Lettie
From my bedroom window I watch the moving truck arrive. It’s a large truck, but then again, it is a big house. A silver Lexus pulls into the driveway and Samir Kumar gets out. He’s dressed like he might go golfing—khaki pants and a nice button-down short-sleeved shirt. He advances up his new walkway, hands on his hips, looking around, before shaking his head in dismay. I get the sense he can’t believe he bought the place.
Mandy Kumar couldn’t have had a more different reaction. She springs out of the car like school just got out for summer, looking summery herself in a sky-blue dress with her sunny beam of blond hair pulled into a tight ponytail.
I’m wondering about Jay, if he cares enough about his new home to show up on move-in day. Or perhaps I’m hoping he cares enough about me to make an appearance. We didn’t exchange phone numbers, but I found him online. While I didn’t summon the courage to make a friend request, that doesn’t end my interest in him.
Just as that thought arises, a gleaming blue Subaru barrels down Alton Road, too fast for the moms on the block. The car comes to a hard stop next to the Lexus. A moment later, Jay emerges. My heart flips at the sight of him.
My earliest crushes were Disney princes, and there’s definitely some semblance of a princely character in Jay as he swaggers over to his parents, tall and lean. He stands next to his father. They share a quick laugh about something, which surprises me. Jay had given me the impression that he was a profound disappointment to his parents, something we had in common. Interesting.
Moments after his arrival, Jay is helping his father unload the car. That says something about his character. It could mean he’s not lazy, but then again, he did get kicked out of college. Perhaps it wasn’t his grades? I think about what he said to me at the block party—about revenge being something to savor. I wonder if he arrived at that conclusion based on personal experience.
Revenge, of course, brings thoughts of Riley Thompson. If anyone deserves payback, it’s Riley, and that’s not just because she ratted me out as the school vandal. No, I’ve been on the receiving end of her cruel heart many times before.
I can see Riley’s bedroom window from mine. There was a time we’d communicate using our bedroom lights to send Morse code. Back then, I naively assumed our friendship would go on forever. Then came middle school, and with it, the start of Riley’s bullying.
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the turn of events. We’d become friends only as a matter of proximity, not personality. Given that we were the same age and gender, and were both only children, Riley and I were thrust into each other’s lives.
For a number of years, we were inseparable. Riley was my best friend, my steadfast trick-or-treat companion. We always wore complementary costumes on Halloween. For our last costume combo, I went as a baseball and she was a bat. Talk about foreshadowing! One year we were locked arm in arm, going house to house, getting all the candy we could carry, and the next, I’m at Riley’s front door without her because she’d abandoned me for a new group of meanies. Willow tossed a few extra packages of Reese’s Pieces into my pillowcase that year. Pity Pieces, I called them. They ended up in the trash.
Of course I was hurt, but what was I going to do? Riley had found a new group of friends, all of them the popular girls who would never have accepted me as one of their own. I didn’t dress right, didn’t obsess over the same things or care which boy was doing what. Even back then I was starting to think more about deforestation than lip gloss and fashionable leggings.
The beginning of the end came when Riley stopped saying hello to me at school. In girl-speak, the silent treatment is essentially a formal declaration of war. Being ignored was one thing. I could handle that. Once Riley started operating under a “pack mentality,” when she and her cohorts isolated me, I was transformed from a person into prey. That’s the first time I experienced real shame in my life.
Oh, sure, we got plenty of lectures in school about the terrible consequences of bullying. Phrases like lift each other up, be compassionate, empower each other, choose kindness, and blah-blah-blah got drilled into us from September on, but Riley and her crew were impervious to the old saying that “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Guys who bully tend to punch or shove, but girls are far more insidious. They’re emotional ninjas, delivering stealth wounds you don’t see or feel until you’re already bleeding out and near social death.
Unbeknownst to me, Riley and her gang had put me under surveillance—waiting, watching, hoping I’d make the wrong move. It didn’t take long for me to give them the goods. My big blunder was being nice to a kid in math class who was close to the bottom rung on the school’s social hierarchy. The boy’s name was Matthew Bird—nice enough kid, but he didn’t have the brand-name clothes, the athletic skills, or the right friends to make him popular. What he did have was an unruly tangle of dark hair that earned him the nickname Bird’s Nest.
After Matt helped me with a math assignment when I missed school one day, I innocently returned the favor. I guess Riley saw us together in the library. That was all it took. The very next day we were called “lovebirds,” and I got my new nickname—Loony Lettie. The loon being an actual bird made the taunt both cruel and clever, a perfect combo.
I remember what I was eating for lunch the day I first heard my new name—pizza, green beans, and a little cup of applesauce. Trauma does that to you. It makes sure you recall every painful detail of the triggering event so it can roost in your psyche and live there forever.
Loony Lettie and Bird’s Nest became an overnight sensation at Meadowbrook Middle School. The jokes started flying. Get it—flying? Are you nesting with Matt at lunch? Migrating south for vacation? Someone even put a pile of twigs inside my desk at school. Okay, I admit that one was kind of funny. Girls would say they liked my feathers when they meant my clothes. I found myself laughing along with them, thinking if I could be in on the jokes that they wouldn’t hurt so much.
