Chapter 76: Penthouse Letters Gone Wrong

Wednesday, January 11, 1984

Trish was back, as I’d expected. I spotted her, looking like her normal self. Mike glared at me once during lunch, but that was it. As much as I didn’t want to think Mike would believe I had anything to do with it, I didn’t really know this Mike that well.

School mostly dragged, since I knew the meeting with Jess was coming up. I had no idea where things would go. Obviously, she had things to tell me. Just as obviously, she had questions to ask. Just how far was she involved in things with Bev? And how far would she take her questions?

We’d find out soon enough.

Angie had brought her car and would take Paige and Jas to dinner, then to Jasmine’s house. So, after saying goodbye to the three of them, I headed to the parking lot.

Jasmine’s kiss reminded me that I was almost never getting nagged for ‘Public Displays of Affection’. I was slipping! I might not win the lifetime achievement award if this continued. Pretty much, it told me that teachers and principals were getting jaded with my behavior (or, perhaps, cutting me slack because of my high profile). Either way, that wouldn’t do!

I was happy about the distraction, honestly. A light-hearted thought was a good thing. I was anything but light-hearted overall.

Jess met me at the parking lot, giving me an extra-tight hug. I helped her into the car, then got in myself.

“Did you have any destination in mind?” I asked.

“Um ... anywhere we can get something to eat that’s nowhere around here. Also, thank you. That helped!”

“Dim sum?”

“This isn’t a dim sum topic. Um ... that Chinese buffet we went to a long time ago. That’s appropriate, and no one from Memorial will be there.”

“That works for me.”

I got us going in towards Northwest Mall. At this point, that Chinese buffet might be the only reason I’d ever cross the doors of Northwest Mall.

Jess said, “If anyone asks, we’re talking about upcoming Student Council business.”

“Not Bev?”

“Definitely not Bev! Anything but Bev! Telling them we had sex would be better. Catastrophic, but better!”

“Why are we treating this as Top Secret?”

“Because the girls know you’re one of my big confidantes. If I was talking to you about Bev, that would mean I knew something big about Bev. Thus, I absolutely can’t be talking to you about Bev.”

“Got it!”

“Could be about Trish, too. Have you heard anything?”

Jess was asking me if I’d heard anything? That was a switch!

“No, nothing. I really don’t think anyone in my circle was involved.”

“The grapevine is really busy with it,” she said. “Dozens of names have been mentioned, of course, but it’s obvious they’re just picking people to blame. No one knows anything. I mean, nothing! This was probably the work of one or two people who can keep their mouths totally shut.”

“It’s ... I don’t know. Even if she did turn in Jasmine...”

“No proof of that, either. I tried and tried! Another one-person job, probably.”

“Yeah. Even if she did, this was over the top, and there’s no proof.”

She sighed. “I just hope Trish and Mike don’t strike out blindly. Stuff like this can escalate if people go off half-cocked.”

“Yeah. I agree.”

I headed off towards Northwest Mall. We did actually talk about Student Council business (namely, the dress code) on the way. Once we got to the mall, I parked and we walked in, holding hands.

As she’d said, there was no risk of anyone from Memorial coming here. Northwest Mall looked just a bit more run down compared to last time, if not quite downright seedy. Not yet, anyway.

The same woman was running the Chinese restaurant. To my surprise, she obviously recognized us. That didn’t say good things about the number of customers she might have had in the past many months. That, or she had a very good memory.

“No black eye,” she said, looking at Jess. “Good. He keep you safe!”

She chuckled. “He does. A lot of people do, actually.”

“Good! You much too pretty for black eye and bad men!”

We took a table in the back (though it hardly mattered, given that we were nearly the only customers) and left our jackets there.

Each of us rounded up a plate of food, which smelled and seemed surprisingly decent. Customers or not, she was clearly doing her best. That gave me a bit of an idea, but we’d have to see whether it would work.

Once we had food, I said, “So, this is obviously serious.”

She sighed. “It’s very serious. I’d tell you that I need you to swear to keep it secret, but ... like we said, I know you will. That, and this one would fuck me up but good.”

“That’s more than reason enough.”

“I very explicitly don’t mean from Jasmine or Angie. They’ll both understand, and I trust them. I almost trust Paige, but ... not with the details here.”

“I’ve got a bit more reason to trust Paige, but you’re in charge. We all know she’s in a slightly different place that way, even her.”

“Thanks. Okay... so. This concerns X, which you might guess...”

I had not guessed that. Not at all. That suggested a few possibilities to me, none of which were good.

“ ... but it also concerns Bev, and also Y. Y isn’t going to factor into the story a lot, though.”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

Jess sighed. “You’ve only known me as Jessica Lively, Cheer Goddess, Mistress of Gossip, Spymaster, and Always In Control. Even when I wasn’t.”

I nodded. “I know the truth behind those facets of you, or some of it, but ... yes.”

“That had to start somewhere. You know that. No one’s like that at twelve, or even thirteen. Okay, maybe a few people are. Almost no one’s like that at fourteen. You, and Angie, are both close and very far from that.”

