Just beyond the exercise area is another door, which leads into the room we’ve always referred to as the Altar of Allison Harris. The room is papered with Ally’s old drawings, none of them good, most dating back to elementary school. The bookshelves are crowded with pictures of her: Ally dressed up like an octopus for Halloween in first grade, Ally wearing a green velvet dress and smiling in front of an enormous Christmas tree absolutely collapsing with ornaments, Ally squinting in a bikini, Ally laughing, Ally frowning, Ally looking pensive. And on the lowest shelf, every single one of Ally’s old yearbooks, from kindergarten on. Ally once showed us how Mrs. Harris had gone through all the books, one by one, placing colored sticky tabs on each one of Ally’s friends from year to year. (“So you can remember how popular you always were,” Mrs. Harris had told her.)
I drop to my knees. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for, but there’s an idea taking shape in my head, some old memory that disappears whenever I will it to take form, like those Magic Eye games where you can only see the hidden shape when your eyes aren’t in focus.
I start with the first-grade yearbook. I open it directly to Mr. Christensen’s class—just my luck—and there I am, standing a little ways apart from the group. The flash reflected in my glasses makes it impossible to see my eyes. My smile is closer to a wince, as though the effort hurts. I flip past the picture quickly. I hate looking through old yearbooks; they don’t exactly bring back a flood of positive memories. Mine are stashed somewhere in the attic, with all the other crap my mom insists I keep “because you might want it later,” like my old dolls and a ratty stuffed lamb I used to carry with me everywhere.
Two pages later I find what I’m looking for: Mrs. Novak’s first-grade class. And there Lindsay is, front and center as always, beaming a big smile at the camera. Next to her is a thin, pretty girl with a shy smile and hair so blond it could be white. She and Lindsay are standing so close together their arms are touching all the way from their elbows to their fingertips.
Juliet Sykes.
In the second-grade yearbook, Lindsay is kneeling in the front row of her class. Again, Juliet Sykes is next to her.
In the third-grade yearbook, Juliet and Lindsay are separated by several pages. Lindsay was in Ms. Derner’s class (with me—that was the year she invented the joke: “What’s red and white and weird all over?”). Juliet was in Dr. Kuzma’s class. Different pages, different classes, different poses—Lindsay has her hands clasped in front of her; Juliet is standing with her body angled slightly to the side—and yet they look exactly the same, wearing identical powder blue Petit Bateau T-shirts and matching white capri pants, which cut off just below the knee; their hair, blond and shining, parted neatly down the middle; the glint of a small silver chain around both of their necks. That was the year it was cool to dress up like your friends—your best friends.
I pick up the fourth-grade yearbook next, my fingers heavy and numb, cold running through me. There’s a big Technicolor portrait of the school on its cover, all neon pinks and reds, probably painted by an art teacher. It takes me a while to find Lindsay’s class, but as soon as I do my heart starts racing. There she is with that same huge smile, like she’s daring the camera to catch her looking less-than-perfect. And next to her is Juliet Sykes. Pretty, happy Juliet Sykes, smiling like she has a secret. I squint, focusing on a tiny blurred spot between them, and think I can just make out that their index fingers are linked together loosely.
Fifth grade. I find Lindsay easily, standing front and center in Mrs. Krakow’s classroom, smiling so widely it looks like she’s baring her teeth. It takes me longer to find Juliet. I go through all the photographs looking for her and have to start over from the beginning before I spot her, far up in the right-hand corner, sandwiched between Lauren Lornet and Eileen Cho, shrinking backward like she wants to suck herself out of the frame altogether. Her hair hangs in front of her face like a curtain. Next to her, both Lauren and Eileen are angled slightly away, as though they don’t want to be associated with her, as though she has some contagious disease.
Fifth grade: the year of the Girl Scout trip, when she peed in her sleeping bag and Lindsay nicknamed her Mellow Yellow.
I put the yearbooks back carefully, making sure to order them correctly. My heart is thumping wildly, an out-of-control drum rhythm. I suddenly want to get out of the basement as quickly as possible. I shut off the lights and feel my way up the stairs blindly. The darkness seems to swirl with shapes and shadows, and terror rises in my throat. I’m sure that if I turn around I’ll see her, all in white, stumbling with her hands outstretched, reaching for me, face bloody and broken apart.
And then I’m upstairs and there she is: a vision, a nightmare. Her face is completely in shadow—a hole—but I can tell she’s staring at me. The room tilts; I grab on to the wall to keep myself steady.
“What’s your problem?” Lindsay steps farther into the hall, the moonlight falling differently so that her features emerge. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Jesus.” I bring my hand to my chest, trying to press my heart back to its normal rhythm. “You scared me.”
“What were you doing down there?” Her hair is messed up, and in her white boxers and tank top she could be a ghost.
“You were friends with her,” I say. It pops out like an accusation. “You were friends with her for years.”
I’m not sure what answer I’m expecting, but she looks away and then looks back at me.