He Must Like You

by Danielle Younge-Ullman

  “Yeah. Planning and dreaming is one thing, but all of a sudden it’s real. And I admit I felt better all this time thinking we’d be going through it together. You maybe don’t realize it, but you steady me. Like, you have other good qualities, of course—”

  “Oh, vast numbers of good qualities,” I say. “Too many to count . . .”

  “Seriously,” she says.

  “I know,” I say, and take her by the shoulders. “But Em, we will never not be best friends. We will always be in each other’s lives. I’ll come sit in the courtroom while you win case after case, and you’ll come hang out with me in Trevor’s basement with my lava lamp—”

  “At your gallery openings,” she says.

  “Or . . .”

  Her gaze sharpens. “Or what?”

  I shrug. “I might do something else. Psychology, or social work, or . . .”

  “Ah,” she says, “this Perry incident has changed you.”

  “Yeah. Not to sound woo-woo, but it’s made me feel a different sense of purpose. And maybe I can find a way to merge my interest in art with those things.”

  “Okay, speaking of those things,” Emma says, dragging me over to sit on the bed. “You said you’re worried. What’s up?”

  “It’s my dad.”

  “Uh-oh,” she says. “Did he find out?”

  “Not that I know of, but . . .”

  I explain my concerns while she listens avidly. Luckily Emma knows all about my dad and doesn’t feel the need to bullshit me via telling me not to worry.

  “He’s anti-Facebook, though, right?” she says.

  “Yes, thank God.” I nod, absentmindedly playing with the fuzz on a hot pink throw pillow.

  Emma reaches out and puts a hand on mine. “You’re going to pluck that thing bald.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Plus it’s going to make you sneeze.”

  “Right.” I set it down.

  “Okay. The best you can do for now is go home and see if anything’s happened. Wouldn’t he say something to you?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Then keep a close eye on him, and I’ll also keep eyes and ears out—in town and online too, just in case. If he does find out, though, Lib, I’m sure he’ll be on your side.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I say. “It’ll be a dumpster fire no matter what.”

  “Okay, but wouldn’t it be a bigger dumpster fire if he wasn’t?”

  “We’ll see.”

  16

  DICKS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD

  Something feels different on Thursday. The weather is worse—muggy and drizzling—but there’s less barking at school, and people seem to be looking at me differently. Although they are still looking.

  “Holy crap, sit down,” Emma says when I arrive at our back-of-the-library table for study hall—the one period of the week we all have together.

  I sit down in the empty chair beside Noah, then notice Boris, sitting conspicuously alone, one table away. Noah follows my glance, and says, “Apparently he’s got serious work to do and he anticipates us being too distracting.”

  Boris looks up right at that moment, catches my eye, then looks away quickly and practically burrows into his textbook. Oh, good grief. This is him keeping his distance, obviously, but of course he has to be so Boris-ish about it.

  “Never mind him. Do you remember a girl named . . .” Emma glances down at her phone, “Martina? Who worked at the Goat until . . . early March?”

  “Yeah, she was traveling for a year, visiting her grandparents here for a few months, and then off somewhere else before going to grad school, I think. Why?”

  “Well, Martina’s grandmother is in the Pine Ridge Residents group. She saw the video, then sent a link to Martina. Meanwhile, Martina has a very popular travel blog. It’s fun—mostly photos and stories about her adventures.”

  “I remember her talking about the blog.”

  “Right. Well. Martina isn’t from here and is not worried about upsetting Perry Ackerman. So . . .” Emma says with a flourish, “she’s written a huge post about him, and his harassing ways.”

  “Are you serious?” I say, suddenly breathless.

  “Dead. When she saw the video she knew exactly why you dumped that sangria on Perry. He was the same with her—the hugging, the side boob grab, the gross flirting, the personal questions, the dick jokes,” Emma says, waving her phone at me, but too fast for me to actually see anything.

  “Holy cow.”

  “Yeah, and there’s more. Listen.” Emma reads: “‘Because he knew I was traveling, Perry liked to tease me about how I must be collecting lovers all over the world, or if not lovers, at least dick pics. “You should write a dick pic blog instead,” he said. “You could probably collect ten dick pics per day, just here at the Goat, and then you could post them. Dicks from all over the world! Give me your contact info and I’ll contribute.” The more disgusting I found this suggestion the funnier he thought it was. And then he somehow got my email address, and . . . you can guess the rest.’”

  “Oh. My. God,” Yaz says, her voice a high-pitched squeak. “She has a Perry dick pic!”

  I make a gagging sound, and the librarian shushes us.

  “Girls really do not like dick pics, do they,” Boris says, tipping his chair backward to talk to us.

  “First, darling, you’re missing the entire point,” Emma says, shaking her head. “Second, those things of yours are not photogenic.”

  “Oh, burn,” Noah says with an exaggerated moan. “Our poor manhoods.”

  “Third,” Emma says, ignoring Noah, “if you’re ever feeling like you want me to dump you, go ahead and send me one. I’ll know what to do.”

