It wasn’t difficult to understand.
She walked off, mumbling to herself in French, but I didn’t cry. I was tired of crying. My sadness was flushed out by a rush of anger. I wanted to rage against Chastity, call her all sorts of names, ridicule her and insult her until she was drowning in remorse and regret. I thought about all sorts of ways to get revenge. I had once threatened to reveal some of her weird sexual activities and thoughts. It would be easy to turn the tables on her. Those girls who were accepting her now were only doing so because she had some juicy gossip that affected one of the most popular boys in the school. Once they had milked her of all the shocking information, they would turn their backs on her, and she would be even more alone than ever because she wouldn’t have me anymore, either.
I slept most of the remaining afternoon, and when I realized that Chastity would be home from school, I called her.
“Why did you do it?” I asked as soon as she said hello.
“Do what?”
“Don’t play games with me, Chastity. You told them about Roxy.”
“Oh, that. It just slipped out, and once it did, I didn’t know what to do,” she said, feigning innocence. “Why? Was it a problem? I heard you went home from school sick. What’s wrong?”
“You betrayed the wrong person,” I said, and hung up.
I went to the bathroom and washed my face with cold water. Mama came to my room just before Papa was to arrive.
“How are you?”
“I’m okay, Mama. Don’t worry.”
“I don’t like telling lies or telling you to lie, but sometimes a little twist of the truth is a nice thing to do, not for yourself but f
or someone else.”
“What lie, Mama?”
“If your father asks about Evan, just tell him he was a little too interested in another girl. Maybe because his father’s running for Congress, he’s a bit stuck-up right now.”
I almost laughed. Mama creating some soap-opera material?
“Okay, Mama. Who knows? Maybe that is exactly what will be happening anyway.”
She smiled, gave me a hug and a kiss, and went down to work on dinner. I sat at my computer for a moment. The anger that had been simmering inside me twisted and turned, snaking its way deeper and deeper into my brain. The evil ideas that started to take shape were shocking to me. I never thought I would even consider doing such a thing to someone. But someone like Chastity, who let her jealousy and envy do harm to her closest friend, had to be punished. She had to be made to see that her actions had consequences.
I told myself that Chastity was like a little witch, a Wiccan, and they were always warned that if they did evil to someone, it would come back at them three times.
I turned on my computer. As soon as it was ready, I went into my e-mail. I had the e-mail addresses for most of the girls I spoke with in my class. Which one would be the best for this? I wondered, and then thought the perfect irony would be to choose Carol Lee. After all, it was her mother who had called Evan’s.
Hi, Carol Lee, I began. I have a stunning question for you, a little puzzle for you to solve. Which girl in our class puts lotion on a cucumber and experiments with herself sexually while looking at erotic pictures in her copy of the Kama Sutra? Hint. She likes to eat. There’s lots more hints, too. And lots more she does that would make your stomach turn inside out.
I hesitated, and then I clicked send.
Was it the Roxy in me that had me do it? It wasn’t hard to imagine her doing something like this and even more. Whatever, I felt a sense of satisfaction, left the computer on, and went down to help Mama with dinner.
Papa was excited when he came home. He felt as if he had inside information and had told his associates about Evan’s father running for Congress. Later in the day, they all heard the official announcement, and everyone wanted to know how he was in on it.
“I told them my daughter was seeing his son socially,” he declared with some pride.
We were all at the table. He smiled and then looked from Mama to me. I had my eyes down, and Mama’s face was always an open book.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing serious,” Mama began. “Emmie is a little annoyed with Evan at the moment.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“He’s full of himself,” I said.