school. Compared to ours, it sounded exciting to be
there every day. I sat back on Kelly's bed and listened
and watched as they played music, smoked, drank
some more rum and Coke, always filling my cup as well. We devoured the pizza when it was delivered. I laughed a lot and for a while, I felt so happy and good. I especially enjoyed the girls' conversation when they made fun of the sisters and our life in the parochial school. For me this was like being in another country. I was shocked by some of the things
said, of course, but I tried not to show it.
"I didn't want to smoke, but they were all doing
it and it seemed impossible not to do something
everyone else was doing. Vaguely, I thought, my
mother was right about peer pressure. It is the
strongest thing, but I shook that idea out of my head
or to be more honest, the rum drowned it.
"Something happened in that confused brain of
mine. Suddenly, everyone looked so silly to me. I
started to laugh at the way Michael rolled his eyes
after sipping his drink and puffing his cigarette, taking
such care to look cool and sophisticated about it. He
raised his eyebrows into question marks and looked at
me, and then I laughed again and it felt like a dam had
broken. I couldn't stop giggling. That struck them
funny and they laughed too, which only made me
laugh harder until tears began to stream down my
face.
"Frankie suddenly sat beside me and slipped his
arm around my shoulders.
"'I better hold her before she breaks apart. She's
jiggling too much!' he cried and they all roared. It
seemed no one could stop the roller coaster. He held
me tighter and tighter and soon I could see the faces
of the other two boys change a little. They stopped
laughing and suddenly looked intensely interested in
me. Kelly, Talia, and Jill drew closer to each other
and watched, whispering. What were they all looking
at? I wondered, and then gazed down and saw that
Frankie had his hand in my blouse. One of the buttons
of my blouse had come undone and he was undoing
another and another.
"For a moment even I was confused about it.
Then his fingers lifted the underside of my bra and
exposed my breast.
"'Let's see if everything's all right,' he declared. "'Stop!' I screamed and pulled away, but when I
rose, I stumbled into Tony's arms, only instead of
catching me, he put his hands on my bosom and held
me up that way, his left hand smack over my naked
breast.
"'It's all right. Yeah,' he declared. Everyone was
laughing, even the girls.
"'My turn!' Michael said coming up behind me.
'There's enough for all of us.'
"He reached over and cupped my breasts,
lifting my bra off the left side, too, and pulled me
back against him I lost my footing and slid down his
body to the floor. Everyone kept laughing, but I
started crying and that finally ended it.
"The girls took me to the bathroom where I
threw up. They helped me clean up and kept assuring
me it was all right and the boys would behave now. I
had such a splitting headache, but all I could think
was my mother would find out everything. I went into
a crying jag.
"The boys left shortly afterward, maybe
because they were afraid of getting in trouble, and
things quieted down. Kelly's parents came home. Her
father looked a little suspicious when he saw me
sitting in practically a coma on the bed, but he didn't
ask any questions, even though I imagined I looked
very pale. The girls assured me they couldn't smell
any rum on me. I went outside with Kelly and Talia
and took deep breaths of air until I felt well enough to
chance calling my mother.
"'I hope you don't say anything about this,'
Kelly warned me. 'You'll get me in a lot of trouble and
you'll only get yourself in trouble, too.'
"'You should have told me what was going to
happen,' I scolded.
"'Don't be a prude,' Talia said. 'You had a good
time, didn't you?'
"I remember looking at her as if she was crazy.
Boys had molested me. I had thrown up. I had a good
time?
" 'No,' I said sullenly.
"I was so frightened when my mother came, I
don't know how I walked out and got into the car. 'How was the dinner?' she asked immediately.
"'Very nice,' I said.
"'Did they serve fish?'
"'No,' I said. At least that wasn't a lie. "'And did you behave? Did you follow all the
rules of etiquette? Oh, did they start with grace?' she
asked quickly before I could answer her other
questions.
"I thought for a moment and said, 'Yes. It all
happened the way you told me it might.'
