Lovely Girls(38)

“Well, I would, if I hadn’t lived through it,” Taylor said.

“What happened with Jazzy? Did the girls ever leave her alone?” I asked, hoping desperately that they had. I knew they’d already targeted Alex, but I didn’t know whether the bullying would continue to escalate.

“No,” Taylor said. “Dildos became a theme. I think the girls must have bought them in bulk. They left them in her locker, stuck them in her backpack, even slid them on her lunch tray, all without ever getting caught by a teacher. We complained to the principal again. She was sympathetic but said the girls denied the bullying so it was their word against Jazzy’s. We even consulted our attorney about taking legal action against the girls and their parents, although that never went anywhere.”

“Their parents?” I repeated. “You mean because of the cheating website?”

“No,” Taylor said. “Because Genevieve, Ingrid, and Emma raised their daughters to be bullies. Intentionally. Purposefully.”

“What? What do you mean?” I asked. But even as I spoke, I remembered my conversation with Emma on the bridge that day. When she told me that the three women had made a pact to raise their daughters to be strong young women.

“Ingrid wrote her graduate school thesis paper on the subject. She argued it was time to stop viewing bullies as antisocial creatures. That assertive adults are more successful, and so it only made sense to train children to be dominant over their peers.”

I stared at Taylor, thinking that she had to have misunderstood. “But no parent would intentionally raise their child to be a bully,” I protested. “That’s crazy. Strong and independent, maybe. But not a bully. No one would want their child to bully others.”

“Are you so sure? Those girls were so vicious to my daughter, we had to sell our house and move out of town to get her away from them.” Taylor set down her empty espresso cup. “Fine. You don’t have to believe me. But for the sake of your daughter, I hope you do whatever you can to keep her away from those girls. If they keep this up, they’re not going to stop until someone gets seriously hurt.”

And with that, Taylor stood.

“It was nice meeting you, Kate, but I need to go. I don’t want to spend one more minute in this town. It gives me the creeps just being here.”

Taylor nodded at me, gave Lita a tight smile, then turned and strode away. And even though it was yet another warm day, I felt chilled.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO




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VIDEO DIARY OF ALEX TURNER



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OCTOBER 4

Alex sat in her bedroom, cross-legged on her bed. She was wearing a tank top and pajama shorts, and the room was dark, other than the glow of the phone lighting her face.

I’ve been thinking about the law of unintended consequences. My econ teacher was talking about it the other day. It’s when a policy is put into place to achieve a specific result, and instead something completely unexpected happens. Like back during Prohibition, when they banned alcohol sales and it led to a rise in organized crime. But it happens on a smaller scale too.

Oh, but wait, before I get to all of that . . . I played my first tennis match for Shoreham High today. And I won.

Alex smiled and raised a fist in the air.

I sort of had to, after all of the drama that happened after Coach put me on the lineup. Because guess whose spot I took? Daphne’s. And Coach didn’t tell her ahead of time that she wouldn’t be playing singles. Daphne ended up flipping out in front of the whole team.

Alex leaned closer to the camera, wrapping her arms around her body. She looked animated, and her eyes were bright.

Coach had already told me I’d be on the lineup. But then Daphne lost her match against County High School. County took four courts that day, which knocked our team into second place. Coach announced at practice yesterday that he was shaking things up. He put me on first-court singles and kept Callie in second-court singles, because she was the only one who won last week. And then he completely changed up the three doubles courts. He originally had Daphne on number one doubles with Bella.

But when Daphne saw the lineup, she stood up in the middle of the team meeting and said, “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not playing doubles.”

And everyone on the team froze. Like, no one made a noise. It was just Coach staring at Daphne and her glaring back at him. She had her arms crossed in front of her. She looked like she wanted to kill him.

Daphne said, “I either play first-court singles, or I don’t play.”

Coach just shrugged and crossed Daphne’s name off the lineup he’d written on his whiteboard.

And then Daphne said, “Fine. Whatever. I quit.”

And then she turned and walked out of the meeting. And she didn’t show up to the match today, even though we’re all supposed to go and support the team, even if we’re not on the lineup. No one knows if she’s still on the team, or if she really did quit.

I’m just glad I won. If I hadn’t, Coach might have never given me another chance. But I did win. And Coach has already told me I’ll be playing the next match too. That’s the good news. I mean, I’m sure Daphne will try to punish me in some way for taking her spot. Although maybe not. Because I did something. Something that I probably shouldn’t have done but did anyway.