Thousand Words (20 page)

“I’m sorry, Buttercup.” She paused. “But you’ve got great boobs. Everyone knows that.” She chuckled, her breath making a whoosh into the phone, and when I didn’t laugh, she asked, “Too soon?”

“Maybe a little.” But I smiled in spite of myself. Somehow joking about it made it feel the tiniest bit like it was not the end of the world.

There was some muffled talking in the background and Vonnie’s voice, also muffled as if she was covering the phone with her hand, answered. “I know something that might make you feel better. Or worse. I don’t know. And then I’ve gotta go.”

“What?”

“Some other people got suspended today, too.”

“Who?”

“Nate Chisolm,” she said. “And that Silas kid, because they were the ones who started the whole thing. They’re saying Kaleb sent it to Nate and told him to have fun and do whatever he wanted with it. They’re in big trouble.”

“Good,” I said.

Vonnie paused. “And Rachel.”

“Rachel who?”

“Wellby.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Rachel, the one who was so offended that I’d said she was partially to blame for talking me into taking the picture? Rachel, the one who thought it was no big deal because her brother’s slutty freshman girlfriend did it all the time? Rachel, the one who was so traumatized by being asked if we were lovers?

“What for?”

“You sure you want to know?”

“I don’t know—do I?”

“Probably not.” Vonnie paused again and I could hear the slam of a bathroom stall door. “She’s the one who attached your name and phone number to the text.”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

“I wish I was. And don’t be mad at me… but I kinda guessed it was her all along, because she sent it to me when she did it. She’s such a twit to think I wouldn’t mind. But she says she wasn’t trying to be mean or anything. It was supposed to be a joke.”

“You knew? When we were talking about it at lunch, you knew and didn’t say anything?”

“I know. I’m a horrible friend. If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know for sure then. But someone turned her in to Principal Adams. She’s in deep shit.”

I was so angry, I didn’t have any words. My lips were pressed tightly together and my ears felt hot. Quickly, her voice echoing off the locker room walls, Vonnie filled me in on all the details about how, during sixth period, Principal Adams got on the intercom and told the teachers to confiscate any cell phones that were out, and how Mrs. Blankenship took like half the class’s cell phones. And how people were seriously pissed and were threatening that their parents were going to call and complain about it, because they paid for those cell phones and they weren’t the school’s property to take.

“Oh, and a woman was hanging around the front doors of the school talking to Principal Adams after school let
out, and people were saying she’s a reporter,” Vonnie finished.

My mind whirled. I tried to take it all in, but it was too much. On one hand, it felt good to not be the only one in trouble anymore. But on the other hand, I was still humiliated and would still have to face my parents. I would still have to face everyone at school again eventually. I would still have to face Rachel, and would Vonnie expect me to play nice with her? Probably.
She says she wasn’t trying to be mean or anything
, Vonnie had been quick to point out, which sounded to me like she was defending her friend. But who would defend me? Vonnie? The longer this went on, the less likely that looked. And even if she did, if you’re the kind of person who defends everyone, does your defense really mean anything?

Vonnie went back to practice and I hung up, flopping on my bed and staring at the ceiling, my phone clutched to my chest. If there ever was a situation that had gotten out of control, this was it. People were going down fast, and I wondered how much worse it would get before it got any better. Finally, my mom called for me. I was about to find out how much worse it would get in my house, anyway.

They hadn’t turned on the lights yet, and it was getting close to evening outside, making the whole den shadowy and frightening. At least in a darkened room I wouldn’t have to face the humiliation of meeting their eyes.

I walked in and sat down in the chair closest to the door without them even asking.

“You are in so much trouble,” my dad started, and the tone of his voice was downright scary. I didn’t think I had ever heard his voice sound so slithery in my entire life. I didn’t answer him. I felt like silence was the right move.

“Ashleigh, what on earth?” my mom chimed in, and her voice sounded much closer to tears. For some reason, that scared me even more.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said.

