The Sound of Us

  “Coming!” I half-yell, half-moan.

  Another knock, this time so urgent it rattles the deadbolt.

  This better be the fucking president, waking me up at 10:07 in the morning. Or maybe Bon Jovi himself?

  When I open the door, a young woman with magenta dreads throws up her arms. “Oh my God! Finally!” She barges inside, all sweet coconut perfume and four-inch heels. “Have you seen the rags this morning? You’re in some deep shit, Juniper.”

  Am I still dreaming? I blink again, squinting at the blast of magenta dreadlocks that looks ridiculously eccentric this morning against her dark chocolate skin. “…Maggie?”

  “Who else would it be? The Pope?” She rolls her eyes, digging into her purse, and pulls out a tabloid. She waves it into the air, the bazillions of bracelets on her arm jingling like sleigh bells. I wince at the sound. Hangover no likey.

  “Mayday! This is deep. You’re in deep. And that was one long-ass ride! Jesus” —she pushes the trash magazine into my chest, pressing her legs together— “I gotta pee like a racehorse. Read it!”

  She slams the bathroom door as I finally inspect the magazine. My stomach flips. A photo of gray eyes framed by a wild mess of pink hair peer over Roman’s shoulder, staring back at me.

  The memory of the Lona comes back in full force. Dancing cheek-to-cheek. The kiss. John. Caspian’s sexuality.

  It wasn’t a dream.

  “Oh no.”

  The headline slapped over my forehead reads, ‘ROMAN’S HOLIDAY?’

  I tear through the magazine to find the cover story. “A full-page spread?” I groan, skimming through the article. “’Seen at an exclusive nightclub in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with a mystery girl, have Roman’s expectations fallen since Holly Hudson?’ What the hell? Fallen?”

  “And according to the rag,” Maggie shouts from the bathroom, “you are totes hipster!”

  “Hipster?” I choke. “Seriously?”

  The toilet flushes and she prances out, wiggling the bottom of her skirt down off her hips. “It also totes slut-shames you, like you’re some girl looking for a good time.”

  A knot forms in my throat. “No one will believe this, right? Right?”

  Because she’s my best friend, she shakes her head and contradicts herself at the same time. “They’ll believe it.”

  Like they believed Roman killed Holly.

  I slam the magazine shut. “We didn’t even have sex!”

  She snags a banana from the counter and peels it open. She’s in her work clothes—as close as a pinstriped vest and an A-line crimson skirt are—but something tells me that she never went to work this morning, and won’t be going. “They won’t miss me,” she replies, taking a bite. “The second I saw that on The Juice site…I knew I had to be here for my girl. Besides, if I had to put the Seuss books back on the shelf one more time, I was gonna pop a kid.”

  “I just don’t get how he could’ve gotten this picture.”

  “Hello. Camera, click. That’s how pap do it.”

  Because I’m still in my clothes from yesterday, and probably smelling to high heaven, I take John’s memory card out of my pocket and hold it out to her. “But I have the pictures.”

  Her eyes widen as she snatches it out of my hand and turns it around in her hand, inspecting it. Without looking up from the chip, she asks, “Got your laptop on you?”

  “It’s at home.”

  “That’s fine.” She hurries over to the gargantuan purse she dropped by the bathroom door and pulls out her DLSR. She pops out her own memory chip and puts his in. “Okay, let’s see what’s on this then...” Her frown deepens as she clicks through the pictures, searching through the photos. “This can’t be right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This.” She shakes her camera. “This card. It’s not from the Lona.” Her mocha eyes connect with mine. “They’re pictures from the night Holly died.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I snatch the camera from Maggie and scan through the photos, feeling myself pale at every one.

  The photos aren’t close, but you can tell it’s Holly. They look like screenshots to a scene in a movie. She’s holding a glass of wine in one hand, listening to her iPod, her eyes closed. Her hair floats around her in the bathtub beside candles and incense, nothing more than a soothing bubble bath. She has one foot up out of the water. It’s black and blue. Hadn’t there been something about a fall the week before?

  John must’ve been outside her bathroom window, nothing more than a peeping Tom.

