by Maggie Wells
Roxanne just stared at me. She turned her monitor toward me so I could look at her profile.
Her handle was Roxy14 although she had listed her age as eighteen. OKCupid would have rejected her otherwise. Her profile included a couple of fetching selfies in her underwear, one topless. I guess it could have been worse.
I scanned through the thread of communications; all the guys were old, some in their fifties—older than my dad. Gross! Who were these creeps trolling the Internet for underage girls?
“Rox,” I said. “You are a beautiful girl. And you deserve to be loved. I don’t think Isaac or any of these other guys loves you the way you deserve.”
Roxanne’s eyes got really big, “You’re going to tell my dad, aren’t you?”
“I’m trying to protect you,” I said. “How do I do that? Help me.”
“I want to have a boyfriend,” she said.
“I understand that,” I said. “The question is, how do we find a nice boy who is fourteen or maybe fifteen who thinks you’re as great as I do?”
Okay, so I was laying it on thick. But, I didn’t want her to end up like me.
“You don’t need to have sex with a boy to make him love you,” I said. I didn’t really believe what I was saying. Did that unicorn exist—the guy who could love Roxanne unconditionally? Or me? Where was my unicorn? After what I had just been through, I wondered if I would be able to trust a man or let him get close to me, ever again.
I felt I needed to warn Roxanne. I needed her to learn how to trust herself enough to keep the men at bay until she was at least eighteen, and older if possible. I had read that women who stave off sexual relationships until they are nineteen or twenty tend to go further in their careers. They are better at choosing their partners and end up in stable, supportive relationships. Hell, even Mom fell for Dad when she was eighteen and regretted it the rest of her life.
“What if we take down your online profile and try to meet some boys at the pool?” I asked. “Or better yet, the tennis court. Let’s find some doubles partners our own age. We’ll put up a flyer: ‘Teen girls seeking tennis partners.’”
“But I’m in love with Isaac,” Roxanne protested. “And he loves me too.”
“Do we know how old he is?” I asked. “Really?”
ELEVEN
THE NEXT DAY, I SHOWED UP FOR WORK AT EIGHT A.M. as usual and was surprised to see Mr. Rupczynski’s car in the driveway. I wondered what was up.
I leaned my bike against the back wall of the house and opened the screen door to the kitchen.
Mr. Rupczynski and Roxanne were sitting at the table. Roxanne had her head buried in her arms and her shoulders were shaking with sobs.
“Who was that boy Mom saw you with at the mall?” Mr. Rupczynski asked.
Roxanne raised her head. Her face was streaked with tears and her eyes were swollen shut. “She’s not my mom!” she bellowed. She folded her head back into her arms.
“Julia,” Mr. Rupczynski said, frustrated. “Who did Julia see you with? She saw you get in his car and I need to know who he is. I promised Julia that you wouldn’t cause any trouble this summer.”
Just then Mr. Rupczynski noticed me standing awkwardly by the sink.
“Good morning, Luciana,” he said. Nobody calls me that anymore. “Do you know about this boy that Roxanne has been seeing?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “What does he look like?”
“Julia said he was black,” Mr. Rupczynski said.
Oh, geez. Isaac!
Roxanne looked up at me, her eyes pleading.
I looked Mr. Rupczynski in the eye. “His name is Isaac. He works as a cook at a burger place downtown. Big Bob’s Burgers, I think.”
Roxanne screamed, “No!”
“I’m sorry, Roxanne,” I said. “You know how much I care about you. I am only looking out for you.”
Mr. Rupczynski looked at me, sternly. “Why didn’t you tell us about this?”
“Nothing happened that I’m aware of,” I lied. “He showed up at the pool once and he left when I asked him to.”
“You told him to leave?” Roxanne shrieked.
I shot Mr. Rupczynski an innocent look and he seemed to buy my story.
“Thank you, Luciana,” Mr. Rupczynski said.
They arrested Isaac at work. He managed to text Roxanne before they took his phone away.
Isaac: The cops are here. What did you do?
Apparently he had outstanding warrants for unpaid child support and a petty theft charge—he had stolen five hundred dollars from his previous employer.
Roxanne texted me. Isaac got arrested.
I called the Linn County jail. They had a very helpful phone tree.
“For information on someone who has just been arrested, press four.”
I pressed four. The robot voice said, “Transferring jail.”
“County jail,” a human voice said.
“I’m, um, trying to find out if my friend is there?” I said.
“Name?” the voice asked.
“Isaac Washington,” I replied.
I heard her tapping on her computer keyboard.
“Please hold,” the voice said.
After a long time, she came back on the line. “He has been transferred to St. Luke’s,” the voice said.
“St. Luke’s?” I asked. “What is St. Luke’s?”
“St. Luke’s Hospital,” the voice said. The line went dead.
Isaac is at St. Luke’s hospital, I texted Roxanne.
No!!! she replied.
I’ll go down and see him, I texted back.
