Fifteen Lanes (8 page)

I felt both panicked and vindicated when he asked his secretary to make an appointment for him to talk to Todd and Madison. I wasn’t sure whether to bring up Madison’s name. I didn’t accuse her but I did say we’d had a disagreement about Todd the same day he started texting me. I genuinely wanted Mr. Smiley to draw his own conclusions. I didn’t know what to think.

Dad was sitting in the seat closest to me. He didn’t look at me, which was a relief and hurt at the same time. Only when we were well into the second thirty minutes of the interview did he reach over and take my hand. At that point, I was white-knuckling the hard plastic armrest. Mom had just started talking about getting a lawyer and suing the school.

Dad cleared his throat and Mom stopped talking. This wasn’t a strategy they’d worked out ahead of time, unless you
count the past twenty-two years as “ahead of time.” Mom looked at Dad expectantly. I didn’t need to see her expression to know it was a mixture of
Don’t interrupt me
and
What took you so long?

“I think it’s obvious Grace has been the victim of a cruel if not criminal attack,” said Dad. I couldn’t help but notice Mr. Smiley was suddenly way more alert and not trying to interrupt. “She used bad judgment, but her error was a private one, which we’ll address with her when we get home.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. McClaren,” said Smiley, who looked sorry and more than a little nervous. My dad runs a company with over two thousand employees; he can have that effect on people. “But even if Grace only sent the photo to the boy, she still sent a pornographic image to an underage student.”

“Really,” said Dad. “And have you identified that student?”

Mr. Smiley shifted uncomfortably. “Not as yet, no.”

“Have you traced the cellphone number?”

“It doesn’t match any we have on record, or the numbers of either of the two students Grace named as possible perpetrators.”

“So, as far as we know, Grace could have been in communication with anyone, an adult even?”

“That’s highly unlikely,” Mr. Smiley objected. “The picture was sent to almost every student in the school.”

“And how did that happen?”

“The image went viral. Students were passing it on. But your daughter was the first to send the image, obviously.”

“We don’t dispute that, but you can’t produce a single student who received the image from my daughter, and she doesn’t know who was play-acting as the teenage boy.

We’re in complete agreement that Grace needs consequences for her actions, but the humiliation of having her image disseminated is already a severe consequence. We’ll take her home for the rest of the day. It will give her time to reflect on her actions and we’ll talk to her. However, Grace cannot afford to miss school. She’ll be back in class tomorrow.”

My father stood up. Mr. Smiley, no longer living up to his name, stood as well. Mom and I followed suit.

“My colleagues and I will need to discuss appropriate sanctions,” said Mr. Smiley.

“We will not accept any consequence that jeopardizes her education,” said Dad firmly.

“At the very least she’ll have to do community service to atone for what she’s done,” said Mr. Smiley, equally firm.

“Grace already does community service as a requirement of her International Baccalaureate diploma,” said Dad. I could tell he didn’t like letting the school decide my punishment, but he was wrong on the community service front. I wasn’t involved in anything. In fact, I’d invested considerable energy into dodging the community service requirement.

“According to our records, Grace is not yet involved in any activity that will contribute to her required hours.”

I stared at my feet.

“Thank you for letting us know,” said Dad, without missing a beat. “Of course, we support any effort to help Grace find a suitable activity.”

Dad held out his hand and Smiley shook it.

“I trust you’ll keep us informed if you get any information on who’s responsible for this attack on my daughter.” Dad sounded every bit like the captain of industry that he was.

We walked out of the office. Dad only dropped my hand when it was necessary to pass through doors. He took it again when we were out of the building. I couldn’t remember him ever holding my hand before. It felt nice, though weird. Mom stalked ahead of us to the parking lot.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, daring to glance at Dad’s face for the first time.

He gave me a wry smile. “Everyone makes mistakes, Gracie, but this sure was a doozy.”

I couldn’t help but grin. Only my dad would use a dorky word like
doozy
. Who says that anymore?

“I guess you were missing your brother,” he said, as if he was trying to work it out for himself.

“And Tina,” I said.

“But still.”

“I know it was stupid but I never expected anything like this would happen.”

