Privilege

by Mary Adkins

LA climbed out of the car. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll drop you off and then come back and take a look. It’s probably the fuel pump.”

  On the ride to Carter, he kept stealing glances at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You never responded to my text,” he said.

  “I don’t want to date you, still,” she said.

  “I figured,” he said, sounding less surprised and more disappointed. At least that was progress?

  “But I want to talk to you about something else. You’ve seemed down lately,” he said.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Because you can talk to me about anything,” he said.

  “I’m fine, LA.”

  “Is it that douche bag?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “I could tell he was a douche bag. It’s the hair. He has douche bag hair.”

  He turned onto campus and then, instead of going straight toward the student center, took a right.

  “Where are you going?” Stayja asked.

  “I want to show you something, in case you haven’t seen it yet.”

  “LA, I don’t have time. My shift is starting right now.”

  “This’ll take three seconds. Trust me, it’s worth it. You’ll be glad.”

  Before she could protest further, she saw what he was talking about—ahead of them, spray-painted on the Bridge in bright red, TYLER BRAND = RAPIST!!

  “Oh my God,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “Motherfucker messes with you, motherfucker messes with me.”

  “You did this?” Stayja yelled. “What the fuck, LA!”

  “You bet I did!” he said.

  He’d taken a detour to show her the Bridge and had made a U-turn to take her back to campus, to work. As they passed under it again, she moaned. Why? Why did this have to happen? Tyler knew that she was friends with LA. There were probably cameras all over. LA would be found out, and Tyler would trace it to her. He would think she had something to do with it.

  “You don’t even know him!”

  “I know what Nicole told me. And I know he hurt you. That’s all I need to know.”

  She wondered if she should text him? Surely, he already knew—it was almost 2 p.m. But why hadn’t someone painted over it yet?

  “What are you doing?” LA asked, pulling to a stop in front of the café.

  “Telling him about it,” Stayja said, climbing out.

  “Why?!”

  “Because he needs to know so he can take care of it.” She slammed the door as LA rolled down the window and yelled, just before speeding away angrily, “You’re welcome!”

  Before she went inside, she thought she’d just quickly lap around the lot to see if his car was there. In a spot midway between the café and his dorm, she spotted it, white and glistening in the noonday glare. He hadn’t yet replied to her text. She was turning to go when she detected, on the driver’s side, a profile barely visible behind the tinted glass.

  She approached and knocked on the window. He rolled it down a few inches. She could tell by the look on his face that he knew about the Bridge.

  “Hop in,” he mumbled.

  “I just texted you,” she said as she opened the passenger-side door and climbed inside. “I just saw the Bridge.” It was warm in the car—the heat had been running awhile.

  “Why would she do this to me?” he said, his elbows on the steering wheel and his palms on his head. “This is a nightmare.”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty fucking bad,” Stayja agreed. “Is someone going to paint over it?”

  “They better,” he said. “If they don’t want to get sued.”

  “Good,” she said, feeling a little better.

  “She’s taken this too far. The only option she’s left us is to sue her. Not that she has any money.”

  “Sue her?” Stayja asked, trying to disguise the fear in her voice. “For what?”

  “She can’t just ruin my life because she regrets a drunken blow job.”

  Stayja turned away. Outside the window, a tour group of at least fifteen parents and teenagers was being led by a tour guide into the Rooster.

  “I have to go,” she said. “I’m already late.” She gave his knee a squeeze. “I’m sorry this happened.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  “It’ll be okay,” she said just before she closed the door.

  “You don’t know that,” he said.

  AFTER MAKING WHAT felt like an endless list of drinks for the tour group, Stayja hurried back outside to call Nicole.

  “Are you okay?” Nicole answered. It was rare that Stayja would call and not text. In the background, Stayja could hear the sounds of a boisterous crowd. So Nicole and Chet were already at the hockey game.

  “What did you tell LA about Tyler? Did you tell him about the thing with Annie?”

