Here Lies Bridget

There he was, sitting in the corner with a piece of pink construction paper on his lap, writing in the boyish handwriting I recognized from all the other valentines over the years.

Lying on the floor next to him were several failed attempts. I remember the validation of my suspicions that it was he who had been writing them feeling like a victory.

Snatching the card from his lap, I ran out of the cubby room shouting “Brett loves Miche-elle” in that singsong voice strictly used in this particular brand of torture. Everyone’s head had shot up, and I read the poem aloud.

Though my love goes unrequited I’ll love you beyond when the pigs are flighted.

Though I may be a snowball, and you the heat I’ll melt with you if you stay as sweet.

You are Michelle, my belle,

And without you, this place would be …

Brett would later insist that he hadn’t intended to put hell at the end of the poem, but was going to somehow rhyme dwell. But to us, it might as well have been written there.

None of us knew the real meanings behind the words. Even so, the class got what the poem meant: it meant that Brett wanted to be K-I-S-S-I-N-G Michelle. Sitting in a tree, if you went by our prediction.

Brett had stayed in the cubby room the entire time I read it, and the only other person, besides him and our dimwitted teacher, not joining in the roar of laughter was Michelle. She had turned a deep shade of red and then run to the bathroom. Brett went to the office and got picked up early that day.

All the while, our teacher handed out bags of heart-shaped candies, an uncomprehending smile on her face.

A few years later, when we all entered middle school, Brett had come in with a seriously misguided attempt at dyed black hair, which had come out a sort of awful, metallic blue, and a newfound interest in all things rebellious. He didn’t start dressing normally again (i.e., not wearing the goth-style pants that looked like an entire flap of a circus tent had been stitched together) and stop skipping school until tenth grade. That was also when he started obsessing about the grades he couldn’t seem to keep up very easily.

Judging by the way Brett never spoke to Michelle again and instead gazed at her every chance he got, I was pretty sure he still wanted to sit in a tree with her. Lucky for me, his expression when I said her name removed all doubt from my mind.

“What about Michelle? What do you mean you’ll trade her?”

“I’ll get you a date with her if you give me the answers.”

He hesitated. I saw something that looked like the tiniest bit of consideration in his eyes. I jumped at it.

“Come on, Brett, it’s totally worth it. It’s not like we’ll get caught. And, be real, when else are you going to have a chance with Michelle?” He looked a little offended and, for some reason I could not imagine, amused.

I would have felt bad saying that he didn’t have a shot with her except that it was true. And just because I pointed out the obvious didn’t mean it was my fault that he never would have asked her out.

“It’s not right, you can’t expect to just trade her like money or something.” He seemed to give himself an idea.

“Here, just ask her to talk to me. I’ll ask her out myself.”

Ha! He was making this way too easy.

“So we have a deal.” It wasn’t a question. I wanted him to feel like he had already agreed.

“She’ll sit with you Monday at lunch.”

I snickered to myself and walked past him to the cafeteria. But as soon as I walked away, Liam loomed in my mind again, removing any trace of laughter.

I STAYED QUIET THROUGHOUT the lunch period, ignoring the gossip Jillian was imparting to Michelle. Instead of participating, I spent the whole period looking through my Allure magazine and glancing at Liam as furtively and often as possible.

He was about six foot three, his body lean and toned. His hair was the dark, shiny brown that you might see in a shampoo commercial, and reached down just past his dark, straight eyebrows. His eyes, though I couldn’t see them from where I sat, I knew to be the same light color of a swimming pool. The dark circle of his pupil and his thick, dark, straight eyelashes made the color seem even more striking.

He was sitting with Anna, who was taking a bite out of a cheeseburger. Eyeing the bottle of Coke Classic that sat in front of her, I wondered how she ate like that and still stayed so thin. Even if we had been friends, though, I never would have asked her that—that was what people asked me.

Not the other way around.

I decided that of all things, I didn’t have the energy to look at the pair of them.

