The Fever by Megan Abbott Page B

darting out, her red hand clasped him. “What if we can stop it?”
    â€œSheila,” his dad said, walking toward her. “Did something happen?” He reached out to touch her shoulder gently, but the move startled her. She tripped, stumbling into Eli.
    He tried to steady her, feeling her cold cheek pressed into his shoulder, a musky smell coming from her.
    â€œSheila,” his dad was saying, more firmly now.
    â€œOh, Tom,” she said, whirling around. “I need to tell you about Deenie.”
    â€œWhat about Deenie?” Eli thought he heard a hitch in his father’s voice.
    â€œThey want us to believe they’re helping our girls. They’re killing our girls. It’s a kind of murder. A careless murder.”
    â€œSheila, why don’t you come inside?” his dad said in that calm-down voice that used to drive his mom crazy. “Let’s sit down and—”
    â€œI can’t do that, Tom,” she said, her voice turning into a moan. “Our girls. I remember when I took Lise and Deenie shopping for their first bras. I remember showing them how to adjust the training straps. Those little pink ribbons.”
    â€œSheila, I—”
    â€œWho would ever have thought in a few years we’d be poisoning them?”
    His dad was saying something, but Eli wasn’t listening, couldn’t stop looking at her, her mouth like a slash.
    As if sensing his stare, she turned to Eli again.
    â€œThe things we do to our girls because of you.”
    Eli felt his hands wet on his bike handles.
    â€œMe?”
    Something was turning in her face, like a Halloween mask from the inside.
    â€œThe dangers our girls suffer at your hands,” she said. “We know and we’ll do anything to protect them. To inoculate them. Anything .”
    â€œSheila, have you slept at all?” His dad put his arm on Eli’s shoulder, gave him a look. “Let’s get you some coffee and—”
    She shook her head, eyes pink and large and trained on Eli.
    â€œNo one made you shoot yourself full of poison,” she said, voice rising high.
    She pointed her finger at Eli, below his waist.
    â€œAll of you,” she said, eyes now on Eli’s dad. “Spreading your semen anywhere you want. That’s the poison.”
    â€œSheila, Sheila…”
    â€œDon’t say I didn’t do what I could.” She turned and started walking away. “I hope it’s not too late.”
    *  *  *
    It had been a night of blurry, jumbled sleep. Deenie woke with a vague memory of dreaming she was at the Pizza House, standing in front of the creaking dough machine, Sean Lurie coming out slowly from behind the ovens, looking at her, head cocked, grin crooked.
    What? she’d said. What is it?
    It’s you , he said, standing in front of the blazing oven.
    And she’d stepped back from the machine suddenly, the airy dough passing between her hands, soft like a bird breast.
    It fell to the bleached floor, flour atomizing up.
    Hands slick with oil, and Sean’s eyes on them. On her hands.
    And she looking down at them, seeing them glazed not with oil but with green sludge, the green glowing, the lights flickering off.
    Â Â 
    Deenie stood at the kitchen island, phone in hand.
    Mom wont let me go to school tday, Gabby’s text read. Sorry, DD.
    After everything Gabby had been through, she was still worried about Deenie having to navigate the day without her. Because these were things they maneuvered together—school, divorces, faraway parents who wanted things. Boys.
    The side door slammed and her dad came into the kitchen, shoving the morning paper into his book bag.
    Something in the heave of morning air made her remember.
    â€œDad,” she said, “did you hear something earlier? A noise.”
    Vaguely, she remembered looking out her window, expecting a barn owl screeching.
    He turned toward the coffeepot.
    â€œMrs.