The Best Kind of People (12 page)

“Punitive tactics will not work with this group. We are not ordinary students,” Jonathan muttered.

Madeleine Stewart, who normally never spoke in class, stood up and turned towards Jonathan, arms crossed. “Jonathan, you don’t, like, know the situation. I know you’re grieving the loss of your mentor, but you have to consider how many students got hurt. This isn’t some trivial debate about cheating on a test. This is a lawsuit, and it took a lot of guts for those girls to stand up after what happened and try to make it right. That took
guts
.” Sadie wondered if it took the kind of guts Madeleine wished she’d had. This made her stomach turn.

“America is the most ridiculously litigious country. We sue someone for breathing on us. It is not meaningful!” Jonathan’s voice was robotic, monotone, but forceful.

Sadie’s hands began to tingle. A brief swirl of vertigo overtook her. She felt as though she was an ambassador from some appalling country, forced into the job and now having to defend where she came from. As Jonathan started in again, Sadie got up and walked out. As she walked, the room got quiet. She couldn’t stand to hear another person debate whether or not her father had done any of the things he was rumoured to have done. She didn’t want to hear him defended. She didn’t want to hear him torn up either.

If only she could have the privilege of believing him entirely. What kind of person, what kind of ungrateful daughter, doesn’t believe her own father? She had never doubted him before. She never thought he was anything but moral and civilized. She wasn’t even sure what those words meant. But if someone puts the possibility of something terrible in your head — and people around you believe it — you can’t go back to thinking it completely inconceivable. The possibility is there whether or not you choose to believe it, and you can’t go back to not knowing that the possibility exists.

IN THE THIRD-FLOOR
girls’ bathroom, Sadie sat on the wooden window ledge holding a copy of
The Crying of Lot 49
, open to the same page she’d read eleven times. Of all the students in the building, it had to be Amanda who walked in. Amanda had been in accelerated classes but had dropped down to regular stream last year after a series of emotional breakdowns from the stress. She still came upstairs to skip class, especially when Sadie had her independent study, because she knew the area wasn’t monitored.

“Sadie, fuck man, you’ve been avoiding me,” she said, one hand on her hip, the other pulling a pack of Marlboros out of her uniform skirt. “I know your dad’s a fucking perv and all, but you don’t have to act like I’m dead.”

Sadie laughed. “He’s not! I don’t know.” She curled her book in her palm, looking at Amanda through the cylinder. “God, I just feel so terrible about … your sister.”

“The bitch has never been so popular. Mom is letting her stay home for like the next week or two if she wants, and she can eat whatever she wants and we’re like not allowed to get mad at her ever, and we all have to go to therapy.”

“But is she okay?”

Amanda shrugged, lighting her cigarette. Sadie opened the bathroom window wide, propped it open with her math textbook, and stepped away so Amanda could blow the smoke outside. She hated second-hand smoke.

“I was reading some statistics?” Amanda started, her voice going up at the end of her sentences. “It is very rare that people lie about stuff like this. People just want to think they do, but why would they? Why bring all that scrutiny on yourself? It’s not as though victims get justice most of the time.”

A girl walked in, glaring at Amanda for smoking. They held eyes for a few seconds.

“Problem?”

The girl rolled her eyes and entered a stall, coughing dramatically.

Sadie stayed silent, rolling and unrolling the paperback.

“Of course, I already fucking know that, right?” Amanda continued, ignoring the girl but pushing the end of her cigarette into the green chipped paint beside the sink and running it under water. “Anton Chevalier raped me at that party last year, and everyone knows it. The whole party knew it — half the party fucking witnessed it. But do I get to stay home from school? No. Did I have to see him in gym class every Wednesday? Yeah. Does he have to go to jail? No. You can’t throw a fucking rock around here without hitting some kind of rapist. It’s like you have to be fifty years old in order for it to really matter.”

“You could’ve gone to the police,” Sadie offered, as she had the day after the party. Sadie had even sent an anonymous note to the police department on Amanda’s behalf. No one did anything. It had been the first time in Sadie’s life that what was good and true and fair didn’t seem to matter.

