What was going on? First a request for nude photos, and now this? I felt the hair on my arms rise, and leaned in, unsure about what I was even looking at. All I knew was that it was a nasty display, intentionally targeting my daughter.
I clicked on the profile picture of the account that had notified Rachel about the cruel turkey photo. It was a cartoon of a basketball and hoop. “BucketBeast,” it said. “Living the Life.”
“He wrote a couple of times before. The first time the account said BucketBeast, and there wasn’t a picture with it. He just wrote ‘hi.’ But now suddenly the account has a photo and is posting mean messages, sending private DMs and commenting here and on other posts I made.”
I scrolled down. On the turkey post, he had commented, “You’re ugly. Go hide in your house!”
Rachel peered at me through red eyes. Why would he write something like this?”
I went over and kneeled down next to her. “We’re certainly going to get to the bottom of this. I don’t care what it takes, sweetheart. Let me think a little bit.” Rachel nodded and I went on. “Would you like to do something nice, like go out for ice cream with Alva while I make some calls?”
“Alva couldn’t come today. You were busy and forgot that she texted. Neil’s mom gave me a ride home. I’ll just stay here and do my homework.”
I’d forgotten that Alva had called in sick again. Hopefully she’d be back before too long. Rachel and I needed her.
I distracted myself by calling Julie, who was outraged by the online cruelty. “That’s horrible. Poor Rachel.”
I pictured her puzzling over our situation in the silence that followed. She finally said. “So what do you think you should do?”
“I wish I knew. It’s so cruel. And I don’t even get what this stupid account is. I was about to go online and try to figure it out, but I thought I’d call you. Maybe Carly would know?”
“When in doubt, ask a teen. They know everything. Carly!” A few moments passed, then I heard her daughter’s voice asking what was up. “Can you tell me about Instachat?” Julie asked.
I prayed she wouldn’t out us. We all got together for a road trip every couple of years, and I didn’t want Rachel to be embarrassed when she next saw Carly.
“Later. I have to FaceTime Ally.”
Julie spoke again. “I know someone who needs information about cyber stuff now. So here’s what we need to know: What does it mean if you look at Instachat and there’s a page with an unflattering or mean photo and bio, and the whole point of it is to make fun of a person?”
I thought I heard Carly make a snorting sound. “I don’t get the question.”
“So let’s say you found a page with your name on it on Instachat. Only it was really mean and you didn’t put it up.”
“Oh. Someone makes an account, pretending to be someone else, and puts really mean things on it?”
I was nodding along.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Is it, like, self-deprecating?”
“No, it’s more humiliating and mean-spirited than self-deprecating.”
“Well, it kind of sounds like a fake account, a second Instachat feed. Just so you know, there’s also something called a Finsta, which is different; we all have them. They’re for fun. So you have your regular Instachat, where you show more public things, and your Finsta, which is more private.”
Carly was losing me.
“So you have another account?” Julie sounded annoyed. I pictured her, hand on one hip, challenging her daughter about social media secrets.
“It’s not a big deal. I have like five hundred followers on my Instachat: kids from camp, teams, whatever, not just close friends. But on my Finsta, I have a lot less. And the posts are a joke, but kind of making fun of myself, private jokes. Like you only show your real friends if you are pissed off at a teacher or you tripped in the hallway at school. You don’t want everyone to know that stuff. Getting back to the question, I think what you are talking about is a fake account. People sometimes make those to poke fun at someone. Can I be done, now? I have to go.”
I heard Julie remind Carly to finish her homework, and waited as they had a muffled exchange. Once her daughter had moved on, Julie came back on. “Wow. Fake Instachat and accounts.”
“I know. I had no idea. Thank you so much. I appreciate your finding out about that. And thanks for keeping Rachel’s problems a secret. Now I have to deal with this online bullying. I really can’t take much more.”
“I know. It sounds really bad, Vic. From what you described and what Carly explained, someone made a fake account and, posing as Rachel, put humiliating things and threatening comments on it?”
I massaged my temples. “Apparently. I’ve got to get off the phone now so I can try to do something. Should I wait—everyone’s saying it’s some troubled kid—or go to the police? I want to nip it in the bud.”
“Going to the police is probably a good idea. Please call me when you get home—or before.”
We hung up and I went downstairs. Rachel was in the kitchen, mixing eggs and flour in a giant bowl.
“How are you doing, Rach?”
She shrugged. “Show me your phone. I want to see if there’s been anything new.”
As I feared, BucketBeast had been busy. He’d branched out, commenting on a few of Rachel’s recent posts: “I hate you,” one of them said. “You’re a whale!!! What’s your BMI, like 1000?” a second one read. “GO KILL YOURSELF!” the third one screamed. I had to steady myself against the desk. This was awful. The account now had 460 followers.
“Why is this happening to me?” Rachel was pacing. “Everyone in the school probably knows. They’ll all make fun of me.”
“I’ll be acting on this immediately.” She gave me an exhausted shrug. “What’s a BMI?”
“Just some disturbed kid’s attempt to disparage you. It’s an abbreviation doctors use.” She buried her face in her hands. I was furious now.
