A few things you need to know before reading this:
Miguel and Theresa aren't brother and sister
Simone is older than Theresa
Simone and Theresa are friends
Theresa's father is still alive
Kay and Charity aren't cousins
DISCLAIMER: This is mostly John Neufield's dialogue and James E. Reily'scharacters, I'm just put the two together for everyone's enjoyment.
My name is Theresa Fitzgerald, and I count less than almost anyone else in this story.
What that means is that I'm not overconfident about things. It's nothing like a huge complex or anything; a lot of books say it's common in people my age, which is fifteen.
I'm not what you would call ravishingly beautiful, except for my teeth. These, as my father will be the first to tell you, are three thousand dollars' perfect.
I'm about average height (five-four), and I have dark, straight hair that falls to my shoulder blades without the slightest natural curl. My eyes are big, brown and near sighted, and when I absolutely have to I wear glasses.
Years ago my eye doctor told me that big, beautiful eyes are almost always near sighted. It's kind of well-meant statement that just rolls around and rankles like crazy when you're in front of a mirror looking into a horn rimmed face.
The only thing that's even vaguely interesting about me is my ambition. I do not want to be anything special--just what I think I'd be good at: being married. Maybe with a couple of kids and a really hot-looking husband, living on a beach in California, reading about other special people who wanted to be something more and were.
Right now, what I am is plain, single, and alive on Long Island (if you can stand it). But I am sort of simple, which, when you find out more about some of the other people involved with Kay Bennett, and about Kay herself, is probably a very good thing.
To begin with, there's Simone Russell, who used to live in California! There are a few important things to know about Simone fast: she's very, very smart (she'd like to be the first woman President); her father's a minister, which has been madly helpful to us because he has a thousand and one books about everything you can imagine; and she's not like meat all.
She doesn't wear glasses; she looks like Naomi Campbell; she has a great laugh and eyes that make you smile back without thinking. And she's fantastically popular with boys.
Sometimes I stand near her just to see how many of which of them will come up to talk. It's basking in her reflection, but it makes me feel a little prettier so it can't be all bad. Besides, psychologically, as long as I know the reasons for doing what I do, whatever I do is okay (that's a rough translation of something in one of Simone's father's books).
In spite of the fact that I'm younger than Simone (I got a quicker start in nursery school, so I wound up a little ahead of myself), she and I are friends. That means more than just living within a couple of blocks of each other. Like we talk on the phone a lot, go shopping together, and spend the night at each other's house every once in a while.
It's on those nights that I get my lessons; Simone thinks I need help in the boy department. I mean, if you examine my diary for the past year, you won't find it exactly bulging with gushy thoughts.
So Simone spends a lot of time smartening me up. She arranges my hair and my wardrobe, and insists on hiding my glasses (with contacts). She thinks I depend on them too much. I think I'm climbing the stairs standing still without them.
Naturally, we talk about everything in the world, from civil rights (which are Simone's big thing) to sex (which would be mine if I knew anything about firsthand). And movie stars and hippies, and free love, pot, potato pancakes and, Ricky Martin; *NSYNC, censorship, Destiny's Child. Strobe lights and see-throughs, Ethel and her kids, Freddie Prinz, Jr., Mariah Carey, the Iron Butterfly, and Freddie Prinz, Jr. Riots, Greenwich Village, suicide, San Francisco, diet Jell-O, and Miguel Lopez.
He, if you want to know, is the cutest boy in our class. I mean it. He is absolutely gorgeous! The thing is, of course, he knows it. Still, damn he's fine!!! Simone likes to take him apart psychologically, examining every thing he does for hidden motives and meanings. I just like to look at him.
Of course, he didn't belong to either one of us, then. He was Kay's. At least, he was for a while before she went away.
If Simone is the All-American Girl, and I nail down the All-American Schlep spot, the role of Princess belongs to Charity Standish.
Charity is something else. For one thing, she has piles of loot. For another, she hardly seemed as though she were in our school at all. It was more like she was just visiting each day.
Which sounds dumb, I know. The reason for it is that Charity is like Drew Barrymore used to be: regal, cool, far off, blonde and slim, and with clothes you wouldn't believe. And intelligent.
Simone is smart and studies. Charity is intelligent. She never raises her hand in class, but if a teacher calls on her, she has the right answer as though it were something everyone automatically knew.
Furthermore, if you're suddenly missing a boy, look for Charity, the flame among the moths.
To be fair, though, the thing about her and boys was that she moved here maybe a year and a half ago. So, of course, being a new girl and all, and being beautiful and loaded, you had to forgive a lot and understand instead.
What Charity Standish had I hadn't (besides wealth, beauty, brains and such) was confidence. By the ton. She never explained anything, and never made excuses. If she, C. Standish, did something, then of course it must have been right. At first, you thought she was unbelievably conceited. Later on, you didn't.
So there we all are, the three of us, with a sneaky look at Miguel Lopez (who just happens to look like a Latin Freddie Prinz, Jr., which certainly doesn't do any harm). What you don't have yet is a very complex, very simple—clever as can be but scary as hell—sometimes cheerful and often so depressed you wanted to lock her up until the mood passed—the girl named Kay Bennett.
Kay was crazy.
But not like "crazy, man!" I mean out of her skull. Sick, psychologically. Insane.
We noticed something a few months ago. When she noticed it no one knew, but it was long before she tried to kill Charity and, after that, herself.