Wicked Games
Page 10
Todd blew another bubble, considering the implications of what she was telling him. A smile rose up from deep inside of him and he shook his head in disbelief.
“You know what,” he said. “I think I might have the perfect thing for you.”
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When she returned from the back room where Waxidasical’s surplus product was kept, Jules saw Lilah lingering up front, half-hidden behind the twirl racks of sunglasses.
She played it cool, trying not to let Lilah see how her presence rattled her. After a pause to assess just what Lilah might be up to, she pretended to ignore her. Anyway, what was she going to do? Go up and push Lilah out of the shop? Not her style. Better to act like she thought that Lilah had just stumbled in, oblivious to the fact that Jules worked here. For now all Lilah was doing was trying on sunglasses, peering into the tiny mirrors mounted above each rack before rejecting pair after pair.
The six boxes of Mr. Zogs Sex Wax stacked in her arms weren’t easy to carry. They required attention. Walk too fast, turn too suddenly, and they’d tip and tumble. One of the boxes would inevitably break. Hockey pucks of wax would go rolling everywhere. They’d skid under the raised shelves and get jammed there. They’d disappear behind the surfboards and boogie boards leaned against the walls. Jules would have to race around after them with her butt in the air like a crazy lady trying to herd cats.
She carefully walked the boxes to the front of the store and slid the stack onto the flat surface of the counter. Then she pulled open the box on top and started arranging the wax disks in the display shelf, not even bothering to glance at Lilah.
Eventually, Lilah sidled up to the counter with a pair of rhinestone-clad sunglasses in her hand.
“Jules, wow, I didn’t know you worked here,” she said. Her grin was too wide for this to be coincidence, her exclamations of surprise too emphatic for her to be here by accident.
“Well,” Jules said, “now you do. Will this be all? Do you want a croaky for that?” She pointed to the rack of Day-Glo glasses strings next to the register. “I like the purple.”
“Oh, no thanks,” said Lilah. Her smile curdled, just a little. “There is one thing, though. Is your manager here?”
Jules braced herself. “It’s just me today, actually.” She strained to hold on to the veneer of professionalism she’d adopted. “Why? Did you not find what you were looking for? Was there something wrong with your experience at Waxidasical today?”
“No, it’s just . . .” Lilah glanced around to see if anyone was listening. When she saw that the store was empty except for her, she leaned in and said, “I found this crazy thing the other day. I thought you’d get a kick out of it. It’s a little not-safe-for-work, though. Wanna see?”
Jules could sense a trap, but she saw no way out. “Uh, sure.”
“Here, hold on.”
Whipping out her phone, Lilah stabbed at it and then perched her elbow on the counter, angling the screen between them.
It didn’t take two minutes for Jules to understand what she was looking at.
There Jules was, alone in her bedroom, wearing an oversized red-and-white plaid shirt and shimmying her shoulders, vamping for the camera. Her hands stretched out in front of her, beckoning. She—the version of her in the video—unbuttoned a button, vamped some more, unbuttoned another. She was wearing a black bra, and she teased the camera, leaning in to give a quick glimpse of her breasts.
The sound was off, thankfully. Jules didn’t have to hear herself say, “Don’t you wish you were here with me?”
“Turn it off,” she hissed.
“Wait, though,” said Lilah. “We’re just getting to the best part.”
Jules’s heart was beating out of her chest. She knew what came next. She didn’t want to see her shirt come off. She didn’t want to see the lacy red panties she’d worn that day, or the way she’d debased herself for the camera. She’d made the video herself last summer—she didn’t know why now—and given it to Todd as a birthday present.
Fucking Todd.
“Turn it off,” she said again, more insistently. She grabbed for the camera but Lilah whisked it behind her back before she could catch it.
“So,” said Lilah, “what do you think? It’s hilarious, isn’t it?”
Jules glowered and waited for Lilah to show her hand. She knew this was about Carter—how could it not be?
“It’s just so good,” said Lilah. This fake bubbly thing she was doing made Jules want to slap her. “I bet if it got out it would go viral in like a second.”
“And why would it get out?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Carter? Or maybe you shouldn’t. I think maybe, definitely you shouldn’t. I bet, actually, that if you asked Carter—or if you ever talked to him again at all—he might, I don’t know, tell Jeff, and then, well, you know Jeff. I don’t think Jeff could keep that news to himself. I mean, do you?”
So there it was. This was absurd. If this had been a competition, which it wasn’t, Lilah would have won weeks ago. Since their nondate, Jules had barely seen Carter—a brief glimpse across campus here and there, a wave as their cars passed each other on Magnolia Boulevard. She’d taken Peter and Lauren’s advice to heart. She hadn’t even responded to his texts.
“Has he seen this?” Jules asked.
Lilah tipped her head and let her smile turn coy.
So, no, then.