“Bridget?”

I blinked away images of times Liam’s eyes had been close enough to mine that I could memorize them.

“What?” I snapped, and looked up to see a girl named Laura’s eager-looking face.

She recoiled slightly at the harshness in my tone.

“Um. Well, I was, uh …” she nervously tripped over her words “.wondering if you guys wanted to come over to my house tonight. I mean, it’s not going to be like a big deal party or anything. Not like your parties.”

“Have you ever actually been to one of my parties?” I asked impatiently, barely interested in the conversation.

“Um. No, but, I mean, I hear they’re great.”

I narrowed my eyes at her and cocked my head a bit to the side. She cleared her throat.

“Well, anyway, it’s just going to be like board games and stuff. My parents will be there.” She looked sheepish.

I waited to see if she said anything else. When she didn’t, and instead shifted her weight uncomfortably, I smiled.

“Uh-huh. Well, I know that I’ll be busy tonight. I don’t know about the other girls. Michelle? Jillian? Busy tonight? Want to go play some board games with Laura and her parents?”

Michelle shook her head down at her food, her face red. Jillian looked sympathetically at Laura and then said something about plans with her mom.

I crinkled my nose, and made a tsk-ing sound as I turned back to Laura looking regretful.

“Aw, that’s too bad. Maybe next time?” I smiled dismissively, and looked back down at my magazine.

“You know what, Bridget?” Laura asked, her ears turning red.

I gave her a challenging look.

“What’s that?”

“You’re just …”

There was a lurch in my stomach. I would not be told off, and I could tell that was where this was going. But I’d learned long ago to deflect this sort of thing.

“I’d stop now, if I were you. Which thank God I’m not.”

I watched her fury grow, and I felt the growing sense that I’d really gone too far.

“I’d always rather be me than you.” And she walked away.

I scrambled to think of something to say. I thought of nothing. I’d never had to. Since when did anyone challenge me?

I knew I’d been unnecessarily cruel to her, and I felt kind of guilty. But my day had sucked so far, too, and no one was apologizing to me. “Bridget—”

“So I ran into Anna today,” I started, cutting off Michelle. I knew she was going to give me grief and I just couldn’t deal with that on top of it all. Plus, I had to pretend that what had just happened didn’t bother me.

“And she introduced herself to me and all—she already knew my name—and then told me that Liam had told her to ‘look out for’ me. What do you suppose that means?”

Jillian, always interested in a good outrage, gasped and dropped her celery stick.

“He said that?”

I enlightened her on my theories of what he might have meant, and we talked about it for the rest of the period, eventually agreeing that he must have meant that I am so popular she’s bound to run into me, and to then introduce herself.

As soon as the bell rang indicating the end of lunch, I told Michelle about the deal I’d made with Brett. Well, I told her the half she needed to know, which was that she was sitting with him on Monday at lunch.

She raised her eyebrows at me.

“I’m what?”

“It’s no big deal. Seriously, I said I’d get him a date, and all he wanted was to ask you out himself.” She stared at me.

“Oh, my God, Michelle, just say no to him, it’s not that hard.” “Bridget, you can’t just—” What, now she was going to start rebelling, too? “Well, you’re going to sit with him, so …” I let the so hang in the air, letting her fill in the blank for herself with stop arguing with me. I smiled superficially, wiggled a goodbye with my fingers to Jillian and then strutted off to class. I didn’t look back to see what Michelle did next.

As I walked away, I began to wonder if what I was about to do was wrong. Sure, chances were that Brett wouldn’t get caught helping me, and that he wouldn’t dive into a depression when Michelle said no to his date. But still—what if we did get caught? What if he did fail the class, and it was my fault? What if between that and Michelle rejecting him, he did slip into a depression? Anyone would, after being expelled from this school. It was such a high-profile place that anything that happened here was practically in the society pages.

But no, I thought to myself. I was giving my actions far more credit than they deserved. Brett would be fine. We wouldn’t get caught, and even if we did … Brett would be fine.

