How did this happen…she had a good track record, not letting strangers get close, and now this…but Todd isn’t a stranger…yes he is, he just made her think he wasn’t…good thing school is almost over…if only she could teleport from class to class…she’ll just have to avoid the places she’d be most likely to see Todd or Duffy…but that’s not foolproof…nothing is…what was Todd’s role in all this…getaway driver…mastermind…getaway driver…mastermind…let’s fool the fat girl, it’ll be fun…but it seemed like he was reluctant-
Her phone rings. That’s the thing she forgot. The world could still get her through her phone. She’d seen a movie once where a woman confined to her bed poisoned a whole town with rumors she spread by telephone. Let the machine get it, in case it’s Them, back for more. She pulls her sheets over her head. But as its tape wheels click to life, and Recorded Beddy says “Hi all, you’ve reached-” the caller hangs up.
When she hears the house line ringing through her shut door she sighs and lowers the sheet. Only her friends know both lines, but only Connie will try both before she is satisfied. She will hunt Beddy down room by room, and after exhausting first her room line, then the house line, then the room line again, she’ll begrudgingly leave a message on Beddy’s machine.
So Beddy waits. It’s invasive, but endearing. She smiles. For all her friends’ grief over her adherence to old technology, for reasons she never intimated, this is as good as a signature ringtone, or their picture appearing.
She places her hand on the receiver next to her bed a second before it rings.
“Hullo?”
“Stuuud! Studette! Just calling to see if you got any sleep last night, haha.”
“Slept fine.”
“We didn’t see you at The Grove. Thought maybe you kids decided to skip Formal altogether.”
Beddy raised the phone above her, her hand over the mouthpiece. Screamed deep into her pillow. Of course a Formal postgame phone call would be coming. But did her friends have to be so clueless? Couldn’t they just know what she went through without her having to say it? She shouldn’t have answered the phone. She should have unplugged it. She should have bashed it into pieces with a hammer from the garage, and buried the bits in the garden.
“Bed, what’s wrong? Hold on, let me get Di. She stayed over last night. I’ll put you on speakerphone. She should hear whatever you’re gonna say.”
“Hello?” Di says.
“Ok babe, we’re here. Both of us. Now spill it.”
Beddy does, with no graphic detail spared. She tries to be clinical, to divorce emotions from events, but this is futile, transparent. Her friends know better.
“I’ll cut his fucking balls off and feed them to my horse,” Connie says when Beddy finishes. She spits audibly.
Bedelia the Tragic Figure and Connie the Castrator.
“I can’t believe,” Di says.
“It’s all right,” Beddy says. “I let someone in. It won’t happen again.”
“But you let us in,” Di says plainly. Sharp as bone.
Can you hear a lip quiver over the phone?
“I meant a boy.”
“He’ll pay,” Connie says. “He has to.”
“Really, I just…want to move on. Please. I mean, if you think about it, it was a pretty retarded prank.”
Connie continues as if she didn’t hear her. “We only have a week until school’s over so we’ll have to act fast. Just a matter of which revenge best fits. Hmmm…there are so many good ones.”
Beddy bites her lip. Once Connie is set in motion she is indefatigable, so as long as she isn’t set into motion…
“So Todd,” Di begins.
“From now on,” Connie says, “I don’t want to hear his name. That rat bastard porcaccione.” Thick Italian for that last phrase. “It’s tough, though, ‘cause we have to talk about him.”
“He also goes by Kevin,” Di says. “His full name is Todd-Kevin.”
“And his last name is Fausette,” Connie says.
They probably looked it up in the yearbook when they heard he had asked Beddy to Formal. Doing their homework on him. God, she loves them both.
“I got it,” Connie says. “Fuckface. From now on, his name is Fuckface.”