The possibilities raced through Jules’s mind. Her classmates one by one receiving the video, gathering in groups and gawking at her embarrassingly naked body, pausing, rewinding, watching her hands. The snickers of the boys in school as they passed her in the quad. The lewd, mocking gestures they’d flash her way. And then finally the call from Ms. Robison’s office. The walk of shame. Then tense, tearful conversation. The cops would come. The news trucks. She’d be all over the TV. Nationwide, probably. Conservative-leaning networks would dedicate whole hours to what a whore she was and how she represented everything immoral about today’s youth. She’d lose her scholarship to UPenn. She’d probably go to jail like that girl in Oregon who got caught sexting naked photos of herself. And more than that, whatever slim chance there was now that Carter would change his mind and choose her instead of Lilah would be gone forever. Her life would be ruined.
It took every ounce of effort she had to hold it together. “You know what, Lilah,” she said, “I’ll give you some advice. Don’t show that video to Carter. Or anybody else.”
An emphatic hoot of laughter shot out of Lilah’s mouth. “Okay, Jules,” she said. “Whatever you say.”
“It’s mine,” Jules said. “You understand what I’m saying? It belongs to me. And I didn’t . . .” She searched for the most frightening word. “. . . authorize you to have it. If you distribute it, Lilah, you’ll be breaking the law. I’m only seventeen. You know what that means?” She was winging it. Hoping that maybe what she was saying was true. “It means that you’re in possession of child pornography. And if you distribute it . . . Lilah, if you distribute it, that’s, like, a major, major felony.”
Lilah didn’t even flinch. “You’re the one who made it, Jules.”
“You don’t know that. Has it occurred to you that maybe I’m the victim here?”
“I don’t think it will matter to anyone who the victim is when they’re all watching you get yourself off on camera.”
Jules felt like she was going to explode. Or implode. Or melt into a puddle behind the counter. “Maybe I should call the cops right now,” she said.
Lilah shrugged. “If that’s what you want.” She was so smug. It was intolerable.
Jules pulled out her phone and stared at it. Then she set it down.
“You know what? I’ll wait. I’ll give you a chance to do the right thing. You need to get over this idea you have in your head about me
and Carter, though. It makes you sound crazy. You know that, right? If I wanted to be with your boyfriend, you’d know, okay? ’Cause I’d be with him. And you wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, Jules,” Lilah said sarcastically. “You keep telling yourself that.”
Jules could tell she’d hit her target, though. Lilah was no longer smiling.
“You know what?” Lilah said. “I don’t think I want these sunglasses after all. Thanks, though. They’re a little, I don’t know, trashy. Maybe you should buy a pair for yourself.”
As Jules watched Lilah hustle out onto the promenade, she realized she was shaking. She wondered if she’d been shaking this whole time and if she’d ever stop.
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May 4, 11:01 a.m.
NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER
Missing you!
May 4, 11:04 a.m.
NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER
Want 2 skip work and go 2 Sunnyside 4 burgers?
May 4, 11:20 a.m.
SENT TEXT FROM JULES TURNBULL
Maybe. Who is this?
May 4, 11:21 a.m.
NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER
Carter. Lost my phone.
May 4, 11:44 a.m.
NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER
Hello Hello?
May 4, 11:52 a.m.
SENT TEXT FROM JULES TURNBULL
Cant today. Helping mom at crystal shop.
May 4, 11:55 a.m.
NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER
2 bad. U get UR UPenn housing packet yet?
May 4, 12:18 p.m.
SENT TEXT FROM JULES TURNBULL
No.
May 4, 12:19 p.m.
NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER
Why do U lie?
May 4, 12:20 p.m.
SENT TEXT FROM JULES TURNBULL
Huh?
May 4, 12:22 p.m.
NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER
Bitch. U Lie.
May 4, 12:23 p.m.
SENT TEXT FROM JULES TURNBULL
Carter? Why so mad?
May 4, 12:25 p.m.
NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER
Lying bitch.
May 4, 12:29 p.m.
NEW TEXT FROM UNKNOWN SENDER
I hope U die.
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Downstairs in the rec room at Jeff’s house, Carter and the guys were flopped on the overstuffed white leather sofas waiting for Reed to show up so they could head up to Miami for their big night on the town. They had the music going—Kanye’s new album, which they all thought was his best yet—and on the TV, Jonah Hill was gesticulating and making crazy faces with the sound off.
“I still think we should stop off in Little Havana and go to that hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop,” said Carlos. He was lying upside down, his head hanging off the edge of the couch, his feet draped over the back cushion.
“Carlos! Carlos! We’ve been over this,” said Jeff, lobbing a piece of ice from his Coke at him. “It’s South Beach or bust. If you want a Cuban sandwich, there’ll be food trucks. You can probably even get one of those Korean tacos if you want.”
“Won’t be as good.”
Jeff sighed. “Nobody wants to spend the whole night trolling around Little Havana trying to find some place your dad took you once when you were eight, Carlos. Right? Andy? Carter?”
“Not if it means less time macking on the crazy-hot chicks in South Beach,” said Andy. He jumped up from his place sunken deep in the recliner and did his Andy Mack Attack dance, which mostly meant jiggling his large, awkward body to the music until he tripped over a PlayStation controller on the floor.
