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“I don’t give a fuck what you think. Keys. Now.”
“He has as much right to them as you do,” Grace says before Cary can protest. Her voice is soft but her eyes meet his and they’re steel, daring him to disagree. Cary sighs and takes the keys out of his pocket. Throws them at Trace.
“If you happen to see anything useful lying around, feel free to bring it—”
“Get one of your two bitch boys to scavenge for you, Chen.” Trace points at Rhys and Harrison. “Because I’m not.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Rhys says.
Trace flips everyone off and leaves. Cary sits there, cracking his knuckles. I can tell he wants to bitch about what an utter asshole Trace is and how much he’d like to punch him, break his teeth, whatever, but Grace’s presence keeps him from doing it. He glances at her a few times.
“You know, just because we’ve had one good night doesn’t mean it’s time to dick around. I saw a pair of bolt cutters in the custodian’s office. We should do a locker raid.”
“Sure,” Rhys says.
They get to their feet. Harrison gives them a five-second head start before ru
“Coming?”
I want to, but Grace shudders and shakes her head.
“That’s like grave-robbing.”
“Sloane?”
Grace looks at me. I get the feeling she wants me to stay.
“I’ll pass,” I say.
And then it’s just Grace and me and it’s quiet. She doesn’t talk at all and after about ten minutes I’m a
“Sloane?”
“Yeah?” I cringe at how eager I sound.
“Will you come to my locker with me? I left my purse in there before everything happened and I want it but I…” she laughs, self-conscious. “I don’t want to go alone.”
“Sure.”
Grace’s locker is on the first floor, close to the administration office. We walk there wordlessly. Cary’s, Rhys’s, and Harrison’s voices drift back to us from somewhere nearby, but it’s hard to tell what they’re saying. It sounds effortless though. I hang back at her locker when we get there, unsure of what to do while she thumbs at her combination, straining to see in the poor light. After it’s unlocked, she stands in front of the door like she’s afraid of it. It’s a while before she opens it and when she does, I glimpse cutouts of actors and musicians taped to the door and I wonder what they’re doing now, if they’re dead. I wonder if they’ve saved all the celebrities. When this is over, society will need entertainment to get past it. We’ll make movies about it, hundreds of movies, and in every one of them, we’ll be the heroes and the love interests and best friends and wi
Grace grabs her purse. It’s a designer purse. I watch her unzip it and riffle through it until she finds what she’s looking for. As soon as she does, the purse slips from her grasp and hits the floor. Clutched tightly in her fingers is a piece of paper. She unfolds it and then presses it against her face, breathes it in.
“Look at this,” she says. She kisses the note once before she gives it to me. As soon as my fingers curl around it, she says, “Be careful—”
I stare at the bubbly handwriting.
Daughter dear, I didn’t manage to throw something together for your lunch—I’m a flake! Here’s some money instead. Buy something healthy! Remember, Miss President, the student body looks to you to set a good example!
Love you, xo Mom
The first thing I think is, Mrs. Casper still makes Grace’s lunch? And then I cross that thought out until it’s not even there anymore because it’s the kind of thing Mrs. Casper would do and besides—it’s a note from Grace’s mom. This is what has value. This is the new money.
“Lucky,” I say.
“I know. I knew it was here … but I couldn’t—I mean I just couldn’t. Until now,” she says. “I just woke up and I really wanted it today. I miss her.”
She takes the note back and runs her thumb over it. My throat is so tight and there’s a weight in my chest that’s hard to breathe around. Memories of my mother are hazy things. They feel like a kid’s blanket, fuzzy and soft but mostly insubstantial. Grace’s note doesn’t make me wish for a woman I spent most of my life not having. It’s not that …
She looks at me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Neither of us moves or says anything for a long time. It’s like—suspended animation. I don’t know. We could stand here for hours and not say or do anything because there’s nothing to say or do. Grace looks at her note and I cross my arms, once again fighting the urge to ask her if she remembers the sleepover. I don’t know why I want to but I won’t let myself do it.
“Hey!” We turn. Trace makes his way down the hall, twirling LaVallee’s keys around his fingers like they’re a trophy. Grace picks up her purse, hastily shoving the note inside it. He grins. “I want to show you guys something cool.”
We end up in the teachers’ lounge.
Cary, Rhys, and Harrison come with us after piling a bunch of their locker finds in the auditorium. Their company makes Trace pissy but as Cary points out, Trace doesn’t own the school. They’re still bickering when we step into the room. It’s on the second floor. The big joke is—was—all the money went here. The lounge has a fridge and flowers (tacky fake bouquets, but still, it’s a splash of color), soft couches, chairs, and nice lamps. Storage cupboards and desks. A microwave, a water cooler. Magazines.
“Check this out.” Trace rummages in one of the cupboards and when he faces us, he’s holding a generous bottle of whiskey. “The rumors are true. I knew they kept good shit in here.”
“Alcohol?” Harrison asks, and like that, I can tell he’s never drank anything, let alone been drunk before. “Holy shit.”
“What’s that doing in here?” Rhys asks.
Trace sets the bottle on the table in front of the couches and flicks a tag wrapped around its neck. “Read that. There was an ice-cream cake in the fridge, but it melted.”
Grace peers at the tag. “Enjoy your retirement, Vick. We wish we were you.”
Vick Bergstein. Our graying world history teacher.
“Think he’s enjoying his retirement?” Trace asks, and I laugh before I can stop myself. He soaks it up. “I know, right? He’s probably dead. And then I got thinking about the teachers here that I wished were dead, like over and over—like Mrs. Good—and it’s fu
His eyes go wide, almost like he’s thinking to himself I wanted this. I wanted them dead and now it’s happened because I wanted it.
“They weren’t all bad, though,” Grace says. “I liked Mr. Ford. And Mrs. Lafferty. Mrs. Tipton was kick-ass. I bet she survived. Some of them were great at what they did…”
My head is full of faces, faculty members, and I wonder where they are now and if it’s a given, like Trace said, that they’re all dead. I wonder if I ever wished them dead—if something as simple as that would be the reason I’m here and they’re not. But then I think they must’ve wished us dead at some point. They must have. What teacher wouldn’t?
Trace stares at the bottle. “So do we open this because we’re still alive or do we open it when we’re sure we’re going to die?”
“We’re not going to die,” Cary says.
“Didn’t you say the same thing to my parents before you sent them in that alley?”
“Give it a rest, Trace.”
“Oh, did I hurt your feelings, murderer?”
“They offered to go down that alley first,” I say, because for some dumb reason I think that will help. But then everyone stares at me and I wish I could put the words back in my mouth. Trace looks like I’ve gutted him.