Текст книги "Famous Last Words"

Автор книги: Katie Alender

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

The next couple of days passed in a dull blur. At school, I wouldn’t even look at Wyatt. He followed my instructions and didn’t try to talk to me, either. At home, the ghost was mercifully silent, which was good, because my nerves were down to their last gasp.

My investigation had been on hold since Sunday morning, but I knew I couldn’t pretend the calm was going to last forever. Regardless of my feelings about Wyatt, I had to figure out what was going on in the house.

Thursday, as we sat at our chemistry table and studiously ignored each other, it hit me that I didn’t actually need Wyatt’s help to figure out what the ghost wanted. I could do it alone. Yeah, it might take me a little longer, and maybe I didn’t have his freakishly honed detective skills, but I could do it. And then, by figuring it out and unlatching the spirit, I would also unlatch myself from Wyatt forever.

So after dinner and homework, I decided to get back on track. I turned on my computer to check my email for a reply from Paige Pollan. It had been four days since I first tried to contact her.

As the computer booted up, I summoned as much courage as I could (not much) and said, “Diana?”

There was no answer.

“Diana Del Mar,” I said. “Hello?” For a moment, I thought of getting out the moldavite ring and the candles. Would those make it easier to reach her? If they had attracted her in the first place, why shouldn’t I just use them now? It seemed counterproductive to ignore the most effective means of getting in touch, just because some near-stranger was feeling overly cautious. Leyta Fitzgeorge wasn’t the one being awakened in the middle of the night and shoved into a bathtub.

I was about to dig the box out of my closet when the computer finished booting up. Since I was there, I might as well do a little research before opening the portal again. To be honest, I wasn’t all that excited about disregarding Leyta’s warning. On some level, I believed she knew what she was talking about.

I clicked on the web browser. Explore every lead, I thought. Leave no stone unturned.

So I decided to start with something easy – I Googled Paige Pollan.

That’s when I realized that there would never be a reply to the email I’d sent.

Because Paige Pollan killed herself last August.

On Friday morning, as I stood at my locker, Marnie raced toward me, a blur of green and white. She grabbed me around the neck and jumped up and down.

“Willa!” she squealed. “Willa, seriously!”

“What?” I asked, trying to peel away from her. I was exhausted from the sheer hopelessness that had descended on me after I discovered Paige’s fate. I almost wished I could talk to Wyatt about it – but not badly enough to break our silence. It was lab day in Chem, so I was already planning an imaginary headache and a trip to the nurse’s office to get me out of having to interact with him. Now, with Marnie shrieking and hopping around, my “imaginary” headache could easily slip into all-too-real existence.

Marnie put her hands on my shoulders and beamed at me. “It’s so awesome, I don’t even want to tell you. I want you to bask in the anticipation for a minute. Could you bask, please? I need to see some baskage.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, smoothing my cardigan where Marnie’s embrace had flipped it up. “But okay, I’m basking.”

“What if I said … I had something amazing to show you?” she asked, hooking an arm around my waist and leading me toward the courtyard.

“That would be … nice?” Her excited energy was actually starting to make me antsy.

“Feast your eyes … on THIS.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and handed it to me.

It was a photo of two random glamorous girls —

No, wait – it was a photo of Marnie and me. From the premiere.

I stared at myself – my luminous skin, the rosy pink of my cheeks, my large doe eyes. My hair was perfect, the red dress so elegant.

I’d never seen myself look like that before. I never even knew I could look like that.

And next to me, Marnie embodied retro awesomeness, from her wild sequined dress to her glasses.

“Wow us,” I said quietly.

“It gets better,” she said, grabbing the phone and scrolling down. “Look at the caption.”

Can you say “totes adorbs,” Stalkerz? Gorgeous Hollywood starlets Ramona Claiborne and Bernadette Middleton arrive at the premiere of the new Kurt Conrath flick The Never Time.

“We’re … on … Starstalkerz,” Marnie said. “Willa, you and I are on Starstalkerz.”

I’d heard of it. It was one of those gossip sites that has its own TV show and is always posting famous people’s mug shots.

“No, Ramona and Bernadette are on Starstalkerz,” I said. “And I’m sure the website will take the photo down when they realize that Ramona and Bernadette aren’t real people.”

“Look at the comments!” Marnie practically shrieked. “Look – ‘Bernadette is so beautiful I hate her.’ Someone hates you because you’re pretty. And this one – ‘Where did Ramona get those glasses they R so kewl I want them.’ Someone wants my glasses. People want to know who we are. They want to be us.” Marnie’s face was animated in a way I’d never seen. “Willa, here’s what I’m thinking – we find a way to get into every party and event we can find. We always go as Bernadette and Ramona. Soon we’ll be the It Girls. We’ll have fan pages and thousands of followers. I mean, if we handle this right, we could get … like, I don’t know – our own reality show!”

