CRAVING U (The Rook Café) (31 page)

In the meantime, Carlotta was belting out
the song, trying desperately to stay in the key of C when her aunt and uncle,
returning from the parent-teacher meetings, walked in on them.

“Thank God you’re here,” their daughter
said.  “My ears are eternally grateful.”

“Come on, I’m not that bad!”  Her cousin
tried to defend herself, quickly turning off the microphone in embarrassment.

“You’re damn right it’s a good thing we’re
here!”  Their faces looked strained, almost nauseated, and were impossible to
interpret.  “You can say that again!  We just hope it’s not too late!”  All of
a sudden, the entire room fell quiet and dark, and the atmosphere felt
menacing.  Marika’s mother looked like a wax statue; the only thing that moved
were her lips, which emitted guttural sounds.  “We thought we knew you, but
apparently we were wrong.”  The words hung in the air.

“What are you talking about?”  Marika
tried to show interest, primarily so as to not irritate them further, while she
and her cousin continued to trade barbs about their singing.

“Cut that out, you idiot!”  The warning
and its dark tone offered no room for disobedience.

“What’s the matter with you two?”  Marika
stood up to turn off the stereo.  “I’m getting good grades in everything.”  She
saw Carlotta give confirmation of this fact with her head.  “Maybe the surprise
test today in physics....”

“Shut up!  Don’t say another word,” her
mother barked with all her strength.  “Have you learned nothing from us?!”  She
was in tears, and was blaming herself.  “Where did we go wrong?  Where?”

“Calm down Paola,” said her father, who
until that moment had remained back in the shadows.  “I want an explanation
from you, and I want it now.  Understand?”  He pointed his finger at Marika,
who truly didn’t understand a word of what they were saying.

“Honest to God, I don’t know what you’re
talking about.”  She looked around, as if she might be on candid camera.

A howl of desperation broke the chains of
chaos: “Marika Vendramini, CAM GIRL!”  This exclamation, shouted by her mother,
shocked everyone into silence. “Explain what MARIKA VENDRAMINI CAM GIRL means!”

“Huh?”  She had lost all touch with
reality.  “What does
what
mean?”

“MARIKA VENDRAMINI CAM GIRL... It’s
written all over your school.”  Paola’s eyes were a dagger of disappointment
and disgust.  “And I didn’t even know what a Cam Girl
was
until now.”

“There must be some mistake!”  Marika
shook her head, disoriented.  “This morning....”

“There must be some mistake??” her mother
repeated.  “Listen to her Ferdinando!  She says it’s some kind of mistake.” 
Her voice had taken on the high-pitched inflection of hysteria.  “They even
talked about it during a meeting with the student and parent representatives of
your class, seeing as how everybody – us excluded – already knew about how you
have been trying to pick up boys at school by selling your body!” she wailed,
on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  “Bondi’s daughter was there in tears, poor
thing.  Humiliated by what you did with her boyfriend.”

“Who, Lucrezia?”  Marika looked at her
cousin, who was looking at her with equal confusion on her face as she tried to
blurt out words in Marika’s defense.  “You’re kidding, right?”

“Does it look like we’re kidding?”  Her
father kindly but firmly sent Carlotta home and then convened a family meeting
in the living room.  When they were alone, they thrust a pack of photocopies
into her hand, including a message to all parents from the school principal:

Dear Parents,

Following a
series of unpleasant episodes that have taken place involving students from our
school, the principal, Dr. Adalberto Cazzaniga, has deemed it necessary to
inform you of the gravity of the situation so that you can intervene and help
your children.

“So?”  Their daughter shrugged her
shoulders insolently.  “What’s this got to do with me?”

“Read the attached document please.”  She
had never seen her mother treat her so coldly before.

