I scramble for my phone. I’ve seen Ben’s tweets in my feed, but maybe I missed something? Tapping to his Twitter account, I scroll through the posts. There are just a few from this past week, and I get to last Saturday’s tweets faster than I expect to.
The first one is a selfie. He’s just gotten dressed for the party. His hair is perfect. One hand holds the phone, the other points into the mirror. His face is a flirty smirk, lips closed, eyes full of mischief:
@BCody17: Getting turnt w/my #buccs.
A little later:
@BCody17: Headed to #doonestown. #buccs
Another picture—this one, a shot of Dooney’s kitchen, early on. All the bottles lined up, the red Solo cups neatly stacked, the bottle of Cabo Wabo still full.
@BCody17: It’s going down . . . #timber #doonestown #buccs
The next two make my stomach roll.
@BCody17: You guys. She’s here. #doonestown #dying
@BCody17: She don’t know she’s beautiful. #doonestown
Is he talking about . . . me? He invited me as an afterthought—didn’t he? Maybe he was playing it cool? I remember now what he said in the hallway on Monday about wanting to ask me out at Dooney’s party, but not being sure if I really felt that way about him—if it was just the tequila talking.
There’s only one more tweet from Saturday night. It was posted at 11:17 p.m. and has no hashtags.
@BCody17: Long walk with the perfect girl. Best way to end the night.
His next tweet was on Sunday night—late, after he’d gotten home from dinner at our house. He’d tagged a fantasy show on HBO. Something about the mother of dragons? I scroll back through to check again. Nothing about Stacey from Saturday night, or even Dooney for that matter.
Maybe he deleted some tweets?
His Facebook page shows no posts on Saturday, and his Instagram account only has the selfie and the booze. He’s friends with his mom on Facebook, so I assume that’s why he didn’t put up the picture of the bar at Dooney’s.
The thought of Dooney makes me feel sick. I remember him on Tuesday, checking Ben’s phone at my locker.
You sure it’s gone?
What was gone? Ben must’ve deleted something. How could I not have asked? How could I not have noticed? Why wasn’t I paying attention?
I tap back to Twitter and scroll through Ben’s tweets one more time. There’s a new one at the top now:
@BCody17: Surprising my girl tonight.
I hate myself a little bit for feeling pleased. I am tempted to tap the star to favorite this, but the memory of Stacey’s scorn stops my thumb on its way to the screen.
As I stare at the phone, trying to make sense of what Stacey said, it begins to ring. The caller ID flashes a name on the screen: BEN CODY.
I take a deep breath, and swipe to answer.
“Hello?”
“There you are.”
“Hey,” I say. Cool. Distant. Busy. Not entirely interested.
He catches it. “You okay?” he asks.
“Just saw your tweet.”
“Dang. Knew I shoulda called you first.” I can hear the Irresistible Grin in his voice. Some things never change. “Whatcha doing tonight?” he asks.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
This can’t wait a moment longer. “On what you deleted from your phone.”
Thick silence hangs in the air between us. It lasts 300 million years. Is this the beginning of the ice age?
“Huh?”
“Dooney,” I say. “Tuesday at lunch, when I walked up to my locker he was looking at your phone. He asked you if you were sure something was gone.” This sentence takes every bit of breath I have. I am winded like I ran a line drill. I gulp for air and forge ahead. “You said it was.”
More silence. If only I’d driven to his house to ask him in person. I need to see his face. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Is this a stony silence? A refusal? Is this how our era ends?
Given enough time, everything changes.
“Oooh, yeah.” A realization. A memory. “I deleted the Facebook pic I posted of the booze. Dooney’s dad was flipping out about all the underage drinking. Yelling at him about getting disbarred and crap.”
I consider this. “That picture is still up on your Twitter and Instagram.”
“Crap. Thanks. I gotta delete those, too,” he says. “Dooney was worried about Facebook ’cause his dad is on there. But good call. Better safe than sorry.” Affable. Not defensive. Easy going. My lungs expand a little. Then he says my name. “Kate?”