  Obviously, Stayja knew that she had, but she wanted her cousin to admit it.

  “What is ‘the thing’ with Tyler and Annie? That he raped her, you mean?” Nicole was not even trying to keep her voice low. So Chet knew as well. Everyone in their lives thought Stayja was dating a rapist. “Probably. I don’t remember. Why?”

  “Because he’s lost his fucking mind is why,” Stayja said and then told her cousin about the Bridge and LA’s stupid machismo about it and about Tyler’s saying he was going to sue whoever did it.

  As Stayja spoke, Nicole was quiet—Stayja could hear only the faint sounds of cheering nearby and the announcer calling plays.

  “You don’t think they have a camera on that thing do you?” Nicole said when Stayja had finished.

  “I think it doesn’t matter whether they do or not. I have to turn him in. Or persuade him to turn himself in.”

  “Stayja! No! Why would you do that?”

  “Because they’re going to find out either way! These people have a lot of money. They’re huge donors to the school. He’s poked a bear, Nicole.”

  Nicole was quiet again.

  “Well?” Stayja said.

  “I’m here.”

  “What do you think?” Stayja couldn’t remember the last time she’d asked for Nicole’s advice. Probably never, but this felt bigger than what she could handle alone.

  “He’ll lose his job. Don’t do that to him, Stayja. Don’t.”

  “I’m saying they’ll find out.”

  “But you don’t know that.”

  A longer pause passed between them. Stayja half wondered if Chet was listening in and half didn’t care.

  “Tyler will be fine,” Nicole said. She sounded assured, confident. “Guys like Tyler are always fine.”

  Then Stayja heard Chet’s voice say, “That took forever, but here’s your soda.”

  “Don’t do it. I’m telling you,” Nicole pled, quieter now. “You’ll regret it.”

  “I have to go,” Stayja said.

  BY SIX, TYLER had let her know by text that it had been painted over. He’d said his parents were working with the university to investigate who’d done it and that there would be repercussions.

  Like what? she responded and was waiting for his response when a male voice interrupted her thoughts.

  “Doing anything fun for Halloween?” She looked up.

  Eric Gourdazi had gained weight in the month or two since she’d last seen him. His jawline was softer, and he was wearing glasses now. Otherwise, he was as handsome as he’d always been. A familiar flutter passed through her rib cage.

  “Halloween is my favorite holiday,” he said as if he’d prepared. “Know why?”

  “No,” she said.

  “The pictures of babies in costumes. I’m a sucker for a baby in a costume.”

  “That’s nice,” she said. What on earth was going on?

  “Do you remember,” he said, “that I said something kind of crappy earlier this fall? I know this sounds dumb, but I’ve wanted to apologize
for it ever since. I decided I wouldn’t come back here until I did.”

  Eric Gourdazi had been thinking about her for months?

  “Uh,” she said, “I don’t remember. What do you mean?”

  “I said that this girl would know better than you if tuna salad had gone bad. And I just wanted to say . . . I saw your face, and I think you misunderstood what I meant. You looked like you thought I meant . . . See, that girl is obsessed with tuna. She eats it constantly, in class and stuff—it stinks up the whole room. And then she tried to make me smell it. And then she made you smell it. So I said to her that she probably knew better than you if the tuna smelled bad because she eats it all the damn time, but I could tell after I’d said it, based on your face, that I’d offended you. And I realized you maybe—correct me if I’m wrong, but maybe—thought I was saying that you, like, wouldn’t be able to tell if tuna is bad or something. And I just . . . I wasn’t saying that. And now I’m in a program where I need to apologize for the things I’ve done. So I’m just here to apologize.”

  So Eric Gourdazi was an addict in recovery. Huh.

  “Hey, no hard feelings. I appreciate it. What can I get you?” she said.