“Yeah. I get that,” I said.

“We might come back to that. Anyway ... look, you know what I look like.”

“I do. Anyone with eyes does.”

She chuckled a bit, then said, “Imagine a girl who no one would turn down. She’s just turned thirteen, and her hormones are in a riot. She has an innate sense of her power, but very little self-discipline.”

“I can imagine that,” I think. “Though I have trouble imagining you as having very little self-discipline.”

“I was a very different person then. Perhaps, though, it’s better to say that my self-discipline was aimed at getting what I wanted, not on focusing on what I should want.”

“I can imagine that, too.”

She gave a deep sigh, looking down at her plate. “It was all my fault.”

“What was?” I said, reaching over and squeezing her hand.

“It ... look, this is going to sound like a ‘Penthouse Letter.’ I’ve seen a few copies, and read...”

She started to blush as she said, “A ... few ... of the letters, and ... yeah. It starts out that way.”

“I won’t judge.”

She sighed again, then said, “I’ll do more than enough of that for both of us. So ... it wasn’t really all my fault, but I could have stopped it. Anyway, the idea was ... the idea was totally fucked up, but we were four really hot girls with lots of hormones, surrounded by a sea of acne-covered hormonal boys with no manners and no sense of discretion.”

“I ... get that. I mean, not at all from personal experience, but I see the picture.”

She blinked, looking at me. “Oddly, I believe you. I have a lot of trouble imagining you as an acne-covered hormonal boy with no manners and no sense of discretion.”

I probably blushed, and said, “I ... it’s like me believing you were completely lacking in self-discipline.”

“Got it. We’ve both perhaps been things we’re not, now.”

I nodded, letting her continue. She was far closer to the truth than she could imagine.

“Anyway,” she said. “We wanted to try things with boys. Boys who weren’t immature, boys who weren’t covered in acne, and boys who would never tell anyone.”

I nodded. “I get that.”

“Not sex. Or, um ... not intercourse. That was out. But ... kissing. Touching. Blowjobs. Hand jobs. All of that.”

I may have blushed again, but I’m not sure. “That paints a picture.”

She chuckled. “It was supposed to. Anyway, if you’re a ridiculously hot thirteen-year-old who’s smart and conniving, and selfish, the answer is obvious. Stupid, but obvious.”

“Not obvious to me,” I said.

“You’ve got the smart part, and maybe the conniving part. Not the others. Anyway ... we decided we’d go after each other’s dads. In retrospect, it sounds horrible, and it was horrible. I didn’t even really think about what I was doing to my mom. Anyway, it was me going after X’s dad, X going after Bev’s, Bev going after Y’s, and Y going after mine. That was the plan.”

She paused, cheeks just slightly colored. I waited her out and, after a bit, she sighed.

“That was the plan, until I got cold feet. With me out, Y went after X’s dad instead. Honestly...”

She paused again.

“Maybe not totally honestly, but ... well. I thought they would drop it. I really did! It’s just that, maybe, I knew they wouldn’t, at the same time. I should’ve done more to talk them out of it.”

“You tried?” I said.

“Several times. They were set on it, and all I could do was distance myself. Well ... no. Again, that’s not all I could’ve done. I could’ve told the fathers. Or the mothers! Or ... well, anyway, I didn’t. I was afraid they would hate me, which they could have. I only developed the ability to not care who hates me after this.”

“That’s how you are now?”

“So ... no,” she said, giving me a little smile. “If my close friends hated me, it’d be bad, now. That’s now, though. I really didn’t care who hated me until last year, unless they were going to go after me. It’s more ... I believe my real friends won’t hate me for doing the right thing. Thirteen-year-olds aren’t so wise.”

“Not all adults are, either.”

“True! I’ll need to be careful with that.”

“I’ve derailed us,” I said.

“Nah, I did that first.”

“I take it their plan worked?”

She sighed deeply. “It worked. I think you’ll be rational and in control when you’re our parents’ age, but they weren’t. A hot thirteen-year-old was flashing her tits at them and asking them to teach her how to give a blowjob, for goodness sake! Of course it worked!”

She was obviously getting upset. I squeezed her hand, which seemed to help.

“That was supposed to be it. Touching — through their panties — and blowjobs and ‘You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.’ That was how we planned it.”

I’d already made the leap. “Except it wasn’t.”

“Except it wasn’t. X decided to go farther, or Bev’s dad decided to go farther, or ... well, I’m certain it was consensual. I mean, I’m certain of it. I was then, and I still am now. Even immature spoiled bitch Jessica would’ve drawn the line at that.”

“That’s how things went wrong with X.”

“That’s how things went wrong with X,” she agreed, nodding. “She never told him. What was she going to say? She wasn’t going to keep it, and it might’ve devastated him. He never knew, and he doesn’t know now. Since he didn’t know, he couldn’t take her to get it taken care of, so we had to find someone who could. You know the rest of that.”

“I do. So ... Bev?”

