What Happened to Those Girls

One

Paisley Horne is keeping a secret from me. They all are.

But tonight feels different. I’m not going to pretend I don’t see it.

The dinner is the first of our two Friday after-school traditions: a meal out and a sleepover at Opal’s house.

It’s barely six p.m., but October’s creeping out of daylight savings time, so the view out of our horseshoe-shaped booth window is a blanket of black.

The only light comes from the buzzing red neon that lines the nearly-century-old drive-up area.

There’s usually a classic car show around this time, full of old men who smile at us too long, but it got canceled tonight with a single handwritten sign hanging on the front doors.

“Yeah,” Opal says from the other end of the booth, Harlow between us.

She mimics me with her Diet Coke, her sparkly pink nails wrapping around the red plastic cup.

Her newly cut bob of black hair swishes against her jaw as she moves.

She’s got the menu open, but I know what she’s going to order. “She’s fine.”

“Why do you keep asking?” Harlow asks, closing her own menu. Once her menu is down, she picks up her phone with the vintage Lisa Frank case and starts scrolling. “She’s just fixing her makeup. It’s nothing unusual for her.”

But it is unusual for her. She hates public restrooms, especially Bob’s, which she’s deemed “too old,” as if the restaurant hasn’t updated them many times since they opened in 1949. She’d rather—and has made us—drive home than go into them.

I know Harlow and Opal know this. They should be concerned too.

“Is something wrong with you?” Opal asks.

She leans a little across the vinyl tabletop, a furrow between her brows she’s told us on many occasions she plans to remove with Botox once she’s legal.

Maybe it’s just me having come from a public school system, but I swear I didn’t even realize half the applications for Botox before attending Hastings School.

“No,” I say. “I just…” …have gotten weird vibes from Paisley since we met at Bob’s.

She didn’t say a word when we came in, despite her having auditioned for some new indie movie last night.

Paisley always talks. And Paisley always talks about her auditions, even if they didn’t go well.

“Y’know, if it’s a bathroom issue or something, we don’t have to stay. ”

Harlow scrunches up her face as Opal barks out a laugh.

“Jeez, Emma, don’t make things gross,” Harlow groans.

The only other explanation I can think of is that Paisley got into some kind of trouble she doesn’t feel comfortable telling me about. But what could that be?

“I don’t think that’s possible, Har,” Paisley says as she suddenly materializes and slides into the booth next to me. She shoots me a smile with that playful little sparkle in her eyes.

Paisley has the kind of face you can’t help but look at: big doe eyes, sharp cheekbones, creamy skin so smooth she looks like she’s bypassed adolescence altogether and reached the ideal beauty people in their early twenties possess.

Between her perfect teeth, shiny blond hair, and bright blue eyes, she looks like a genuine fairy-tale princess.

But she doesn’t just draw you in with her face; she leads every smile with a touch.

Right now, she brushes her thigh against mine as she adjusts in her seat, a burst of heat between us before she scoots a few inches away to make the distance more friendly.

It’s usually a comfort when she touches me with such ease.

After I came out as bi earlier this year, she never made it weird.

And when Paisley accepted me, Harlow and Opal followed in lockstep.

Paisley didn’t give them a chance to have a problem with it and nails the point in every chance she gets.

“The grass is green and Emma has something to say about bodily fluids,” Paisley jokes. “Usually it’s blood, though.”

Harlow and Opal laugh, but I don’t. I’m too focused on trying to get a good look at Paisley’s face to confirm the makeup theory. But before I get the chance to confirm, Paisley leans in toward me and whispers, “Wouldn’t want it any other way, though.”

When she pulls away, I finally get a good look at her. My chest tightens. Her makeup looks exactly same as when she came in, down to the flecks of mascara stuck to her upper lid from rubbing her eye. She wasn’t fixing it after all.

So what was she doing in there?

“Just…concerned,” I say, realizing I need to respond to Paisley’s teasing before Harlow and Opal think I’m acting too weird here.

Paisley chuckles. “I’m fine. It’s sweet you miss me, though.”