  And then she goes back to reading the blog post, and Boris goes back to pretending his separate table is a whole other world, and that he’s not listening to every word we’re saying.

  Of course, we’re too loud and soon get kicked out of the library, Boris included. For a moment he looks like he might take off, but then Emma reaches for his hand and he gives me an apologetic look and falls into step beside her. We finally resettle on the floor at the bottom of a stairwell, since it’s gone from drizzling to pouring outside, and there’s nowhere else to go. Boris sits as far away from me as he can get—like three extra feet makes a difference. Although . . . maybe it does.

  “So this girl, Martina,” Noah says. “If she has a Perry dick pic, she probably deleted it.”

  “But if she didn’t . . . ” Yaz says. “And she was willing to share it—”

  “Eww,” I say, hugging my knees to my chest and cringing.

  “Can you sue someone for that?” Emma says. “Or get them charged?”

  “Should be, if you didn’t ask for it,” Yaz says. “What’s the difference between that and whipping it out on the street, which is indecent exposure, right? Ooh, maybe we can get Perry arrested!”

  “Ideally before Monday night,” I say pointedly.

  “If you can’t get him charged,” Yaz says, “maybe you could just get her to post it as proof.”

  “That would be subjecting others to the thing we’re saying should be illegal,” Emma says.

  “Perry might actually like having his dick pic posted on the internet,” I say.

  “Maybe not,” says Emma, scanning the rest of the article. “Because Martina says her grandmother insisted on seeing the pic, and when she did . . . she laughed, and said, ‘That’s what he was so eager to show you? That pathetic thing?’”

  Yaz and I do the exact same thing at the exact same time—clap our hands to our mouths and then howl with laughter, while Boris and Noah both look quietly appalled.

  “Oh, and look at the comments!” Emma says, practically leaping out of her cross-legged position. “How did I miss them? Holy cow, a new one just popped up . . . Libby!”r />
  “What?”

  “Comments!”

  “I got that part. What?”

  “There’s a ton, okay wow. This one’s anonymous. ‘I work at the Goat and every girl there knows you got to watch yourself with Perry. There’s always guys that get flirty and make stupid jokes but Perry’s a whole other thing. Much worse. Martina’s got it right and for sure Libby didn’t flip out for no reason. Every single one of us has to put up with Perry and nobody does anything to stop it.’ Wow, finally! And there’s another one, similar, with a story about hugging with hip thrusting—eww—and a pat on the butt . . . Someone else says he joked about how he’d like to buy her for the night for his friend who was going through a divorce—the friend that was with him—ugh! . . . Okay, and next is a misogynist troll whose words I will not utter aloud, then a defender of Perry’s honor saying none of these people can be believed because they’re posting anonymously, then another anonymous waitress from some other restaurant in town, chiming in with a story, but saying she thinks it’s just part of the job and the way of the world and everyone has to suck it up . . . and there’s one saying all waitresses dress sexy in order to get better tips so what do they expect . . . and someone else shooting this person down . . .”

  “Lemme check the Facebook group again while you’re reading that,” Yaz says.

  “Okay,” Emma says, “but still, remember—no repeating any negative stuff about Libby out loud, if there is any.”

  “I’m fine!” I protest.

  “We want you to remain fine. People are still idiots.”

  Everyone is on their phones now, furiously scrolling, while mine stays turned off and in my bag. I grab a textbook and try to read, then put it down, and glance back up to see Noah looking at me.

  “Want to walk to the water fountain or something?” he asks.

  Be still, my heart—a walk to the water fountain with Noah.

  “Sure,” I say, and we both get up, push through the doors and head slowly down the quiet hallway toward the fountain.

  “So,” I say, “how are things with you?”

  And Ava????

  “Well,” he says, turning to walk backward so he’s facing me. “Ava and I had a talk last night.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was civilized. The only drama is the lack of drama. Like, I brought up the breakup subject and I guess I expected her to be more upset. So we had a little bit of an argument about that, which is . . . just my stupid ego. I didn’t want to hurt her or be a jerk, but then I guess I was a bit of a jerk after all, just a different kind of jerk.”

  “Where’d you leave it?” I say in my best just-interested-as-your-friend voice. “Are you a single man now?”

  “I’m not quite sure,” Noah says, turning now to fall into step beside me. “We got over the argument and then we were both kinda sad, so we said we’d sleep on it. I mean, I think she’s already decided, and I’ve already decided, but we didn’t make it official. And breakups are supposed to happen in person, right? Like, are we going to break up on FaceTime? That seems cold. So I guess I’m single-adjacent.”

  “Well, condolences,” I say. “Or . . . pre-condolences?”

  “I’m all right. Once it was clear in my head, the heartache part sorta disappeared. Now I just want it done and official. I’m having this weird worry, like, what if she changes her mind?”

  “Would that make you change yours?”

  “No.” He stops as we reach the fountain, and glances sideways at me. “I want to be free.”

  “For your gap year,” I say, and lean against the wall.

  “No. I mean, yes. But also,” he says, standing awkwardly in the middle of the hallway, hands shoved into his pockets, those eyes of his on mine, “I want to be free now.”

