“Denying what?” I said. I had the strangest feeling—detached, somehow. As if I were watching myself in a movie. Maisie in the Principal’s Office. Or, Maisie Versus the Adults. I had to admire the girl playing me. She was gutsy and cool and smart.
The principal said, “Yesterday morning, a stoooodent, one of your classmates, came to my office in tears and made some pretty serious accusations.”
“Like what?” Of course he’d told Joan what Daria had said, but I wanted to hear it from him. “Like who?”
“Never mind who,” he said, as if we all didn’t know. “This was reported in strictest confidence. She…I mean the stoooodent, said there had been an inappropriate incident involving you and some boys in the back row of the school bus.”
“It never happened,” I said. “Nothing…inappropriate…happened.” I told myself that what had happened wasn’t inappropriate, it was just creepy and weird. I didn’t like lying, but it seemed important, even necessary. And at that point I still had the fantasy that if I covered for Shakes and Kevin and Chris, they’d apologize for asking to touch my breasts and would tell me they still cared about me. That they didn’t know what they’d been thinking, they hadn’t meant to hurt my feelings. First I’d give them a hard time, but after a while I’d forgive them, and we could go back to being friends again, or anyway whatever we were before the incident happened.
Miss Notley said, “Maisie, why do you think a student would tell us such a disturbing story if it wasn’t true?”
I said, “Because Daria Wells is a big fat liar. Because she’s jealous that I’m such good friends with those guys. She’s jealous because I’ve known them longer than she ever will. Those kids and I have been friends since we were babies.”
When I said Daria, the name sort of sat there for a while, in the middle of the room. What about strictest confidence? I wasn’t supposed to know. Time stopped for a moment, then started again.
“Exactly what did she say happened?” I finally asked, when the silence became unbearable.
Miss Notley said, “Well…borders were crossed.”
“Like the U.S.–Mexican border?” I said.
“This isn’t a joke, dear,” said Joan.
“It certainly isn’t,” agreed Mrs. Blick.
I said, “You mean the border around my boobs?” Oops. I didn’t want to sound like I knew what they were talking about if I was going to pretend that nothing happened.
The three school officials sighed, deeply and at once, and Joan sighed, too, as if she was imitating them.
“Maisie,” said Doctor Nyswander. “We’re not accusing you of lying. We understand exactly why you might not want to talk about this.”
“About what?” I said.
More sighs, all around.
Joan said, “We all know how rumors get started. Especially in the student population. I’ve seen many youngsters in my practice who have been hurt by cruel whispering campaigns. And frankly, if Maisie has no memory of this, it’s a little hard for us to figure out where all this could possibly be coming from—”
I jumped when Doctor Nyswander cleared his throat in a way that sounded like the bark of a big, nasty dog. It shut Joan right up.
He said, “We took the liberty of speaking to the boys who were accused. Er…implicated.”
“Separately or together?” I asked.
Miss Notley said, “Separately. Of course.”
“And?” said Joan.
“And,” said Doctor Nyswander, “all three of them admitted it rather quickly.”
Did they torture the truth out of them? Did they keep them without food and water in nasty cement-block interrogation rooms and play good cop–bad cop? I looked at the three school officials facing me, practically melting into little puddles of stress, and somehow I couldn’t imagine a scene like that taking place.
“This is outrageous,” said Joan.
Doctor Nyswander said, “You need to remember that your daughter—”
“Stepdaughter,” I said.
“—that Maisie isn’t the one being accused. She’s the innocent victim.”
“I’m not a victim,” I said.
Mrs. Blick said, “None of us want to think of ourselves that way. Especially if we have experienced abuse.”
Joan said, “Maisie, did any of your fellow students touch you in a way that made you uncomfortable in the back of the school bus?”
“I already said no.”
Miss Notley said, “Did they touch you at all?”
I said, “No. Except that one of them put his arm around me because I was cold. I asked him to. Is that against the rules?”
Mrs. Blick said, “That’s all that happened?”
I said, “Nothing happened. How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t care what they said. They were probably scared or something.”
“If they hadn’t done anything, why would they be scared?” asked the principal.
I just looked at him. Hadn’t the guy ever heard there were innocent men on death row? I thought, I have to talk to the guys! They were probably worried that I’d crack under interrogation. And they’d wanted to tell their own version before I could tell mine. When they hear that I’m refusing to talk, they can just say they made it up because they were afraid that people would believe Daria. When they hear I’ve denied everything, they’ll be so grateful for my being a stand-up kid that Shakes and I—
Doctor Nyswander stopped me in midthought. He gave me another of those searching soul-to-soul looks. Then he looked away. He walked to the window and gazed out at the snow. When he spoke again, he was still looking out the window, as if this was all just too horrible to say to the actual people in the room, and he preferred to say it to the thick, forgiving snow.
He said, “There’s another detail that, painful as it is, we, I think we should mention…just to clear the decks, so to speak. To open the windows and let the air in.”
It was sort of funny, him standing at the window and saying that. But still, I didn’t like the sound of it.
