“How did she treat Kate?”

“Are you kidding? Like her personal protégée. Ellen was number one in Georgia when she played in high school. I think she’s reliving her youth through Kate.”

“How did Kate treat Ellen?”

Mia shrugs. “Okay, I guess. She was nice to her, but…”

“What?”

“I don’t think Kate respected her. I heard her say things behind Ellen’s back. But then everybody does that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The women Ellen trains with for her marathons talk all kinds of shit about her when she’s not around. They say she’ll stab you in the back without thinking twice.”

“So why do they hang around with her?”

“Fear. Envy. Ellen Elliott is hot, rich, and married to Dr. Perfect. She’s the social arbiter of this place, in the under-forty crowd anyway. She has the life all the rest of them want.”

“That’s what they think.”

Mia looks expectantly at me, but I don’t elaborate.

“I think I know what you mean,” she says. “I don’t know what Dr. Elliott is doing married to her. No one does. He’s so nice-not to mention hot-and she’s so…I don’t know. Maybe she fooled him, too.”

“Maybe.” Mia is too bright for me to question like this for long. “You probably need to get going, huh?”

She nods without enthusiasm. “I guess. I feel sort of weird, you know?”

“Because of Kate?”

“Yeah. But not the way you’d think. Her dying changes a lot of things for me. I’ll be making the valedictory speech now, for one thing. And I wanted to do that. I have some things I want to say to our class, and to the parents. I didn’t want to take any spotlight off of Kate by saying them in my salutatorian speech. Now I can say them, I guess. But I didn’t want it like this.”

“Well, you certainly earned it. Kate only beat you out by…what?”

“A sixteenth of a point on the cumulative.” Mia smiles wryly. “She wasn’t as smart as people think. She acted like she never studied, but she did. Big-time. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I guess I have some anger toward her. I’m not even sure why.”