  “Oh,” I say, unable to come up with anything more because even though he hasn’t said anything encouraging whatsoever, there’s something heart-stopping about the way he’s looking at me, and about the way he looked at me while saying the word “now.”

  “Just in case,” he adds.

  “Of what?” I manage to ask.

  “In case—actually, no,” he says, interrupting himself, “I’m not going to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “The thing I’m not going to do.”

  “Okay, but what is it?”

  “If I told you what it is, I’d be doing it,” he says, nodding to himself like he’s just decided something.

  “I’m confused. Telling me what it is would be doing it?”

  “Yes,” he says, and gives me a really, really sweet grin.

  “All right,” I say.

  “Put it this way,” he says. “When you build something, when you build a house, even before that, when you design it, you have to do things in a certain order, or it won’t work. There’s a right order. You can’t start with the roof, for example.”

  “I see.”

  “There’s a right order, and a wrong order, or maybe a few possible right and wrong orders, but the point is if you start it the wrong way then you might screw it up and never manage to get the thing built. You see what I mean?”

  “Sure . . . ?”

  “Great. Thank you for helping me clear that up.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So . . .” he says. “Are you . . . are you going to have some water?”

  “What?”

  “Water,” he says, and then gestures at the fountain.

  “Oh. No, I never drink from it. You?”

  “Nah, I’ll pass,” he says, and we just stand there, looking and then not looking at one another.

  “Should we go back, then?” I say, finally.

  “Okay.”

  We walk back to the stairwell faster than we came, maybe trying to outpace the many unanswered questions brought up by this conversation. When we get there he immediately grabs his stuff, says, “I have to go,” and leaves.

  “Where’s he going?” Emma says, staring after him.

  “He’s going to build a house,” I say. “Or something. Actually, I have no idea.”

  I sit down again and they go back to reading, then suddenly Yaz goes, “Ooooooh!” and we all jump.

  “What? What?” Emma says.

  “Holy . . .” Yaz says, not looking up.

  “What is it? Show me first,” Emma says, reaching for Yaz’s phone.

  “Oh, come on,” I say, “I’m not that fragile.”

  To my annoyance, Yaz waits for Emma to give her a thumbs-up, then says, “This guy Jason—oh, it’s Jason from the hardware store, I think—he was there, Libby. On Sunday, with his kids in your section. Do you remember?”

  “Think so. Family of six? They were near the service station.”

  “Ooooh,” Yaz says, fanning herself and practically jumping up and down with excitement. “Someone posted a link to Martina’s blog this morning on Complainers, and then obviously a bunch of people read it, and then Hardware Store Jason has come on and posted because he’s got, like, eight pictures of his kids doing something dorky, but you’re there in the background, and so is Perry, and . . . Jason says he only checked his pictures yesterday after he heard about the big fuss, and . . . the background is pretty blurry in most of them, but you can see that Perry’s got his hand on you in every. Single. Photo. On your waist, over to the side of your hip, onto your lower back, almost on your butt . . . then on your butt ahhhhh! Four photos in a row with his hand on your butt!”

  “Let me see.”

  Yaz hands me the phone and Emma and I swipe through. As she’s said, the photos are blurry, but on the upside, there are a lot of them, and they all show Perry touching me inappropriately.

  The bell rings then, and I head to my next class feeling more hopeful than I have in days.

  17

  @RICKSNOTROLLING

>   I’ve just walked into my room after school that Thursday when Emma calls.

  “Do you remember that guy on Complainers—he hasn’t posted in a while, but he’s one of those guys people try to bait on purpose. Roland Rickland?”

  “Y-yeah . . .” I say, starting to get a bad feeling. “I remember Roland.”

  “Okay. So it might be nothing . . .”

  “But . . . ?”

  “But he’s back. And very much on your side, as are others since Jason posted the pics. I just . . . I never thought of it before, but Roland Rickland . . .”

  “Uh-oh . . .”

  “Listen, I could be way off, but he . . .”

  “Sounds a lot like my dad?” I say, pacing from the door to my desk as this horrible possibilty comes together in my mind.

  “I mean, it might not be,” Emma says. “But the other thing is, I can’t match every name on there to an actual person in Pine Ridge, but I know or have heard most of them, and I’ve never heard of a Roland Rickland. So I did a quick 411 check, and there is no Roland Rickland with a phone number in Pine Ridge. Not that there would have to be. But then there’s also . . . your dad’s name is Rick . . .”

  “It’s him. I know it is. Shit.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Good question.”

  * * *

  —

  I need to see what this Roland person is saying online for myself before approaching my dad. So, for the first time in days I go to Facebook and check Complainers. I try to skip directly to Roland Rickland’s comments there, and mostly succeed in not reading anything else. Then I go over to Martina’s blog, where Mr. Rickland has written a lengthy comment. It reads exactly like my dad.

  Still, I decide to do a quick search, just to make certain Roland Rickland isn’t real and from somewhere nearby.

  I type the name into Google, not expecting much.