Big Girl Small (28 page)

“I hooked up with Kyle three times,” I said. “Those times he drove me home, and then one other time, okay? And I went to his house Friday night, obviously,” I said. I was angry, even though of course none of this was her fault, and it had nothing to do with her at all. She was the only person near enough to absorb some rage.

“Yes, I deduced that when I picked you up.”

So maybe she was mad at me, too. I put one bow-tie noodle on my spork.

“Judy?” Sarah said.

“What?!”

“Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on? Is it because of Molly?” I was baffled by this for a moment before it hit me. If I had hooked up with Chris, then I had betrayed her. I couldn’t help but feel, selfishly, that that was the least of my problems.

“No, it’s not about Molly. Or you. I promise. Ask Meghan. I mean, I haven’t been able to tell you what happened Friday night, right? Because I literally can’t remember.”

Meghan nodded at Sarah. “It’s true,” she said.

Sarah said, “Was it something kinky and freakish?”

“Why would you ask me that?”

“Because you were so secretive to begin with! I mean, I asked you if you and Kyle—you know, weeks ago before the Friday-night thing, and you told me he brushed your hand! I mean, brushed your hand? Did you lose it to him? I would have been thrilled for you—you could have told me.”

“I know. I didn’t mean—it was just, I don’t know, kind of private. I mean, nothing’s been happening, except we were kind of, I don’t know—dating, I guess.”

“You were ‘dating’? Is that like ‘brushing hands’? What does that even mean?”

“Okay, so we’d had sex.”

Sarah took this in. It seems funny now, but she had to take a moment to do the math—and I watched her be like, “Oh my god, she lost it to Kyle Malanack,” before she remembered that it wasn’t time for celebrating that fact anymore. I wished more than ever that I had told her when it had still seemed like potentially good news.

“But what about Friday night? What about the taping thing?” Goth Sarah asked. She ate a bite of iceberg lettuce with pink Thousand Island dressing on it. My mind reeled backwards and then forwards. Meghan was watching me. I could feel myself blinking very fast.

“What do you mean, ‘the taping thing’?” I asked.

“Oh, come on, Judy. If you don’t want to tell me anything, that’s fine, but don’t lie about it directly. Aren’t you the one with the whole ‘no direct lying’ policy?”

“Sarah.” I looked straight into her eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh,” she said, the weight of whatever it was coming at her. “I thought—I mean, I assumed you—”

The bell rang and Molly came running up, half dropping her precalc book and a chaotic stack of tutoring notes. “Oh my god, Judy!” she asked. “What is going on? What happened?”

I had never heard her so lathered up. “I don’t know yet,” I said. I turned back to Sarah. “Assumed I what?” I asked Sarah, trying to keep my voice even.

Now it was Sarah’s turn to hedge. “I don’t know exactly,” she said, and I didn’t know whether that was true. “But I heard that you and Kyle taped yourselves—I mean—”

“Taped ourselves what?”

“I don’t know Judy, but I’ll find out, okay? I can’t skip right now—it’s my presentation in—”

“Sarah! Who—”

I guess Sarah figured everyone already knew anyway, or if they didn’t, they were all going to find out. She said, “Kyle or Chr—one of his friends, I guess.” She glanced over at Molly, who was staring at us, one of her eyebrows raised in an angry arch.

“There’s some kind of video of you guys, Judy,” Sarah said. “A, you know,
video
. Do you want me to pick you up after block three? I’m so sorry—I have my presentation in AP history today so I have to—”

She started toward her locker, turned back, and said, super intensely, “Come find me in the parking lot after the bell. I’ll get you out of here, okay?”

Molly looked over at Meghan suddenly. “I’m Molly,” she said.

“Nice to finally meet you.”

Then Molly turned back to me, and I thought she was going to freak out about Chris or criticize me. But she said, “We will sue their fucking asses off,” she said. “If there’s a video, or whatever—my dad—we will tell my dad, and he will—”

“Wait,” I said, “let’s just, we don’t even—” I appreciated her loyalty and ability to look past the Chris debacle, whatever it was, but I didn’t like the sound of anyone telling anyone’s dad anything. I wanted to escape—just with Meghan. The bell was ringing.

“You should go to class, Moll,” I said. “We’ll talk about it tonight when—” I had a flash of
Runaways
, the opening, everyone gathered, holding hands for warm-up.