Rachel looked up and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I know it has to do with body size. I googled it.” She was crying harder now, and I knelt down next to her. “Remember at my last appointment, my height and weight, I was in the fifty-something percentile? I’m in the middle, not the biggest, not the smallest.”
I nodded. “Sweetheart. You are absolutely beautiful and healthy and just the right shape and size. I’m going out so I can deal with this now. Do you want me to drop you at Maya’s or Neil’s on my way?”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine here.”
“Just hang in for a little while until I get back, okay? Love you,” I said as I grabbed my coat.
Mayfair shared a police department with several other neighboring villages. The precinct was housed two towns over in a small white house adjacent to a gas station off the main drag.
I walked onto the porch of the police station and said my name into an intercom next to the front door. Someone buzzed me into a large room. A gray-haired receptionist sat behind a desk several feet in front of me. I stepped in and smiled in her direction, closing the door behind me. She peered over her glasses. “Hello,” I said, unsure of the protocol.
“My name is Victoria Bryant. I’d like to speak to one of the officers.”
She cocked her head, waiting for more.
“About a potential criminal matter.”
“Okay. Sit down over there and someone will come and get you.”
As I took a seat in a boxy steel chair and waited as the receptionist went into a back room. I thought about what I’d say during the meeting.
A uniformed officer opened the door and extended one hand. “Officer Giles,” he said, ushering me into the main part of the precinct. He looked to be about my age, and probably had a decade or more of experience. That was promising. Although I wasn’t too keen on getting involved with the criminal justice system and preferred to keep our problems private, I’d file a report.
The officer brought me into a large room that had several desks across the inte
rior and a table.
“So please tell me your name and address, then let me know how I can help you,” Giles said as we sat down.
“Dr. Victoria Bryant. Two Long Pines Drive, Mayfair. I’m here about my eleven-year-old daughter, Rachel. She’s a fifth grader at Barnum.”
Giles made notes as I told him the whole story, from girl troubles to the bullying comments on Instachat to the fake account and BucketBeast. As soon as I mentioned BucketBeast, he stopped writing and put a hand up. “I didn’t realize it was connected to that. Let me get you over to Detective Weiner.”
We stood up and walked over two desks to the woman who’d been filing. “Laurie, this woman is here on the ‘BB’ matter,” Giles said before looking back at me. “This is Detective Weiner. She’ll take it from here. Good luck.”
The detective took all the information as she brought the BucketBeast account up on her screen. I felt sick looking at the now-familiar turkey photo profile pic and growing number of accompanying jabs. “318 likes and 494 followers,” she said, eyeing me across the table.
So hundreds of people had seen this humiliating photo and horrible display. How would Rachel ever show her face in public again? And the comment, “Go kill yourself.” I thought about how Rachel had tried to help herself, blocking the kid who was doing this, talking to friends. But all he had to do was make another account and go after her again. Kids were so vulnerable these days, with all the time they spent online. The pain caught in my throat and came out as a small anguished gulping sound. The detective handed me a box of tissues. As I cried, she sat silently, hands folded on her lap.
She was tall and dressed in all black with almost no makeup and long straight blond hair, which she’d drawn into a tight, high ponytail. “We’re looking into this, Dr. Bryant. I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation, but over the past twenty-four hours, we’ve received several similar complaints. The school is also concerned and cooperating in our investigation.”
“I guess that’s something. My child wasn’t singled out.” Weiner nodded and brought her fingertips to her lips before inhaling deeply.
I wondered whether Collette had been on the receiving end of a fake account from BucketBeast. Then Lee would know how it felt to see her child bullied while being unable to help.
“I appreciate that this is rough for your daughter and you. But this incident isn’t a lot to go on. And normally I’d tell you that we don’t open a criminal investigation for something like middle school shenanigans . . . however hurtful they may be.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Any idea who is behind this?”
“Like I said before, I can’t comment, but in this case, there are several people who’ve made similar complaints, and for reasons I’m not going to get into right now, the department is pairing with another police organization and investigating further. So please be available.”
“Okay. But is there some help you can provide until the investigation precedes any further? My daughter’s turning eleven, and this cyber stuff is brutal.”’
Weiner nodded. “We’re doing everything we can. Just sit tight.” She ushered me to the exit. I texted Rachel, “leaving now.”
“Finished baking,” came the response. “Doing homework.”
I was relieved she’d back-burnered the fake account, at least for now.
I’d put my coat on and started to walk out the door when Detective Weiner reappeared. “Dr. Bryant? I forgot: Here’s my card, in case you think of anything else or need to speak to me again.”
Once I’d left the station, I slid into the driver’s seat of my car, feeling a little more hopeful. I’d taken concrete action by going to the police, and Rachel wasn’t the only one targeted. I hoped things continued to move in a positive direction.
When I arrived at home, Rachel asked me a lot of questions. “Was there a police dog at the station house?” she wanted to know.
“Nope, just a coffee maker. What are you going to say the next time you’re at school, and someone asks you about the fake account?”
“I’ll tell the truth. I ignored it.”
