“But she doesn’t want to be part of this?”
Monica dismissed me. “We won’t be using her real name. She likes the idea of being part of this whole exposé, but she won’t give us the identity of Donny, but—well, ok. Here, let me play something for you. We taped an interview with Corelle. With her permission, of course.”
I sucked in a gulp of air. Before I could exhale or hang up on Monica, or yell for her to stop, a familiar voice was coming through the other side.
Hi, Monica. What’s up?
Corelle, it’s ok with you if we record you? We want to make sure we keep things straight for the story and make sure you’re comfortable with the direction we are going with this piece.
Yeah, that’s ok with me.
So, we want to publish some of your pieces. We are not going to identify you by anything other than your handle, SassyCorelle. Your posts are all public, so that should be fine. And you’ll be, you know, famous. And doing something really good. Helping to bring down that terrible app, LessThan. You want to help me and Out The Bullies do that, don’t you?
I’ll be famous?
Corelle’s voice was so thin. She sounded sad but eager. I pressed the phone closer to my ear.
SassyCorelle will be a hero.
Listen, I told you before, it’s not me. I’m not on the Out The Bullies app. I know someone plugged my name into LessThan, but I try to stay far away from that app, too.
Corelle, we’ve been all through this. The information on Out The Bullies is specific to Appletreese’s afterschool programs. It’s either you or someone else using your name who goes to Appletreese.
No way. No one would use my name around this place. They know better.
Right. Corelle, so we’re on the same page. And we want to take down LessThan. We’re on the same page about that, right?
Well, I hate that freaking company. And that app pretty much ruined any chances I have at surviving high school. All my friends have dropped me. My boyfriend dropped me. I’m not even going to prom now. All because that bitch plugged my name into a stupid app and shared the results with everyone. And she thinks she’s the shit because of her mom, but—oh forget it. I’m not telling you anymore about her.
Donny, right?
Yeah, that’s right.
So who is Donny? Can you tell us Corelle? Can you tell us who you think it is, at least?
No, I know the whole thing about Out The Bullies is to literally out your bullies and make them pay. But real life doesn’t work the way all those Disney Channel movies do. You don’t out the bully and turn cool and popular again. The opposite happens. You out the bully and all their friends turn on you and make the whole thing even worse. No offense, but you’re not worth me making my life even harder. This is why I didn’t do the outing of Donny myself. Someone else is doing it for me.
There was a pause of silence and I pressed the phone harder to my ear, afraid I was missing something and then—
Sorry you’re going to have to do your piece without Donny’s real name. Unless—
Unless what?
Well, I mean, there have to be records somewhere, right? I mean, someone must know who it is that plugged my name into LessThan. If you could somehow get hold of the Innovative Media records and see who plugged my name into the LessThan app, and then find out how many others she plugged into the app, you can pin the snitching on someone other than me. My hands would be clean. God knows, she’s got to have plenty of other enemies. Probably even the person who’s using my name on Out The Bullies.
So, how would we do that without Donny’s real identity?
Come on. Aren’t you the investigative reporter? Why are you asking me for ideas? If this was an episode on Netflix, you’d have an idea, a new source, and Donny’s identity by now. Reporters are so much cooler on television.
Ok, so Corelle. If we somehow get our hands on Innovative Media’s subscriber list, and if we connect the dots between your bully and one of those subscribers, you’re ok with us outing Donny ourselves, right?
Well, I want the piece to be clear that I didn’t give you the identity. That you tracked it down with your brilliant detective work. I don’t want to be labeled a rat at the end of this piece, or I’ll be worse off than I am now.
You’re incredibly brave and inspirational, Corelle. You’re not so bad off.
Well, you’re not me, right? So trust me, my life ain’t that great right now.
“Aby. Aby?”
It took a few repetitions before I realized real-life Monica was speaking to me again—and not taped Monica who had just been talking with Corelle on the other end of the line.
I had known for a while that Corelle was indeed being bullied on LessThan. By some mean girl going by Donny. On both LessThan and Out The Bullies. And according to the conversation I’d just heard, Donny had an important mother.
Who could she be?
I remembered again Monica’s threat from the day before: “Aby, does Jude know about ChelseaCat?”
How on earth did Monica find that out? And what exactly did she know?
“Aby?”
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“So Aby, will you help us?”
Above me, in my office at Appletreese, a ceiling fan spun out a rhythmic beat and skip pattern that I had never noticed before. I turned my eyes upward to watch it. I’d never noticed how loud it was, or how it looked to be spinning too fast. Like it might start breaking apart—spinning off its hub at any minute.
Whir. Spin. Skip. Whir. Spin. Skip. I heard the pattern in my head and then felt myself mumble it as I stared.
“Aby?”
Monica brought me back to her and away from the ceiling fan. I stared into the phone as if I might see her in there. Then I lied, “I already said yes.”
The address I was looking for was on a residential street in Southwest. I passed a long row of connected homes with stone faces of varying colors, shades, and sizes, and similarly diverse populations crowding the various porches. The houses looked as if they might have been grand at one time, and the people on the street looked as if they knew that. They looked hopeful about such a state of grandness again. They were talking over railings of porches and yelling to children out of view—and most likely out of earshot, too. The noise of the block was happy and busy, and I wanted to curl up into it.
