Please Ignore Vera Dietz(40)
Author: A.S. King

The first time I realized things were going to get nasty was the first week in April, when Charlie broke our friendship off at the pagoda because he believed the lies Jenny Flick told him. First it was the one where I told the whole school about his dad beating his mom. Then, a few days later, she told him that I told people that his penis was small. Why he believed these things, I do not know. If he’d taken a minute to think about it, he’d have realized I never even saw his penis. But I guess when you believe the word of a complete liar, logic doesn’t come into it.

Because I hadn’t said any of these things, I didn’t defend myself. I just waited for things to blow over, which I was convinced they would do on account of Charlie having a brain. But then, in late April, Jenny told him that I’d told the whole junior class that he was g*y, and he finally retaliated by sharing the most obvious ammunition, which was the fact that my mother was once a stripper. Awesome. One minute I was Vera Dietz, invisible junior, next minute I was Vera Dietz, junior with a mother who used to be a stripper. People ate this up.

Inside, I died a little bit. I didn’t know what to feel. On one hand, I hated my parents for being who they were. On the other hand, I hated Charlie. Most of all, I hated Jenny Flick. But none of that mattered, because I was faced with the harsh reality that the biggest secret I ever had was out, and I had to continue going to school, and sitting through Chemistry, and eating lunch. On the inside, I was so embarrassed, I could barely look up from my shoes. It was like walking around naked.

Somebody wrote SHAKE IT BABY on my locker, which turned my cheeks hot every time I saw it before the janitor washed it off. I got pushed or pinched by invisible hands in the crowded halls between classes, a few times by Jenny herself, but other times I looked behind me and saw no familiar faces. On the bus, kids who knew me sang that sultry song people sing when they’re pretending to strip. Tim Miller’s brother actually took off his shirt, twirled it around and flung it, and then started unbuttoning his pants until the bus driver told him to stop. I sat in the front seat after that day, with my earbuds in, and ignored them all.

While I quietly hoped it would all go away and sent my old PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ signals into the atmosphere, the rumor grew. First they said that I also stripped, in town, at night. Two seniors told their gym class that they’d watched me and stuffed money into my G-string. Then, it was said that my mother had been a hooker. Also that my mother was still a hooker in Las Vegas. And also? Vera Dietz was a hooker, too. As crazy as these things sound, people believed. Within a week, Vera Dietz was a  p**n  actress and had starred in films alongside her  p**n -star mother, who was also a hooker in Las Vegas. (If only she’d moved to Salt Lake City or Boise.)

I faced each day with a mix of dread, tears, and disappointment. I couldn’t figure out why people (Charlie) had to be so cruel and why others were so stupid to just believe and tell their friends, who told their friends, until everyone knew ten versions of my story but didn’t know which one to believe. I had thoughts of running away and changing schools. I even thought, once, how easy it would be to just die. It was as if living next door to the person who did this to me was a torment I would never shake. I don’t think the word betrayal covers it—more like high treason or defection or Iscariotism.

But after two weeks, I realized that I was looking at things all wrong. First, who in their right mind would believe that a geek like me was really a hooker or a  p**n  star? Second, as time went on, the only people saying this stuff were the mega-losers at school. Everyone else went on like normal. Essentially, by the time two weeks had passed, I was the only person who was thinking about it anymore. And I was slowly realizing that it wasn’t the end of the world.

No doubt, it was hard to come to public terms with my mother’s past employment at Joe’s strip club, but confronting it made me feel a certain degree of freedom. I was not my mother. My mother did what she had to do. Anyone who didn’t get that could believe what they wanted and I wouldn’t care.

And soon enough, anyone who believed any of it would move on to Jenny’s next victim, and forget about me.

Yeah, I had some pretty evil thoughts about telling Charlie’s real secret—about the pervert in the white Chrysler—but I reminded myself that the high road is paved with positivity. I took deep breaths. I did homework. I ignored. Then I’d have thoughts about how to make people hate Jenny Flick by outing her lies about leukemia and everything else. But then I’d breathe some more. I’d do more homework. I reminded myself that the one thing Jenny Flick couldn’t buy, no matter what she used as currency, was a ticket to drive on the high road next to people like me.

And then spring sprung. I missed being outside, so I started walking the blue trail. Since Charlie was doing work-study, I didn’t have any fear he’d be around, and anyway, if he wasn’t working, he’d probably be somewhere else drinking and smoking pot with his new friends, and nowhere near his sacred oak tree where the Great Hunter could see him. I bought myself a new pair of hiking boots and did the full three-mile circle every day. When Dad showed concern that I’d be in the woods by myself, I wiggled my cell phone and said, “I’ve got you on speed dial. Plus, I know those trails better than anyone.”

He said, “Huh. I guess cell phones are good for something.”

One warm day in early May, while I was walking, I heard voices coming from the trail ahead of me. Before I could turn around, I saw Charlie and Jenny Flick and Bill Corso, and a few other kids, hanging out around the Master Oak. Bill Corso had a pocketknife and was carving his initials into the bark.

“Hey! Look who it is!”

I turned and started walking back down the trail, so angry that they were in my woods. On my trail. Up my tree.

Jenny yelled, “Run home, little Vera!”

One of the boys yelled “Slut!” so I turned and looked back, and then something landed in my hair that smelled like dog shit. (Because it was dog shit.) I knew deep down that Charlie had thrown it, because he was the only one who was facing me, but I didn’t admit it to myself. How was I supposed to do that? How was I supposed to admit that my lifelong best friend had just thrown dog shit at me? It was as if he had been abducted by aliens. That was not Charlie. Charlie would not let anyone carve the Master Oak. Charlie would not wear new clothes that fit him right, or have that new haircut. Charlie would not use hair gel. (Charlie would not throw dog shit at me, no matter who told him to do it.)