Blue Gold (30 page)

“They don't know it was him, and I'm not telling them.”

Her mom stood back and studied her with surprise. “Why are you protecting him?”

“You're the one who said not to be a victim!”

“But I didn't mean he should get away with it,” she replied.

“Why can't everybody just drop it?” Fiona snapped at her. “I said I would handle it!”

“Okay, okay,” said her mom, backing off.

Fiona flopped down on the living room sofa. A half-hour ago in Mr. Bains office, her plan had seemed clear—one by one, she was going to talk to all the jerks who'd been putting her down to let them know how much the things they said about her hurt. Now she wondered how she would ever find the guts to do that. Everything was muddled again.

On the TV, a young black woman was being interviewed from her home in Montreal.
Dr. Marie Pierre
, it said on the screen. “Sylvie and her family face persecution and quite possibly death in the DRC
and
in Tanzania, unless Canada accepts them,” she said. Her English was perfect. “We owe them a new life. Canadian mining companies have a history of supporting the militias against the people, so we've been part of the problem. This is a chance to help.”

“That poor girl and her family,” remarked Fiona's mom. “They're trapped inside the embassy in Tanzania until the government agrees to recognize their refugee claim.”

Fiona watched as the now famous photo came up on the TV screen, the one where Sylvie was looking into the camera with deep, frightened eyes—eyes that make you shudder to think what they'd seen. But who was she, really?
She's been defined by a picture, too
, Fiona realized. She'd become known by the scar on her face, but the scar was just an idea of a girl, just like the boob shot was an idea of Fiona.

But who was the girl? Those eyes—what were they saying? Fiona thought that maybe she understood. They were saying,
See me for who I really am.

 

FIONA'S BIRTHDAY
was the next day, Saturday. Her dad made a plan to take her out to lunch with Brandon and Katie, and then to the Vancouver Aquarium—one of Fiona's favorite places. Joanne didn't join them. Fiona didn't ask why, and her dad didn't bring it up.

After they finished eating, the restaurant servers brought a cake to the table and sang “Happy Birthday.” Then came the moment Fiona had been waiting for all summer.

“Surprise!” said her dad, handing her his present.

Fiona tore off the gift wrap to find the very latest smartphone. The official launch date wasn't until tomorrow, but Fiona's dad had managed to get this one early, just as he'd promised. It was slim and light, with twice the speed of the previous version.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck.

“You're welcome. Careful with this one, right?”

He had to say it.

“Don't worry,” she replied, acknowledging his multiple meanings. “Believe me, I've learned my lesson.”

 

AFTER LUNCH
, they drove to Stanley Park and checked out the penguin exhibit and then the sea otters, where Fiona and Katie put their faces up to the glass to watch the otters dive and roll. Even though she was now officially fifteen, Fiona felt like a kid again, and she was loving it. But after a while, Fiona noticed that Brandon wasn't having much fun. He'd never been the most outgoing kid—he would spend entire days glued to computer games if Joanne let him—but Fiona sensed there was something more going on. When her dad and Katie decided to pay the penguins a second visit, Fiona stayed back with him, watching the belugas through the windows of the underground viewing area.

“Anything wrong, B?”

He was silent for a moment, then he asked, “How come you never come over anymore?”

Now it was Fiona's turn to go silent. “It's complicated,” she finally replied.

“It's because you sexted, isn't it?” Fiona glanced at him. He was only eleven! What did he know about sexting? “Mom and Dad have been fighting about it,” he said, without waiting for a reply. “Mom thinks you're a bad influence.”

No surprise there. “What do you think?” she asked.

He hesitated before answering, then, blushing, he pulled something out of his jeans pocket. “I found this in Dad's car, under the seat.”

Fiona stared in shock at her old cell phone, resting in the palm of his hand. She reminded herself to breathe.

“How long have you had this?” she asked, taking it from him.

“A few weeks.” His face had gone tomato red.

“Did you look on it?” He nodded. “Did you find—?”

He nodded again, then blurted, “It was Tommy's idea to do it!”

“Do what?”

“Upload it. Onto Friendjam.”

It took Fiona a moment to process what he was saying.
It was never Ryan!
she realized.
It was my own little brother!

“Brandon,” she said, too shocked to get mad, “you know how wrong it was to do that, right?”

From his tight expression, she couldn't tell if he was sorry or guilty or angry—or all three.

“Why did you take that picture?” he asked.

There were so many answers and half-answers to that question, Fiona opted for the simplest one.

“It was supposed to be private,” she replied.

“Tommy says you're a whore.”

The word had largely lost its sting over the past weeks, but coming from Brandon's mouth, it pierced her, right through the heart. Suddenly, she was burning with anger.

“Tommy is a little perv!” she told him. “Stop hanging out with him!”

“You can't tell me what to do!” he threw back.

“Brandon!”

“If you tell on me,” he lashed out, “my mom's just going to blame you anyway!”

She watched him lope away with a surly stride, looking ridiculous in his child's body, acting like a teenager. But Fiona felt like crying, not laughing. She closed her hand over the cell phone, feeling it like fire in her palm.

 

WHEN FIONA GOT HOME
later that afternoon, the first thing she did with her new smartphone was text Ryan to ask him to meet her at a neighborhood coffee place. She got there early to make sure she was waiting for him when he arrived. He looked nervous as he approached the table.

“Don't worry. I won't bite,” she told him.

“I thought you weren't talking to me,” he said as he sat down. “Is this some kind of ambush?”

“I owe you an apology,” Fiona replied. “I know it wasn't you who posted that picture on Friendjam.”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you.”

“I know. I'm sorry. Turns out it was my little brother.”

Ryan got a quizzical look. “That's…disturbing.”

“Tell me about it.”

