The Herd - Andrea Bartz Page 0,82

slurring and sobbing as she stumbled inside. They were dripping everywhere, trembling from the wetness and the terror. Jinny had slipped and hit her head on her way into the pool, they said again, and they’d tried to get her out but she’d gotten herself tangled in the pool cover, fighting them off as they tried to yank her out. And then she’d gone limp. By the time they’d pulled her onto the cold cement, she was already gone, already cold, already dead.

If I’d been out there…well, we’d never know. But it was easy to imagine things would have turned out differently. I’d have noticed her more quickly, coordinated our rescue effort. I’d have run inside and dialed 911. But even then, standing just inside the sliding doors, drunk and damp and high, I’d done nothing.

I’ve thought about it a lot since then. Perhaps I didn’t protest because my inebriated mind was performing some unspoken calculations. Four drunk women, three of them white. The cops who’d come knocking if we dialed those three numbers.

All at once, as I stood in front of the second-story window, sparkly static whooshed in front of my eyes, and my hands and feet screamed out with fizzy tingling. Holding on to the wall for support, I shuffled back into Eleanor’s room, closed the door, and sank to the floor.

My eyes fell on her grade-school yearbook, still leaning out from the shelf. It snapped into place, like popping a single bit of bubble wrap. Eleanor’s Gleam On article, the one we’d worked so hard on together, me pushing for more details until it was just right: The Herd’s origin story, how she’d hated this junior-high-only Adventure Camp, ropes courses under the male gaze, the long yarn from that to New York’s premier all-female coworking space and community. But if she hadn’t gone to middle school…?

Would Mikki know what to make of this? It was probably nothing, some simple explanation; Eleanor had gone to camp in grade school, maybe, and she’d moved the story up by a few years to make it more relatable, fudged the dates. I wandered the house, peering in on seating areas scattered every which way. Again, it struck me how cavernous this mansion seemed, how easy it was to lose a person, tangled in the neon-blue tarp stretched like skin over the pool outside. Mikki was nowhere to be found and this just compounded my confusion, a general sense of disorientation, of reality crumbling off in tiny flakes.

I almost walked directly into Karen, who was coming out of the basement, carrying wine.

“I—I wanted to see if you needed help with dinner or anything.”

She looked alarmed. “It’s not even five yet,” she replied.

“Oh. I…I fell asleep.”

She inched toward the kitchen. “Well, speaking of five o’clock, I was just going to open this nice Merlot blend. Can I get you some?”

She chattered nervously as she battled with a corkscrew, and I took in the scene: two empty bottles lined up by the sink, a lipstick-stained glass she’d pulled over next to her. While we visitors had retreated to our quarters, Karen had been drinking. Before today, even at fancy restaurants, I’d never seen her finish a glass.

She carried over two hearty pours and I clinked hers before taking a sip. Her small-talk soliloquy made me nervous; normally Gary was the talker. Finally she ran out of steam and fell silent.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked. “About Eleanor, I mean.” I looked down at the wine, gave it a little spin.

“Of course.”

“She skipped seventh and eighth grade, right?”

“That’s right, yeah. The school psychologist thought she’d be fine jumping three years ahead, but we thought that was a bit much.”

“Right.” I took another sip. “But she seemed okay with two?”

“Oh, she thrived.” Her voice cracked. “She seemed so relieved to be challenged, to not be sitting in class bored out of her skull. That boredom was much harder for her, being so far ahead of the other students. She’d grasp a concept in two seconds and then the class would spend two weeks on it.”

“For sure. That must’ve been awful.” I tapped a nail against the glass, listened to the chime. “How did you know it was bothering her? Was she acting out, or…”

“It wasn’t good for anybody. She was always…almost too smart for her own good, I’d say.” She grimaced. “Certainly smarter than the rest of us here, that much was clear.”

There was discomfort in this, pain in the jokey self-deprecation. Sober,