by Corrie Wang
“I’d rather not discuss this with you.”
Even above the loud beats, the shock in my voice was audible as I said, “Mr. E., with the exception of my face in it, I know the video is real. And since my best theory right now is that you’re in some pervert-teachers’ AV club, I’d very much like to know who knew it existed other than you. I know you’re a victim in this too.” Or so I’m telling myself. “Please help me.”
Maybe we weren’t going to Sherlock Holmes this together, but he couldn’t refuse to help me. Mr. E. chucked his now-empty beer can at the garbage. It bounced off the wall and then rolled across the floor until it was resting against his foot. He hung his head.
“You know, I used to live in a cute two-bedroom close to the park? I mean, not the fancy side of the park, but the park. But my ex was on the lease, so she got to keep it. She was going to get a roommate, she said. Except somehow suddenly they’re married.”
Mr. E. shouted this last sentence into silence. The music across the hall was suddenly swiped off. He cricked his neck side to side.
“Finally,” he said, “Two hours that’s been going on. I thought he died.”
He shuffled to the sink and began to fill it with water.
“Anyway, yeah,” he continued. “It was my first year teaching. She and I had only been together a few months. One night I brought home the wrong stack of tests to grade. We stopped at the school on our way to dinner. Park Prep was empty. She sat in one of those tiny desks and said she wanted to see me teach….This is not appropriate to talk about.”
He squeezed soap into the sink, apparently intending to let the dishes soak. I kept quiet. I didn’t need to take AP Law to know that when a witness was freely divulging information, you let them talk.
“The whole thing was her idea. I didn’t even know she’d hit record on that stupid classroom hub until she showed me the video later that night. I was pissed. She swore she’d erased it from the school hub. I went in at, like, dawn the next day. She was telling the truth.”
Mr. E. took a recycling bag from beneath the sink and began tossing takeout containers into it. He twisted the bag, tied it, and then took out another.
“We broke up a year later. It wasn’t cordial. Maybe I accidentally smashed her windshield after a night of drinking. Maybe it was some punk from our—her—block. Whatever. Anyway, do you know about that site My Ex Is an A-hole?” I shook my head. “It’s supposedly a women-only site. Women dump bad photos, stories, and videos of their exes on it. Guess what ended up there? Naturally, she airbrushed out her face.”
He pushed his glasses up with the back of his wrist. “She titled the post ‘Bad Teacher,’ like we broke up because she caught me with a student. One of my friends from college saw it and played it for me. I got in touch with the website. But obviously it was too late.”
Now with two filled bags of garbage next to him, he attacked the kitchen counter.
“Fast-forward two-plus years. On Tuesday afternoon when the fake video posted, Dr. Graff called me at home.”
“Wait,” I said. “Tuesday afternoon?”
Ignoring my confusion, Mr. E. kept talking. “I pretended I didn’t know what she was talking about. I mean the video was obviously shot inside Park Prep. That right there goes against everything in the teacher handbook. Maybe if I acted like I didn’t know about it, I wouldn’t lose my job. Chalk it up to a spiteful ex.
“The next day, first thing, Graff called me into her office. When she said it was you in the video, I laughed, relieved. I thought it had to be a gag one of my students made. For a minute I thought maybe it was even you who’d made it.”
“It definitely was not me.”
“When I truthfully”—he paused in his scrubbing to jab a finger into the air—“told Graff I had no idea what she was talking about, she said she couldn’t take the chance. Said I was suspended pending investigation. When I saw the video after it reposted first period, I didn’t blame her. I mean, Kyla, I have no idea how they did it.”
I thought of the T minus countdown txts I’d received all that morning.
“So when it appeared on the Student Activities board, it was a repost? The first time the video went up was actually the day before?”
Mr. E. nodded. “It popped up on the Faculty Activities board on the Park Prep website, right about when school was letting out.”
“There’s a Faculty Activities board?”