Joan said, “Fine. Let’s hear it. If lies are being told about Maisie, we should know what they are.”
Miss Notley stared down at her long, thin hands, clenching and unclenching her fingers. When she thought no one was looking at her, Mrs. Blick switched off her hearing aid.
The principal said, “We do know how rumors get started and then spread like wildfire through the stoooodent population. So there’s probably no truth to this, either. But I feel that you should know.”
Yikes, I thought. This must be nasty. Nobody can bring themselves to even say it. The principal and the assistant principal and the guidance counselor kept looking at each other. At the end of their silent conference, Miss Notley had been picked.
Miss Notley said, almost in a whisper, “Apparently, some students have been claiming that after Maisie let the boys touch her, after she basically asked them to touch her, she said that it had felt really good, and she asked if they knew anyone who would pay her to fondle her breasts.”
“Who said that?” I asked.
The school officials looked at one another. No one wanted to go near this. Miss Notley whispered again, “Well, I suppose it would have had to have been the boys themselves. The boys who are…involved.”
Joan said, “That’s absurd. Absurd. Absurd!”
For the first time ever, I was glad that Joan said something, even if she said the same thing three times in a row. I’d lost all that cool detachment, that feeling of watching myself in a movie. I felt like I was having one of those dreams where you scream and scream and no sound comes out. Pure fury boiled up inside me and cooked everything else away.
All the times I’d been angry in my life—at my mom leaving, at Geoff for acting like a spoiled brat, at Joan practically every minute I was around her, at my dad for not sticking up for me, at Chris and Kevin for abandoning me and treating me like I’d grown a whole new head instead of just boobs—all that swirled together and boiled hotter and
hotter. I could feel a fire blazing under my eyes when I thought of those lying slobs saying I’d asked if other boys would pay to touch me. How could they say that? We used to be friends! I’d thought that Shakes really liked me. Had Shakes said it, or just the other two? I didn’t want to ask.
I understood the jingling coins now. All the smirking and whispers and jingling money was suddenly, disgustingly clear.
Joan said, “What kind of young woman do you think my husband and I have raised? I don’t want to hear another word of this unless my husband is present. And, just possibly, our lawyer.”
Lawyer! The magic word that Doctor Nyswander most dreaded hearing.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t mean…” And now he could hardly talk.
For some reason, they all swiveled around to look at me. I heard that jingling sound again, but now it seemed to get louder and louder. The inside of my head felt hot. Steam seemed to be filling my brain and all the cavities in my skull. What would they do if steam actually came hissing out my ears?
How could the guys have said that? Did anyone believe them? Could anyone really think that I was some slutty freak, some cheap ho who got off on letting guys pay to touch her? I could hardly stand to think about the fact that the guys who said this weren’t some weird pervert strangers I’d just met. These were my oldest friends, the buddies I’d known my whole life.
I know that I could never be a suicidal person, but if someone had come along at that moment and said, Just jump out that window, Maisie, and you won’t have to feel the way you’re feeling, you won’t have to get through the next couple of days. Jump out the window and you won’t ever have to face Chris and Kevin. And Shakes. Or the other kids at school. You won’t have to decide what you’re going to say when you see them—well, it might have been tempting. But I wasn’t going to jump. As bad as this was, it wasn’t worth killing myself. And besides, to be perfectly practical, the principal’s office was on the first floor.
I wasn’t going to do anything drastic. I was just going to have to get through this. I would just have to stay cool and wait for the moment and get revenge, not big revenge, just something to even the score and make me feel a little better. If that was possible. Which I doubted.
I’d think that and calm down and then get furious all over again. I was in full-blown outrage mode when I felt myself starting to shake like an overloaded appliance, like a dishwasher or washing machine that’s on the edge of imploding. I needed to get out of there, out of that office, out of that school. Fast. Right now.
I said, “Joan, could I talk to you? Outside.”
The others were talking quietly. But something about my tone of voice sliced right through their polite little chatter.
Doctor Nyswander told Joan, “Perhaps we can check in later on the phone.” He meant he expected me to tell Joan everything—the truth!—and Joan would tell him everything I told her. But that wasn’t going to happen.
“Perhaps,” said Joan. “And perhaps I’ll have my lawyer call you.” For a minute—a few seconds, really—I almost wanted to high-five her, until I told myself that Joan just felt she’d been insulted, and, as far as Joan was concerned, it didn’t have all that much to do with me.
As Joan and I walked out the door, I heard Mrs. Blick mumbling something about how she’d send more notes around to my teachers so I wouldn’t be marked absent for the rest of the afternoon.
“Thank you,” Joan remembered to say. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Mrs. Blick.”
I didn’t say a word till we got into Joan’s car and were a couple of miles from school. A battle was going on in my head, between the force of reason and the force of sheer rage. And rage kept winning out. How could the guys say something like that? When I felt the anger get stronger, it felt weirdly like losing an arm-wrestling contest. There was something restful and sweet—almost a relief—when you finally gave in and let the person pull down your arm. I had every reason to be furious and no reason to want to protect my friends—none of them, not even Shakes.