It began with the title:  “Selling
yourself at school for cigarettes and smartphones.”  It was an investigative
report that had been done by a national research center as part of a campaign
against micro-prostitution in high schools and the plague of online pornography
among students.  She read it out loud, offended by these infamous accusations. 
“Alice (the name is invented), 17 years old.  No particular personal problems,
from a good family.  Goes to high school, has a scooter, two cats, a sister, an
iPad given to her by her parents and an iPhone obtained by other means.  At 14,
she began selling herself at school to her classmates.  And she’s not the only
one.”  Marika had difficulty reading the words.  “‘The first time was easy:
take off your clothes, and they pay you!  Lots of girls the year above me were
doing it, and they were the most popular girls.  My friends were doing it too,
for cigarettes or for money to go to the hair salon, or simply to become more
popular.’”  She flipped through the pages, annoyed.  “Sex has invaded the
internet: there’s sexting, webcam girls, fast porn....”

“Two teachers from your school, thank
heavens, brought to the principal’s attention the actions of one of their
students, who was very young, who they caught in the act of showing herself
intimately to a group of friends through her cellphone.”  Ferdinando was trying
to shed some light on this absurd situation.  “These videos, it seems, have
made the rounds of all the local high schools.”

Marika listened without comment, her
expression blank and clearly irritated, as if these things were only serving to
waste her time.

“Some of the students involved told their
families that during the breaks between classes, there were even sex
competitions organized in the bathrooms.”  Her father tried to get the final
details out without giving in to his obvious discomfort.  “It wasn’t always for
money; often they just did it to show off.”

Her mother looked defeated.  “We’ve
decided to take you to a psychologist at a center for teens in Padua.”  She had
officially lost it.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” 
Marika didn’t understand what they were saying.  “You’re crazy!”

A heavy slap hit her in the face before
she even heard the warning.  “Don’t you ever speak to your mother that way!” 
Then Ferdinando turned to his wife, saying, “Let’s all try to remain calm,
without jumping to conclusions.”

The slap left a bright red mark on her
cheek that swelled up with the passing of minutes, but the most painful wound
was invisible.  “Don’t you even care if any of this is true?”

Her mother started saying over and over
again, “What will people say?  What are they going to think about our poor family?” 
Her father, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about other people’s
opinions: this was his daughter they were talking about, and he needed to
remain clear-headed for her.  “Of course I want to know the truth, but first I
want you to listen.”

“Fine!  But I haven’t done anything,” she
murmured through the sobs.  “I swear to God!”

“Then take it easy.  Your mother is just a
bit upset, and so am I, but aside from the writings on the walls of your
school, your name didn’t otherwise come up in the faculty meetings.  In truth,
no one in your class is directly involved, since the guilty parties, whose
names are confidential, all come from another class,” he assured her.  “In your
case, there are just rumors!  Some girls have been spreading stories about you
and Matteo, and about some videos posted online.  But I never believed that
they were true.”

“Ferdinando, please don’t trust her!” 
Paola had become a fury.  “You’ve seen for yourself her constant mood swings,
her irritability, and her sleeplessness.”  She was full of bile.

“And what does that have to do with
anything?”  Marika placed herself between the two of them.  “Nothing!”

Paola wasn’t even listening to her as she
flipped nervously through the pages of the dossier.  “We haven’t been paying
attention to the warning signs, Ferdinando.  Look here!”  She pointed at the
list of things that the document warned parents to be on the lookout for.

“OK, Mom, I admit it,” she sighed,
removing all of the anger from her voice.  “I’ve been a bit strange lately. 
But there’s a reason for that.”

“No, no, don’t try to pull a fast one on
me, deary!  Ferdinando!”  She turned violently toward her husband.  “I know how
much she has been suffering because he’s going away, and I’m afraid she’s done
all of these things just to try to keep him here, obviously unsuccessfully.” 
She turned back to her daughter, “Because you sold him exactly what he wanted
at a discount price!  And now all he feels is pity for you.”

“Mom, you’ve got no idea what you’re
saying!”  Even though her tone was well past the limits of decency, she was
allowed to go on without being reprimanded, considering the delicacy of the
subject.

