Leftovers Read online

  Critical Acclaim for Laura Wiess and

  LEFTOVERS

  “A riveting story about how far girls will go to protect that which is good and decent in their lives. A bracing, unapologetic, and thoroughly compelling read. I love this book.”

  —Laura Fitzgerald, author of Veil of Roses

  SUCH A PRETTY GIRL

  “[A] gritty, terrifying novel about a father’s abuse of power and trust…. Wiess’s story is a page-turner that ultimately sends a startling message of empowerment…extremely satisfying.”

  —Booklist

  “This tale strikes just the right balance between hope and despair, and Meredith’s will to survive and ability to take action in the face of her terror are an inspiration.”

  —KLIATT

  “This terrifying, powerful novel of child abuse and molestation…is perfectly paced, the momentum never slowing as it races toward the inevitable showdown.”

  —VOYA

  “In the character of Meredith, Laura Wiess has created a girl to walk alongside Harper Lee’s Scout and J. D. Salinger’s Phoebe. Read this novel, and you will be changed forever.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice

  “Such a Pretty Girl is beautifully written and painfully real.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Barbara Delinsky

  “Brilliant! Such a Pretty Girl hooked me on page one and Laura Wiess’s masterful prose kept me turning the pages.”

  —Ellen Hopkins, author of Glass and Crank

  “Such a Pretty Girl is a riveting novel and fifteen-year-old Meredith is a wholly original creation: a funny, wise, vulnerable girl with the heart of a hero and the courage of a warrior. This gut-wrenching story will stay with you long after you finish the last page.”

  —Lisa Tucker, author of Once Upon a Day

  “So suspenseful you’ll wish you’d taken a speed-reading course. But slow down, because to rush would mean missing Laura Wiess’s wonderfully precise language, her remarkable access to Meredith’s darkest emotions, and a shocker of an ending, which you’ll want to read twice.”

  —Tara Altebrando, author of The Pursuit of Happiness

  “In clear, riveting prose, Laura Wiess boldly goes where other writers fear to tread. Such a Pretty Girl is gritty yet poetic, gut-churning yet uplifting—a compelling, one-of-a-kind read.”

  —A. M. Jenkins, author of Repossessed

  Also by Laura Wiess

  Such a Pretty Girl

  Available from MTV Books

  POCKET BOOKS, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Laura Battyanyi Wiess

  MTV Music Television and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wiess, Laura

  Leftovers /Laura Wiess.—1st MTV books/Pocket books trade paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Two teenagers, Blair and Ardith, lose their innocence in more ways than one as they are transformed from happy ninth-graders to high school sophomores determined to secure justice for their families and friends, whatever the cost.

  [1. Family problems—Fiction. 2. Coming of age—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Rape—Fiction. 5. Police—Fiction. 6. Self-realization—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.W6372Lef 2008

  [Fic]—dc22 2007012836

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-8475-9

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-8475-7

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  For my mother, Barbara,

  and my sister, Sue,

  with love.

  Acknowledgments

  Heartfelt appreciation goes to my agent Barry Goldblatt for his enthusiasm, skill and insight, and to my editor Jennifer Heddle, whose generous guidance and expertise made Leftovers’ path to publication a real pleasure. You guys are the best.

  Sincere thanks to Louise Burke, Jacob Hoye, Erica Feldon, Lisa Keim, Aimee Boyer, Lauren McKenna, and Lisa Litwack at MTV/Pocket Books for their invaluable support and assistance.

  Amanda Jenkins, Melissa Wyatt, Mary Pearson, Nancy Werlin, and the YAC list members deserve very special thanks, as do critique group members Shelley Sykes, Lois Szymanski, Livy Sykes, and Terri Coppersmith.

  I’m grateful to the Petose and the Wiess families and to Bonnie and John Verrico for their unflagging love, support and encouragement.

  But most of all, thanks to my husband, Chet, and my family who, with love, humor and typical Battyanyi determination, have always gone above and beyond to make this girl feel lucky.

  We can cure physical diseases with medicine

  but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness

  is love.

  There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread

  but there are many more dying for a little love.

  —Mother Teresa

  I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody

  to go to hell in his own way.

  —Robert Frost

  Chapter 1

  Blair

  Well.

  This is harder than I thought it would be.

  I wish we could have come over and hung out with you before all this, even once, for like a picnic or something. We would have really liked that. I’m not saying it to make you feel bad, I swear. I’m just saying.

  You have a nice yard. It looks lived-in. This is a good patio, too. I like how the bricks are so worn down, like they’ve been here a really long time.

  I know. I have to start, I do, but…

  Maybe I should sit next to you instead of across from you. It’ll probably be easier if we don’t have to look at each other. I mean, I can look at you, but you shouldn’t be turning your head in that neck brace, anyway.