She sighed, deeply. “A month ago I found out that I wasn’t the only one who’d changed and learned to keep a secret and put on appearances. I found out because ... well ... the thing I’ve learned is that it sucks to have to always be in control over everything.”

“Bev, obviously?”

“Yeah,” she said, sighing deeply. “She ... her dad ... apparently it just happened. That’s what she says. ‘It just happened.’ Then it happened again, and again, and ... it kept happening! It kept happening, and I fucking missed it! I was supposed to be watching out for her, and ... and ... I didn’t!”

She burst into tears. I went around the table and hugged her. I got a mixed angry and pleased look from the Chinese woman for my troubles.

“She was hiding it, Jess, and you can’t know everything.”

She shook. “I know! Rationally, I know! But it’s going to be a while before I can stop blaming myself.”

“I get that.”

After a bit, I handed her a napkin, and she blew her nose. “Better. I promise. Go around. Face to face is better.”

I scooted back around.

“I ... can’t ... don’t want to ... whatever. The whole story. I’m not going into detail. It was slowly killing her, though. Not literally, but it was wearing her down.”

“He wasn’t...”

“He wasn’t forcing her, except ... well. You know about power differentials and unequal relationships and subtle coercion and ... everything. All of that. She was ‘consenting,’ or acquiescing, but she wasn’t in a place where she could tell him ‘I want this to stop.’ She said that to me, and she said it in a way that told me that she truly wanted it to stop.”

“And?” I said.

“When I found out, I threatened Bev’s dad. I told him that I’d tell his wife, that I’d expose him, whatever. Not face-to-face — I’m a bit afraid of him. A note. I knew he read it, and I knew he hadn’t stopped.”

“So you did something?”

“I figured out a time that they’d be ... indisposed ... and managed to let his wife know. I made it sound like it was a mistress, not Bev. She caught them and ... things didn’t go well. I’d tell you, but you don’t need to know and probably don’t want to.”

“I don’t, as long as Bev and her mom weren’t injured. Not that they’re ‘fine,’ because obviously they’re not at all ‘fine,’ but not injured.”

“Not seriously. There were punches, and ... well. Bev’s mom’s neck is sore, and they’re out a lamp.”

“I get the picture.”

She sighed, deeply. “Bev doesn’t know who did it. I’m sure she suspects, but she doesn’t know. If she finds out, she’ll hate me. Maybe she won’t always hate me, but she will for a while.”

“Not telling.”

“I know, and at least three other people knew. X and Y both knew. So did one of Bev’s friends.”

I nodded. “You know I’ll support you.”

“Honestly — and I mean it, this time — I think she’ll be happy, in the end, and I’m certain that I’m doing the right thing. But...” she said, then paused. “But, I needed to talk it over with someone, and you’re the only someone that makes sense. Did I abuse my power by doing something that may well put him in jail for a long time just to make it stop?”

“I don’t think so. The whole thing, it’s ... when you said ‘power differential,’ that changes things. If she was fully, honestly, giving reasonably mature consent, that would be one thing, but...”

“But she wasn’t. Not even vaguely,” Jess said.

“I think that probably says that doing something wasn’t abusing your power in the least.”

“Good,” she said, sighing. After a second, she continued, saying, “The more public the whole thing becomes, the worse it’ll be for her mom and for Bev. Bev’s mom may well wind up divorced, poor, and blaming Bev for the whole thing.”

“Hopefully not.”

“I was originally going to wait. Bev’s going off to college, right? She’d be free, it’d just end naturally, all of that.”

I nodded, not saying anything.

“I didn’t talk to her often, but about a month ago I heard that she’d started talking about going to UH and living at home. It was obvious, according to my source, that she didn’t want to. She says Bev sounded depressed about the whole thing. Her excuse was that money was tight and it would save a lot.”

“I know the feeling of knowing you have to do something, even though doing something might make multiple people hate you. Mine was just a more immediate decision.”

She smiled softly, nodding. “That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you. Not many people I know have been there and done that. One of the reasons I didn’t tell you beforehand was that I could see you deciding to go punch Bev’s dad in the face.”

“I would’ve seriously considered it.”

She sighed. “Can we move on for a bit? Actually talk about Student Council or the like?”

“Sure,” I said.

We moved to lighter subjects during the rest of our meal. I was certain that something else was on Jess’s mind, but she didn’t mention it.

As we were finishing, I decided to broach the subject.

“Something on your mind?” I said.

“You know there is.”

“I doubt many people would know that, but I know you.”

“Too well!” she said, chuckling just a bit. “And I know you and Angie too well, which is the problem.”

I nodded, not saying anything.

“You both reacted when I mentioned Bev. Not just the ‘Oh, I vaguely know her’ sort of reaction. Something else. Not like you knew. If I had the slightest inkling that you knew...”

I belatedly realized that she had one hand out of sight. Purse? Bear spray? I wouldn’t bet against it, and I’d have done the same in her place.

“You know I didn’t, or you wouldn’t have told me all of that.”