Emma Cline - The Girls

The table was stamped with rings from the bottles, the litter of dinner. I started to clear the dishes.

“You don’t have to do that,” Julian said, scooting back so I could reach his plate.

“You cooked,” I said.

Sasha made a peep of thanks when I added her plate to the stack. Zav’s phone lit up, shivering across the surface of the table. Someone was calling: a blurry photograph of a woman in underwear flashed on the screen.

“Is that Lexi?” Julian asked.

Zav nodded, ignoring the call.

A look passed between Julian and Zav: I didn’t want to notice it. Zav belched. They both laughed. I could smell the memory of chewed meat.

“Benny is doing computer shit now,” Zav said, “you know that?”

Julian hit the table. “No fucking way.”

I walked the dishes to the sink, gathering the balled paper towels from the counter. Sweeping crumbs into my hand.

“He’s fat as fuck,” Zav said, “it’s hilarious.”

“Is Benny the guy from your high school?” Sasha asked.

Julian nodded. I let the sink fill with water. Watching Julian swivel his body to mirror Sasha’s, knocking his knees into hers. He kissed her on the temple.

“You guys are too fucking much,” Zav said.

His tone had a tricky bite. I sank the dishes in the water. A scummy network of grease formed on the surface.

“I just don’t get it,” Zav went on, addressing Sasha, “why you stay with Julian. You’re too hot for him.”

Sasha giggled, though I glanced back and saw her labor to calculate a response.

“I mean, she’s a babe,” Zav said to Julian, “am I right?”

Julian smiled what I thought of as the smile of an only son, someone who believed he would always get what he wanted. He probably always had. The three of them were lit like a scene from a movie I was too old to watch.

“But Sasha and I know each other, don’t we?” Zav smiled at her. “I like Sasha.”

Sasha held a basic smile on her face, her fingers tidying the pile of torn label.

“She doesn’t like her tits,” Julian said, pulsing the back of her neck, “but I tell her they’re nice.”

“Sasha!” Zav affected upset. “You have great tits.”

I flushed, hurrying to finish the dishes.

“Yeah,” Julian said, his hand still on her neck. “Zav would tell you if you didn’t.”

“I always tell the truth,” Zav said.

“He does,” Julian said. “That’s true.”

“Show me,” Zav said.

“They’re too small,” Sasha said. Her mouth was tight like she was making fun of herself, and she shifted in her seat.

“They’ll never sag, so that’s good,” Julian said. Tickling her shoulder. “Let Zav see.”

Sasha’s face reddened.

“Do it, babe,” Julian said, a harshness in his voice making me glance over. I caught Sasha’s eye — I told myself the look in her face was pleading.

“Come on, you guys,” I said.

The boys turned with amused surprise. Though I think they were tracking where I was all along. That my presence was a part of the game.

“What?” Julian said, his face snapping into innocence.

“Just cool it,” I told him.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Sasha said. Laughing a little, her eyes on Julian.

“What exactly are we doing?” Julian said. “What exactly should we ‘cool’?”

He and Zav snorted — how quickly all the old feelings came back, the humiliating interior fumble. I crossed my arms, looking to Sasha. “You’re bothering her.”

“Sasha’s fine,” Julian said. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear — she smiled faintly and with effort. “Besides,” he went on, “are you really someone who should be lecturing us?”

My heart tightened.

“Didn’t you, like, kill someone?” Julian said.

Zav sucked his teeth, then let loose a nervous laugh.

My voice sounded strangled. “Of course not.”

“But you knew what they were going to do,” Julian said. Grinning with the thrill of capture. “You were there with Russell Hadrick and shit.”

“Hadrick?” Zav said. “Are you shitting me?”

I tried to rein in the hysterical lean coming into my voice. “I was barely around.”

Julian shrugged. “That’s not what it sounded like.”

“You don’t really believe that.” But there was no entry point in any of their faces.

“Sasha said you told her so,” Julian went on. “Like you could have done it, too.”

I inhaled sharply. The pathetic betrayal: Sasha had told Julian everything I’d said.

“So show us,” Zav said, turning back to Sasha. I was already invisible again. “Show us the famous tits.”

“You don’t have to,” I said to her.

Sasha flicked her eyes in my direction. “It isn’t a big deal or anything,” she said, her tone dripping with cool, obvious disdain. She plucked her neckline away from her chest and looked pensively down her shirt.

“See?” Julian said, smiling hard at me. “Listen to Sasha.”

—

I had gone to one of Julian’s recitals when Dan and I were still close. Julian must have been nine years old or so. He was good at the cello, I remembered, his tiny arms going about their mournful adult work. His nostrils rimed with snot, the instrument in careful balance. It didn’t seem possible that the boy who had called forth those sounds of longing and beauty was the same almost-man who watched Sasha now, a cold varnish on his eyes.

She pulled her shirt down, her face flushed but mostly dreamy. The impatient, professional tug she gave when the neckline caught on her bra. Then both pale breasts were exposed, her skin marked by the line of her bra. Zav exclaimed approvingly. Reaching to thumb a rosy nipple while Julian looked on.

I had long outlived whatever usefulness I had here.

I got caught; of course I did.

Mrs. Dutton on her kitchen floor, calling my name like a right answer. And I hesitated for just a moment — a stunned, bovine reaction to my own name, the knowledge that I should help the fallen Mrs. Dutton — but Suzanne and Donna were far ahead, and by the time I jarred back into that realization, they had almost disappeared. Suzanne turned back just long enough to see Mrs. Dutton clamp a trembling hand on my arm.

—

My mother’s pained and baffled declarations: I was a failure. I was pathological. She wore the air of crisis like a flattering new coat, the stream of her anger performed for an invisible jury. She wanted to know who had broken into the Dutton house with me.

“Judy saw two girls with you,” she said. “Maybe three. Who were they?”

“Nobody.” I tended my rigid silence like a suitor, full of honorable feelings. Before she and Donna disappeared, I tried to flash Suzanne a message: I would take responsibility. She didn’t have to worry. I understood why they’d left me behind. “It was just me,” I said.

Anger made her words garbled. “You can’t stay in this house and spout lies.”

I could see how rattled she was by this confusing new situation. Her daughter had never been a problem before, had always zipped along without resistance, as tidy and self-contained as those fish that clean their own tanks. And why would she bother to expect otherwise or even prepare herself for the possibility?

“You told me you were going to Connie’s all summer,” my mother said. Almost shouting. “You said it so many times. Right to my face. And guess what? I called Arthur. He says you haven’t been there in months. Almost two months.”

My mother looked like an animal then, her face made strange with rage, a gaspy run of tears.

“You’re a liar. You lied about that. You’re lying about this, too.” Her hands were clenched hard. She kept lifting them, then dropping them at her sides.