Féo
Previously: Mrs Dagonet makes tea.
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5:12 PM - Thursday, November 6, 2014
50 Laurel Street, Presidio Heights, San Francisco
Charlie shook his head and looked at the floor, suddenly choking on a sob.
“It’s — it’s just so UNFAIR.” His voice creaked. “She was there, in the driveway and then I never saw her again.” Charlie looked up at his mother whose face was contorted in sympathy, and then around to each of them. “Do you have any idea what that’s like?” He whispered, finally landing on Jeannie.
Jeannie rolled her lips, trying not to start crying herself.
“I do know what that’s like, yes.” She admitted quietly. “And it is totally unfair.” Jeannie gave him a subtle nod. “But, it —”
“DON’T tell me it gets better, because I’ve heard that enough in the last 3 years.” The boy glared at her, looking like he would burst. “The only thing I can think of that would make it better right now is a fifth of vodka and —” Charlie looked around the room, unanchored. “And I can’t do that.” He whimpered finally. There was a long silence.
“This isn’t your fault, Charlie.” Mark said evenly. “But we do need to know why someone — maybe it’s Tally, maybe it’s someone else — why someone would want to hurt Alexa. Maybe not hurt, but bully her or make fun of her or scare her…who would do that?”
Charlie was silent, looking somewhere in the mid-distance between his tea cup and the vase of orchids in the middle of the table.
“I don’t — I don’t really have any idea.” He faded. “Alexa got along with everyone, even — even Jen. You know, why would anyone be nice to the person their ex-boyfriend hooked up with the whole time they were dating? But Alexa was.”
“Alexa and Jen were friends?” Jeannie asked.
“Not really friends, but she was nice to her. And she didn’t have to be. Everyone would have understood if she just ignored her or something, but it’s like, Alexa empathized with her somehow. She was just — just kind.”
“Did you ever see her interact with Tally? What was that like?”
“Not really.” Charlie squinted his eyes slightly. “I guess Alexa and Carolina were spending a bit more time with the Holy Heart girls last year, but I don’t really know. I didn’t get here until the summer — right before the July 4th party. I told you.”
“Did you see them interact that weekend?” Mark prompted.
“No — no and it surprised me when Tally wanted to drive home with the rest of us. I think it’s because she thought Alexa was going to spill more of the story and she wanted to hear it first hand. Tally likes to know the gossip.”
“But Alexa didn’t say anything?”
“No. Nothing more than what she’d told us before we’d left the Hartman’s house. The whole car ride, she sat up front and Carolina and Tally were in the back. She didn’t say a word.”
“When we spoke with Carole Thomas, she said that Alexa and Tally arrived home early — why would she say that?” Mark probed gently.
Charlie shrugged. “I mean, we pulled up to the house, everyone got out and gave Alexa hugs goodbye. I got her bag out of the trunk and she walked up the stairs and Tally went with her. I don’t know why, I didn’t think anything of it.”
“And you didn’t hear anything said between them?”
“No. Not at all.”
“MJ Wong said that Alexa had tried to be friendly with Tally, but that after July 4th she’d kept her distance.” Jeannie recalled. “Do you know what that was about? Did Alexa ever say anything about Tally to you?”
“We both agreed we wanted to avoid her. It wasn’t like it was a discussion though, just kind of an unspoken eye roll between us whenever Tally’s name came up. Carolina does it too. If — if there was some kind of beef between them, I’d never heard about it. I just think Alexa probably picked up on what the rest of us pick up on when it comes to Tally.”
“That she’s a snake?” Jeannie ventured, echoing Charlie’s words. Charlie nodded shortly. “What do you mean by that?”
“She’s like acid — she just cuts through everyone. She’s mean, manipulative, has everyone wrapped around her finger academically and what-not, but she’s bingeing drugs behind the scenes.” Mrs Dagonet made a small sigh from her sofa, eyebrows raised. “It’s like she thinks she’s some TV character or something, like on Gossip Girl? The queenie girl who has to take everyone down? It’s ridiculous.” Charlie heaved a sigh. “She’s kind of just…a fraud, I guess. I think Alexa knew not to trust her.”
“Does anyone trust her?” Charlie shrugged again.
“I don’t know. Carolina used to, but I think she saw how Tally’s gotten over the last few years and she’s backed away.”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“I need to ask you if you’ve ever been on Pr3pSF and what you know about it?” Mark asked quietly.
“I was.” Charlie emphasized. “I guess it was when I got back to San Francisco in the summer, and actually — come to think of it, it was Tally who referred me.”
“You were, but you aren’t any more?”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s stupid. It’s a gossip shit-posting site. The moment I saw what people were saying about me I knew it was ridiculous. Saying I was DJ’ing for parties in the Hamptons or on Diddy’s yacht in St Tropez — give me a break. I mean, it’s flattering but absurd.” Charlie leaned back in the chair and squirmed a little, trying to sort out what to do with his legs and arms. “I logged off of there, and when Alexa and I started dating, she did too. At least that’s what she said. That she didn’t want to be bothered with the noise — everyone was still on there speculating about her and Seb and she just tapped out.”
“Did she ever mention any online bullying from the site?” Mark pushed.
Charlie considered this, tapping his foot. “Yes, from the summer.” He paused, thinking. “There — there was some day at school — it was at the beginning of the year, just a few days after I’d run into Alexa at the pool. I told you?”
