Part 13 (1/2)
”On whose end?”
”Sophie's,” Mai Nghiem said, nodding to herself. ”Yeah, now that Tom mentions it. Amanda was oblivious, I think, but Sophie clearly idolized her.”
”And the more Amanda didn't notice,” Tom Dannal said, ”the higher Sophie pushed her up the pedestal.”
I said, ”So, I guess I got a new million-dollar question.”
Tom nodded. ”Where's Sophie? Right?”
I looked over at Princ.i.p.al Nghiem.
”She dropped out.”
My eyes widened. ”When?”
”Beginning of the school year.”
”And you don't think there could be a connection?”
”Between Sophie Corliss deciding not to come back for senior year and Amanda McCready not showing up for cla.s.ses after Thanksgiving?”
I looked around the empty cla.s.sroom and tried not to let my frustration show. ”Anyone else I can talk to?”
In the student lounge, I met with seven homeroom cla.s.smates of Amanda and Sophie. Princ.i.p.al Nghiem and I sat in the center of the room with the girls arrayed before us in a half-circle.
”Amanda was just, ya know,” Reilly Moore said.
”I don't,” I said.
Giggles.
”Like, ya know.”
Eye rolls. More giggles.
”Oh,” I said, ”she was like like ya know. Now I get it.” ya know. Now I get it.”
Blank stares, no giggles.
”It's, like, if you were talking to her,” Brooklyn Doone said, ”she, like, listened? But if you waited for her to tell you stuff, like, who she dug or what apps were on her iPad or like that? You'd, like, wait a long time.”
The girl beside her, Coral or Crystal, rolled her eyes. ”For, like, ever.”
”Like, ev-er,” another girl said, and they all nodded in agreement.
”What about her friend, Sophie?” I asked.
”E.”
”Dot-org.”
”I'm sayin'.”
”I heard she, like, tried to list you as her friend on her Face-book page.”
”Eputers at our fingertips, which can access the intellectual riches of the globe, and judging by the girls in that room, the only advance we'd made since the invention of fire was turning like like into an omni-word, useful as a verb, a noun, an article, the whole sentence if need be. into an omni-word, useful as a verb, a noun, an article, the whole sentence if need be.
”So none of you knew either of them well?” I tried.
Seven blank stares.
”I'll take that as a no.”
The world's longest silence broken only by some fidgeting.
” 'Member that guy?” Brooklyn said eventually. ”He looked kinda like Joe Jonas.”
”Like, he's so, like, hot.”
”The guy?”
”Joe Jonas. Duh.”
”I think he looks, like, so queer.”
”Uh-ah.”
”Uh-huh.”
I focused on the one who'd brought it up. ”This guy-he was Amanda's boyfriend?”
Brooklyn shrugged. ”I dunno.”
”What do do you know?” you know?”
This annoyed her. Suns.h.i.+ne probably annoyed her. ”I dunno. I just saw her with some guy once at South Sh.o.r.e.”
”South Sh.o.r.e Plaza? The mall?”
”Uh,” she pulsed her eyes at my cluelessness, ”yeah.”
”So you were at the mall and-”