Page 44 of Final Girls

Sam increases her pace, making me do the same. We reach the door and start to push through it, but the man is behind us, moving fast, reaching out to tap me on the shoulder.

Out on the street, Sam prepares to run. Her body tenses next to mine, readying for the sprint. I tense up too, mostly because the man is right at my back now. His hand drops onto my shoulder, making me spin around and hold the purse out to him, as if in offering.

The man looks not at the purse but at the two of us, a stupid grin on his face. “Iknewit was you.”

“We don’t know you, man,” Sam says.

“I know you,” he says. “Quincy Carpenter and Samantha Boyd, right? The Final Girls.”

The man fishes in the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a pen tangled in a ring of keys. He yanks it loose and hands it to me.

“It’d be awesome if I could get your autographs.”

He then offers the newspaper. It’s a tabloid, the cover stretched tight and facing us. When I look at it, I see my own face staring back at me.

“See?” the man says, proud of himself.

I teeter backward, dropping to Earth, the sidewalk under my feet suddenly hard and jarring. A second look at the newspaper confirms what I already know.

Somehow, Sam and I have become front-page news.

12.

Our picture takes up most of the front page, filling it all the way to the masthead. The image shows Sam and me during our first meeting, standing outside my building, sizing each other up. It captures me at my very worst—with my weight shifted to my right leg, hip jutting, arms crossed in suspicion. Sam’s positioned slightly away from the camera, with just a slice of her pale profile visible. Her knapsack is still settling at my feet and her mouth yawns open as she speaks. I recall that moment with cutting exactitude. It was right before Sam started to say,You don’t need to be such a bitch.

The headline sits below the photo in large, red letters:SOULSURVIVORS.

Beneath it is a photo of Lisa Milner, similar to the one on her book cover. Next to it is a headline smaller in size but no less alarming:FINALGIRLSMEETAFTERSUICIDEOFKILL-SPREEVICTIMLISAMILNER.

I look to the masthead again. It’s the same tabloid that reporter idling outside my building yesterday said he worked for. His name lurches into my head. Jonah Thompson. That devious prick. He must have still been there, spying on us while scrunched in the front seat of a parked car, camera poised on the dashboard.

I snatch the newspaper from the autograph hound and start to walk away.

“Hey!” he says.

I keep walking, tripping down Fifth Avenue. Even though my legs are wobbly from Xanax, my muscles yearn for another. And then another.As many as it takes to plunge me into oblivion for a few days. Which still wouldn’t be enough to snuff out my anger.

I flip through the newspaper as I walk. Inside it is a bigger photograph of Lisa and a series of shots detailing the first conversation between Sam and me, all taken from the same angle. I look gradually less angry in those pictures, my stance and expression softening. As for the actual article, I can barely make it through the first two paragraphs.

“What does it say?” Sam asks as she hurries to keep up.

“That we’re both in the city, united by Lisa’s sudden suicide.”

“Well, it’s kind of the truth.”

“And it’s no one’s goddamn business but ours. Which is exactly what I’m going to say to Jonah Thompson.”

I toss through the newspaper until I find the address of its newsroom. West Forty-Seventh Street. Two blocks south and one block west. I surge forward, fueled only by rage. I go two steps before realizing that Sam hasn’t moved. She stands on the corner, nibbling at her cuticles while watching my retreat.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Sam shakes her head.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not a good idea.”

“Says the woman who just encouraged me to shoplift.” This turns the heads of several people passing by. I don’t care. “I’m still going.”

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