You looked ready to burst into flame. “Like, why should they have to consider us to be full people, with internal lives and needs and desires just as valid as theirs? Women are objects. Of course you get mad and lash out at or destroy your object when it frustrates and betrays you. Who can blame you? How infuriating. It shouldn’t have misbehaved. We should look pretty—but not too pretty—and shut up and smile and be grateful and stay in our place and agree with the mens,” you raged.
Across the kitchen, Chef Beverly gave a slow clap. We glared at her. “Amen, sister,” she said. “Amen.” She beheaded a clump of carrots with her knife.
When the bucket was full and your punishment paid, we scrubbed our hands with soap and the lemon halves Chef Beverly said might help, but which mostly made me yelp when the juice seeped into my finger cut. “Out, damned stench,” you muttered as you washed, and I wiggled my fingers in your face. “At least now we can repel vampires with our fingertips,” I said, and you agreed that would definitely be useful.
But instead the garlic repelled Jackson. “You stink,” he said, sniffing the air and pushing you away when you wrapped yourself around him in the food line. You acted like that was fine. Cool as ever. But the light in your eyes flickered.
“At least it’s our fingers, not our breath,” I said.
He kissed you, as if to check. “Thank god.”
You pulled away, perhaps inspired by your own rant. “Don’t worry, boys, we won’t bother you with our stench. Kayla and I have urgent business on the other side of the room. Ta-ta.”
I shrugged at Nitin, who said, “I kind of like it.” I lifted my tray and followed you to a table full of girls. My heart was full.
I knew you were capable of standing up to him. I admit I loved you best when you did.
Ugh, okay, the stir-fry must be ready because Adele is calling me to set the table for dinner. I got a pass from stuff like that for a while, but Dr. Rita thinks it’s a good idea for us to “restore normalcy as much as possible” and “move on with living” even as you’re stuck in limbo, awaiting your trial. They’re taking her word as gold (maybe because it costs about as much), so here I go. Normal, normal, normal. Whatever that is now. (Apparently it’s chores. And actually doing my homework.)
Wish you were here.
Love,
Kayla
P.S. If I could take the fall with you for Jackson’s death, would you want me to? Peeling garlic together for the next twenty years to life?
Maybe I’m glad you can’t answer that.
P.P.S. I wonder if Chef Beverly thought about telling that story to the police . . . or if she had, if it might have given them pause or changed their minds about your motive or whatever.
Maybe, like me, she told them just the bare minimum—only what I truly had to.
Maybe they never interviewed the cook.
P.P.P.S. If this were Clue, you would definitely be Miss Scarlett—sultry, cunning, elusive. I’m thinking that makes me Colonel Mustard—especially the grumpy whiskers.
Wouldn’t it be great if this were just a game? If an envelope revealed the answers, then we set it all up and played again?
It was Chef Beverly, with the knife, in the kitchen! And next time Nitin, with the rock, in the cabin! No need for motives, juries, evidence, or confessions—the proof’s right there in the cards!
And then we’d escape through our own secret passageway.
P.P.P.P.S. Maybe Dr. Rita’s right, maybe I am still in denial a little. And, okay, Adele is going to burst a blood vessel if I don’t go set the table right now. Mothers.
October 8
Dear Lainie,
Last night I dreamed we were out on the dock with the sun on our backs and our toes in the lake, and everything was good and right with the universe. There were other campers swimming in an area nearby and we could hear their shouts and splashes, but they weren’t with us. We were in our own private bubble, just the two of us, intimate and close, and I felt connected and happy and content.
Then it was nighttime. The swimmers were gone and the moon was out and we’d been so wrapped up in talking, we’d stayed out past dinner, past campfire, past curfew. I stood in the blue darkness, worried we’d get in trouble, but you pulled me back down and assured me it was fine. I sat, but I couldn’t focus anymore. I felt anxious. When I looked at the water, it was thick with blood.
“Stop overreacting,” Dream You said. “It’s nothing. The water’s always like that.”
I wasn’t certain you were wrong, but I felt uneasy. I tried to convince you we should go. “Like this?” you taunted, and you kicked your feet, churning and splashing. Your squeals were playful until they turned into screams.
Jackson’s corpse floated up through the frothy, bloody water. You kicked him back down, but he bobbed like an apple. You tried again and again. Nothing would sink him.
“Just leave him. Let’s go,” I said. I held out my hand. “Please.”
You turned on me. “You wanted this,” you hissed.
“No,” I said.
“You wanted this and you’re glad he’s dead and that’s why you didn’t try to save him.” You were hysterical, swinging your arms wildly. I stepped back, but I wanted to step closer. “Look what you did!” you shrieked. “Look what you made us do! I would never have done this without you! You wanted it! You caused it! I know you’re the reason this happened!”
“No no no no no no no,” I repeated until I woke up crying and sweating.
Thinking about it now, I’m shaking again.
I never wanted it to happen, Lainie. Truly, truly I didn’t. I know it was only a dream, but I still want you to believe me.
Dr. Rita says everyone we encounter in our dreams is some version of ourself. So I guess I’m the corpse and I’m you and I’m me, and I blame myself and know I’m innocent and want to push the body back down.
Yeah.
That seems about right.
Love,
Kayla
October 12
Dear Lainie,
Dr. Rita thinks I need to be more honest with myself and acknowledge my frustration and anger with you for the way things are now. She says it’s natural that I would feel some resentment for what I’m going through, and even though it’s “admirable and understandable” that I want to protect and defend you, I’m “not doing anyone any favors” by “keeping it all bottled up,” and I “won’t truly feel safe or be able to fully heal” until I “allow a place for those kinds of thoughts and emotions to exist.”
Adele and Peter are paying her $275 an hour to dole out that advice, two sessions a week, so here goes.
I feel sad that I’ve lost you.
You know that one already.
I’m disappointed that what happened with Jackson came between us, when it should have only brought us closer.
I’m disappointed you didn’t tell me everything—that the morning after, caught up in grief, you didn’t confide in me, didn’t confess or explain or even create more lies to tell me. I was there for you, but you didn’t need me. Not the way you should have. I’m disappointed you didn’t trust me with everything that happened to you with him.