After the Woods (22 page)

Revenge to be sought.

 

TWELVE

365 Days After the Woods

I haven't left my bed since.

It's been less than twenty-four hours since the Shiverton Abduction episode aired, and already Ricker has made complaints to the Federal Communications Commission and the Society of Professional Journalists and the White House (though it's fully believable, I made the last one up). Erik's friend's legal opinion is that we can't sue, because Paula was under the reasonable impression that my mother had consented, and besides, the interview would likely be considered in the public interest, since it was about police misconduct. Liv was easily airbrushed out of the story, which is the advantage of running away from the scene of a crime. Paula kept her promise not to reveal the facts she's turned up about Liv.

That was the only promise she kept.

The interview was a human interest story to the extent that Paula is a human and she was interested in creatively editing and contextualizing everything I said. Every worthwhile story contains tension between victims and perpetrators: I was the victim, and the parole board and the Shiverton Police Department were the perpetrators. Donald was mainly an off-the-hook closet deviant running around foaming at the mouth. Paula's job was to frame the conflict properly, and she selected the frame.

The finished piece included these highlights. I break them down into three categories:
What I Actually Said
,
What You Heard Me Say on TV
, and
What Paula Said on TV
.

What I Actually Said
: Mrs. Jessup said Donny had his demons, but he wasn't capable of killing someone. She said she would go to her grave saying that.

What You Heard Me Say on TV
: Mrs. Jessup said Donny had his demons. She said she would go to her grave saying that.

What Paula Said on TV
: So Yvonne Jessup knew that her son was a clear danger to society.

What I Actually Said
: His mother said he didn't waste money on things like a gym membership. His main hobby was hunting birds and squirrels, and other animals with his BB gun.

What You Heard Me Say on TV
: His mother said his main hobby was hunting animals with his BB gun.

What Paula Said on TV
: In other words, he took pleasure in maiming and killing small, defenseless prey animals.

What I Actually Said
: There were lots of framed photos on the mantel of him, only up through about age eleven. He looked like a happy little kid.

What You Heard Me Say on TV
: There were framed photos on the mantel of him only up through age eleven.

What Paula Said on TV
: So the photos vanished after age eleven, the last age at which Yvonne wished to remember him, before he receded into the dark recesses of his mind.

What I Actually Said
: She said he liked to work in the dining room because it had the best light. Mrs. Jessup joked that he thought she could control the sun, like God.

What You Heard Me Say on TV
: She said he thought she could control the sun, like God.

What Paula Said on TV
: In other words, he suffered from the delusion that his mother was God.

What I Actually Said
: She claimed she had a panic button and a guard dog. She was paranoid about her TV getting stolen by kids who partied behind her house. To tell you the truth, I think she watched one too many
CSI
shows.

What You Heard Me Say on TV
: She had a panic button and a guard dog. She was paranoid.

What Paula Said on TV
: It sounds as though Yvonne Jessup lived in fear of being raped and murdered by her own son.

What I Actually Said
: I don't think she understood her son was troubled. She definitely knew nothing about him having a parole officer. I think she was in the dark about his past crimes. And she apologized for what he did to me. That was big for me to hear. I'm still thinking about it.

What You Heard Me Say on TV
: She definitely knew nothing about him having a parole officer. That was big for me to hear. I'm still thinking about it.

What Paula Said on TV
: Nothing. She winced a millimeter and shook her head almost imperceptibly. It was an expression of disbelief, sympathy, and outrage deserving of an Oscar, all without a sound.

For the record (and I'm guessing there is no longer one beyond my notebook, which is where I wrote this), here are the

Things I Know About Yvonne Jessup:

- Didn't want to let me in, but I told her it was the right thing to do

- Likes Bob Ross

- Was sorry for the way her son chased me

- Was afraid of a lot of things, but not Donny

- Wishes he was back upstairs

- Doesn't know if she believes in a God anymore

- Wanted me to remember he was human

On the next page, which happens to be the last page of my notebook, I've written:

Things I Know About Donald Jessup:

- Bought his mother a TV

- Was trusting

- Needed quiet so he could concentrate

- Was good at drawing faces

- Drew pictures of his girlfriend

- Liked the same things as his girlfriend

- Was in love

Even if I'm the only one who will ever see it, there is now a record of the truth.

*   *   *

In the woods, I tried to count the stars, and when I couldn't make them out, I divided numbers in my head to keep from screaming. My research is done. I have no more things to count. So I can no longer keep from screaming.

The first time the scream came, I was riding home in the town car from WFYT, and the words came to me, Liv's voice, lilting in my right ear.

chat, play, more

And all the uncertain things became certain. I threw back my head, bared my throat, and wailed. The driver almost crashed. Dr. Ricker calls them primal screams, says they're a form of letting off steam and will bring catharsis. They seem to be having the opposite effect. Every time I scream, I get angrier, a wave crashing onto shore followed by another, bigger wave.

chat, play, more

And now I'm angry enough to torch a prom with my mind. Boil a bunny. Bark like a dog. I am all three Furies, breath burning and eyes dripping with blood, waiting at the mouth of Hell to wreak vengeance. Prayer and tears won't move me.

There is an upside. Erik has moved into our guest room, ostensibly to help Mom deal with my madness. I hadn't seen him since that night Kellan showed up at my house: the music, the laughter, Mom's sloppy gestures. I assume some line got crossed while Kellan and I weren't paying attention, and awkwardness ensued. But any awkwardness has been forgotten, now that I've had what I heard Mom tell Erik was a “psychological break.”

