Social Misconduct Read online

  He turns to the woman in the car.

  “Macy,” he says. “What’s Larry doing today? Can he drive this lady back to the city this morning?”

  She says Larry could.

  “All right,” he says and opens the backseat door for me. “We got you covered. Get in before you piss me off.”

  I shake my head.

  “No. Thanks but no.”

  Then, over my shoulder, he sees something.

  “Shit,” he says. “Po po. You can come with us or you can wait to talk to them.”

  A police car is turning onto the expressway. If they drive off, the police will surely want to know what I’m doing walking on the expressway. Fuck. I can’t have that.

  I jump into the SUV.

  52

  I flipped open my work laptop and looked at my Twitter. Lenora stood over my shoulder.

  Not good. My account had tweeted the sex picture of me and part of JFXBF with the text “Madskillz.” It was ten minutes old and had already been retweeted eighty-eight times. Ninety-five. One hundred twenty-two.

  Oh God. I was going viral.

  “I have to close my account,” I said.

  I was icily calm. So was Lenora.

  “Go to account settings,” she said.

  I followed her instructions and within seconds had the satisfaction of seeing the “That User Does Not Exist” message.

  Next: Facebook, where my profile pic had also been replaced with the porn shot. I didn’t read any of the zillion alarmed comments. I just followed Lenora’s calm instructions and shut it down.

  When I confirmed that it was done, I picked up the phone.

  “I shut them down,” I told Jess.

  “Good. Are you okay?”

  “No. It’s pretty bad.”

  “It is. But on the plus side, it probably increases pressure on SoSol to settle this, put it behind them.”

  “Should I issue a statement or something?”

  “No. Keep your head down until we meet. I’m writing to Twitter, asking them to take down any retweets, although that won’t stop the screencaps. I’ll have more of a plan by the time we meet. See you at noon at Blossom?”

  “Okay.”

  “You just have to get through this day. You’ll make it.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hung up and turned to Lenora. I kind of did a little karate chop, like I was severing what just happened, cutting it off. Then I looked at her. She had her phone in front of her. I could see the picture on her phone. I looked up at her face. She was on the verge of tears.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  She started crying and took me into her arms. We embraced and had a sisterly sob. She wiped my cheeks and held my head in her hands.

  “You won’t believe the story I’m going to write about this,” she said. “You think that picture is going viral, just wait for my fucking story.”

  She let go of my head and we both sat back in our chairs.

  “When?” I asked. “When will it go up?”

  “Tomorrow. Hang in there. Everything will seem a lot better once the story’s up. Believe me.”

  “Thank you. I can’t. I can’t. I mean I don’t know.”

  I felt completely lost and distraught. Powerless.

  I had to see how bad it was.

  I typed in a Twitter search for my handle.

  Immediately a column was filled with screencaps of my hacked tweet, with terrible comments.

  Some jerk had put the picture side by side with a blog I wrote complaining about slut-shaming and sexism in the mass media with the headline: “Busted! SJW Roastie Guzzles Jizz!”

  I could see that it had been retweeted many times.

  “What’s a roastie?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “A roastie. This guy calls me a roastie. So did the guy who texted me.”

  “Oh. Gross. It’s incel slang for a woman, uh, of ill repute. A slut.”

  “Incel?”

  “Involuntary celibates. An online community of guys who can’t get sex and blame women for it.”

  Who were these men? How could they live with themselves? Didn’t they realize they were hurting someone who didn’t deserve it?

  I wanted to make them suffer. I stupidly tried to delete their comments and the picture, which I obviously couldn’t do.

  I started punching the screen, which felt really good. The laptop fell off the table onto the café floor. I stood up and stomped on it. The hinge separating the screen from the keyboard gave way and I could hear the insides crunching beneath my feet.

  I jumped up and down a half-dozen times, while Lenora looked on. The barista looked scared and a couple of students sitting in the corner looked like they were getting ready to run.

  I held up my hands to show that I’d got myself under control and sat down.

  “Fuck,” I said. “I feel better now.”

  Lenora stared at me with horror, then we both started to laugh.

  “That’s the lead,” she said.

  53

  Scary Pimp keeps his eyes on the rearview mirror as we pull out into traffic.

  “Girl, if they stop us, you tell them I’m your driver, okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “You tell them anything else, they’ll think I’m your pimp and I’ll go straight to jail.”

  “You’re my driver. You’re driving me and Macy home.”

  “Goddamned right.”

  But the police don’t pull us over, thankfully.

  “You didn’t want to talk to the po po, did you, girl?” he says, eyeing me in the rearview mirror. “You on the run? Where’s your phone? Usually, I talk to a ho she’s fiddling with her phone all the time. How come you got no phone? What kind of ho don’t have a phone?”

  “I’m not on the run. I’m a student. I do GFE every now and then. Craigslist. I don’t need a manager or anything. I want to get back to the city. It’s really nice of you to give me a lift!”

  “Relax, girl. I don’t need to strong-arm no hos, do I, Macy?”

  Macy turns and looks back at me.

  “He never strong-armed me,” she says. “I applied for this position. I was the most qualified candidate.”

  She laughs and the pimp joins in. I find myself laughing with them. Macy is funny. I need to make it clear that I am not going to work for him, though.

  “Okay, but I want you to know I’m not looking for a position. If you can take me to the bus station, that would be great.”

  “You sure?” he says. “I know people would really like a taste of what you got. Let me set you up for a day or two, make some money. Get your smoke on. Have a little fun.”

  I am not going to go along with his plan.

  “I don’t do coke. I don’t want to start sucking off twenty guys a night in some shitty motel room while you keep the money. Thanks, though. I just want to get home. If you can’t drive me to the bus station, maybe you can just drop me off here.”

  “You think we lowlifes?” he says. “You think we small-time?”

  Shit. I’ve made him angry. He looks back at me. His eyes are moving fast. He shakes his head and turns back to the road.

  “We going to take you to the bus station.”

  He doesn’t, though. When we leave the expressway, we drive to a McDonald’s drive-through. He orders Egg McMuffins and hash browns and orange juice. He gives Macy the drinks and keeps the bag between his legs.

  I want to object, to get out, but I am hungry and exhausted and I stay slumped in the seat, feeling defeated. We drive through some seedy-looking suburban streets to Motor Rest, a terrible-looking one-story concrete motel. The paint is peeling and there’s garbage on the broken pavement of the parking lot. Barbecues and cheap-looking bikes are chained outside some of the units. I look at it with despair.

  “Come on,” he says. “Breakfast time.”

  I follow him and Macy into a shabby room.

  I am so tired.

  There’s a cheap TV, a minifridge,
a horrible carpet, falling-apart furniture, one of those quilted polyester bedspreads with a sun-faded floral pattern. Their suitcases are open and I can see their gaudy clothes. There’s a bottle of Smirnoff and some dirty glasses on top of the fridge. It smells like stale sex and old cigarette smoke.

  “Let’s eat,” he says. “Then I’ll take you to the bus station.”

  He and Macy sit down on the bed. I sit down on the single, disgusting chair.

  He takes the lids off the cups of orange juice and pours vodka into them. He hands me one. I look at it for a second, exasperated, then I realize that I actually want a drink. I take it. We all toast.

  He gives me hash browns and an Egg McMuffin.

  “I don’t eat meat,” I say.

  “More for me,” he says and takes the Egg McMuffin back.

  I gobble my hash browns. I’m still hungry. He gives me his as he eats my Egg McMuffin.

  “Thanks.”

  When we are done, Macy lights a cigarette and the pimp picks up his phone.

  “Just one thing,” he says. “I’ll take you to the bus station, but first you got to do a little favor for me. I got a guy, Bruce, coming here in twenty minutes. I promised him a bj from a white girl. You’re going to do it. ’K?”

  No.

  “No. No. I’m not blowing anybody.”

  I put down my spiked orange juice and stand up.

  “I’m going to leave. I’ll go to the motel office and call a cab.”

  I head for the door, moving quickly, but he’s too fast. He’s on me. He wraps his hand around my neck and squeezes. I grab at it with both my hands, but his thick wrist is so strong. My air is cut off. I am terrified.

  “You need to shut the fuck up,” he says. “You are pissing me off.”

  I feel my face turning red. I nod, enthusiastically. He relaxes his grip.

  “Okay. Okay. No problem.”

  “I don’t want you to fuck with me. I’m helping you. You are going to help me.”

  He squeezes again for a second, then relaxes his hand. It is awful.

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  He takes his hand away and I gasp.

  I rub my neck and go to look in the mirror.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “No marks. I never leave marks.”

  He and Macy laugh.

  “Girl, your eyes got so big,” she says. “You were scared shitless.”

  She mimics me, bugging her eyes out with panic.

  “But don’t worry,” she says. “Chris wouldn’t choke you to death. Just needs you to listen to him. You listen to him he won’t put a hand on you.”

  I can’t believe this. I hate her. I hate him. I hate my situation.

  “I get it. I’m going to listen.”

  Chris is watching us through hooded eyes.

  “We gonna get along fine now that we understand each other,” he says.

  He finishes his drink and looks at his watch.

  “Bruce will be here in fifteen minutes,” he says. “Let’s have another drink.”

  I get up.

  “I’ll mix them,” I say.

  “There’s more juice in the fridge,” says Macy.

  If I can slip roofies into them, I can avoid the blow job to come, avoid getting choked again, avoid the rapes and beatings that I am sure Chris has in mind for me.

  It is a good plan, except that they’re sitting on the bed watching me. The roofies are in a pillbox in my little bag. I can’t get at them. I try to think of a way to do it. Can I go to the bathroom with my bag? Not before making the drinks.

  I mix the drinks, without roofies, and hand them to Macy and Chris. He raises his drink to toast.

  “To new friends,” he says.

  We all drink. I need to roofie them. Fuck.

  “I want to fix my makeup,” I say.

  I pick up my bag and stand up.

  “Go ahead,” says Chris. “But leave the door open.”

  The bathroom is disgusting, with stains on the tub and mold on the cracked tiles on the wall. There are towels on the floor. I stand in the doorway and look at myself in the dirty mirror. I look terrible in the bad fluorescent light, tired and scared.

  Chris moves to the other side of the bed so he can keep an eye on me.

  I smile at him.

  “I also need to pee,” I say and move to close the door.

  He laughs.

  “Girl, I don’t mind if you do. Nothing I ain’t seen before. But you gonna leave the door open.”

  I see that I can’t defy him. I dig around in the bag for my lipstick and eyeliner. I manage to find the pill bottle with the roofies. I carefully open the bottle and take two of them into my hand. I see no way to get them into the drinks right now, but I can have them ready.

  When I’m done with my makeup, I sit down to pee, preserving my modesty with my dress, while Chris leers at me. I look back at him blankly and pee. He grins at me as I wipe myself. It’s humiliating, but I manage to slip the two roofies into the front of my underwear without him noticing.

  54

  I felt strangely calm by the time I got to Chelsea for my lunch with Jess.

  I love Blossom, which likely helped calm me down more. It’s such a stylish, elegant room. Understated vibe. Gentle music. Vegan deliciousness.

  Jess started by outlining all the social media damage control she’d undertaken on my behalf. She’d sent cease-and-desist letters to Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, demanding that they take down the picture.

  “Even if they all take it down, it’s still going to be out there forever, though, isn’t it?” I said.

  “No question. For the rest of your life, it’s going to be part of your past. But it will get further in the past as time goes by.”

  “Really? Seems to me it will also always be with me.”

  She looked at me blankly, then nodded and shrugged.

  “It is what it is.”

  “So how did it go with Wayne?” I asked. “Did his recollection match my recollection?”

  “For the most part, yes. He certainly backed up everything you said about Alvin’s behavior, which is totally actionable.”

  “What about the rest of it?”

  “There were minor differences in your stories. Nothing important, I don’t think. I’d rather not get into the discrepancies now and I don’t think you and he should discuss it until after we’ve met with SoSol. I don’t want any sign of story straightening.”

  “When will we meet them?”

  “They want to meet Monday at ten a.m. at the office. They’ll likely offer a settlement.”

  Hm. So she would get Wayne to herself for the weekend.

  My spider senses were tingling again. I felt like when I most needed my sister, she was scooping up the boy I liked. My situation was tense enough without fretting about her and my crush. The only thing I could think was that it was the least of my problems. It didn’t feel like it, though. My breathing was shallow and my stomach was knotted and sour. I’d had only two bites of my cashew-cream ravioli.

  I was afraid Jess would see that I was freaking out. I needed an Ambien but that would have to wait until after lunch. I made do with two glasses of Chardonnay.

  “So I did the Pandora interview this morning,” I said. “I was actually doing it when you called to tell me about the latest pic.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “What? You thought it was a good idea.”

  “Yeah, in theory. Shit. You probably signed a nondisclosure when you were hired by SoSol. Do you have a copy of your contract?’

  “In my desk at work.”

  “Can you see if she can leave the name of the company out of it?”

  “Sure. I’ll email her.”

  “Okay. When’s it come out?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “That makes it a lot less likely that you’ll ever return to work at SoSol. I think you had pretty much decided that anyway, but they don’t know that. It means we have to go in with a diff
erent strategy.”

  “What else should I do?”

  “Have you talked to Declan yet?”

  “No. I’ll email him and see if he’s free.”

  “That’s good. Best if you approach him, see what his attitude is. If he has helpful stuff to say, I’d meet with him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “How are you? Can you handle this situation?”

  “Do I have a choice?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

  She looked up at the ceiling, then fixed me with what was meant to be a cool, professional look.

  “I mean, if you feel fragile, like it’s all too much, you need to tell me,” she said. “We can’t go in there loaded for bear if you can’t keep your cool, or if your story falls apart.”

  I stared at her. She was thinking, I could see, of teenage Candace, who, like a lot of teenage girls, had her ups and downs. It seems very Jess, more than a little bitchy, to allude to that now.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Anything else?”

  She gave me a nod, as if she’d checked off a box she had to check, and then smiled.

  “Nope,” she said. “I think we’re good.”

  Exit Candace, gulping Ambien.

  55

  After I pee, it’s time for Macy and me to go next door to wait for Bruce.

  It has the same terrible furniture and bad smell as the first room. We sit down in the same spots as in the other room, her on the bed, me on the chair.

  “It’s easy, girl,” she says. “I’ll take the money, leave you with Bruce. You just got to be nice to him, get that dick in your mouth, get him off, and you can get your white ass back to the city. Anything goes wrong, bang on the wall.”

  I just look at her. I am not her friend. I don’t want her advice.

  “I’m only sucking one dick,” I say. “Then I’m going.”

  “Maybe two,” she says. “That’s up to Chris.”

  I look at her and shake my head.

  “One,” I say.

  She shrugs, takes out her phone, and looks at it. I have no phone. I just sit there.

  Soon, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Bruce.

  He’s in his fifties, a fat, nervous white man, wearing a big pair of Dockers, a cheap golf shirt, and a nylon jacket. He has a ridiculous gray mustache and a NASCAR baseball cap.