I scrolled back up to the photo. “But how did they even find out your name was Ramona? We decided that after we went inside, didn’t we?”

Marnie gave me a saucy smile. “Well … I might have written a press release from a publicist about Ramona Claiborne and Bernadette Middleton, Hollywood’s hottest new BFFs.”

“Wait – you actually put in writing that I’m Kate Middleton’s cousin?”

She grinned and shrugged.

“Marnie!”

“Oh, stop acting scandalized. What are you, a pilgrim?”

“You mean a puritan? No … but that’s lying about a real person.”

“Lying?!” She drew back, pretending to be scandalized. “On the Internet? No! I don’t believe it! I’m pretty sure Kate Middleton is too busy trying on tiaras to care whether someone halfway across the world is pretending to be her distant relative. I mean, think about it. Can she prove you’re not related?”

I ignored her crazy talk and stared at the picture. “Won’t we get in trouble when they find out?”

“For heaven’s sake, no,” Marnie said, rolling her eyes. “This is Hollywood, Willa. I don’t even know how old my own mother is. Everyone lies, and there are no consequences. It’s like a magical fairyland!”

My plan for avoiding Chemistry went off without a hitch, so for seventh period I lay on a cot in the nurse’s office, thinking about Marnie. After a while, the nurse left me alone, so I pulled out my phone. It took me a few different combinations of search terms, but eventually I found what I was looking for:

A photoblog called MARNIE + WYATT = FOREVER.

As the posts loaded on the page, one by one, I felt like I’d been spun around a hundred times and dropped down on a balance beam.

Photo after photo of Wyatt and Marnie. Sitting together at a football game. Holding hands. Him giving her a piggy-back ride. Him standing behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder. Tenth-grade Marnie had a short chin-length bob and wire-frame glasses. In every photo, she was smiling brilliantly.

It was surreal, seeing them together. I felt an unpleasant twinge, and told myself it was because this was confirmation that so much of what Marnie had told me was outright lies.

Or maybe, I mused, flinching at a photo of him kissing her on the cheek, there’s more to it than that.

The pictures spanned almost their whole sophomore school year. One from the winter formal with Marnie in a pale blue dress and Wyatt in a gray suit, posing together. A picture from Valentine’s Day, showing Marnie holding a tiny teddy bear.

And then there was one of Marnie standing in the courtyard at school, holding a dozen balloons. The caption read, Surprising Wyatt on our 6 month anniversary!

I tucked my phone back in my purse and closed my eyes, thinking, My life could not possibly get any more complicated.

I was wrong about that, though. So wrong.

After all I’d been through, all the care I’d taken to stay out of trouble, in the end it was a human, not a ghost, who got me called into a parental after-school judgment session.

It was Marnie, who I thought was supposed to be my friend.

I sat at the dining room table with Jonathan and Mom. My stepfather’s iPad sat on the table, and the front page of Starstalkerz stared up at us. The website, to my incredible non-delight, had added the following tidbit to the item about Marnie and me:

EDITOR’S NOTE: Whoops, Stalkerz! As many of you pointed out, this glamorpuss is NOT Bernadette Middleton, despite her claims to the contrary – in fact, we have it on good authority that her name is Willa Cresky and she’s the newly imported stepdaughter of Infinity Realms director Jonathan Walters. Gotta watch out for those east coast girls. Hey, she may not be royalty, but we’ll give her this – she looks great in red!

That was it. Not a word about Marnie, or the fact that she was lying, too. Not a word to say that I hadn’t been the one to start the story, or send out a stupid press release.

Jonathan’s publicist had called him that afternoon in a red-hot fury, claiming that his new stepdaughter was a total embarrassment to his public image.

“What would make me feel better, Willa,” Jonathan said now, “is hearing some explanation as to why you thought it was okay in the first place.”

“I didn’t,” I said. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“But you went along with it,” Mom said.

“I don’t know if you understand how reputations work in the real world,” Jonathan said. “Your word is your bond. When you get a reputation for not telling the truth, it can follow you forever.”

I nodded. After a half hour of useless attempts to defend myself, quiet acquiescence seemed like my best chance to get out of there before my twenty-first birthday.

“We’re not angry, exactly,” Mom said. “Just disappointed.”

But I could tell by the way Jonathan frowned that he was a little angry.