  But then...something begins to go wrong in the pictures. The wine glass tips out of her hand onto the floor, coating the tiles in a blood-red stain, and she begins to sink beneath the bubbles, her hair floating like a wreath around her. First her chin goes under, then her lips, and then sliding, sliding...

  My stomach heaves. I shove the camera back to Maggie.

  “He must’ve taken your photos on the local memory,” Maggie says, although her heart isn’t in it. She shuts off her camera and pops out the memory card again. “Roman really wasn’t there the night she died.”

  “But John was, and he could’ve done something.”

  Maggie shakes her head. She drops her camera back into her purse and begins to pace. She’s followed John for a year, kept up with him, idolized him, almost. The confusion on her face is sickening. “That shithead. He could’ve saved her! He could’ve—but he just—Juniper, this is big.” Then she gasps and seizes my shoulders with her claw-like nails so hard, it makes me wince. “This is our leverage. Two people can play at this game.”

  “Yeah, by going to the police.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Check in, okay? He just slut-shamed you on every major tabloid in the world. It’s on. It’s on like Donkey Kong.”

  “By taking it to the police,” I reiterate. The last thing I want to do is become any more involved in this—this paparazzi madness, but when I say as much she just glares.

  “We have a chance to do something, and before you say ‘oh, let’s wimp out and take it to the police’ think about this. What’ll the police do?”

  “Charge him with criminal negligence...?”

  She holds the memory card between us. “No, you love this guy, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think I’d go that far,” I mutter under my breath.

  “We’re going to fight like real Holidayers! Now put on your big girl panties. We don’t let other people win our war.”

  “But I’m not a Holidayer.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Take a shower and get ready. We’re going out.”

  “Maggie, I’d rather just hide here under the couch for a few years until all of this blows over.” I start over to the couch, but she runs in front of me and puts up her hands to block my way. “Maggie,” I plead.

  “Where the hell do you think John’s gonna be today?” she asks, ignoring the whine in my voice.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do.”

  To prove her point, she snatches up the TV controller and turns it to MTV. It’s a full day of live coverage from St. Michael’s Cemetery—or it’s supposed to be. My shocked face stares at me from over Nick Lively’s purple-suited shoulder. She quirks an eyebrow. “Now do you know? I told you, this shit just got real. And I’m not going to sit around and watch my best friend get slut-shamed. Call me classy, but this means war.”

  I purse my lips together. “The police can handle it.”

  “Yeah, but they won’t release everything. If we hand this to the public? Not only will it put John at the scene of the crime, but also Roman will totes be off scot-free. He didn’t murder Holly. He wasn’t even there. So what do you say?” she offers, holding out her fist.

  On the screen, a blue mohawk cuts through the crowd behind Nick Lively. Seeing it, my resolve strengthens. Where Boaz is, I’m sure Roman is soon to follow. But giving the photos to the press without Roman seeing them first? I just have this horrid mental image of Roman waking
up tomorrow morning with new photographs of his dead best friend on the front page of the New York Times.

  Nick Lively pulls up an old yearbook photo from sophomore year of high school when I still had braces and frizzy short hair. How the hell did they get that picture? The caption under the photo reads ‘JUNIE BALTIMORE, COMPETING WITH THE DEAD?’

  My jaw twitches. Maggie’s right—if we’re going to do this, we can’t play nice.

  “We give it to Roman first,” I tell her, and when she opens her mouth to rebuke I add, “Please?”

  She sighs and drops her fist. “There goes my fifteen minutes of fame.”

  “Don’t count that out quite yet,” I reply, ripping my eyes from the TV screen to get dressed. I don’t bother straightening my hair; I just braid it into a fishtail over my shoulder.

  Maggie frowns at my Journey t-shirt and frayed shorts. “Juniper Marie Baltimore—” I wince at my full name “—we’re going to war, not a lawn concert.”

  “I won’t stick out then, will I?” I retort.

  “You have pink hair.”

  Maggie parked her neon purple two-door car in the lot across the street. The car smells like roses and old take-out, probably from the week-old Chinese in the backseat. I shove the library books and magazines onto the floor and buckle up.

  “Sorry for the junk,” she says. “You never know when the zom-pocalypse will come. And when it does, I’ll be ready.”

