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Nobody was running some elaborate campaign against her.
It was almost worse because of how ordinary it was.
A girl named Brielle made little comments about people’s clothes, houses, phones, vacations.
Someone wore the same expensive-looking sweater twice in one week, and there were jokes.
A boy’s family stayed at a budget motel during a trip, and somebody posted about it.
Another girl’s old phone had become a running joke.
Most of it could be dismissed as stupid teenage teasing.
Except Stacy was living inside it every day.
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“If they think you have nice stuff,” she said quietly, “they don’t do it to you.”
Suddenly, I remembered my “soccer mom” car.
The hotel pictures.
The sneakers.
Every time Stacy had acted horrified by something perfectly normal.
I’d thought she was becoming shallow.
Some of it was shallowness.
But under it was fear.
“Is that why you said those things about me?”
She looked down.
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“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Her face crumpled again.
“It sounds better if your parents just get you whatever you want.”
“Better to whom?”
“My friends.”
“And making me sound like an idiot you can manipulate makes you look better?”
She flinched.
That was the question she couldn’t hide from.
Finally, she whispered, “It makes it sound like I have control.”
That hurt more than the car conversation.
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I sat there for a long time.
Then I told Stacy something I’d never told her.
When I was 15, I used to lie too.
Not about cars. We didn’t have enough money for me to make lies that ambitious.
I lied about where my clothes came from.
Once, when my aunt gave me a nice jacket, I let girls at school believe my mother had bought it at an expensive department store.
And once, before a school event, I asked my mother to drop me two blocks away because I didn’t want anyone seeing our old car.
Stacy looked up.
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“You did?”
“Yes.”
I could still remember my mother’s face when I’d asked.
And suddenly I remembered Stacy telling me not to pick her up directly in front of school.
I had laughed because I thought it was harmless teenage embarrassment.
Maybe she and I weren’t as different as I’d thought.
“When you were born,” I told her, “I promised myself you’d never feel like I did.”
She listened.
“If your friends had something and I could afford it, I tried to make sure you didn’t feel left out. I thought I was telling you that you deserved nice things.”
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“You did.”
“Maybe. But I think I also taught you that having those things was what kept you from being embarrassed.”
She started crying again.
I reached for her hand.
Understanding why she’d done it didn’t erase what she’d done.
“I know what it’s like to be ashamed of having less,” I said. “But you don’t get to protect yourself by making me look stupid.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not fixing the Tesla story for you.”
Her head lifted.
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“What?”
“You told them you’re getting one. You’re going to decide what to tell them.”
“Mom.”
“No. I’m not inventing an excuse.”
For once, I didn’t cave.
A few days later, Stacy began practicing more seriously in the silver car.
