Dead Beautiful

There was only one listing for Gottfried on the Internet. I clicked on it and was brought to an incredibly simple Web site with a blue-and-gold border, which I assumed were the school colors.

Gottfried Academy

Vox Sapientiae Clamans Ex Inferno

A Boarding School Dedicated to

Studies of an Existential Nature

Contact:

207 Attica Crossing, Mailbox 4

Attica Falls, Maine 04120

Beneath the inscription was a crest of arms and a very realistic pencil illustration of what I assumed was the school’s campus. It was stone and gothic, with cathedral-like buildings surrounded by a giant wall that looked almost medieval. If there had been a pigpen and a watering trough in the picture, they wouldn’t have looked out of place. Above the buildings, ominous dark clouds filled the sky. Out of curiosity I checked the weather forecast for Attica Falls, Maine. Sighing, I scanned the weekly prediction. Sixty degrees and cloudy. Every single day.

What was an existential boarding school anyway? Opening a new window, I looked up the word “existential,” which the Oxford English Dictionary defined as “of or pertaining to existence.” How helpful, I thought, and went back to the Gottfried Web site. I clicked on the crest of arms, and then on “Contact,” trying to go deeper into the site, but that was it. Frustrated, I closed the window. In addition to lacking pleasant weather, Gottfried also seemed to lack a proper Internet presence. Great, I thought to myself. There probably wouldn’t even be a wireless connection in the dorms.

Turning off the computer, I went into the hall. I had avoided my parents’ room all week. Every so often I would tiptoe up to the door and graze my hand across the knob, trying to imagine them inside, sleeping. Now, with nothing left to do, I opened it.

The room was perfectly preserved: the bed made, the dresser cluttered with books, the closet door ajar, a few pieces of my mother’s clothing still draped over the top. It was midafternoon and the branches of the trees brushed against the windows. That’s when I saw the answering machine, blinking on their night table. The mailbox was full. There were a few messages from Annie, the girls from school, the insurance company, and other people I didn’t know. I skipped ahead until I heard Wes’s voice: “Renée,” he said, “it’s Wes. I heard about, well, you know... I just wanted to see how you were doing, and to say that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I skipped ahead to the next. “It’s Wes again. You’re probably busy with family, but I wanted to say hi. So ...hi. Call me if you want to talk.” I sat down on the bed, clutching a pillow to my chest. “Wes again; calling to check in. Thought you might need a friend. That’s all, I guess.” Rewinding the tape, I slipped under the covers, breathing in the smell of my parents on the sheets, and listened to Wes’s voice until I fell asleep.

That night I snuck out. My bicycle was propped against the side of the house, where I’d left it two weeks ago. Quietly, I walked it to the end of the driveway. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. I jumped. “Hello?” I said, and then laughed at myself for being so easily frightened. After glancing back at my grandfather’s window, I rode down to Baker’s Field.

The football stadium was wide and flat, with the eerie stillness of a place trapped in time. The floodlights were off, letting the night sky spill onto the grass. It was empty, save for a dim glow off to the left, punctuated by laughter and the tap click hiss of beer cans being opened. Hopping off my bike, I walked toward the voices.

Annie was the first person I saw. She was there with some other girls from our class, and ran over when she spotted me. “Renée!” she said, giving me a hug. “You’re here! I was starting to worry.”

I gazed at all of the people on the turf. The girls from the lacrosse team were sitting on the grass, and a group of my friends from History class were standing around three coolers filled with beer. Behind them I recognized the guys from the soccer team, along with a few upperclassmen, nursing drinks and holding cigarettes, the red ash of the butts flitting through the darkness. “What is all this?”

“It’s your good-bye party, of course. You didn’t think I’d let you leave without seeing everyone, did you?”

A good-bye party. It seemed so simple, so foreign. In the face of my parents’ deaths, it was strange to think that things like parties were still taking place. I smiled and threw my arms around Annie again, speaking into her hair. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

Behind her loomed a tall silhouette of someone I had barely allowed myself to think about. Wes. Annie gave me a coy look and turned to talk to some of our friends as he approached me.

“Surprise,” he said softly.

He looked like he had just stepped out of a surfing catalog, his frayed shorts and faded T-shirt blowing casually against his body in the breeze. Just the sight of him made me nervous. I swallowed and smoothed out my bangs, hoping I didn’t look like I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in a week, even though that was the truth.

“You look great,” he said.

I blushed. “Thanks.”

“I was worried about you.”

“It was really”—I tried to find the right words—“busy. I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t worry. You don’t have to explain.”

I let out a sigh of relief. Wes had an unbelievable way of making things easier.

“Take a walk with me?”

I nodded, and he slipped his hand in mine.

We wove through the crowd of people, saying hi to everyone as we passed. It was overwhelming to think that they had all come just to say good-bye to me. After walking across the field, we reached the bleachers and climbed up to the top row, the metal popping beneath our sneakers. Wes tried to talk about the summer, about soccer, about school, but I couldn’t think of anything to say back to him. So I told him about Gottfried instead.

“So it’s just a different school, right?” Wes said after an awkward silence. “We can still see each other.”

“It’s in Maine.”

“Oh,” he said, and went quiet. “Well, you’ll be home for breaks. We’ll talk. And before we know it, it’ll be summer again.”

Voices floated up from below on the night breeze. Those people were part of a world I could never go back to again. I couldn’t talk to them about school and sports and classes anymore; that place was gone for me, buried with my parents. I wanted to tell Wes that I missed my parents so much my insides ached; that I felt so alone I couldn’t eat or sleep because I didn’t see the point in it anymore. I wanted to tell him about the way my parents had died and how scared I was that there was someone out there evil enough to have taken them away from me. I wanted him to say that I couldn’t leave, that he would save me from my grandfather and we could run away together.