  Every station I flip to is playing a Roman Holiday marathon. The end of “Crush on You” migrates into “Deep End,” a swoony song about—you guessed it—diving off the deep end for love, and then drowning in it. Maggie taps her fingers along to the beat, rocking her head back and forth, as we speed toward Conway. “You know, I always wondered...Roman and Holly are from Myrtle, right? How many people knew them?”

  I shrug. “Not a lot, I guess.”

  “But a good majority of them, right? Holly, at least, because I could totes see her as senior class prez or something. Oh! The viral video—the one at the golf course? Taken right there.” She points at Arrg, Pirates! as we drive past. A small smile creeps onto my face. My shoes still smell like the lagoon.

  “Dad loved that place when I was a kid,” I reply instead, wanting to keep that night a secret, because it is the only thing that is truly mine anymore.

  “OhmyGod, you could’ve run into him and not even knew it!”

  I think about the shape of Roman’s face, and the way his lips turn up when he’s amused. I shake my head. “Nah, I think I’d remember that.”

  Maggie rolls her eyes and merges onto the interstate, following the signs toward Conway. “You sure? Because do I look exactly like I did when you first met me?”

  “Sort of, minus the dreads.”

  “And the fantastic boobs,” she adds, thrusting her chest up. “Think, because Roman doesn’t really have orange hair you know—”

  “I know! I’ve watched you obsess over Holiday for five years,” I reply, rolling my eyes, and prop my elbow up on the door, putting my chin on my hand.

  She huffs. “Jeez, take a chill, yeah?” It sounds like she drops the subject until suddenly, like she always does, she adds, “I just thought you’d have run into him before, is all.”

  I do everything I can to not groan. “Well, I haven’t.”

  She sneaks a glance at me from the road, thrumming her thumbs on the middle of the steering wheel. “Is something eating you?”

  “Sorta,” I confess. “What John said last night—about me just being...” I hesitate, pressing my forehead against the warm glass of the window. “I don’t wanna be like...you know, just another, I don’t know, another girl.”

  The edges of her rouge-colored lips quirk up. “Face it, girl, you’re in deep.”

  The back of my neck prickles with heat. “No.” Although, I can’t shake last night, not even after his harsh words and hateful glares. When we were dancing cheek-to-cheek, it was...it felt like every love song ever made, and that isn’t something that a scornful scowl can erase.

  I begin shaking my head. “I mean, I shouldn’t. He’s a rock star.”

  “Yeah, duh. He’s got models lusting after him.”

  “Yeah,” I murmur, sinking further down into my seat, “thanks for that.”

  I lean up and change the station to classic rock. Guns ‘N Roses. “’Sweet Child ‘O Mine.’” I say, and for a moment I wonder if Roman would’ve hummed the chorus, or quizzed me on who played the guitar? But then I remember how he looked at me last night—like he wanted my skin to melt off my bones—and quickly turn off the radio.

  We ride the rest of the way in silence.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Flowers ring the gate and litter the ground in front of St. Michael’s Cemetery. Arrangements with ‘We Miss You!’ and ‘Stay Weird!’ lean against the tall stone wall and lace across the ground. No one dares to step on them—as if they’re in a magical bubble. A crowd of quite possibly, oh, five hundred fans wait in front of the cemetery, most of them wearing pink SAVE HOLIDAY shirts, holding candles. Don’t any of them have to go to work? Have a life? Something else to do besides pay tribute to a dead girl?

  Maggie parks in bumfuck nowhere, so we have to hike at least three football fields’ worth of cars to get to the cemetery itself. It’s a complete pain, and today is stifling hot at that. Heat waves rise up from the asphalt, making the entire walk feel like I’m trudging through a sauna. How Maggie can look so cool in her four-inch heels and A-line skirt is beyond me. I can’t even look cool in a parka in sub-zero weather.

  Then again, I might be sweating because I’m nervous. I keep touching the memory card in my pocket to make sure it’s still there.

  Up ahead, Nick Lively stands beside a black media van, fixing his hair in the driver-side mirror. His eyes stray up to mine, but he doesn’t register I’m that girl until I’ve already ducked behind Maggie again.

  “This was such a bad idea,” I hiss to her. “Can we leave yet?”

