by Corrie Wang
I hurried inside. What had I thought, that if I said no, he—Mackenzie Rodriguez—would just happily go on not making out with other girls? Actually, yes. That’s what I’d thought. Because I believed him when he said we were different. Because not dating but still being each other’s person was what we did. Because I still had his reminder in my Doc to say yes to Mac asking me out a month from now. And when it went off, I had fully intended to show it to him with a little smile and say “Yes, please.”
I snatched his Doc off the kitchen table. Back outside, I chucked it at him from the top of our steps.
“Thanks for coming with me today. And for the record, from now on you don’t have to tell me every time you go out with someone. I mean, we’ll never talk about anything else.”
I slammed the door before he could say good-bye. I peeked out the window. Mac stared at our house, looking like it was a place he’d never ever return.
Eyes closed tight, I leaned against the door and felt the dead air of my empty house. When I got home last night after Mr. E.’s, Mom was in her office with the door closed. This morning when I went to school, it was still shut. Apparently her “on deadline” was perpetual. I didn’t have the heart to be around the same avoidance technique this evening. What I needed was a hearty dose of my best friend. I also needed to know that I still had a best friend. And if I left now, I’d be right on time for dinner.
When Audra answered the door fifteen minutes later, her eyes lit up with happy surprise.
“Mac’s going on a double date tonight.”
“Oh, ew,” Audra gasped. “The Mother just told me she thought I could benefit from a nose job.”
“Ack, that’s terrible.”
We locked in a mutual hug of relief. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her, this snarky, acidic friend of mine. It felt like years since we’d had those few moments alone in the stairwell. This feeling wasn’t helped by the fact that since I’d last seen her, she’d grown a full head of mahogany hair.
“I was starting to worry you didn’t exist.” I gently tugged her hair and felt it give. Not extensions, a wig. “Or are you Audra’s evil twin?”
“Evil twin?” She laughed. “Audra is the evil twin.”
The Parents didn’t look up when I entered the dining room. Audra set out another plate.
“If I’d known one of the girls was coming for dinner, I would have ordered more food,” the Mother said.
I txted Audra.
moi One of the girls. I wonder if she even knows my name.
“Kyle can have my dinner, seeing as I still don’t eat meat.”
Audra slid a plump lamb chop onto my plate. Being with my Doc again felt like having a life-sustaining IV reinserted into my arm; being back around Audra felt just as mollifying.
audy The Father knows your name. He told me last night at din that he voted with the board to suspend that “Kyla girl” I was friends with.
moi Wait, your dad is on the board?
audy Yup. Thanks for telling me about your suspension btw.
I looked across at him. He was calmly cutting a lamb chop. I had the impulse to swipe his knife and jab him in the hand.
moi Did you at least defend me? Or tell him not to do it?
audy What do you think?
Audra’s eyes narrowed, but then crinkled into a smile.
audy I’m so happy to see you.
On the wall screen behind her, the news was about the oil exec and the US senator who Woofer footage caught with prostitutes in Dubai. The story had broken a week ago. It was developing into a mess of government and foreign kickbacks, falsified property rights on remaining Arab oil reserves, and so many unacceptable errors in morality and judgment that I was surprised our government functioned at all. A spokesperson for something called Awareness for a Safe America was calling for the senator to step down. Finally.
Audra followed my eyes and said, “I’m sick of the news. Wall: Wallpaper.”
Instantly, the screen behind her was a paisley print.
“Audra,” the Father sighed. “I was listening to that. Wall: News.”
The screen flashed back. The news cycle had moved on to a story about the skyrocketing price of bottled water.
“Wall: Wallpaper.” Audra grinned.
You wouldn’t know unless you were looking at her, but Audra wasn’t being bratty; she was trying to get a little attention. She was also trying to cheer me up. Only the Father didn’t look up.
“Audra, stop being childish.”
The humor was instantly gone from my best friend’s expression.
“Has it escaped your attention that I am a child?”
