62.
Whatever,” said Abigail.
“No. Don’t say ‘whatever.’ This is not a ‘whatever’-type situation. This is grown-up stuff, Abigail. This is serious.” Madeline gripped the steering wheel so hard, she could feel a slick of sweat beneath her palms.
It was incredible, but she hadn’t yelled yet. She’d gone to the high school and told Abigail’s principal that there was a family emergency and she needed to bring Abigail home. Obviously the school hadn’t yet discovered Abigail’s website. “Abigail is doing very well,” her principal had said, all gracious smiles. “She’s very creative.”
“She certainly is that,” said Madeline, and had managed not to throw back her head and cackle like a hysterical witch.
It had taken a Herculean effort, but she hadn’t said a word when they’d gotten in the car. She hadn’t screamed, “What were you thinking?” She’d waited for Abigail to speak. (It seemed important, strategically.) Abigail finally spoke up, defensively, her eyes on the dashboard: “So what’s this family emergency?”
Madeline said, very calmly, as calmly as Ed, “Well, Abigail, people are writing about having sex with my fourteen-year-old daughter on the Internet.”
Abigail had flinched and muttered, “I knew it.”
Madeline had thought the involuntary flinch meant that it was going to be fine; Abigail was probably already regretting it. She’d gotten in too far out of her depth and was looking for a way out. She wanted her parents to order her to take it down.
“Darling, I understand exactly what you were trying to do,” she’d said. “You’re doing a publicity campaign with a ‘hook.’ That’s great. It’s clever. But in this case the hook is too sensational. You’re not achieving what you want to achieve. People aren’t thinking about the human rights violations; all they’re thinking about is a fourteen-year-old auctioning off her virginity.”
“I don’t care,” said Abigail. “I want to raise money. I want to raise awareness. I want to do something. I don’t want to say, ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ and then do nothing.”
“Yes, but you’re not going to raise money or awareness! You’re raising awareness of yourself! ‘Abigail Mackenzie, the fourteen-year-old who tried to auction her virginity.’ Nobody will care or even remember that you were doing it for charity. You’re creating an online footprint for all future employers.”
That’s when Abigail said, ridiculously, “Whatever.”
As if this were all a matter of opinion.
“So tell me, Abigail. Are you planning to go through with this? You do know you’re below the age of consent? You’re fourteen years old. You’re too young to being having sex.” Madeline’s voice shook.
“So are those little girls, Mum!” said Abigail. Her voice shook.
She had too much imagination. Too much empathy. That’s what Madeline had been trying to explain to Bonnie at assembly that morning. Those little girls were completely real to Abigail, and of course, they were real, there was real pain in the world, right this very moment people were suffering unimaginable atrocities and you couldn’t close your heart completely, but you couldn’t leave it wide open either, because otherwise how could you possibly live your life, when through pure, random luck you got to live in paradise? You had to register the existence of evil, do the little that you could, and then close your mind and think about new shoes.
“So we’ll do something about it,” said Madeline. “We’ll work together on some sort of awareness-building campaign. We’ll get Ed involved! He knows journalists—”
“No,” said Abigail flatly. “You’ll say all this but then you won’t really do anything. You’ll get busy and then you’ll forget all about it.”
“I promise,” began Madeline. She knew there was truth in this.
“No,” said Abigail.
“This is not actually negotiable,” said Madeline. “You are still a child. I will get the police involved if necessary. The website is coming down, Abigail.”
“Well, I’m not taking it down,” said Abigail. “And I’m not giving Dad the password even if you torture me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be so ridiculous. Now you sound like a five-year-old,” said Madeline, regretting the words even while they were coming out of her mouth.
They were pulling into the kiss-and-drop zone at the primary school. Madeline could see Renata’s shiny black BMW directly in front of her. The windows were too dark to see who was driving—presumably Renata’s slatternly French nanny. She imagined Renata’s face if she found out that Madeline’s daughter was auctioning off her virginity. She’d feel sympathy. Renata wasn’t a bad person. But she’d also feel just a hint of satisfaction, the same way Madeline had when she’d heard about the affair.
Madeline prided herself on not caring what other people thought, but she cared about Renata thinking less of her daughter.
“So you’re planning to go through with this? You’re going to sleep with some stranger?” said Madeline. She inched the car forward and tried to wave to Chloe, but she didn’t see her because she was busy talking animatedly to Lily, who looked faintly bored. Chloe’s skirt was hitched up by her backpack so that the entire car line could see her Minnie Mouse underpants. Madeline would normally have found that cute and funny, but at the moment it seemed somehow sinister and wrong, and she wished one of the teachers would notice and fix it.
“Better than sleeping with some Year 12 guy while we’re both drunk,” said Abigail with her face turned to the window.
Madeline saw Celeste’s twins being separated by a teacher. They both had red, angry little faces. She remembered with a start that she was picking them up today. She was so distracted, she could easily have forgotten.
The car line wasn’t moving because whoever was at the front of the line was having some long conversation with a teacher, as expressly forbidden by the Pirriwee Primary Kiss-and-Drop/Pickup Policy. It was probably a Blond Bob, because rules obviously didn’t apply to them.
“But, my God, Abigail, are you thinking about the reality of this? The logistics? How will it actually work? Where is this going to happen? Are you going to meet this person at a hotel? Are you going to ask me for a lift? ‘Oh, Mum, I’m just off to lose my virginity, better stop at a drugstore to buy some condoms’?”
She looked at Abigail’s profile. She had her head dropped and one hand shielding her eyes. Madeline could see her lip trembling. Of course she hadn’t thought it through. She was fourteen.
“And have you thought through what it would be like to have sex with a stranger? To have some horrible man touching you—”
Abigail dropped her hand and turned her head. “Stop it, Mum!” she shouted.
“You’re in la-la land, Abigail. Are you thinking some handsome George Clooney type will take you to his villa, tenderly take your virginity and then write out a generous check to Amnesty International? Because it won’t be like that. It will be vile and painful—”
“It’s vile and painful for those little girls!” cried Abigail, tears sliding down her face.
“But I’m not their mother!” shouted Madeline, and she slammed straight into the back of Renata’s BMW.
Harper: Look, I don’t want to be the one casting aspersions, but Madeline deliberately rammed Renata’s car the day before the trivia night.