.”

  I shake my head, heart pounding. It’s lies, all of it. There was no fight—none. We were back at the house, mixing drinks and hanging out, laughing over some dumb Internet video. That was the night we went out to the bar again—when Elise and I went to go sit on the sand, and I wound up yelling at Mel.

  I stop. Is this what it’s about—the things I said to her, about her tagging along? Could she really be so petty, to lie up on the witness stand just to pay me back?

  Dekker wheels around. “You heard the defendant fighting with the victim?”

  “Yes.” Mel’s lips are pressed together in a thin line, determined. “She was saying, ‘How could you do this to me? I’ll never forgive you. I’ll kill you.’ All kinds of things.”

  “I’ll kill you.” Dekker stops. “You heard her say that? Threaten the victim?”

  “Yes,” Mel says firmly. “That’s what she said.”

  I can’t take this. It’s hard to breathe, like something’s pressing down on my chest. I clutch for Gates again, but he’s staring stonily ahead.

  The judge interrupts, leaning down toward Mel. “Do you understand the charges for lying under oath, Miss Chang?”

  She nods again. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t want to make her look bad.” Mel’s lip trembles, but there’s something defiant in her expression. “I’m sorry, Anna.” She looks out at me, tearful. “I didn’t want to think that you could do it. But I have to tell the truth.”

  “She’s lying!” I can’t stop myself. I yell out, rising to my feet. “Can’t you see it? She’s lying!” I feel hands grabbing me—Gates, or Lee, I don’t know—but I struggle against them. “Why are you doing this to me?” I scream at Mel as they drag me from the room. “Why won’t you tell them the truth?!”

  THE FUNERAL

  My mom dies on a Wednesday, the week before Christmas.

  Any other year, there would be parties and holiday dinners, cards and twinkling lights, and holly wreaths hanging from the mantel. We would bake sugar cookies from a box mix and decorate the tree, playing carols and old Frank Sinatra songs. But instead, I sit at her bedside, watching her die.

  It’s not like the movies. She doesn’t pull me close and whisper inspirational words—about how I’m brave and strong, and she’ll always be with me—before gently closing her eyes and drifting away. No, my mother dies slowly. Angry. She falls away, then claws her way back with a gasp and a groan, clinging to the edge of the world with brittle, cracked nails and wheezing breaths. She spits and babbles, furious that this isn’t the peaceful slide into oblivion she was promised. It was her decision all along, but still, her body fights death—betraying her all over again as she begs for an end, and it keeps holding on.

  It takes the whole day for my mother to die. I sit there, clutching her cold hand, watching every minute of it.

  “Anna?” The voice comes in the dark, hesitant. I look up numbly to find Elise, silhouetted in the light from the hallway. “Anna, baby, it’s time to get ready.”

  I don’t reply. I’m on the floor at the foot of my bed, my legs folded beneath me; a half-empty bottle of vodka at my side. I don’t remember how I got here, or how long I’ve been huddled under my comforter. It’s days since Mom finally sucked in her last desperate breath and ceased to exist; they’ve slipped past in a dark blur of sympathy and hushed voices, and strangers traipsing in and out of the house; my dad’s blank stare, and the welcoming cocoon of my bedroom and the black burn of alcohol in my veins.

  “I’ll pick you out something to wear.” Elise pries the bottle from my limp hand, then crosses the room to open my drapes. I flinch from the light that floods in from outside: gray clouds and snowy winter skies. “Did you eat something?” She crouches beside me. “Anna? Can you remember when you last had something to eat?”

  I stare at her blankly.

  “Okay, I’ll go fix you something.” Elise strokes my hair softly. “People have been bringing casseroles, there’s all kinds of stuff. You get in the shower.” She takes me by the shoulders and pulls me slowly to my feet.

  I sag against her, my head on her shoulder. I’m empty, too numb to even try. She holds me up. “Come on, Anna. You have to.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t.”

  “I know, but it’s just today; you just have to get through today.”

  I stay there, clinging on to her like she’s the only thing keeping me from going under. And maybe she is. Our fight before break is nothing now—it was swept aside the minute I found out about Mom’s plan to end treatment. I called Elise right away, hyperventilating through my tears, and she was on my doorstep within the hour. We drove all night, just circling the city, the neon lights blurring through my tears as I huddled there in the passenger’s seat beside her and tried to understand. But I can’t—not then, and not now either.

  Finally, Elise pulls away. She cradles my face. “I know you don’t want to do this, but I’m here, okay? I’ll be right by you, the whole time. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I manage a nod.

  “Let’s get this over with, then.”

