Melissa was still talking, her voice a distant wah, wah, wah in the background of my muddled thoughts …
“What do you think, Andrea? I’d like to hear your thoughts on this first …”
“Huh?” I sat up in my chair, looking around at the three of them.
Thomas, Melissa, Philomena, all three stared at me, waiting for something.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
Melissa sighed, but then smiled apologetically. “I was saying that you girls can ride it out, ride out this storm. That’s what I think you should do. I think that after the sentencing, they’ll finally pack up and go. Kids at school will forget; things will eventually return to normal.”
“Or?” I pressed, sensing there was an alternative to that terrible option.
“Or,” Thomas piped in, “you girls are welcome to go stay with my mother in Indiana. And this is my choice for the two of you …” Melissa shot him a weary look. I’d heard her mention his mother a time or two over dinner, and I got the impression there was bad blood there.
“Now, it’s nowhere near as nice as this place,” Thomas warned. “She lives on a small ranch near Madison, Indiana. It’s a small town, a small way of life, fewer kids than what you’re used to down here. She’s willing to take you guys in. She’d old-fashioned, but she’s kind … and it could be a chance to get away for a while. To finish out your last few years of school without all this ruckus going on.”
Before I could respond, Philomena said, “But I barely know Grandma Nordstrom! I think I’ve met her only, what … once or twice in the past fifteen years? And what happened here, it’ll follow us there, just like it follows us here. The kids will find out, and the media too, and then they’ll swarm us there instead.”
Although the idea had sounded solid at first, Philomena made a good point.
Melissa and Thomas exchanged a look, something secretive between them …
“I don’t want you to go. I’d miss you like crazy. Miss you both,” Melissa added, glancing at me, which was kind of her to say but unnecessary.
“But if that’s what you want to do, then I think we can arrange to have your names changed. It may take a few months to do it, but it’s very possible. You could get a new hairstyle, some new clothes, and move to Indiana with your new names. Just until this all blows over.”
Philomena and I stared at each other, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
A name change?
It seemed ridiculously absurd, but also kind of cool. I mean, what young girl doesn’t occasionally dream of changing her name at an early age?
Memories came flooding back of my mother and I, picking out our unicorn names in one of those silly kids’ magazines they sent home from school. She was Star Rose; I was Ivy Raindrop. So silly … of all the things to remember. But thinking about that day, us rolling on the floor with laughter, calling each other by our new names …
“Can we choose our names?” I asked softly.
Thomas and Melissa exchanged another glance.
“I don’t see why not,” Thomas shrugged.
“I want my name to be Ivy,” I said, puffing out my chest. I tried to imagine myself as an Ivy, mysterious and beautiful.
Definitely not a killer.
“Okay. What about you, Philomena? Any names you’ve always dreamed of having?” her mother asked with a wink. Sometimes, seeing them together, the casual day-to-day exchange of a mother and daughter, cut me to the core because I missed my own so much.
In Indiana, we’d be on a level playing field - both orphans in a way. Although we would be living with her grandmother, it sounded like she was as much a stranger to Philomena as she would be to me.
“I hate my name,” Philomena said, crossing her arms over her chest.
Thomas chuckled. “Well, that’s news to us. I always thought you liked it, dear.”
“It’s too long to pronounce, too hard for people to spell. I mean, look at the papers! Every day someone gets it wrong. I think I want an easy name, something simple and short. Something that nobody will turn their head at, or struggle to say out loud …”
“What about Pam?” I said, nudging my elbow in her ribs. I was joking, but her eyes instantly lit up and she tilted her head side to side, considering it.
“Pam it is,” she said, firmly.
Chapter 30
NOW
“How could you?” Pam looked back and forth between me and the dead boy on the floor. He looked like a child lying there, barely 140 pounds and only slightly taller than my five feet, four inches.
“I didn’t,” I told her, firmly.
“This boy … whether he picked on Delaney or not, he has a mother. A sister! What the hell were you thinking?”
If my blood could actually boil, it would have then.
“I. Didn’t. Kill. Him!”
But Pam was shaking her head side to side, as though she didn’t believe me at all. After all these years, we were practically sisters. I’d never lied to her before.
Why would I start now?
“I found him under the bed. He was like that … when I found him.”
I stared at the sickening wounds on his chest. They looked surreal, like something a makeup artist would do. But he was so pale … so dead.
“Someone must have drugged me. That’s all I know. And not someone. We know who. Phil. He’s back, you have to believe me!”
The room was spinning.
How long has it been since I’ve eaten?
For the life of me, I couldn’t remember eating a thing in the last two days. I felt weak, nauseous. Like I might fall over and pass out any minute …
“Okay,” Pam said solemnly, pulling the sheet back over his body and face.
“Okay?”
“Okay, I believe you. I just don’t understand why … how … why would Phil kill your daughter’s bully and some random stranger, then put them in your room, all while you remained asleep? Something’s not adding up here, that’s all I’m saying. If he wanted revenge, Ivy, then he’d just come kill us! And you know what we have to do, don’t you?”
My mind wandered over to the empty golf bags, then drifted down through the floorboards to the Skilsaw in the basement with the razor-sharp blade …
“We have to call the police,” Pam said.
“Are you crazy?” I shouted. “It’ll only be a matter of time before they find out who I really am. Who we both are. You don’t think they’ll suspect we killed them?”
But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized there was no ‘we’ this time. The bodies weren’t tied to Pam, and they hadn’t been found in her house.
Of course she had no problems calling the police – she had nothing to lose this time. She wouldn’t lose her only daughter, her house, her freedom …
“Just go. I’ll take care of things on my own,” I told her.
Pam reached for me, drawing me in for a hug, just like she had done all those years ago.
As I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend we were fifteen again … that she was still my best friend, that we would stick together no matter what.
Just me and you, okay?