  Wait, let me pull this other lounge chair into the shade.

  Ouch. There. That’s better. I hope your wife won’t mind me messing up the seating.

  No, I know. She seems really nice. I just said it because…I don’t know.

  You don’t have an ashtray anywhere, do you?

  Yeah, no kidding, but at this point do you really think it matters? I mean, I’m kind of past getting grounded for smoking.

  Okay, I’ll use it, but don’t blame me if the ashes kill your begonias.

  You know, all things considered, you’re still pretty good-looking for an old guy.

  I’m glad that made you smile. And I’m glad you remember that night. Ardith and I remember everything about every single time we saw you.

  It’s not baloney. It’s the truth. And I’m not crying. I don’t do that.

  The events leading up to this? Sure, I’ll tell you what happened—that’s why I’m here—but you’re not going to like it, which definitely makes this the hardest thing I’ll ever do.

  Because when I’m done you’re never going to want to see us again.

  Ever.

  I’m not assuming anything. I know.

  But me and Ardith talked about it on the way here, and we decided that no matter what happens after this, we still want you to know everything. If anybody’s
entitled to the whole truth, it’s you.

  Can I have a sip of your ice water, please? Thanks.

  In my own words? Okay, then, just remember that you asked for it.

  By the time you hit fifteen, there are certain survival lessons you’d better have learned.

  Like, that breasts are power. Sad to say, but it all comes down to a matter of supply and demand. Girls have them, guys want them. Even a skank is a hot commodity if she can offer up anything more than a couple of mosquito bites. Not saying she should offer them up, just saying she should recognize her advantage and not put out every time some guy manages to string together a couple of compliments.

  Too bad that’s all it takes sometimes.

  Being user-friendly doesn’t mean you’re going to be loved. Getting attention is not the same thing. Sometimes it’s the exact opposite.

  And while we’re talking about being used and abused, you should know that there are some things you tell and some things you handle by yourself, the best you can. You can’t always rat and still hope to be saved when somebody does you wrong. The backlash will dog you till you die.

  Or till you wish you were dead.

  See, guys freak out. They hit critical mass and blast nuclear, white-hot anger out over the world like walking flamethrowers.

  But girls freak in. They absorb the pain and bitterness and keep right on sponging it up until they drown.

  Maybe that’s why nobody’s real worried about girls going off and wreaking havoc. It’s not that the seething hatred and need for revenge isn’t there, hell no. It’s just that instead of erupting and annihilating our tormentors, we destroy ourselves instead.

  Usually.

  You root for us in the movies, you know. You want the victims to rise up, sick of being bullied and strike back, winning one for all the little guys who aren’t powerful, beautiful, popular, or rich. But when our anger becomes reality, it’s a different story.

  No, I’m not threatening anyone. It’s a little late for that. I’m only pointing out that real life isn’t like the movies. The victim doesn’t usually win. She just endures.

  Prime example: third week of high school there was a sophomore who thought the senior guys she’d started hanging out with were kidding when they herded her into the boys’ room so she could supposedly go down on the only one of them who’d never gotten a blow job.

  Well, they weren’t joking. Word swept the grapevine that she’d done it surrounded by an audience, but she never told the teachers or got any of the guys in trouble.

  Why? Because shame shut her up. You could see it in her face, and her walk.

  She was known as “that girl who blew the guy in the boys’ bathroom” for a few days, but then her screwup was buried under the rubble of the next school scandal and they practically forgot her existence.

  So sometimes what takes you down can be used to raise you up again.

  But if she’d told instead of handling it privately, it never would have died. Teachers get involved, then parents, cops, and lawyers. The guys’ side would stand up and yell, “Well, what did she expect? Why did she go with them? Boys will be boys!”

  And then her side would insist the boys scared or forced her, and ask why the parents didn’t raise their sons better than that, and on, and on.

  So no one but her friends really understood why she went with them in the first place.

  Because she was a sophomore, fresh out of junior high—you know our junior high goes up to ninth grade, right?—and totally bedazzled by the attention. Anyone could see it. These guys walked her to class, bought her lunch, flirted and paid homage to her fine new body. She wanted them to like her so she went along with the joke, not realizing it wasn’t a joke until someone was pushing her to her knees, and someone else was guarding the door, and someone else had unzipped his jeans.

  She could have hollered for help but if no one came before they shut her up they might have done worse, maybe even hurt her so she wouldn’t name them. And besides, if a teacher did hear, that would have gotten them all, including her, in deep trouble. Detention. Suspension and notes home. Counselor visits. And how would she explain that on her college application, or to her parents? How would she explain that playing queen to their court jesters had somehow gotten twisted into being led to the bathroom at the deserted end of the hall? How would she explain the stony chill of the tile under her knees when the laughing stopped, and the air grew thick with anticipation?