I apologized again. And then they rehashed it again. And that happened four more times and then they finally told me I could go up to my room and think about what I’d done.

As if I didn’t have any other problems to think about in my spare time.

I’d forgotten how delicate my old computer was. If you pushed the screen open too fast, or a millimeter too far, the whole display would turn a very alarming shade of muddy green. I pulled it closer and held my breath until the backlight came on again.

Then I clicked on the folder labeled DAD’S STUFF. It was only a backup, meant to be deleted after he transferred all of his files to the new computer. But I never got around to deleting it.

I clicked through, looking for the backup of his contacts list. Then I opened that and did a search for DR.

Dr. Pamela Tilliman, General Practitioner.

And a phone number.

It was four o’clock, which meant seven o’clock in Connecticut, which meant that Dr. Tilliman was probably long gone for the day, but I figured I could leave a message and ask her to call me back on Monday.

To my surprise, someone picked up on the first ring.

“Hello, Dr. Tilliman speaking.”

“Um, hi, Dr. Tilliman,” I said. “My name is Willa Cresky. My dad was a patient of yours. Paul Cresky?”

“Paul Cresky,” she repeated. Her voice was deep and rich with authority. “Oh, Paul Cresky – yes, of course. It’s been about two years since he passed away, hasn’t it?”

“It’ll be two years May sixteenth,” I said. “I know it’s late, but I was hoping I could ask you some questions.”

“Well, I may not be able to answer everything,” she said, “but I’ll see what I can help you with.”

“My dad died of a heart attack —”

She interrupted me, and I heard typing. “Hang on. I’m pulling up his chart…. You said you’re Willa? I think I met you at the funeral. And I remember your dad used to talk about you. Didn’t you guys exercise together?”

“We swam,” I said, gripping a handful of my comforter in my tightly balled-up fist. “But he died. While we were swimming.”

“Oh, right …” she said. There was an embarrassed silence.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I just have a question about heart attacks. Because the day my dad died – I mean, right before he died – we had a big fight.”

“A fight?” she echoed.

“An argument. I mean, we weren’t even yelling or anything, but we were both really angry.” The sting of the memory made my throat tighten but I kept talking, unable to stop. “I left the pool, and when I changed my mind and went back, he was … floating. I don’t know if he was dead at that point or not, but the paramedics declared him dead after they tried CPR. Everybody tried CPR. The gym even had a defibrillator, but it didn’t work.”

“Right,” she said. “I see all that here, in the notes from the hospital. What’s your question?”

I pressed the phone to my ear, my breath coming in shaking bursts. “Did I … um … kill my dad?”

“Oh, honey,” she said. “No.”

I waited for her to elaborate.

“That’s it,” she said. “That’s my answer. A categorical no. Not a chance.”

“But I stressed him out. I gave him a heart attack.”

“Your father was exerting himself physically. And, honestly, a normal, healthy forty-four-year-old man should not have had a heart attack from that level of physical exertion. Certainly not from an argument. One where you weren’t even yelling.”

Wyatt had basically said the same thing.

“But then …” I stared at the keys on the keyboard until they all seemed to meld together. “Why did he die?”

“Hold on, let me look at something, okay?”

The line was filled with jazzy hold music. The sudden contrast almost made me laugh, in a crazy way.

A couple of minutes passed, and I was afraid Dr. Tilliman had forgotten about me. Then there was a click, and the music disappeared.

“Hello, Willa?” she asked. “Still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here.” My heart was beating a thousand beats a minute.

“I just called the hospital and had the medical examiner’s records emailed over,” she said. “Hang on … ‘the findings were consistent with asymptomatic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy … resulting in sudden cardiac death.’ ”

“I don’t know what that means,” I whispered.

“It’s a genetic heart condition,” she said. “It means that your father lived his whole life with a mutated gene that predisposed him for a condition known for causing sudden cardiac events, often without any hint of a symptom prior to the event. Tell me, Willa … how long had you guys been swimming that morning?”

I tried to dredge up the details, so long suppressed under an avalanche of guilt and pain. “Maybe about fifteen minutes? We usually swam for a half hour, but Dad stopped.”

I drew in my breath sharply.

“He stopped,” I said, suddenly remembering. “He said he was suddenly really tired. He thought he’d rest for a minute and then we could start again, but that’s when we started talking about Aiden – my boyfriend, Dad hated him – and it turned into an argument, so I left. I went back to the locker room.”

“Obviously I didn’t have a chance to examine your father myself,” the doctor said, her voice gentle. “But given what you’ve just said, and the findings from the autopsy, nothing you did caused your father’s death. What’s more, Willa … nothing you could have done would have saved him.”

