The Mockingbirds (33 page)

Then it’s Martin’s turn. “You know my story. Besides, this is the only extracurricular group that really matters in the long run.”

I look to Amy. “So you’re the only one on the board who’s been through a case yourself?”

Amy nods. “Yes. Because that’s how we keep going.”

“What do you mean?”

“We pay it forward.”

“Meaning?” I ask slowly.

Amy smiles, that same sort of mesmerizing smile she’s been flashing all semester. “It’s not bad, Alex. It’s just we have to ensure the group can keep going. And we do that by asking”—she pauses after the last word, giving it space—“those we help to take over. That’s how we sustain the group’s survival to keep doing good. And now,” she continues, “it’s my honor and privilege in the great tradition of the Mockingbirds, because we believe in justice and goodness and fairness, to ask you, Alex, to take over for me as the head of the Mockingbirds next year.”

“Why not Martin? He loves the Mockingbirds.”

“I can’t,” Martin says. “Remember when I told you I could never be the leader? This is why. You have to have been helped to be the leader.”

From victim to ruler, powerless to powerful, that’s how the Mockingbirds work.

“You never told me this. Casey… Casey never told me this,” I stammer, because I kind of just want to go back to being me again.

Except life doesn’t work that way. I have to go forward.

“Some things are on a need-to-know basis,” Amy says in a reassuring tone.

“What about the others you helped? The junior whose roommates were cheating off him? Or the freshmen theater
students who brought the others to you?” I ask. “And it’s only March. Aren’t there other cases? There could be other cases the rest of the year.”

“Yes, but you’re the one I want to carry the torch,” Amy says proudly, as if she’s asked me to be the godmother of a child or something. “I was hoping you’d want to.”

Do I want to? It’s never occurred to my uninvolved, apathetic heart to lead, to
want
to lead. But that girl is making room for this new one.

“Yes, I want to,” I say, and the words don’t feel foreign. They feel like a new beginning.

Amy claps happily. “Great, I’ll teach you everything. You can observe for the next two months and learn how we work. As for next year, I’ll be like an informal advisor to you. Ilana’s off to college but Martin is eligible for one more term if you want to keep him on next year. However, there is one thing you’ll have to do first.

“As you know,” Amy continues, “Martin violated the rules by being involved with you. Members of the Mockingbirds can date one another, but we forbid involvement with people we’re helping. It’s a conflict of interest. It could hurt our credibility. Anyway, now that you’re the leader-
elect,
I’m going to leave it up to you to decide whether he can stay on for another term or not.”

I laugh. Like I’d say no, like I’d forbid him, like I’d be that kind of a person? He’s Martin. I want him to have what he wants. He loves the Mockingbirds.

I look to Martin and my lips curl up in a smile, like we
have a secret, only now everyone knows it. “Do you want to stay on?” I ask curiously.

“Of course,” he says, the sparkle in his eyes returning.

“Of course you can, then,” I echo back.

“That’s settled, then,” Amy says with a knowing look. “I figured you’d say that and I was hoping he’d stay on too. That’s why I had you decide, so he could.”

Even black-and-white Amy has a shade of gray. Even Amy can bend the rules in her own way.

“If you want to get up to speed, you can read everything you need to know in here,” Amy says, and taps her notebook, the one with the mockingbird on the cover. “I’ll need it back in a few days. But when the school year ends it’ll be all yours.” She hands it to me. “Guard it with your life. It has all our rules and information on where records are kept.”

I hold the slightly worn notebook as an archaeologist would a newly found treasure, one that has great and forbidding powers.

“Well, kids. I have to study,” Amy says, and skips up.

“I don’t,” Ilana says smugly.

“You still have classes, Miss Early Admission to Columbia,” Amy points out.

“Yeah, but they don’t really matter.”

Then they walk out of the laundry room and it’s just Martin and me and the notebook. I rub my thumb on the edge of the pages, not ready to open it yet, not ready for it to spill its secrets for me. But I will be. Soon I will be.

“You’re going to be a hard-ass ruler, aren’t you?” he says playfully.

“Oh yeah. Just like I was back there.”

“Thanks for letting me stay.”

“Did you really think I was going to kick you out?”

Martin shrugs. “Honestly?”

“Well, yeah. Honestly.”

“I didn’t know what you were going to do.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because now that this is over, I feel like you don’t need me anymore,” he says.

I shake my head in answer, because Martin might once have been about need, but now he is about want. “Do you want to go to your room?” I suggest.

He shrugs his shoulders happily. “Sure. Sandeep’s in the library anyway. But we don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I
want
to. I don’t want to be here in this laundry room anymore. I want to be in your room.”

He holds out a hand and we head to his dorm. I keep the notebook tucked tightly under my arm the whole way. I walk into his room and it’s the first time I’ve been alone in a boy’s room since
that night
. But this boy’s room I want to be in. So I close the door behind us. I place the notebook gently on a chair, knowing it’s safe for now. I pull him to the bed, wrap my arms around his neck, and place my hands on his back.

Then I look at my hands on his back.

And it’s different. It’s completely different.

Because here with my hands on his back, there’s no pretending, there’s no getting through it, there’s no getting past it. My hands are supposed to be here. They look right; they look good, like Beethoven, Mozart, Gershwin kind of good. Come to think of it, Liszt and Schumann too.

I close my eyes, but not before I catch one last glimpse of the mockingbird on my new notebook watching me.

Though
The Mockingbirds
is entirely fictional, I feel close to Alex. Like her, I was date-raped when I was a teenager.