My conviction wavered a bit once I walked into my NSL class and saw that there was a substitute teacher.

Okay, this could go one of two ways. Either the sub was nicer than Mrs. Remeley, our usual teacher, or she could be nasty.

Nasty like that teacher we’d had in middle school who kept telling us to sit up straight and hold our books a certain way during reading time.

Nice like my first-grade teacher with Valentine’s Day candy and the inability to stop me from doing what I wanted. Which, in first grade, was to use Brett to my advantage.

On my way to my seat, I watched her. She looked to be about in her fifties, but according to the chalkboard, she was a “Miss.” Miss Smithson. She was mousy and looked nervous. I instantly felt some indefinable emotion for her.

Brett was in his seat looking down at his notes when I sat down. I tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Brett?”

“Yeah?” he asked, eyes still on his paper. I clicked my tongue at his lack of interest in what I had to say.

“I talked to Michelle.” I grinned as he looked up at me.

“She’s looking forward to Monday.”

I could tell that he wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth or not. Whatever, he was probably hopeful enough to choose to believe I was telling the truth. And there was nothing wrong with giving him some hope. Especially because my hope was that this encouragement would stop him from backing out.

The bell rang, and Miss Smithson cleared her throat.

“Good afternoon, students!” She waited for a response. Though she didn’t seem to notice, the only response she got was a raised eyebrow from me.

“As you know, you’ve got a test today. It’s only three pages long, and it’s all multiple-choice. I’m sure you’ll all do fine.”

Really, you are? I thought, unnecessarily.

She started passing out the papers.

“Be sure to write your names in the upper right-hand corner!”

This spurt of enthusiasm had me raising both of my eyebrows.

When the test finally got to me, I wrote my name and took a look at the first question.

What the hell was “gerrymandering”?

I looked over at Brett’s paper, which already bore the answers to three questions on the first page. I circled the a on the first question and hurried to write the other answers. He couldn’t go this fast, or I wouldn’t keep up.

“Slow down!” I commanded in a whisper out of the side of my mouth.

He looked at me, looked at the substitute and then ripped the corner off of the first page of his test. The teacher looked up, and we both tried to look busy. She finally put her nose back into her romance novel, and I glared at Brett.

I inhaled deeply as I saw that he was writing something to me in his slanted handwriting, which gave all of his letters long stems.

He slid the note onto my desk. After one glare at him for his entire lack of stealth and several discreet glances at the teacher, I opened the note and read it.

I can’t do this. You have to do the work.

My eyes and mouth widened and I turned toward Brett, who was staring determinedly down at his paper. What was happening to everyone? No one ever said no to me!

I spoke through my teeth. “You. Have. To.”

“I can’t,” he whispered.

“I can’t risk it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Miss Smithson stand up and walk toward us. I shushed Brett, who was no longer making any noise, and went back to my test. My heart was beating so hard, I was sure she would see the pounding in my chest. I circled the other answers that Brett had put down and answered the two following without reading the questions. I heard her soft, non-heeled steps come closer and finally stop in front of our desks.

“Could you two please step out into the hall?”

There were times when I was trying to get away with something but felt positive that the fact that I was practically swallowing my face would give me away.

This was one of those times.

How was this possible? Out of absolutely nowhere, everything I did today was failing. Nothing was going my way. And truthfully? That’s not how my life works.

I looked up to see Brett’s panicked glare and then Miss Smithson’s disappointed gaze. We walked out into the echoing hall and she followed us. Once in the hall, she headed for the staff lounge a few doors down.

Brett and I stood in silence for a few seconds.

“I, um …” I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, whether it would come out as an apology or as an accusation. I didn’t have time to decide because, at that moment, Miss Smithson came out of the lounge. Chubby little Ms. Chase, whose mouth was full of food and who had clearly just been pulled from her lunch period, followed.