Paisley pulls her ice water to her lips and gazes out our window. I try to catch Opal’s eye, one last attempt to get someone to feel as weirded out by Paisley’s behavior as I am. But Opal shuts her menu and says, “Ready to order now, Pais?”

Paisley nods, dropping the menu closest to her on top of my opened one, her manicure a fresh neon orange for the season.

I flinch at the sound of plastic slapping the table and dismiss the twinge of annoyance that I haven’t had the proper time to look.

But it’s Bob’s; we come here all the time. It’s fine.

Opal flags down the waitress, a pretty woman with hair just as red as her lipstick, who’s definitely too old for me.

Everyone orders exactly as they have for the other several hundred dinners we’ve shared—Opal gets her usual salad, Harlow opts for some item she’s never had before, I pick the burger combo they’re famous for, and Paisley orders the smallest burger and a side salad.

She calls it “real” balance—eyeing Opal pointedly—but will be stealing my fries within a few minutes.

I manage to look at the waitress’s face as she listens to us, but when she smiles and makes eye contact with me, my gaze falls back to the table. Heat runs up my neck as the waitress says, “Coming right up, sweeties.”

Opal smirks at me as the waitress’s heels click away. “You’re blushing.”

Suddenly, I wish I had on the thickest foundation possible, but I still haven’t quite figured out makeup. “She’s too old.”

“Maybe she’ll wait,” Harlow comments, only making me blush harder. “You know you’d looove that.”

I wouldn’t—god, that’d be mortifying—and Harlow knows that.

“Please, guys, she still has to deliver our food,” I say, my voice getting smaller.

I tense, waiting for Paisley to give her opinion about how I’m acting around the pretty waitress.

But she’s still looking out the window. The moment of distraction fades away as we return to just the four of us, Paisley still acting weird.

I dig my nail into my thigh as I rehearse different ways to ask Paisley what’s going on.

I wish I could just let it go, but I’m so tired of feeling like an outsider in my own friend group.

When I finally settle on a phrasing, I turn to Paisley. But she opens her mouth first. “Hey, Em, did you get more information on that camping spot you mentioned earlier this week?”

Ordinarily, the change of subject to one of my areas of expertise would have me grinning.

But I can’t ignore the timing. “Yeah,” I say slowly, pulling out my phone.

“The campsite is available, pretty cheap, and the hike into the ghost town is under five miles. Totally doable, especially with the weather cooling off. The ghost story associated with this place is wild, by the way.”

“What is it?” Paisley asks, ever so slightly leaning into me again. Her sweet body spray perfumes my nose.

I’m not the best at making eye contact, especially when I get excited, so I focus on our various objects on the table—our phones, the sweating glasses, wads of paper from the straws, utensils still wrapped up.

I see Paisley’s phone in particular as it explodes with texts. The names go by so fast I can’t read them.

“So the story goes that a schoolteacher in the early 1900s took her group of fifth graders to this old mining town for a field trip…” I say.

And then the names stop flowing so fast.

I recognize Harlow’s, no preview. My heart leaps into my throat.

Harlow herself looks over at me through her intricate purple eye makeup, her phone clearly in her lap like she’s texting in class.

My jolt of surprise rots into disgust, like she really thinks I’m being the nosy one in this situation.

We’re close enough together for me to see the whites of her icy brown eyes.

“The teacher was the only one who came back alive,” I continue, trying to ignore the sour feeling growing in my stomach. “They think she sacrificed them to the devil by…”

More texts.

Paisley and I make eye contact. Every muscle in my body goes tense.

But all she does is turn her phone over. “And then what?” Paisley asks, her voice ever so slightly higher.

“Sacrificed to the devil by poison,” I mumble. “They were all poisoned at dinner that night. They say if you sit in the abandoned buildings after dark, you can still hear the children laughing.”

Opal’s staring, her plush lips ever so slightly agape in shock. “Shit, I’m getting chills. When are we doing this trip again?”