The Brookland neighborhood where Jude and I lived was not nearly as busy. In fact, in the time that Jude and I had been there, we had yet to meet a single neighbor. We joked that every house on the block must contain young working kidless couples, or martians, as the yards were meticulous and not littered with a single frisbee, football, or bicycle.
But this block was much more alive. Grandmothers and mothers with their charges were wiping dripping popsicles from sticky necks. Lovers were wrapped up on porch steps whispering to each other. Teenagers were sneaking cigarettes and who knows what else, between the porches where the decor and furniture and accessories marked certain houses as homes and certain houses at businesses and certain houses as abandoned.
I scanned for house numbers—hidden in a different place on every single unit as if it was a game, a puzzle to engage passersby. After I located 2302, I realized I would have to cross over to the opposite side of the street to 2319—my intended destination.
I walked past a row of homes, continuing on to my destination, hoping that I really was on the right path. There were wrought iron-scroll adornments on the upper facades of every other home. There were bay windows the size of Priuses jutting out from the front of several of the homes. When I reached the next block, I noticed 2317 had graffiti art lining the porch floor where wicker furniture might have been a more aesthetically pleasing option. The house numbered 2321 had mismatched furniture in a porch front collage with about 25 plant holders containing plants in varying sizes and degrees of health.
Flanked by these two mismatched scenes, I headed up the steps to 2319 and knocked with feigned confidence on the door several
times before noticing the doorbell, which I finally pressed. A man arrived at the door so quickly after I pressed the buzzer, I was certain he’d been watching me, waiting for me to get it right. I felt self-conscious, and out of place in a way I had not felt out on the street walking the city blocks it took to get there. I looked around quickly to try to gage if I was as conspicuous as I felt.
“Yes?” A skinny young man with greasy hair and a five o’clock shadow answered the door. He was about my age or maybe 10 years older or younger. It was hard to tell.
“I’m looking for Gary.” The sound of my shaky voice and not his expression made me realize—incredibly, for the first time—how little I had thought this entire venture through, after hanging up with Monica the day before.
I pressed on.
“Monica sent me.”
The greasy young man laughed a little like I had told a very funny joke. I stood as stoically as I could muster with his eyes on me and the remnant of his laughter still in the air.
“Did she now? And did she give you the secret handshake? And the password?”
I deflated on the welcome mat of 2319. “Oh. No. She didn’t. But maybe if you call her, she’ll vouch for me. I don’t know why she didn’t give me a password when we spoke.”
“Maybe because there isn’t one.” This time, the young man’s laugh had a twinge of sinisterism in it, but I ignored it as I tried to feel indignant over having been tricked and used. By so many players in this game.
“Come on in, Aby.”
The greasy young man opened the door wider and gestured with his arm for me to come in. I debated ignoring him. Spiting him by standing right there on the porch in response to his mockery. But he knew me. I hadn’t introduced myself, and still he knew me. Standing at the threshold, I realized I’d only be spiting exactly one person if I didn’t follow through. And it wasn’t him.
I stepped through the door. There was a narrow hallway that opened into the front room of the home. I followed him into it. I couldn’t see into the house beyond this front room. It was a makeshift office of sorts. Vintage metal furniture—two desks, a few file cabinets. And computers. Rows and rows of laptop computers open and on but facing at an angle away from me so I couldn’t tell exactly what they were searching. It was disconcerting. I wondered where all the other users of the laptops were. I hoped they were nearby. I hoped that I wasn’t alone in the house with Gary.
“So. What now, Aby?”
“Well, I was sort of hoping you’d tell me.”
“You really have no plan, do you? Monica warned me about that. She said she’s been helping you every step of the way but still it’s like pulling teeth.”
“Monica said that?”
“Something like that.” The greasy young man turned around to an olive green metal filing cabinet closest to him, pulled out a thick blue folder and slapped it on the desk between us. I opened it up and thumbed through it. Spreadsheets and excel charts of numbers and figures that meant very little at first glance, but I hoped it was what I had come for.
So I could leave.
“What is this?”
“Information that I would think you and your boyfriend would be very happy to have. This here’s the subscriber information for every new IM account in the last three days.”
I flipped through the pages. No identifying information was listed as far as I could see. No names. No addresses. Just file numbers. This was starting to feel like a giant setup. I started to get nervous, wishing that I had told someone—had told Jude—where I’d gone. But of course, I hadn’t told a soul.
Gary reached back into the file cabinet and slapped a thumb drive down on the desk next to the blue folder. “And this is the subscriber information for every new IM account in the last 360 days.”
I decided to swallow my pride and my insecurity and ask the question that was plaguing me. “Assuming this is indeed useful and incriminating information against Innovative Media, how exactly did you get your hands on this?”
“Are you not impressed?”
“Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m looking at here.”
Gary slapped the folder shut, and snatched the thumb drive away before I could pick it up, and locked both of them away in a nearby metal cabinet, before standing. I had insulted him apparently and the meeting was adjourned unilaterally. I started to wonder if maybe this whole thing had been one wild goose chase. This guy might have promised Monica something he didn’t even have. Who knew what those numbers on the printout even meant? And the thumb drive could have contained nothing more than this guy’s last American History paper. I looked around at the rows of computers and the dinged, dented metal furniture. The whole setup might be nothing more than a hoax.
“Goodbye, Gary.” I got up and hurried out the door, feeling a little surprised that he let me leave, as I’d started to deduce that he was a fraud, and maybe even a serial-killing sociopath.
As I hurried back down the blocks to my car, I tried to blend in with the bustle of the city street. In a short time, many of the faces and cast of characters out on the street seemed to have changed. New lovers appeared. New children, new grandmas, and new teenagers. Or maybe I hadn’t been looking as carefully as I thought I had been.
As I raced down the street away from 2319, with my keys and mace attachment firmly gripped in my hand, I practiced telling the story of the day to Monica. She’d need to know how scared I was when I left. I’d need to convey to her that this had to be all one big hoax. And when Monica found that out, she’d have to drop this angle of the story. Wouldn’t she?
I got to my car finally, relaxed my hold on the mace, and beeped the car door twice in a fluid motion as I got in.
I clicked the door to lock it and exhaled, with my head back on the head rest, my eyes pressed firmly shut.
No more wild goose chases for me. No more taking calls from Monica. I thought about what it might mean if Monica refused to drop her insistence on using me to help her get her story, but I dismissed it quickly. There was nothing to be afraid of. I’d talk to Jude. It was long overdue. I wouldn’t let Monica get the best of me.
But God, why did it all have to be unraveling now?
With less than a month until the election?
I opened my eyes and started the car.
And then I screamed.
Because young, greasy Gary had appeared at my car window, and he was rapping on it angrily.
I sat for a few scared moments wide-eyed and staring at Gary. He was sweating and red-faced and as his knuckles knocked incessantly on my window, I felt like karma was finally catching up with me.
He stopped long enough to motion me to put the window down. I shook my head, and tested the door lock, locking it a few extra times.
Gary looked down at the door, taking in the clicking of the lock and seemed to understand finally how this all looked to me. He yelled through the window. “Ok, ok. I get it. I’m not a psycho or anything. Calm down. It’s just that you really don’t have all the information you need. You’re getting played, Ms. Boyle.”
My worst fears were being confirmed. What did this guy know that I didn’t?
Was Monica playing me just as I suspected?
I pressed the window button a millisecond to release it a fraction of an inch. Enough space for sound to pass through, but not an axe.
“Who do you think is playing me? Is this about Monica? Was I wrong to trust her?”
“No.” He looked disgusted with how little I knew or understood.
He looked left and right as if looking for someone. “It’s someone much, much closer to you. Someone who has reasons to take down Kylie Rutter that have nothing to do with the LessThan app or cyber-bullying. Some pretty powerful people are at the helms here. And you’re being used in a game that started many years ago. We’ve all got our reasons, right? But make sure your reasons are clear.”
He slipped the thumb drive through the crack in the window and turned and headed away from me, back in the direc
tion of 2319, leaving me with the IM subscriber list and a host of new questions.
Chapter 19
Monica called again at my Appletreese office the day after the trip to 2319.
I picked up the phone, preparing for the worst, and in the end, became confused about what the worst would actually be.
“I have the lists, but I’m not exactly sure what to do with them.”
“So why didn’t you call me?” Monica sounded tired. I wondered if she was tired of having to explain things to me. “Aby, time is of the essence. I thought you understood what we were trying to do here.”
“Are you going to threaten me again? Because I don’t care what you tell, Jude. I really don’t. You can tell him anything you want. I made my choices, and I’m living with them. I have my reasons for all of it, including ChelseaCat. I always meant to tell him everything one day. If one day is now, so be it. Your threat has no power anymore.”
I was bluffing.
It worked.
“Aby, I have no interest in having a conversation with Jude about your past or about ChelseaCat. That’s a conversation the two of you need to have.”
My relief was short-lived, as she immediately followed with, “But Aby, I have some bad news that will be in the later online version of the paper.”
A moment later, I was embarrassed that I had actually thought “some bad news” would be something about the election. “Corelle. She’s taken her own life.”
I felt all the air leave my body. I hadn’t seen Corelle lately. I figured she was busy with high school. I thought about her sad thin recorded voice I’d heard only a few days ago, courtesy of Monica.
My voice cracked and then broke. “How do you know this?”
“We’ve been in constant contact with her over the last two weeks. I never thought—”
I heard Monica’s tone match mine.
“We’ve spoken with her mother. She’s asked us to go forward with our exposé. She wants to punish the assholes she believes are responsible for this tragedy. And by assholes, I mean Innovative Media.”
I laid my face down on my desk and felt the cold wood against my burning face. Corelle had been full of promise and light and someone had stolen it from her. I had known the bully only as “Donny”—someone who had plugged Corelle into the LessThan app. Someone who was apparently a fellow classmate at her school with a powerful or notable mother. Someone who had told Corelle repeatedly that she was too ugly to exist.
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