Touch by Francine Prose

a fire blazing under my eyes when I thought of those lying slobs saying I’d asked if other boys would pay to touch me. How could they say that? We used to be friends! I’d thought that Shakes really liked me. Had Shakes said it, or just the other two? I didn’t want to ask.
    I understood the jingling coins now. All the smirking and whispers and jingling money was suddenly, disgustingly clear.
    Joan said, “What kind of young woman do you think my husband and I have raised? I don’t want tohear another word of this unless my husband is present. And, just possibly, our lawyer.”
    Lawyer! The magic word that Doctor Nyswander most dreaded hearing.
    “No,” he said. “I didn’t mean…” And now he could hardly talk.
    For some reason, they all swiveled around to look at me. I heard that jingling sound again, but now it seemed to get louder and louder. The inside of my head felt hot. Steam seemed to be filling my brain and all the cavities in my skull. What would they do if steam actually came hissing out my ears?
    How could the guys have said that? Did anyone believe them? Could anyone really think that I was some slutty freak, some cheap ho who got off on letting guys pay to touch her? I could hardly stand to think about the fact that the guys who said this weren’t some weird pervert strangers I’d just met. These were my oldest friends, the buddies I’d known my whole life.
    I know that I could never be a suicidal person, but if someone had come along at that moment and said, Just jump out that window, Maisie, and you won’t have to feel the way you’re feeling, you won’t have to get through thenext couple of days. Jump out the window and you won’t ever have to face Chris and Kevin. And Shakes. Or the other kids at school. You won’t have to decide what you’re going to say when you see them —well, it might have been tempting. But I wasn’t going to jump. As bad as this was, it wasn’t worth killing myself. And besides, to be perfectly practical, the principal’s office was on the first floor.
    I wasn’t going to do anything drastic. I was just going to have to get through this. I would just have to stay cool and wait for the moment and get revenge, not big revenge, just something to even the score and make me feel a little better. If that was possible. Which I doubted.
    I’d think that and calm down and then get furious all over again. I was in full-blown outrage mode when I felt myself starting to shake like an overloaded appliance, like a dishwasher or washing machine that’s on the edge of imploding. I needed to get out of there, out of that office, out of that school. Fast. Right now.
    I said, “Joan, could I talk to you? Outside.”
    The others were talking quietly. But something about my tone of voice sliced right through their polite little chatter.
    Doctor Nyswander told Joan, “Perhaps we can check in later on the phone.” He meant he expected me to tell Joan everything—the truth!—and Joan would tell him everything I told her. But that wasn’t going to happen.
    “Perhaps,” said Joan. “And perhaps I’ll have my lawyer call you.” For a minute—a few seconds, really—I almost wanted to high-five her, until I told myself that Joan just felt she’d been insulted, and, as far as Joan was concerned, it didn’t have all that much to do with me.
    As Joan and I walked out the door, I heard Mrs. Blick mumbling something about how she’d send more notes around to my teachers so I wouldn’t be marked absent for the rest of the afternoon.
    “Thank you,” Joan remembered to say. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Mrs. Blick.”
    I didn’t say a word till we got into Joan’s car and were a couple of miles from school. A battle was going on in my head, between the force of reason and the force of sheer rage. And rage kept winning out. How could the guys say something like that? When I felt the anger get stronger, it felt weirdly like losing an arm-wrestling contest. There was