“Right. ‘So, how many wine coolers did you drink, Miss Mitchell? And we have several boys willing to share how many blow jobs you gave in the senior girls’ bathroom in the ninth grade.’ And then Dr. Chevalier would talk about Anton’s exemplary grades. My life would have been over in even more ways than it already was. Not fucking worth it.”

“Still,” Sadie said gently, “we should be sticking up for each other, right?”

“Girls fuck each other over on the daily, Sadie.”

“Yeah. You never told your mom, did you?”

“No, and now I can’t ever. Can you imagine? It would kill her.”

Sadie leaned into the mirror and was surprised to see she hadn’t even attempted to put on any makeup this morning.

“Anyway, I’m sorry you’re a social pariah right now.”

“It seems selfish to worry about my own concerns, considering all that’s going on. I just can’t wait to get out of here. Be an adult and never come back.”

“Amen, sister.”

They linked arms and pushed their way through the girls’ bathroom door, heading towards the lockers at the end of the hall. Melissa Greer and Teresa Brock paused in the process of putting up a poster for a school dance, stopped talking, and stared at them. As they passed, they heard the whispers.
Sick. Her own father. Trash
.

“Mind your own business, you cunty bitches!” yelled Amanda.

The poster see-sawed through the air to the ground.

SADIE LEFT THROUGH
the front entrance, but paused on the landing when she noticed Dorothy with a group of parents and teachers at the front steps that lead to the school’s exit, blocking her way out. They were all wearing T-shirts that said
True Love Waits
, from the Abstinence Club. The fabric was stretched over their frumpy blouses and dresses, making the message hard to read. She bumped into a woman she surmised was a reporter at the top of the front steps with a photographer.

“We’re trying to teach our girls to value their virtue,” Dorothy was saying to the bewildered-looking reporter.

Sadie stood behind the reporter, hiding for a moment. She wore bright red tights and had thick black bangs, and she rolled her eyes to a fey photographer trying to take their photo. “This is just so tacky for a private school,” she mumbled to him while writing a Tweet on her phone. “Is there a new breed of wealthy redneck now?” Sadie was squished in so close behind her she could smell her strawberry perfume and read everything she typed. She didn’t want to make a noise and be noticed, but she couldn’t turn around and go back inside.

The photographer snapped some photos, Sadie ducking her head down before he stopped to scroll. “Let’s just file this and jet. I need a decent coffee.”

The reporter looked up and locked eyes with Sadie as she snuck by them, trying not to draw attention to herself.

“Hey,” she started softly, nudging the photographer with her hip to get his attention. “Are you by any chance the daughter?”

Sadie pushed her way down the stone steps and through the crowd of Dorothy’s minions who’d begun their ascent.

“Can I just ask you one question? No photos, just one question!”

Sadie started running and jumped on her bike as if the school had just exploded.

SEVEN

ANDREW DECIDED TO
take a two-week leave from work. He called the office from where he lay on the dock after seeing Stuart. They were understanding
 
— he knew they would be — but he still felt guilty. Now what? What was logical? What was right? A dock spider popped up between two of the planks of wood. He stared at it as though daring it to move close to him, and it did. It touched his leg before he was rattled enough to pull off his sandal and snuff out its life.

He dipped his sandal in the water and scrolled to Jared’s name in his contact list, where he was listed under
ICE
for
In Case of Emergency — Partner
. He paused, pressed Details
and scrolled through all the photos they’d sent each other over the last few months, then pocketed his phone again. If he invited Jared to come to Woodbury Lake, he would close up shop and be there in a matter of hours, selflessly preparing healthy meals, doling out hugs, taking care of everyone. His presence would make the calamity real and feel more than temporary.

The lake was choppy, no boats making their rounds. He pulled out the phone again and sent Jared a text
. I miss you.
It was both sincere and meant to keep him at bay for a few more hours.

It didn’t feel like the right time to start integrating Jared into life in Avalon Hills, not when everyone was still in crisis mode. The house, however large, felt full of people and pressed tight with anxious energy. Sometimes it is easier to be alone in these situations. Having Jared there would mean Andrew would have to answer the question “How are you holding up?” truthfully.