“And here I thought you were an independent eighteen-year-old. Guess we’d better take back the platinum Amex then. Wall: News.”
“I haven’t used your stupid credit card in months.”
No. That couldn’t be possible. Audra was dropping loads of money—the Elites, the expensive clothes, the museum memberships, H-double-L, my boxing lessons. Just the other day she’d come to school carrying a bag that she insisted was a knockoff, but when I Sourced it, my Doc said it sold at Barneys.com for three grand. No way could she afford that without her parents’ money.
Audra pushed away from the table, her eyes bright with tears. “Enjoy the news.”
She stormed out of the room.
All this time, I’d been wondering what I’d done to motivate AnyLies to make the video. I’d assumed it had something to do with competition (Jessie). Or vengeance (Ailey or Brittany). Or distanced dislike (anonymous you-tell-me). But what if it wasn’t as complicated as that?
Thanks to EToday, my video had now been watched over eight million times. If the person who posted it made even just a penny off each view thanks to the ads, that was at least eighty grand. What if this had only ever been about money?
“Someone’s having a dramatic day,” the Mother sighed.
I slid away from the table without thanking the Parents for dinner. I wished I could shut off my brain. Who loved Audra better than me and the girls? We were all she had. I couldn’t think these things about her. I also couldn’t stop thinking them.
“Kyle,” the Mother said, as I was nearly out the dining room door. Though she continued to stare at her Doc, her light complexion burned red. “If you ever have children, hope for boys.”
On the landing outside her bedroom, I tried Audra’s doorknob only to find it locked.
“It’s only me, Audy; can I come in?”
“No,” Audra wailed.
On the other side of the door, I heard her check the lock.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then let me in, silly. I hate seeing you miserable. I found a new baby panda vid for you.”
“I can’t right now. I’m not decent. Kylie, all I want to do is take a long bath. I’ll Face you in a few, okay?”
Out on the stoop, I had a brilliant idea that would hopefully not only cheer Audra up but remind me that the only title she held in my life was best friend. If my plan also distracted me from spending the rest of the evening thinking about Mac’s date then we all equaled winners.
Group txting all the girls, I wrote that I’d discovered important info about my hater that afternoon and invited them all to an impromptu school-night sleepover at the Cheng house. As I waited for their replies, I couldn’t help noticing that the recycling bin in front of the Rhodes brownstone was filled with cardboard from various tech purchases. As Sharma’s and Fawn’s affirmative responses came back, I looked up at Audra’s window.
She would hate me for this.
Screw it.
I hurried down her steps and rifled through the boxes.
All the shipping labels were addressed to a Ms. Audra Rhodes. I was about to stop—this didn’t prove anything—when something caught my eye. There, wedged down between the boxes for a new camera lens and a backup drive, was the slim cardboard packaging for a GoFetch drive.
&nbs
p; My Doc buzzed with Audra’s txt tone.
I whirled around and looked up at her window. It was dark.
audy Catch your hater-themed sleepover? Wouldn’t dream of missing it.
“Let the Crush Kyla’s Hater—subtheme Ninja Comfort—sleepover commence,” Fawn cheered two hours later, hoisting a wineglass of grapefruit juice and seltzer.
On my walk home from Audra’s, I’d txted my mom to get permission for the Monday night sleepover. She replied that it was fine, that she was too busy to run out and grab us snacks, and that tonight everyone in the Cheng family would be using the EatIn account to order food for themselves when they got hungry and that we were welcome to do the same. I think she was just as relieved as I was that the girls were coming over. It meant another night’s distance from our fight. Tomorrow, we’d go back to being in the same room. Day after that, we’d be back to having stilted conversations, and life would return to how it had been for the last three-plus years.
