To The Power Of Three

The senior-year rupture in Perri’s friendship with Kat and Josie had been the gossip of the school, as much discussed as the breakups of the all-but-married couples, the ones who started going together in middle school. But no one knew anything. Even broken, the three were a closed unit. Da

He wondered who was outside Josie’s hospital room, who would stand beside Kat’s grave when she was buried. Probably everybody in the school. He wasn’t sure he could stomach the hypocrisy. Not that he disliked Kat. She was so unobjectionable that she was objectionable, as Perri had said in an unguarded moment just a few weeks ago. She was part of a larger problem, the very blandness of Glendale High, a culture that valued inoffensiveness above everything else. How are you? You look great! Shut up, thereis no way I’m going to be elected prom queen. Yet she had said these things with genuine warmth. No one had ever caught Kat Hartigan being two-faced. She may not have known Da

No, back in middle school, Perri was the one who had been in charge of making Da

“Da

When Perri found out Da

At times Da

He had known about the gun. Should he tell her parents? Was it his fault? He had known about the gun, but Perri had said it was a caper. Well, she hadn’t used that word, but she had implied it. All Perri had said was “I stole a gun.” “Why?” “ ‘Seemed like a smile,’” she said, quoting one of their favorite actors in one of their favorite movies, Kevin Bacon in Diner. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Perri and Da

Da

“Here’s your food, Da

“Oh, thinking of that Kevin Bacon game,” he lied. “Still trying to make my way to Fatty Arbuckle.”

What would the Kahns have done if Perri had told them she had a gun, if she had told them she pla

But a part of him, the evil part of him that Perri had so encouraged, couldn’t help imagining the Kahns reacting with their typical enthusiasm: You want to shock everyone in Glendale, dear? You want to kill your friend? Then you must be the best killer of your generation. They would have heaped books and documentaries on Perri, maybe hired a pistol expert to train her in shooting.

Da

And he saw her again, Mame on the staircase, trumpet in hand, her angular thi

If Perri were here, she’d probably got a laugh out of that, Da