"It was dark in the car so she wasn't able to
search my eyes and see the deception. I bit down on
my lip and held my breath in anticipation.
"However, she liked hearing she was right to
teach me all about dinner etiquette and such and for the remainder of the ride home, she congratulated
herself on being wise enough to prepare me well. "'Your father wouldn't know the first thing
about it,' she told me, 'despite his sophistication in
business.
When he saw all I had done for you, he laughed
and thought it was ridiculous. Now he'll see,' she said
nodding. 'Now we'll see how smug he is.'
"When we arrived home, I was able to go right
upstairs, claiming I was tired. She didn't question it.
She was too eager to tell my father how well she had
prepared me for the dinner. I crawled into bed as
quickly as I could. When I thought about what had
happened, I cried. How embarrassing it was and how
terrible it was that the other girls didn't come to my
defense. It was almost as if I had been invited there
just to be abused. When would I ever have a real
friend, someone who cared about me and my feelings? "It made me feel so dirty to recall their hands
over me. I think that was a major reason why my
stomach turned over and I got so sick, that and the
rum. How much had I drunk? Did the girls know what
the boys were doing to me and let them?"
"I wish we knew you then," Star piped up. "I'd
pay them a visit for you."
"Very immature behavior," Jade commented. "It was cruel," Misty agreed.
"The hardest thing about having something
unpleasant happen to you is having no one to tell at
the time," I told them. "It festers like a sore, an
infection; it buzzes around in your head and your
heart. I tossed and turned and fretted through
nightmares for nights after that and I couldn't face the
other girls at school. I knew they were talking about
me, spreading stories, exaggerating, claiming I had
gotten drunk and exposed myself in front of the boys
and embarrassed them. Kelly avoided me and I felt
even worse because of the way some of the other girls
were now looking at me."
asked Jade.
"To protect themselves in case she did tell
someone the truth. Right?" Jade asked Star.
"Sounds like it. I would have pulled out their
tongues at that point," Star said.
"It would only make them look right," Jade
asserted.
"Maybe because of the way things were at
school, my nightmares continued. I had no appetite at
dinner, but I had to force myself to eat so my mother wouldn't ask any questions. The hardest thing was she kept asking me about Kelly's parents, the house, things they said, and I had to make up as much as I could. I got away with it because I told my mother I had followed her directions and not asked too many questions. I kept thinking, Soon, soon she's going to realize I'm lying and the whole horrible thing will
come out.
"That gave me even more nightmares. Many
nights I would find myself awake, practically sitting
up, listening to the scream die in my throat. In dreams
I felt spiders crawling over me, dozens and dozens of
them. They covered my breasts and reached as high as
my chin.
"When I was a little girl and I had bad dreams,
my mother would sometimes come to see me, but she
never held me or kissed me. Instead, she tried to teach
me how to block out unpleasantness. She told me to
count until I was so tired, I would fall asleep again.
Reluctantly, because I begged her, she would leave a
light on in the bathroom.
"One night nearly two weeks after the
disastrous party at Kelly's and all the questions and
lying, I heard my door open and close and my father
stood in the darkness at my bedside.
"'What's wrong?' he asked 'I thought I heard
you cry out when I came up from getting myself a
glass of milk.'
"He did that if he ever had any trouble sleeping.
He once told me that sometimes numbers from the
stock market keep playing as if he had a ticker tape
machine in his head as soon as he closed his eyes. "I just turned my head into the pillow until I felt
his hand on my shoulder and felt him sit on my bed. "'Something wrong with my special girl?' he
asked. I couldn't help myself. I started to cry again.
He stroked my hair and waited.
" 'What is it?' he asked. 'You can tell me. Did
someone do something or say something that upset
you?'
"'Yes,' I admitted in a small voice.
"'Yes what?' he demanded. 'It's better you tell
me,' he added.
"I swallowed down my tears and quietly told
him what had happened at Kelly's house. He listened
without speaking, but I could feel his eyes fixed
firmly on me, even in the dark.
