I Kissed Shara Wheeler(5)
“It’s a beach but it’s not,” her mom answered, same as always, and her other mom flipped a page in The Canterbury Tales, and they kept driving out of the California sunset and into the buttcrack of Alabama.
False Beach sits on the wide banks of Lake Martin, which gives the slight illusion that it might be a beach town like Gulf Shores or Mobile down on the coast, but it’s not. It’s four hours inland from the Gulf of Mexico, closer to Atlanta than to Pensacola, nearly smack in the center of the state. The lakeshore isn’t even sandy, because the lake isn’t a real lake. It’s a reservoir made in the 1920s, surrounded by marshy banks and woods and cliffs.
It’s just a town by some water where nothing interesting ever happens. And, in what Chloe has learned is the nature of small towns, when one thing does happen, everyone knows about it. Which means by Monday morning, all anyone wants to talk about is where Shara could have gone.
Frankly, it’s not that different from every other day at Willowgrove. Here, Shara Wheeler is like Helen of Troy, if she were famous for being both beautiful and too tragically, terribly brilliant for her small town, or Regina George, if her brand was logging double the school-mandated volunteer service hours.
Shara Wheeler’s so pretty. Shara Wheeler’s so smart. Shara Wheeler has never been mean to anyone in her life. Shara Wheeler has the voice of an angel, actually, but she’s never auditioned for a spring musical because she doesn’t want to take the spotlight away from students who need it more. Shara Wheeler is the football team’s good luck charm, and if she misses a game, they’re doomed. Last year, there was a whole movement of freshman girls eyelash-gluing their own Cupid’s bows to re-create Shara’s signature naturally full, upturned upper lip. It’s a miracle nobody has put her likeness on like, the side of a butter container yet.
Today:
“I heard nobody’s seen her since prom night.”
“I heard Smith broke up with her and she lost it.”
“I heard she ran away to build houses for the homeless.”
“I heard she’s secretly pregnant and her parents sent her away until she gives birth so nobody finds out.”
“That’s literally a plotline from Riverdale, idiot,” Benjy calls after a passing sophomore. He sighs and carefully lays his folded Sonic uniform polo for his after-school shift at the bottom of his locker.
Chloe scowls at the mirror on her locker door. Annoying that her life should also have to revolve around Shara Wheeler right now.
“You good, Chloe?” Benjy asks.
“Of course I’m good,” Chloe says, straightening her shiny silver collar pins. Georgia describes her interpretation of the uniform as “doing the most.” Chloe describes it as “please let me feel one sweet hit of individuality before it’s squeezed out of me by lunch.” It’s whatever. “Why wouldn’t I be good?”
“Because you only did one eye.”
“What?” She checks her reflection again. Left eye: expertly executed eyeliner wing in Blackest Black. Right eye: naked as a newborn baby. “Oh my God.”
She whips a liner pen out of the emergency makeup pouch in her locker. It’s been in there so long, she has to scribble on the back of her hand to get it going. She never thought she’d need it.
“Anyway,” Benjy says, picking their conversation back up. “I told Georgia that we have to do movie night at her place this week because Ash wants to watch that Labyrinth movie your mom mentioned, and if my dad walks in and sees David Bowie’s junk in white spandex, he is going to have some questions that I’m not interested in answering. So, we’re—” He breaks off. “Um. Why is Rory Heron coming over here?”
A tiny figure appears over Chloe’s shoulder in the mirror, right under the blunt edge of her bob but growing closer: Rory, looking deeply affronted at having to set foot on campus before third hour.
“I owe him money for a class gift for Madame Clark,” Chloe lies quickly, finishing off her wing and capping the pen.
“Have fun,” Benjy says, and then he’s off to first hour.
Chloe shuts her locker and turns to face Rory. “Glad I don’t have to go back to the country club.”
Rory blinks. “You know your whole deal is like … exhausting, right?”
“Thank you,” she says. “Come on.”
She picks her way through the morning crowd to the physics lab, zeroing in on the one around whom every other football player seems to orbit. Smith Parker: Shara’s boyfriend, quarterback, victim of a tragic first-name last-name, last-name first-name situation.
She remembers the day Smith and Shara got together. Homecoming week junior year, when the entire school was consumed by the bizarre Southern ritual of paying a dollar for the student council to send your crush carnations. Chloe was forced to be Shara’s lab partner in AP Chem that year, and Shara had crossed out Chloe’s chemical formula to write her own—Chloe’s was right—when two dozen carnations were dumped all over their lab notes. Every single one was from Smith to Shara, and they’ve been a Willowgrove power couple ever since, which, honestly? Carnations aren’t even that nice of a flower.
As far as Chloe is concerned, Smith isn’t much better than the other football d-bags, all of whom she’s obligated to dislike on principle. When most of last year’s tuition went to stadium renovations and the cheerleading coach is teaching civics, Willowgrove’s priorities are pretty obvious. Every game Smith wins yanks more cash out of arts programs, the only place for students with actual talent.