10. Liz
LIZ
“WHAT THE HELL, Jayne?”
Normally, I try not to be actively bitchy toward Sadie’s sister in front of her. I know she doesn’t like the fact that Jayne and I don’t get along, and more often than not, she probably just feels like she’s stuck in the middle. But I can’t help it; I’m pissed.
“It was an accident, okay? And besides, Carly pretty much already knew Trevor was having a party.”
“I don’t buy it. You just didn’t want us to go out tonight, so you waited until we weren’t around and just conveniently let it slip.”
Jayne rolls her eyes. “Believe it or not, Lizzie, I don’t really care what you do. I was looking forward to having the house to myself.”
Sadie gives her a look. I know that look. She’s not buying it.
“Did you invite someone over or something? Is it that college guy you’ve been texting?”
“He’s been texting me,” Jayne replies. “He’s hot, but beyond that he’s a bore.”
It doesn’t escape my attention that Jayne didn’t actually answer Sadie’s question.
“Wait, since when?” Sadie demands. “I thought you were kind of into him?”
I start to tune them out. I don’t care who Jayne may or may not be texting; what I really care about is that our Friday-night plans just got completely destroyed, and it’s all because Jayne picked this particular afternoon to be a snitch.
Honestly, I’m not sure if this college guy is even real.
Jayne makes shit up all the time, if you ask me.
But of course Sadie is all in and seems to have already forgotten she was mad at Jayne.
“Listen,” Jayne says, leaning forward on the kitchen counter. Sadie and I lean in too.
“I feel really bad about this. Carly and Steven are going to be out of here as soon as they finish getting their stuff together. They trust me—no offense, Dee.” Sadie shrugs.
I know she doesn’t mind. Jayne has always been the more responsible of the two of them.
The one more likely to be left in charge.
She is, after all, the “older” sister. Even if the difference is only three minutes.
“Anyway,” Jayne continues, “I’ll cover for you guys tonight. If you want to go. I still think it’s a bad idea, but I was kind of hoping you’d reach that conclusion on your own.”
God, she sounds so much like a parent sometimes.
“So, before you go, we’ll just take some photos of us chilling out with a pizza or whatever, and then you can go, and we can send those to Mom and Dad if they text to check up on us. Cool?”
Sadie looks ready to agree on the spot, but I don’t trust Jayne. She must have an angle.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, not bothering to hide the suspicion from my voice.
“Because it’s senior year, and I know you guys probably don’t have that much time left together before you go your separate ways for school. And like I said, I made my own plans tonight, and they really don’t include the two of you also being home…”
The dig isn’t lost on me—what Jayne said about me and Sadie not having much time left together before going our “separate ways.” She knows I’m applying to Loyola too. She just doesn’t think I’m going to get in.
“Come on, Liz,” Sadie says. “Just take the win. Let’s go out tonight and have fun. Jaynie can stay here and have her own kind of fun.” Sadie gives her sister a wink. “I mean, what are we going to do? Stay home based on the principle of the thing?”
She’s right, of course.
“Okay, okay,” I say. “Besides, my new top is too cute not to be seen.”
“That’s my Patch!” Sadie says, throwing an arm around me.
“You seem to deeply distrust Jayne Cooper.”
Detective Budd has been listening intently. It’s a nice change, actually, to feel like an adult is listening to me.
“I mean, yeah. Didn’t that Norris guy tell you what I told him?”
“About Jayne going through Steven Cooper’s things?”
“Yeah. I’m telling you, she took his medication out of his bag.”
“And why would she do that? You just said that she had her own plans last night. Sounds like some guy was coming over. Surely she wouldn’t want her parents walking back in on that?”
“I don’t know why she did it. I’m just telling you, that’s what I saw.”
“Okay.” Detective Budd makes a note. “I understand that’s what you believe you saw. I promise you I will ask Jayne about it.”
“You’re talking to her too?” I ask, wishing my voice didn’t sound so nervous.
“Yes. I’m speaking to you, Jayne Cooper, and Ben Carrera. I asked for full access to this case, Miss Stratton. That’s how you make sure nothing gets lost in the shuffle.”
Lost in the shuffle… That statement should make me feel better, but somehow it only makes me feel worse.
“I’d like to switch gears for a moment, if we could,” she continues.
“Um, okay.”