“Yeah?”
“Were you worried that I’d posted that pic of Stacey or something?”
I close my eyes and lean my head back against the seat. He told me the truth. Now it’s my turn. I want to explain. I want to tell him about Stacey and what she said about him—get it all out in the open. He was so upset the last time I mentioned Stacey. He’s trying to keep his head down and do what Coach tells him to.
Dad’s voice echoes in my brain: Steer clear.
The look on Ben’s face when he blurted, Because I love you, flashes in my mind. His surprise as the words flew out, frustrated and fierce and forthright. He’s been patient and up-front with me all week.
Stacey was so drunk she doesn’t even remember what happened. She just told me this herself.
“Maybe a little,” I admit.
“Yeah, I get it.”
A thick, dark shame oozes down my throat and puddles in my stomach. “You do?”
“Sure,” he says. “You’re smart. Don’t wanna date a jerk.”
Tears well up again. This time, they spring from relief, cool and clear. Every time I doubt him, Ben turns out to be better than I expect him to be.
The closer you look, the more you see.
“Sorry for being so . . . weird about it. Wish I could get my mind off this.”
“I’ve got just the ticket,” he says. The grin is back in his voice. “Two tickets actually.”
“What?” I ask, his smile spreading to me, winging its way across the wireless connection.
“Grease! Tonight. Just you, me, and the T-Birds. Maybe pizza afterward?”
“That’s perfect.” You’re perfect.
“Need to ask your mom or anything?”
“Yeah, but she’ll say yes.”
“Cool,” he says. “Pick you up at six thirty.”
As I hang up with Ben, the afternoon sun glints off the creek that runs along the wall at the back of the Supercenter. It winds its way along the smooth, sand-colored bricks—a gleaming snake of water, a serpent of light. It disappears into a culvert at the far end of the loading docks. A round mouth of corrugated steel set deeply in the cement of a man-made spillway swallows up the stream and directs the water elsewhere. A finite answer engineered for an infinite flow. The unpredictable, harnessed and channeled to make way for Everyday Discount Prices.
I am seized by the sudden urge to pull up the strangled sapling staked here near the curb and plant it down by the wall at the edge of the stream. I imagine the dirt beneath my nails and the strange looks from half the town.
Is that the Weston girl?
What the hell is she doing?
“Sorry, little tree.” I whisper these words at the wretched bare branches, then start the engine and head toward home.
twenty-eight
ACCUSED TEENS PLEAD “NOT GUILTY”; HACKER COLLECTIVE THREATENS ACTION AS POLICE INVESTIGATION STALLS
By Sloane Keating
Published: March 21
CORAL SANDS, Iowa—Ramsey Swain, legal counsel for John Doone, one of the Coral Sands High basketball players accused of assaulting a female student during a party at his home last week, held a press conference this afternoon, declaring his client’s innocence.
Mr. Swain pointed to the lack of witnesses who have come forward to aid police in their investigation as proof that Doone, fellow senior Deacon Mills, and two unnamed minors also accused had done nothing wrong.
&nb
sp; He spoke to reporters on the steps of the county courthouse. “Did these kids have a wild party? Sure they did. Did a young woman decide to have a little fun with these boys? Certainly. Was it an attack of any kind? Absolutely not.”
Deputy Barry Jennings and Detective Flora Hughes have reported difficulty in finding students who will speak to them about what went on during the party one week ago.
County prosecutor Barbara Richter, who held her own press conference today, plans to proceed with the case aided by still pictures that were captured from social media and the cell phones of several of the accused. When asked about a rumored video of the crime itself, Ms. Richter said she could not confirm its existence as of yet. “Video of the crime was made and circulated,” she said. “So far we have been unable to locate it.”
