The Body Finder

CHAPTER 14

BY FRIDAY, DAY FIVE OF JAY’S EVASION OF VIOLET, she was starting to feel abandoned for good. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have other friends, but it just so happened that he was her favorite one. Besides, it was hard seeing him all day long, sitting so close to him in classes and passing him in the hallways, unable to talk to him. She supposed she could try, but the idea that he might give her the silent treatment in return was devastating to Violet, and she wasn’t quite willing to set herself up for that kind of rejection.

Story of my life, she thought miserably. She was never willing to put herself out there.

She bit into her apple just as Chelsea was sitting down beside her at the lunch table.

“Where’s new-Jay?” Chelsea asked, unable to let the joke die. She’d been singing that same ol’ song for the past week, and every time she did, it bugged Violet a little bit more. That was probably why Chelsea hadn’t given it up yet; she could probably smell Violet’s irritation.

Instead of correcting Chelsea, yet again, Violet looked around the cafeteria and realized that Grady was nowhere to be seen. That was a first, at least in the space of the past five days, and Violet found it strange that she hadn’t even noticed his absence.

Violet shrugged in answer to Chelsea’s question.

She felt a mild pang of sadness for Grady, who had been running around in circles in an effort just to be near her. But more than any regret she had over Grady’s misplaced affections, she was grateful for the moment of peace.

At least it had been peaceful…until Chelsea sat down.

It wasn’t long before Jules and Claire were joining them.

“Where’s new-Jay?” Jules asked, and then she and Chelsea exchanged a look and started cracking up at their own joke.

Even Claire, who was generally so serious about everything, giggled a little.

Violet rolled her eyes. “How long did it take you geniuses to plan that little gem?” she accused her friends, which only made them laugh harder. She shook her head. “You two are idiots,” she said, biting into her apple again and deciding to ignore them.

“Which is it, Violet?” Claire asked. “Are they geniuses or idiots?”

Chelsea leaned into Jules now, laughing so hard at their stupid joke that no sound was even coming out of her mouth anymore.

Violet looked from Chelsea to Jules and then back to Claire. “Idiots,” she stated flatly.

There was another long moment as the Two Stooges struggled to regain their composure.

“Come on, Vi. If we can’t joke about new-Jay, who can we joke about?” Chelsea asked, finally getting herself under control. She used a paper napkin to dab at her watering eyes.

“Joke about whatever you want,” Violet stated as blandly as possible. “It’s not your fault you’re not funny.”

“Oh, I’m funny all right. I’m freakin’ hilarious. You’re the one who’s lost her sense of humor,” Chelsea lobbed back at her.

Violet was about to argue the point with Chelsea, but her comeback got lost in her throat when she saw Jay walking in.

“Oh, look, there’s old-Jay,” Claire said nonchalantly. “And he’s with Lissie Adams.”

Violet had seen that too.

They walked in like they were old friends. Jay was smiling down at Lissie while he carried his tray of food. Lissie was walking as close to him as she could get and still maintain her balance. Lissie’s best friend, a girl who had spent her entire high school career being socially eclipsed by Lissie’s über-popularity, seemed content to be trailing behind the two of them. As a couple, Jay and Lissie looked like they’d been clipped from the pages of a Hollywood gossip magazine, with their faultless good looks and their perfect smiles. Lissie even had her own entourage. The only thing missing was the red carpet.

But they weren’t a couple, Violet argued to herself, were they?

Violet’s chest suddenly felt heavy, crushed beneath the weight of her own unanswered questions. What if they were a couple now? What if her stupid stunt at the mall last weekend had pushed Jay far enough away that he’d replaced her with Lissie? Had that really been less than a week ago?

What if she’d lost her chance with him?

As if there’d ever really been a chance for her at all.

Violet looked wistfully their way once more, wondering if she’d just been fooling herself. They were sitting side by side, at the table where Lissie sat every day with those she deemed good enough to be her friends. She was snuggled up against Jay and saying something that was obviously meant only for his ears.

He truly was a great guy; especially in the ways that really counted beyond his new gorgeous exterior where he was still Jay…smart, funny, sweet. Why had she never seen him more clearly before he’d metamorphosed into the very image of hotness that every girl in school was catfighting one another just to get close to?

But he wasn’t perfect, she reminded herself as she watched him sitting at Lissie’s table. He was incredibly stubborn and pigheaded. Plus, she didn’t miss the way he stole the remote when they watched TV or how he always ate all of her chips at lunch. At least she tried to tell herself she didn’t.

He never looked up from his conversation with Lissie. He didn’t even glance her way, although Violet was sure he knew she was there…sitting in the same old place, with the same old friends. While he tested his weight on the delicate ice of new and upwardly mobile social circles, she was still just the same old Violet.

Chelsea seemed to sense that this was no time for joking, and she backed off the new-Jay, old-Jay thing…at least for the moment. She put her arm around Violet. “Hey, don’t worry about them. Elisabeth Adams is no different from any other girl in school who’s been dying to get her claws in him. She’s shallow and boring,” Chelsea tried her best to reassure Violet. “She’s just another brainless cheerleader.”

“Besides,” Claire piped in, “I hear she’s a slut. I hear that she gives it up to all the guys. Half the football players call her ‘Kneepads,’ if you know what I mean.”

