by Ray Daniel
“Can’t you and Catherine do this?”
“Get to work.”
I got to work. Maria had blessedly few Facebook friends, owing to the fact that most of her real-life friends were not allowed on Facebook, and to the fact that several must have unfriended her. We’d have to figure out another way to apologize to them.
“Carter,” I read off the Facebook friend list.
“Check,” said Adriana, marking her list.
“Fellini.”
“Check.”
“Georgiani,” I read.
“I told you so,” Adriana said.
“What?”
“I told you so.”
“What did you tell me?”
“I told you that Maria was too young for Facebook.”
“Really, we’re going to go back to that fight?”
“This is your fault.”
“This isn’t my fault. This is some hacker’s fault. Is Georgiani a check or not?”
“Check.”
I read another name from the screen. “Harris.”
“Check. Do you know how goddamn sick and tired I am of you being the fun uncle?”
“I’m not her uncle. I’m her cousin.”
“Whatever! You know how sick I am of this?”
“Of what? Incaviglia.”
“Check. I’m sick of you being the one who she runs to whenever I have to discipline her. Like today. She gave away her password, I grounded her, and you decided she should get a fucking biscotti.”
“She was distraught.” I looked back at the screen. “Jones.”
“You think I couldn’t see that?”
“Did you get Jones?”
“Yes, I got Jones! Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not changing the subject. She was already down. Why kick her some more?” Another name. “Laramie.”
“Check. I wasn’t kicking her. I’m raising her.”
“So am I.”
“That’s bullshit. Does she live with you? Does she spend any time at that man cave you’ve got over in the South End?”
“Yes, she does.”
“Right.” Adriana made air quotes. “‘The sleepover.’ You take her there, play a movie, eat some popcorn, call it parenting.”
“It is parenting.”
“It is not parenting. I’m parenting. Catherine is parenting.”
“Leave me out of this,” Catherine said.
Adriana turned to Catherine. “Leave you out? You didn’t ask for any of this. You didn’t ask to be a parent.”
“I’m happy to help.”
Adriana turned back to me. “Lesbian couples are supposed to be immune from surprise children.”
“Look. None of us expected our role.”
“Your role hasn’t changed. You were the happy uncle before, taking her sledding and—”
“Don’t start with that.”
“Yeah, let’s just drop everything that makes you uncomfortable. Poor Tucker.”
Catherine said, “Can we just get back to the names?”
I read off the friends list. “Mathews.”
Adriana said, “Check.”
“Olinsky.”
Adriana slid her pencil down the sheet. “Not here. Did you miss it?”
I brought up a page for Gustav Olinsky.
“Gustav?” asked Adriana.
“Rough name,” I said.
“You should know, Aloysius.”
“Har. Har. This page is mostly blank.”
“No porn?”
“No nothing. He only has ten friends. Is he in Maria’s class?”
“I haven’t heard of him. Let’s just move on.”
We moved on. Worked our way through the rest of Maria’s friends, checking each against whether or not they had received porn. They all had. Some had seen the porn before I could remove it, prompting reactions from “LOL” to “gross” to parents apparently taking over the keyboard to launch into a tirade against Maria through the pictures’ comment sections. Now that the pictures were gone, Maria’s page had gone silent.
This brought me back to Gustav. Why had he been spared a flurry of woman-meets-hammock photographs? What made him special? I looked through his page: nothing and more nothing. He’d had a birthday recently. Three kids had posted birthday greetings on his wall. One was Maria. She had written Happy Birthday, Gutso.
Gutso?
I looked back at Gustav’s profile picture. His round face looked back at me. I found a picture of Gustav standing in the Public Garden where his bulk blocked out most of a passing Swan Boat.
Unable to find anything more on Gustav’s page, I opened Maria’s private messages and read the chain of outraged screeds. Parent after parent had taken this opportunity to demonstrate that it took a village to raise a child and that, for them, Facebook was that village, and Maria was that child.
In the real world, none of these parents would have had the guts to tell Maria to blow her nose, but in the Facebook world they got to beat their judgy chests at a little girl who’d made a mistake.
I scrolled down the list, happy that we hadn’t allowed Maria back onto Facebook, happy that she didn’t have to see any of this. I skipped over message after message until I saw an interesting one at the bottom next to Gustav’s fat little face.
I’m sorry.
Four
I leaned back in my chair, drained my wine, and read the cover of the Regina Pizza box. The cover told the story of the Oldest Pizza House in New England. New York had nothing on Regina.
I flipped the box open and surveyed the pie chart inside. The chart told the sad tale that six-eighths of the pizza had been eaten. Adriana, Catherine, and I had eaten two slices each. Maria had refused to leave her room.
I reached for a slice. Adriana slapped my hand.
“Ow!”
“That’s for Maria.”
“Both of them?”
“She’s going to be hungry. Don’t be a pig.”
I poured some more wine. “One for the road.”