  Stupid, but up until that minute she’d probably believed what they’d told her, that being called a “tease” was worse than actually being a slut, and that nobody liked teases because they never followed through.

  I bet she didn’t know she could take herself back, that just because a horny group of players called her a tease it didn’t mean she was obligated to change their opinion. They were seniors. She was a straight-A, marching band sophomore. You tell me.

  What do you mean, how do I know all this? I’m a girl, remember? And no, it wasn’t me, but how many of us do you really think make it through without scars?

  So by the time you’re fifteen you should know all of that, and this, too.

  Never bow before your tormentors. Not even if they’ve locked on to the most humiliating moment in your life. If you don’t break, then they have nothing and it’s lousy sport and they’ll turn their attention to some other poor slob who’s wearing a bunched-up maxipad and bleeding through her khakis.

  Never let them know you’re vulnerable, especially when you are.

  Never trust someone else to protect you, and never forget that every choice you make is on you. Ignorance of the outcome doesn’t exempt you from the consequences.

  This is what you should know by sophomore year, if you want to survive. Too bad we learned the hard way and didn’t pass it on in time.

  The video camera’s running so, for the record, I’m Blair Brost. I’m fifteen.

  You’ll want to talk to Ardith now.

  Chapter 2

  Ardith

  Are you okay? Do you need a pain pill or anything?

  Well, if you do, tell me, and I’ll go get your wife.

  This is so strange, being here like this. Sitting next to you and all.

  I used to think about talking to you a lot. Did Blair tell you we’d dream up fake emergencies to call in, hoping you’d be the one they’d send out?

  No? Well, we never actually did it. We were afraid you’d be mad at us for lying.

  I guess it’s okay to smoke, since the flowerpot’s full of Blair’s butts.

  How long? Umm, I guess about a year. Same as Blair. My parents buy cartons and whoever needs a pack just buys it off them. It’s easier that way.

  Yeah, I know. Someday half the kids in New Jersey are probably going to hire Blair’s mother to sue my parents for giving them cancer, but that’s their problem, not mine. As far as I’m concerned, they all deserve each other.

  Camera’s running? Okay, I guess I’ll start.

  I know Blair talked a little about sophomore year, but that’s really the end of it, and we need to go back to eighth grade, which is when it all began.

  “It?” Well, I guess that’d be the first hard lessons bridging the gap between little kid and teenager. Not that we didn’t learn plenty beforehand, but there’s a difference between being TV jaded and actually being backed against a Burger King wall and groped by a kid with fast hands and sharp braces.

  Do you see what I mean? One is fake, like thinking you know all about girls from surfing porn sites, and the other is real, where you choose whether to spit or swallow your blood after his braces slash your lips and discover that the stench of broiled burgers will always be background to your first French kiss.

  That’s when you start realizing your “firsts” aren’t going to be the way you dreamed they would, and that you’re feeling lost and stupid, inching your way around a whole new world. Each day brings a different worry like hairy armpits, periods, and BO, and wondering if you really are onl
y worth your cup size. You start keeping your opinions to yourself because they might be dumb and you hate yourself for doing it, but it seems safer to blend in than stand out. And yet you want to be noticed, but only by being the-same-but-different, and nothing about that confuses you. The reactions to your new body do, though; you strut and show for guys in your school, but shudder when an old man leers, because you don’t know how to twitch his crawling gaze off your skin.

  So while you’re stumbling around trying to get a grip on who you’re going to be tomorrow without losing who you were yesterday, suppose your parents decide to throw a bad wild card into the mix.

  And I mean a real killer.

  I’ll go get Blair.

  Chapter 3

  Blair’s Story

  When your mother finally makes partner in a prestigious law firm, she decides it’s time to buy one of the big, new McMansions across town. She says you need a new house because you’ve outgrown your current one, a cozy cape in a mostly blue-collar neighborhood, but that’s not really true, because besides you and your parents, the only other living thing in the house is your old golden retriever Wendy Darling, and she doesn’t take up much space. She’s slept in your room for the last fourteen years, first in your bed, but now on her orthopedic mattress next to your bed.

  You don’t want to move and say so, but nobody cares.

  “Appearances count, Blair,” your mother says in passing. She’s always in passing these days, locked in an unofficial war for Alpha Female with the county’s new assistant prosecutor, Jeanne Kozlowski, a soaring legal eagle with unshakable confidence and a stellar conviction rate. They haven’t battled each other in court yet, but your mother has been gunning for it since the AP arrived. Her life is all about winning now, and so even when she glances your way the moment isn’t yours, it’s only a scenery check. “Judges don’t live like this.”

  “You’re not a judge,” you say as she gathers her briefcase and an armload of files and heads for the front door.