“You know, I’ve thought that, too, sometimes,” Coraline said. “That it’s all done on purpose. You know, to make more drama.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Grace said. “Of course it’s all done on purpose. I mean, it’s Sheila Dunham we’re talking about here. It’s not like she’s Tyra Banks. The world doesn’t worship the ground she walks on. She wouldn’t have any career at all anymore if she didn’t behave like a complete asshole in public and on unpredictable occasions. It’s what she does. No wonder that silly little blond girl tried to murder her.”
“Oh, do we know that’s what it was about?” Coraline asked. “Emily, I mean. Was Emily a contestant on the show? I thought I’d seen all the shows and I don’t remember her.”
“But she looked familiar, didn’t she?” Mary-Louise said. “I remember thinking that when I saw her. She looks very familiar.”
“Maybe she was on the show for just a little while and then she got booted off, and she was wearing makeup, you know, or clothes, different things,” Coraline said. “I’ll admit I don’t always remember the girls who go home first. I mean, they’re not on very long and—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Grace said again. She was standing all the way now, but still leaning against the wall for support. Janice thought that that bruise on her thigh was going to be nasty. “Would you people please wake up? This is a game she plays, and you’re all getting suckered into it. All of you. I’ll bet you anything that Emily didn’t try to murder her at all. I’ll bet you it’s a setup. That’s what they’re saying on the news.”
“We’re not supposed to watch the news,” Coraline said.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Grace said.
Then she stomped off toward her own bedroom, limping but obviously furious.
Janice watched her disappear through her bedroom door and then another girl, Suzanne Toretti, disappear after her. Suzanne looked scared to death.
Janice turned to Ivy. Ivy was looking at her fingernails.
“I didn’t realize it would be so tense,” Janice said. “I guess I didn’t really think about what it would be like at all. I just thought it would be something to do. Something that wasn’t just staying in South Dakota. If you know what I mean.”
Ivy got up and held out a hand for her. “Of course I know what you mean,” she said, “but Grace has a point. Sheila Dunham probably does do these things on purpose. And it’s a good way to get yourself killed. Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t think anybody would actually kill her,” Janice said.
“They’ll just want to,” Ivy said. “We can change the name of the show. We can call it Wanting Sheila Dead.”
Janice giggled and allowed herself to be led back to her room, where her clothes were carefully hung up on one side of the closet and her slippers were still sitting side by side under her bed. She wished she could be sure that she would never be the one that Sheila Dunham was yelling at, but nobody could be sure of that.
Sheila Dunham even yelled at the girls who won.
FOUR
1
There had been a murder on Cavanaugh Street once, years and years ago, and Hannah Krekorian had been suspected of committing it. Gregor remembered that almost as well as he remembered moving back to the street after his first wife died. Cavanaugh Street was a place where odd things happened, but the odd things were almost never bad. Donna Moradanyan Donahue decorated things for holidays when she wasn’t too pregnant to stand on stepladders. She’d once turned the entire brownstone building where Gregor lived—and where she had lived herself before her marriage—into a gigantic Christmas package, complete with a bow. She’d decorated the street for Gregor’s and Bennis’s wedding, too, although she’d had several helpers for that one, and it had included long lines of white ribbon running down the sidewalks. It was a good thing John Henry Newman Jackman was mayor of Philadelphia. If there had been a stranger in that office, Donna would have been arrested and fined on a regular basis.
There was nothing decorated up and down the street now, although it was close to Easter. At least Howard Kashinian hadn’t dressed himself up as the Easter Bunny this year. Even John Jackman hadn’t been able to keep Howard for getting arrested for that one, although it had been mostly a matter of the police thinking they’d discovered a peculiarly flamboyant pedophile. The truth was, Howard was no more a pedophile than he was a decent attorney. He was just an idiot.