Reports have surfaced in recent days that Coach Raymond Sanders led an effort to have the video deleted by threatening to remove any player who was found in possession of it from the top-ranked Buccaneer athletic program. Coach Sanders received unwanted national media attention this week after threatening this reporter on camera during a pep rally at Coral Sands High and could not be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, amid increased national scrutiny, self-described hacker collective, UltraFEM (identified on their website as “the anonymous hacker protest collective dedicated to full prosecution of crimes against women”) has posted a statement on its website that they are in possession of the video in question and demand those charged in the Coral Sands rape case change their pleas to guilty. If this demand is not met, the group promises to release the video to the media and public at large one week from Monday. Their requirements also extend to those involved in what they refer to as the “pervasive rape culture of the Coral Sands Buccaneers basketball team,” and any who witnessed the alleged crime of Saturday, March 14.
twenty-nine
SLOANE KEATING IS reporting live from the steps of the courthouse, and we are all glued to the screen when Dad walks in from his Saturday shift, gone long. He’s covered in sawdust and sweat, and as Sloane ends the special report, he cracks open a beer and asks what the hell a hacker collective is.
Will fills him in as I dip baby carrots in a tub of hummus and check the clock on my phone. Have to leave time to brush my teeth before Ben comes to get me.
“So, they’ve broken into somebody’s computer and lifted this video?” Dad asks. He shakes his head. “That sounds like the crime to me.”
“Who would make a video of something like that?” Mom asks.
“Tyler’s brother thinks they’re bluffing,” says Will. “Just a bunch of feminists trying to stick their noses in where they don’t belong—causing problems when they don’t even know what they’re talking about.”
“I hope there’s no video.” Mom sighs, unconvinced. “I hope there was nothing to record.”
Dad raises his eyebrows at me as I put the lid on the hummus and the carrots back into the crisper. “Pretty fancy outfit for mowing the yard,” he says.
“Oh, Carl,” Mom says, smiling. “She has a date.”
“Besides,” I say, “mowing the grass is Will’s job.”
“How about I go on a date, and you mow the grass?” Will asks.
“For that to happen, someone would have to want to go on a date with you,” I say.
Mom and Dad laugh. Will tries to hit me with a throw pillow as I dart upstairs to the bathroom.
Wyatt Jennings is a knockout.
By the end of “Summer Lovin’” he and Shauna Waring have us all on our feet screaming like sixth-graders at a boy-band concert. Even Ben is cheering. Cheering. Fist pumping, yelling, whooping.
Offstage, Wyatt’s just this tall, skinny kid. Handsome enough. Sort of a big forehead and a horsey jaw. He seemed so scared of LeRon and Kyle on Tuesday when they pinned him against the lockers. He could barely look Ben in the eye.
But onstage?
He’s a star.
His hair is sprayed up in a perfect pompadour. His black leather jacket clings to his broad shoulders like he was born wearing it. When he sings, he struts. He owns the stage like Dooney owns center court. But unlike Dooney, Wyatt wants you to join him, not worship him. His presence invites you in, instead of keeping you out. When he swivels his hips and hits those high notes, he’s not showing you he’s better than you. Wyatt is doing it for you. He lets you know that there’s room for you here, too, his voice soaring above Sandy’s in a gorgeous falsetto that makes you smile and clap in the middle of a song. You know you’ll have this tune stuck in your head for the next month.
And that’s the problem with Grease!
The music is so catchy.
When the lights went down tonight, I was amazed at how many of the songs I still knew by heart. I haven’t watched the movie for a long time. It used to be on cable a lot when I was little, and I remember Mom sitting down with Will and me one night to watch it.
This was my favorite when I was your age.
Back then, I understood why right away. I felt so special that my mom was sharing this with me. I’d never seen a musical movie that wasn’t animated—one where it was actual people singing, not cartoon characters. For a couple years after that, every time Will and I saw Grease! on TV, we’d dance around the living room for hours afterward singing “You’re the One that I Want” and “We Go Together.”