Ms. Chase waved jovially at Brett and me, and then walked into the NSL classroom to chaperone. To make sure no one else was cheating, I guess.

What was I going to do if my father found out about this? He was no tyrant, but he would definitely find cheating unacceptable. There would be angry words. Punishment. Disappointment. Though that might be my own, once Meredith was proven right about me. That I could not handle.

When I had done something wrong was the only time I was even a little not-horribly-resentful that my mother had died in a car accident when I was seven. That way I had only one parent I worried about, one stepparent I couldn’t care less about and one parent I tried never to think about.

I was so busy worrying about what my father was going to say when he found out that when Miss Smithson spoke, I was surprised.

“Cheating,” she said, looking far more intimidating than I had initially suspected, “is an unacceptable act of behavior. I must say I am disappointed.”

I thought nastily of asking her how in the world she could be disappointed in us when she didn’t know us to begin with.

She continued on.

“Now which one of you wants to explain to me what happened?”

If I had been a cartoon character, there would have been an exclamation point over my head.

She wanted one of us to explain.

She didn’t know which one of us had done the cheating. I wasn’t dead, not yet. My next words came tumbling from my mouth faster than I could think them through.

“I tried to tell him to stop, Miss Smithson. I know it’s wrong to talk during a test, but I didn’t know what else to do.” I looked her in the eyes, and tried to look as sincere as possible.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Smithson, really.”

I knew it was wrong to cheat. I knew it was wrong to lie. I knew it was wrong to push someone in front of a speeding train. But all I could think at that moment was that I had to get out of trouble.

And somehow, miraculously, it looked like I might.

“Brett, is this true?” Miss Smithson’s gaze shifted to him. I could feel his eyes on me.

“I was trying to tell her not to cheat!” The pure rage in his voice shook me.

Miss Smithson had seen it all before.

“You’re either going to agree here on who it was, or you’re both going to be punished to the full extent.” She watched us, waiting for one of us to say something.

“I understand,” I said. One of the things I understood was that Brett was going to get in trouble for something he didn’t do. I knew that I would probably be in the same amount of trouble either way, and that I was dragging Brett down with me. I also knew that this was the perfect chance to tell the truth.

But I couldn’t do it. I don’t know why.

And then I made it all worse by remembering the note Brett had passed me. I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to Miss Smithson.

“See? You can see that it’s his, because it’s the corner of the first page on his test.” It was from him. The words were his. The meaning, however, had shifted to suit me.

“See, he said he couldn’t do it, and that I had to do the work. For him.”

Miss Smithson took the piece of paper from my outstretched hand. Lifting her glasses from the chain that hung them around her neck, she read it.

“Did you write this?” she asked Brett, peering at him over the top rims of her lenses, which were scooted down her nose.

I was banking on him starting with the truth.

He did.

“Yes, but—” Brett said, desperately trying to explain what I had done. It was too late.

“All right then,” she finally said, “gather your things and go to the office. Miss Duke, I know it doesn’t feel like you’ve done anything wrong, but you’ll have to go explain what happened to the headmaster. I’ll call to let him know you’re coming.”

On the way to the office, I kept my face pointed purposefully in front of me, terrified to make eye contact with Brett. Not that I would have if I had looked at him, because he wouldn’t look at me either. I didn’t blame him; he must have been disgusted with me. I wanted to fix it, but it was too late. If I said something now, I’d be in even more trouble.

Trouble I couldn’t afford. And something in me knew that I would never have chosen to be noble and do the right thing. There was no taking it back. I always took the self-preservation route.

But maybe I could explain to Brett why I really couldn’t get in trouble right now. Last time I’d gotten in trouble, my father had given me this death stare he’s awesome at, and told me that I didn’t even want to know how much things would change if I got in trouble again at school.

“Listen, Brett—”

“Shut up, Bridget.”

I gasped and resolved to stick to my lie when I spoke to the headmaster. Perhaps even make up some more lies.

