The Mother sighed. “You have been looking wan. I thought you needed iron. Thank you, Mother. You’re welcome, Audra.”
The Mother didn’t cook, but she definitely knew how to add to cart from the local foo-foo prepared-foods market. Audra could easily change the settings. It was a matter of a few swipes. But this had been her complaint five weeks running, almost as if she liked that her mother kept proving her neglect.
“I can’t eat this.”
The Mother scrolled through files. The Father flicked through news stories. Audra looked between them, then violently shoved back from the table. Like she was on the catwalk, she whisked her plate into the kitchen. The drama of the garbage can lid slamming against the wall rang through the house.
“I hope you put that in the compost bin,” the Mother called as I stared at Audra’s deserted Doc. “Teenage tantrums shouldn’t add unnecessary waste to landfills. Gregory, make sure your daughter put that in the compost.”
“Hmm?” the Father asked.
Before I knew what I was doing, I reached across the table and swiveled Audra’s screen toward me.
“My Doc’s not getting a signal,” I explained.
Neither Parent so much as blinked. Maybe it was that Audra thought I should be “grateful” for the video or that she would give anything to have my life, but as I swiped at her screen, I told myself that it wasn’t that I suspected Audra had made the video; it was that I didn’t want to suspect her. Those were two different things, right? But when I swiped at her Doc, the password prompt came up. She had it on fifteen-second mode? I drew Audra’s password. It was the shape of a broken heart.
Incorrect password.
No it wasn’t. I’d watched Audra make this password just two days ago.
“Whatcha doing?”
Audra stood in the kitchen doorway holding a premade macrobiotic veggie wrap.
“I was gonna watch this link Fawn sent on a bigger screen. You changed your password.”
“Yup.” Audra primly sat back down.
“Aren’t you going to tell me what it is?” I asked as I leaned back.
“Maybe if you’re a real good girl…” Audra swiped into her Doc. Her mother laughed, though it was unclear if it was because of Audra or something from her EarRing. “Go ahead, what’s the link?”
“I’ll txt it over.”
Sometimes Audra and I hung after dinner, but not that night. I couldn’t stand being in that house one more click. I was outside moments after I put my fork down. Our good-bye was said via audio txt.
She never did tell me her password.
The year I was born, Mom’s company was still in the red. Dad had a solid job at the NYU libraries, but only a tiny paycheck to go with it. Every month, more money went out than came in. At the time, we were all crammed into the tiny garden apartment of our house on Carroll. Mom had moved there right after graduating from Brown. A few times a month, she and her landlady, Marie, met in the yard to drink wine and talk men and books. When Marie moved to Florida the year Kyle was born, she sold the house to my parents at half its value.
“You have been a gift to me for two decades. This is my gift to you.”
Even renting out the upper floors, my parents barely made the mortgage those first few years. There was no way they could afford day care as well. So every day until I was six, Mom took me and Kyle on the G train to meet my Grandma Cheng at the Court Square stop. Then we three would take the 7 train back to Queens, where we’d spend the entire day in the closet-sized Chinese-medicine store that my n?inai owned.
“This will all be worth it when we get to vacation in San Sebastián every summer,” I remember Mom saying when she zipped me into my coat in the mornings. “Or get a day off, period.”
Sometimes the girls and I talked about how lucky we were. Because when you’re beautiful, your parents earn good incomes, and you live in the best city on the planet, that fact doesn’t escape you. But I didn’t want my good fortune to rest solely on luck. Volunteering at homeless shelters, I saw what bad luck did. And I knew it sounded trite coming from a girl who presently owned a two-thousand-dollar Doc, but I could remember teetering on the cusp of Not Okay like it was yesterday. My family had made it, but we easily could have failed.
Audra was incessantly on me about this perfect-life nonsense.
Didn’t she see? We all had stuff.
On my walk home, Mrs. Gallagher audio txted. I babysat for the Gallagher boys at least once a week. Her message was brusque. There’d been a change of plans, and she wouldn’t need me on Monday. I hoped Milton and Ernie were both okay.
I swiped into one of my prematurely sent college essays to see how terrible it was. Describe Yourself in Five Hundred Words or Less was the topic. I had a few different responses saved in Write on my Doc, but on the actual application screen I’d written: At 8 a.m.? Sleep deprived.
Oh. Great.
I txted Mom.
moi Just left Shrink Castle.
Any night I ate at Audra’s, this was our ritual. Knowing the Rhodes environment was too intense to eat in, Mom always had a plate waiting for me at home after I left Audra’s. She’d sit with me while I devoured it. It was our one or two moments of truce during the week. Naturally it involved laughing about how awful my friend and her family were, but when it came to bonding with Mom, I’d take what I could get. She immediately txted a reply.
mama Ohh, sorry, honey. Didn’t have time to cook or order yet.
Fend for yourself tonight?
Kyle’s at a friend’s. Daddy’s working late.
I’m on deadline for Paris store.
When I didn’t reply, she added,
mama Can’t wait to hear about the rest of your day. Still steamed over our meeting with Graff.
Dad never worked late. Clearly he was avoiding me. And fend for myself? More? I’d never felt more unloved and alone in my life. Awash with self-pity, I stopped on the crowded corner of Fifth Avenue and Third Street. Blocking hordes of last-minute Christmas shoppers carrying their expensive hand-stamped brown-paper shopping bags, I finally let myself cry.
It wasn’t that there were now over seven hundred thousand views of the video. Or that taking it down was impossible. It was that ever since the video had come out, I’d felt filthy in my own skin. It was an awful mix of shame, embarrassment, and guilt, and it wouldn’t go away. Worse still, I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it.
My Doc buzzed. Kyle! My sweet little bro’s sibling sixth sense must have picked up on my misery.
boi-k Hey, sis, not to make you go more girl over this but it’s getting worse.
mama That’s not an appropriate descriptor, Kyle.
I hadn’t realized we were on group txt.
boi-k Sorry, but the Times Online wrote about the video. It’s one swipe into the local section. Titled: Sex Scandal Rocks Prestigious Parkside Prep. The video’s views just exploded (more).
Neither my mom nor I replied. Kyle kept going.