Dare Me - By Megan Abbott Page 0,78

that’s what he said. His phone.

His phone.

But why would Tacy call Mr. French? And if she did, why wouldn’t he know who she was?

So I call Tacy’s number, but it goes straight to voicemail.

Hey, beyotch, I’m out somewhere, lookin sick n sexified. Leave a message. If this is Brinnie, I never called you a bore. I called you a whore.

I’m glad it wasn’t your phone number, he’d said. I’m glad it wasn’t you.

Matt French, what is it you want me to know?

I drive to Tacy’s house, but she’s not there. Her jug-jawed sister is, the one who I always hear in the speech lab droning on about Intelligent Design when the Forensic League meets after school.

“Oh,” she says, eyeing me. “You’re one of those.”

Slouched against the doorframe, she’s eating wrinkly raisins from a small baggie, which is just the kind of thing those kinds of girls are always doing.

“She’s not here,” she says. “She borrowed my car to go to the school. To practice her hip rolling and pelvis thrusts.”

Looking at the cloudy Ziploc in her hand, at the sad gray sweater and peace sign nose ring, I say, “We don’t need to practice those.”

I see the ice blue hatchback in the parking lot, and pull in next to it.

The gym backdoor is propped open with a rubber-banded wedge of dry erasers, like we do when we want a place to drink Malibu before a party. And now some of us use it to practice weekends, off-hours, or we have since Coach drove our bodies to perfection, elevated our squad into sublimity.

I hear her first, her wheezy grunts and the soft push of pumas on airy mats.

Cheek still puffed from Thursday’s fall, she’s running tumbles. Throwing roundoff back handsprings, one after another. She should have a spotter because her technique, as ever, is pussy-weak.

“Stop throwing head,” I shout. “Arms against your ears.”

She stutters to a stop, nearly crashing into the padded wall at the far end.

“Fire, form, control, perfection,” I count off, like Coach always did.

“Who cares,” moans Tacy, breathlessly. “I’m ground-bound anyway. With Beth back, my life is practically over.”

She slides down the wall and collapses onto the floor, pulling cotton wisps from her glossed mouth. God love Tacy, full makeup on a Sunday morning, by herself, in the school gym.

“It’s only one game,” I say, even as I know it’s the Big Game, the Biggest Ever, and who cares about cheering spring baseball?

“Besides,” I add, “how long do you really think Beth can possibly last as captain?”

“I don’t know,” Tacy says, now picking cotton from under her grape-lacquered fingernails. “I think she might be captain forever.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because of what’s happening,” she says. “Coach French was the only one who could ever stop her. And now Coach is gone.”

“She’s not gone, she just—”

“She’s not coming back. Face it, Addy, it’s all over for Coach.” She looks at me, that swollen face of hers, lapin-jowled. “Which sucks because Coach was the only one who ever saw it in me. My potential, my promise.”

“Slaus, the only reason Coach put you up there is because you’re ninety-four pounds and you’re Beth’s pigeon,” I say, wanting to wring her little-girl neck. “If you care so goddamned much about Coach, why do you keep helping Beth?”

She looks startled but too dumb to be startled enough.

“I’m not helping Beth. Not anymore.”

“But you were.”

She takes a deep breath.

“Well, you don’t know what’s happened, Addy. Coach maybe did something really bad,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s Beth’s fault, sort of. But that’s no excuse. My dad says we’re an excuse society now.”

“Tacy,” I say, my voice grinding, “tell me what you mean. Tell me what you know.”

I press my foot against her bendy-straw leg, press it hard.

She looks at me, rabbit scared, and I know I need to slather some honey but keep that foot pressed too. That’s what she loves. Both those things at once.

“Tacy, I’m the only one who can help you now,” I say. “I’m the only one who can help.”

Her tears come and I fight off the urge to slap those swollen dewlaps of hers. I fight it off because she’s about to give me gold, and she doesn’t even know it. She thinks her gossip, her petty grievances are significant, but they are tiny pinholes. The things around them, though, the fabric of Beth’s lies and fictions, they are the gold.

“Coach was sleeping with the Sarge,” she says, eyes saucering up at me. “And she loved him. And