Amy K. Green - The Prized Girl

Virginia

DETECTIVE COLSEN STOOD in my doorway two hours before I was ready to get up and start the day. He was already in a suit; I was in an oversized T-shirt and boxer shorts. He shoved a newspaper in my face and maneuvered past me and into my apartment uninvited.

It had been a long time since I held a newspaper and even longer since a man was in my apartment. I thought newspapers were a lost art, but there I was with my blurred-out middle fingers on the cover juxtaposed nicely with one of Jenny’s glamour shots. The subtle headline read, Jealous Sister Disrespects Dead Girl .

“You want to explain this?” he asked.

“Which part?” I threw the paper down on my makeshift coffee table that was technically a TV stand and flopped down on the couch.

“This is not the kind of attention we need right now.” He shook his head and helped himself to a seat next to me. It was too close for comfort, but my apartment didn’t have any other real seating.

“You can’t blame me for this. It should have said, Grieving Sister Hates Asshole Reporters .”

“They’re saying it because you skipped the funeral.”

“I made an appearance.”

“It rubbed people the wrong way. And now, the only time you visited your parents since the murder, you stayed for one hour, then reacted like this.” He pointed back to my cover photo.

“So what? I don’t like them. What do you want me to do?”

“Look, I know who did it. You know who did it. Everyone knows who did it, but the longer it takes us to find him, the more people get restless. They need to have something to talk about, to keep the story going, to point out other suspects.”

“So, now I’m a suspect?”

“No, no, you’re not a suspect. I’m just saying—”

“Why not? I could have done it. A lot of people could have done it. I think putting all your eggs in one basket is pretty shitty detective work.” I was only half awake and not in the mood to be scolded.

“Look, Virginia, I know you like the attention, but this is what I do, and when your antics interfere with me doing my job, we have a problem.”

“Attention” was such a weapon word, a grenade thrown out to get under my skin. I wanted to inform him I was perfectly capable of dying alone in a bunker, but regardless of my intentions, I was getting attention, and I didn’t like it either.

“What do you suggest?” I asked with as little sarcasm as I could manage.

“Just lie low. Look sad when you go outside. Visit your parents more. No bullshit.”

“OK,” I said and waited for him to leave. He didn’t budge.

“Do you have any coffee?” he asked, almost settling in.

The question caught me off guard and I think I made a stink face. I wasn’t sure what had just happened. The authority under which he arrived was blurring into something personal. I couldn’t ignore the invasive permission he granted himself because, what? I had smiled at him a few times? “I don’t have any coffee.”

“Oh, right, I’m sorry,” he said, standing. He seemed genuinely enlightened and subsequently embarrassed, and then I just felt bad. Maybe his intentions were not as seedy as I had been eager to assume.

“I think I have some tea?”

“Yeah?” he timidly confirmed the offer.

“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled.

The problem with a studio apartment is that it’s difficult to excuse yourself from a situation. In a regular apartment, getting the tea would have been a welcomed momentary escape into the kitchen. Instead, I stood and walked four feet to the kitchenette as he watched me the whole way.

I took a mug from next to the sink, filled it with tap water, and stuck it in the microwave.

“So, what do you do around here for fun?” he asked, raising his voice over the hum of the microwave.

I shrugged. “There is a bowling alley about twenty minutes away.”

“You like to bowl?”

“No. Did you mean me specifically? I thought you meant ‘you’ as in ‘you people.’”

“I mean you specifically.”

Anything I said he was going to turn into something we could do together. In a different world, maybe even just a different time, I suppose his interest could be welcomed.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to think about now, after Jenny.” I was going to hell for using Jenny’s death as a diversion, but it did the trick.

“I understand,” he said as the microwave went off.

I pulled open a drawer full of ketchup packets and plastic utensils and riffled around for a tea bag.

“Sorry, I can’t find any tea bags. I thought I had a few, but they aren’t in here.” I shut the drawer and looked at him, unsure of what to do next.

“It’s OK. Next time, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

He nodded and smiled without looking directly at me before excusing himself out the front door. Before it closed, I saw what I was too groggy to see when he first got there. The news vans were now parked on my street.

I would listen. I would lie low as instructed. I couldn’t afford to be part of the story. There was too much that I needed to stay hidden.

THE FALL KICKOFF DANCE was a noble tradition. The school moved the tables out of the cafeteria, hired a DJ, and charged all the eighth and ninth graders twenty-five dollars to occasionally dance, but mostly huddle in groups and whisper rumors about each other.

Jenny stepped through cheap streamers hanging from the doorway onto the tiled floors built to easily mop up the sticky remnants of two hundred teenagers a day. The overhead lights were off, and two spinning lights from the DJ table projected moving color streams over the young faces.

“Jenny!” Mallory screamed across the dance floor. The sea of inferior students parted at the sound of her voice, giving Jenny direct access to join her friends.

“You’re late,” Nora chimed in from behind Mallory.

“Yeah,” Mallory took over. “We had to come in. We couldn’t wait for you outside all night.”

“Sorry,” Jenny said, lacking all sincerity. “Did I miss anything?”

“Not really. Laura already called dibs on Josh, so don’t even consider him,” Mallory dictated.

“OK.”

“And Krystal, I really think you should go flirt with Chris Hodges. You two would look good together. He’s tall like you.”

“Chris is so dumb, though,” Krystal protested. “They’re pulling him out of English.”

“So what?” Mallory objected. “You’re not getting married. You just have to get experience and he’s cute enough.”

“What about you?” Jenny asked Mallory, buying time before she inevitably saddled her with a match.

“I’m into older guys. Christine Castleton says there are so many seniors talking about me. Even Kevin Neary.” She beamed.

“I’m into older guys too,” Jenny insisted, hoping there was room for two in that excuse.

“Bullshit,” Mallory scoffed. She had the kind of natural intelligence that would get her far in life without trying and make her unstoppable if she ever did. Everything came easy, which gave her a lot of free time in that mind of hers. Romantically pairing her peers was her current obsession, running scenarios to calculate the most interesting combinations to her and then orchestrating them into existence.

“Don’t be scared, Jenny. Just relax and have a good time. Let’s dance,” she commanded before leading her gaggle to the center of the dance floor.

Mallory and Nora began grinding on each other for the benefit of a group of boys leaning, arms crossed, against the wall. The boys didn’t even pretend to look away as Mallory and Nora rotated between duck faces in their direction and giggling with each other.