The Girls Are All So Nice Here Read online

  But Flora surprised me. She crossed her arms, becoming a fleece shield. “I mean—I kind of want to be alone with it for a bit, you know? And I’m not sure Kevin would like it if I shared his work with anyone else.”

  “Of course.” I’m not anyone else. I’m fucking Clarissa. I was right. Flora hadn’t learned to share any better than the rest of us.

  I hit refresh one last time, a Hail Mary tossed into the universe, and that was when I saw it. The message that would change my life.

  Yeah it would be sweet if u came to visit sometime. ;)

  The smile cracked my face. It wasn’t just another email, another good night Amb.

  It was an invitation.

  NOW

  To: “Ambrosia Wellington” [email protected]

  From: “Wesleyan Alumni Committee” [email protected]

  Subject: Class of 2007 Reunion

  Dear Ambrosia Wellington,

  Join us at Russell House for a picnic lunch and games on the lawn. It’s the first official gathering to kick off the weekend, so come hungry—and armed with your best campus stories. We all have them, so don’t hold back!

  Sincerely,

  Your Alumni Committee

  Sully stands on our balcony, staring into the trees separating us from Vine Street. “Did you see the girls?”

  “Not yet. Just Lauren. She got fat.” It’s mean, but maybe I never stopped being mean. Sully just draws it out of me like poison.

  Sully laughs and lights a cigarette. “She was always fat. But no, I mean the girls. The grads. They look so young. I can’t believe it used to be us.”

  But it wasn’t us. By then, our friendship was long over.

  “I was sure you sent the note,” I say. “But if it wasn’t you and wasn’t me, there’s someone else it could have been. Felty.”

  She taps her finger on her cigarette. “Felty. He had a hard-on for solving crimes. Do you think he’s still a cop?”

  “Yeah, he’s still a cop in Middletown. He got promoted to captain a few years ago.”

  “He put on a tough front,” Sully says. “But he’s, like, a big teddy bear.”

  I shake my head, the breeze rippling my hair. There was nothing remotely cuddly about Felty. “He hated me. I could see him snapping.”

  I’ve had the same nightmare ever since I googled Felty, the one where he comes for me. I wake up rigid, arms at my sides like a corpse, not sweating or thrashing in my sheets, and it makes me wonder if that’s how it would be if he did come for me. If I’d be all out of fight.

  “I don’t think he hated you,” Sully says. “He wanted to fuck you.”

  “You thought every guy wanted to fuck me.”

  “Well, most of them did.” She holds my gaze. “I forgot how much fun you used to be.” I need to look away—I should look away—but I’m transfixed by the version of myself I see in her glass-green eyes.

  There’s a knock at the door and even though it’s Adrian, I jump, and so does Sully. Just for a second, her hand grazes mine, and we’re eighteen again.

  “I couldn’t find the charger. It must be in your bag,” Adrian says when I let him in. “I got a text from Monty. They’re going to the picnic now, so we should head over too.”

  Suddenly I want to get out of this room, away from Sully and her magnetic pull and this looming threat, this black cloud. Hadley and Heather are safe. They knew the girl I became after Sully. They know who I am now.

  “I’ll walk over with you,” Sully says, putting a hand on my back. “I’m starving. And this way we can catch up some more.”

  “Sure,” I say, even though there’s no catching up to do. The notes are all we have in common. Two pieces of card stock tying us back together.

  “Sounds great,” Adrian says. “I bet you guys have some good stories. I’m dying to know what Amb was like.”

  * * *

  Adrian carries the conversation on our walk to Russell House, keeping us from plummeting into dead silence. He wants to know everything about teenage me, and even though there’s so much Sully could say, she doesn’t give my truth away. “Amb was the only girl who could keep up with me,” she tells him. “The best kind of friend.”

  I would have given anything to hear her say that back then. Sully didn’t show affection like most people. There were no mugs, no Best or Friend, no declarations.