Now, white takeout bags littered my floor. Fawn, Audra, and I were lying shoulder to shoulder widthwise on my bed, all of us dressed in black-on-black pairings of pj’s and sweats. Audra was on her back in the middle; Fawn and I were on our bellies on either side with our ankles linked in the air. Sharma sat on the floor with her Doc on her lap. And Kyle sat in front of Fawn, looking like the time his raffle number was called at Kicks and he won a new pair of trainers. I didn’t normally beg Kyle to hang out with us when the girls were over, but right then I needed my family.
My blood was boiling.
Audra owned half the tech on the market and a GoFetch drive. Audra had been suspiciously averse to helping me figure out who made the video, when I’d once seen the old Audra go all lioness-protecting-her-cub on Charity Knowles for pointing out that my shirt was wrinkled. “The only thing wrinkled here is your [C-word], betch.” Never mind that Audra kept telling me I should be grateful for what was happening to me. Or that she suddenly had loads of money. Or that she’d taken a weird liking to Mac.
“You want the rest of my flautas, boy-Kyle?” Fawn said. “I can’t finish them.”
“Since when?” Audra snorted. “Or are you just hoping for a bite of boy-Kyle’s burrito?”
As Audra got an elbow in the ribs from both sides, Kyle grinned ear to ear. Fawn tickled the back of his neck with the string on her hoodie. I loved watching Fawn play with other guys, but this was my little bro and she was getting intense. Audra wasn’t the only one known to go into lioness mode.
Clearing my throat, and giving Fawn some seriously furrowed eyebrows, I said, “As Rory and I discussed at the café today—”
“‘As Rory and I discussed,’” Sharma mimicked under her breath, still annoyed that it was someone other than her who had provided all this new information.
“—our goal is to find the fake profile. We’ve already narrowed down the orginal forty matches between our accounts to these twenty users. We’ve flagged these CBers because they almost never post or log in and have very few Woofer pics linked to them. If we can find the fake profile from among these twenty, then Rory can use his CB access to get us the attached e-mail account and Doc digits—more than enough info to figure out the RL person behind all this.”
“How do you know any of these are fake?” Audra asked. “You’re assuming that your hater is one of these twenty people just because you and the other girls are all connected to them on CB?”
Without looking, she reached an arm off my mattress and groped around for food. She picked up a carne enchilada torta, then tossed it back and tried again. Sharma pushed a bag of suckers beneath her hand. Audra pulled one out, unwrapped it, and stuck it in her mouth.
“Yes—” I said, as Fawn grabbed Audra’s sucker and popped it in her own mouth.
“Gross,” Kyle said.
“—and because there isn’t any way someone could access all our Woofer footage otherwise.”
“Except for the fact that he’s a hacker and probably doesn’t need CB to access those videos. And what about AnyLies?”
Audra reached for another sucker. Sharma snatched it away before Audra could put it in her mouth.
“What about AnyLies?” I said a little too defensively.
“We’re supposed to believe that AnyLies travels around the country doing this to different people? Was he in—where’d you say one of those other girls was from?—Kansas City taking pics of her talking to her teacher?”
“Nooo, because those vids were forged too, remember?”
“Still, these feel like two different things. What if AnyLies only found the video and posted it. And the person who made the video is some armchair psychopath—”
“Don’t call her that.”
“—with a popularity complex. If you ask me, you’ve pinned too much on a coincidence. I think you’re way off base here.”
“And what information do you have that leads you to that conclusion?”
Audra scoffed. “Didn’t I just tell you?”
My bedroom was silent.
Kyle stood up. “Yeah, uh, thanks for the food. This room is getting too female for me.”
“Unacceptable descriptor,” Audra and I said even as we glared at each other.
“Whatever,” Kyle laughed. “I’m going to bed.”
“And I have to pee,” Fawn said.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” Audra sighed after Fawn and my brother escaped. “But, I mean, there’s got to be something else that connects you all IRL. Think.”
“I don’t know. You tell me, Audra Rhodes.”
“How should I know?” If we were in a video game, Audra’s blue eyes would have turned red with rage. “Sharma, tell me I’m right.”