  Appearing relieved, Eric said, “Regular coffee, please.” As she filled the paper cup, she thought about how, months earlier, she would have craved that interaction. She still had a chance. She could turn around and indulge him, flirt back, inform him that she also found tuna fucking gross, that she respected him for entering recovery, that she wished him well.

  But she didn’t want to be with Eric. She wanted to be with Tyler.

  She handed him his coffee with a polite smile, and as he walked away, she texted Tyler.

  I’m coming by after work. I have to talk to you.

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Tyler said, standing by his window, holding a beer he’d just cracked open. “Why would he do that?”

  Stayja shrugged.

  “He’s an idiot.”

  “That’s not a reason, though,” he said. “Why?”

  “Because he’s jealous? He probably thought it was funny in a way.”

  “It’s not fucking funny.”

  “I know that.”

  “Why did he even know about my case?” he asked suspiciously.

  “My cousin told him.”

  “Who’s your cousin?” He threw his hands in the air, exasperated, as if there were too many pieces of the story to follow.

  “She works with Annie. At the bookstore.”

  He sighed and took a long swig. “So your cousin thinks I’m a rapist is what you’re saying.” He sat down at his desk.

  “My cousin doesn’t know you. It doesn’t matter what she thinks.”

  After a moment he said, “So that’s a yes.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “You have to turn him in,” he said.

  She didn’t expect this from him. She was hoping he’d tell her the opposite—that it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t Annie, and so the whole thing could just fade into the past.

  “He’ll lose his job,” she said.

  “As he should,” Tyler said, taking another long sip.

  She studied a faint brown stain on his gray rug, then looked back up at him.

  “People think it’s true,” he said, desperation in his eyes. “Please. Just call campus police.” He grabbed his phone to pull up the number.

  22

  Annie

  FIRST THREE WEEKS OF NOVEMBER

  On a windy Tuesday night in November, I shivered as I made my way to the main quad to attend a “survivors’ vigil.” I’d been invited to speak by a senior who directed what I learned was called the Sexual Assault Prevention Network—an organization I’d never heard of. “Vigil” made me think of what you do when people die or go missing, but I’d accepted.

  It was scheduled to start at 9 p.m., and we’d all been instructed to wear yellow. I dressed in a yellow T-shirt and a pair of jeans—my lower body’s uniform again after the online pummeling that I’d been dealt in the wake of my op-ed.

  I wasn’t a newbie to Internet culture. I knew it was a bad idea to read the comments on my article. But an hour and a half after it was published online, I had anyway.

  I was ugly.

  I didn’t understand the legal process.

  I deserved it.

  How was I smart enough to get into Carter?

  My legs were diseased.

  What was wrong with my legs?

  Among the harsh realities crystallizing for me in the wake of my rape, coming into focus like a Magic Eye image, was the fact that my legs still branded me. I’d known that lasers can only do so much, but I’d believed that they were enough improved to constitute an afterthought rather than a focal point.

  For some commenters, my scars made them want to protect me. For others, it made them want to attack. For me, of course, it made me wonder if the whole thing was a kind of karmic payback for getting the surgery. I’d been vain, and this was my punishment. Because there was no question that if I hadn’t gotten the surgery, I wouldn’t have been hit on by Tyler Brand. I don’t mean because I wouldn’t have been attractive enough (although I did feel sure of that). I mean because I also wouldn’t have felt attractive enough to talk to him in the first place. And so it had begun to feel like a kind of cosmic penalty: I had wanted too much, hoped for too much. If not Tyler, it’d have been something or someone else. I’d dreamt too big, when in truth I was Annie Stoddard, made for the middle: middle class, middle looks, middle expectations. I had reached beyond my tier, past the natural order of things. Like that game at Chuck E. Cheese’s with the critter heads that pop up solely to be slammed by a mallet, I’d dared to make myself visible.

