“Delusional,” she whispered again.
Delusional to come here today.
To think these bubble mailers of twenty-dollar infinity bracelets and threader earrings could one day save her.
To presume she could get in to Yale.
To imagine a life outside her dumpy town.
This didn’t feel like rising above. It felt like sinking down.
Down.
Down.
Claire had to focus. Her thoughts were spiraling, getting her nowhere. She opened her phone again, tapping on a familiar text thread labeled “Ainsley Internet.”
Claire knew her full name now: Ainsley St. John. Seven months ago, when the two of them had first met on an online Harper Everly group, she’d simply been username “AinsAGoGo.” She and Claire had connected over—what else?—their love for Harper Everly, both of them self-professed “Harperettes.”
Ainsley had commented on a post of Claire’s about good consignment shops in the Portland area.
I lived in Portland for fourteen years! Hopefully, these gems are still there:
Then Ainsley had listed those gems, and she and Claire had got to talking, tangent turning to tangent, and posts leading to DMs. That was how it had begun. They’d discovered their shared obsession with thrifting, The Great British Baking Show, and Bette Midler. They’d talked about growing up in Oregon, and how Claire was living in Nowheresville and Ainsley’s family had moved cross-country to Cleveland, which, according to her, wasn’t much livelier. They’d discovered they were both stressing about the SATs, and then they’d shared with each other that they were gay.
And that had been it. Claire, accustomed to crushing on unavailable girls at Emmet Middle and High, finally had a crush that could go somewhere. Sure, she and Ainsley had met on the Internet, but didn’t most people these days? And when no one at her high school was out, and simple statistics gave Claire slim odds for finding love in real life, meeting Ainsley felt … meant to be.
Ainsley was an Exceller, like her, bound for the same fate. They’d compared notes on the schools they meant to apply to, and when Ainsley had announced she was going to risk it by applying early action to Yale, Claire had decided she would too.
Delusional.
Temporary madness.
Claire had known how near-impossible it was to get into the Ivy League. Before meeting Ainsley, she’d planned on applying to state schools in big cities closer to home: PSU, UW, Cal State LA. Schools where she could get a scholarship, but she could also get out. Into a progressive city where she could be herself. Where she wouldn’t be a queer fish in a small, straight pond.
She wanted a new start. A haven.
A New Haven.
She hadn’t considered the East Coast before. It had seemed far-fetched. Ainsley had made it seem possible, though, and the more she and Claire had chatted, the more Claire had believed it was possible. Why not go all out, and take the risk? Yale could give her everything a big city could.
She’d thought she was being brave, not irrational. This was what Harper had promised: “Take the right steps, and your life will fall into place.” Claire had taken the right steps, from building a lucrative small business to working her butt off in school to slaying her SATs to bolstering her résumé with weekends at the soup kitchen. She only got five hours max of sleep per night, but that was how Excellers lived. Ainsley understood that in a way no one else had—a way that Eileen, for instance, never could.
And though, over the months of texting, Ainsley and Claire had remained in decidedly nonromantic territory, Claire felt sure Ainsley was thinking the same thing she was: Once they got to New Haven and met for the first time, sparks would fly.
So, okay, Ainsley had been posting for the last month about her girlfriend, Bri—selfies of the two of them in front of concert venues and food trucks. But that was only a momentary setback. A senior year fling. It’d be over by the time college began.
Claire had been holding on for that late August day when she’d show up on campus and say to herself, “All the work, it’s paid off.” She’d be getting an education and her first girlfriend, and she’d finally be free from the toxic stagnation that was Emmet, Oregon. She wouldn’t be dealing with sisters who asked annoying questions or gave her two years of the silent treatment. She wouldn’t be bitter about a Mom too busy with work to take Claire on college visits. Those bad parts of life would be over for good.
That had been the plan. Life had been all buoyant hopes and adrenaline, even throughout the nerve-wracking autumn months. When her spirits faltered, Claire told herself that Yale was going to happen. It had to, because she’d put in the work. She hadn’t lost faith.
Not until a week ago when she’d read her online rejection and ten minutes later gotten a text from Ainsley saying, YALE, BABY!
Claire hadn’t responded, because what was there to say?
A week later, she still couldn’t reply.
And what was she even doing, looking at the text?
Claire pocketed her phone.
“Delusional,” she said a third time.
Maybe she was.
Maybe college wasn’t happening, and Ainsley was another dream girl, out of reach, but the wait in this post office line had given Claire time to think. She’d made a decision: She would die before staying in Emmet another year.
In fact, she’d do a lot of desperate things.
SIX Murphy
Digging a grave was more difficult than the Internet made it seem. And this wasn’t even a regular grave.
Murphy had meant to get two feet down, but now she’d be happy to make it six inches. She looked to the sealed Tupperware container in which Siegfried lay wrapped in a holiday-printed napkin.
“Wanna pull a Lazarus for me?” she asked. “It’d make this easier.”
Siegfried remained dead.
He wasn’t the performer Murphy aspired to be. He was just a turtle who deserved better, and there was no magic trick that would bring him forth from his napkin burial shroud.
Murphy jabbed at the cold, hard earth. Maybe this would be easier if she had an actual shovel, instead of a garden spade. Maybe it’d be better if it were summer, and the ground weren’t caked in frost.
Maybe this wouldn’t be happening if she’d remembered to feed Siegfried like a good, responsible person.
When it came to choosing a burial site, Murphy had decided against her own yard. Neighbors might see and ask questions. Instead, she’d taken Siegfried off-site, walking a few street corners down to a place where no one would be: Morris Park. Here, a few yards into the tree line, down a loose gravel path, was a thick copse of evergreen trees.
Murphy figured it was symbolic: evergreen, the way Siegfried would remain evergreen … in her heart?
Yeah. Poignant. Siegfried deserved freaking poignancy.
The grave-digging was taking so long, though. Murphy had been here over half an hour and had hacked out only the barest outline of a square. It was getting dark. Dusk rested on the trees, and cold slithered beneath Murphy’s puffer coat, prickling gooseflesh from her skin.
It was silent.
Too silent.
In the summer the park was filled with joggers, barbecuers, yelling kids. Families gathered here for the Fourth of July, celebrating past midnight with sparklers and Bud Lights. In December, the park was a different place. A deserted chunk of icy ground.