We reached the car. Our driver, Vitu, opened the door for me. Mom was already in the front seat. She never sat there. Obviously, she didn’t want to sit with me.

It was a silent ride home. She didn’t speak in the elevator either, but I could feel the pressure rising with each passing floor. I tried to plan what I was going to say when we were finally alone. I felt mortified, apologetic, betrayed, frightened; I couldn’t formulate a single sentence that would capture the depths of my regret. As it turned out, I didn’t need to. The second we were inside the apartment Mom burst into tears and Dad wrapped his arms around her. No one acknowledged Bosco, who rushed to greet us and was jumping around, yipping with delight.

“Why don’t you go to your room,” said Dad. “We’ll talk later.”

“No,” said Mom, pulling away from him. “We’ll talk now. Grace, how could you do this?”

The abrupt shift from tears to anger left me speechless.

“You’re a smart girl. How could you be so unbelievably stupid? Do you realize your image is out there in the public domain forever? Universities, future employers … someday your own children could see this. How are you going to explain to your own fifteen-year-old that you sent a topless photo of yourself to who knows how many people?”

“I didn’t do it, Mom.” I felt like I was going to throw up. As bad as I thought it was, it was so much worse. I hadn’t even begun to think of all the ways this could come back to haunt me.

“Of course you did it, Grace!”

“She means she didn’t send the picture to anyone but the one boy,” said Dad. “Or whoever it was,” he added under his breath.

“Exactly,” Mom pounced. “She sent a photo to someone without even knowing who it was. What were you thinking, Grace?”

“This isn’t getting us anywhere, Jen. What we need to do now is help Grace figure out how she can move on.”

“She can’t move on!” Mom roared. “This will never go away.”

Dad frowned worriedly. Maybe he hadn’t thought through the implications either.

“Go to your room, Gracie. Your mom and I need to talk.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I scurried to my room, Bosco hot on my heels. Once inside, I shut my door, dropped my bag on the floor and threw myself on the bed, though I immediately had to get up again to lift Bosco up beside me.

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, clutching Bosco to my heaving chest. I’d wanted to be alone since I first saw the picture, so I could finally let the tears fall. Now that I was, I found myself dry-eyed. It was like I was wrapped in gauze; everything I’d done seemed like the actions of someone else. Maybe this was what people meant when they talked about being in shock. Certainly what I’d done was shocking, and the fallout was cataclysmic. But it didn’t feel as though I was part of it. I could almost believe that I’d go to school tomorrow and be the same invisible nonentity I’d always been.

And then it occurred to me …

Trembling, I slid off the bed and walked over to my pack, knelt down and unzipped the front pouch where I kept my cellphone. It had already caused so much trouble. I would have been smart to smash it. Instead I pulled it out and brushed the screen. There, on the opening page, was my message icon showing fifty-two new messages.

Fifty-two.

I shouldn’t have read them. I stopped after the first dozen or so.

Mom was right. This was so much bigger than I could ever have imagined, and the worst part was that I’d done it to myself. I wasn’t the victim of random bullying. I was the one who’d sent my half-naked picture out into the world. The only thing Mom had wrong was saying I was a smart girl. She had it right when she told me I was stupid. I shuffled back to my bed and flopped down.

Dad popped his head in before he left for work.

“How are you doing?” he asked from the doorway.

“Is Mom still angry?”

“Give her some time, Gracie.”

“Would you tell her I want to speak to her?”

“I think it’s best to wait till she’s ready. Why don’t you message Tina?”

“I don’t want to tell her what I did. I don’t want anyone else to know. You haven’t told Kyle, have you?”

“No, but you might consider telling him yourself. Your brother’s always had your back.”

“I just want to talk to Mom.”

“I’m sure she’ll come talk to you later in the day. She’s getting ready to go out now. I think she’s meeting some of her friends for lunch.”

“Today?” I tried to hide the shock and hurt I felt that Mom could even think of going out when my whole world was falling apart.

Dad walked over to the bed and sat down next to me. I sat up and leaned into him. He put an arm around my shoulder. “I encouraged her to go. It will be good to take her mind off things. I’m sure she’ll come back feeling much better, and then you two can talk this all through.”