I stared at the computer screen, feeling a tightness in my own chest.

“Don’t take this in an alarming way, but you should probably be screened for the condition at some point. An echocardiogram or MRI —”

“I’ve had those,” I said. “Both of them. Everything was normal.”

I remembered Mom’s panic over my headaches. Was it because she knew what had really killed Dad? Then why didn’t she tell me?

Maybe because I never asked. And whenever she tried to talk to me about Dad, I simply refused. I’d never been willing to talk about it.

“Well, that’s good,” Dr. Tilliman said. Then, after a long pause, she spoke again, with a note of curiosity in her voice. “Why did you call now? Why two years later?”

I swallowed hard. “I think I just finally wanted to know the truth.”

Monday, when I set my tray down beside him, Wyatt looked at me as if I’d lit the table on fire.

Then he instinctively glanced over at the couches, where Marnie’s group of friends sat without showing the slightest hint of wondering where I was.

“She’s home sick today,” I said. “It’s safe.”

“Someone might tell her,” he said.

Without answering, I pulled out a chair and sat down, pushing some of his books aside to make room for myself.

“Since we’re on the subject of Marnie,” I said. “Can you please tell me exactly what went on with you guys?”

“You want my side of the story?” He glanced up sharply. “Does this mean you don’t believe I stalked her?”

“On reflection,” I said, “Marnie seems to have a complicated relationship with the truth.”

He snorted. “You can say that.”

“I don’t understand, though,” I said. “What’s her deal?”

He looked unhappy. “In my estimation, Marnie’s kind of pathological. She’s charming, smart, and incredibly manipulative, with shockingly little concern for the feelings or well-being of other people. But hey, maybe that’s just my experience.”

“But why does she do those things?” I asked. “To what end?”

“To her own end,” he said, shrugging. “That’s the point. For the glory of Marnie.”

“She was so nice to me, though,” I said.

“Of course she was,” he said. “She wanted you to like her. She still wants you to like her. Heck, she still wants me to like her, even though she’s told half the school I stalked her. As much as she tries to pretend otherwise, she thrives on the approval of other people. And there’s basically no limit to what she’ll say to get it.”

I nodded.

“I don’t say this lightly,” Wyatt said. “And I’d rather you didn’t repeat it. Frankly, it’s not my business how Marnie wants to deal with the world. She taught me a pretty valuable lesson, and for that I’m actually grateful. It’s not my intention to spread rumors about her.”

“Even though she spreads them about you?”

He nodded.

“So what do I do?” I asked. “Stop hanging out with her?”

“You do whatever you feel the need to do.”

“Is she going to spread rumors about me, too?” As I asked the question, I realized the whole Bernadette Middleton drama wasn’t too far off the mark from rumor-spreading. “Actually, scratch that. I think I know the answer.”

Wyatt gave me an understanding look.

I sat back in my chair. Then I looked at Wyatt and took a huge breath. “And … also … you were right,” I said, studying my sandwich on the lunch tray. “About my dad. I talked to his doctor. He had a genetic heart condition.”

“Genetic?” Wyatt looked alarmed. “Then you should probably be screened for it.”

“It turns out I have been. Thanks for your concern, though.” Then I tried to smile apologetically, but I’m pretty sure it came out as a pained grimace. “And I’m sorry for what I said at your house.”

“No,” he said. “I’m sorry. You were wrong about a lot of things, but you were right that I had no business looking into your personal affairs.”

“We were both wrong,” I said. “Do two wrongs make a right?”

“Maybe in Marnie’s world.” He gave me an ironic smile. “So … anything to update?”

“Um, yeah,” I said. There was a pretty major update. I told Wyatt how I’d discovered Paige’s death online.

“Hold on.” Wyatt stared at me with his eyebrows raised. “You sat down and led with Marnie, rather than this huge revelation?”

“Because I knew that once I told you about Paige, we wouldn’t be talking about anything else,” I replied.

“Good point.” He nodded. “So did you look up the details of her death?”

“No,” I said. “I just … ran out of energy. I mean, I’ve been begging the ghost of Diana Del Mar to throw me a bone – not literally – and she’s gone. I mean, what’s the point?”

“The point?” Wyatt looked genuinely confused. “The point is to find out the truth.”

I’d forgotten how comforting it was to have someone around who believed you. Who was willing to help. I felt a grateful smile fighting its way to my lips.

But as my eyes met Wyatt’s, the cafeteria and everything in it faded to a white oblivion.