We both stared at the back of Sharma’s head as my room screen stayed motionless. After a few beats, choosing her words more carefully than she’d chosen her latest Doc case, Sharma said, “You equal sign good points, Auds, but going about it this way can’t hurt. You are onto something, Kyle.”
Taking away my suspicions and the severity of her words, all Audra meant was that we couldn’t have been chosen at random. It wasn’t a terrible point. Or—my debater brain kicked in—she was only saying that she had nothing to do with the other five girls’ videos. I chose to follow the first line of reasoning. Why were we specifically chosen? I sat up.
“Oh my gosh, that’s it. Auds, how many posts has the Bra&Panties slut done of me?”
Confused, she said, “Three?”
“What if it’s her?” Audra rolled her eyes. “No, no, no, listen. It makes sense. The morning the video posts, I get those countdown-clock messages. The same day, the B&P slut launches her countdown clock. We know she lives somewhere in Brooklyn. And why did she pick up on my story so fast?”
“But what about the other girls?” Sharma asks. “What do they have to do with her?”
“Did you ever read the B&P slut’s comments? Maybe these girls are some of her haters. She could have made the other videos solely as revenge, but then mine exploded and she saw a different opportunity. Her site even says she wants legitimization. What better way to sound lofty and get more views than create this scandal and then be the champion against it? Sharm, pull up her page, por favor.”
Sharma looked between us, her fingers motionless. Impatiently, I connected to the hub with my own Doc. I was onto something. I knew it.
“Look. The views on the post she made with the girls imitating me and Mr. E. in the classroom? Two million and climbing. Meanwhile the post she did the week before only received seven hundred fifty K. Who benefited? This chick. Plus, she knows about editing. There isn’t a single pic on her site that she didn’t edit the asterisks out of or put an anti-Woofer filter on. I mean, Auds, what do you know about this girl? Who is she?”
“All I know is that this is a useless tangent.” Audra’s face flushed as she struggled into a sitting position, jostling me hard in the shoulder. “And for the last time, would you stop calling this girl a slut? Maybe she’s no President Malin, b
ut at least she has better hair and her office isn’t broke.”
“Audra, I’m warning you. Don’t make fun of the president.”
Slowly, as if savoring every word, Audra said, “Malin botched her Middle East foreign policy and she all-caps HAS NO FASHION SENSE.”
“Uh-oh.” Fawn was back, looking more rumpled than ever. “What’d I miss?”
“They’re insulting each other’s role models,” Sharma said.
I turned back to the screen so Audra couldn’t see my eyes well up. I knew I was being ridiculous, but New Year’s Eve wasn’t for four more days. I still had lots of time before my drama-free New Year’s resolution took effect. On-screen the B&P slut and co. were in a sparsely furnished room wearing neon wigs.
“Whatever.” Audra yawned. “You take everything so personally. Ping me when the Harriet the Spy portion of the night is over and we can go back to having fun.”
I scrolled through the pics. There was something familiar about them. The post was about making new friends, and the three girls in the pics were all over one another, their bodies linked with a hand on a waist here, arms entwined there. If they’d had their clothes on, instead of bright pink and purple mixed bra sets, there’d be nothing sexy about the pics. The girls and I draped ourselves over one another like that all the time. Even now, Fawn had settled back in and was braiding Sharma’s hair, while Audra rested her head on Fawn’s butt as she played on her Doc.
It wasn’t the B&P girls who were familiar. It was the room behind them—those wide wraparound windows with the shades drawn.
I’d been in that room.
I knew that space.
It was in the Cimorelli brownstone. Before they discontinued using me as a babysitter this past week, I used to show it for them when they weren’t home. They rented it out as office space to help pay for their kid’s nanny care.
I didn’t just recognize the Bra&Panties slut’s new space. I’d suggested it to her.
It was after midnight. It had taken me nearly an hour to pull myself together. Now, in the kitchen, I watched my petite best friend root around in my freezer, trying to think of my opening line.