“Dad, I need to go visit someone in the hospital.” At this point, I was under house arrest and Dad insisted on knowing where I was at all times.
“Who is in the hospital?” he shouted as the door slammed behind me.
I pedaled as fast as I could and locked my bike up outside the ER.
“I’m looking for Isaac Washington,” I said to the clerk at the information booth.
She tapped a few strokes on her keyboard. “Room C-5,” she said.
“Thanks!”
I wandered up and down the hall, confused by the room numbers. I almost walked by his room when I spotted him. He was on a ventilator and unconscious. An officer stood outside the door.
“You can’t go in there,” the cop said.
A nurse was walking out of his room. She was African-American.
I touched her arm.
“Excuse me?” I asked the nurse. “What happened?”
She gave a sideways glance at the police officer and said, “Not here.”
I followed her to the nursing station.
“What happened to him?” I asked again.
“Rough ride,” she said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“They toss these kids into the back of the police van but they don’t strap them in. The driver careens all over town and slams on the breaks to make sure they go flying. We see these injuries all the time,” she said. “Head trauma, spinal damage. It’s just not right.” She looked at me. “What’s he in for?”
“Statutory rape,” I said.
“White girl?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Autistic.”
“Oh, well that’s just wrong,” the nurse said.
“Yeah, but,” I said. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Too soon to tell,” she said.
On an impulse I walked back to Isaac’s room where the door was still open. I whipped out my iPhone and started filming. It took a few minutes for the officer to notice but when he did, he lunged at me.
“Turn that off,” he barked.
I turned the camera on him and caught him on video trying to grab my phone.
“Too late,” I shouted as I ran down the corridor.
The video of Isaac’s suffering in the hospital went viral on YouTube, which led to protests and an eventual inquiry into his death. Some officers were suspended but then life went on as usual.
“Roxanne’s step-mom kind of freaked out. I hope I didn’t cause some big problem for them. But, bottom line—theirs wasn’t a marriage that was made to last. Mrs. Rupczynski was way out of her husband’s league—her kids were so much cuter than his. And I’m also a little bit worried that this whole mess has had an impact on Dad’s job. Geez, I sure hope not. But Dad just told me we are moving back to Pittsburgh at the end of the summer. So this is my last post from sunny Cedar Rapids.”
TWELVE
“YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO TESTIFY,” MOM SAID.
“I can’t!” I cried. “I’m already a social pariah at school. Everybody is talking about me and all the boys who had to go for paternity tests!”
“Your father and I have been discussing that,” Mom said. “You are not going back to Gateway High. We have transferred you to Central Catholic High.”
“Catholic School?” I cried. “Mom, please!”
“Do you really want to go back to your school and face all those kids?” she snapped. “You have not only destroyed your reputation, you have humiliated your entire family.”
Mom drove me to the deposition. The prosecuting attorney wore a cheap, poorly fitting pantsuit and too-high heels that were in need of repair. Her name was Ms. Delgado.
She led me into a bare conference room. The table was chipped and worn and the chairs were mismatched.
“Hello, Luciana. I am Ms. Delgado and I am going to be your attorney,” she said.
That got us off to a bad start. I hate it when adults introduce themselves that way, like Ms. or Mr. She must have thought I couldn’t read her business card, which said “Maria Delgado, Paralegal.” Also, I knew what paralegal meant and it was not exactly attorney.
“Sit down Luciana,” she said. “I am here to help you.”
She gave me one of those sincere looks that I had never trusted.
“I want you to know that I don’t judge you like the rest of the world might. I am here to be your advocate. You can tell me anything,” she said.
I didn’t want Ms. Delgado’s scrutiny or advocacy. I stared at the nasty brown carpet and sulked. I thought about Maria, our cleaning lady. When our Maria got pissed at my mother, which happened pretty much every week, she would mutter under her breath, “Stick it where the sun don’t shine.” My mother always pretended not to hear, since she didn’t want to have to clean the house herself. I had always loved that saying although I knew I would never have the nerve to actually say it. Stick it where the sun don’t shine, Ms. Delgado.
“Will my mother be here?” I asked.
“No,” Ms. Delgado said. “I’m afraid not.”
“Good. I don’t want her here. Will you tell her what I said?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Everything you tell me today will remain confidential. But, if the case goes to trial, she will probably be in the courtroom.”
“I might have to go on trial?” I asked.
“You are not on trial—and, these cases usually settle,” she said. “You have already established paternity of the aborted fetus and you are below the age of consent. Mr. Campbell doesn’t have a case for pleading innocence.”
Keith Campbell, my first. I remembered the back of the station wagon. “Will he go to jail?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “In Pennsylvania, the penalty for having sex with someone under sixteen when you are four or more years older is up to ten years. You were fourteen, he was nineteen.”
“Oh, God.” I felt sick.
Ms. Delgado put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, sweetie. I just have a few questions. Are you ready to get started?”
I nodded.
