Page 66 of The Fall of Iris Henley
“I know, I read the interview,” I say quietly.
“Yeah. You read the interview.” For a moment, her eyes go glassy, then she clenches her fists, anger blazing away her tears. “Got what you needed to know from the paper? How great for you.”
I am taken aback by her words, by her sudden anger. “I… I didn’t want to intrude. While you were… grieving.”
“Oh, is that it? I’m pretty sure my mom left half a dozen messages on your phone,” she says. “Trying to talk to you. Asking you to come over.”
“What is this?” I snap, my anger flaring. “Just a minute ago you were asking if I was okay, and now you’re, what, accusing me of giving you the cold shoulder? I didn’t know what to do, Kendra. I didn’t know how to feel. My boyfriend turned out to be a murderer. I wasn’t exactly in any shape to come by the funeral with a hot dish.”
Kendra’s lips twist downward in a sneer. “So instead you just vanished.”
“I didn’t—” I protest, but she cuts me off.
“Oh no? Younevertalked to me at school. Youneverasked me if I was okay. I was hurting, my family was hurting. And all you thought about was not being seen around us.” She goes quiet suddenly. We stand there for a long moment, neither of us moving.
“I’m sorry, Kendra,” I finally say, knowing it’s not enough, knowing that all I have for everyone I’ve hurt is “sorry,” an unending supply of useless sorrys.
She nods and hikes up her backpack on her shoulder.
“Yeah,” she says. There’s no anger in her voice anymore—just a hollow note of exhaustion. “I know. I know you are. Butseriously, Iris. You lost cheer. You lost a few friends. Big deal. Grow up and figure out what matters to you. Unlike Rocky and Lynette, you still have that chance.”
With that, she turns on her heel and stalks down the hall.
Varda’s only cemetery is just outside the city limits, in a large grove of oaks and cedar. I get there just before the sun begins to set, just as everything takes on the hue of melted gold. It’s quiet when I arrive. There are only two other cars in the parking lot.
Kendra’s words run in circles in my head.Grow up and figure out what matters to you. Part of me wants to argue with her, to tell her she’s being unfair. That things do matter to me beyond just appearances.
But there’s another part of me, too, that knows Kendra wasn’t entirely wrong.
I make my way through the neat rows of gravestones. On the other side of the cemetery I see a cluster of middle schoolers dressed all in black, filming each other on their phones. They make solemn faces before breaking down in giggles.
An older woman glares in their direction from where she stands next to a crumbling stone angel. For a minute I think she must be grieving. Then I see that she’s not mad at the kids because she’s mourning. She’s mad because their noise is interrupting her own film shoot. She’s got a tripod and lighting equipment, complete with shade sail. She readies herself and starts again, holding up products in front of the camera, pointing to the statue and explaining her methods for cleaning it. I can see one pristine, already-restored spot.
I keep walking, grateful that Lynette’s plot is farther away. It takes me longer to find than I thought it would, I guess becauseI was expecting overgrown weeds and a neglected stone. When I find it, I’m surprised how tidy it is. The dead leaves have been swept away, and there are even fresh flowers in a vase by her headstone.
The Zeigers apparently had Lynette’s sophomore class photo transferred onto the granite. I can’t help but snort when I see it. She hated that picture. She’d had to wear her glasses that day because she’d lost a contact; that, plus her tightly shut lips, gave her a frumpy, studious look.
Laugh it up, bitch.Her voice is still so clear in my mind, low and a little raspy.Where have you been, anyway? I haven’t had anyone to talk to out here.
I can feel the way she would have sprung at me from behind, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. Can almost smell the Nag Champa incense her mom used to use, the way it always vaguely clung to her clothes.
It would be so much easier if I could just be mad at her.
Instead, I sit down on the grass and lean against her stone. “I got benched today,” I say. That’s the first and most important gossip she would want to know. The photo on the headstone seems to stare pointedly at me over the top of her glasses. “I know, serves me right.”
The photo waits.Go on,I can hear her say.
I take a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Lynette. I really am. I told myself I was helping you, but I fucked up.” I cover my face in my hands so I don’t have to look at her. “I didn’t mean to take away the thing you loved most.”
That had been the cruelest thing, I think. I love cheer. I love the sense of power and control it gives my body. But Lynette hadneededcheer. It was a part of who she was and what she wanted from the world. It could’ve taken her places—to college, away from Varda.
“Well, now that we’re both outcasts,” I say softly, “maybeyou’ll be able to forgive me. I can’t exactly make things up to you, but maybe we can move past it.” I imagine my new identity: girl who hangs out in graveyard. Maybe I can get some kind of gauzy black dress and really lean into it. The thought actually makes me grin.
“Oh! I know!” I open my backpack and pull out my AirPods. I put one in my ear and one on the grass next to her stone. “God, I just realized, you missed the midnight drop. You’re not going to believe this album.”
Instead of leaning back against Lynette’s headstone, I wipe my eyes. I get up on my feet, and I start to move. I let my feet and my arms and my hips move in a familiar pattern—one of Lynette’s old routines. I close my eyes, and I feel her there with me.
“Jesus, Iris, what the fuck?”