“Rach, telling the truth is always good. But since we don’t know who BucketBeast is yet, and we don’t want to provoke him or cause him to make another fake account or bother you in some other way, I think you should say very little, okay? Until we get it all sorted out?”
“I forgot to tell you, BucketBeast made fake pages about Maya and Francesca. Those accounts also had a lot of followers.”
I nodded, waiting to hear more.
“Neil got one the other day, but he didn’t tell anyone. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one.”
Apparently BucketBeast was an equal opportunity hater.
“So if someone asks me about the turkey account, I won’t respond,” Rachel continued. “I’m going to make a new account, and if they bring up the other one, I’ll just tell people to follow the new one I’m making.”
“Great idea.”
“I’m going on Urban Dictionary.” As she went upstairs to her room, I overheard her, trying out puns, seeking a name for her fake account: “The Rachel,” “Pulling a Rachel,” “Code Rachel,” “Rachel heart—wait that’s it.” I heard her closing her door.
An hour later, I called her to come downstairs for dinner. “Let me see the fake account, please,” I said. She handed me her phone. There was a profile photo of Rachel, winking at the camera. The bio said: “Rachel < 3”
“What does that mean?” I was confused by the symbols after her name.
“A Rachel with a sideways heart means ‘awesome Rachel. A great friend, the person everyone wants to be around.’”
I smiled, despite the fact that her handle and explanation made me sad. Rachel was obviously trying to display an image of what she wanted to be, the girl at the center of a core group of friends.
I thought about my daughter and her peers, living their lives online, their social lives commoditized for all to see. It was so complicated, growing up in front of an audience, in a world with no boundaries, no privacy, no accountability, and where bullying was the norm.
Twenty-One
Cyber Nothings
Next morning, all was calm as Rachel and I drove to school. She’d heard from Neil and Maya that other kids had been targeted by BucketBeast. He was school-wide stalker. Come again? Barnum had a stalker?
Rachel told me all about it. “Neil tried out for a soccer travel team and saved a goal by a seventh grader, who then got really mad at him. Later, Neil saw the kid in the bathroom. He was on his phone, posting on Instachat, and told Neil to “fuck off.” Rachel paused, studying me through the rearview mirror, gauging my reaction to the language. I nodded and she went on. “So after the tryout, BucketBeast targeted Neil and another kid with fake accounts. That’s why everyone thinks the seventh grader that got mad at Neil is the stalker.”
“That’s a big coincidence, isn’t it?” I glanced back. She was deep in thought. “Why would some seventh grader go after you?”
Rachel was nodding. “Good question. No one can prove it, but he was really mean to Neil and was on his phone posting. And BucketBeast sent the notifications right after that. He probably made accounts for Maya and me because he knows we’re friends with Neil.”
I’d dropped Rachel off at school, relieved that she and her friends were all sticking together. For my part, I was glad she was comfortable going to class, though I was still eager to hear what the police had learned.
An hour later, I was in the city office listening to Amy tell me about a huge blowout she’d had over the weekend with Lee, Maureen, and several PTA moms. She’d gotten in their faces, accusing them of purposely closing the registration in the afterschool class she’d told me about. She said she was sure they’d excluded her daughter out of meanness. I couldn’t believe she’d gone off on the group like that.
Since the argument, Amy hadn’t been sleeping or eating and had been having trouble concentrating. There was no doubt that she was under tremendous stres
s. After I pointed this out, she finally agreed to discuss medication with a colleague of mine.
After the session, I recalled the conversation in which Amy had announced she’d been trawling a bunch of kids’ social media pages. I pictured the horrific turkey account. What if?
I pushed that thought to the side. Not only was it was ridiculous, I now had a more pressing concern: Amy, Maureen, and the resulting clinical conflict. My head felt like it was about to explode. I made a note on each woman’s chart that I was in the process of referring her to a different therapist, and decided to discuss the change with Amy when she was stronger. But something else nagged at me.
Amy’s comments had brought it all back. She and her daughter had been through hell, and Rachel and I hadn’t had it much better, but Lee, who’d caused trouble for all of us, was getting off scot-free. That wasn’t right. Why was that woman above it all, immune from suffering or payback? She’d made Rachel’s life miserable, and been the catalyst in my breakup with Jim.
The BucketBeast incident had served as a disturbing distraction, but now I thought back to what Maureen had said several weeks ago. Lee was planning something behind the scenes, intending to come after me. My resentment burned. I had to do something to stop her. And even though Rachel had begged me not to, I still wanted to get even with the woman for all the cruelty she’d visited upon us. With my daughter handling the social stuff and the police getting involved in the cyberstalking, I could once again focus my attention on the PTA chair.
I went back to the same chat room I’d visited before, being sure to sign in under a newly minted alias: “Observer,” and looked back at the thread I’d started weeks earlier at the postings of the woman I’d concluded was her. Someone had written: “inclusion is always the way to go,” while Cheerleader, the woman who’d recently used the phrase “loser daughter,” had responded: “Not every situation is alike. For example, we’d gotten along fine, minding our business, until these social climbers started messing with our daughter.”
Barbarians at the PTA Page 20