“Yeah, where teachers list, like, the readings or lectures they’re giving. It gets loads of traffic.” Mr. E. shook his head no. “For the record, if I’d known from the start that it was a doctored video, I would have come clean immediately. I swear. I’ve wanted to ever since, but Graff and Park Prep’s legal counsel have ‘strongly advised’ me against speaking out. I think they’re afraid I’ll make everything worse.”
“Does the original video still exist?”
“NYPD has been searching the My Ex Is an A-hole website. Unfortunately, no luck.”
“The police are in on this?”
“You’re telling me you haven’t spoken to them? Maybe your parents ran interference.” Mr. E. wrung out the sponge. “I mean, Ms. Cheng, I’m a teacher. You’re seventeen. What do you think? Of course the police are involved.”
It was time for me to go.
It was past time for me to go. Only, there were just a few more things….
“So who posted the first video?” I asked. “The one that cropped up on the Faculty Activities board?”
Mr. E. sighed, like, What does it matter?
“Somebody with the number six-six-six. Like ‘six-six-six and gone.’ I don’t remember what Dr. Graff said. But it didn’t seem like a name that Mardi—my ex—would come up with.”
“So not AnyLiesUnmade?”
“No, though that does sound like a name Mardi would come up with. I called her the moment I got pinged by the reposted video. She didn’t answer. But she txted back.” He scrolled through his Doc, read: “‘Eric. That’s awful. Wasn’t me.’ She signed it with a frowny face. ‘Hey, your life is destroyed, frowny face.’ The police have been trying to get in touch with her, too.”
“When was the last time you spoke before all this?”
“Over a year? Year and a half? Honestly, with Woofer, I’ve been waiting for this video to come back and haunt me. When I first saw the clip with your face put on hers, it was like my worst nightmare had come true. I’d been worried people would think the woman in the video was one of my students. But I didn’t think someone would change it so it actually was one of my students. So why you, Ms. Cheng?”
“I came here hoping you’d tell me,” I said, unable to hide my exasperation. “Mr. E., you teach—taught—effects. Did Jessie Rosenthal ever take that class with you?”
He nodded. “Kicking and screaming she did. She needed to pad out her art track.”
“Did she or anyone else ever use your personal Doc? Or do you have access to software that could—”
“Ms. Cheng, as technologically forward-thinking and endowed as Park Prep is, there’s no way that video came out of one of our classrooms. And Jessie…let’s just say Jessie was not one of my more gifted students.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? Does that mean you gave her a bad grade?”
“I gave her a fair grade, though I’m not sure she saw it that way. Still, just based on skill set alone, I can’t see her pulling off something like this. What about your friend Ms. Rhodes?”
I wasn’t expecting him to say that. Flustered, I said, “Audra doesn’t have a motive.”
“No? A while back, she stopped me after class asking detailed questions about DRMs. She was very…intense. Wanted to make sure there was no way a third party could download them; wanted to know how she could maintain all rights.”
You should be thanking whoever posted that video.
“It is high school, after all,” he continued. “Sometimes there are no motives other than pure, genuine meanness.”
“It’
s not Audra.” Only I was allowed to pin it on my best friend, not him. “The file’s not on her Doc.”
“Could be on an alternate drive or—”
“Mr. E.,” I interrupted. “Can I connect with you? If I can compare our CB Connections lists, I might find a link.”
He shook his head. “No way. That’s all the police need to see after everything that’s happened, that we’re ‘connected.’ I’m sorry, but my privacy’s been invaded enough. Besides, I’m in the process of erasing myself.”
“You mean you’re erasing your CB account?”
Only paranoid tech-phobes erased themselves. It equaled insane. First because it meant deleting all your profiles. And everything was attached to your profiles: buying just about anything, bill paying, credit cards, air miles. But it also meant a complete name change and then never being online in any significant social way again. Since CB owned half the social apps out there, it was only a matter of time before old Woofer pics just reattached to you. Erasing yourself also basically labeled you a miscreant. Imagine going on a job interview and having no online history for your prospective employers to look at. Who wouldn’t wonder what you were covering up?