  I let her steer me to the bathroom and into the shower. I barely notice as Elise undresses me, I just stand, dumb, under the hot jets of water, while she bends me like a doll to rub shampoo into my scalp and carefully rinse the suds away. Back in the bedroom, she feeds me lasagna from a Tupperware dish, then dresses me—fresh underwear, thick tights, a plain black dress she or my dad must have bought, because she lifts it, fresh, from tissue paper in a crisp paper bag by the door. She brushes my hair out and braids it, damp against my neck, then paints my face with concealer and blush.

  It’s soothing, in a way; her soft hands against my skin. She puts me back together, like broken pieces, and slowly, the haze of drunken grief slips from me. I wake up.

  “There,” she murmurs, stepping back to examine her work.
>
  I stare at my reflection: pale skin, almost as pale as my mom’s. “I look like someone died.”

  Elise’s eyes widen, then a faint smile tugs at the edge of her lips. “You’re right,” she agrees. “Anyone would think we’re going to a funeral.”

  I feel a laugh rise in me, bitter and bleak. I reach for the red lipstick on the edge of my bureau, then slowly paint my mouth until it’s a vivid scarlet slash across the pale plains of my face. I tilt my head, assessing. “Better.”

  Elise takes it from me and quickly does her own. Matching. She blots her lips together, meeting my gaze in the mirror. “I’m right here,” she says again quietly, taking my hand. “I won’t let go.”

  • • •

  She doesn’t. Not through the service, sat on the hard pews of the cold, echoing church. Not through the receiving line, as Mom’s friends and survivors’ group supporters envelop me in a never-ending parade of hugs and cooing sympathy condolence. And not as we sit in the back of the car, driving slowly through the cemetery to a fresh grave near the top of the hill.

  The wind is icy, and it whips around us as I get out of the car. I see the others assemble at the graveside: Chelsea, Max, AK, Lamar, and Mel, all wearing matching dark coats and expressions of sympathy. There’s one face missing.

  “Did you talk to Tate?” I ask, unsteady in the black pumps she picked out.

  “He’s still in Aspen.” Something stiffens in Elise’s expression. “He says they’ll be back on Sunday.”

  “It’s not his fault,” I defend him weakly. “It’s the holidays; it’s hard to switch flights.”

  She doesn’t reply, just tucks my scarf tighter around my neck; smoothing back a strand of hair flying free around my face. “Nearly over,” she whispers, guiding me into position in the front row beside the grave.

  The next part of the service begins: interring her bones back to the earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I let the priest’s words drift over me, thinking instead of Tate. The truth is, I’m glad he’s not here to see me like this. Such a wreck. I feel raw, and bruised, as if the worst, darkest parts of myself have been spilled out onto the frozen ground beside my mother’s grave, on display to the world. Tate knows me laughing and at ease, centered and calm, not this ragged mess of a girl. And it may be shallow, but I want to keep it that way: to be bright and good for him, not an endless black hole of grief.

  “Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep.”

  I look up. It’s my dad’s turn, reading, with a single red rose clutched in his hand. They’re lowering the body now, a slow grind down into the ground. The words wash through me, and I let out a sharp, twisted laugh.

  “Of course she’s there,” I mutter, suddenly so angry. “Where the fuck else would she be?”

  Elise’s grip tightens on me.

  “I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain.”

  Suddenly, I can’t breathe. After sitting, numb, through so many saccharine poems and Hallmark-card consolations, I can’t take it anymore. They’re pretending like this is all some big tragedy, an accident. As if she didn’t choose to leave me. But it’s a joke. Cruelly taken from her family, they say, but the truth is, she killed herself. She chose this. She could have fought it, stayed with me longer, but she didn’t love me enough.

  She never has.

  The pain comes welling up, and with it, a rage that burns so fierce I feel like I’m about to pass out. “Elise,” I gasp, my chest burning, but she holds me up. She holds me through it all, until dad finishes his poem and tosses the rose down onto the coffin, and the glossy lacquered wood is swallowed up by the dark earth forever.

  • • •

  We drive back to my house, silent in the backseat of a town car. Dad has invited more people over, to “celebrate her life,” he says, but I’ve played my part. I’m done. I hurry straight up to my bedroom, and find the bottle of prescription pills tucked in my drawer. I sneaked them from my mom’s room, before the doctor cleared it out. I shake out one, then another, small and white in the palm of my hand, sweet against my tongue.

  There’s a noise. I look up sharply, but it’s just Elise. She’s got a bottle of whiskey with her. “You started without me,” she says, kicking her shoes aside. She holds out her hand, so I pass the pill bottle. She reads the label.

  “Xanax, good choice.” She slips one into her mouth, and sighs. “When I die, I want a real party. None of that poetry, weepy bullshit.” She leaps onto my bed, scooting back against the pillows. I flip the main lights off and follow, so we’re lying there together in the glow of my bedside lamp.

  I sink deeper into the pillows, exhaling. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “About what, death?” She props herself up on one elbow, looking down at my face. “Too soon?”