It happened in the fall of 1990, just a few months into my freshman year at Brown University. Even now, I can still picture that night with a harsh kind of clarity. I can still remember how it felt to walk the long way to class and avoid the cafeteria at all costs so I wouldn’t run into him. My entire schedule was dictated by staying far away from one boy.

I didn’t want to spend the next four years of college living in fear, so I decided to do something about it. I pressed charges through the University Disciplinary Committee.

It wasn’t an easy choice or an easy road. In fact, my case was one of the first heard at Brown after a very contentious time when it seemed to many that the school had looked the other way. Back then, many universities were largely ignoring women who were date-raped. Most schools didn’t have systems in place to hear cases. Awareness programs didn’t even register on their radar screens.

Naturally, many students at colleges all around the country were angry. Some women refused to stay silent. At Brown, women who had been date-raped started writing down the names of the perpetrators on a bathroom wall in
the university library. But they didn’t stop there. They went to the administration and demanded that the university step up. The
New York Times
even wrote about their efforts. It’s amazing what a group of vocal students, the image of a long list of names of rapists on a bathroom wall, and a national newspaper article can do!

Brown began changing its own processes and procedures for handling date-rape cases, and I was able to file charges in this newly revised system, which operated a lot like a traditional court. Both students called witnesses and presented their sides to the disciplinary council through an “advocate,” who acted as a lawyer. The system was similar to the one in
The Mockingbirds
except for one big difference: The administration knew of and supported the process. Cases were heard in one of the university buildings, rather than in a basement laundry room.

My case was tried one winter evening, and I testified in front of the council and in front of the boy.

The committee ruled in my favor, and he was suspended for a semester. I felt safe again.

So did other women who went on to press charges. I know because I heard from them. One night during my junior year, I got a phone call from a girl who’d been through the same thing. We met in her room and sat on the carpet while she told me what happened the night she was date-raped—the chilling effect it had on her studies, and what was said during the trial itself. It was as if we could finish each other’s sentences.

I decided to keep speaking up. I wrote about my experiences for the school newspaper, and I heard from even more women who’d been date-raped and from others who hadn’t but who were glad the school was finally listening
and
acting. Other universities took notice of what happened at Brown and also started changing their policies and systems for handling date rape. Things are different now, and schools are doing a better job of protecting women.

Looking back nearly twenty years later, I know my experience speaking up and listening to others was critical to my own healing and, eventually, forgiveness.

As you can probably tell, I’m a big believer in speaking up, but I am also keenly aware of how it can feel to believe you have no options—to have to resort to writing on the walls.
The Mockingbirds
is inspired by one of my favorite books,
to kill a Mockingbird
, and born of that feeling of powerlessness I once felt. What if no one can protect us? What if the school can’t help us? Can we help ourselves? Can we do the right thing?

I’d like to think the answer is yes.

I am fortunate to have the support of so very many incredible people. First and foremost, none of this would be possible without the guidance, dedication, and insane business savvy of Andy McNicol at William Morris Endeavor. Andy, you are a fierce matchmaker. Also at WME, a big thanks to Caroline D’Onofrio, an early champion, and to Anais Borja, who got to place “the call.”

I have a thoroughly amazing and brilliant editor at Little, Brown in Nancy Conescu, who fought for this story. Nancy, you wanted the best for these characters, and under your direction
The Mockingbirds
became a much better book. I adore your commitment to excellence. Many thanks to everyone at Little, Brown who has supported this book from the start, including Jennifer Hunt, Megan Tingley, Lauren Hodge, and Melanie Chang.

I am deeply grateful for Amy Tipton, the first professional to see my potential, who is both a friend and a colleague.

I have learned so much about writing from Danelle McCafferty, whose early coaching and editorial insight left an imprint. Danelle, I still hear your voice in my head when I write.

My parents, Michael and Polly Whitney, instilled in me a love of learning, a persistent spirit, and the need to create. Thank you for teaching me to be relentless and expecting my best. My entire family has been endlessly supportive of my writing. Barbara, Kathy, and Jill, you buoyed me when I needed support and you read, read, read.

Classical music plays a big part in
The Mockingbirds
. Mark Owen at
classicalreview.co.uk
, as well as Brian Reinhart, Crystal Manich, and Petronel Malan, answered my very rudimentary piano questions and also introduced me to Franz Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Petronel especially made herself available as an ongoing resource on all matters of music, small and large. Any inaccuracies regarding music are solely mine. The website
Beabondgrrl.com
was useful for the Bond Girl scene.

Josyan McGregor checked and corrected the French in this novel. Greg Baumann taught me not to be married to my words.

When it comes to writing friends, I count myself lucky to have Suzanne Young, Amanda Morgan, Courtney Summers, Victoria Schwab, Bill Tancer, Gary Morgenstein, and my long-time friend Theresa Shaw in my camp. Amanda, you get a medal for reading pretty much every single draft of this book. Suz, you were my cheerleader. Courtney, there has never been a better line editor and brainstormer.

There to weather the tough times and celebrate the successes were Michelle Hay, DeeDee Taft, Ilene Braff, Cammi Bell, Wadooah Wali, Jim Maiella, Kristin Morelli, Jennifer Mai, Jerilyn Bliss, Bob Christie, Kika Kane, David Bloom, Clint Stinchcomb, Len Ostroff, and Jill Ciambriello.

Thanks to my friends at This Week in Media,
Beet.TV
, iMedia, Twitter, Facebook, and all the other places I hang out during my day job for letting me share this journey with you.

To those who stood by me when I stood up at age eighteen—Geoff, Gigi, Jamin, Shari, Josh, Elaine—I remain grateful.