Unfriended (14 page)

ZACH BAYLOR

Location: Hartfield (following)

• Has no idea date with Sarah D. was a setup. Dating Sarah D. since after prom. Still believes she works/worked for Putnam Pizza.
  
• Not involved with prom incident—seems to have no knowledge of it (possibly useful).
  

GINGER DAVIS

Location: Putnam (following)

• Dating Josh Burch (not following).
  
• Working at Putnam Historical Society for summer—receiving credit for this (NOT widely known) because she nearly failed English last semester.
  
• Pictures from BMM parties 4–35—GD in states of apparent intoxication (could be useful).
  
• Wants to go to RISD. Needs scholarship & impeccable disciplinary record to do this.
  
• Involved with prom incident, suspect directly (uncorroborated).
  

SARAH DONNER

Location: Reach4theStars! Theatre Camp, Catskills

(following)

• Determined to be President of Thespians sr. year.
  
• Still might have ax to grind with Madison. (Useful? Possible ally? Investigate.)
  
• Deeply invested in relationship with Zach B./ fearful of him finding out truth about how they met.
  
• Directly involved with prom incident, but not easily proved. In Hartfield ballroom for duration of prom.
  

NATE (JONATHAN) ELLIS
FILE MOVED TO SECURE LOCATION

LISA FELDMAN

Location: Putnam (following)

• Dating Dave G., 1 year +.
  
• Working at Putnam Hyatt (internship).
  
• DIRECTLY involved with prom incident.
  
• Employers seem to have no knowledge of role in prom incident.
  
• Potential target.
  

DAVE (DAVID) GOLD

Location: Putnam (following)

• Dating Lisa F.
  
• Works at Putnam Pizza (ongoing).
  
• • DIRECTLY involved with prom incident. Used job to create diversions, etc. Boss (Tony Carlucci) unaware of this.
  
• Hosted prom afterparty—parents seemingly unaware.
  

ANDY (ANDERSON) LEE

Location: Hartfield (following)

• Dating Ruth M., 1 month.
  
• Not directly involved with prom incident. Used as Madison’s ticket into Hartfield prom.
  
• New to Hartfield. Relatively friendless/vulnerable.
  
• Unaware of his role in prom incident/why Madison chose him for her date. Thinks it was genuine interest (possibly useful).
  

BRIAN MCMAHON

Location: Putnam (following)

• Attending summer school—failed Marine Biology.
  
• Directly involved with prom incident.
  
• Engineered the Young Investors Club investment in Save The Last Dance results, profiting $10k.
  
• Constantly in trouble with father for throwing parties w/out permission—serially grounded.
  
• Father has threatened to send him to military school should he step out of line again (update from 6/2).
  
• His house = location of meeting on 5/22.
  

MADISON MACDONALD
FILE MOVED TO SECURE LOCATION

RUTH MILLER

Location: Putnam (following)

• Dating Andy L., 1 month.
  
• Suspended (2 weeks) due to actions in spring hacking—it would take only one more incident for her to be expelled.
  
• Friendship with Madison et al. seemingly repaired.
  
• Indirectly involved in prom incident. Unclear when she switched sides.
  
• LOYALTY TO MADISON NOT ENTIRELY ASSURED. COULD POSSIBLY BE USEFUL AGAIN.
  

KITTSON PEARSON

Location: Hamptons (following)

• Dating Glen T., three months.
  
• Well liked by Dr. Trent/administration.
  
• Directly involved with prom incident.
  
• Skilled with computers—possible that she rigged prom results (unproven).
  
• CHEATED on Glen T. in the Hamptons. Glen unaware (for now).
  

MARK ROTHMANN

Location: Putnam (following)

• Directly involved with prom incident. Pretended
  to be “Marcus James Selwidge Rothschild” to gain access to Hartfield prom.
  
• Working at Second Concession Stand during summer—constantly updates status re: loneliness. Potentially useful.
  
• Single.
  

GLEN TURTELL

Location: Putnam (following)

• Dating Kittson P., three months—jealous, protective of her.
  
• Directly involved with prom incident.
  
• Constantly in trouble w/administration, Dr. Trent.
  
• ONE incident away from expulsion.
  
• Unaware of Kittson’s cheating. USEFUL.
  

SCHUYLER WATSON

Location: Putnam (following)

• Ex of Connor Atkins—they broke up after prom, have not reunited.
  
• Has NOT revealed to anyone but Madison the facts with the Choate scandal, or why she left school. Cause of Connor breakup?
  
• Directly involved with prom incident.
  
• Easily manipulated, scared of others finding out about her past—weakness that can be used.
  

“Oh my God,” I murmured. I took a steadying breath and closed my eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. But the facts were still there, staring at
me from the screen in black-and-white. This was like when I’d come back from the Galápagos and found my Friendverse hacked—but was somehow much worse. The Friendverse hacking was mostly concerned with hurting me. But looking at the information that had been collected, it was clear that I was no longer the target.

It was my friends.

I leaned back against the throw pillows that were propped against my headboard, my heart beating hard. Isabel hadn’t been kidding, or exaggerating. There were literally files on me and my friends, and in them were all our secrets. And some secrets I hadn’t even been aware of, like Ginger’s failing English, and that all it would take would be one more infraction for both Ruth and Glen to be expelled. And it was really troubling that this much information could so easily be found on us. I realized that Isabel had been actively looking for it, and that we were dealing with someone who had an unbalanced mind and an evil streak a mile wide. But it was clear that a lot of this information had been gleaned from Friendverse profiles and status updates. And though I had tried to encourage all my friends to make their updates private, it appeared that nobody had listened to me.

But
how
had Isabel found out about Kittson hooking up with the lame preppy guy? I was fairly sure that Kittson wouldn’t have told anyone except me. And she would
never
have told Isabel. But I suddenly remembered my defense when Liz was accusing me of spilling the beans about her ill-advised hookup this spring—that there was the lame preppy guy to consider. For all I
knew, he knew Isabel. Or other people at the party might have seen Kittson kissing the LPG. Which was the problem with secrets, I realized as I looked at the long list of them that Isabel had compiled. They didn’t just belong to you.

I scrolled to the top of the page, looking at my absent 118-1, and then Nate’s. It was really troubling me that they weren’t there. That Isabel would bait me with the fact that she had information on us, but wasn’t going to let me see what it was.

And it wasn’t just the facts she’d gathered, I saw as I read through the profiles again, feeling my stomach drop. It wasn’t just the information itself. It was that the information had been analyzed, dispassionately, to see how it could best achieve the most destructive results. It had been examined with a view to hurting, and potentially seriously damaging, all my friends.

I stared at the screen until my eyes watered, and then closed them for a long moment, thinking. What was I going to do about this?

My iChat dinged, and I opened my eyes and saw an invitation from Kittson. Glad for a distraction—any distraction—I accepted, and a moment later, there she was. She was back in the wicker room, but now looked much, much happier.

“Hi,” she said, smiling wide.

“Hi,” I said, trying to keep my face from betraying any of what I had experienced that night. I quickly minimized the dossiers, as though Kittson could somehow see through her computer what I was looking at on mine.
“I was just, um, doing some reading. Nothing interesting. At all. Just, you know, Wikipedia.”

“Wow,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Way to have a rocking Sunday night, Mad. I just wanted to thank you for your advice. I called Glen, and we made up and things are really great now!”

I felt my face relax into a smile for the first time since Isabel had dropped her bombshell. “That’s great, Kittson,” I said. “I’m so happy for you guys.”

“Me too,” she said, pulling her hair up and examining her reflection in the tiny image of herself, then dropping it again. “What do you think?” she asked, smoothing down her hair. “Should I get layers?”

“Well,” I started, not even thrown. It was totally normal for Kittson to switch the subject to her hair within a conversation. The fact that she was doing it was actually a good sign, as it showed me that she was feeling better.

“No,” she said decisively, not waiting for me to finish. “I think they’d do weird things to my texture. Anyway.” She focused back on me. “I think you were absolutely right. I would have just upset things by telling him about my hookup with that guy. I mean, it didn’t mean anything. So why wreck what we have for something that didn’t even matter?”

“Right,” I said slowly. A tiny piece of me was still wondering if this was the right advice to have given her. But things were good with the two of them. Kittson looked happy. And if she had told Turtell the truth, I was 100 percent positive that neither of those things would be
true. And also, that lame preppy guys might find themselves in mortal peril.

“So what’s happening with you?” she asked, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

I glanced down at the minimized 118-1 and then made myself look back up at her, forcing a smile. “Nothing,” I said brightly. “Same old.”

Kittson frowned and leaned toward the screen, scrutinizing me. “Something’s wrong,” she said after a moment. “What is it, Madison? Tell me.”

It really was getting to be discouraging that my friends—not to mention Nate—could always seem to tell when I was lying. This was not a great testament to my acting skills, acceptably adequate or no. I was about to say something when I heard the sound of the garage door opening, which meant my father was home. “I have to go,” I said to Kittson, glad to be able to tell her the truth. “My dad’s home.”

She looked at me, narrowing her eyes. Then her expression relaxed and she smiled again. She was still clearly riding the happiness of the Turtell wave, and wasn’t going to let any suspected weirdness on my part bring her down. “All right,” she said. “But call me
soon
, okay? I don’t think I’m coming back to Putnam until August and I’m feeling totally out of the loop.”

“Sure,” I said quickly. “Bye, Kittson.” I closed out my iChat and then, after a moment’s deliberation, logged myself out so that none of my other friends would be able to see that I was online. I pulled up the dossiers and
looked at them for another moment before putting my computer to sleep.

Then I headed downstairs to say hi to my father. At this point, I would have even talked to Travis, if he’d been there. Anything to distract me from my own thoughts.

“Is there any more vanilla?” my father asked, leaning over to look into my carton. I held it out to him, but didn’t relinquish it until he handed over his rum raisin, which he had been hogging. “Thanks,” he said, dipping his spoon into the
Gofer To Go … fer
! container with a deep sigh.

When I’d arrived downstairs, I’d seen my father bee-lining for the freezer and removing all the ice cream. While this was not a good sign in terms of the night my father had had, it did help me realize that ice cream was precisely what I required at that moment. We had settled around the kitchen table, eating directly out of the cartons, something that my mother never would have allowed if she’d been there. But my mother was in London, so we were free to eat ice cream as it was meant to be consumed.

I’d started to ask my father about what was happening at the paper, but he’d just shaken his head and pointed to his carton. I had understood what he meant—and what’s more, appreciated a moment to try and get my own thoughts in order—so we ate in silence, the only sounds in the kitchen the ticking of the clock and the scrape of the metal spoons against the plastic containers.

When he had polished off the vanilla, my father sighed and pushed the container away from him. I did the same with the rum raisin, feeling the beginnings of an ice cream headache setting in. My father took off his ancient Cubs hat, the one he always wore when he was on deadline, and tossed it onto the counter. “It’s a mess, kid,” he told me, shaking his head.

This was very true, but I had a feeling that he was talking about his problem, not mine. “What’s going on?” I asked.

My father sighed again. “It’s this thing at the paper,” he said. “One of my favorite young baseball players—nothing but future ahead of this kid—is about to be implicated in a steroid scandal. The story’s going to break tomorrow.”

“Did he do it?” I asked, leaning forward.

My father shrugged. “I don’t know. We don’t have the facts yet. Which is why I’ve been in the newsroom, arguing with the editor. I don’t think we should go to print until it’s been proved, and isn’t just speculation.”

“But,” I said, trying to come up with some positive aspect to this, “if he didn’t do it, then his name will be cleared, and everything will be okay. Right?”

My father gave me a sad smile. “I wish the world worked that way, kiddo,” he said. “But rumor can ruin people. You don’t realize how much is built on a reputation until you see one about to crumble before you.”

I could have told him I knew that all too well. “But people can come back from that stuff,” I said, thinking about how, with the exception of the occasional sidelong
glance I still received, most people seemed to have forgotten about the hacking incident. “Right? If it’s disproved, he’ll be fine.”

My father just shook his head again. “I’m afraid that goes against who we are as people. Everyone latches on to the scandal. It’s
interesting
. It’s what people want to believe. You’ll find there’s a much smaller audience for people who want to hear the truth. And once impressions are made, it’s almost impossible to reset them. This is going to follow this kid his whole career. He’ll be the ‘suspected’ steroid user in every piece that ever gets written about him from now on. And it’s just so hard to see it and know you can’t do anything….” His voice trailed off. He stared into space for a moment, then glanced up at the clock. I looked up as well, and was shocked to see that it was close to midnight. I could feel the tiredness seeping into my bones. It had been a very long night.