  To get to Russell House from the Nics, we have to walk past Jackson Field through the Center for the Arts, a series of haphazard concrete trolls punctuated by green space where we would sometimes sit at night, drunk or high, and stare at the sky. Tour guides loved to tell prospective students that the buildings were constructed in their strange configurations to avoid cutting down the trees that were there first. That was Wesleyan, always wanting to save the world but filled with girls who couldn’t save themselves from it.

  We see Flora, behind a bunch of grads in front of the CFA Theater. She stares at us over the sea of heads. Sully doesn’t look. Part of me wants to stop and say something to her, but I don’t have the words. In an alternate reality, where Flora wasn’t so nice, I might believe the notes were her doing, a modern-day take on the Post-its—the ones I always assumed were passive-aggressive—that colored our doors. But I know she isn’t capable of something like that.

  Russell House is beautiful, all pillars and class. Big white tents are set up on the green space. People are sitting on the lawn in knots, talking and laughing, relaxed and happy. I don’t fit in here, and I never did.

  “Do you want to eat with us?” Adrian asks Sully. “We’re meeting some other friends. You’re welcome to join.”

  “Thanks,” Sully says. “But I’m supposed to meet some of the theater crew. I haven’t seen them since the last time I was in LA. I’ll see you guys back at the room later, okay?” She’s wearing sunglasses so I can’t see her eyes, but I wonder if she said that to hurt me, because she still knows how to cut. The theater crew. I’m not one of them.

  But I don’t have time to analyze it, because Hadley and Justin are suddenly in front of us holding paper plates bearing cheeseburgers. “You guys made it!” Hads says, her freckled snub nose crinkling up. “No surprise, but the food is just as bad as it always was. Nice to know MoCon lives on.”

  I’m relieved to see Hads. She’s easy to breathe around, with her go-with-the-flow attitude, her presence a welcome relaxation. That’s what drew me to her, after Dorm Doom, and she came with Heather, so I managed to make two friends without much effort. The hungry need to impress them was never there. I can see Heather now, her curls enviously glossy against her deep brown skin, laughing and taking to some other girls. Adrian is already throwing a Frisbee with Justin—good. I let myself breathe. There isn’t any danger here.

  “We’re sitting over there.” Hads points to a red picnic blanket. “Justin and Monty have already started pregaming. They don’t want to admit that we can’t drink like we used to.”

  I laugh obligingly, grateful but annoyed to be lumped into her we. Hads acted like she was so drunk every time she exceeded two beers. She and Heather used to get up for early-morning tennis practice almost every day, tiptoeing out the door while I slept. I never saw either of them do drugs or even talk about them. I never tried to corrupt them. I had learned my lesson by then.

  When Hadley heads back, I make my way over to the white tents and grab a paper plate. It’s a buffet, with burgers and hot dogs under silver domes, heaping bowls of pasta salad and potato salad protected from bugs by mosquito netting. I take a burger that looks more like a hockey puck.

  “Ambrosia Wellington.” Hearing my name like that, so slow and deliberate, makes me think of the envelope, the careful lettering. I turn around and don’t recognize this woman at first, and she must know it, because mercifully she introduces herself.

  “Ella. I know, I look really different.”

  I try not to show her my shock. Ella, the girl I saw my pre-Wesleyan self in but pretended not to. Ella is the one who witnessed what
Sully and I did, even though she didn’t know we did it.

  I help myself to putty-colored pasta salad that I won’t actually eat. “Ella. Wow, great to see you. You look amazing.”

  It’s not a lie. Gone are the baby fat, the chubby trim around her face, the softness of her arms, the tacky clothes. She’s all wires and sinew, and her hair is blond where it used to be dark.

  “Thanks.” She touches her bangs. I’m not the first to give her the compliment. Her fingernails are perfect ovals, dark red polish. Somebody that precise pays attention to detail.

  Ella disappeared from my life after freshman year. I stopped seeing her on campus and stopped thinking about her altogether. She faded away, a ghost in jeans that never fit right and those god-awful clogs she used to wear, the ones I could perpetually hear clomping down the halls of Butts C.

