“God,” Tracy said. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Anika said, the “o” elongated for a second or two. “It’s just”—Tracy could hear Anika breathing—“have you seen Tryg Ogilvie’s Instagram?”
“No.” Her voice rose. She scanned the graffiti on the salmon pink stall divider. Someone had etched Your dad is hot right below the toilet paper roll, along with a detailed drawing of a pair of lips. “What?” Tracy said. “Did Tryg repost the video?”
“No, but it got picked up.”
“Picked up?” Tracy echoed.
“Yeah,” Anika said. “You know that site called Watch This!?”
“I mean, I’ve seen their stuff in my feed.”
“Well, they—that site,” Anika went on, “they reposted the video.”
“Oh my God.” Tracy realized what she meant. “It’s on their site? The Watch This! site?” The video had been fading from their lives a bit. Even Andrew had stopped calling their mother “that horrible bitch” on their rides to school together. Tracy had begun to relax again, with no notifications to manage on her mother’s Facebook page. But now, if the video had gained an audience beyond Liston Heights, it would start again.
“I’m so sorry, Trace.” Anika sounded like she was about to cry, confirming the gravity of the situation. “It’s on their site and their Insta and their Facebook.”
Tracy leaned her forehead against the locked stall. The bathroom door opened and shoes squeaked on the tile. She closed her eyes. “I’m going to hang up,” she whispered.
“Okay,” Anika said. “Text if you need me.”
Tracy looked down at her shoelaces, trying to decide what to do. Would her mom already know about the video when Tracy got home from practice that evening? She worried that her mother might cry. Or vomit. And no amount of untagging on this version could stop it from being widely shared on social media. The point of Watch This! was to go viral—and not just two thousand views, but millions. Their accounts had tons of followers all over the country, and her mother’s repeated exposure suddenly seemed just as big and dark a problem as Ms. Johnson’s absence. Both messes, Tracy realized, stemmed from that Facebook group she’d just joined. Tracy let the phone dangle in her fingertips for a moment and felt the cool plastic of the door against her hairline.
Then she lifted her phone and logged in as Kate Awakened. She jabbed an index finger at Lisa Lions’s name, opening her public profile. It was time to convince this person, whoever she was, to shut the group down. It wouldn’t stop the gossip entirely, Tracy knew, but it would definitely slow the spread of it.
HENRY ABBOTT
Henry sipped unsweetened iced tea from a straw on his way back from lunch on Friday afternoon. He and Brenda had met another member of the Liston Heights city council at her favorite taco place. They’d had a pleasant conversation about Tuolomee Square in the very neighborhood in which it was set to be built. The council member would vote to approve, and perhaps they could push the project through zoning even without Martin Young’s endorsement.
When he opened the outer door of his office, Henry’s assistant startled and scrambled to close something on his computer. Henry appreciated the impulse, but wasn’t concerned about a little web browsing over lunch as long as William still answered the phone. “It’s okay,” he said. “You get a lunch break, too.” It wasn’t until he took a few steps toward William that he noticed the strange look on the kid’s face, furrowed eyebrows and a clenched jaw. “Everything all right?” Henry asked.
William paused, clearly nervous. “What?” Henry prompted.
“Um,” William began. “I’m not sure how to ask this, but do you know about a video—” As soon as he said the word, Henry had overtaken the reception desk.
“Where?” he asked, bent over William’s shoulder.
“So you’ve seen it?” William cowered under Henry’s torso as he maximized the browser he’d rushed to hide, the blue frames of Facebook filling the screen. He pointed at a post that read, Wild times at my alma mater. “I went to LHHS with that guy,” William explained. Henry blanched as he recognized Julia in the still. A watermark on the video read Watch This!
“What’s Watch This!?” Henry asked, hurriedly, as he grabbed the mouse and scrolled into the comments. He grimaced as he saw there were already two hundred eighty-two. Crazy bitch stood out. Get a life, read another.
“It’s an aggregator,” William said. “They usually have stupid things like people falling off their skateboards or getting chased by animals. It’s like America’s Funniest Home Videos, kind of.” Henry kept scrolling, not caring that he had to reach awkwardly in front of William’s body. He recoiled as he read, How embarrassed would you be if this were YOUR mom? #AndrewAbbott.
“How do we get this off of here?” he asked.
“We could try calling the company, I guess?” William said. “Or do you know who took that video in the first place?”
Henry clicked the window closed and took a step back. He brought his fists to his hips and stared at the carpeting. Of course this had happened just as the initial buzz about the video seemed to have died down. He and Brenda had started lobbying the rest of the council. Henry didn’t need the additional scrutiny just as prospects for Tuolomee Square were looking up. “Yeah,” he said. “Can you try to find the contact information for someone at the video place? And then can you get me Larson Ogilvie’s office phone?”
“Ogilvie?” William repeated, scribbling the name on a notepad.
“That’s the father of the kid who took the video,” Henry explained. “There can’t be too many of those in town. Guy’s a lawyer, I’m pretty sure.” As he turned toward his office, the phone on William’s desk began to ring.
William winced as Henry looked at him questioningly. “It’s Martin Young,” he said.
Henry threw his arms up and kept walking. “I’ll take it at my desk.”
WAYNE WALLACE
The phone rang in Wayne’s office, and he turned away from the list of next fall’s teaching assignments. There was no way around it, he was coming to realize. They’d be down at least three full-time staff in the fall. There’d be layoffs.
The little screen above the phone’s touch pad didn’t improve his mood. It was one of the parents in Isobel Johnson’s American Lit class calling him back. He’d been filling his phone-call quota, making himself do one or two per hour between meetings. This time, it was Sally Hollister.
“Good afternoon,” Wayne said, his voice warm despite his mood. “This is Wayne Wallace.”
“This is Sally Hollister returning your call.”
“Yes, Mrs. Hollister. Thanks for calling back.” Wayne grabbed the roster of Isobel’s students and lifted his blue ballpoint from the desk.
“I’ve heard from a couple of friends,” Sally said before Wayne could continue, “that you’ve been calling the parents of kids who have Isobel Johnson for English. Is that what this is about? Maeve said she’s had a substitute for English this week.”
“Indeed,” replied Wayne as he made a decisive check next to Hollister, Maeve on his list. “Could I ask you a few questions about Maeve’s experience in Ms. Johnson’s class?” At this point, most of the parents started to sound nervous, as if Isobel were potentially dangerous. “Our interest,” he added, “is limited to Ms. Johnson’s pedagogy.”
“Certainly,” said Sally, “but can I just say before you start that Maeve seems to adore Ms. Johnson? She tells me that American Literature is her favorite class. Outside of Theater, of course.”
“That’s great to hear. You seem to have the sense, then,” Wayne continued, “that your daughter feels safe in the class?”
“Safe? Oh yes,” Sally said. “As I mentioned, she loves it. I do wonder, however, whether Ms. Johnson always has to push the envelope.”
Wayne looked at his list of questions, wanting to classify this feedback in
the right column of his spreadsheet. “Are you saying that you or Maeve perceive a bias in Ms. Johnson’s teaching?”
“Yes,” Sally said. “They never seem to just”—Wayne could hear her intake of breath—“read the book in that class. The teacher is always asking them to find some kind of alternative meaning.”
Wayne wrote, Pushing ideas. “Can you give an example?”
“Sure!” Sally was warmed up now. “Just last week, Maeve came home all excited about Nick Carraway. You know, the narrator in Gatsby?”
“I do.” Though he hadn’t remembered Nick before Mary Delgado had reminded him during last week’s discussions, he was now familiar and knew what Sally would say next.
“Apparently Ms. Johnson claims that Nick is gay,” Sally blurted. “She asked the kids to consider his motivations in terms of his”—she lowered her voice—“his erotic love for Gatsby. Now, I haven’t read the book since high school, but I don’t remember anything like that. And Maeve said ‘erotic’! Did you even know that word when you were seventeen?”
Wayne wrote GAY in all-caps, his shorthand for the recurring Nick Carraway complaint. “I’m not sure,” Wayne said, moving on. “Would you say that you think Ms. Johnson prefers certain types of ideas?”
“She seems quite leftist.” Wayne jotted leftist on his list. “It’s not that she shouldn’t have political beliefs, but really, are they all relevant to American Literature? Could she just spend some time talking about metaphors?”
“Okay,” Wayne said as he reached the last of his four prescribed queries. “Finally, is there anything else you’d like to add?” He dreaded this open-ended opportunity, having learned long ago that given the chance, Liston Heights parents would provide endless feedback on any number of school-related policies and issues.
“I don’t think so,” Sally said. “As I mentioned before, Maeve loves Isobel Johnson. Then again, Maeve is an excellent student and adores many of her teachers. You may have heard from the counseling department that Maeve scored thirty-five on her most recent ACT? I mean”—she laughed—“this is not a student who struggles to get along.”
“Gotcha.” Wayne pulled the phone slightly from his ear and rolled his eyes. “Congratulations to Maeve, and, Sally,” he said, “I really appreciate your time. Have a wonderful afternoon.”
“Oh,” Sally said, sounding surprised that the conversation was over, “you’re welcome. Anytime!”
ANDREW ABBOTT
Mr. Dittmer’s frustration was obvious at that afternoon’s rehearsal. As the minutes ticked by, Andrew felt more and more out of control, as if his arms and legs had lives of their own, flailing without any direction from his brain.
After the third missed cue—“Mr. Abbott!” Mr. Dittmer had yelled from the orchestra pit—Andrew caught Melissa raising her eyebrows at Maeve. Dittmer called for a five-minute break and asked Andrew to join him in the wind section. Andrew had clutched his script as he sat on the edge of the stage and hopped down. The familiar sawdust smell mixed with that of drying paint.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Dittmer,” Andrew began. “I don’t know what’s happening to me today.” Andrew stared at his too-small Converse, where his toes bumped uncomfortably against the ends. “I got up early to run these lines and everything.”
“It seems like you’re having a hard time remembering the blocking from yesterday,” Mr. Dittmer said, not unkindly.
Andrew nodded miserably. “It definitely seems like that.”
“Let me see what kinds of notes you took while we were going through it.” The director reached a hand out for the thin paperback Andrew gripped so tightly.
He meekly handed it over. “Clearly, I’m not doing something right,” he said, aiming for humor. Dittmer ignored him and flipped through act one. He turned the script sideways to read the marginalia.
“Okay,” he said finally. He returned the book to Andrew, who attempted a half smile. Dittmer held his stare for a beat, and then said, “This is your first stage role, isn’t it? Did you act in middle school?”
“I was in the chorus in seventh grade. Anything Goes.”
Dittmer nodded. “You need extra coaching.” Andrew’s stomach flipped. He knew it—he was the worst. Even after all of the work over the summer, and even though he’d somehow been cast in this show, he couldn’t keep up. “Can you meet me in my office next week during study hall? Would Wednesday work?”
“Yes,” Andrew said, as if he had a choice.
The director took a deep breath. “Good. We’ll run act one, scene two, first. I’d like you to be off book.”
“I can do that.” Memorizing the lines, at least, didn’t seem to be Andrew’s major hurdle.
“I imagine you can.” Mr. Dittmer looked upstage, where most of the cast sat sprawled on the floor, chatting with one another and underlining text in their scripts. “Now, go get a drink of water, and then we’ll rustle the troops for another go.” He turned toward the piano.
Andrew walked to the back of the auditorium and felt a heaviness settle in his chest. Rehearsals were harder than he’d imagined, harder than his classes at the local theater. The rest of the cast, they just seemed to understand what to do, even before Dittmer gave direction. How had they gotten so good? They all—even Tryg Ogilvie, whose entire part seemed to be shadowing Melissa wherever she went onstage—seemed to be naturals.
As he reached the top of the ramp at the back of the theater, he pushed the double doors and stepped into the vestibule. In the dark there, Andrew stopped and raised his head toward the ceiling. He stretched his arms behind his back, joined his palms, and thrust his chest forward. The little room smelled like paper, and Andrew envisioned the stacks of programs that sat there during each show’s run.
And then, as he stretched, he heard Maeve’s voice just on the other side of the doors to the theater.
“It’s not his fault that Dittmer cast him,” Maeve said insistently. Andrew backed up against the wall, next to the empty program stand.
“But if it were you,” said another voice—Melissa’s, Andrew thought—“wouldn’t you at least want to know?”
“But how do you know?” Maeve pushed. “How do you know for sure?” Andrew felt a lump grow in his throat. What did they know? And was there any chance they weren’t talking about him? Andrew raised his hand to his mouth, and bent his head into it, fingers cradling his jaw.
“Are you kidding?” Melissa said. “My mom has been on Boosters with her for years.” Her? Andrew wondered. Could they mean his mom?
“So?” Andrew felt a rush of gratitude for Maeve’s skepticism.
“So,” replied Melissa, meaningfully, “I’m saying a costume shop isn’t free. Did you notice the plaque on the wall above the light switch?”
“No.”
“It says ‘Abbott,’” Melissa replied. Andrew closed his eyes, blocking out the red of the exit signs and the white light seeping in from the hallway where the girls stood.
“But Andrew’s not bad.” Maeve’s voice wavered.
Melissa’s laugh was strident. “He belongs in the chorus,” she said. “You know that’s true.”
Just then, Alice Thompson played some dramatic chords on the upright, the cast’s signal to convene on the stage. Andrew pushed back into the theater, walking quickly to put space between himself and the girls. He was halfway down the aisle before he heard the door open again behind him.
JULIA ABBOTT
Julia got the text from Tracy just as her daughter would have been boarding the bus for ski practice. Mom, she’d written, you should probably check Facebook. Anika told me the stupid video’s been spreading again. Julia dropped a basket of whites she’d just pulled from the dryer and ran for the basement stairs. What about the untagging? she thought desperately. Tracy had said that would keep it from reappearing.
Once upstairs, she crossed to the kitchen counter in three steps and woke
her laptop. She quickly loaded Facebook and blinked at the number of notifications in the upper-right-hand corner. Another forty-eight? But how? Julia’s eyes goggled as she clicked on her profile. Is this you, Julia Murphy Abbott? cousin Barb had written. Below the question, Julia saw the familiar still image at the start of the footage, her finger on the bulletin board. Fluorescent yellow lettering appeared in the lower-right-hand corner of the video this time. It read, Watch This!
What’s Watch This!? She clicked the link, fingers shaking. The cinnamon-and-vanilla diffuser she usually enjoyed seemed sickeningly sweet. She hit PLAY, and the familiar scene at the drama board began. Julia stabbed the pause icon before her elbow slammed into Melissa. If only she could go back to that moment and scoot by Alice Thompson faster on the way to the bulletin board. Then the bell would have rung after she’d seen the list as she’d intended, and none of this would ever have happened. She and Robin would have squealed over Andrew’s role at Starbucks; she’d never have known her closest friend in Liston Heights was actually a conniving opportunist. Everything would have been fine. Better than fine, in fact, because they’d all have celebrated Andrew’s role together.
Loosen the Spanx, Mom, the Watch This! headline read. Julia reflexively ran her hand down her torso, feeling the definition in her abdominal muscles. I don’t even need Spanx, she thought. She scanned the other videos on the home page of the site: Hilarious Diving Board Fails, one caption read. Another said, Shopping Cart Disasters! How had she ended up here with these pathetic people enduring public humiliation?
She clicked back to Facebook and deleted cousin Barb’s post on her page. She clicked over to Inside Liston and saw that the watermarked version of the video had been posted there, too, by Marilyn Ogilvie. Tryg’s video’s gone viral! she wrote, as if she were proud. Some parenting, Julia thought, teaching your child to benefit from someone else’s embarrassment.
Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes Page 19