“Road? What road?”
“The road back to the South End.”
“You’re not going back to the South End until we finish these phone calls.”
“Seriously? Tonight?”
“Yeah, tonight. We’re calling every parent and apologizing.”
“But it’s seven o’clock. They’re going to be cleaning up after dinner.”
“Yeah, then they’ll be watching TV and going to bed. When do you want to call them? Midnight?”
“I don’t want to call them at all.”
Catherine handed out three lists. “It’s only eight calls each.”
“What do I say?”
“Don’t be a baby,” said Adriana. She took her list and retreated to the living room. Catherine took her list and headed for the bedroom. That left me in the kitchen alone with my phone, a bottle of wine, and forbidden pizza. I poured a little more wine into my half-full glass. Drank it back to half. Dialed the number next to Carter. A guy picked up.
“Hello, Mr. Carter? My name is Aloysius Tucker.”
“Who?”
“Aloysius Tucker.”
“Never heard of you.”
“No. No, you wouldn’t have.”
“What kind of name is Aloysius? Is this a joke?”
“I’m Maria’s cousin.”
“Maria? Maria who?”
“Maria Rizzo.”
“I don’t know any Maria Rizzo.”
A woman’s voice screeched in the background. The receiver got muffled, probably pressed to a chest. A bass-and-treble discussion ensued, sounding like an argument between two adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. The phone was unmuffled.
“Maria Rizzo?” a woman said. An an
gry woman.
“Uh, yes. I’m her cousin.”
“Your cousin is a horrible little girl.”
“I think horrible is a bit strong.”
“After what she did?”
“It wasn’t her. Someone hacked her Facebook account.”
“Facebook account? What do I care about her Facebook account?”
“What I mean to say is, she didn’t put the porn on Michael’s page.”
“Michael? Michael isn’t on Facebook.”
I looked at my computer screen, at Michael Carter’s profile picture. “Um. Maybe he never told you?”
“Michael’s not on Facebook, and he doesn’t look at porn. He’s ten years old.”
I decided not to argue that point. “I was just calling to apologize.”
“For Facebook porn.”
“Uh, yeah. Maria’s really sorry.”
“Is she really sorry for making Michael cry in class?”
“Huh?”
“Is she sorry for calling him an ‘asshat’ during his science presentation?”
“I’m sure she is.”
“Don’t call here again.” The old-fashioned handset clattered as Mrs. Carter smashed it into an old-fashioned cradle.
Asshat? Where did Maria pick that up?
Fellini next. Dialed the phone, got the mom, introduced myself.
“Your cousin is a degenerate,” said Mrs. Fellini.
“To be fair, her Facebook account was hacked.”
“Sure. Hacked, my eye.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Hackers can’t guess a password on Facebook. She gave someone her password.”
“Yes … because …”
“Aha! I knew it. She got some older kid to put porn on poor Stella’s Facebook page.”
“No, she didn’t know—”
“Lesbian porn, no less. That’s disgusting.”
“Hey, listen—”
“Why are you calling?”
“To apologize.”
“Why aren’t her parents calling?”
I paused a beat. Told her. That shut her up for a second.
“I knew that,” said Mrs. Fellini.
“Then why did you ask?”
“Why isn’t one of her moms calling?”
“We split up the job.”
“What are you? Like the father?”
“No, I’m—” What am I, anyway?
“Because I think she needs a father.”
“Thanks for your advice.”
“She’s been terrible. A real brat.”
“And so she needs a father to straighten her out?”
“She called Stella fat. She body-shamed her.”
It was my turn to be shut up for a second.
Mrs. Fellini continued, “She used to be such a nice girl.”
“She’s been through a lot.”
“I know,” said Mrs. Fellini. “Good night. Thank you for the apology.”
“I am sorry.”
“I hope you can get her what she needs.” Mrs. Fellini closed the call.
She used to be such a nice girl.
Adriana’s voice rose from the living room. “Still, we are sorry.”
Catherine’s muffled voice wafted out of the bedroom. “She called him a what? Oh my God.”
I looked at my list. Georgiani was next. What fresh insight would the Georgianis provide? I called. Learned that Maria had put a bug in their Isabella’s milk. Called Harris. Learned that Maria had called little Wade a “retard.”
Incaviglia, Jones, Laramie, Mathews. Each had a tale of horror regarding Maria. Five were sure she’d put the porn there herself and just blamed a hacker. Two more said that she needed a father. All agreed that Maria used to be very nice, but not anymore.
Maria’s door remained closed. Maybe she was asleep. Maybe she was plotting some other prank. Maybe she was crying. A dark shadow of failure filled the room. Adriana, Catherine, and I were failing, but it seemed to be mostly me.
I focused on the claim that Maria had put the porn there herself. That she hadn’t been life ruined, but had decided to ruin some lives. Her refusal to help me find her hacker gave me pause. Could she have done that? Found the porn, put it up all over?