Of course she knew what Claire meant; how could she not understand the barely subtle innuendo? And why on earth did Claire think that that little tidbit of information would make Violet feel better?

Claire might have been the only one at the table who didn’t notice the icy glare and the scathing tone that Chelsea shot her way. “No way,” Chelsea disagreed. “Prissie Lissie is all that virginal, pure crap. She’s one of those girls who wears a promise ring to her daddy that she won’t give it up till she’s married or some shit like that. There’s no way that Jay could even get to third base with her tight, Christian ass.”

It was supposed to be a pep talk; Violet knew that and tried not to fault her for it. It was Chelsea’s way of showing her unconditional support for her friend. But somehow, Violet ended up feeling even worse than before. Now she couldn’t stop picturing Lissie and Jay making out in his mom’s car, with his hand beneath her shirt…rounding first base and heading for second. She felt sick.

That was definitely a mental image she could live without, and she wished at that moment that she could gouge out her own mind’s eye to make it go away.

“So, that pretty much settles it, Violet. You are definitely going out with us tonight,” Chelsea insisted. “Olivia Hildebrand throws the best parties, and you could use a night out. It’s BYOB, but I’m having my older sister buy for us, so if you just pitch in a coupla bucks I’ll take care of the booze.”

Violet had already told Chelsea that she didn’t want to go to the party. What she really wanted to do, all she could even imagine doing tonight, was putting on her most comfortable sweatpants and crawling into bed to watch old movies.

She started to object, but Chelsea interrupted her. “Trust me, Vi. Don’t sit around by yourself tonight. Tell your parents you’re staying at my house and we’ll go out and get stupid. Forget about Jay. Forget about Lissie.” She put on her best pout and gave Violet a doe-eyed look that was more sarcastic than serious. “Pretty, pretty plee-eease!”

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Jules cajoled in her usual brief manner. She was nearly as incapable of tagging multiple words together as Chelsea was at any form of true sincerity.

“Ooh, and if you don’t have anything to wear, you can borrow something from me,” Claire added, as though that was Violet’s only hang-up about going.

It was Violet’s turn to laugh as she looked at her friends, each trying in her own pitiful way to make Violet feel better about losing Jay. She wanted to say no, but suddenly she couldn’t. Maybe they were right; maybe what she needed was a girls’ night out, even if it would end up being at a crowded party with a bunch of her drunken classmates.

“Fine.” Violet finally succumbed to the pressure. “But you’ll have to pick me up. My parents won’t let me out of the house by myself. They think we’re safer traveling in packs.”

“That’s my girl.” Chelsea crumpled her empty brown lunch sack into a ball and tossed it toward the garbage can at the end of the table. She missed by a mile, but ignored that fact completely, leaving her garbage where it landed on the ground. “I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”

She and Claire took off to their next class, leaving Violet to walk with Jules, who was heading in the same direction she was.

They had to walk past Lissie’s table on their way out, and Violet was surprised to see that Jay was no longer sitting there with the senior girls. She’d never even seen him leave. But somehow, Violet realized, she had attracted Lissie’s attention, and as Violet and Jules walked past, the cheerleader stopped talking to her friends and watched Violet intently.

It was strange, the look in the other girl’s eyes, kind of defensive…almost challenging. It was as if Lissie was jealous of her…and was really pissed off about it.

Violet wanted to tell her that she had nothing to worry about just to make her stop glaring like that. She wanted to tell her that she and Jay weren’t even friends anymore, let alone anything beyond that. But there was no point in it. From what Violet had seen in the cafeteria that day, Lissie was already getting her way, and she’d soon realize that Violet was no competition for her.

Suddenly the party seemed like a great idea.

By the time Violet had dressed and re-dressed several times, she was starting to think that maybe Claire had been right, that maybe she should have borrowed something from the self-proclaimed “fashionista.”

She finally landed on a pair of her better jeans, coupled with a cute black top and some black flats. She added a beaded necklace and matching earrings and checked herself out in the mirror. She rarely wore makeup but had decided that this was a special occasion-her night out with the girls to forget Jay-so she’d sparingly accented her green eyes with a touch of eyeliner and gingerly applied a coat of black mascara.

The effect was somewhat dramatic, making her eyes look exotic rather than ordinary.

She glossed her lips. Not bad, she thought, tucking a wild wisp of hair behind her ear.

Her cell phone rang with the standard, preprogrammed ringtone that had come with the phone. Violet hadn’t even bothered to change it, feeling a little like she would be dancing on the graves of the girls who had gone missing-figuratively, of course-if she were to enjoy her new phone for anything other than the utilitarian purpose for which it had been purchased.

She flipped it open, and before she could say hello, Jules was yelling into her ear, “Get your fine little ass in gear, girl! We’re out in your driveway!”

Violet could hear screams and shrieks of laughter in the background. She decided she’d better get out there fast before they alerted her parents, and they changed their minds about letting her go out tonight.

“Keep it down, or I’m not going anywhere,” she insisted into the phone, and then snapped it shut without so much as a good-bye.

She grabbed her purse and hurried down the stairs two at a time.

“Chelsea’s here. I’ll see you in the morning!”

“Be careful!” her mom yelled back.

“Keep your phone on,” her dad called out without raising his voice. “Just in case,” he added.