After I hang up, Grandma asks me if I’ve told Mom about my new evidence.
“Well, I haven’t really had the chance,” I admit. “But I’d like to. Do you think she’d listen?”
Grandma smiles. “Yes, I’m pretty sure she’s ready to listen. I had lunch with her today and she’s cooled off.”
“Cooled off, but still thinks I’m guilty?”
“Let’s just say she’s worried about you, Elise. She knows how much you liked that boy. And she knows about the other photo you sent him. It’s not a huge stretch to think you might’ve gone all the way with your photos.” Grandma sighs. “Remember, darling, your mom wasn’t exactly a saint at your age.”
I nod as I realize this is true.
“So it’s easy for her to jump to conclusions about you. But I told her you’re a good girl—a good girl who’s attracted the attention of some not so good girls . . . or boys.”
“And she listened?”
“She tried.”
“So what do I do now?”
Grandma hugs me. “As much as I hate to let you go, I think it’s time for you to go home. Your poor mother is miserable without you. Do you realize how important you are to her?”
I frown. “It sure didn’t feel like it when she practically threw me out.”
“Well . . . think about how you felt when the boy you thought you were in love with—that Asher Gordon—let you down. Now, we don’t know for sure that he’s really guilty of everything that’s happened, but it’s possible. Think about how quickly your feelings went from true love to . . . well . . .”
“Hatred?”
“Sometimes it’s the ones we love the most who can hurt us the worst—whether it’s intentional or accidental or even innocent. And when we’re deeply hurt, we tend to lash out.”
I nod. “Does everyone get wise when they get older?”
She grins. “The smart ones do.”
I pack up my things, put them into my car, thank Grandma for her shelter in the storm, and head back to the Tropicana Suites and my mom.
As I’m carrying my second load of stuff up the stairs, I spot Stacie peeking out her front window. I dump my stuff in my room and go knock on her door, but she doesn’t answer. I knock again. Louder this time. But still she doesn’t answer. I know she’s there and I can even hear her.
“Stacie,” I yell. “Come out and talk. I’m moving back home. I’ve got some good news about this case. I just want to tell you—”
“Keep it down,” she says as she jerks the door open. “My mom’s taking a nap.”
“Oh, sorry. I just wanted to tell you my good news.”
“What news?” She looks suspicious.
“I can prove that photo wasn’t of me,” I say.
“How?”
I laugh. “Well, Phillip is the one who pointed it out, but the girl in the photo is pale as a ghost, and I have a pretty good tan as well as tan lines. Also, when I looked more closely, I noticed a few other differences. I’m thinking the human body is kind of like a fingerprint. Every single one is different. And my attorney is setting things up to have an expert do an examination and comparison. It will probably prove my innocence.”
“Oh.” Her expression is hard to read.
“Aren’t you happy for me?”
“Well, yeah, of course.”
“Do you know how horrible this week has been?”
She kind of shrugs.
“It’s like everything was taken from me—my reputation, my dignity. Sometimes it even felt like my sanity was on the line. And now maybe I’ll get it back.”
“Right . . .” Stacie glances behind her. “I should probably go.”
“I just thought you might like to know.”
Stacie smiles now, but it seems a little forced. “I’m glad for you, Elise. Really, I am.”
“And I can give you a ride in the morning.”
“That’s okay. I already have one.”
“Oh . . . okay.”
“See ya!” she says as she closes the door.
“See ya.” I just stand there a moment and wonder. Maybe I’m wrong about getting my life back. What if everyone treats me like I’m still guilty—even after I prove my innocence? What if I’ve been smeared and the stain isn’t going to go away? What if I have to live with suspicious glances and suggestive innuendos for the rest of my life?
14
______
“Grandma said I should come home,” I tell Mom as she enters the apartment. “I hope that’s okay.”
She sort of shrugs as she sets her purse on the small table by the front door. “Yes, I told your grandmother that I’ve cooled down some.” She frowns at me. “I’m still upset by this, Elise. Don’t get me wrong.”
“I can understand why you’d be upset,” I say, trying to remember all that Grandma had told me earlier today. “But I do have good news.”
Mom looks suspicious. “Good news?”
I can’t help but grin as I spill out the whole story of tan lines and pale bodies. “My friend Phillip is the one who noticed I had a tan during Art today,” I finally say. “He’s got kind of an artistic eye, you know. He pointed out that the girl in the photo—the girl who is not me—is ghostly white. I mean, seriously, she could be into vampires, she’s so pale.”
Mom sits down on the couch with a thoughtful expression. “I barely looked at that photo,” she admits. “It made me feel sick to my stomach . . . broke my heart . . .”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say. “But I swear to you it wasn’t me.”
“I do remember that paleness, which actually made it seem even worse in a pornographic way—not that I’m into porn. But I remember seeing some photos when I was a teen and they kind of looked like that. Creepy. And I really couldn’t understand how you . . .” She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. “How you, my sweet little girl, could do something like that.” She shakes her head. “It was like someone pulled the earth out from under me. Can you understand that?”
