Whisper Network

by Chandler Baker

  It had been a year or so ago that Sloane had seen a news story about a girl who’d hung herself in her bathroom because her classmates were cyberbullying her over a boy. It had been a salacious news story. The kind designed to make parents everywhere collectively freak out. Pictures of this sweet, smiling girl with braces and fuzzy pillows on her bed went viral and Sloane had thought, along with everyone else, Oh, please let that never be my child. That was the point.

  But hidden in all of the human interest, heart-strings-pulling meat of the story, there had been an actual legal theory that had snagged Sloane’s attention. The students who’d bullied the girl faced both criminal and civil responsibility for the girl’s death. They faced jail time. And it had opened up a conversation, too, about how much responsibility the school should bear for the suicide. Real consequences, real case law.

  See! Sloane wanted to wave her laptop over her head at a PTA meeting: I am not crazy!

  Because enough was enough. That was how Sloane saw it.

  On screen, the cases multiplied. Laney Presper, twelve years old, jumped to her death after complaining about online bullying months earlier. The conclusion: purported bullies could be charged with criminal offenses when their victims committed suicide.

  Jackson Worrall, eighteen, killed himself via carbon monoxide poisoning following a series of text messages from his girlfriend, who was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

  Matt Renard, fifteen, hung himself to escape cyberbullying. The result: legislation passed that allowed law enforcement to press traditional charges against harassers whose behavior contributed to another person taking his or her own life.

  She ran search after search, summarizing and piecing together an argument that might finally encourage the school to do something about the way her daughter was being treated. So what if she was exploiting the fact that she was an attorney. This was her daughter!

  Sloane was an excellent typist. Fast and deadly accurate. She lost track of time as she banged words into her keyboard deep into the night until she resurfaced to a world lit only by the red, green, and yellow stars of modem, alarm, and DVR receiver lights.

  She stared at the final product, a legal memorandum to the school board. Her case citations, she knew, were impeccable. Her argument, which centered around the idea that bullies and those who allowed their bullying could be held liable for the physical and psychological pain of their victims, felt reasonably solid. There was just one thing that was bothering her: she was Abigail’s mother.

  It was just that, well, wouldn’t it feel a bit more weighty if it came from an attorney who was not related to Abigail? An outside source. Someone else. Someone like … Ardie.

  Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. It was only a bit of artistic license. A white lie, really. Sloane was sure that Ardie would have agreed if she’d asked her, but time was of the essence and tomorrow was Michael’s birthday party. Ardie didn’t have time to be bothered and, really, what she was proposing wasn’t wrong, exactly. Plagiarism was wrong. This was the opposite. Sloane was giving Ardie credit for a memo that she’d written herself. It was actually fairly nice of her, wasn’t it? No harm, no foul, and whatnot.

  Sloane made the decision. She signed the legal memorandum: Adriana Valdez, Attorney-at-Law. And before she stood—knees aching from sitting crossed-legged in her ergonomic chair—she searched the web for the email address and copied it into the “To” line. I’m copying our attorney, Adriana Valdez, she typed, to assist in this matter, as needed. Please find attached a legal memorandum she’s written on the subject for your review and consideration. Kind regards.

  Deposition Transcript

  26-APR

  Ms. Yeh:

  Mrs. Garrett, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Helen Yeh and I’m acting as counsel for the respondents. I’ll be conducting your formal interview. In your deposition, I will ask you questions and you are going to answer them under oath. The court reporter is attempting to transcribe everything we say. It’s important that we don’t interrupt one another and that you answer each question verbally. Let’s begin.

  Ms. Yeh:

  How long have you been married to Ames Garrett?

  Witness:

  Twenty-seven years this May.

  Ms. Yeh:

  How would you describe your marriage?

  Witness:

  Well, after that many years, it’s not exactly fireworks and rose petals every day, but I’d describe it as happy. He still always planned a weekend trip for my birthday. He never forgot our anniversary. We had family dinners. We talked. Not just small talk about the kids. We really talked. He told me about work and he took my career advice seriously even though I haven’t had a job in years. I have always appreciated that. Of course, over the last few weeks, his demeanor completely changed. Depressed, moody, stressed.

  Ms. Yeh:

  Was there a reason?

  Witness:

  I’m sure it’s because of the BAD Men List. All those lies.

  Ms. Yeh:

  Okay, so you saw the list and you are telling us that Mr. Garrett’s name appeared on it?

  Witness:

  Yes.

  Ms. Yeh:

  And you felt that his name didn’t deserve to be included?

  Witness:

  I knew he didn’t belong on that list from the start, but once I figured out Sloane Glover was the one who added him, well, that told me everything I needed to know.

  Ms. Yeh:

  Stepping back from Ms. Glover specifically, what motive would a woman have to lie in making sexual harassment and other allegations that were found on the spreadsheet?

  Witness:

  Attention. Career advancement. Financial gain.

  Ms. Yeh:

  The list was anonymous.

  Witness:

  It’s not very anonymous now, is it? If it was meant to be so anonymous, then why did Sloane sue my husband and his company with her name on the docket?