  “What have you been up to?” she says. “God, can you believe we’re in our thirties now? I’m an environmental lawyer. A partner now, actually. How about you?”

  Lauren became a child psychologist. Ella is an environmental lawyer. I picture them having lunch with Flora, each of them committed to saving the world.

  “That’s great.” I shuffle down the line, grabbing a Diet Coke from a cooler. “I’m in PR. In Manhattan.” I’m not sure why I add in Manhattan, or why I’m trying to impress Ella at all.

  “We’re not far away, then. I’m in Tribeca.”

  “Oh, cool,” I say dumbly. I assumed Ella would have moved back to Jersey and settled there permanently, boring and predictable. But I should know that people change.

  “I’ve seen most of the Butts girls here already,” Ella says. “Even Sloane. I figured she wouldn’t show up. Have you seen her yet? She’s right over there. Typical Sloane, she’s with a hot guy.”

  I follow Ella’s pointed finger and my chest constricts. Adrian isn’t throwing a Frisbee anymore. He’s talking to Sully, their heads bent too close together.

  “It’s not like that,” I snap, already on the defensive. “That’s my husband. He talks to everyone.”

  “Oh,” she says. “I see.”

  Ella could have a reason. She tried to befriend me and I chose instead to pick her apart with Sully. If she found out what we did, she could have easily written the notes to summon us here.

  And if she did, I’m afraid to find out why.

  “Well, I should get going,” she says. “But let’s catch up some more this weekend, okay? I’m sure we have a lot to talk about.” And then she’s gone, with a wave and a flick of her perfect hair, virtually the same white blond as Flora’s.

  THEN

  I never knew when I met Ella Walden that I would end up ruining her life. I just knew that she wasn’t the type of person I wanted to befriend in college. Her cheap, ill-fitting clothes and dated pastel eye makeup reminded me too much of Pennington. She wore openly the same trappings I was desperate to shed.

  But sometimes, when nobody else was around, I talked to Ella about our hometowns, about our suburban upbringings. It was comforting, slipping into the past. From her high school stories, I could tell she was someone who was used to being passed up, and I found a counterpoint in her for that reason. But in public, I hated when she acknowledged our similarities and drew attention to the link between us.

  Sully noticed, and it didn’t take long for her to comment. “Ella seems to think you guys have a lot in common,” she said, her lips curling up in a smirk.

  “We don’t.”

  “You might want to tell her that,” she said, dragging her finger across her throat. So I started to poke, ever so slightly, pushing back against Ella’s persistent commentary.

  One night, washing our faces next to each other in the bathroom, Ella started talking about Wesleyan. “It’s just so different from home.” She scrubbed her skin with Neutrogena and a swath of zits poked through the foam, tiny mountains in a cloudscape. “Do you miss it?”

  “Not at all,” I told her sharply. “That’s not who I am anymore.”

  Ella leaned over to rinse her face, but not before I saw her wounded expression.

  “My god,” Sully said a few days later, after Ella had accosted us in the lounge, where we were mixing drinks, and desperately fished for an invite to the Nics party we were going to that night. “I can’t believe you’re still friends with her.”

  “I’m not,” I said quickly. “No matter what I say, she just keeps coming back for more.”

  Sully took a drag of her cigarette. “You’re too nice. That’s the problem.”

  Nice from her mouth was a hard dig, an accusation, something I had to disarm.

  “I’m not nice,” I said. “She just doesn’t care.”

  “You need to find her weakness,” Sully said, blowing a smoke ring toward the window. “We will.”

  Her certainty was almost chilling. I nodded, already trying to justify what I had to do to earn my place. I didn’t owe Ella anything just because I knew things about her life, just because she had chosen to confide in me. I was with Sully. We will.

  And then we did. Ella told me she was a virgin, something I swore I’d keep between us, something that never should have mattered anyway. I told Sully. I had no idea what she’d do with that nugget of information.

  Then there was Ella, knocking on Sully’s door when we were getting ready to go out. Sully let her in, then offered her a drink. Ella smiled and took a seat beside me on the bed. I drank faster, trying to swallow what I told myself wasn’t guilt.

