Page 93 of She Used to Be Nice
“How did you get here?” Mom asked, already in a panic. “Subway? I hate the idea of you going down there by yourself. The crime rate in your area has got to be astronomical.”
Here we go. “It’s fine, Mom. I feel very safe.”
“Can’t you move somewhere with a doorman?” Dad asked. “We’d feel so much better if you had that extra layer of protection.”
“If you want to pay the rent that kind of apartment would cost, absolutely.”
Inside the restaurant, they were seated at a table right near the bar, below a row of televisions mounted on the ceiling. The table was covered in a green-and-white checkered tablecloth, with salt and pepper shakers and a ketchup bottle gathered in the center. Avery had specifically chosen J. G. Melon not only because it boasted one of the juiciest burgers in the city, but because it was the safest choice for her picky parents, who mostly stuck to the same two Italian restaurants within a five-mile radius of their house.
“What’s new, honey?” Dad said after the waiter took their food and drink orders. “You guys getting ready for the wedding?”
Avery nodded. In addition to therapy, she’d also been busy with last-minute wedding tasks, like scheduling mani-pedi appointments for the bridesmaids and drafting her maid of honor speech. “Yep. It’s just a few weeks away now.”
“I forgot to ask you how Colorado was. Morgan’s pictures online looked beautiful.”
Avery fiddled nervously with the tablecloth. “Oh, yeah. It was fine.”
“Whose house was that?” Mom asked. “It was stunning.”
“Noah’s. He’s a friend of Charlie’s.” Now that Avery had told some people about her sexual assault, she wondered if she should tell her parents, too. Didn’t they deserve an explanation for why their daughter had changed so much over the last year? With their conservative tendencies, though, could Avery trust them to believe her? Morgan, Charlie, and Pete already did. Maybe there was more support available to her waiting with open arms, if she’d just let herself be held.
“Well, he must beverysuccessful to afford something like that,” Mom concluded.
A journalist on one of the television screens in the restaurant suddenly began discussing the Moore victims’ accounts of what happened during the assaults, focusing on how Moore tied a blue bandana around the base of his shaft to keep himself erect. Avery blew bubbles in her Diet Coke to block the information from entering her brain.
“Goodness,” Mom scoffed, nodding at the television. “All these women want is attention.”
“And money,” Dad said.
Avery took her lips off her straw. “What did you just say?”
“They want to sue Moore for his millions,” Dad said casually, like this was a widely known fact. “Money talks. These girls are full of it.”
“Andthey get to go on the news,” Mom added in the same factual tone. “I bet one of them is an aspiring actor auditioning for her next emotional TV role.”
Avery couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her parents weren’t just conservative. They were fucking conspiracy theorists.
“That’s a little ridiculous, don’t you think?” she said. “These women are getting so much shit right now. I see it at work all the time. IfMetropolitan’ssocial media replies are filled with death threats just because we’recoveringthe story, I can only imagine what the women themselves are dealing with.”
Dad shrugged. “I doubt those women will care about a bad tweet when they’re raking in the dough.”
“Dave Moore won’t go anywhere,” Mom said with a wave of her hand. “His shows are too good. The networks need him for content.”
Avery felt the rising tides of fury unearth themselves from deep inside her. What kind of nonsensical reaction were her parents having right now? What kind of nonsensical reaction would they have toher?
She thought about the people in group therapy, about the women coming forward to share their abuse at the hands of Dave Moore. She thought about Noah and his appearance onShark Tankand their confrontation in Colorado. About his admission. So many perpetrators, getting investments in their start-ups and prestigious Emmy awards and forgiveness from ignorant people like her friends and parents and idiots on social media. Still. Even after #MeToo, even after the illusion of cultural progress had been made.
A forest fire of rage lit up inside Avery’s stomach. Something else needed to change. More of these predators needed to be taken down.
Including hers.
Avery stayed up researching all night, every night, for almost two weeks. Hunched over her laptop in the darkness of her bedroom, the bright blue light making her bloodshot eyes pulse in their sockets, she wrote down everything—everything she wanted the world to know. It poured out of her like a gushing waterfall emptying into the mouth of a river.
A few days before the wedding, it was ready.
From her seat at work, Avery watched the writers and editors gather for their pitch meeting in the conference room. She grabbed her laptop and hustled over to join them, then sat down in an empty seat a few chairs away from Patricia, who was typing something on her laptop with her reading glasses perched on her nose. Kevin walked by and gave Avery a thumbs up through the glass window. She couldn’t have done what she was about to do without his help.
The meeting began at Patricia’s introduction. Everyone fired off new ideas and stories they were working on. One writer pitched an in-depth look into the lies Republicans told about abortion, including their belief that abortion involved ripping a baby from a mother’s womb moments before birth. Larry was getting to the bottom of a situation in which a bus driver refused to drive until a wheelchair passenger was strapped in, but the straps were so tight that they’d made other patrons bleed; he wanted to hold the MTA accountable for the lack of compassion and poor transportation design.