I sit down next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. “I totally understand that, Mom. It’s how I felt when I found out that someone had done that to me—that they’d gone to the trouble to take a photo, send it to Asher, and make it seem like it was really me.”
“But who would do that, Elise?” Mom reaches for a box of tissues on the coffee table—an almost empty box, which tells me she’s gone through a lot of them this week. “Who would take off her clothes and pose for a photo like that and then pretend to be you? Who is that wicked, that depraved, that immoral, that . . .”
“Skanky?”
“Yes. All that and more. Who do you know like that?”
“I honestly don’t know who is in that photo, but I think I know who sent it. I mean it seems like it must be Brianna, Asher’s girlfriend. But I have no idea how she did it.”
“Well, just proving that it’s not you takes a load off, Elise.”
“If you have any doubts, I’ll strip naked and you can look at me.”
Mom laughs then blows her nose. “Spare me.”
I confess about how I actually took off my shirt to see for myself. “And Grandma walked in and saw me.”
“Oh my goodness!” Mom laughs even harder now. “What did she do?”
“I thought she was going to have a heart attack. But I explained what was going on and she totally got it. I even showed her my tan lines—discreetly. And she could see the difference. Not that she ever doubted me.”
Mom sighs. “I wish I had believed you too, Elise. I’m really sorry about that. Can you forgive me?”
I hug her. “Of course I can. Absolutely.”
“So what’s the next step in this mess?” she asks as we go into the kitchen to work on dinner.
“Wally—you know, my lawyer—is setting up an appointment with some experts. He’s pretty sure he can get the case dismissed without going to court.”
“And maybe we can get our phones and things back?” she asks.
“I hope
so. It’s hard being shut out of twenty-first-century technology.”
She chuckles. “I know what you mean. I was thinking that exact same thing today. I was tempted to buy one of those cheap phone card phones but told myself to just be patient.”
As we’re eating, Mom asks me to explain my theory on how all this happened. “I just need to understand it better,” she tells me. “I’ve gone around and around in my mind trying to make sense of it.”
I begin by telling her how Asher and I had our secret online relationship. “Remember I told you how he didn’t want to break up with Brianna until after the homecoming dance—”
“When is that anyway?”
I sigh and fork my pasta. “Tomorrow.”
“And I assume you’re not going.”
“That’s right,” I say glumly.
She shakes her head. “Okay, continue with your story.”
I explain about how the emails got more romantic and how I was enticed to send the first photo. “But it was just me, fully clothed, smiling. No big deal.”
“Where did you get the photo?”
“Stacie took it.”
“And you emailed it to him?”
“Yes. And then the romance seemed to be heating up. He sent me a photo of him without a shirt on.” I feel my cheeks growing warm. “He’s pretty good looking, Mom. I mean seriously, he kind of resembles Matthew McConaughey. Except that he’s a jerk.”
“But you didn’t know that then.”
“No, of course not. I thought he was . . . you know . . . Prince Charming. And I respected that he wanted to keep his promise to Brianna by taking her to homecoming.”
She nods. “Yes, I even fell for that.”
“After he emailed me his slightly steamy photo, he urged me to send him a swimsuit photo. I wasn’t going to do it.”
“That would’ve been smart.”
“But then I kind of let Stacie talk me into it. I mean she kept telling me it was no big deal and that everyone does it, and finally she just wore me down.”
“Never listen to a fourteen-year-old.”
“Yeah. So I sent that photo. And then it was weird, I didn’t hear much back from him.” I try to remember how this went down exactly. “But it’s always been kind of up and down with us,” I admit. “I remember this one time when I broke our secrecy rules and actually talked to him in a normal way, not acting like I was mad or anything. It was almost like he was glad to talk to me. He even walked me to lunch, and I got the feeling that things had changed, like he was actually going to announce to Brianna and everyone that we were secretly involved. But then he emailed that same day, begging me not to talk to him anymore. Not until after the dance.”
Mom holds up her fork. “Now, doesn’t that seem just a little bit fishy to you?”
“What?”
“What you said about him being surprised and happy to see you and walking with you. But then he emails something totally different?”
“I figured Brianna had thrown a fit. Probably threatened something. So he was just trying to keep her happy until the dance.”
“But why? Why should a young man be that concerned about keeping his fishwife of a girlfriend happy when he’s so in love with you?”
I sit there and ponder this . . . but I have no answer. “I don’t know.”
“Okay, tell me what happened next.”
I have to think hard now. “I wish I had my computer so I could read the actual emails,” I say. “But as I recall, what happened next was that he pressured me to send him a really sexy photo. He said it would help him to get through the next week—you know, because we couldn’t be together. But I wouldn’t do it.”
“Wouldn’t do what?” she asks.
“Send a skanky photo—no way was I going to do that. And I told him so.”
“Did he continue to pressure you?”
“He sent one more email that same day, saying I wasn’t who he thought I was. He seemed hurt. But come to think of it, he was like that a lot.”
“Like what?”
“You know, kind of hurt, like I’d offended him. But I guess I assumed it was part of the game.”
