The Party

by Robyn Harding

  The woman was tall, angular, and unfamiliar … but she was the right age to be a Hillcrest mom. She was seated at a corner table with a man—her husband, probably—it didn’t appear to be a business meeting, given the woman’s yoga pants and hoodie. Her blue eyes kept darting over toward Lisa. When their gazes connected, the woman spoke softly to her companion and stood. Lisa hurriedly swallowed her yam as the tall woman approached.

  “Sorry to interrupt …”

  Yeva stopped talking about candida midsentence.

  The woman said, “Hi, Lisa … my name’s Karen. You probably don’t recognize me, but my kids go to Hillcrest. I’ve seen you at school events—a play or a volleyball game or something.”

  “Right,” Lisa said, though she couldn’t recall ever seeing this tall stranger. Ronni had never been in a play, never played volleyball or any other sport. Her daughter wasn’t really a joiner.

  “I just wanted to offer my support… . You and Ronni have been through so much.”

  “Thank you.”

  “My kids don’t really know Ronni, but I told them that they should be kind when they see her. And if they witness any of the bullying behavior, I told them to go to a teacher.”

  “Bullying behavior?” Lisa asked in a choked voice. She knew Ronni had felt isolated and ostracized, but she’d never complained of overt bullying.

  “I don’t know any of the specifics… .” Karen clearly felt awkward. “If I did, I would have called the principal. My kids just said that there are some kids who are saying things … at school and online … mean things.”

  “Ronni never told me… .” Lisa felt Yeva’s supportive hand land on top of hers.

  “Maybe you should talk to her counselor?” Karen said, flustered. “I could have gotten it wrong—my kids aren’t the most reliable sources.”

  “I will,” Lisa said, roasted yams turning to lead in her stomach. “Thank you for coming over.”

  “If there’s anything I can do … I’m friends with Ana Pinto, Marta’s mom. She can send you my details.”

  Marta. She was at the party that night. Her mom, Ana, had sent Lisa a note… . She couldn’t remember what it said, but the woman was a doctor. It was monogrammed on her stationery.

  Yeva spoke for her. “Thank you, Karen. That’s kind of you.”

  “Thanks,” Lisa managed, as Karen backed away toward her table.

  Darcy’s hand reached across and joined the supportive hand pile. “You okay?”

  Lisa nodded. “I’m going to go.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Yeva offered, as Lisa pulled her hand away and stood.

  “No, stay. Ronni and I need to talk. Alone …”

  Darcy was on her feet. “Let me buy her a vegan raspberry scone. They’re amazing.”

  THE WHITE BAKERY bag crinkled as Lisa let herself into the apartment building. She hoped the vegan scone wasn’t dry. Ronni didn’t have much of an appetite lately and would be easily turned off. Lisa rode the elevator to their fourth-floor apartment, so lost in thought that when the elevator stopped on the third floor (someone must have called it and then changed their mind), Lisa got off and walked to the end of the hall before realizing her mistake. She and the scone took the stairs up.

  It was quiet in the apartment, but Lisa knew Ronni was there. She almost never left anymore, except on those days when Lisa could cajole her into attending school. Her reluctance made sense now… . Ronni had the entire apartment to herself this afternoon, but she was closeted in her lilac bedroom, as usual, with the door tightly closed. Her personal space was a shrine to what had been: pictures of her and her friends covered bulletin boards, filled frames, hung from a makeshift clothesline draped along one wall. Concert tickets, postcards, and music posters papered the rest of the space, a tribute to her former passions.

  But Ronni didn’t listen to music these days: too emotive. She would undoubtedly be watching Netflix—teen millionaires, teen vampires, teen detectives—and wishing she were someone else, someone with money, fangs, or sleuthing skills. Lisa moved toward the room, holding the scone in both hands like an inadequate gift for royalty.

  Usually, Lisa knocked—she had always respected her daughter’s privacy and she still did—but she was distracted today, reliving her tense meeting with Karen, so she pushed open the door with no announcement. Ronni was sitting cross-legged on her bed, her back to the door, with her laptop in front of her. Lisa had full view of the screen as she moved into the room. It wasn’t Netflix but Facebook; Lisa recognized the blue bar across the top. Ronni was looking at a large picture of a cartoon character: it was green with a round body, skinny appendages, and a big friendly smile. Lisa vaguely recognized the creature from the Pixar movies that Ronni had watched as a kid, and she felt amused and comforted that Ronni was revisiting her childhood memories. But why was Ronni’s name printed across the bottom of the image? And then she saw it: the creature had one eye.