  Ms. Yeh:

  That’s a valid question. Let’s see. Mrs. Garrett, do you know who Clarence Thomas is?

  Witness:

  A Supreme Court Justice.

  Ms. Yeh:

  Do you know the name of the woman that accused Justice Thomas of sexual harassment?

  Witness:

  I think I might have known once but I can’t recall at the moment.

  Ms. Yeh:

  How about any of the women involved in the sexual harassment allegations of David Letterman? Bill Cosby? Do you recall their names?

  Witness:

  No, I don’t.

  Ms. Yeh:

  I could go on, but is it fair of me to assume that these men, Bill Cosby, David Letterman, and Justice Clarence Thomas, are better known than your husband, Ames Garrett?

  Witness:

  Yes.

  Ms. Yeh:

  So it doesn’t appear that these women achieved any sort of widespread notoriety as a result of their sexual harassment claims. Do you know who Tyson Grange is?

  Witness:

  He’s a basketball player. He plays for the Lakers, I believe. One of my husband’s friends, actually.

  Ms. Yeh:

  That’s right. He plays for the Lakers and he is sponsored by Truviv. You may also know the name, Ariel Lopez, silver-medal Olympic gymnast. She was also sponsored by Truviv. Six months ago, Miss Lopez accused Tyson Grange of sexual assault. Do you know what happened next?

  Witness:

  No.

  Ms. Yeh:

  I’ll tell you. Nothing happened to Tyson Grange. Miss Lopez, however, lost her sponsorship with the very company your husband worked for. Not a lot by way of financial gain, you might say. And Tyson was, as you mentioned, Ames’s friend.

  Witness:

  Those are different cases. Apples and oranges. I never said all women make sexual harassment allegations for financial gain or notoriety. I believe women. Most women, anyway. But there’s an exception to every rule. We can’t just give every f
emale accuser carte blanche, can we? Look, I’m a woman and I’m saying that. This “believe all women no matter what,” come on, that’s ludicrous. Sorry for the strong words, I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but that’s the truth.

  Ms. Yeh:

  And so if Sloane Glover, as you said, added your husband’s name to the list, claiming that he had a history of sexual harassment, you’re saying that you do not believe her. Is that right?

  Witness:

  Listen. There are some people that have to give everything a label just to make themselves feel better, to feel like the victim. I’m telling you, that’s Sloane. You should hear what’s been going on at Abigail’s school just because her little ten-year-old daughter wasn’t popular enough! Kids just being silly kids and Sloane has to go on the warpath, telling everyone who will listen that it’s bullying. I know what happened and it wasn’t bullying. And now she does the same thing here. All of a sudden it’s “sexual harassment.” Unfortunately, my husband—my family—actually has fallen victim to malicious bullying and who do we have to thank for that? Sloane.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  31-MAR

  Michael still slept in pull-ups. Ardie cherished few things as much as her sleep and getting up for frequent potty breaks in the middle of the night would have been sacrificing a piece of herself that she wasn’t prepared to give up. Cars 3 roared in the background, the remote a few inches too far for her to bother turning down the volume. She’d made a compelling case for Tangled, but lost out and found herself looking up from the strewn carcasses of cardboard boxes, from which she was fashioning buildings for tomorrow’s superhero party, to see what the talking cars were going to get up to next. Michael darted in and out of the living room in his pull-ups and a Spider-Man T-shirt, waving orange-and-white pom-poms around and calling them “fire.”

  Ardie’s legs splayed out into a floppy “V” on the floor, another sheet of white butcher paper laid between them. Her back ached as she colored tiny black windows with magic marker onto it. She wouldn’t get the ink off her hands for weeks. But it was worth it. Trays of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into shields cooled in the refrigerator. Superhero masks had been laid out on the party table. And soon Ardie would be finished with the life-sized—or at least child-life-sized—city, which her son’s tiny guests would plow through and save. So Ardie felt a little like a superhero herself.

  Ardie, like many of us, had caught perfectionism, an illness that we heard was more common in women by a factor of roughly twenty to one. To the best of our understanding, it was transferred through social media and the pages of glossy magazines that were displayed face-out in the checkout line and, once contracted at the age of twelve or thirteen, could be cured by no number of Jezebel think pieces or edgy rom-coms in which the leading lady boldly portrayed a train wreck or a bad mommy. For our children, we chased the gold standard of suburban contentment set by our own stay-at-home mothers, while simultaneously stepping into the shoes of our breadwinning fathers. And we made sure that everyone knew we were handling it all swimmingly by the way we wrote notes on napkins dutifully folded into our children’s lunch boxes and threw Halloween parties with Swiss cheese cut into the shapes of ghosts.

  Because honestly, if that wasn’t success, what was?

  As for Ardie, she saw no need to psychoanalyze exactly what she was trying to prove or to whom by this uncharacteristic display of domestic prowess. She was taking a long swig of Diet Coke when the doorbell rang.

  Ardie glanced toward the front door, bristling. How many times had she told Tony not to ring the doorbell when Michael might be sleeping? Whether or not Michael was sleeping was hardly a prerequisite to her annoyance.