“I’ll tell you exactly what I’m saying.” 
She was red with rage, ready to condemn her own daughter to the stake.  “You
put those disgusting things on the internet just to try to get Matteo Zovigo!”

“Is that so!”  Marika felt like dying, but
reacted by combating these venomous accusations.  “Well, where are these
pictures?  These videos?”  Her frustration took over.  “Come on, let me see
them!”  She got up from the couch and walked toward her room.  “Come on, let’s
take a look, let’s check out YouTube!  I’m so curious to see them!”

“That’s enough!”  Her father pointed
Marika back to the couch while he asked his wife to control herself.  “I’ll say
it again to both of you.  The principal’s letter does NOT mention Marika.”

“Then what do you want from me?” their
daughter recriminated.  “Matteo barely knows that I exist, and I would never
have slept with him just for the fun of it.”  Her eyes raced from one face to
the other, trying to convince them both.  “Lucrezia is behind all of this, I
know it.  But I don’t understand why.  He’s with her...,” the same old open
wound, “... and not with me.”  Her tears mixed with the racking heaves of her
sobs.  “Daddy, you have to believe me.  It’s the truth!”

“I do believe you.”

“Ferdinando!”  Her mother was too blinded
by shame to listen to reason.  “Her first and last name, there on the wall! 
What are the neighbors going to say?  What will our relatives think?”

“Paola, stop that!  You’re getting all
worked up over nothing and you’re not making any sense.  The important thing is
that Marika is fine.  As for everything else, it will all blow over quickly.” 
He gently embraced his wife to console her.  “If I had even the slightest
suspicion that she was lying to us, I’d take her personally to the
psychologist, but I’m being honest and objective when I tell you that the only
problem here seems to be a case of jealousy on the part of other girls for the
relationship between Marika and Matteo.  And that’s a problem for another set
of parents.”

The conversation went on all through the
evening.  No one was hungry; the only concern was to clear up this absurd and
dangerous situation.  Her father in particular told her exactly how things had
gone that afternoon, from the graffiti on the outside of the school and the
inside of the bathroom, to the rumors about how she was a cam girl for Matteo,
finishing with the letter from the principal which raised the issue of
micro-prostitution.  “Do you know anything about girls who have been playing
erotic games in exchange for money, gifts, cellphones, drugs, or anything
else?  Even just for fun?”  He wanted to know whether or not there truly were
sex competitions going on during breaks or other forms of paid sex at the
school. 
Reading about it in the newspapers or seeing it on TV is one thing,
but it was a whole different story if it was happening just inches away from
your own child
.  “Are there naked pictures taken in the bathrooms that are
making the rounds?  Or videos on the internet?”

“I don’t know.  Could be.”  It was a world
unto itself, and it was better not to stick your nose into it if you didn’t
want to get burnt.

“What does ‘I don’t know, could be’ mean? 
Please Marika, I don’t want to pry into your life, but I want to understand
what’s going on.”  Mr. Vendramini was seriously concerned, even though it was
obvious that his daughter wasn’t involved.

“I mean, maybe it is, but I don’t know
anything about it.”  Marika replied as if there was nothing really so strange
about it; these were other people’s problems, after all.

“You act as if it’s normal to have sex
with the first person who asks for it and to sell yourself in photos and videos
for money, or just to become popular!”  Ferdinando was aghast at how teenagers
could separate sex from feelings, selling their bodies like virtual products:
an emotionless doll, and therefore non-existent.  “Lots of people think it’s
just a game, you know, kid stuff.  But they couldn’t be more wrong, because
behind this game there’s only loneliness and the need to be accepted.”

She abandoned her indifference when she
realized just how worried her father was.  “Yeah, well, it does happen. 
Sometimes you walk in on ambiguous situations in the bathroom, and people are
always making comments about pictures on their cellphones,” she admitted.  “But
if they’re doing it for money, well, those are just rumors that you hear in the
hallway.”