Everyone cracked up, even Carlos.
“I think you’re outvoted, Carlos,” said Carter. “Democracy in action.”
“If you want we can drop you off, though,” said Jeff. “You can get your sandwich. We’ll be hanging out at Arkadia sharing LeBron and Drake’s bottle service.”
More laughs.
Carter had been dreaming of this night in Miami with the guys since February. He’d Tommy Hilfigered himself out, gone as preppy as you could get: a red-and-blue long-sleeve polo shirt with the Hilfiger shield on the breast, brand-new khakis, old-school, flash-white Puma soccer shoes.
Odds were high that they wouldn’t get into the clubs, of course, but either way, they’d be out all night long. Jeff’s dad’s Mustang would be parked in one of the big public lots and the five of them would be free to wander till dawn. They’d drink rum and Cokes from the Big Gulps they’d fashioned just for this purpose, and kick along the strip, and just see what happened. However it shook out, one thing was sure: the hilarity this evening would be nonstop.
“Jesus,” said Carter. “What’s taking Reed so long?”
“He just texted me,” said Carlos. He scrolled through his phone and read it out loud: “Spaced out in the perfect weather. There in fifteen.”
“That kid,” said Jeff. “He’s always in a daze.”
Carter’s phone rang. When he saw it was Lilah calling, he ducked through the sliding door into the pebbled garden outside.
“Hi, handsome,” she said. Her voice was saturated with forced positivity. “You know what today is?”
“I’m not sure,” said Carter. “What?”
“It’s the opening night of the Dream Bazaar at Harpoon Haven.”
“Great, Lilah,” Carter said, bracing himself for what he knew was coming next. “Sounds cool.”
“It’s going to be a special kickoff celebration. Half off on all rides and two-for-one tickets for the games. We should go, don’t you think? Maybe you can win me another lion.”
“I can’t,” he said. “Remember? Tonight’s my trip to South Beach with the guys.”
Though Lilah didn’t say anything, Carter could hear her pouting on the other end of the line.
“We could do it tomorrow night,” he said.
“It won’t be the same tomorrow. Tonight’s the big kickoff.”
“I’m sorry. I promised the guys.”
The silence between them felt to Carter like it was laced with tiny razor blades. Each second that went by cut a little deeper. She was waiting him out, as though if she withheld her acknowledgment long enough, maybe he’d change his mind.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for three months, Lilah,” he said wearily.
She sighed. “Fine,” she said. “Go. Go have your fun with Jeff and Carlos. Whatever. I’ll sit and watch stupid PBS shows with my parents.”
“Lilah—”
“Don’t Lilah me. You’re going to do what you want, anyway. I understand. You’d rather drool over South Beach sluts than hang out with me. Okay, fine. Just, I don’t see why I should have to applaud you for it, or whatever.”
“Lilah, come on. That’s not fair.”
The silence. The razors cut to the bone.
“I really need you tonight,” she said, her voice breaking. “I’m . . . I feel like I’m sinking. I’m worried about myself.”
Carter understood what she was implying. Maybe if he’d been less afraid of the possibility of Lilah spiraling into another of her self-destructive depressions, if he hadn’t cheated on her with Jules, he would have stood his ground. Instead, he gave in. He said, “Okay. I’ll come over for a second and we can talk. All right? But then, really, I’m going to South Beach.”
Lilah’s mood turned just like that. Suddenly she was happy and affectionate again. “You’re the best,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
After he hung up, Carter stepped back inside and told the guys the score. “Hey,” he said. “I’m going to have to meet up with you guys later. I’ve got to deal with something. I
’ll text you when I’m on my way, cool?”
“Lilah?” Jeff said.
Carter shrugged, hoping his friends couldn’t see the frustration building up inside him.
“Dude,” Jeff said, shaking his head, “what’s happened to you? I fear for your future.”
“I’ll tell you what’s happened,” Andy said. “Mofo’s pussy whipped. P-U-S-S-Y whipped.”
“Well, see ya,” said Carlos. “Wouldn’t want to be ya.”
Carter knew how they felt. He didn’t want to be himself, either.
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When Carter arrived at Lilah’s house, she wouldn’t let him come upstairs. She was “getting dressed.” Trapped by the dating conventions he’d thought the two of them had outgrown years before, he strained to smile for her parents while he waited for her.
They were putting on their perfect-family act. They gave him iced tea. They complimented him on his Hilfiger shirt.
“You’re always so well dressed, Carter. Did you buy that shirt especially for tonight? To impress all the people at Harpoon Haven?” her mom said. She had a way of saying things that sounded like compliments but felt like condemnations.
He sipped at his tea. He murmured that no, it was just a shirt. “But I’m glad you like it. Your opinion is so important to me,” he said, and he wondered if she heard the irony in his voice.
They definitely weren’t acting like there was anything wrong. And the way they talked about his plans with Lilah—plans he hadn’t actually made, but that now looked like they were going to happen nonetheless—made him suspect that he had been tricked.