  At that very moment, Ronni sensed her mother’s presence and slammed the laptop closed.

  “What is that?” Lisa’s voice was quiet, her throat constricted with dread.

  “Nothing,” Ronni snapped, but her face was flushed and her eyes were full of tears.

  “Let me see it.”

  “No.”

  “Give me the laptop, Ronni.”

  Her daughter’s voice was desperate. “Just forget it. It’s nothing.”

  Lisa lunged for the device, and Ronni yanked it out of reach. Lisa had never been physical with her daughter, but she needed to see that webpage. She was filled with such urgency, such panic, that she shouldered Ronni roughly out of the way and grabbed the laptop. “Ow! God!” But Lisa ignored her daughter’s feigned injuries and opened the computer.

  It was just as she feared, and Lisa felt bile rise in her stomach. “Who did this? Who made this profile page of you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have some idea.”

  “I don’t!” Ronni screamed. “It could be anyone! Everyone at school thinks I’m a monster! Look at all the comments.”

  Lisa scanned them, but they were too painful, too cruel. “This is cyberbullying. I’m calling the principal.”

  “No!” Ronni shrieked. “You’ll make it worse.”

  “Then I’ll call Facebook.”

  Ronni let out a high-pitched snort of laughter. “Oh my god.” She covered her face as hysterical giggles shook her shoulders. “You’re unbelievable,” she spluttered, throwing herself face-first onto the bed. Within moments, the laughter had segued into anguished, wrenching sobs. Lisa set the laptop on the floor and leaned over her only child, shielding her with her body, stroking her hair and murmuring, “Who is doing this to you? Why … ?”

  Eventually, Ronni composed herself and sat up. “I can’t go back to that school.”

  “There are only a few months left in the school year. It’s too late to change now.”

  “I can go to the public school down the street. They have to take me because I’m in the district.”

  “That school is full of gangs and drug dealers,” Lisa said. “That’s why I sent you to Hillcrest in the first place.”

  “Hillcrest is full of snobs and assholes!” Ronni was starting to cry again.

  Lisa took her daughter’s hand and held it to her chest. “Listen to me,” she said firmly. Ronni took a deep, shuddering inhale and pressed her lips together, forcing her sobs back down into her chest. “You are strong, Ronni. You have already been through more than people like Lauren Ross or Hannah Sanders will ever go through. You’re better than they are. You’re a survivor.”

  Ronni managed an affirmative shrug and nod.

  “What bullies want is a reaction. If you don’t give it to them, they’ll lose interest. And you’re not going to let them scare you out of a good school. You’re going to walk in there with your head held high and you’re going to finish out the year. And next year, you can go to the best private school in the city, not just one that offers scholarships.
And you’ll have the best education money can buy and you’ll have an amazing life. You’ll show them all.”

  Ronni met her mom’s eyes and held them for a moment. “Is that why we’re suing Hannah’s parents?”

  We. Ronni and Lisa were a team again, them against the world. “Yes,” Lisa said. “You deserve the best, baby, you always did.”

  hannah

  FORTY-SIX DAYS AFTER

  Hannah paused at the back door of the school. The lunch bell had rung, and students moved to their eating spots like salmon swimming instinctively upstream to spawn. Now that Hannah was seeing Noah, her spawning place was a covered area behind the school with a concrete ledge perfect for perching and eating. Noah, Adam, and Lauren would be there already; the boys would be eating, but Lauren wouldn’t. Sometimes Lauren would nibble on some almonds or pick at a muffin, but for the most part, she drank vitaminwater. Hannah hadn’t been particularly hungry lately, either. Her mom stilled packed her a nutritious, homemade lunch most days, but it often ended up in the trash.

