Somebody Else's Music(122)

“Well, Nancy, if they really are bullying her, and physically attacking her—”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Lynn is captain of the varsity cheerleaders this year. DeeDee is president of the student council. Sharon has been a prom princess three times and probably will be prom queen in a couple of weeks. It’s the same old story. Diane is awkward and heavy and she’s got a face like a pizza—”

“Nancy.”

“There’s no point in sugar-coating it, is there? I’ve tried several times to get David Asch to listen to reason. I’ve offered to make sure Diane sees a good counselor and that the district pays for it. He just won’t listen to reason.”

“He feels,” Carol said slowly, “that, under the circumstances, if Diane goes to therapy it will only ratify the charges of these three girls that she’s, well, that there’s something wrong with her.”

“I see what you mean, but it’s total hogwash. Lynn and DeeDee and Sharon aren’t ‘charging’ Diane Asch with anything. Mostly, they’re just leaving her alone. Oh, Carol, for God’s sake. You know what these situations are like. She imagines insults where none exist. She follows them around until they explode at her, which maybe they shouldn’t do, but it’s perfectly human. She’s a mess. She needs help. He won’t let her get it.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Nancy began to twitch. Her throat was dry.

“He wasn’t the only one who called,” Carol said finally. “There was a man who said he was from the New York Times. He seems to be writing an article about Elizabeth Toliver, and he says—”

“What?”

“He says that there’s a police record. A sealed police record. Showing that you were picked up on the night that boy died, whatever his name was, and that you’d been involved in an incident where you and some other girls nailed Elizabeth Toliver into an outhouse out at the park along with some snakes. I’m sorry I sound garbled. I really didn’t understand the story.”

“If the police record is sealed, how did a man from the New York Times get to see it?”

“He says he’s got a copy.”

“Which could be fake, or forged, or anything. A lot of people were in the park the night Michael Houseman died. Peggy was in the park the night Michael Houseman died. Chris Inglerod Barr was in the park the night Michael Houseman died. So what? What does it have to do with anything?”

“I don’t think it’s the death of that boy that’s in contention,” Carol said. “I think it’s this story about the outhouse.”

“I still don’t understand what it has to do with anything,” Nancy said. By now, she was being patient only by an act of will. “All that happened over thirty years ago. What does that have to do with Diane Asch?”

“What they’re going to do, as an angle on the story, is to say that you were always, uh, the word he used was vicious, I’m afraid, I did protest, but—”

“Vicious,” Nancy said. “He said I was vicious. Then what?”

“That you were always vicious to kids who were out of the social swim and not very popular, and you still are that way, only now you’re principal, so that’s why you don’t do something about the girls who are persecuting Diane Asch. I did protest, Nancy, I did. I think the whole thing is absurd, but he just went on and on about it. And I must admit it’s made me uneasy. Isn’t there any way you can call these girls to account?”

“How can I call them to account if they haven’t done anything?”

“Even if they haven’t done anything, maybe you can call them in, you know, and have a meeting between them and Diane Asch and maybe her father, and call their parents in, too—”

“And their parents will quite rightly have a fit,” Nancy pointed out. “They’ll scream bloody murder. And they won’t be any more sympathetic to Diane Asch than I am.”

“I don’t know,” Carol said. “If this gets into the papers, and people start saying that you play favorites among the students, the district might be put into the position of ordering an investigation, and if we did that, we’d have to suspend you—”

“If you tried it, I’d sue your ass off.”

“I’m sure you could institute a lawsuit if you wanted to, Nancy, but you wouldn’t win it and I don’t think the district would settle out of court. We couldn’t afford to do that with a case we’d probably win. And we would probably win it because everybody these days is very concerned about the states of mind the loners are in, and the students who don’t quite fit, and those people, because of all the school shootings. Not that I think Diane Asch is in any danger of becoming a school shooter—”