Ryan sat back, relaxing in the chair. “It hasn't been easy for me, either, you know. You've got a lot of friends, and they all hate me.”

“I figured you made a copy,” Fiona offered lamely. “I thought you were getting back at me.”

“I would never do that.”

Looking at him now, open and uncomplicated, Fiona remembered why she'd once liked him.

“Here,” she said, handing him her new smartphone. “Maybe this will make it up to you.”

“Sweet phone,” he said.

“Check out what's on it.”

Before coming to meet Ryan, Fiona had set up a new Friendjam account. She posted that Ryan was not responsible for distributing the photo, that he was a good guy who had been unfairly accused. Then she asked people to repost the message, to make sure everybody saw it. While she was at it, she also asked that people do the decent thing and
stop
posting the boob shot. It was a start, at least.

Finished reading, Ryan glanced up at her. “Thanks,” he said.

“You're welcome,” she replied, holding out her hand for the phone. But Ryan wasn't ready to give it over. Fiona watched as he started playing with it. “Ryan, may I have my phone back, please?”

Instead of handing it back, he held it up and took her picture. He looked impressed as he examined the photo. “Awesome resolution.”

“Ryan, give it.”

“Cool! Look at this,” he said, a curious smile spreading over his face as he passed the phone to her.

Fiona looked at the screen to see a photo of an Asian girl wearing a white smock and cap, a purple bruise around her left eye.

“I've heard of this,” Ryan told her. “They test the phones in the factories in China, and sometimes they forget to wipe the memory.”

“That's amazing,” said Fiona, studying the picture of the factory girl. She was looking into the camera with a neutral expression—not smiling, not sad either. It was crazy,
but there was something about her that seemed familiar.

“I wonder what happened to her eye,” Ryan was saying.

Fiona wondered, too.

 

THAT NIGHT
, in the privacy of her room, she took out her phone and looked at the factory worker's photo again.
A bruise…and a scar
, thought Fiona.
What have these girls been through?
She rolled off the bed and, sitting down at her laptop, clicked onto help_sylvie.com to find the picture of the African girl. The framing was identical in the two photos, head and shoulders, looking into the lens.
See me whole. See who I really am
. Two girls from two different continents, but the message was the same.

Fiona decided it was time to face up to something she'd been avoiding for months. She dug her old cell phone out from the bottom of her shoulder bag and found the charger in a drawer. In a moment, the phone was juiced enough that she could open the camera, and there it was—her very own famous photo. She forced herself to look at it—lips puckered, pajama top yanked up to reveal her breasts. She had a big drunken grin on her face, but her eyes weren't happy. Her eyes revealed something else. Fiona held the cell phone up between the picture of Sylvie on the laptop and the one of the factory girl on the smartphone.
See me whole
, said Fiona's eyes.
See who I really am.

Make that three girls
, she thought.
On three continents.

 

LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON
, Fiona took the bus over to West Van and climbed the hill on foot to her father's house, her backpack slung over her shoulder. She wasn't sure if her dad's family would be home—but very sure that, if they were, Joanne would not be happy to see her. There were a few things that Fiona needed to set straight, though. She reached the house and rang the bell, waiting nervously on the doorstep. After a few moments, Brandon answered the door.

“Hi,” said Fiona.

“Why are you here?” he asked suspiciously.

“Relax, B. I'm not going to rat on you. Although it's tempting.”

He looked relieved. Fiona had given a lot of thought to whether or not she should tell her dad about Brandon's adventures on the Internet, and what he'd done. It wasn't about revenge—it was about how he was learning to treat and talk about girls. In the end, she'd decided that it was more important that he knew he could count on her to keep a secret.

“Sorry…for what I called you,” he mumbled.

“Hmm,” she replied. “We'll talk about what it means to call a girl that word another time. Say, when you start dating.”

“I took that picture down, after Tommy posted it. But it was too late. It was already everywhere.”

She nodded, not quite ready to forgive him, but acknowledging that he felt bad about what happened. “It took guts to come clean,” she told him.

“Brandon? Who's at the door?” Joanne came into the hallway from the kitchen, and saw for herself. She forced a smile, of sorts. “Fiona! We didn't expect you tonight.”

In her mind, Fiona shook her head. Who would have figured that her mom would wind up being so much cooler than Joanne?

“Is my dad here?” she asked. “I need to talk to him.”

Joanne hesitated.

“We can talk outside, if it makes you feel safer,” Fiona intoned with perfect sarcastic pitch, at which Joanne looked peeved.

“He's in the study,” Brandon volunteered, and stood aside to let her come in.

Fiona's dad, at least, was happy to see her. He got up from where he was working at the computer and gave her a big hug.

“What a nice surprise! Everything okay?”

“Fine,” she replied. “With me, at least.”

“What do you mean?”

Fiona perched on the corner of his desk and took a stack of printed pages out of her backpack. Her dad eased back into his desk chair with a curious expression.

“Is that homework?”

“In a way. I've been doing some research on your company, Dad.”

“For what? A school project?”

“Not exactly.” She handed him an article she'd downloaded from the web. “Read this. It says that said as many as eight million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo, because of mining for conflict minerals.”

He let out a groan. “Did your mother put you up to this?”

“Nope.
I
put me up to this. Did you know that the U.S. passed a law saying that American companies have to make sure the minerals they use to make cell phones and laptops are certified conflict-free?”

“Am I going to need a lawyer here?” he joked.

He was trying to make light, but Fiona was unrelenting.

“Is it true your company lobbied against the laws that tried to do the same thing here, Dad?”

He let out a sigh. “Where are you getting this stuff?” he asked.

“On the Internet.”

“Right,” he said, dismissively. “How many times have I told you, you can't trust what you read on the Internet?”

“So are you saying it isn't true, about your company?”

He scratched his forehead, avoiding her eyes.