The stage version is a little different from the movie. For starters, Sandy’s not from Australia, and she doesn’t sing “Hopelessly Devoted.” They took out all the cigarette smoking and curse words for our high school production, but most everything else is the same—especially the way this music still excites me. It makes me want to get up and dance with my arms in the air.
Which is why I say the music is a problem:
It’s so good that you forget the plot.
You forget that “Summer Lovin’” is the story of how hot and heavy Sandy and Danny got before school started. You forget that after exaggerating to the T-Birds how far they went “under the dock,” Danny basically blows Sandy off. You forget that later, he tries to get her to have sex in his car when she doesn’t want to.
You forget that at the end of the show, Sandy gives in.
Sure, Danny makes that half-assed attempt to join the track team, but you can tell he doesn’t really mean it. Nobody at Rydell High expects him to change. For that matter, no one in the audience expects him to either. It’s a funny part that we all laugh at. How ridiculous! Boys don’t change for girls.
We all expect Sandy to do the changing.
And after she flees the drive-in movie when Danny pressures her to go farther than she wants to? Twenty minutes later, she shows up at the Burger Palace in skintight pants and a low-cut shirt. Her hair is huge, and she’s wearing tons of makeup. She becomes exactly the person Danny Zuko wants her to be. She makes herself into the version of the girls that he’s decided are attractive.
She doesn’t ask him why he has the power to decide what she should look like. She doesn’t say, “Okay. Yes, I’ll go have sex with you now.” She doesn’t have to.
A lot of this musical went way over my head when I was a kid.
But then? Just as you’re about to feel annoyed about it, the music kicks in.
It’s this big feel-good number. Now that Sandy has completely changed, Danny sings to her: You’re the one that I want. Then everybody else joins them onstage and sings “We Go Together.”
By the end of that number, we’re all on our feet, clapping and stomping and singing along with this rambunctious, infectious, life-affirming music. And it’s so bright and so shiny and so happy and so perfect that by the time Wyatt takes his final bow?
You lose track of the lie.
By curtain call, this music has made you completely forget the whole point of the plot—the takeaway of this entire story—which is that Sandy decides that what Danny wants is more important than what she wants.
Even with all the cheerful music, I find my brain wandering toward Stacey and
Dooney. The truth is, I’ve done so much thinking this week about what it means to say no that I haven’t done any thinking at all about what it means to say yes.
What if I want to say yes?
I am thinking about this during the musical, sneaking quiet glances at Ben as he watches the show. His eyes light up, and his perfect lips erupt in laughter. He reaches over to squeeze my hand during “Beauty School Dropout” without taking his eyes off the stage. He simply runs his hand down my arm and laces his fingers through mine as if it were the most normal, perfect thing in the world.
As he does it, I think, Yes.
I am thinking about this in the car on the way back to Ben’s place, when I bring up what a lame message Grease! has, and how surprised I am that people let their little girls watch it without even talking to them about it. He laughs—not at me, but in a way that tells me how much he likes me. He asks me questions about my opinion. We talk about it all the way to his house, and he nods, like he’s never thought about it that way before.
He says, “Guess it’s sorta like porn.”
I say, “What?” perhaps louder than I mean to, because I feel like I might fly out the window of his truck at that moment. “How is Grease! like porn? And how do you know what porn looks like?”
He smirks at me. “I just mean that you know it isn’t real life. You know what’s happening on-screen is way different from what would happen when you actually have sex. It’s the same thing as watching a car chase in a movie. You’d never try to drive like that on your way to school.”
It’s such a weird, wonderful moment when I realize that this guy I am talking to has opinions. Smart ones. I feel so lucky that we have known each other for so long, and still feel comfortable talking like this. It’s so frank and so honest and so . . . easy.
It makes me want to say yes.
I am thinking about this when Ben orders pizza, when he tells me that Adele is gone for the weekend at a Zumba competition in Chicago, when he asks me if I want a rum and Coke.
What We Saw Page 15