As if I'd be this upset over a stupid interview that I agreed to from the beginning. I like to think it takes a little more than being violated by Paula Papademetriou to send me stomping around the house, pulling out my hair, and yelling into pillows.

Being violated by my best friend: that's different.

I've taken to locking myself in my car in the garage, or slipping into the thatch of trees behind our house, just to save Mom and Erik from witnessing the ugly. Especially Mom. Among my other new habits: slipping the Klonopin Ricker gave me between my teeth and burying it in my spider plant. Which is looking very relaxed. I had to keep my wits sharp, to finish my research.

I've been studying the sketch Yvonne gave me. I scanned it into Roboteye, a reverse-image search engine that lets you find out where an image came from, how it's being used, and if modified versions exist. The way it works is surreal. Facial recognition algorithms identify features by extracting landmarks from an image of the subject's face. For example, an algorithm may analyze the relative position, size, and the shape of the eyes, nose, cheekbones, and jaw. Those landmarks are used to search for other images with ones that match. It's freaking brilliant. And it's free. But the subject of Donny's sketches never made her way to the Internet, not even as a driver's license photo.

This was just me proving my hypothesis. Now that my research is complete, I know the girl in the sketch never existed.

Though Donny's girlfriend did.

It's this funny inverse of a cliché. Usually when a person lies online about their appearance, they pretend to look better than they do in real life. Like the guy who posts pictures of himself on Match.com from twenty years and twenty pounds ago. But when someone you love—say, your own mother—insists other people will only love you if you're that someone's version of perfect, then you experiment a little. Prove them wrong. So when you describe yourself to a Donald Jessup / Lonely Hearts Club type, for example, you pick all the things you think would make you ugly. But he loves you anyway. Immortalizes the you he thinks you are in his sketches. Mails them to you, and you hang them in your own personal, fiberglass-insulated trophy room.
Winning!
you think.
Eff you, Mother
. He drives all around town trying to see you in person, but you provide exactly enough wrong clues that he always just misses you. The whole experiment works, until one day, simply flirting with danger isn't enough. You decide it would be fun to let him see what you really look like; let him in on the experiment. Unfortunately, the subject you picked for your experiment turns out to be a murderous psychopath.

Whoops.

I've had lots of time to think of next steps. In fact, I titled this chapter “Next Steps” in my notebook, where I've had to start over from the beginning, along the margins. On the early pages, my handwriting is vigilant and tense. Now it flows. On the very first page, the page with the bisected cat's eye, I wrote along the side “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” as a personal reminder of my new MO. (Everyone attributes that to the Chinese general Sun Tzu in
The Art of War.
But what he was really saying was, Know your enemy and know yourself and you will always be victorious. The original quote is actually from Machiavelli's
The Prince
, the ultimate primer on how to be a sneaky liar. You use the word
Machiavellian
to describe someone who manipulates others in an opportunistic and deceptive way to get what they want.)

I will confront Liv for throwing me into the path of a psychopath for a sick thrill, for her own proof to herself that, contrary to Mommy's lies, she could be loved no matter how she looked. Only I have to figure out how, and I don't have much time. But I can't think on that now, because Erik is here, and I have to make him not worry quite so much.

We sit in Adirondack chairs on my back deck, bundled in blankets. I insist on being outside these days, and Mom seems to like the idea. Which is totally in character, since fresh air was once a cure for female hysteria along with bloodletting, cold douches over the head, and lobotomies. For the nth time, I re-count the trees that line the end of our property, my mouth moving silently until Erik interrupts.

“Your mom says you're planning to go to the Lapins' house for a Monday-night holiday party. Think you're ready for that?”

“Can we talk about something else?” I ask, picking at invisible lint on my blanket.

“Absolutely. How about this: Why would you ever go see the mother of Donald Jessup?”

“Dr. Ricker told Mom the impulse to reach out to the relative of my perpetrator was natural. I quote: ‘The urge to connect Donald Jessup with some evidence of his own humanity is a sign of healing.'”

“It was completely reckless,” he says.

I turn in my chair. “Seriously? You were the one supporting my ‘need for information' before. Maybe my need for information is okay to a certain extent, but when it gets a little freaky—”

“A dumb, dangerous move. Period,” he says in a definitive way I sort of admire.

“Yvonne Jessup can barely see past her glasses and gets around on a walker on tennis balls. The only thing that could have hurt me in that house was an allergy attack from all the squirrel droppings.”

“You were exploited, Julia. On national news. Yvonne Jessup could have sued you for harassment. She still might sue—who knows? More importantly, we can't predict the psychological effects of meeting with that woman alone.” He leans in and says in an undertone, “I would have gone with you. If you really wanted to talk to Yvonne Jessup, I would have considered going with you.”

I soften. “You would have?”

“Yes. Probably. I also could have saved you from what happened afterward. At the very least, being ambushed and coerced into Paula's car should have been horrible enough to change your perspective on the reporters covering your story,” Erik says.

“If by ‘changed perspective' you mean ‘distrust,' sure,” I say.

“That's huge. It lets you move on.”

“Where am I going?” I ask.

He shakes his head at my brand of throwaway sarcasm. It stings, and I regret it immediately, because I'm starting to feel very alone in this world, and I need Erik to stay close. My allies are dropping like flies: in great, skeevy numbers. There's Paula, who blatantly used me. Liv has not been my true friend in a year, likely more. My nationally televised, police-damning interview ensures Kellan won't be coming around anytime soon. Even Alice has been afraid to knock on the door, probably having overheard my primal screams in the backyard.

“I've found that when life-changing events happen, it becomes time to shed your skin. Like a snake—” Erik says.