  Before she became part of her current clique, Hannah had eaten in the cafeteria with Marta and Caitlin. It was loud and chaotic and smelled like beef stew—not an appetizing environment by any means, but back then, Hannah had no problem devouring her chicken salad with halved grapes. Back then, she had watched, covetously, as Lauren and Ronni wandered past her table, expensive colored water in hand, to meet the hot boys outside. They had seemed so much older, so jaded and worldly that Hannah couldn’t imagine being a part of their scene. But now, she was.

  As Hannah reached for the door handle, it jerked open from the other side. Suddenly, Sarah Foster was standing in the doorway just inches away. The pretty blonde looked startled, her eyes darting around in search of Hannah’s posse. When Sarah found no sign of Lauren Ross, her face relaxed.

  Hannah stepped aside. “Go ahead …” She ushered Sarah into the school. The stylish girl breezed past her without a word, her perfume—something adult and expensive—wafting behind her. Hannah was about to exit, when Sarah’s voice stopped her.

  “You know she’s going to turn on you, right?”

  “What?”

  “Lauren. She turns on everyone. It’s only a matter of time.” She brushed her silky hair away from her face. “You’re pathetic if you think you’re any different.”

  Hannah scrambled for a comeback, the right words to defend herself, to defend her friend, but all that came out of her mouth was “Whatever …” She hustled herself outside.

  The sky was blue and the sun was shining, warming Hannah’s face as she crossed the asphalt courtyard. Sarah Foster was clearly jealous. She had disparaged Lauren because she wanted to be in with her, in with them. If Sarah could have traded places with Hannah, she would have done so in a heartbeat. So it was ridiculous, the nostalgia Hannah was feeling for the noisy, smelly cafeteria. Her life had been mundane then, she reminded herself. Marta and Caitlin were fine, they were comfortable, but they didn’t challenge or excite her, not like Noah and Adam and Lauren did. Maybe what she was really craving was the simplicity of that time—before the party, before the accident, before the lawsuit.

  As predicted, her three friends were in the designated spot. Noah and Lauren sat on the ledge while Adam stood in front of them. He was holding his brand-new iPhone out for them and Noah and Lauren were peering at the tiny screen. All three of them were laughing. Hannah walked up to them but said nothing.

  Noah noted Hannah’s presence immediately and stood. “Have you seen this?” he asked, nodding his head toward the phone as he slipped his arm around her.

  “So fucking funny,” Lauren said. Her voice was slightly slurred and her eyes were glassy. She was probably stoned—on pot or Ativan. Lauren’s mom had taken her to see a doctor after the trauma of Hannah’s birthday party. “I laid it on thick and I got like sixty Ativan and a refillable prescription,” she’d bragged.

  Adam passed the phone to Hannah. “Ronni’s new profile page,” he said, stating the obvious. Hannah looked at the cartoon character, its bright smile, its one huge eye, at Ronni’s name plastered beneath it. She knew she was supposed to laugh, but she couldn’t. She felt nauseated, a huge lump rising up from her stomach. “Who did this?” she managed to say.

  “Don’t know,” Noah said, with a wry smile at Adam.

  “Some genius,” Adam said, taking the phone from her. “Check out the comments.” He passed the phone to Lauren, who read them in her sleepy, slurry voice.

  “ ‘She was a stuck-up bitch when she had two eyes… . Will she be half a stuck-up bitch now?’ ” The boys chuckled. Lauren continued. “ ‘Being a drunken slut is all fun and games until …’ ”

  Noah and Adam joined in for the chorus, “ ‘Someone loses an eye.’ ” They all dissolved into laughter. After a few seconds, Lauren composed herself to keep reading. “ ‘Why are you guys picking on Fetty Wap?’ ”

  “Awesome!” The three of them convulsed again. Hannah forced a noise out of her throat and hoped it resembled a chuckle.

  Lauren read, “ ‘This page is cruel and whoever made it should be ashamed of themselves.’ ”

  “Let me guess,” Adam said, “Someone from the God squad.”

  Lauren peered at the tiny name. “Yep. Phoebe Winslow.”

  “Do-gooder bitch,” Noah snorted.

  “Ronni didn’t even like Phoebe,” Lauren said. “But now that Ronni’s a freak, Phoebe’s her BFF.”

  “Phoebe will report the page,” Noah said. “She probably already has.”

  Adam said, “That’s okay. I’m sure Ronni has had a chance to see it.”