  “Very.”

  “Very soon. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You think any of this does?” I feel the chemicals start working their magic, the smooth hiss and fizzle as they slip through my bloodstream. Elise reaches down and gently strokes my face, trailing her finger along my cheek, my nose, the line of my jaw. I smile, relieved that it’s over now, that she’s here just like she said.

  “Tell me I’ll be okay,” I say, slipping further into the numbness. “Tell me it won’t always feel this way.”

  “It won’t.” Elise curls in closer to me, her head resting on the pillows just inches from my face. I stare into her eyes, the promise there. “You’ll be just fine.”

  I know she’s right, but somehow, that makes it sadder. I’ve been losing Mom for years now, ever since that first diagnosis, and I realize that part of this pain is more from the mother she’ll never be to me than the mom she really was.

  Something in me finally breaks. I start to cry, quiet tears slipping out of my body like release. “I can’t do this,” I whisper, clutching Elise. “I can’t, I can’t. She left me. She could have stayed and fought this, and she just gave up instead. Maybe if I’d been better . . . ?”

  “No.” Elise stops me with a kiss, sweet and tender on my lips. She cradles my face, unblinking. “It’s not on you, it’s on her. It’s all on her.”

  I inhale, shaky. “You won’t leave me,” I say, a quiet note of desperation in my voice.

  “Never.” Elise wipes the tears from my cheeks and kisses me again. “I’m yours, and you’re mine. Always.”

  “Always.” I fall into her, feeling the gentle pull of oblivion. It’s dark, and warm, and safe here in her arms. I kiss her back, and wait for the pain to be over.

  RECESS

  They take me back to the conference room after Mel’s testimony, and threaten to put me back in handcuffs and shackles unless I calm down.

  “She’ll be fine,” I hear Gates reassuring the guard, but I can’t focus; I can’t stop shaking. I tear away from them, pacing back and forth in the small space. I was so close to the end, so close, and now it’s all ruined.

  Lee edges closer, holding out a bottle of water, but I push it away.

  “She’s lying,” I tell them again, my voice scratched and sobbing. “She couldn’t stand it that Elise picked me. She always hated how close we were, that we didn’t need her tagging along.” I look up, to Gates and my dad, but they’re frozen, their eyes cast away from me. “I bet she’s been waiting for this all along.” My voice rises with desperation. “To pay me back, for all those mean things I said. It’s not true. You have to believe me,” I yell, “none of it is true!”

  I can’t believe she’s doing this to me. It’s not some high school bitch-fight, a war over BFFs and party invites. This is life-and-death, my whole future on the line, and it’s just her word against mine.

  “The maid,” I suddenly remember, stopping dead. I turn to them, gripping the back of a chair. “She was there, in the house, with me and Elise. She can testify, say there wasn’t any fight!”

  Gates exchanges a look with my dad.

  “What?” I demand. “It’s true,
she came every day. What’s her name—Marta, Martha? Where is she? We have to get her on the stand. She can back me up!”

  “Marta and her family moved off the island,” Gates says slowly.

  “So?” I cry. “The judge can make them come, can’t she? Force her to testify.”

  Gates and my dad share another look, then Gates lets out a sigh. “They moved to America, to work for the Dempseys.”

  I stop. “I don’t understand.”

  “It was a payoff,” he says slowly. “Back before Tate cut his deal. Remember, he was a suspect too. She probably saw him with Elise, something they wanted to keep hidden.” Gates explains. “They gave her a job, probably got her a visa, a house, too.”

  “But . . . that doesn’t mean she can’t testify,” I say, desperate. “She was there. She can tell them all, Melanie’s lying.”

  Gates shakes his head. “Even if the judge compels her to come back, it won’t be credible. Dekker will say part of the payoff was lying about this.”

  “But we didn’t pay her off!” I cry. “That was Tate!”

  “It won’t make a difference.”

  I grab the chair and hurl it to the back of the room. It clatters against the wall with a screech of metal. “But it’s not true!” I gasp, the pressure pinning down on my chest again. “None of it is true!”

  I sink to the floor, tears coming now, uncontrollably. How could Mel do it—sit up there and lie like that? She had to know what it would mean for me, that I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison now, because of something she made up to spite me. I gasp for air, shaking. From a long way off, I hear a knock at the door. Gates goes to answer it, but my dad doesn’t move, he just stands there, stranded on the other side of the room.

  I don’t know how long I’m huddled there, weeping, but eventually my sobs fade away, leaving nothing but a thundering headache and the dry soreness of my throat. Lee crouches down beside me and offers the water again. This time, I take it.

  The door opens. Gates returns.

  “We should ask to recess until tomorrow,” Lee says, but Gates shakes his head. He rights the chair from where I hurled it, then sits down at the table.