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“Do you belong to or did you join a club?” Mr. March asked immediately.
Good, I thought. They found out the truth. It serves her right.
“Yes.”
He held up a printout of the digital picture he had taken of my tattoo. “Is this the club’s logo?”
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“Hell Girl?” he asked.
“What?”
“That’s what this calligraphy represents. I had it confirmed.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It spells ‘VA.’ That’s the club Kiera had me join, the VA club.”
Kiera blew air through her lips. She smiled at her father. “Did you ever? VA club?”
“The girls took me to get the tattoo,” I said quickly. “All of them.”
“Do you know where this supposedly occurred?” Mr. March asked.
“Somewhere in L.A. I don’t remember the address. If I saw it, I’d remember.”
“First,” Kiera began, “you know, Daddy, that someone under eighteen can’t get a tattoo in California legally. Why would anyone risk his business to give her that ridiculous tattoo?”
“She’s right. Sasha?”
“I don’t know why he did it. Maybe they gave him more money,” I said now, feeling real panic. “She has one. They all have one.”
Kiera turned slowly. “Did you see it? Is that what you’re telling my parents now?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding at Mr. and Mrs. March. “I saw it on all of them in the same place.”
Kiera stood up, undid her jeans, and lowered them. She turned to her father and mother and lowered her panties. Then she turned to me, and I gasped. It was gone.
“This is beginning to sound like Psycho,” Kiera said as she pulled her jeans up. “I don’t really care what my parents decide to do about you,” she told me. “What you did with Ricky was mean. I’m not going to lie for you anymore, though. I can tell you that.”
She turned to her parents.
“Haven’t I tried to be a good older sister to her? I’ve lost friends because of her and some of the crude things she says. Now she goes and seduces Ricky after I talk him into taking us to Catalina on his father’s boat. Don’t just take my word for it. Ask my girlfriends. Go on and ask her if she’s still a virgin or ever was when she first came here. Go on. You can have her examined if you don’t believe me.”
I couldn’t keep the tears from streaming down my face. The looks on Mr. and Mrs. March’s faces felt like knives in my heart. They both looked drained of any warmth and hope. I felt as if I were looking at them when they had first heard their younger daughter was terminally ill. I felt terminally ill. Kiera, always alert to an opportunity, had her finish perfected and perfectly timed.
“I told you, Mother. I warned you,” Kiera said with a voice soft and sorrowful. “She’s not Alena. She took advantage of you. She probably did know how to play the clarinet but pretended she didn’t.”
Mrs. March started to cry.
Kiera turned to me. “You’re not my sister. You never could be,” she said, and walked out of the office.
I took deep breaths to stop myself from crying. My chest ached. Mr. March rose and paced a bit behind his desk. Mrs. March stopped crying, wiped her face with her handkerchief, and, after a deep breath herself, turned to me.
“I spoke with Deidre. She confirmed Kiera’s story about what happened on the boat,” she began. “She doesn’t know anything about any VA club, and her mother confirmed that she has no tattoo on her lower back.”
“Deidre’s lying for her,” I muttered weakly.
“I called some of the other mothers, and they checked their daughters, too. No tattoos, Sasha.”