He went back inside when he knew his mother and aunt would be gone for at least an hour. He made a strong pot of coffee, unable to get the picture of Alan Chambers bragging about his children out of his head. In New York you could be in your thirties, living an exciting life, and not be seen as a failure for not having a family. In Avalon Hills having children was just what you did if you stayed in town. Most of his graduating class hadn’t stayed, of course. They’d gone on to be lawyers, policy-makers, congressmen, researchers, journalists, and doctors. A few of his theatre buddies had had small parts in television shows or films. The handful who remained were mostly from the public school.

ANDREW WATCHED SADIE
as she ambled down the stone path and kicked off her flip-flops when she reached the dock. She handed him a mug.

“Your hair is a nightmare,” Andrew said, taking a sip.

“Well, surprisingly, my conditioning regime hasn’t exactly been my first priority today.”

“I didn’t get a chance to ask you, are you still queen of the jocky student council cabal? Spitting on the minions?”

“We’re not like that,” she said, turning to look at him. “Nobody bullies anymore. I’m serious! We have assemblies about bullying. Poster campaigns. We turn our frustration inward now. How’s the loving and morally upstanding world of corporate law?”

“I’ve switched over, actually. I’ve been hired on at a civil firm.”

“How I manage to excel in your shadow is really quite stunning of me.”

“Agreed,” he said.

They sipped their coffee, dipping their feet in the water.

“What the fuck is happening, Andrew? I don’t know what to do.”

“We can’t do much right now except wait. But we’re going to get through this as a family.”

“I haven’t spoken to him,” Sadie said, looking ahead again. She wanted to, but something stopped her. “I told Mom I’d go with her to visit him if he wasn’t released right after the hearing. But I’m nervous about seeing him.”

“It’s normal to feel nervous, but it’s just discomfort, and you can ride out discomfort. This is the first big trauma you’ve ever had to endure, really. Well, besides that whole guy-with-a-gun thing. But you didn’t really know what was happening then, right?”

“Right. I guess. But what if he’s guilty, Andrew? What if he did those things?” She said it really fast, as if trying to race through the possibility of it being true.

Andrew zipped up his hooded sweatshirt. It snagged. “That is not the right attitude to have. First of all, you don’t really know. It could be some sort of conspiracy born of small-town idiocy and girls wanting to blame their daddy issues and the fact that they aren’t getting straight As on someone, so they take it out on a friendly, harmless man, someone who has always been encouraging and open-hearted, and they figure they can crush him.” He finally freed the fabric from the metal pull and zipped up. “Maybe he had an affair with one of the older girls. It is not the first time something like that has happened.”

“An adult cannot have a consensual affair with a student. It is a factual, moral, fucking
legal
impossibility. You should know the law.”

“I’m not talking legal. I’m saying that younger and older people can both be willing partners. How else do you explain that my first boyfriend was twenty-five when I was seventeen?”

“Who was your first boyfriend? You didn’t come out until college!”

“Coach Johnson.”

“No way! He is gross. Don’t even joke.”

“He was hot back then. There was only eight years’ difference between us — that’s less than Mom and Dad. Happens all the time.”

“You know that’s not what we are talking about. This is different.”

“Because it’s girls?”

“Because the age difference is much greater, and because someone — many someones — are
saying
there was a crime. You are blaming the victims here.”

“I think that is very simplistic and moralistic.”

“Sexism. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“I’m not some right-wing monster, but there’s a lot of sexual puritanism and denial around these parts. I should know.”

“And maybe it was different because you were boys. It’s not like the town is crawling with gay men.”

“You would be surprised how many ‘straight men’ are lurking around in the parks, still wearing their wedding rings. I chose Stuart and pursued him because he was hot. I wore
him
down. Teenagers have sexual lives, Sadie. I know the Church and politicians — pretty much the same camps — around here think they can legislate it away, but teenagers will always have sex, because they can and because they want to.”