Page 26 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

She’d blindsided me. “I... I didn’t... who told you that?”

“Nobody told me. Johnny’s the biggest weed dealer in the entire school, and he’s not half bad-looking. He bangs any girl he wants, and then he tells her to meet him someplace public so everyone can see the latest notch on his bedpost. I got to go to a basketball game.”

“You slept with him too?”

“Welcome to the club, girl. This your first time here?”

I nodded.

“Why don’t I help you lose your rock quarry virginity. We’ll get some beers and dance our brains out. This place totally rocks, and the sheriff usually gives us about an hour before he sends out the troops to chase our asses out of here.”

She was right. About everything. We drank some beer, danced our brains out, and had fun—a lot of fun. The cops showed up an hour later.

“Time to blow this pop stand,” she said. “Can you give me a ride? I came here with Tracey and Melissa, but you live right down the street from me, and besides, you’re a lot more fun.”

We got in my car, cackling like a couple of drunken schoolgirls.

“We’re on a roll,” Misty said. “Let’s not quit now.”

She opened her bag, pulled out a pint of vodka, unscrewed the cap, lifted the bottle in the air, and offered up a toast.

“Girl power!” she bellowed—two words that had started as the Spice Girls catchphrase and had swept the globe to become the official feminist battle cry of our era. She took a swallow and passed the bottle to me.

“I hate to sound like the class nerd,” I said, “but here’s to our senior year and getting into the college of our choice.” I tipped the vodka to my lips and took a swig. “Mine is Penn. What’s yours?”

“I’m not going to college,” she said, downing another drink.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “I know you hate sitting in a classroom, but college is so much more than that. You’ll have a blast.”

“Maggie, I’m not applying to college. My family doesn’t have the money. I’m not even sure I’ll finish high school, and if I do, it won’t be at Heartstone.”

“That’s crazy. You’re drunk.”

“No, I’m broke. My father doesn’t have a nickel to send me to college.”

I handed her the bottle and tried to clear my head. I knew her father. Arnold Sinclair owned a busy dry-cleaning store, and as far as I could tell, he was well-liked and well-off. The Sinclairs lived in a nice house, they bought Misty a car when she turned sixteen, and they went on a skiing vacation to Aspen over Christmas. There was no way they could be broke.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“You know the new fifteen-story apartment complex on Crosby Avenue?” Misty said. “It’s called the Commodore. Last winter my father signed a lease to open up a dry-cleaning store in that building.”

“I heard that.”

“It’s expensive. Our original store does pretty well, but it costs a lot to open a second store with all new equipment in a lah-dee-dah building like the Commodore. He sank a shitload of money into it—a lot more than he expected. Once he got started, he couldn’t pull the plug, and he wound up having to borrow from the bank, but he was sure it would pay off. He was going to open the new place in September, but it all went to hell. In July he went out of business.”

How did I not know that?I thought. And then I realized that my mother had always been the one to let us know if someone in the neighborhood got divorced, had a knee replacement, or won a hundred dollars on a scratch-off ticket.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Minna Schultz happened. Do you know her?”

“No.”

“She’s a real estate agent and a total cunt. When the Commodore was ready to start selling apartments, she went to one of the owners and tried to get an exclusive listing. He wouldn’t give it to her. So, she went to the guy’s partner and tried to get it from him. She thought she could play one owner against the other, but it backfired, and they gave the listing to another real estate agent.”

“Serves her right,” I said, trying to be supportive.

“Yeah, but then the bitch went totally ballistic. She decided to totally trash the Commodore and make it impossible for them to sell anything.”

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