“They will not get away with this,” Molly said.

My hands had started to shake, and Meghan, either noticing this or just coincidentally, took my hand and started pulling me toward the door.

“We’ll see you tonight, okay?” I said to Molly, and then, feeling bad for so obviously wanting her to go, added, “We can talk about it then.” I wanted to be alone, and frankly, for a reason I couldn’t have articulated, being with Meghan was as comfortable as being alone. Molly walked away reluctantly, glancing back, and I thought how she should be glad to be able to walk away, how relieved I would have been to be her, to be able to leave this mess even for a few minutes. Meghan dragged me outside into the parking lot, and we started walking through it, picking up speed, toward the field.

The most sickening feeling I’ve ever had came over me. I still remember it, like a hot, filthy envelope smothering me and then sealing itself, holding in all the nausea of my Saturday hangover, the horrible spinning bathroom at Kyle’s house, the dead cat stretched out on the black table in AP bio, the smell of the girls’ bathroom, and something else, something defiled, decaying. I started to writhe in my skin.

“What kind of video do you—” I asked Meghan slowly. I tried to remember where Kyle and I had been in his house. His room? The basement? The living room? I felt like maybe if I could remember the setting, I might know what we had done, but a black curtain dropped in my mind.

“I don’t know,” Meghan said, cutting me off. “We’ll have to see it, okay? Whatever it is, we’ll see it and we’ll be okay. It can’t be as bad as you’re imagining.”

“I wonder where Ginger is,” I said absently. I had the feeling through that entire day that if I could just put everyone in his or her proper place, things would be okay. But there were all sorts of people missing. In fact, I hadn’t seen Chris or Alan either, although I knew they were there because Sarah had seen them. There was no way I was going to senior voice. Kyle hadn’t been in American lit. Where had he been?

Meghan and I got to the field behind the school and I cut class for the first time ever and sat there, stunned, trying to guess what was about to happen to me, based on guessing what had happened to me before. Neither was easy or pleasant to imagine. Time felt like a frappe, thick, icy, granular, grinding in a blender.

My mind was on a loop. What video? What kind of video? What had I done? A video of us talking? A video of me naked? How bad was it? I couldn’t imagine what that video looked like. Where was it? It took me so long to sort out even what those words meant that it wasn’t until Carrie Shultz walked by Meghan and me on the field, where we were waiting for Sarah to be done and drive us far away, and said, “How’re things?” in a voice like six octaves deeper than her normal one, that I realized I had to get a copy as soon as possible. I had to see what it was, to know what everyone had either heard about or seen. Had everyone seen it? Why was Carrie’s voice all weird like that? Because of Chris? What did she think, or worse, what did she know? I began to freak out.

“They’re okay, Carrie. How are you?”

She said nothing, walked off.

“Was that as bizarre and awkward as I think it was?” I asked Meghan.

“I dunno,” she said. “Is she like a super weirdo?”

“I don’t remember,” I said. I didn’t think so. “Do you think she’s seen the video? Do you think she knows about it? Do you think everyone has seen it except me? Oh my god—what if—” The hysteria was mounting in me like lava and I could imagine the horrible images breaking open the top of my head, erupting my brains and blood out. It would spill over the sides of me and harden into a black crust.

“We have to see it,” Meghan said.

“I know.”

“Call him.”

I took my cell phone out of my purse and popped a piece of gum out of the package before I dialed Kyle’s number. It rang and rang and his voice mail picked up. I hung up, chewed the gum. As soon as the bell rang, Meghan and I stood up and went straight out to the parking lot to wait for Sarah. She came right after the bell, unlocked the car, and we climbed in. She didn’t start the engine right away, though, we all just sat there for a minute. I felt safe for the first time that day, locked into Sarah’s car, with Sarah driving and Meghan in the backseat, all of us about to be far away from D’Arts.

I inhaled. “Oh my god,” I said. “What’s happening?” I slid down in the seat.

“I don’t know, Judy,” she said. “Let me take you home. We’re called at seven.”

“I’m not coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no way I’m coming tonight.”

