A Good Idea Read online

  ALSO BY

  CRISTINA MORACHO

  Althea & Oliver

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2017

  Copyright © 2017 by Cristina Moracho

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780698198593

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Moracho, Cristina, author.

  Title: A good idea / Cristina Moracho.

  Description: New York : Penguin Group, [2017] | Summary: “A girl returns to

  her small hometown in Maine seeking revenge for the death of her childhood

  best friend”— Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016020075 | ISBN 9780451476241 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Revenge—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.M788192 Go 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020075

  Version_1

  For Sarah

  CONTENTS.

  Also by Cristina Moracho

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One.

  Chapter Two.

  Chapter Three.

  Chapter Four.

  Chapter Five.

  Chapter Six.

  Chapter Seven.

  Chapter Eight.

  Chapter Nine.

  Chapter Ten.

  Chapter Eleven.

  Chapter Twelve.

  Chapter Thirteen.

  Chapter Fourteen.

  Chapter Fifteen.

  Chapter Sixteen.

  Epilogue.

  Acknowledgments.

  BEFORE YOU EMBARK ON A JOURNEY OF REVENGE, DIG TWO GRAVES.

  —Confucius

  CHAPTER ONE.

  I THINK IT started with the seizure. Serena and I talked about it later, and she agreed that if Ann Russo hadn’t had an epileptic fit during the graduation ceremony, she would have been far less likely to contribute her own outburst to the proceedings. Something about the sight of Ann spasming on the ground, red hair gleaming against the aggressively green, meticulously manicured grass of the backfield, mouth opening and closing wordlessly like a fish, gave what had been until then an unnoteworthy ceremony—the valedictorian’s relentless optimism about the future, the hungover graduates’ heads dipping as they nodded off, their mortarboards shielding their eyes from the morning sun—a surreal quality that sent things firmly off the rails.

  The students sitting around Ann called for help. The principal unwisely tried to continue with his speech until he was silenced by the crowd—“Shut up, man, we need a doctor”—and an uncomfortable, expectant hush fell over the entire field. In an instant, the pretense to which everyone had been clinging, that there was nothing unusual about this day, this ceremony, vanished, as if Betty herself had found a way to reach down from wherever she was. Take that, motherfuckers. Suddenly we were in a David Lynch movie. Suddenly anything could happen.

  It was a crushingly bright morning, swimming-pool-blue sky and the sun an orange blaze steadily making its way to its zenith. The fog had burned off by nine A.M., and the breeze from the Atlantic carried with it a salty mist that reminded me of the ubiquitous lobster rolls of my childhood. Above the stage, a banner congratulating the class of 1998 snapped with the occasional gust.

  I was sitting all the way in the back, behind the families of the graduates, barely able to see the podium where the principal stood, fiddling with his cuff links as he awkwardly waited for Ann to be removed so he could continue with his speech. If Betty had still been alive, I would have taken a seat right in front, next to her parents, ready to whoop my approval when she finally crossed the stage to accept her diploma. But Betty was dead, and instead I was waiting to see if there would be any mention of her at all. I was waiting to see what would happen when her murderer’s name was finally called. So maybe the ceremony was already somewhat surreal before Ann Russo collapsed, even if Serena and I were the only ones who noticed. And I didn’t even know Serena yet.

  I was wired and anxious; I hadn’t slept much the night before, then overcompensated with too much coffee on an empty stomach, and Ann’s seizure did something to me, physically, the shock of it flooding my system with a large dose of adrenaline I definitely didn’t need. Perspiration dampened the armpits of my T-shirt, and I had to press on my thigh with the heel of my hand to keep my leg from bouncing up and down. The other hand I held over my heart, like I was saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and I was alarmed by how rapidly it was firing inside my chest.

  After the principal was finally able to finish his speech, it was time to start handing out the diplomas. I leaned forward, the hinges of my plastic chair protesting beneath me, thinking that surely when they got to Betty’s name in the alphabet they would at least acknowledge her. I held my breath when they got to the Fs—“Brian Farmington, Melissa Ferris . . .”—thinking, Here it comes, here’s where they’ll stop the ceremony and say something, and when they got to George Flattery I half rose out of my chair, my whole body clenched and expectant—say her name, say her name, say her name—but there was no mention of Elizabeth Flynn, and then the principal moved on to the Gs and I was sinking back into my seat, eyes stinging, hands fisted at my sides.

  I went to stand under a tree, where I could chain-smoke through the rest of the ceremony.

  If I was outraged that they hadn’t mentioned Betty, if Ann’s seizure had given me a full panic attack, it was Calder’s walk across the stage that truly brought on the complete out-of-body experience. He looked exactly the same as the boy I had known, back when he was Betty’s boyfriend, not her murderer. Two years ago the three of us had spent an entire summer together, taking his two Labrador retrievers to run on the beach, picnicking in the woods on a scratchy flannel blanket, Betty’s head on his stomach, my head on hers, while he read to us from The Odyssey and Roald Dahl.