“Sure — we remember.”
“Well, it was lunch and I sat with Alexa and Carolina and we saw Jen Tyson walk by — she was flirting with a sophomore, some guy we didn’t know, but definitely Jen’s type, you know? Tall, athletic…your standard sub-in for Seb Podesta. Anyway, Carolina mentioned it and asked Alexa about Pr3PSF and if the speculation about her and Seb had gone down at all. Alexa went into how she’d been off of it all summer while she was away, and then logged on at the start of school and that she saw a lot about her and Seb and people were posting pictures of Seb, talking shit about Jen — it was like everyone wanted her to be in competition with Jen somehow, because there were all these rumors flying about the July 4th weekend. Like, everyone seemed to know the story and seemed to think Alexa needed to “do something” about it.” Charlie put his hands up in air quotes. “There was an account spilling a bunch of vitriol about it — Alexa didn’t know who it could be, she didn’t really care. She thought it was stupid, like, she didn’t care about Seb any more. She didn’t understand why everyone else was so invested.”
“Sounds like a pop star in US Weekly.” Jeannie tossed out.
“Kind of, yeah.” Charlie agreed.
“Okay.” Mark adjusted himself on the sofa. “We’ll dig into Pr3pSF from the summer, but do you have any idea who’s behind the site? Anyone in your orbit that could mastermind a site like that?”
Charlie’s eyes expanded. “You mean someone who can code well enough to build that kind of thing?” Mark nodded. “I mean — I don’t know. We all learn coding, but I don’t know anyone that badass.”
“Okay, one more thing I need to know about.” Mark leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Why didn’t we see any texts between you and Alexa on your phone?” Charlie considered him, but Mark continued.. “Or maybe, you can tell us about the WhatsApp account of someone called “Féo”.” Charlie sighed.
“Do you know how people my age are picking up each others’ phones all the time? Everyone is looking at everything. People exchange passwords, hold phones up to peoples’ faces — they basically rummage through each others’ phones all the time.” He paused. “It — it had to do with why no one knew about us. We knew if we were talking or texting in front of other people it would be found out. I remembered I had my cell phone from Europe, and a burner SIM, so I just used that.”
“And the name?”
“After we watched Black Orpheus, you know, for our project? Alexa started calling me Orféo, and then we got the idea of doing the creative project — which was the next phase for the class? We had to do our own original work, so I was supposed to compose something and we were going to write sort of a modern re-telling of the story. We came up with “Fire and Ice” for Orféo and Eurydice — so, she just put me in her phone as Féo.” Charlie finished quietly, eyes finding the floor.
“Where is this phone? We need to take it with us.”
“It’s upstairs in my room.”
Jeannie followed Charlie upstairs to the second floor, and then further upstairs to the third floor. Taking the hallway to the right, Charlie went down the hall and opened a large pair of black doors to reveal a large room that overlooked the trees of the Presidio. Jeannie realized they were right above the living room, with the same view but a better look at the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. The room broke off to the right and extended along the north side. The dormer windows were on both sides of the long, narrow-ish room, with the park on one side and the small courtyard of the house below on the right side — the side that looked up the hill toward the other houses of Presidio Heights.
The room was painted a deep gray color with plenty of posters for jazz shows and rock concerts from Europe and America. A keyboard overlooked the park, piled with music books and blank score sheets, with more stacked on the floor in varying states of completion. A DJ console with two turn tables stood next to it with crates of records stacked along the baseboard. A large bed was made up neatly with white sheets and a gray pinstripe duvet and pillows on the far wall. Above its sleek tobacco-leather headboard was a colorful Diebenkorn painting — smaller than the ones in the living room, but the a vivid counterpoint to the masculinity of the space.
Jeannie assessed the room and realized that if someone were looking in the windows, they’d be able to see everything that went on in the room.
“Do you leave your blinds open, Charlie?” Jeannie asked gently, while the boy pulled open the top drawer of what looked to be a Mid-Century Modern desk that was placed along the south side windows, looking up the hill. Charlie glanced up out the windows and turned toward her, cell phone in-hand.
“Not generally, just at night. There’s a streetlight out there.” Jeannie walked further into the room, moving slowly all the way over to the bed, taking her time as she looked around.
“I’m just taking my time here, because there’s a likelihood we may be being watched right now, and, if that’s the case, I want to make sure I’m seen up here with you.”
Charlie glanced at the south windows as Jeannie walked toward him, reaching out for the cell phone, which Charlie handed to her. He swallowed slightly, something clouding his eyes.
“Do you really think she’s been watching us?”
“I do.” Charlie glanced again toward the windows. “Don’t look. Just pretend we’re talking. If she’s watching this, I want her to see me asking you questions, okay?”
“Okay, but why?”
“I want to make her nervous.” Jeannie perused the desktop of the vintage desk, noting the clean pads of paper, laptop, and a crystal block lamp next to an Art Deco desk clock. Everything was tidy and controlled, except for the keyboard and its sheet music — creativity is messy. “I want her to know that we’re talking to everyone around her.”
“Do you — do you think she hurt Alexa?” Charlie whispered, his blue eyes large.
“I don’t know. But I do know she has or had a crush on you and crushes can complicate things.”