There was only one way to know for sure. Find the hacker myself, or find that there never was a hacker.
Adriana’s voice rose in the living room. “Because it’s important! When? Nine o’clock? Fine.”
Adriana stalked into the kitchen. I drank down a slug of my wine. The pizza looked like cardboard.
“Don’t drink too much,” she said.
“Why?”
“You don’t want to have a hangover in the morning.”
“What’s in the morning?”
“We’re going to see Gustav’s mother.”
FIVE
A jet screamed low over our heads as Adriana and I exited Wood Island station. I looked up, counted the rivets on its wings, watched its wheels spin in slow, wind-driven anticipation of their landing. The wheels puffed white skidmark smoke as they touched down on the runway.
“They just keep coming,” I said, pointing at the next plane lining up to assault us.
“Yeah, loud,” Adriana said. “Figures Gustav would live in East Boston. Just perfect.”
We crossed Bennington, took a right toward Swift as another plane roared overhead. A cool wind blew off the ocean behind the airport, while low gray clouds scudded across the sky. April in Boston.
“She said she lives on Swift across the street from a car dealership. I don’t see a car dealership.”
We reached the corner and found a little parking lot filled to the brim with ten cars. One end of the lot held a small office with a neat sign: Jim’s Auto Sales.
I said, “That’s—”
Another plane bombed over us.
Adriana pointed across Swift to a lonely Cape house. “That must be the Olinsky place.”
Like most of the houses in East Boston, the Cape wore aluminum siding, protection against the cost of ocean-inflicted repainting. Its two second-story windows and big living room window formed a sad face, the slanted roof forming two worried eyebrows.
We crossed Swift, climbed steps on the side of the house leading to the entrance. Rang the bell.
“Coming!” a voice called from inside.
The door opened and a woman wearing a yellow-and-black reflective Hertz jacket answered. Short and wide, with black hair framing her round face in wisps of gray.
“Mrs. Rizzo?” she asked Adriana.
“Ms. Rizzo,” Adriana answered.
“And you’re Mr. Rizzo?”
“No,” I said, “Tucker.”
“Mr. Tucker?”
“Just Tucker is fine.”
She looked from one of us to the other, perhaps calculating the web of events that had created this odd couple.
“Well, come on in. You might want to leave your coats on. I can’t afford to heat the house in the spring.” She turned and led us past a plastic folding table set as a dining room and into the kitchen. “I made coffee.”
“Thank you,” said Adriana.
“Only way to stay warm some—” An airplane roared overhead. She looked up at the ceiling. “Lots of planes today. I need to get Massport to buy me some soundproof windows.”
Mrs. Olinsky poured us the coffee. We sat around a small kitchen table and looked at each other. Adriana gave me a kick under the table as she flicked her eyes from me to the woman.
Adriana was a big talker right up until it was time to do the big talking.
“Um—Mrs. Olinsky, do you know about Facebook?”
“No. I don’t have time for that computer stuff. Gustav likes it.”
We’d hit the
defining communication challenge of our age: how to explain Facebook to someone who didn’t use it. Was it like a message board? E-mail? A yearbook? What? Mrs. Olinsky helped me out. “Ms. Rizzo here says that Gustav did something bad on it. What could he have done?”
“The kids—” A train on the nearby Blue Line rattled past, making its own racket. I continued. “The kids use Facebook to talk to each other. They connect up as friends, and then”—a plane roared over—“they can post pictures for the others to see and comment on.”
Adriana said, “Adults use it too, and you can play games on it. Also follow movie stars.”
This time I gave Adriana a kick. You’re not helping.
Adriana glared at me. I glared back.
Mrs. Olinsky brought us to the uncomfortable point. “And so what?”
“Somebody pretending to be Maria posted porn on Facebook under her name. It made her look bad.”
“I know. Victoria Incaviglia told me about Maria’s filth.”
“Maria didn’t do it.”
“How do you know?”
“She wouldn’t.”
“She’s a nasty little girl. Why wouldn’t she do it?”
“What are you talking about?” Adriana said.
“She’s a bully. Gustav comes home crying because of her.”
Again.
“She is not.”
“That’s why I had to laugh when you called me and asked to come over. I couldn’t believe you had some complaint about Gustav. You have a hell of a nerve.”
Adriana sat in rare silence. A plane roared over.
I waited until it passed. “You know we’re not Maria’s parents, right?” I said.
“Yeah, I know,” said Mrs. Olinsky. “Her father was some sort of crook. Probably deserved what he got.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Of course you wouldn’t say it. You’re probably a crook too. You think that scares me?”
Adriana said, “Nobody is a crook. We just want to talk about what someone did to Maria.”
“Did to Maria? She’s the one who put porn on the Facebook.”
“She didn’t do it.”
“You helicopter parents make me sick.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did I go to your house when Maria called Gustav a fat pig?”