  I hadn’t been jealous when they’d started dating, hadn’t resented sharing my closest friend in Williston; if anything, I was relieved there was someone else Betty could call when one of her black moods descended like an unexpected summer thunderstorm. The unlights, she called them, and while Calder did not have my years of practice at coaching her through their frequent visits, he seemed to have been gifted with a natural, boundless patience that made him an ideal match for someone who could be, frankly, exhausting. Still, I was suspicious of how much he seemed to relish her damage, his wide-eyed eagerness to swoop in when even the slightest hint of a shadow crossed her face—exactly the kind of behavior I knew would just encourage her—but if anything, I feared that Betty, master of self-sabotage, would get bored and break his heart. Which she did. And I guess his patience ran out after all.

  He had drowned her in the shallows of a rocky beach, held her head under the frigid Maine waters while her blonde hair floated like seaweed or the tentacles of a jellyfish. Or that’s how I pictured it. I had imagined it a million times that winter—her hands pulli
ng at his wrists, heels kicking feebly, her muscles clenching and lungs aching, shuddering violently as the cold seeped into her bones. He had killed her at night; the scene I envisioned was lit only by the moon. I would lie in bed and hold my breath, timing myself, wondering how long she lasted until she gave up and let the water in. And afterward, the stillness.

  Tall and rangy, fair-haired, he strode across the stage like he had never held someone underwater until her lungs filled with the ocean and her brain shut down and her heart stopped beating. The principal gave him his diploma as if he were any other student, resting a hand briefly on his shoulder as if Calder were in need of moral support. I ground my cigarette butt into the dirt.

  I was about to turn away when I took one last look at the stage and saw a girl I didn’t recognize—short blonde hair streaked with cotton-candy pink, skull and crossbones spray-painted on the back of her graduation gown—arguing with the principal. He must have already called her name, which I hadn’t caught, because she was holding her diploma, but she wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t hear what they were saying; wisely, the principal had steered them away from the microphone, but she was gesturing furiously even as he crossed his arms over his chest, refusing whatever she was asking for. She was pleading with him, that much was clear, a request desperate and urgent, and while he showed no sign of relenting, there was something in the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes—his gaze fixed at an indeterminate point over her shoulder—that gave him a guilty, shifty look. He never stopped shaking his head. A group of students in line to accept their diplomas were trapped onstage as the scene played out. One girl rolled her eyes; a couple of the boys looked genuinely nervous. Finally, the principal placed his hand on the blonde girl’s back, steering her toward the steps that led offstage, a final dismissal, and that’s when she started screaming.

  I watched the girl’s mouth, wild with the need to make out what she was shouting, but she was unintelligible. Then she said it: Betty Flynn. My whole body had been tensed with the ache of anticipation, and now that someone had said Betty’s name I felt myself releasing, unfolding. The girl stormed down the stairs, striding up the aisle in a tearful rage, one hand held over her head, flipping off the faculty and students and attendees, still shouting, and I thought I heard Calder’s name, too. She ripped her mortarboard from her head and threw it not to the ground like I expected, but into the rows of seats she was passing. Several people put their hands defensively in front of their faces; others ducked. She tore off her blue graduation gown and let the wind carry it away; it slid along the ground for several yards like something alive before coming to rest in the grass.

  She passed only a few feet from me on her way to the parking lot. Her eyes were red from crying, but there were circles underneath that predated this morning’s outburst; I pegged her as a fellow insomniac. She had a septum piercing that was oddly fetching, and chunky rings on almost every finger; her nails were rimmed with black, from the spray paint she’d used on her gown, I imagined, and though she was curvy in that way girls are when they never lose their baby fat, she still gave the impression of being fine-boned—slender wrists, well-defined cheekbones, long neck, and a pronounced clavicle. To my surprise, she wore a delicate gold crucifix, which lay right below the hollow of her pale, slender throat. As she went by, she wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, a gesture that gave her a curiously childlike appearance, just for a moment, before the rage-filled look again took its place. She never even glanced in my direction. I wondered who she could be, how I could not know the only other person here who gave a fuck about Betty, but more than anything I felt oddly ashamed that this girl had had the temerity to make the scene that Betty deserved, had screamed her name onstage while I sat silently in the audience.

  I ran off in pursuit, following the path she had taken into the parking lot. Scrambling onto the hood of the nearest pickup truck, I surveyed the area for a long time before I was willing to admit what I already knew: she was gone.

  Behind me, the ceremony was concluding; Ann Russo had recovered in time to collect her diploma, and the graduates giddily threw their hats into the air, cheering.

  “What the fuck are you doing up there?”

  I looked down, shielding my eyes with my hand. “Owen?”