But it was true. I swiped to his G-File. Other than the sex-video links there was nothing about him.
“Mr. E., this equals way over-the-top.”
He shrugged. “I don’t have enough money to indefinitely get my face Pulled and have my G-File swept. So I’m starting fresh. Bartending got me through college. It can get me through this. It pays better anyway.”
“But you’re such a good teacher.”
“Trust me, Ms. Cheng.” He laughed, like he had a thousand bitter one-liners he’d like to make. “If there’s one thing a teacher’s career can’t rebound from, it’s a sex scandal. And now, if you don’t mind, I believe I’ll get back to the self-pity you found me wallowing in.”
I told Mr. E. about the parkas who’d followed me on my way here. Begrudgingly, he said he’d walk me out. He took the recycling bags with him. Fawn would have insisted he walk her to the train. But frankly, I was as ready to be out of his company as he was to be out of mine. We walked to the trash cans in front of the building. The sidewalk, the entire block, was deserted, proving that the only thing creepier than a block full of sketchy men was a sketchy block completely devoid of anyone.
Across the street, a yellow Hydrogen Coop was parked behind a battered pickup truck. It looked way too new and way too ecologically conscious to be in this neighborhood. (No offense, Mr. E.’s crummy block.)
Watching Mr. E. morosely throw away the recycling, I couldn’t imagine what I used to find attractive about him. I’d never give up this easily. The president would never give up this easily. My mom would never give up this easily. Grow some breasts already and woman up. When our eyes met, he flinched at the pity in mine. Shrugging, as if to say, Add your disappointment to the list, he held his hand out to me.
“Looks all clear,” he said. “Good luck with your investigation, Ms. Cheng.”
“You know, there’s another video out there like mine. What if this is a thing?”
He shrugged. “The end result is the same for me.”
“I’ll let you know what I find out anyway.”
“To be honest, Kyla, I wish you luck and everything, but I hope I don’t hear from you again anytime soon.”
After a heart-pounding run, I made it to the correct train station in a quarter of the time it took me before and hopped on just as the doors were closing. Half of the train was packed with post-holiday revelers returning home from family visits. The other half was completely empty thanks to a sleeping homeless man who wasn’t wearing shoes.
It was so cold outside it hurt the insides of my nose to breathe. Mr. E. had lost his job and was facing criminal prosecution. In comparison to these two men’s lives, mine was easy. The only thing truly wrong with it was that I had a wobbly relationship with my mom. But at the end of the day, it was like Dad said: she was stuck with me. And, sure, I had a trending video that I might never be able to come out from under, but I’d still have opportunities and friends and, like, basic shelter.
Overhelmed by gratefulness, I sank into a seat on the empty side of the train and swiped into the message screen on my Doc.
I owed so many people apologies I didn’t know where to start.
I txted AnyLies.
moi I’m sorry.
I had a huge fight with my mom and I was angry.
I shouldn’t have lashed out at you.
Fine. It was strange that I was apologizing first to the person who’d roadblocked my future, but, well, like that was the weirdest part of my week? I’d been mean and when you’re mean you’re supposed to apologize. And apologizing to AnyLies was a whole lot easier than apologizing to my mom or Audra or Mac. As usual, AnyLies wrote back immediately.
What was the fight about?
moi Oh, that my mom doesn’t like me, I’m a brat, the usual stuff.
At least your mom knows you exist.
I’d been txting AnyLies with abandon, hoping it would humanize me and guilt her into taking down the video. But now she was opening up to me. I felt all the pressure of a parent whose misunderstood teen approached them to talk about, like, taking drugs.
Be cool. Don’t say the wrong thing.
I wrote a few responses. Deleted them.
Finally I went with:
moi Have you tried to talk to her about it?
I chewed on my hair, waiting for her reply. AnyLies took her time responding, like she, too, was searching for the correct response.
No. It’s fine. You wouldn’t understand.
Wrong. I got it wrong.
No sweat for you either way, huh? Bonding time is over. You should have apologized sooner.
I hurriedly replied.
moi Listen, I just spoke with my teacher—the one in the video—the police are after him. He’s ERASING himself. This is getting serious. Forget about me. This is hurting people. It’s time to take down the video.
A couple got on the train wearing matching reindeer hats. When they saw the homeless man, they veered sharply toward the crowded side. It was then I noticed the exceedingly thin figure cloaked all in black at the opposite end of the train, txting. She wore a fancy velvet coat with a black mantle of fur around the hood. Black leather gloves. Heels. A scarf wrapped the lower half of her face, and while, granted, it was cold outside, the train was warm. I couldn’t see what her device was, but it definitely wasn’t a PHD.
“Jessie?” I called out.
Then, just to be safe, I sent a txt.
moi Jessie? Is that you? Will you at least respond to me?
The figure stiffened. I stood up. My Doc screamed with its AnyLies txt sound. The homeless man mumbled in his sleep. We were coming into the station. Keeping her head down, the black-clad figure stood and hurried off the train. I debated following her, but another romp in the freezing dark with only a light wrap on was not on my list of priorities. Besides, this was Brooklyn; it wasn’t like there was a lack of emaciated women who wore black. And, I reminded myself, Jessie is in Turkey. Sighing, I watched the figure whisk away, casting a quick glance over her shoulder as she went.
Only once the train pulled out of the station did I glance at my Doc.
I made you something tonight. Call it a belated Christmas gift. I hope you like it.
“Oh, that’s just terrific,” I said out loud.
Nobody even looked up. I was just another crazy person talking to herself on the train. Now what did I have to look forward to?
moi I’m guessing it’s not a tin of cookies.
Before getting off the train, I airdropped ten bucks to the sleeping man’s Cred-It Card, which came up on my Doc as Pleese Help, Gary. Just as my Doc screamed again.
And for the record, I say when it’s time to take the video down.
Not if I find you first, betch, I thought.
“Frankly, Kyle. It’s incriminating.”
> “No, it looks incriminating,” I said.
With only five days until college admissions deadlines (and, no, I hadn’t contacted a single admissions office), I didn’t make it to the Walk. As if she were our fifth member, Dr. Graff met me at the front entrance. Would I be so kind as to speak with her in her office? Usually Graff messaged your school tablet if she wanted to see you. Her in person? Not good. Fawn had been about to come out and meet me; instead she let the boy next to her keep talking. My Doc dinged.
fawnal Will wait here.
Audra’s avat had been red all morning. She hadn’t contributed at all to our group thread since Christmas Eve. The only personal txt I’d received from her since yesterday had come only moments before. Busy was all it said. I assumed that meant she wasn’t coming in. This was the third day in a row I hadn’t seen or spoken to her. At least she’d sent around her theme last night: Like a Virgin.
In honor of me, I supposed.
At the moment, I couldn’t be more grateful for it, because as Dr. Graff scrolled through the pics of me and Mr. E. standing out in front of his building last night, my one consolation was my knee-length skirt and fitted blazer. It was almost like Audra had known I’d be sitting here.
“Clearly, there’s no denying you were at Mr. Ehrenreich’s apartment building yesterday.”
Nope, no denying it. Especially not with Dr. Graff flicking through the photos that AnyLies had posted on the Student Activities board. There was Mr. E. leading me into his building by my hand. There was Mr. E. gesturing as if we were having a lovers’ quarrel. Never mind that I was leaving, not entering, the building. Never mind that we weren’t holding hands, we were shaking them, and that he’d only walked me outside to make sure I was safe. Never mind that he was telling me he hoped he never saw me again.
“And I don’t even know what to make of this video.”