“Tell me what happened on the night of May eighth,” she said.
“Keith texted me and invited me to a party,” I said. “He had just gotten back from school. He goes to college.”
“Mr. Campbell?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Keith Campbell.”
“Had you been acquainted with Mr. Campbell previously?” she asked.
“I met him at a party back in November when he was home for Thanksgiving,” I said. “And I ran into him a few times over Christmas break at various parties.”
At first I had loved the attention that Keith paid me. He was always surrounded by people, and I thought that by association, that made me popular. But when things got physical I realized that I didn’t really like him at all. And thinking back, I realized the others probably didn’t really like him, either. People hung around him because he always had drugs on him.
“At these parties,” she asked. “Were you drinking alcohol?”
“Of course,” I said. “We all were.”
“And were you dancing topless?” she asked.
“Why?” I asked.
“You know, Luciana,” Ms. Delgado said. “Sometimes you remind me of myself when I was your age.”
I hate it when adults say stuff like that. It always came from someone you didn’t want to be like. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine Ms. Delgado dancing topless on a table at a house party.
I had to say something so I said, “Why is that?”
“I used to like to keep other people at arm’s length too,” she said. “I was afraid they wouldn’t like me. So I stayed quiet and observed everyone from a distance. And when I said something, I made sure it was casual and funny and showed people that I didn’t care about anything.”
I didn’t want to waste time listening to some kind of psychological mumbo-jumbo about myself, so I didn’t say anything.
“Just tell me everything,” she said. “The defense may bring this up at trial and we want to be prepared.”
I took a sip of water.
“So we have established that you went to a party with Mr. Campbell on the evening of May eighth. What happened next?”
“He drove to the party and parked out in front of the house,” I said. “We were drinking vodka out of a water bottle. He started kissing me and putting his hands inside my bra. He kept telling me that he loved me and if I loved him too I would let him.”
“Let him what?” Ms. Delgado asked.
“Let him have sex with me,” I said.
“And did you?” she asked.
“We climbed into the way back of the station wagon,” I said. “He had an air mattress and some blankets. He took off my clothes and we had sex.”
It hurt, I remembered—him pushing and pushing. Me just lying there, waiting for it to be over. I heard his words in my head: “You’re so beautiful.”
“And then what happened?” she asked.
“We got dressed and went inside to the party,” I said. “And afterward, he drove me home.”
“Did you have sex with Mr. Campbell again?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Two more times.”
“Have you had sex with other boys?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Why did you do that?” Ms. Delgado asked.
“I wanted to be popular,” I said. “I wanted them to like me.”
“Isn’t it true that seven boys received a summons to submit to a paternity test?” she asked.
If I had any guts I would have made up lots of big lies. Let her think all she wanted about me. She didn’t know anything about me or my life.
“Yes,” I said.
She gave me one of those big, sympathetic smiles and I felt like I was drowning in molasses.
“I just want to clarify,” she said. “None of this matters. There is no such thing as consensual sex with a minor. You were fourteen and not old enough to give consent. The defense may bring up these kinds of questions to upset you and ra
ttle you. They will try to portray you as promiscuous. I want you to be prepared for this line of questioning.”
“I really don’t want to testify,” I said. I began to cry again. “A lot of kids from school will be there watching.”
THIRTEEN
“LUCI, DID YOU REALLY WANT TO CLIMB INTO THE BACK of the station wagon?” Ms. Delgado asked.
“No,” I replied. “Not, really.”
“Did you enjoy the sex?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I hated it. I hated myself.”
Ms. Delgado put her arm around me. “Are you getting help?” she asked.
“What kind of help?” I asked.
“Therapy?” she said. “Counseling?”
“I have a YouTube channel,” I said. “You should check it out—I have five million followers now.”
“A YouTube channel?” she asked. “How is that like therapy?”
“I talk and people listen and comment,” I said. “It’s called Luci9Months. I got the idea from a Facebook page I found a couple of months ago. All these pregnant teens are on there sharing their stories and supporting each other. Now we have Nine Months—the YouTube version. I interview teens and we talk about everything: boys’ hormones and anatomy, that sort of thing—orgasms, birth control, pregnancy, abortion, adoption, birth, marriage, and raising a baby. It’s amazing. You should check it out!”
She gave me a startled look and glanced down at her notebook.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I still think about my aborted baby every day and don’t want anyone else to have to go through such a horror-show. I am a cautionary tale, right? I am on a mission to teach teens about the realities and consequences of being sexual.”
“I think that’s all for today,” she said. “I’ll let your mother know if we need you in court, but like I said, these cases usually settle.”
Ms. Delgado was right; Keith settled the case and received a sentence of ten years. The next thing I heard he had overdosed and died. R.I.P. motherfucker.
Catholic school was a joke. Plaid, pleated skirt, white polo shirt, and knee socks. Seriously? Knee socks? I felt like a Japanese businessman’s idea of a kiddie-porn fantasy girl.