“Do you think she’ll forgive me?”

“You will never do anything we can’t forgive, Doodlebug.”

“Dad, I’m fifteen! You have to stop calling me that.” I was grinning though. My dad may be a dork but he’s a smart dork. If he said Mom would forgive me, I was ready to believe him.

He kissed the top of my head and stood up. “Are you going to be okay here today? Have you got some work you can do?”

“Sure, I’ll be fine.” I wanted to ask him to spend the day with me. I knew he would if I asked, but as much as I loved my dad, my mom was the one I went to in a crisis.

I waited all day for her. I tried to do schoolwork but I couldn’t concentrate. At least half the day I just paced the room. I checked my phone and Facebook a dozen times an hour. Each time there were new, hateful messages. I was only making myself feel worse, but it was like picking at a scab; I couldn’t stop.

When Mom finally came home, she must have been deliberately quiet. Even though I’d been listening for her, I wouldn’t have heard her if Bosco hadn’t started yipping and jumping around on the bed. I lifted him down to the ground and opened the bedroom door so he could run to greet her. Leaving it slightly ajar, I hovered behind it. My plan was to dash to my computer when I heard her coming down the hall and pretend I’d been studiously doing homework.

She was murmuring to Bosco but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. What I could hear was that her voice was getting fainter. She wasn’t coming to my room. She was headed in the opposite direction.

As quietly as I could I pushed the door closed and walked over to my bed. I was trembling just as I had when I first saw the photo, as I had when Mom was shouting at me, as I had when I saw the hate messages. I lay down and stared at the ceiling. This wasn’t going to get better. Mom wasn’t going to forgive me.

I don’t know how much time passed before I heard a light knock on the door. I was on my feet in seconds.

“Come in.”

It had to be her. Please, let it be her.

Dad walked in carrying a tray, Bosco right behind him. “Vanita said you haven’t eaten all day.”

It’s true. The few times our maid had stuck her head in the
door I’d shooed her away. I couldn’t have gotten food past the knot in my stomach.

“It’s tomato soup. I made it myself.”

I attempted a smile. It was a joke between us. Dad was a hopeless cook. Canned soup was the extent of his expertise. He put the tray on my desk and stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. I too was still standing, my anxiety growing with each passing minute. Mom was the unseen presence between us. I waited for him to speak.

He cleared his throat. “Here’s the thing, your mom feels it would be better if you two spoke in the morning. She’s taking this pretty hard. She feels she’s somehow responsible—”

“She’s not!” I cut in, aghast. “How could she think that? This has nothing to do with her!”

“I know, but you have to see it from her perspective. She’s invested so much of herself into raising you two. She gave up her career. She’s always been so involved in your lives. She just needs some time to make sense of all this.”

“Tell her I’m sorry,” I said stiffly. I wanted him to leave so I could cry in private. I took a step back and sat on the bed so he’d take the hint.

“Eat something and try to get some sleep. Things will look brighter in the morning.”

I leaned down and picked up Bosco, who was agitating to join me, and buried my face in his fur.

“Night, sweetie,” Dad said from the door before shutting it quietly behind him.

I didn’t know whether things would look brighter in the morning. I only knew that on the very worst day of my life, when I needed her the most, my mother couldn’t even look at me. It’s
not like I blamed her. Mom had done everything right. What Dad had said was true. She had always been there for me, active at every school we’d gone to, home in the evenings every night, helping with my homework, making valiant efforts to get me to talk more. Before Tina, Mom had been my only friend. We did everything together, and still she was nothing but happy for me when Tina came along and I didn’t want to hang out with her so much anymore.

I stood up and started pacing again. Nervous energy coursed through me. I felt as if I was going to explode. I reached for my phone; more new messages. I threw it at the wall. The sound was loud in the stillness, but it wasn’t enough. I could still hear my mom calling me stupid. She’d never said anything like that before, to me or my brother. Mom wasn’t a woman to toss words around. She’d been a successful lawyer before she had Kyle. If she said something, she meant it.