“The game?”
“I’d act mean to him in front of people at school.”
“And why was that?” Mom looks totally bewildered.
“I was trying to do what he wanted by keeping my distance and acting like I hated him.”
“You acted like you hated him?”
“That’s what he wanted me to do, Mom. It was our cover-up.”
“Oh, Elise, don’t you get it?”
Okay, it’s like this little light is starting to glimmer. “What?”
“He tells you by way of email to avoid him, ignore him, act like you hate him, right?”
“Right.”
“But when you see him in person, he acts different—like he’s glad to see you and he likes you and he has no problem being seen with you, or else he seems hurt when you’re mean to him?”
“Yeah, it was like that. Kind of schizophrenic. But I thought it was because, like me, he was kind of confused. We were playing this game, but the rules kept changing.”
“Because he wasn’t making the rules.”
“He wasn’t?”
Mom’s eyes are wide. “No. I’ll bet it was his girlfriend emailing you, Elise.”
“No . . . I don’t really see—”
“Think about it. What does this girl want?”
“Besides Asher?”
“She wants to keep you away from him. She wants you to push him away, to act like you hate him, to refuse to speak to him—because if you do that, if you play the game according to her rules, she wins. Don’t you get that?”
I slowly nod. “Actually, I do.”
“Brianna was doing the emailing right from the start.”
“And she’s the one who wanted me to send photos?”
“Yes . . . and being a smart girl—a wicked smart girl—she started out with just a regular photo. She was just warming you up.”
“But don’t forget, Mom,” I remind her. “I didn’t send that nude photo. It wasn’t me.”
Mom frowns. “This is where it gets a little murky.”
“Maybe Brianna was mad that I didn’t fall for her nasty little plan,” I say. “Maybe that was her final goal—to get a nude photo and totally humiliate me with it—so she went about it another way.”
Mom nods. “That could be right. She might’ve found someone who looks a little like you, asked her—maybe paid her—to pose nude.” Mom frowns now. “But how did she manage to get your phone to snap that photo?”
I think about this.
“Do you have any classes with her?”
“No.”
“How about one of her friends?”
“Bristol!” I say suddenly. “I have Art with her. We sit at the same table. And my purse is always there, but I have to get up to get paper or supplies or to make a mat or whatever. My purse is there unattended a lot of the time.”
“So perhaps Bristol snagged your phone.”
“Yeah. And she might’ve gone to use the restroom. Maybe it was all prearranged that this person would be there, ready to pose.” I make a face. “Is that gross or what?”
Mom nods.
“But it does seem possible. And Bristol keeps arguing with me about this in Art, saying how I’m so guilty and how I’ll never get out of it. It’s like she’s too involved, you know?”
“Like she’s trying to cover her trail?”
“Exactly.”
“So . . .” Mom says slowly, “how are you going to get Bristol and Brianna to slip up and admit to all this?”
“I’m not sure. But I think the place to begin is with Asher.”
“Why Asher?” Mom asks.
“I’m not sure, really. I guess I want to make certain he’s really not involved. For one thing, there are the criminal charges. It would be unfair to implicate him if he’s really been in the dark this whole time.” I s
hake my head. “I mean it’s kind of hard to believe that it really wasn’t him. I never even questioned it. Even the email address sounded authentic. And the photo. It’s just so weird.”
“Well, it happens all the time, Elise. The internet is the perfect place for someone to assume someone else’s identity. It makes sense that Brianna would have photos of her boyfriend. And anyone can set up an email account with any name on it.”
“But I can’t believe I was so gullible.”
“Next time you won’t be,” Mom says as we start clearing the table.
“Hopefully there won’t be a next time.”
“Well, I’m just glad that we’re getting this figured out, Elise. The sooner it’s over and done with, the happier I’ll be.”
“Me too.”
But as I load the dishwasher, I’m not so sure it’ll ever be over with. Not completely anyway. I’m afraid that I’ll never have my life back. Not like it was anyway. How do I replace all that’s been stolen from me? I almost ask Mom this question, but she’s been through so much already. There seems no point to burden her with it right now.
As I do my homework, I find myself wishing for a normal life again. I mean normal as in being something of a wallflower and being the friend of a slightly immature fourteen-year-old and going to church and hanging with Phillip. I would gladly welcome all of that again if I could turn back the clock and erase all the emails and photos. Only I’m getting worried that it’s not even possible. It’s like what’s been done is done and nothing I can say or do—even proving my innocence in a court of law—will ever undo it.
Because of the research I did at Grandma’s (as well as the lectures I received from the police and guidance counselor), I’m worried that electronic technology and the long arm of the internet could drag that nasty photo with my name on it clear into the next century. It seems possible that even my great-grandchildren would find out about what happened this week—and what would they think of that? That they had descended from a slut?
Perhaps I’m not so different from Hester Prynne—marked for a life of judgment and criticism. Whether it’s getting into college, a new boyfriend, a job application, or whatever, I could be followed by this forever. I imagine a red P branded on my forehead—P for pornography.
Never Been Kissed Page 12