  She loops her arm into mine and squeezes my hand tightly. “Fat chance. We’re in this together. Balls to the wall!”

  “I hate that expression.”

  The crowd is thick with high schoolers. We elbow our way to the front where a line of Myrtle Beach’s finest stand looking bored and tired. But two of them have Holly’s trademark peacock feather clipped behind their ear.

  This isn’t exactly how I pictured the memorial. I expected more…I don’t know, music? Noise? Girls crying in the streets while their fifteen-year-old boyfriends console them? But no one’s crying. There’s a solemn, heavy shroud hanging over the crowd no one can seem to shake, despite the colorful array of peacock feathers poking out of rampant ponytails and braids. Somewhere in the sea of people, a lone radio fades into “My Heart War,” and people flick out their phones and light their lighters in honor.

  A slice of blue hair cuts through the crowd to my left. I tell Maggie I’ll be right back and dive after Boaz. He stops at the outskirts of the crowd, taking a pack of cigarettes out from under his black kilt. It matches his black tuxedo t-shirt. “Boaz,” I whisper, and he almost jumps out of his skin.

  “Jeez Louise, bro-ho!” He slaps his heart. “Ever heard of not sneakin’ up on the man while he’s at a fuckin’ cemetery?”

  “Sorry,” I apologize earnestly. Making sure no one is close enough to hear, I add, “Where’s Roman?”

  He puts his lips to the tip of the pack and extracts a cigarette, putting the rest back into his kilt. “Readin’ every rag mag in the state, probs.”

  “I didn’t rat, you have to believe me.”

  He snorts, taking out a matchbox, and lights his cigarette. He inhales a lungful, savoring, and blows it out in a ring.

  I purse my lips together. “You know I wouldn’t.”

  “Do I?” He doesn’t sound bitter, just amused. “My Heart War” crescendos, Roman and Holly’s voices combining with the memorial’s voices, roaring the lyrics like they’re the last words on earth. It’s chi
lling, as if she’s here in the weirdest way. Sort of spooky and...and really tragic. “You know,” he goes on, “no one even bothered about her side of this. Roman’s always been either the martyr or the culprit. Who’s Holly? The victim. No one cares if that isn’t exactly true.”

  Maybe now’s the time to tell him about the pictures on the memory card. It’ll clear everything up. I begin to reach for the memory card in my pocket when I pause, my eyebrows furrowing. “What do you mean, if that’s isn’t exactly true?”

  But he doesn’t answer my question. “Bro-ho, she was in love. Serious love. For-shit love. You do stupid shit when you’re in it.”

  I retract my hand. “With Roman?” Has he loved her all this time?

  He sucks another lungful of smoke and blows it out over his head. “A few months before she died she got this tat. Ya’aburnee. It means ‘you bury me.’”

  The smoke snakes like a gray river into the blue sky.

  “Ya’aburnee?” I echo, remembering the article from The Juice. A cold shiver races down my arms, and I quickly cross them over my chest to rub them away. The word feels heavy in my mouth, like it’s full of memories.

  You bury me.

  It was a dull afternoon the when Dad passed away, one of those days when nothing ever seemed to happen. I’d been bitching about mopping the stage because Geoff was supposed to do it after the rock show the night before. We were thirty minutes to opening, and Dad had been counting the stocks, his pen making sharp checks down his list.

  I can still hear the sound when I’m swabbing the floors, that echoing chhhick, chhhhhick!…

  The next thing I knew, he put down his checklist and leaned against the counter. Geoff asked him, “Hey, boss, you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m just a little lightheaded. Can you check and see how many dark ales are in the fridge?”

  Those were his last words.

  He dropped like deadweight, his pen skittering across the floor, sharp and screeching. I think I knew from the moment I dropped the mop that this was it, that he wasn’t going to make it. But knowing didn’t stop me from shaking him, yelling at him, trying to keep him alive until the ambulance arrived. My fingers had tightened so hard around his suspenders the paramedics had to wrench me off of him, crying, kicking and screaming, because I thought that if he could hear my voice then he’d come back to life even though his lips were blue and his eyes never looked once at me. They just kept staring, staring, toward something beyond me to nothing at all.