“Soon,” Paisley says, suddenly picking up her phone and raising it for a selfie. “Pose!” We all throw on smiles seconds before the click of her phone. Paisley’s eyes light up before she says, “Yes, it’s so cute! Posting this one.”

Despite the lack of agency over what photo gets posted, my muscles loosen as I get the notification that I’ve been tagged in a post. ????♀?? for the caption. I type a few hearts back as replies from our classmates come pouring in.

“Be right back,” Paisley says, stepping up out of the booth. “Text me if the food comes.”

Opal and I watch as Paisley goes.

This is so off. I stand up. Maybe if I follow her, we can have an actual conversa—

Harlow puts her hand on my thigh and pushes me back down.

“Paisley’s fine, Emma,” Harlow says with a stern look.

Embarrassed, I sit back down. Across the booth, Opal shrugs.

“I think we were going with the week before Halloween for our camping trip,” Harlow continues, not missing a beat. “That way, on Halloweekend we can go to a party and have a movie night. We can finally do Beetlejuice.”

Harlow gives me a wink that only makes me fidgety.

I tend to oscillate yearly between special interests.

My fixations are always on celebrities from movies or TV I love.

It’s been women in horror for a few years now.

Currently, it’s Winona Ryder, baffling my friends and family.

There’s no easy way to explain that sapphics having crushes on hot middle-aged women is actually pretty normal.

Plus, with Winona, there’s something about the plethora of information to learn about her—her incredible range of movies, how her work defined genres in the ’80s, how she herself defined both the goth culture and celebrity culture in the ’90s.

Then there’s her fall from grace in the aughts, her quiet era, and how people my age grew up with her on her TV work and then developed a new fan culture latching onto the same idol for quirky goth outcasts as teens did in the ’80s.

She’s been my comfort and my artistic muse for going on nine months now.

My friends finally agreeing to watch one of my favorite movies should be filling me with absolute elation.

Should. My mom’s words float through the growing storm of unease: You’re just a little sensitive, Emma.

But no, I’m not. Paisley never disappears like this.

Paisley and Harlow don’t text each other while in the same booth.

This is different, and I need to open my goddamn mouth and say something.

“Oh, okay, cool,” Opal says, smiling at me. “Can’t wait for all of that!”

Says Opal, the person who can barely get through Knott’s Scary Farm, a Halloween experience primarily designed for middle schoolers.

“Seriously, guys,” I say, craning my neck to look toward the bathroom. We’re situated in the back of the restaurant with the bathrooms up near the entrance, so there isn’t even anything to see besides the folks eating with us and the burgers and milkshakes as they go by. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing,” Harlow says. “She went to the bathroom.”

“What are you texting her about?”

For all my bravado, I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth.

Harlow’s lips form into a grimace. “You’re being so fucking weird. Would you give it a break? Paisley’s letting me come borrow some clothing after this. We’re texting photos.”

I look down at my wrist, focusing on my bracelet in an effort to ground my brain.

Opal bought everyone these outrageous charm bracelets, rose gold with our names on charms and surrounded by little trinkets to represent each of us.

The rest of each bracelet contains the other three’s names surrounded by hearts.

These are my friends, and I’m being paranoid.

“What about the sleepover?” I ask.

Opal and Harlow’s expressions go kid-whose-hand-got-caught-in-the-cookie-jar in perfect unison. “Oh, shit,” Harlow says.

“I forgot to tell you, didn’t I?” Opal says. “My dad is hosting an Asian American filmmaker mixer tonight and said we can’t use the house. But we’ll be back on track next week.”

I’m the only one who didn’t know.

It shouldn’t mean anything, but I still feel like I’ve shrunk down to an inch tall. I dig my fingernails into my palm, focusing on the bite of pain. Another attempt to stay grounded.

“Okay,” I say. “No problem.”

Paisley slides back into the booth. She looks to me, her blue eyes softening. “Everything okay, Emma?”

She says it like she told Opal to confess the sleepover cancelation while she was out.

“Yeah,” I say.

For what it’s worth, I don’t buy that Opal forgot.

I just don’t know what to do about it. So, as usual, I do nothing but ignore the churning in my gut.