The windshield wipers were making a racket. Slog slog, groan, and creak as they pushed aside the heavy, thick sheet of wet snow that followed them halfway back across the window. I was glad we were in the car. It was always easier to talk when you didn’t have to look at the person.
I said, “Joan, I need to say something. It’s not exactly true that nothing happened on the bus.”
“I figured that,” said Joan.
Meaning what? Meaning that she was lying all that time she’d claimed she believed me? It was too confusing to try and figure that out now, especially when Joan was saying, “Maisie, I just want you to know that nothing you can say will shock me. People do…unusual things all the time. Especially when their hormones are pumping, and they don’t know how to read the new signals their bodies are sending. I’ve seen that so often in my practice. Especially young people your age. They’re always experimenting. There is nothing you could have done, nothing you could have said—”
Nothing I could have done? Wait a second! Wait a second! Did Joan mean she thought it could be true that I had wanted the guys to touch me and had asked if they knew anyone who would pay me to touch my breasts? I tried not to sound angry. I tried to stay controlled.
I knew I had to sound scared and hurt. I was faking it, I had to. But what made it more believable was that I wasn’t faking it completely. Anyway, I was saying exactly what Joan expected and wanted to hear. She could have made it up herself. She hardly had to listen.
Nor did I have to work that hard. In order to get a catch in my voice—that wobbly, wounded tone—I just had to think about Shakes or Kevin or Chris, one of them, or all three of them, deciding what they would say if Daria told and they got caught. Maybe Chris imagined it would make Daria stop being angry at him for whatever she thought she saw the four of us doing at the back of the bus.
Maybe the guys thought that saying that would get them out of trouble. This was more than my saying yes, more than yes meaning yes. This was please, please, it feels so good, and by the way, can you find someone to pay me? That would make me so despicable they’d look like total innocents.
How could that not make someone mad? How could that not hurt a person? I wanted to tell Joan to pull over and stop the first hundred people we passed and tell them the story and ask: If this happened to you, how would you feel? But there weren’t a hundred people on the streets of our town. And certainly not in a snowstorm. There were more than a hundred kids in our school, but I could hardly ask them. I thought about it, and thought about it, and I felt tears come up behind my eyes and leak down into my throat.
I said, “It was the day of the senior trip. So we pretty much got to sit wherever we wanted on the bus.”
Joan turned the radio down and sat up straight. I could tell she was being patient until I got to the good part—the part about touching and boobs.
“At first I thought they were just kidding around. And I kind of went along, even though it wasn’t exactly my favorite subject.”
“What wasn’t your favorite subject?” said Joan.
“My breasts and the guys touching them,” I said.
“Had this gone on before? The boys asking to touch your breasts?”
I took a deep breath. If I said yes, it would be the first big lie. They’d only asked that one day.
“Yes, they had,” I said, and waited for lightning to strike, or the sky to fall. But nothing like that happened.
“So this was repeated behavior? Repeated harassment?”
“They kept on saying it,” I told Joan. “But they wouldn’t stop joking, until someone—probably Kevin or Chris—came out and asked me if they could touch them that day. That day the seniors were away on their trip and we were all sitting in the back of the bus.”
“Which one of the boys asked first?” asked Joan. “You’re probably going to have to remember.”
A chill went through me when she said that. Maybe I’d seen too many cop shows. Once more,
I imagined my friends being held in separate interrogation rooms, only now they were really scared, and some sex crimes detective was tricking them into incriminating themselves. Give it up, the cops said. Your buddies have already squealed. For a moment, I came really close to telling Joan the truth. Then a voice in my head said, Hey, have you heard about Maisie? She let three guys on her bus touch her boobs. And she’ll do it again for money.
“Joan,” I said. “Can I have some time? I have to think about it more.”
“Okay,” said Joan. “Take as long as you need.”
The voice in my head spoke up again: Maisie asked her friends to find guys—like, customers!—who would pay to grope her!
I said, “They all three asked me at once. They all three asked to touch me.”
“All three at once?” Joan sounded a little dubious, and I couldn’t blame her.
“Well, not at once at once,” I said. “But they were all asking.”
“What did you tell them?” said Joan.
“I looked at Shakes, but he wouldn’t look at me. I just wanted them all to calm down. When they asked if they could touch me, I said, ‘That’s an interesting question. Can I think about it for a minute?’ I thought they were joking. I couldn’t believe they were serious.”
“And then?”
“And then they asked again and kept asking. They begged and pleaded for a while, and I started getting nervous, because I could tell they meant it. I remember looking around…”
“And then?” said Joan. I wished that she would stop saying that. I felt like I was the one being interrogated.
“I said no. Definitely no.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know. That part went on for a long time. I decided to ignore them. I looked out the window, but every time I’d look away, one of them would say something like, ‘Come on, what about it, Maisie?’”
“What happened next?” asked Joan.
“Well, it was sort of strange, because right after it happened, I had the feeling they’d planned it. Because it went so smoothly. One of them glanced at the other, then they all exchanged these looks.”
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