“You’re going to drop out of
Runaways
? Drop out of D’Arts? Slow down. We haven’t even seen the video yet, and we don’t know who else has seen it, if anyone. Pretend nothing happened, go tonight, perform anyway—I mean, all our parents, teachers, everyone—”

“Um, Judy, I think you should do the show too,” Meghan said from the backseat. “Don’t let this ruin everything. If you don’t go tonight, everyone will know that something’s going on. It will just make things worse, and besides, maybe focusing on the play will make you feel better.”

“How did you find out about the video?” I asked Goth Sarah.

“Tim Malone said something as you walked into American lit,” she said.

“Tim Malone?” I asked.

She nodded.

“How the hell did Tim Malone know? What was he saying?” I heard myself ask.

“I don’t know, Judy, I guess he’s friends with those guys.”

“Don’t spare me. I want to hear what they were saying.”

I could feel Sarah make eye contact with Meghan in the rearview mirror.

“That it was the latest celebrity sex tape,” Sarah said quietly.

I tried to take this in. “Tim Malone said that? He called it a sex tape?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” I listened to the sound of my own breathing for a minute.

“How did you know it was me?” I asked.

“I just do.”

“How?”

“It was clear.”

“They used my name.”

“More or less.”

“Don’t take me home,” I said.

“Where do you want me to take you?”

“Take me to the Grill.”

She turned so abruptly that the tires squealed, drove to South U. and slammed the brakes on in front of the Grill.

“You going to be okay?” she asked.

“I want to see if my parents know.”

“What if they do?”

“I’ll kill myself.”

“Don’t be crazy. We’ll work this out. You’ll be fine. This kind of shit happens all the time. We have to get in touch with Kyle.” I punched his number into my phone, got his voice mail. This time I asked his mailbox please to call me.

Then Sarah said, “What a complete asshole.”

“I’m not sure,” I said. It was as if my brain couldn’t send a realistic message to my mouth fast enough. “I think he has another side.” I heard how pathetic this sounded, but hoped, unbearably, that he’d be able, in some way, to explain.

“A side other than the one that made a video of you? And apparently invited Alan and Chris over to get in on the action?”

“That’s not how it was. I mean, it was my idea to—I mean, I called you and Molly, or Ginger, but—” I couldn’t remember if that was right. Had I called anyone? I remembered he had said I should call my friends. Had I? Why hadn’t I?

“He’s had a very hard life,” I said, hating myself as the words escaped.

“
Kyle Malanack
has had a very hard life?” Goth Sarah said, incredulous. “His sister died.”

“His sister died? What are you talking about? His sister died? And this is the first anyone’s ever heard of it? And what does that have to do with taping you having sex?”

“Maybe he just needs to preserve, I mean, to keep track of—we don’t even know yet if he did anything, right? I mean, maybe it wasn’t—” I stopped myself. Overwhelmed, I opened the car door, climbed out into the street, and walked toward Judy’s Grill with Meghan. I didn’t wave to Sarah. The bells on the door rang as we came in and my mom, behind the counter, looked up. She was surprised to see me.

“Hi, girls!” she called, genuinely happy. “You hungry?”

So she didn’t know.

“No,” I said, “I just stopped by to say hi before we get ready for tonight.”

“Meghan, you hungry, honey? Do you want a burger?”

“I’d love one, thank you.”

“You have butterflies, sweetie?” my mom asked. “Chad called to say he’s bringing Alice.”

“Great,” I said. I went to the office computer, straight to Google, and typed in my name. Meghan stayed out front with my mom, either protecting me or waiting for her burger. Nothing came up except the usual hits, the pathetic writing awards, the Lilah Terrace Fellowship to Darcy, the happy-dwarf article from when I was a kid. I went to YouTube, typed in “dwarf sex tape,” but YouTube doesn’t allow that sort of shit. I wondered if it was online, how people were finding it. I went back out to the counter, dejectedly. Meghan was eating fries. She looked at me, raised her eyebrows like, “Did you find anything?” I shook my head.

“I made you a BLT,” my mom said.

“I said I wasn’t hungry.”

“I know,” she said, “but you should eat something before the show.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’ll put it in the fridge. If you change your mind.” She walked back out.

Meghan said, “What did you find?”

“Nothing.”

“Good. So it’s not online, at least.”

“Well, not yet.”

Sarah came back an hour later, with her wet hair in a ponytail and a gym bag over her shoulder. Molly was in the front seat, waiting. When I had told them Meghan was coming, they had been like, “That’ll be fun—why don’t we all get dressed together at your place before the play?”