  “You better get down before Principal Moore sees you.”

  “This is the principal’s truck?”

  “Yeah.”

  I climbed off the hood. “What are you doing over here? Shouldn’t you be watching the ceremony?”

  “I needed to get some air,” he said, holding up a half-finished joint.

  I took a hit, eyeing him through the smoke. To anyone else, he’d look dressed for a day of work on a construction site, but his fresh white T-shirt still smelled like fabric softener, and he wore clean brown Dickies and Doc Martens instead of his old Carhartt work boots. This was about as fancy as he ever got. His dark brown hair was brushed out of his face, but he still wore about three days’ worth of stubble; apparently he had drawn the line at shaving.

  Owen had been my neighbor growing up; he was three years older, and he came from one of Williston’s largest families, the Shepards, a prolific clan whose various lines ran through the town’s history, beginning with its founding, occasionally converging in the marriage of distant relations, or so Owen had told me. I didn’t even ask who he had come to see graduate; he claimed half the town as cousins once, twice, or even three times removed. Of all these relatives, Betty had been his favorite, although their familial connection was vague and tenuous; they’d been related by a marriage that had lasted less than a year.

  He had played a role in my life not unlike an older brother, alternately mocking and tormenting me, only occasionally revealing a gentler side, like when I was eight and fell off his four-wheeler and cracked my head open, and he’d tended my wounds right there in the woods, using his wifebeater as a makeshift bandage, cleaning away the blood with creek water and singing a Johnny Cash song to keep me from passing out. A few years after I left town, our relationship had shifted with an inevitability I could feel in my blood long before anything actually happened; the mocking and tormenting never ceased, we just added sex to the mix. If I still lived in Williston year-round, I would probably have been in love with him; fortunately, I departed at the end of every August before the oxytocin could get the best of me.

  “Did you see what happened?” I asked him, giving back the joint.

  “Ann Russo? I had a feeling she wouldn’t make it through the ceremony. She’s been up for two days, I heard, getting drunk and snorting Ritalin. Not a good move for an epileptic. No wonder she had a seizure.”

  “Not Ann,” I said, shaking my head, already feeling blurry from the weed. “After. That girl.”

  “What girl?”

  “The one with the pink hair. She looked a little strung out. She was yelling about Betty.”

  Owen’s eyebrows went up. “I don’t know any girls with pink hair. What was she yelling?”

  “I couldn’t hear.”

  He pinched the tip of the joint until it was safely out and put the roach in his pocket. His face was inscrutable. “When did you get back?” he asked.

  “Just yesterday.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come home this summer.” He took a step toward me, idly hooking a finger through one of my belt loops.

  This always amazed me. We hadn’t spoken once in the ten months I’d been away, but less than five minutes in Owen’s presence and I was wondering how much longer I’d have to wait before he would take me somewhere and remove all of my clothes.

  “I had to come. I had to see it for myself.”

  “See what?”

  “That he’s still walking around. Like it never happened. I didn’t believe it. But I just watched him accept his fucking diploma.”

  “Yeah.” Owen sighed. “Look, you want to go? I need to get out of here.”

/>   I nodded. He started to walk off toward his truck. I went to follow him, but hesitated; something about that girl had inspired me, compelled me to make a grand gesture of my own.

  “Wait,” I said. “Can I borrow your knife?”

  He didn’t ask any questions, just pulled the knife from his pocket and held it out to me, watching with amusement as I knelt down.

  It’s harder to slash someone’s tires than you think; that rubber is thick as fuck. I pictured Principal Moore handing Calder his diploma, that sympathetic pat on the arm, as if commiserating with Calder over everything he had been through, and then I felt the rubber give. I smiled when I heard the hiss of escaping air. Owen waited patiently as I went around and did the other three. When I was done I stood, folded the locking knife, and held it out to him.

  “Why don’t you hang on to it? I’ve got plenty.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I slipped it into my pocket.

  “You feel better now?” he asked.

  “I think so,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  As Owen drove away from the high school, I watched the town where I’d grown up pass by the windows of his truck, and I felt the way I did every year when I came home, like New York City and my life there was just a dream I’d had, another dimension I’d managed to slip into sideways, but now it was back to reality, and reality was Williston.

  Everything was the same, Main Street still cutting a broad swath through the town, woods on one side, the Atlantic on the other, an unwelcoming gray-green lined with jagged rocks instead of sandy beaches. The summer people didn’t come here for the swimming; Williston was more of a pass-through town, where tourists stopped for a bathroom and a lobster roll on their way to Boothbay Harbor or Georgetown Island. Everything was still quiet—it was only the end of June, school had just ended, down the coast the summer people were just starting to pack for their summer vacations—but in another week, by July 4, Main Street would be an unmanageable shitshow of tourists the locals both relied upon and despised.