CHAPTER THREE

I spent the afternoon trying to forget how awful school had been for the past two days. I tried to forget the meeting in the office about Mr. Ezhno, the conversation with Anna, the test, the consequent second meeting in the office and seeing Liam with Anna everywhere.

They never looked romantic, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be. I knew Liam to be the perfect gentleman, one who would be very cautious not to rush things. Ever again, anyway.

The second meeting with Headmaster Ransic had been awful. It was like I was hypnotized into lying again and again.

Of course, I was not hypnotized, and didn’t have the luxury of having that as an excuse. I was just watching my own back and no one else’s. I had spoken to Headmaster Ransic before Brett, given my story—and it was a story—and agreed that it was true, things really weren’t going my way lately. I then walked out of the office, trying hard not to look anyone in the eyes. I left feeling like if I did catch anyone’s glance, I was sure to be found out. And then, instead of being given any mercy for ultimately telling the truth, I’d get in trouble for the whole thing. I wasn’t exactly on death row, but still. Being expelled from Winchester Prep and not going to college would have been mortifying. Unheard of.

The talk of the town. Especially if it was because of something stupid like this.

I decided I shouldn’t think about it too hard. So after figuring that spending most of an afternoon by myself was enough coping, I decided it was time to move on to bitching.

And that meant calling Jillian and Michelle to come over for Chinese food and, though I didn’t mention it, a bitch-fest.

Michelle said she’d come over, but after dinner. Jillian was all for it, and said she’d be over as soon as she could. I told her to pick up the Chinese, and that it should be on her. I reminded her that she owed me for the pair of Von Dutch jeans I’d given her anyway. I’d given them to her because my father had made some comment about them being tight, and since then I had felt self-conscious in them. Not that I’d admit that. I just told her that I’d never liked them.

When Jillian finally got there, we settled onto the couch with our chopsticks and paper boxes of food and turned on some trashy reality TV show.

I took a bite of my chicken fried rice and glanced at her. She looked down, dipped her dumpling in soy sauce and took a bite. I contained myself for a few minutes as we ate our food and watched the show. Then I launched into what had happened with Brett.

Well, the version of the story she had to hear. That was the biggest problem with Jillian; every word I said to her had to be carefully considered, as if I was shouting it through a megaphone.

It’s not that Jillian went around whispering other people’s secrets into people’s ears like in that old Norman Rockwell painting. She just let everyone in on the secrets through heavy implications, broad hints and, from the experience I had with extracting the best gossip from her, a lot of facial expressions that served as answers to leading questions. I truly believed, however, that she didn’t do it intentionally. You could doubtless hook her up to a lie detector and she would pass with flying colors.

She honestly seemed unaware.

So that was why I was going to have to be careful what I said to her.

“Okay, so are you ready to the hear about the biggest drama of this week?”

“Um, duh?”

I told her everything I had told Headmaster Ransic. Everything from how hard I’d studied to Brett passing me the note during class, to getting caught, feeling bad about having to rat out Brett and going to the office. She drank in every word, gasping in all the right places.

By the time I finished the story, I knew she wasn’t going to need persuading. She was on my side. And if she was, then anyone who heard the story from her would be, too.

After she gushed about how unfair it was that I even had to go to the office, I asked her if she’d heard anything more about the new girl.

“Well, nothing except that she’s way nice and everyone loves her. She’s really popular already. It’s only been like forty-eight hours since she got into town!” she said, chewing on the end of a chopstick.

“Oh, my God! You guys should totally hang out. I mentioned you on her first day, and she didn’t even know who you were yet.”

I almost asked her why she would suggest that when she knew what I’d told her about what Anna had said. Then I remembered the grenade. And then I thought about what had been happening to me.

My popularity was dwindling, and Anna’s was increasing.

Inside, I felt like some kind of worst fear had been confirmed. I had to stop this Anna girl from blowing up my life. And I knew exactly how.

“Jillian?”

“Yeah?”

“How quickly can you tell everyone about the big party tomorrow night?”