Brandy
Wore a braided chain, but it wasn’t silver and it wasn’t from Spain, it was from Delia’s. Ninth-grade Brandy was who we all wanted to be. Rhinestones on her fingernails, upside-down faces smiling at you when she held out her hands, criss-crossed at the wrists. Brandy’s name listed on the Ms. Pac-Man game at the mall. Brandy ditching the DARE assembly, smoking in the third-floor girls’ room. Brandy caught shoplifting in Caldor, and we were sure they would call the police. Brandy got away with it, and smiled when we asked her how. Brandy sneaking off during the drama club class trip to New York. Making out on the fire escape with Joey Santorini. High above us all. The rest of us watching like she was the star we’d come to see. You only have one life to live so live it wild, was her yearbook quote. Brandy the first to get married. 19 years old. Brandy three kids before 30. Brandy works at the nursing home now. Different scrubs every day. Disney, Hello Kitty, Paw Patrol. All our grandfathers call her honey. All our grandmothers ask Brandy to do their nails.
Ivy
Everybody called her Poison Ivy, but who could blame them? She dressed that way for Halloween, spent hours sewing leaves onto a green bathing suit. Ivy had an itch to get away. Took French and AP Italian when the rest of us quit Spanish after the obligatory two years, barely able to get through the menu at Taco Bell. Ivy reading college catalogs sophomore year, ranking them for their year-abroad programs. Ivy with two after school jobs, already saving up. Back pocket bulging with the copy of Les Mis she carried everywhere. We never expected to follow her, but we wanted to see her go, wanted to know she was out there, sipping espresso in a café in Milan, dancing down a cobblestone street like Audrey Hepburn, twirling under a Parisian moon. We always thought we’d get letters from her, foreign postmarks, odd-sized paper, something we could touch, but the letters never came. Did anyone send letters anymore? Ivy didn’t. Someone said they heard she was living in Seattle. Said their cousin’s friend ran into her there, working at Starbucks.
Justine
Was going to marry the boy next door, literally, and we all believed she would because they’d been going out since fifth grade. Justine + Bobby 4EVA. Only once were they broken up, for two weeks, and Justine wouldn’t date other guys, just stayed in her room playing mix tapes Bobby had given her. She liked the same songs she’d liked in fifth grade, always ordered the same ice cream (Rocky Road, extra sprinkles), shopped at the Gap because she knew where everything was. Justine getting taller year by year, still wearing the same uniform, straight jeans, white T-shirts. Justine liked what she liked. Wasn’t tempted by the new. Are you just going to stay in this town until you die, we asked her, and Justine said, What’s wrong with that? Only she didn’t. Or maybe she did. Nobody knows where Justine died, or if she did. Justine’s face on a milk carton. Justine’s face on telephone poles. A Justine TV special, a cold case, an unsolved mystery. Justine the only one of us who got famous and she never wanted to. Last seen walking home from school. Justine’s face. Justine’s face. Age adjusted. A hologram of a possible future Justine, 15 forever, but now 18, now 25, faded posters peeling from closed shop windows. A face we can’t picture now except in pixels. A digital ghost. If Justine came walking back one day would we know her? Bobby still trots out tears for anniversary specials, but some of us think there’s something shady about his eyes, think Bobby knows more than he’ll ever tell.
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