Teaser Saturday

We should get my name out of the way first. It's Body Count Beatrice.

I mean, really it's Beatrice Tanerbaum, but the Disco Dykes always were fond of alliteration. I've been Body Count Beatrice ever since Kiley, who was girl number two. Kiley was the accident. That's how I think of her in my head. Elizabeth was the tragic. Kiley was the accident. Lea was the mistake.

When the Dykes came up with the name, after Kiley, in September, it was joking, gentle, to make me feel better. You silly girl, can't you see it's a coincidence? You're a voodoo princess, they'd say, rolling their eyes, mocking me. Body Count Beatrice, two isn't so impressive.

After Lea, in January, no one said it, everyone pretended the name had never existed, because that rule they teach you in acting class, about how things are funny when they happen three times? It doesn't count when your girlfriends are dying.

And then in April, I started dating Benji, and the few people who hadn't been avoiding me because I carried death on my fingers suddenly were, and “Body Count Beatrice,” they whispered in my ear while they pushed me into my locker, “How long are you going to give the boy?”