Under Rug Swept: Hard Truths about Lily Kane
Disclaimer: All characters and situations relating to Veronica Mars belong to Rob Thomas.
Summary: Various thoughts on who Lily Kane really was.
Characters: Mac, Dick, Wallace
Sometimes Mac wonders if she was the only person who really saw Lily for what she was. It was terrible to think; even worse to say, but Lily's untimely death transformed Lily into a beacon of perfection. A girl who loved life to the fullest. Someone who loved her friends deeply and who just wanted to have fun. True, that was the bulk of Lily's personality but there was so much more that simply didn't get discussed.
Before a murder whitewashed Lily's life, Mac had hated her. As impossible to believe as it may seem, she was not fooled by Lily, the girl who entranced everyone who crossed her path. Lily was cruel. Lily was mean. Lily was a bitch.
There. There it was. The truth.
To those blessed to remain in her good graces Lily was a saint. A patron saint of parties, booze, drugs, and sex. To those that never were all that enamoured or blinded by Lily Kane became easy targets. Mac never understood how she came under Lily's controlling gaze, or why she was deemed unworthy, but she was.
Mac's freshmen year was hell. Rumour circulated about Cynthia Mackenzie starring in internet porn. That Cynthia Mackenzie was dyke. That Cynthia Mackenzie was the most disgusting human being who ever lived.
Mac supposed that she should have been thankful that all that followed her were silly little pranks and rumours. That Lily's vendetta had never, would never, progress in the same direction as the PCHers. However what Lily's torments lacked in the physical nature it was made up for emotionally.
Once after gym, Mac had opened her locked to find the inside covered in weight-loss ads and advertisements for plastic surgery. A pink note was taped an article on extensive facial reconstruction, written on it with purple bubble letters were the words "in case your parents ever come into money". How witty, Mac was both poor and ugly. The 09ers were such a clever bunch.
Twice Mac was reported to the principal's office under accusations of theft. During a routine locker search, bras of all different colours and make tumbled out of her locker. Creating a rainbow pile of lingerie on the linoleum floor. Of course, Lily was there to pick up a bra and act terribly offended. "Cynthia, I knew you were poor. But really, it's not like you'll ever be my size."
She supposed it wasn't fair to solely blame Lily for the torments she faced. After all, Caitlin Ford, Shelley Pomroy and Madison Sinclair were involved participants. But Mac knew that Lily was the ringleader, Lily couldn't help but be the centre of everyone's attention.
Once, after finding her car keyed and tires slashed, Mac had cornered Lily in the computer lab. She asked what she had done to deserve such treatment, such hate.
Lily shrugged, laughed even. It was nothing personal. Just a bit of fun. Why couldn't she just take a joke? They were trying to help, maybe now Mac's parents could buy her a new car. It was to keep her humble, to keep her in her place.
After that day, she stopped being Cynthia Mackenzie. Not that she had even been her that much anyways. She cut her hair, dyed it black, hacked into the school's mainframe and formally changed her records. She would never be Cynthia again. She became Mac. A computer whiz on a mission.
It was a strange coincidence that the night Mac was born, Lily had died.
There never is one complete view of a person's life. Wallace supposed that Lily Kane was many things, but a perfect best friend she was not.
Being a new student afforded Wallace a multitude of insights on Lily Kane. After all, the Lily Kane murder was the most sensational news to hit Neptune since...well ever. Lily's notoriety in life and death seemed to give everyone the opportunity to discuss ad naseum their view-points of the girl.
His first computer class at Neptune, his legs and chest still sticky from duct-tape, a couple of kids sat him down and showed him the Lily Kane footage. He supposed it was a means of introduction to his new life in Neptune. Welcome to Neptune High, watch your ass or you'll die.
"She had the greatest tits." The boy next to Wallace said sadly. If Wallace cared more, he'd try to get the guy's name. He'd try to ignore the boys milling around, replaying the footage over and over. Creeps lusting over a dead girl's rack.
Wallace tried to study, do anything to get him away from that footage. Mercifully, the computer next to Wallace sputtered and died. The power button flickering as the boys futility tried to turn the monitor back on.
"Friggin' Mac." The boy's eyes narrowed as they cast about the room.
Mac? The computer was a PC.
Sometimes Wallace wondered if he knew more about Lily than Veronica did, though he never dared to confess that to Veronica. Perhaps it wasn't even that he knew more about Lily, but that he definitely heard a few things that Veronica probably never imagined. Which was a good thing, because if she ever did, she'd probably nuke the school using only pure rage.
It wasn't even that he wanted to know anything about the girl. But every time someone found out that he was a newcomer to Neptune, he got yet another version of Lily Kane.