Didn’t work.
Not everyone shunned me, and that’s probably what saved me. The theater kids were always welcoming, and a bunch of them were into various causes, which furthered my activism. I never stopped being friends with Matt Bird, either, but he moved away at the start of eighth grade. I haven’t heard from him since. I suppose Meadowbrook holds painful memories for him, so I don’t begrudge him for cutting ties.
With Matt gone, the bird jokes came to an end—thank God for that—but by that point, the ice between Riley and me had grown miles thick.
Then one day a miracle happened. Riley invited me to go shopping with her and her friends. I couldn’t have been happier. I didn’t like being an outcast, and the invitation felt sincere. I thought my worst days might be behind me.
As we were leaving a store, one that sold glittery things teen girls can’t resist, I heard a loud beep, beep, beep. Something had set off the store’s alarm system. Next thing I knew, the cashier was coming out from behind the counter to confront us. A manager showed up and demanded we empty our backpacks. We did as we were told, and I was stunned—horrified, really—to find three items in my backpack that I certainly hadn’t placed there.
Next thing I knew, the manager had called mall security, and they called my parents. I cried like I was going to be carted off to prison on the ride home. I swore up and down that I didn’t steal anything. I insisted that one of the other girls had put the items in my backpack as a prank, but my parents didn’t believe me at first. They assumed I’d tried to impress a group of new friends.
Mom, not Dad, gave me the benefit of the doubt. She confronted Willow with the allegation. Later that night, Riley was on my doorstep crying. I’d heard the expression crocodile tears before, but suddenly it had real meaning.
A little pressure from her mom was all it took for Riley to crack like Humpty Dumpty. My punishment was immediately revoked. Riley got grounded. She had to write me a letter of apology, too.
Things shifted at school after that. Riley and her friends stayed cliquey, but they mostly left me alone. The jokes stopped and the bullying stopped, too. I had my friends, Riley had hers. A chilly truce ensued, one that’s lasted years. I eventually started speaking to Riley again, but only after she and my cousin Dylan began dating. He didn’t listen to my pleas.
Now, in thinking about recent events, I’m willing to bet that Riley didn’t let bygones be bygones. When she saw my birthmark on that security camera photo, she saw an opportunity for a little retribution. That whole school council president thing just gave her a good cover to turn me in. And I’m sure she knew Dylan would never keep her confidence. We’re family, after all. No, Riley wanted me to know the name of the rat.
A pulse of anger surges through me, thinking of her smug smile when she told the school administration what she knew. Because of her I’ve had to endure an embarrassing school suspension—which could impact my college prospects! Granted, I was wrong to deface school property, but that dress code is utterly ridiculous. Something had to be done. If I thought for one second Riley had honorable motives, I might let it all go. But she didn’t, so I can’t. This was payback for middle school bullshit. Well, payback is a two-way street, bitches!
Outside I go, crossing Alton Road to where Jay is moving boxes from the car into the house. His parents aren’t around, so we can talk privately.
Jay struts over with a broad smile that showcases his dimples. “What’s up, Lettie?” he asks. “Good to see you again.”
It’s harder than I thought to meet his gaze. “Nothing much,” I say back. “How’s the move going?”
“Good,” says Jay.
Well now, I didn’t expect that to be a conversation stopper. I wonder where my confidence has gone? Irrationally, I blame a dodgeball game in fourth grade. I’m worried my expression says that I’m as dark and brooding as my clothes, or worse, that I have on the same outfit I did the day of the block party.
I take in a breath. Upon exhale, I finally find my voice. “Remember what you said about revenge being something to savor?”
“Sure,” says Jay, as a devious little twinkle dances in his eyes.
“I guess I’d like your help with something.”
Jay’s smile broadens, becoming slightly sinister. I feel a chill, despite the warmth of the day.
“Glad you asked, Lettie,” he says. “I’d be happy to help.”
“So how do we start?” I ask.
Jay doesn’t give it a moment’s thought.
“First we have to learn everything we can about your neighbor—where she goes, what she does, who she hangs out with, that sort of thing.”
“Why’s that?” I want to know.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, doing what I do … it’s that everyone has secrets.”
Memorial Day (Present Day)
Meadowbrook Online Community Page
Ross Weinbrenner
I say we work backwards and figure out who got arrested.
Laura Ballwell
I say you let the police do their job.
Susanne Horton
How about don’t tell others what to do because, ya know, “America.”
Christine Doddy
This whole thing is so bizarre. I mean Meadowbrook doesn’t have murders.
Reply from Ross Weinbrenner
Well, it does now, Christine Doddy. Who on that street has marital problems? That’s where I’d start looking. It’s always the person closest to you who does you in.
Reply from Ed Callahan
Is this Real Housewives of Meadowbrook? Ha-ha
Reply from Janet Pinkham
Oh, I love that series! Is it still on? Are they filming in town?
Reply from Ed Callahan
Janet Pinkham Please check your meds.
Ross Weinbrenner
I’m serious. A strained marriage is like a gas-soaked pile of wood. All it needs is one little spark to set the whole thing ablaze. So which couples on Alton Road had marital problems?
Reply from Christine Doddy
A better question is which ones didn’t.