Kim
“You’re going to a tea party at Taylor Stiles’ house?” Laurel said over the phone. “Taylor Stiles. Who hates you.”
“Yeah,” Kim said. “Crazy, right?”
Laurel snorted. “You might need to ask Dr. Park to up your medication.”
“I know.” Kim sighed. “Lily wanted me to go.”
“Hmm…” Laurel said. “You really like him, don’t you?”
Kim almost retorted that it was all for Lily, but who was she kidding? She wanted to make the girl happy, but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she loved the look of gratitude Scott had given her when she said she’d take her, even if it meant an unpleasant reunion with her old classmate.
Though they’d been arguing more the past couple days. Since they’d discovered Viktor wasn’t the sole culprit, he’d tried to put the kibosh on her warning those women.
“Kimberly, you need to stop.”
“I told you I’d let you know who I met, when, and where.”
“That’s not good enough.” He ran his hands through his dark blond hair. “We still don’t know who we’re up against. Not entirely. If something happened to you, I’d—” He broke off, his face hardening.
“Hey…” She walked over to him, a lump of guilt in her throat, and put her hand against his scratchy jaw. “I’m sorry. I just feel like I’ve got to help these women.”
He exhaled. “I know.”
“How about a compromise?” she said. “I still contact these women, but I do it all over the phone.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Can you do it without giving your name, whereabouts, or schedule—or agreeing to meet them at a later date?”
“Sure.” She nodded. “I just need one exception.”
Destani told her that that woman Autumn, who’d cheated on a Ry or Ryan, had been the one those Yale guys first half-joked about harassing. If that was true, she was victim zero, and they needed to get as much information out of her as possible.
That morning, before Taylor’s tea party, Scott hovered in the parking lot while she and Destani intercepted Autumn outside of the clothing boutique where she now worked. Tall and striking, the woman wore dangly earrings which shook beside her stylishly short black hair.
Destani stepped in her path first, with Kim beside her. “Hi, Autumn.”
Autumn froze, wary. “Hello.”
“Do you remember me?” Destani said. “We both used to go out—”
“I remember you,” Autumn said. “What are you doing here?”
“I want to talk,” Destani. “This is my friend Kim. She found a list of women who’ve been harassed online. I was on there, and so were you. You had somebody do something to you, didn’t you?”
Autumn crossed her arms. “I did. What does it matter?”
Kim spoke up. “I have a friend who’s a cop. You can file a police report.”
“I don’t want to file a report. I made the first mistake. I cheated on Ryan.” She looked at Destani. “They told you that, right? Well, it was true.” She huffed. “So if he gets a bunch of his buddies to tell me I’m a whore on social media and joke about raping me, I guess I got what I deserved, didn’t I?” She brushed past them, headed for her car.
“Wait!” Kim said. “What he did was wrong.”
Autumn shook her head, but she turned around for one moment. “No, what they did to her was wrong”—she nodded at Destani—“but me? I’m just a whore.”
She opened her car door, slammed it, and drove off.
~
On the way to Taylor’s with Lily, Kim replayed that conversation in her head over and over—and once at the tea party, the echo of it seemed all the louder.
At least attending a party at Taylor Stiles’ house came with pretty perks, even if it was an activity reserved for a ring of hell.
From the moment she and Lily entered the tea party walking hand in hand, they’d been assaulted by pink. Gauzy pink streamers hung high on the walls. Pale pink tablecloths lined the tea party tables, with tulle at the end made to look like tutu material. Tiny white teacups and a round pink teapot sat on the table, cupcakes were artfully arranged on dishes, and bouquets of pink roses made the house smell like flowers and frosting. Pictures of elegant dancers graced the walls, doing pirouettes and curtsies. Sophie and Sierra ran around Lily in leotards and tutus, giggling. The whole scene managed to be both classy and gaudy, just like Taylor Stiles.
It was a ballerina-themed tea party. Did ballerinas even eat cupcakes?
This was one of the questions Kim was asking herself, along with Why am I here?
“Hi, Kim,” Taylor simpered as they entered. “It’s nice to have Lily here.”
“Thanks for having us, Taylor.”
“Come on in and have some cupcakes and tea. Everyone else is already here.”
Kim followed Lily back to where the other girls were gathered, while Taylor held court in the front room where some of the moms and grandmas sat, nibbling on sweet treats and drinking tea. The cupcakes, like the rest of the decorations, were ballerina-themed, and each pink confection was stuck with a glittery gold dancer in a fluffy pink tutu. The moms oohed and aahed over them, but Kim just mostly wanted to stuff about six in her face. She was starving.
She stuck around the little girls as the adults found their seats in the other room, inhaling dessert and then a carrot stick to balance things out. While the murmur and laughter coming from the front room told her the other little girls’ parents weren’t too concerned about what they were doing, Kim clapped and commented as the girls took turns doing their dance moves.
After almost an hour, though, she grabbed a cup of tea and ventured into the front room, feeling a little starved for adult conversation. The women sounded like they’d been chatting loudly and amicably from the dining area, but when Kim stepped into the room, a hush fell over the crowd.
“Hi,” she said, leaning against the wall. There was nowhere to sit.
A few of them said hello, and a couple moms smiled, but she’d put an end to their merriment. Taylor had warned them, she guessed, of her past. She recognized Heather and Whitney as friends of Taylor’s from school, and she saw the three exchange glances with each other. They didn’t want her here.
It was then she realized why Autumn’s words had been playing on repeat in her head.
I guess I got what I deserved, didn’t I?
When you cheated on your boyfriend, people called you a whore. When you broke the law, people treated you like a criminal. Maybe they were justified. Both she and Autumn felt themselves to be part of the same club: Women Who Got What They Deserved. Kim had been a member for a while.
After a few uncomfortable minutes, she went back to hang out with the group of preschool girls. They were a lot nicer, anyway. The girls were playing what looked like a complicated game involving the ballerina stickers Taylor had handed out in gift bags at the door. Kim plopped cross-legged down by Lily and Sierra to watch.
During the next round of play, Sierra lost the biggest sticker she had, a polar bear in a tutu, to another player. Her lower lip jutting out, Sierra watched as the girl across from her added the bear sticker to her pile, then hopped up to get another cupcake.
Kim saw the gleam in the girl’s eye and the way she leaned forward ever so slightly—she’d been there so many times herself. Sierra wanted that sticker back, and she was going to take it, rules be damned.
Keeping her voice low so only Sierra and Lily could hear, Kim put her hand on the little girl’s arm. “You don’t need to do that,” she said kindly. Then she broke a cookie she was nibbling on in half and gave part of it to Sierra.
The girl looked chastened, but gave Kim a slight smile as she took the cookie.
Wiping her hands on her dress, Kim stood up and went to grab herself another cupcake.
In the other room, the women were talking again. There were laughs and the clinks of teacups on saucers, but there was another noise too. Whispers.
Knowledge slithered up Kim’s spine. They were talking about her. It had to be. She wouldn’t put it past Taylor, and the way those women had fallen into silence at her entrance, she might not put it past them either. Maybe it was her criminal record and involvement with Scott. Maybe it was her dress with jellyfish on it or the crimped way she wore her hair. Either way, she thought of Autumn again, the way her face had been a mask of hurt, anger, and self-loathing.
Over the pink tablecloth, a bowl of extra ballerina toppers stood, gold and pink dancers connected to sharp sticks that poked into the cupcakes. She’d heard Taylor say she was going to give each girl an extra one to take home as a gift. Kim quickly counted the girls in the room, and then the toppers. There were at least three extras.
She could take one, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. There was more than enough for everyone. Could you even steal something that wasn’t for sale? Her mind wandered to the badge of Scott’s she’d taken at Thanksgiving, the one she kept in a box under her bed.
It’s not the same, a part of her brain said. This isn’t stealing at all. You can always give it to Lily later. But her slightly sweaty palms and quickened breath told a different story, and on some level Kim knew she was only lying to herself.
“How are you doing, girls?” Taylor called over her shoulder, signaling her approach.
Kim had no time for internal debate. She snatched one of the ballerinas and stuffed it in the pocket of her dress just as Taylor entered the room.
It might not have been stealing to a court of law, but the same thing happened in her body: the nerves, the euphoria, and then the seeds of guilt and self-hatred that were planted—deep but sure enough to bloom.
~
The next day, Kim was relieved to be around people who didn’t judge her—at least as obviously. She met Destani for breakfast in the morning. Even though they weren’t contacting the women in person anymore, they were still calling, and they’d met up to swap notes on who they’d spoken to and the outcome. So far, no others seemed to know the Jason or Ryan that Destani had met.
Kim’s car was in the shop to fix the scratch from the knife in its exterior, so Destani dropped her off for her shift at Hot Haven. As Kim got out, the girl impulsively exited and walked around to give her a big hug.
“Thank you for doing this,” she said, her eyes moist. “I’m glad I’m not alone in this.”
Kim nodded. She was grateful to be warning the women with Destani. Though her stomach was still soured with disgust at how she’d pilfered that ballerina the day before to feel much pride.
Sighing, she said goodbye to Destani and walked into Hot Haven.
Boyd was behind the counter, whistling. “You leading a Girl Scout troop now, Xavier?”
“What?”
“The girl you were just hugging.”
She walked behind the counter. “Oh, no. She’s just someone I met recently. We’re working on sort of a…girl project.”
“Girl project?” Boyd said. “That sounds like the title of something in the back of a magazine I read when I was fifteen.”
Kim started laughing. “Do you actually kiss your girlfriend with that mouth?”
“Yes, he does,” a female voice called from a table.
Kim spun around. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you were here, Savannah.”
“No worries.” Savannah stood up, an iced tea in her hand and her laptop bag over her shoulder. “I’m on my way out, actually. Got a meeting at the office.” She leaned over the counter and gave Boyd a kiss. “Call you later, okay?”
As they both watched Savannah exit and walk to her car in the parking lot, Kim kneeled to get a fresh box of cardboard cups and asked, “So how’d you two meet?”
“Me and Savannah?” Boyd threw his cleaning rag over his shoulder. “It was when I was in this funk last year. Couldn’t get a date to save my life. Oddly, a lot of women don’t dig short, poor guys.”
“That is odd.”
“I’d heard around that she was a really nice person, and then I saw her picture and she was, like, gorgeous. You know.”
Kim nodded.
“So I waited outside her work and pretended like I’d accidentally scratched her car so I could start a conversation with her.”
Kim snorted. “Fake vehicular damage. Romantic.”
Boyd spread his hands. “Hey, it worked for me!” He laughed. “But you got to promise me you won’t tell her this. She thinks it was all just a chance encounter. Let the women have their romance, right?”
“Fair enough.” Kim smiled. Being around Boyd was lifting her spirits in what had otherwise been a tough weekend.
“What about you?” Boyd asked. “You and that cop seemed like you had something going on the other day.”
“Well, we’re just—he just—” She stopped and couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off her face. “There might be something going on.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I knew it.” Shaking his head, he added, “Never would’ve pegged you for a badge bunny, Xavier.”
She threw a paper cup at him. “I’m not a badge bunny!”
Laughing, he stepped to the side and held up his arms in surrender. “Okay, okay, fine. Hey, if he makes you happy, that’s alright by me.”
Her heart fluttering, she said, “He does make me happy.” Her voice was soft, almost a whisper—almost like it’d just occurred to her how much happiness and security Scott Culpepper had brought into her life.
Then the smile fell off her face.
Hadn’t her life shown her that it would only be a matter of time before she screwed up again and lost it all?