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for Ben and our dogs.”
    “Yeah,” she said again. “But you know how
Lakeside is about football. It has to do with getting alumni
money.”
    “That’s what colleges do! Lakeside’s just a
stupid little—oh, sorry. I forgot you still go there.”
    “That’s okay,” Glyn said. “I sort of agree
with you about the football. It makes people like Evan think
they’re bigger than they are.”
    That brought me back to the latest mess.
“They took pictures? How do you know?”
    “They bragged about it. I heard them say
something about Facebook. They weren’t too sober themselves at that
point. I asked them what the hell they thought they were doing and
they asked did I want some. They said Kelsey wanted it. That she
begged for it.”
    “Capital B capital S. Glyn, you’re a witness
that she was in no condition to do that.”
    The depth of Evan’s depravity appalled me.
And to think, I once—I can’t use the word “love” in the same
sentence with Evan. Okay, I once dated him.
    “Sick,” I said. “They’re all sick. What is
there to brag about? Do they think it makes them heroes or
something, to rape a passed-out drunk girl? And everybody’s going
to say it was her fault for getting drunk.”
    “It’s my fault!” Glyn wailed. “I shouldn’t
have gone to pee.”
    “When nature calls, you gotta answer.”
    “Yes, but I saw him get her another drink. I
tried to let her know she shouldn’t take it but she didn’t catch
on. Then I really had to go. I didn’t know what he was doing till
he got her upstairs. I would’ve stopped him.”
    “He’d have brushed you aside and done it
anyway. Or gotten you, too. Okay, where do we go from here?”
    “Like what?” she asked.
    “Boil it in oil.”
    “Boil what?”
    “It. What else? Okay, that’s not
realistic. It’s too bad Rick wasn’t there. But I’ll tell him all
about it. Do you think Kelsey would be able to testify?”
    “I think Kelsey would rather die,” said Glyn.
“But those pictures. How do you get pictures off the Internet if
you’re not the one who put them there?”
    “I’ll ask Ben. Or maybe Rick would know.”
Although Rick was not the computer geek, that Ben was. But Rick
knew crime, and rape was a crime. Taking pictures of it must have
been sort of a crime.
    “I’m sure Ben has the know-how,” Glyn said.
“But would he do anything? After what happened between them?”
    An aroma of cinnamon wafted up from the
kitchen and through my closed door. My mother was baking her Sunday
morning coffeecake. In honor of Ben’s leaving for college in a few
days.
    “I’ve never known Ben to hold a grudge,” I
said. “He puts things in perspective. He knows she didn’t
understand about Asperger’s. Most people don’t know what it’s
really like. And she’s such a wimp. Anyway, it’s an interesting
technological problem. He likes those.”
    Ben’s door was closed. He might have been
sleeping late, having quit his summer job because he was going off
to MIT. That’s the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You had
to be really smart to get in, and Ben was.
    I took a quick shower, put on clean shorts
and shirt, and went downstairs.
    Daddy was already there, enjoying his
once-a-week bacon and eggs. The eggs were scrambled and I got some,
too. As was my habit, I sprinkled them with grated parmesan. My
mother, who I call Rhoda, thought that was atrocious.
    “Any word about the party last night?” She
knew I’d been stood up.
    I didn’t want to tell her everything yet. It
wasn’t breakfast table conversation. I felt a pang, thinking how
Kelsey’s morning must be.
    “Glyn called,” was all I said. “I’m glad I
didn’t go. Evan was there.”
    “I thought he left the area.”
    “He’s ba-a-ack. Isn’t that nice?” How could
Rhoda not know? “He’s been back for quite a while, as you must have
noticed. Who do you think’s been plaguing me?”
    Ben came down the stairs. Should I tell him
now or later? I decided to let him