  “Yeah …” Noah added, “as long as she got the message.”

  “Oh, she got it,” Lauren said smugly.

  Hannah was gripped with an urgent need to remove herself. “I’m going to get a drink from the caf,” she said tightly, stepping away from Noah’s side. “Anyone want anything?”

  Lauren’s glassy gaze fell on her then and a shiver ran through Hannah. Lauren could see that Hannah agreed with Phoebe Winslow: the Facebook page was sick and cruel and not funny. Lauren could see that Hannah was a Goody Two-shoes, a suck-up, and she didn’t belong with the cool crowd, didn’t deserve a hot boyfriend like Noah. Lauren knew Hannah was a fraud, a wannabe, and she was going to call her out now. Hannah braced herself; it was over… .

  But Lauren’s eyes drifted back to the phone and she mumbled, “I’m good.”

  “Me, too,” Adam echoed.

  Noah reached for Hannah’s fingers. “You okay?”

  It was a caring and intimate gesture. A month ago, Hannah would have melted at Noah’s words, at his touch. But today, she felt nothing. “Just thirsty.” She gave him a fake smile and pulled her hand from his. She walked back to the school, feeling his eyes on her back.

  Inside, she didn’t go to the cafeteria. She walked, on autopilot, toward her locker. Hannah didn’t know what she would do when she arrived there: remove books, then put books back in, search her backpack for a highlighter or a hair elastic that wasn’t there … anything to fill her time, to keep her away from Lauren and Adam and Noah—and to keep her from thinking about that Facebook page.

  She turned the corner and approached her locker. At the far end of the hall was a gaggle of girls speaking in hushed, alarmed voices, but Hannah paid them no attention. She moved, like a drone, toward her destination. She wanted the bell to ring; she wanted lunch to be over so she could immerse herself in French verbs and forget about the social aspect of high school. At her locker, sweaty, slippery fingers fumbled with the lock. Had they been sweaty and slippery when Noah had taken her hand? To her surprise, she didn’t care.

  “Hey, Hannah.”

  Hannah looked up. It was Phoebe Winslow, flanked by several of her friends from the “God squad”: Nat, Eliza, and Thea. The group was like a pamphlet on diversity: Eliza was Asian and gender fluid; Nat was overweight; Thea was petite, cute, and black; and Phoebe was tall, gawky, and outspoken. The cre
w had common traits, too: they all belonged to a number of school clubs, contributed enthusiastically to in-class discussions, were adored by their teachers and dismissed by their peers.

  “Hey,” Hannah said.

  “Did you see it?” Eliza asked.

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “Ronni’s devastated,” Phoebe said. She sounded kind of proprietary, like, all of a sudden, she was an insider in the whole Ronni saga.

  “So she saw it?” Hannah asked.

  “This morning.” It was Thea this time. “She came in and saw it and she ran out.”

  Hannah was confused. “Who showed it to her?”

  “No one showed her,” chubby Nat said, her tone rather bitchy for someone so unpopular. “It’s her locker.”

  “Wait … you’re not talking about the Facebook page?”

  Phoebe sighed. “Ronni saw that, too. Yesterday. But then her locker … It was the last straw.”

  Hannah felt a now familiar feeling in her stomach: a toxic combo of guilt, remorse, and dread. She croaked, “What did they do?”

  Phoebe led the way to the east wing offshoot hallway that housed Ronni’s locker. Of course Hannah knew where Ronni’s locker was: she’d met her there often in the last few months. But even before Hannah’s inclusion in Ronni’s universe, she had been aware of the location. Hannah would pass by on her way to class and she and Ronni would exchange a wave. Even when Ronni was popular and Hannah wasn’t, they couldn’t forget the childhood connection they’d shared: all those years at the playground or the midway, baking cupcakes or building Play-Doh landscapes while their moms stood by, so different but still friends, couldn’t be forgotten.

  There were several kids standing in a semicircle around the rectangular metal box that contained Ronni’s school supplies, gym clothes, and probably some makeup, gum, and tampons. Someone had set three orange pylons on the floor around it—the custodian, most likely—to keep onlookers away as he prepared to clean up the assault. Hannah stopped a few feet behind Phoebe and her friends and read the word that ran vertically down the locker: