“Good plan.”
“Great,” she says.
“What about when no renters show up?”
“I’ll deal with that when it happens,” she says with a brief freaky-cheery smile. “Or maybe I’ll actually find us some renters.”
I want to tell her that this is unnecessary. I want to be able to have a reasonable conversation with Dad, or, given that I already tried that, I want to her to find some way to put her foot down, to get through to him in a normal way. But the truth is that given how things went between him and me earlier, it might not be possible.
“This is really screwed up, Mom.”
“I know.”
“And a bit . . . sneaky.”
She lifts her eyebrows.
“But . . . I think the phrase I’m looking for is . . . thank you?”
“Yes,” she says, and beams. “That’s the one. You’re welcome.”
Five minutes later Mom is running interference with Dad while I get behind the bar and onto his laptop.
He has no password protection, and the article is right there. To his credit, it’s four thousand words long already. I feel a twinge of guilt, but this has to be done. Still, I’m curious enough that I take photos of each page before deleting the words on the document, trashing the document itself, and then emptying the trash.
Then, keeping an eye on Jack’s closed door, I quickly open my hotspot, tether to my phone, then open the browser, which Dad has conveniently open to Complainers already. I scroll through as quickly as I can, finding his posts and deleting them.
I’m doing one last check through, skimming only, but stop in my digital tracks when I see a post from Kyle.
“I work at the Goat as a host, and though I might get in trouble for posting this, Perry Ackerman was way out of line Sunday night. It’s not just the hand on the butt, he was all over Libby, touching her waist, her back, her sides, and making inappropriate comments. He does it to all the female servers and they all just try to laugh it off, but I’ve come to realize they don’t actually find it funny. I feel bad that I haven’t done anything to try to stop it and haven’t spoken up until now. Something is wrong with a system where so much focus is on tips, and being friendly and not simply on doing your job as a professional. The customer is not always right and this customer was every kind of wrong.”
Holy cow.
I take a photo of Kyle’s post, then quickly go to Dad’s settings and change his password so he can’t get back on Facebook at all. It’s an invasion of his privacy, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and again I rationalize that it’s for his own good.
I disconnect from the hotspot and close the laptop just as Jack’s door opens a crack, and then Mom emerges, looking for another roller.
I come out from behind the bar and give her a discreet thumbs-up.
* * *
—
Up in my room I can still hear the music, and Dad’s voice, and then Mom’s, warbling alongside his. They sound so happy. Like if someone just walked into our house right now, they’d have no idea.
The only person who would get this situation is Jack.
Jack, whom I told to fuck off earlier.
I feel sorry about that now. I don’t want to fight with Jack. And so much has happened that I’m not even sure what exactly he said—just that it felt like he was going to take Perry’s side, and he assumed this unnamed girl was looking for attention. Right—that last part was what really set me off. Of course he wouldn’t have said that if he’d known it was me we were talking about. But even if he wouldn’t have, isn’t that just as bad? Worse?
Now I’m mad all over again, and also mad that he’s stopped texting and trying to call me. He was supposed to keep trying—to not give up.
When the phone pings a minute later, I expect it to be him.
Instead, it’s Kyle. Again.
Things have kinda blown up and you’re pretty quiet. You okay?
I’m so annoyed, and on the verge of telling him to go away. And yet, having just read his post, I can’t. He has stood up for me more than anyone else has. And he’s been checking on me daily since Sunday and, I think, sincerely trying to be supportive. (Possibly while also hoping to get laid again, but still.)
I hesitate, my finger over the keypad, but I’m spared having to make any decisions for the moment, because another text is coming in from him.
Don’t know if you saw but I wrote some posts, telling the truth about Perry.
Feeling grateful to Kyle continues to be the height of irony. Still, I wrinkle my nose and text back, Thank you. Hope you’re not in trouble for it. I’m fine.
Now please just go away.
The phone pings again and I nearly throw it against the wall. It’s good that I don’t, though, because the new text is from Noah.
I found it, it says, and then another text comes right after, and it’s the drawing of the bird in flight that he said he’d give me—the more polished version of the one I have on my wall.
Nice, I text back.
You want?
You have no idea, I think but do not say.
Is this part of your campaign of influence? I say instead.
Are you influenced?
Yes.
Then yes.
21
WIN-WIN
Friday morning my mom calls in sick and she and Dad are already back working on Jack’s room before I leave for the day.
After first period I find the drawing of the bird in a plastic sleeve in my locker, obviously slid in there by Noah, and stand there looking at it and blushing. Only Noah could make me blush over a bird. Then at lunch he sits on the bench next to me and takes my hand under the table, causing me to lose all logical thought of any kind.
I’m still holding on to that blissed-out feeling two periods later when I find out some of my fellow students have started a petition demanding Perry apologize to me (as if) and that the Goat give me my job back, and that all the restaurants in town enforce anti-harassment policies or face being boycotted.
That’s a pretty big wish list, but apparently it already has hundreds of signatures.
Of course having a bunch of teenagers boycott isn’t going to make much of a difference to any of the businesses—half of them don’t want us anyway—but it’s still impressive, not to mention heartening.
It also makes me feel absolutely terrible.
Because what will all these people who’ve signed it think if/when I go back to work on Monday, and make the apology?
Maybe worse is that I can feel a mounting expectation from Emma and the others that I’m going to do something now—make a public statement, refuse to apologize. Admittedly, when I agreed to it I was just buying time, hoping things would change. And they have changed, but not enough. Everything still feels so precarious, and there’s no way forward that’ll make everyone happy. I don’t know what’ll make me happy either. I have to survive. I have to be able to live with myself. I don’t know how to do both, and I don’t feel brave enough for any of it.
And so now, along with everything else swirling around inside me, there’s this noise, a repeating question: What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
* * *
—
After school I go straight home, anxious to check on my parents.
When I get there they’re in the basement, starting to unpack the boxes of to-be-assembled furniture that have been delivered, and debating where to put things. I’m about to go down to start helping them when my phone rings. Private caller. It’s probably either a spammer or a scammer, and I’m briefly tempted to give the phone to Dad, who loves baiting them.
But Dad’s occupied, so I answer.
“Hello?”
“Libbbyyyyyyy!”
My heart stops and I actually stagger backwar
d, bumping into the front hall closet doors.
“Y-yes?”
“It’s Perry.”
“Ackerman?” I ask, as if there’s any question.
“Hi there,” he says, and I hear the reptilian leer in his voice, and imagine the glittering slash of his eyes. “I thought we might have a chat.”
“Um . . . just a sec . . .” I glance down the staircase and then walk briskly down the hall to the bathroom, go inside, close and lock the door, and turn on the fan to eliminate the possibility of anyone overhearing the conversation. Then I sit on the edge of the mint-green tub, and say, “How can I help you, Perry?”
“I talked to your lovely mother the other day, and to your boss.”
“Yes,” I swallow. “Thank you . . . for that.”
“You’re very welcome,” he says smoothly.
This is freaky, but he doesn’t sound angry. Maybe I can get the apology over with now. It’s worth a try.
“Perry, about what happened, I—”
“That’s not what I’m calling about,” he says, his voice booming over mine. “Here’s the thing: you’re a sweet girl. And your mom explained your situation—you’re trying to save for college, family finances are not good, you’re stressed out. And then, it’s been a crazy week in the world, and on the interwebs, you know?”
“Uh huh . . . ?”
“But I don’t look at a crisis the way other people do. I look at a crisis and see opportunity. That’s what’s got me where I am today.”
I have no idea where he’s going with this, so I just wait, staring at the tidy stack of twenty-year-old hotel soaps on the window ledge.
“I thought a lot about this, and the fact is, Libby, you’re a hard worker. I’ve seen it and Dev said so too. And we’ve always gotten along, you and me. So how do we turn this into a win-win situation?”
“I have no idea.”
“Aha! But I do. I have a great idea. You come work for me, doing brewery tours. You’re perfect for it. You’re personable, articulate, good with people. You give each group some history of Pine Ridge, talk about the origins of the building, sing my praises for saving it, and then walk them through the process of the beer making. Then you leave that group in the store after encouraging them to buy lots of beer, and go back and get the next one.”
“I—”
“Now,” he says, rolling along like this is a fait accompli, “you won’t make quite as much money as you’re used to at the Goat, but we’ll get you up to full time as soon as possible and then you’ll be eligible for benefits, which would, I think, make up for the difference.”
“But—”
“It’s brilliant. It gives you a job, and me a good employee. And it’ll have the added benefit of quieting down all the ridiculous gossip. I mean, people are vicious, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” I say, since it seems the only viable response, and since my head is still spinning.
“I’ve been shocked by the vitriol,” he says. “Anyway, there’d be no public apology needed—you simply start working for me, we present a united front, everyone sees there’s nothing to see, and we all live happily ever after.”
Ohhhh. I get it. And suddenly I feel like a fish about to be hooked.
“Perry, I don’t think—”
“And you haven’t even heard the best part. Your mom told me your grades are fantastic, you’ve applied to six schools, and you’ve already been accepted to half of them. She’s very proud of you, you know. But like any mother, she’s also worried.”
“Her and me both,” I mutter.
“Exactly. That’s another way I might be able to help. Have you heard of the Ackerman College Fund?”
“No.”
“I set it up a few years ago. It’s a fund that subsidizes up to seventy-five percent of college tuition, for four years of school, decided on a case-by-case basis and taking both merit and need into consideration. Anyone who works for me is eligible to apply, and the odds of you getting approved by the committee, Libby, would be very high.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Because the committee is me.”
And there’s the hook, its tip aimed at my throat.
I have to reject this now, right now, before my brain starts doing the math, and counting the money, and trying to estimate how many hours and incidences of Perry—eyes, words, hands—I could handle for the sake of my future before I lost my temper, lost myself, or both.
“Perry, I don’t—”
“Come onnnnn,” Perry says. “This is an offer you can’t refuse.”
“Well, I’m not sure,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking, trying to shove aside the illusion of freedom he’s dangling in front of me, and remember it’s not freedom. Because those pictures are out there, and the stories, too. So he wants to bribe me, and use me for damage control, and keep me under his thumb. Not to mention, what further, worse kinds of harassment might Perry think he can get away with at his own brewery? With someone he’s managed to bribe and discredit? And who’s hoping like crazy to be approved for college funding by his committee of one?
Right. No. No way.
“That’s quite an offer, Perry,” I say, carefully keeping my fast-building fury in check, because more than ever, I need my job at the Goat. And would rather have my job at the Goat, where I’ll only be harassed occasionally by Perry, as opposed to every single day. And so I force myself to sound reasonable. “But I really like my job at the Goat. And I wouldn’t want to disappoint Dev a second time, you know? Especially after you went to the effort of convincing him to give me this second chance. But thank you. It’s a very generous offer.”
“I’m not taking that as your final answer, Lib,” he says.
Shocker.
I’m starting to think “don’t take no for an answer” is the first directive in some How to Be a Man manual that guys are given when they hit puberty. Some guys, I correct myself.
“Take some time to think about it. The offer’s open until, let’s say, Monday. You decide on Monday before your shift that you’d rather not go in there again, and rather not deal with the whole circus of apologizing, plus be part of a great organization, with benefits, and get help paying for college, you call me, and we’ll be golden, doll.”
“Thanks, but—”
But nothing. Because he’s hung up already.
22
POWERPOINT
Noah texts an hour later.
Hey.
Hey, I say back, happy to be distracted from thinking about Perry, and how I’m going to handle things at the Goat on Monday.
You busy?
Like, in general, or . . . ?
Tonight . . . ? Now-ish? We could talk about how the thinking is going.
My heart does a little flipping, skipping thing.
Let me check something, I say.
Okay.
I go downstairs to see what’s going on with my parents.
Jack’s room is fully painted, Dad is in the bathroom adding a fresh coat of white there, and Mom is in the middle of the rec room floor, staring at the pieces of the furniture she’s planning for them to assemble, and surrounded by boxes.
“Everything all right?” I ask.
She looks up, eyes wild. “We may have bitten off more than we can chew.”
“Don’t panic,” I say. “I have a couple of things to do, but then I’ll come back down and we’ll figure this out.”
Back upstairs I grab my phone and text, I have to help my parents put furniture together but possibly free after that?
I’ll help. I love that stuff, Noah says.
Hm. Noah coming over and watching movies with me in my room is one thing, but direct, intentional interaction with my parents is quite another. I really try to insulate my family from my friends, and vice versa, to everyone�
��s benefit. Boris came over maybe three times the entire time we were dating, and even Emma doesn’t hang out here much anymore. Still, Noah said he could handle my messy life. Maybe it’s time to find out if that’s true.
Come on over, I tell him.
I regret this immediately, but I don’t take it back. I run down to the basement, wondering whether I should make my parents change clothes, or beg them not to be weird, or if that would defeat the purpose. Not to mention asking them not to be weird is pointless.
“Help is on the way,” I announce. “You remember my friend Noah?”
“Of course.”
“He’s really good at putting this stuff together, apparently. And he’s coming over. To help. For a bit.”
“Does he paint?” Dad says, peeking his head out of the bathroom. “Because I’m starting to get high from the fumes.”
“It’s latex, Rick,” Mom says, her tone crabby. “You can’t get high from latex.”
I zoom back upstairs, with time to either bathe or beautify, not both, and I decide to go with clean versus fancy.
I take the fastest shower ever, throw on some nice-smelling body lotion plus clean jeans and T-shirt, then brush my teeth, whip a comb through my dripping hair, and manage to get to the door just in time to open it before Noah rings the bell.
“Whoa,” he says, stepping back in surprise.
“Sorry,” I say, coming out onto the porch in my bare feet, and closing the door behind me. “I was just trying to prevent you from ringing the doorbell.”
“Oh,” he says, and frowns, and then raises a hand as if to touch my hair, but drops it. “Your hair . . .”
My hair is dripping all over my shoulders.
“I showered.”
“I figured.”
“And you changed,” I say, pointing at his chest, which is now covered by a lightweight button-down with abstract palm trees, instead of the plaid shirt over T-shirt he was wearing earlier.
He Must Like You Page 18