He squeezed soap into the sink, apparently intending to let the dishes soak. I kept quiet. I didn’t need to take AP Law to know that when a witness was freely divulging information, you let them talk.
“The whole thing was her idea. I didn’t even know she’d hit record on that stupid classroom hub until she showed me the video later that night. I was pissed. She swore she’d erased it from the school hub. I went in at, like, dawn the next day. She was telling the truth.”
Mr. E. took a recycling bag from beneath the sink and began tossing takeout containers into it. He twisted the bag, tied it, and then took out another.
“We broke up a year later. It wasn’t cordial. Maybe I accidentally smashed her windshield after a night of drinking. Maybe it was some punk from our—her—block. Whatever. Anyway, do you know about that site My Ex Is an A-hole?” I shook my head. “It’s supposedly a women-only site. Women dump bad photos, stories, and videos of their exes on it. Guess what ended up there? Naturally, she airbrushed out her face.”
He pushed his glasses up with the back of his wrist. “She titled the post ‘Bad Teacher,’ like we broke up because she caught me with a student. One of my friends from college saw it and played it for me. I got in touch with the website. But obviously it was too late.”
Now with two filled bags of garbage next to him, he attacked the kitchen counter.
“Fast-forward two-plus years. On Tuesday afternoon when the fake video posted, Dr. Graff called me at home.”
“Wait,” I said. “Tuesday afternoon?”
Ignoring my confusion, Mr. E. kept talking. “I pretended I didn’t know what she was talking about. I mean the video was obviously shot inside Park Prep. That right there goes against everything in the teacher handbook. Maybe if I acted like I didn’t know about it, I wouldn’t lose my job. Chalk it up to a spiteful ex.
“The next day, first thing, Graff called me into her office. When she said it was you in the video, I laughed, relieved. I thought it had to be a gag one of my students made. For a minute I thought maybe it was even you who’d made it.”
“It definitely was not me.”
“When I truthfully”—he paused in his scrubbing to jab a finger into the air—“told Graff I had no idea what she was talking about, she said she couldn’t take the chance. Said I was suspended pending investigation. When I saw the video after it reposted first period, I didn’t blame her. I mean, Kyla, I have no idea how they did it.”
I thought of the T minus countdown txts I’d received all that morning.
“So when it appeared on the Student Activities board, it was a repost? The first time the video went up was actually the day before?”
Mr. E. nodded. “It popped up on the Faculty Activities board on the Park Prep website, right about when school was letting out.”
“There’s a Faculty Activities board?”
“Yeah, where teachers list, like, the readings or lectures they’re giving. It gets loads of traffic.” Mr. E. shook his head no. “For the record, if I’d known from the start that it was a doctored video, I would have come clean immediately. I swear. I’ve wanted to ever since, but Graff and Park Prep’s legal counsel have ‘strongly advised’ me against speaking out. I think they’re afraid I’ll make everything worse.”
“Does the original video still exist?”
“NYPD has been searching the My Ex Is an A-hole website. Unfortunately, no luck.”
“The police are in on this?”
“You’re telling me you haven’t spoken to them? Maybe your parents ran interference.” Mr. E. wrung out the sponge. “I mean, Ms. Cheng, I’m a teacher. You’re seventeen. What do you think? Of course the police are involved.”
It was time for me to go.
It was past time for me to go. Only, there were just a few more things….
“So who posted the first video?” I asked. “The one that cropped up on the Faculty Activities board?”
Mr. E. sighed, like, What does it matter?
“Somebody with the number six-six-six. Like ‘six-six-six and gone.’ I don’t remember what Dr. Graff said. But it didn’t seem like a name that Mardi—my ex—would come up with.”
“So not AnyLiesUnmade?”
“No, though that does sound like a name Mardi would come up with. I called her the moment I got pinged by the reposted video. She didn’t answer. But she txted back.” He scrolled through his Doc, read: “‘Eric. That’s awful. Wasn’t me.’ She signed it with a frowny face. ‘Hey, your life is destroyed, frowny face.’ The police have been trying to get in touch with her, too.”
“When was the last time you spoke before all this?”
“Over a year? Year and a half? Honestly, with Woofer, I’ve been waiting for this video to come back and haunt me. When I first saw the clip with your face put on hers, it was like my worst nightmare had come true. I’d been worried people would think the woman in the video was one of my students. But I didn’t think someone would change it so it actually was one of my students. So why you, Ms. Cheng?”
“I came here hoping you’d tell me,” I said, unable to hide my exasperation. “Mr. E., you teach—taught—effects. Did Jessie Rosenthal ever take that class with you?”
He nodded. “Kicking and screaming she did. She needed to pad out her art track.”
“Did she or anyone else ever use your personal Doc? Or do you have access to software that could—”
“Ms. Cheng, as technologically forward-thinking and endowed as Park Prep is, there’s no way that video came out of one of our classrooms. And Jessie…let’s just say Jessie was not one of my more gifted students.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? Does that mean you gave her a bad grade?”
“I gave her a fair grade, though I’m not sure she saw it that way. Still, just based on skill set alone, I can’t see her pulling off something like this. What about your friend Ms. Rhodes?”
I wasn’t expecting him to say that. Flustered, I said, “Audra doesn’t have a motive.”
“No? A while back, she stopped me after class asking detailed questions about DRMs. She was very…intense. Wanted to make sure there was no way a third party could download them; wanted to know how she could maintain all rights.”
You should be thanking whoever posted that video.
“It is high school, after all,” he continued. “Sometimes there are no motives other than pure, genuine meanness.”
“It’s not Audra.” Only I was allowed to pin it on my best friend, not him. “The file’s not on her Doc.”
“Could be on an alternate drive or—”
“Mr. E.,” I interrupted. “Can I connect with you? If I can compare our CB Connections lists, I might find a link.”
He shook his head. “No way. That’s all the police need to see after everything that’s happened, that we’re ‘connected.’ I’m sorry, but my privacy’s been invaded enough. Besides, I’m in the process of erasing myself.”