The only person who never spoke about Lily was the only one whose opinion really mattered. What did he care what freshmen thought of Lily Kane's rack, or Lily Kane's short skirts? What did it matter if Lily liked to show up to school without her underwear?
Wallace heard many things about Lily Kane. Lily Kane was caught giving Mr. Rooks, his history professor, a blow job. Lily Kane was sleeping with the PCHer's. Lily Kane was everything you are not.
"Lily was my friend". That was all Veronica had to say on the subject and he knew discussion was closed. Which was good, he liked not always hearing about Lily Kane. Since his father's death, talking about the deceased made him uncomfortable. He didn't like that, other than his father, the only other dead body he's seen was the video footage of Lily Kane. Both images were seared in his mind; his father pale and slowly dying in a florescent hospital, Lily Kane, glowing and bloody by a shining pool.
Anyway... This wasn't something he liked to focus on. He wanted to forget whatever he knew about Lily Kane. He hated that the locker-room talk still revolved around a girl who had died a year ago. Using the past tense while airing someone's dirty laundry just seemed callous, since the person they were talking about couldn't defend themselves.
Wallace figured if he was ever murdered, there'd be a few stories about him that he wouldn't care for the majority of the population to know.
Perhaps it was better not knowing exactly who Lily Kane was. Maybe everyone only focused on the 'who' because no one understood the 'why'. No one was able to answer why a much loved girl would be brutally murdered in her parent's mansion.
Everyone has two sides. Dick isn't a complete idiot. No one is perfect. No one is a complete fuck-up.
Lily Kane was hot. It was a shame she wasn't around to toss her hair, or rub her legs against his during lunch.
Lily was also fucking dangerous. At least, she was dangerous to men.
During the summer of freshman year, a few months after Logan and Lily officially hooked up and moved beyond fooling around in the backseat of a car, Lily was sent to a month long French camp in Paris. Lily was probably learning something, but Dick doubted that it was French.
A couple times, Logan would gather the troops to video chat with Lily. They'd get drunk off of Tequila and reminisce while Lily would get drunk off of red wine. Dick would wear some cheesy tourist sombrero while Lily would wear a French beret. They'd all laugh and try to choreograph more meetings, but they only really happened once or twice. After all, they had beaches to hit and waves to surf. And Lily? Well she had some French tutor that Dick was sure Logan didn't know too much about.
A couple of times, Lily had sent Dick private messages to his email. She'd tell him that she was lonely, she was horny. She really wanted to see him naked.
In Dick's defence, it wasn't his fault that Lily sent him topless photos of herself. It's not like he asked for them. So what if he burned them onto a cd, as long as the evidence was wiped off his computer it's not like Logan would ever find out.
But, Dick believed in a code of honour. Bros before hoes. As hot as Lily was, as smokin' as her bod was, she was still Logan's. And Logan could kick his ass. So any kind of naked fraternizing with Lily was quickly nixed.
Perhaps he should change the code to Bros before Hoes, but only if the Bro can kick your ass.
Whatever. It's not like he wanted to date Lily Kane. That girl was warped. She did everything she could to screw with Logan's head. She cheated on Logan constantly. Dick knew it. Logan knew it. Lily knew that they knew it. Hell, she probably got off on it.
Whatever, Dick wasn't really one to judge. It's not like he's a saint either. Hell, when he's not razing on Beaver, he's usually scamming on Madison. Hell, Lily hated Madison so much, usually she'd try to help him pick up chicks. She was a better wingman than Beaver, who still couldn't look girls in the eye, let alone seduce them. Looking more like him than Beaver ever would, Lily would pretend to be his sister helping Dick lower the barriers and inhibits of the wannabe Girls-Gone-Wild crowd.
One thing could be said was that chick liked to live. What everyone thought was thrilling, Lily thought was tame. Drugs were a bore to her. "There's better, more pleasurable experiences," she would laugh usually winking at Logan.
She was like a sun of their group. Logan, Duncan, and Veronica surrounded her constantly, attempting to acquire a shed of Lily's faboulousness. Everyone else just floated along on the outside, occasionally drifting in when Lily felt their presence was required.
In junior high, after his father became the Real Estate King of Neptune and after he finished his growth spurts, Lily would study him. This was before surfing. When he only talked to Logan out of some vague link to his childhood. When he thought the only chicks that would ever be interested in a "new money" C- grade student were the library/computer drones.
He supposed she found him worthy, since the first real thing that she ever said to him was that "women like men that can be controlled Dick. Someone fun and not too smart"
He wouldn't go so far as to say she made him. But hell, she certainly raised his prospects.
Lily never wanted to change the world. She wanted to affect it.
Well...Lily was nothing if not thorough.