  “I told you this was going to happen,” Matty had said over lunch after I’d read some of the comments aloud to him. “The Internet was basically invented to harass women. You realize that, right?” Then he’d begun frantically tapping on his phone, loving nothing more than to prove a point no one was contesting. “‘As a student at Harvard,’” he’d read, “‘Mark Zuckerberg was disciplined after he brought down the university’s server because of the high level of traffic to his early version of Facebook, which ranked girls. He built the site in 2003 to allow visitors to view side-by-side photos of fellow students and vote who was hotter.’ Then it says he used their photos without their permission. See? The origin of social media was violating women’s privacy to make them feel bad. You’re just the next generation.”

  As the letters poured in to the Chronicle and the conversation ballooned on Twitter, I’d followed, hooked on the anger it lit in me. With each letter and each comment, I felt more like a pawn, everyone grabbing at me, spinning me into whatever they needed in order to craft their particular argument. They changed facts; they changed the story; they talked about me in the abstract. I felt present in so little of it.

  So at the beginning of November, when I was invited to speak on a sexual assault panel, I’d accepted, eager for an opportunity to reenter the conversation. But it was a disaster. I couldn’t keep my cool, I broke out in tears at least once, and I left feeling more misunderstood than before.

  Later, Linda, the gender studies professor on the panel, had called to check on me.

  “It wasn’t right to ask you to be on a panel so soon after your assault,” she’d said. “That was our failing, and we apologize.” As if the problem were asking me to speak, rather than treating me like an alien when I did.

  Now, with a couple of weeks to recover, I hoped this vigil would be what the panel wasn’t. I wanted to feel heard.

  As the senior who’d asked me to speak welcomed the forty or so of us in attendance, mostly girls, I couldn’t help but feel that the gathering did have a funereal quality. We faced her, poised solemnly in front of the bronze statue of Carter’s founder whose name no one ever remembered, arms crossed and hands tucked, shoulders hunched against the cold. We had all lit candles, but as survivor after survivor spoke, tearfully
recounting boozy late nights in the dorms and meetings with sleazy professors turned hostile, gusts of wind kept blowing out our candle flames. A skinny, pale boy had taken on the task of reigniting them. He darted about with his lighter, hunkering over smoky candle after smoky candle.

  I felt strangely out of place, but I also understood that this was providing catharsis for many of the people around me. I listened while mentally rehearsing my speech about the administration and campus policy so I could get home and go to bed.

  When a male second-year in green pants and a banana yellow polo peeking out of a navy wool jacket climbed the short platform and began to talk about the importance of sexual partners’ mutually agreeing on what constitutes consent, my pulse quickened.

  “We can all do ourselves a favor by not assuming that our understanding of how consent is expressed is the same as our partners’. Sexual respect starts with good communication.”

  He finished, stepped down from the dais to tepid applause, and it was my turn.

  “And now,” the senior who’d invited me to speak said, “to close the night, here is Annie Stoddard.”

  The notes for my speech were on my phone in my bag, but I didn’t retrieve it. I scanned the crowd for the boy who’d just spoken and spotted him on the fringes of the crowd holding hands and chatting with a pretty brown-haired girl.

  “Dan?” He didn’t look up. “Excuse me, the Dan who just spoke?” He lifted his head, surprised. “I really don’t buy that you guys are that confused.”

  Then I stepped off the platform and made my way across the grass in the direction of my dorm. It had been a short run, but my activism days, I knew, were over.

  LATER THAT WEEK I had stationed myself in a practice room for the afternoon, setting my laptop on top of a stack of books on the piano bench so I could play eye to eye with my YouTube instructor, Celia “Learn the Cello in One Month” Solofa. Her program was free and consisted of thirty thirty-minute lessons, seven of which I’d blown through, and my goal was to finish the full course within a week, by the time I went back to Pineville for Thanksgiving.

  I had just taken a break to grab a Snickers from the third-floor vending machine. I made my way back downstairs to my second-floor practice room. At the bottom of the stairs, a tall Asian guy was standing in the hallway in front of my practice room, facing my direction. He looked pleased to see me.