  “Michael, your father’s here,” she called in the direction of her son’s bedroom, hating herself for saying “your father” instead of something more inclusive, like “Dad” or “Daddy.”

  She was terrible at being divorced. But then it wasn’t exactly a life skill she’d planned to need. Like building a fire. Or sewing.

  Her joints felt a hundred years older as she crawled from the floor to her feet.

  “Coming, coming,” she shouted as Michael zoomed past and beat her to the door.

  “Hiya, champ.” Tony ruffled Michael’s hair. Unsurprisingly, Michael looked nothing like either Ardie or Tony. Michael had sunburnt hair and freckles, big, adorable ears, and legs as thin as Ardie’s wrist all the way up to his waist. When Tony left, she worried that he’d abandon Michael. That he and Braylee would start a nice biological family. And that the son they’d shared between them wouldn’t be enough to hold her ex-husband without the pull of DNA. But she’d been wrong. So wrong, in fact, that she almost felt guilty. If anything, Tony had dedicated himself twice over to Michael and apparently he and Braylee didn’t intend to have children at all.

  She’d have thought that having an adopted child amid a divorce would spare her from the frequent exasperating reminders of You’re-acting-like-your-father, but also no. Michael was Tony in so many ways and it did something to her heart for which she’d never have the right words.

  “Where’s Braylee?” Ardie asked, because she didn’t want to feel the familiar spike of jealousy when Michael asked Tony first.

  “Hanging at home.” Tony wore his plaid pajama bottoms. He’d driven ten minutes and showed up at her door in pajamas and Ardie was supposed to accept that she and her ex-husband weren’t a perfect match. “The balloons are in the truck. I’ll grab them.”

  “Let me help! Let me help!” Michael’s little-boy hair flopped atop his head as he bounced around his father’s legs.

  “You don’t have shoes on,” Tony said.

  “Or pants,” Ardie pointed out.

  But the mission was already lost. Tony smiled apologetically and the pair came back with three cellophane bags bursting with red and white balloons.

  “Thanks, you can tie them on the kitchen chairs.”

  “Wow, you’ve really gone all out. He’s going to love this.” She was so tired of Tony being generous with his words just because he’d been the one to leave. It left her no choice but to be civil.

  “Yes, he will,” she said.

  “Four years old, how did that happen?”

  “Change is inevitable.” What she wanted to say was that yesterday Michael had sung the entire rap verse of “You’re Welcome” from Moana and didn’t that mean that their child was a genius? They used to collect these little Michael anecdotes and share them with each other excitedly as they brushed their teeth and washed their faces, still talking about Michael as they climbed into bed side by side. Had that been part of the problem? Or did he now do this with Braylee?

  Ardie did nothing to ease the silence, though this was a characteristic that had existed long before the divorce. They watched the little boy between them until at last Tony pushed his hands on his thighs and his knees gave a familiar snap-crackle-pop as he stood. “Well,” he said, which meant that he was leaving. She was still trying to get used to this quiet revelation. Tony was a person who left. Ardie, meanwhile, was a person who stayed.

  Deposition Transcript

  27-APR

  Ms. Sharpe:

  Ms. Valdez, you mentioned a party earlier. What party were you referring to?

  Respondent 2:

  A birthday party. For my son. He just turned four.

  Ms. Sharpe:

  And some of your co-workers attended, is that correct?

  Respondent 2:

  That’s correct.

  Ms. Sharpe:

  May I ask which ones?

  Respondent 2:

  Sloane Glover, Grace Stanton, and Katherine Bell, though I think, in retrospect, that perhaps inviting Katherine wasn’t such a great idea.

  Ms. Sharpe:

  Why do you say that?

  Respondent 2:

  Well, because of what happened after.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  1-APR

  We will say this: none of us thought that mother
hood and work could exist harmoniously. If anything, they were two forces, diametrically opposed. We were the prisoners, strapped to the medieval stretching device, having enjoyed the rare privilege of both loving and having chosen our torturers. There was only the small matter of our joints being pulled apart and our hearts spilling out from our rib cages.

  We woke in the night to the sound of small voices and trudged half-asleep down halls to faces that didn’t care whether we had a draft due by lunch tomorrow. We held our breath as we checked for fevers, rifling through the earthquake a sick kid would wreak on our schedule, and then making urgent calls to friends and family in a last ditch effort to piece together childcare or whatever the minimum requirements were to keep someone from calling protective services. We told our kids to “pretend not to be sick” so that we could send them to daycare to get everyone else’s kids sick. We figured the favor had often been returned. We told ourselves, as our noses ran and our heads ached and our stomachs refused food, that we were fine. Because, whatever happened, we were the defaults, the ones stuck with the task of figuring out what to do about, well, everything.

  Was it any wonder, then, that one of us snapped? Was that not precisely what the system was designed to accomplish?

  Rosalita walked with her son to a house that represented the two directions in which their lives were already pulling and she worried how her heart would take it if one day he looked back at her not with pride, but pity. She supposed, in the end, that was motherhood.