“Sorry?” Dad boomed. “You’re sorry? You think saying you’re sorry is going to fix this? This is no minor thing, Ashleigh. This is going to stick to you like glue for a long, long time. Did you know a reporter came to the school today? She already knew that you were my daughter. Someone had told her. For God’s sake, Ashleigh, are you trying to ruin me?”

“No, Dad, I didn’t ever mean for any of this to happen.” Even though I tried to stay silent, and even though I didn’t think there were any more tears left, words and tears spilled out of me. I knew it would only enrage him more, but I couldn’t help myself.

“I’ve got this pain-in-the-ass board president up in my face all the time,” he was saying, “and as if that’s not enough, now I’ve got a sexting scandal in my school district.”

Mom made a whimpering noise at the word “sexting.”

“And as if
that
isn’t enough, the person whose naked
picture is causing parents to breathe fire down my neck is my own daughter!”

The last three words boomed out of his mouth so loudly I thought I heard pictures rattle against the walls around me. I winced.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, my life sucks right now, too, Dad. Everyone is making fun of me and calling me names. This has been the worst day of my life, do you even care?”

“You brought that on yourself!” he shouted. “So I have little sympathy.”

“Roy, calm down. Shouting at her isn’t going to make anything better,” Mom said in that same weird, wavery voice.

“I know that. You know how I know that? Because nothing…
nothing
is going to make this better,” he said. “I’ve already gotten a dozen phone calls today, wanting to know what I’m going to do about this. And I can’t tell them, because all I can think about is that photograph that I will never be able to get out of my head, Ashleigh. I will never be able to unsee it. Thank you for that.” He paced in the small space between Mom’s desk and the doorway.

“I’m sorry, Dad. It was a stupid mistake. What more do you want me to say? I only meant for Kaleb to see it.”

“Don’t say his name,” Dad said, his teeth clenched. “Don’t even say that little son of a bitch’s name.”

“Were you two having sex?” Mom interjected.

“No, I swear, we never did.”

“Of course they were,” Dad answered. “You can’t believe her, Dana, after what she’s done.”

“Give her a chance,” Mom said. “She’s never lied to us before.”

“That we know of.”

“I’m not lying,” I said.

But Dad wasn’t having any of it. He was so angry, all he could do was yell and seethe. “I don’t care. I don’t care about that right now. I care about what’s going to happen next. What do you think I should do, Ashleigh? I’d love to hear your thoughts, since this is your mess.”

“What do you mean? I got suspended.”

“That’s not going to be enough. These people are really angry. We’ve got a major problem on our hands, and I don’t think you understand how major. There’s going to have to be more. They’re going to call for more. Publicly. That reporter isn’t going away.”

More? How was suspending me and three other people not enough? How was kicking me off the cross-country team and taking me away from my friends and from school not enough? I hadn’t killed anybody. I hadn’t even hurt anybody. I’d made a stupid mistake and it had gotten out of hand, and I was already so mortified. How could people want more? And what kind of more would they want, anyway?

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what you mean by more.”

“Well, for one thing, we’ll start by taking your cell
phone,” Mom added, and the shadows had gotten so deep at this point, I really couldn’t even see her face back there behind her computer monitor. “Clearly, you can’t use texts appropriately.”

“We broke up,” I argued. “It’s not like I’m going to be sending him any more texts. Especially not that kind.”

“You shouldn’t ever have been sending that kind in the first place. We thought you knew that already, but apparently we should have been monitoring you like a four-year-old,” Dad said, and then he, thankfully, stormed out. I heard the cabinets opening and closing in the kitchen, and ice cubes dropping into a glass.

The room felt empty without him there. No, more than empty. It felt sucked out. Devoid of oxygen. With him gone, so was my defensiveness. Now I was left with just Mom, and embarrassment and sorrow.

“You got kicked off the team,” she said.

“I know,” I answered. “I don’t really think that’s fair. This had nothing to do with cross-country.”

“Fair isn’t for you to decide now,” she said. “You lost that privilege.”

“Mom, it wasn’t my fault that it got sent around. That was Nate’s and Silas’s and Rachel’s fault. And Kaleb’s. He shouldn’t ever have sent it to anyone.”

“But they wouldn’t have had anything to send if you hadn’t taken the photo in the first place,” she said, but she didn’t sound argumentative so much as scared. Which scared me.

“What’s going to happen?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “But it starts with your phone.” I saw movement in the shadows, and could barely make out her hand, stretching across the desk toward me, looking pale and fragile in the evening light. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned it off, then placed it in her hand. “And I would say that you’re grounded. For a long time,” she said. “We’ll go with indefinitely on that, too.”

I’d figured as much.

The TV blared to life in the living room, and I heard the squeak of the recliner’s footrest snapping into place. Mom didn’t say any more, and Dad was clearly done with me. All I wanted to do was go to my room.

I got up to leave but turned back. “Mom, please don’t be disappointed in me.”

“How could I not be?” she asked in that same tired, wet voice.

I guessed I couldn’t blame her for that. How could she not be?

“What more do you think Dad means?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered, and that was what worried me most of all.

I climbed the stairs to my room, where I didn’t turn on the light all night. Just stayed in the dark, wrapped around myself, waiting for more to happen.

Whatever horrible thing “more” was.

The next day I slept in. On the one hand, this was a good thing, because it meant I didn’t have to see Mom or Dad before they left for work. On the other hand, it meant I woke up to a quiet house.

I had no cell phone, so I couldn’t text Vonnie to see what was happening at school. I still had my laptop, but everyone else was in class, so there was nobody to talk to.

All I had was the TV—which sucked during the day—and my running shoes.

Even though I was grounded, exercise didn’t really count as “going out,” did it? Especially not to my mom, who was so upset that I’d been kicked off the team. Maybe seeing
that I was willing to keep working at it would make her a little less mad at me.

I ate lunch and then got into my running gear. I stuffed a few dollars into my shoe and took off.

But once I got outside, I felt like everyone was looking at me. Staring at the naked girl whose picture had ended up on their kids’ cell phones.

I knew it wasn’t the truth—probably nobody was looking at me—but the very thought still made me feel nervous.

I hit the trail and raced through the woods faster than usual, trying to pound out all the emotions I was feeling with my footsteps.

Finally, I ended up at the thrift store, which was open, though the parking lot was empty save for one car. I went inside, my shirt soaked with sweat, my breathing still coming in gasps.

“Hello,” a white-haired woman in a fuzzy sweater said as I came inside. Who wore a sweater in heat like this? I stood in front of a fan she had going next to the register.

“Hi.”

“Purple tags are twenty percent off today,” she said. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

Anonymity. Freedom. Peace. Do you sell any of those here? Are those purple-tag items? Because I would think they’d be full price if anything was. Hot commodities.

I shook my head. “Just looking.”

She went back to attaching price tags to things, and I ducked into the racks of clothes and shoes, idly digging
through old skirts and blazers from the 1990s and sneakers with curled-up toes.

I passed the board games and old television sets and voice recorders. They all seemed ugly and dusty and out of style. They made the past seem depressing, and I was at once thrilled that I had not been a part of the time when those things were the best we could do and sad with the knowledge that all too soon our technology would seem as old and outdated as theirs.

I turned the corner into housewares and rambled around in there for a while. Old china teacups and saucers lined the shelves. Chipped, ugly, mismatched. Someone would buy them. Someone would find a use for a single pea-green teacup. There was a ceramic creamer with a cow wearing a bikini lounging across the lid. A fondue set with no skewers. A whole stack of dog food dishes painted with cartoon paw prints. And a bin of pillows, the top one of which had a photo of three muddy kids mugging for the camera silk-screened onto the top of it, along with the saying
A PICTURE’S WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
needlepointed in fancy script. I picked it up and studied it. Why would someone get rid of this? Why would someone all of a sudden not want a photo of these children anymore?

Clutching the pillow, I turned in a slow circle and took in all the clothes and toys and shoes and dishes and furniture around me. None of it was wanted anymore. Most of it was probably forgotten. How sad.