“Can you tell me a little bit about how you met Sadie? The two of you clearly had an incredibly strong bond. I understand you’ve been friends for a long time, and I’d like to hear more about that.”
“What does that have to do with what happened?”
“I just want to get to know you better, Miss Stratton. And I need to get to know Sadie better too. She may be gone now, but she still has a lot to say. The best way I can figure out what that might be is by talking to the people who knew her best. You’re one of them.”
Well, she’s right about that. I probably know—knew—Sadie better than anyone. Even Jayne, even Ben. Definitely her own parents. And it feels nice to be asked a question that doesn’t make me feel like I’m being pushed into a corner.
“Okay,” I say. “Yeah. The first thing you need to know, which I guess you probably already know by now, is that my stepdad Levi and I moved here when I was twelve. That’s a really shitty age to move, and I had a hard time my first few weeks at school here.
Everyone was making fun of my accent, and I didn’t have the right clothes or know the right slang or whatever.
It was tough. Anyway, I noticed that there was this one girl in my social studies class who was always staring at me.
Not in a mean way, like some of the other kids did, just in a curious way.
One day during lunch, the teasing got really nasty, people calling me things like Kentucky Fried Bitch and stuff. ”
“Jesus. At twelve years old?”
“It’s been a long time since you were in school, Detective. No offense. But you probably don’t remember how awful girls can be.”
“Fair enough. Go on.”
“So, anyway, I was in the bathroom crying, and in walked the girl who was always staring at me in social studies. She asked me if my accent was real, and I said that it was, and she told me that she thought it was really cool and that I sounded like a country music star. It was a lie, but I really appreciated her saying it. She introduced herself and promised she would beat up anyone else who made fun of me, and that was kind of it. We became best friends.” I smile at the memory.
“And when did you meet Jayne?”
“Not until the first time I was over at the Coopers’ house, maybe two weeks after Sadie and I had started hanging out.
I knew she was a twin, obviously, and I thought I’d maybe seen Jayne around the school, but she was in a bunch of advanced classes, and our paths had just never crossed.
But I could tell Jayne didn’t like me from the start. ”
“What makes you say that?”
I pause for a moment. I don’t like to spend too much time thinking about my first meeting with Jayne Cooper. It’s easy to tell myself it’s just because she was jealous, but it’s more complicated than that.
“She, um, she told me something about Sadie. I remember that we were sitting in the kitchen, and Sadie had gone upstairs to get a sweatshirt or something, and I was trying to kind of chat with Jayne. Then Jayne just stopped the conversation and looked me right in the eyes, and she told me, ‘My sister has a habit of collecting people like stray dogs. I’d be careful if I were you.’ ”
Detective Budd raises her perfect eyebrows. “She said that to you at twelve years old?”
“Once you talk to her, you’ll realize it’s kind of a normal sort of thing Jayne would say.”
“Interesting. And how did you take that?”
“I took it as what it was. A threat.”
“Hm.”
I hate when people just say “hm” and nothing else. Shit or get off the pot, you know? I have no intention of following up on the “hm” until I realize that I still have zero power in this situation. Damn, Detective Budd is good. For a few minutes, I forgot that I was being interrogated.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll bite. Why ‘hm’?”
She cocks her head to one side and studies me carefully. “Do you suppose it’s possible that Jayne was trying to warn you, not threaten you?”
Jayne Cooper, warn me? About her own sister?
The idea is ridiculous, and I nearly laugh in Detective Budd’s face.
What would Jayne even have to warn me about back then?
We were just kids. Sure, some shady shit has gone down since then, and Sadie hasn’t always been the best friend.
She hasn’t always been as loyal as I’ve been.
But it’s different for her, dating Ben, being the golden girl.
Sadie has dealt with levels of pressure that I’ll never understand.
It makes sense that sometimes she would lash out, or get angry at me, or ask me to take the blame for things.
It makes sense that I would have to deal with her shit to stay in the good graces of the Cooper family. For better or worse. Lately, it’s been more and more for worse.
“Miss Stratton? I asked if you think it was possible that Jayne was trying to warn you. If there is anything about Sadie, anything that you know now as the person closest to her for years, that would help make sense of what Jayne said when you were kids.”
“No, nothing. Sorry to disappoint you, Detective, but this is as simple as Jayne hating me because I took her place as Sadie’s best friend.”
Detective Budd seems satisfied, and she moves back to talking about the party last night. I’m relieved, even though this line of questioning is harder.