What had they done that was so bad? What horrible things had a coach, a car salesman, a handsy geriatric asshole for the love of Christ, done that they were stupid enough to confess to Buddy Waleski?
And why did these idiots keep coming back every weekend for football, for basketball, for baseball, for soccer, when Buddy was blackmailing them?
Why were they smoking his cigars? Swilling his beer? Burning holes in his furniture? Screaming at his TV?
Let’s finish on the couch.
Callie’s eyes followed the triangle from the one-inch hole drilled into the front of the bar, to the couch directly across from it, to the giant TV that weighed more than she did.
There was a glass shelf underneath the set.
Cable box. Cable splitter. VCR.
She had grown used to seeing the three-pronged RCA cable that hung down from the jacks on the front of the VCR. Red for the right audio channel. White for the left audio. Yellow for video. The cable threaded into one long wire that lay coiled on the carpet below the television. Not once, ever, had Callie wondered what the other end of that cable plugged into.
Let’s finish on the couch.
“Baby girl.” Buddy’s desperation was sweating out of his body. “Maybe you should go home, all right? Lemme give you some money. I told you I got paid for that job tomorrow. Good to spread it around, right?”
Callie was looking at him now.
She was really looking at him.
Buddy reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. He counted off the bills like he was counting off all the ways he controlled her. “Buy yourself a new shirt, all right? Get some matching pants and shoes or whatever. Maybe a necklace? You like that necklace I gave you, right? Get another one. Or four. Be like Mr. T.”
“Do you film us?” The question was out before she could consider the kind of hell that the answer could rain down. They never made love in the bed anymore. It was always on the couch. And all those times he’d carried her back to tuck her in? It was right after they had finished on the couch. “Is that what you do, Buddy? You film yourself fucking me and you show it to your friends?”
“Don’t be stupid.” His tone was the same as Trevor’s when he promised he wasn’t tapping the glass on the aquarium. “I wouldn’t do that, would I? I love you.”
“You’re a goddam pervert.”
“Watch your nasty mouth.” He wasn’t screwing around with his warning. She could see exactly what was going on now—what had been going on for at least six months.
Dr. Patterson waving at her from the bleachers during pep rallies.
Coach Holt winking at her from the sidelines during football games.
Mr. Ganza smiling at Callie as he passed her mother some sliced cheese over the deli counter.
“You—” Callie’s throat clenched. They had all seen her with her clothes off. The things she had done to Buddy on the couch. The things that Buddy had done to her. “I can’t—”
“Callie, calm down. You’re getting hysterical.”
“I am fucking hysterical!” she screamed. “They’ve seen me, Buddy. They’ve watched me. They all know what I—what we—”
“Doll, come on.”
She dropped her head into her hands, humiliated.
Dr. Patterson. Coach Holt. Mr. Ganza. They weren’t mentors or fatherly figures or sweet old men. They were perverts who got off on watching Callie get screwed.
“Come on, baby,” Buddy said. “You’re blowing this out of proportion.”
Tears streamed down her face. She could barely speak. She had loved him. She had done everything for him. “How could you do this to me?”
“Do what?” Buddy sounded flip. His eyes darted down to the wad of cash. “You got what you wanted.”
She shook her head. She had never wanted this. She had wanted to feel safe. To feel protected. To have someone interested in her life, her thoughts, her dreams.
“Come on, baby girl. You got your uniforms paid for, and your cheerleading camp, and your—”
“I’ll tell my mother,” she threatened. “I’ll tell her exactly what you did.”
“You think she gives a shit?” His laugh was genuine, because they both knew it was true. “As long as the cash keeps coming, your mama don’t care.”
Callie swallowed the glass that had filled her throat. “What about Linda?”
His mouth fished open like a trout’s.
“What’s your wife gonna think about you fucking her son’s fourteen-year-old babysitter for the last two years?”