  Sully applied eyeliner in her mirror and randomly blurted out, “I had the most explosive orgasm last night. It pretty much rocked my whole body.”

  I bit back a laugh. Lauren, who was studying under a blanket on her bed, shook her head and ignored us. Ella stared at the ground.

  “From who?” I offered, taking Sully’s bait.

  Sully pushed the eyeliner pencil into the corner of her eye. She always went right into the waterline, the part that made me tear up. I copied her anyway, forever trying to make my eyes look bigger and more dramatic. “From myself, duh. I haven’t met a guy who can do that yet. When I do, it’s game over.”

  Ella’s face pinked. She sipped her drink while Sully talked about her vibrator, just like on an episode of Sex and the City, which Toni had become obsessed with before leaving for college. I didn’t know if Sully was telling the truth, but I hoped she was, at least the part about not having orgasms with guys. I never had either. When Matt and I had started fooling around, he said he wanted to make me feel good and asked me to tell him what I liked, but talking about it was awkward, so I pretended I liked everything, moaning in the dark with his fingers rubbing against me.

  The night it turned into actual sex—when his parents were out of town and it was a prime opportunity to ditch my virginity—it felt more like I was being speared than anything else. After that, we did it every chance we got, but I liked being twined with him afterward better than the actual act. I didn’t come until one night, alone in the tub, I touched myself until the water went cold, relaxing into my fingers. The buildup, the release, the shaking legs, the skin on my belly reddening. I finally understood the hype, but I could never bring myself to tell Matt exactly what I needed. I couldn’t voice all that want clustered in me, tight like a fist.

  “We’re going to look for a guy for you tonight, Ella,” Sully said. “A magic guy. And one for Amb, too. If you come out with us, we’ll get you laid. I can find you something to wear.”

  There was no way Ella would be able to fit into anything in Sully’s closet, none of the miniskirts that barely covered Sully’s hint of an ass.

  “Where are you guys going?” Ella asked. The curiosity in her voice was cloying. It made me flinch, not just from secondhand embarrassment but because that so easily could have been me.

  “The Nics,” Sully said. “Who have you hooked up with so far, Ella?”

  Ella’s blush deepened to a blotchy purple. When her eyes flashed to me, I saw something besides humiliation. Hurt. She knew I had
told Sully her secret. I made her look away first, even though I wanted to.

  “Nobody special,” she mumbled. “Just a couple guys.”

  Sully leaned forward on crossed legs. She wasn’t done playing. “Come on, Ella. Tell us their names. Or are you afraid we’re going to steal them?”

  Ella must have known she was caught in Sully’s crosshairs. I willed her not to struggle, because that would just make the trap clench her limbs more tightly. I wondered how long she would try to keep the lie alive.

  “Tell us, Ella,” I echoed.

  “You know, I actually have so much studying to do,” she said, standing up. “But I hope you guys have a great time.” She put her drink down, unfinished.

  To my surprise, Sully let her go. “We’re here if you change your mind,” she said, and when Ella was gone, her lips trembled with laughter as she put on bright magenta lipstick.

  “There. We got rid of her,” Sully said. “It really wasn’t hard.” We got rid of her. She made it sound like we had dumped a body. I imagined Ella in tears and waited for the queasiness in my gut to pass.

  “Thank you,” I said, which was the answer she wanted.

  “You guys are awful,” Lauren chimed in. “I know she seems kind of square, but she’s actually really nice.” I had the feeling Lauren was only defending Ella because she had decided to hate me. Or maybe she was spending too much time with Flora and wanted to try nice on for size. When Lauren got up and shuffled into the hall with her shower bag, Sully raised both middle fingers at her back.

  I reached for the lipstick, but Sully swatted me away. “Have another drink first. And what the hell are you drinking out of, anyway?”

  I held up my Friend mug. “It was all I could find. Flora gave it to me.”

  Sully yanked it out of my hand. I thought she was going to throw it on the floor, but she just inspected it, the bubbly font and excessive pinkness, and opened her flask of vodka to refill it.