"'Is it my fault?' I wanted to know. 'Am I bad?' "'No, no,' he said, and then he leaned over and
put his lips to my ear and added, 'There's good touching and bad. You shouldn't be afraid of the good
or be ashamed of it.
"'Boys who grope girls are bad. It doesn't make
you feel good inside, right?'
"'No,' I agreed. He was definitely right about
that, and if he was right about that, why wouldn't he
be right about the rest of it?
"'Good touching is gentle, soft,' he said and as
he spoke, he showed me.
"'Close your eyes,' he said. 'That's it. You
shouldn't be afraid to sleep,' he whispered. His hands
were under my nightgown and he moved his fingers
softly, gently over me as he chanted, 'Be still, be
happy. See, this is good touching It's like petting a
dog or a cat,' he said, 'and you know how that pleases
them. See, it's pleasing you. You'll sleep now.' "His touching didn't relax me. It felt like a tense
wire was coiling tighter and tighter inside my
stomach. His hands were soft, gentle, but they were
moving everywhere, and it made me even more
nervous than I already had been.
"'Easy,' he said when I tried to squirm away.
'You've got to relax your body and not be afraid of
good feelings.'
"I kept myself as still as I could.
"'That's it,' he said. 'That's better. See?' "My body felt tense. I tried to keep my eyes
closed and go to sleep, but it was hard to relax with
him still touching me. Finally, he stopped and stood
up.
"'Good night,' he whispered. 'We'll keep it all
secret,' he promised. 'All that's happened will be part
of our big special secret. Don't worry. Your mother
doesn't have to know. It would only upset her anyway
and we don't want to do that, do we? Cathy?' "He needed to hear my answer. My voice
cracked, but I managed.
"'No,' I said. My heartbeat was so quick, I
couldn't catch my breath.
"Moments later, he was gone and I fell into a
pool of confusion, my body in a turmoil and yet, I was
happy I was still able to be my daddy's special girl,
happy I wasn't a bad girl in his eyes."
I paused. The three were so still, their eyes
unmoving, their lips frozen.
"Well," Doctor Marlowe said after a moment,
"why don't we take another break and I'll see about
lunch."
No one moved; no one spoke.
"Anyone need to go to the bathroom or
anything?"
"I do," Misty said rising. She looked at me.
"Unless you have to go first."
"No, I'm fine," I said.
The rain had started. The wind blew drops
against the window and they zigzagged their way
down like crooked tears. When I looked back at Jade,
she was staring at the floor. Star was gazing out the
window. She looked so deep in thought it made my
heart skip a beat. Their silence was louder than the
thunder rolling in from the storm.
Despite feeling somewhat drained, I still
thought I could do this. Doctor Marlowe had brought
me to this stage in my therapy, holding my hand,
consoling me and building my confidence until I
thought it would be all right, but as I looked at the
others, I suddenly wondered, can they do it? What
nightmares and fears had I stirred in their vaults of
horrid memories?
The four of us were chained together by our
pain now, and the trembling one felt reached through
the hearts of the next and the next and the next until
we all trembled together. Was it good to share or was
it cruel?
Every question raised another.
Answers taunted us with promises just like
beautiful fish beneath the water, and when we reached
too quickly or too deeply, they were gone in a flash,
leaving us waiting, searching, hoping for another
opportunity.
How could we not be afraid they would never
come back, even to taunt us?
6
"I hate days like this," Jade said after a long moment of silence. "I know it hardly rains here compared to most other places, and I guess I'm spoiled, but I can't stand this dreary weather."
"I don't mind it so much," Misty said. "Unless it's day after day."
"Granny hates it because it stirs up her aches and pains," Star said.
&n
bsp; "Too many days look gray and gloomy to me without the clouds and rain," Jade admitted.
"It's not that bad," Misty insisted. Jade didn't like to be contradicted.
"I suppose if you live like a child in a fantasy world, it doesn't matter," she said, fixing her gaze on Misty.
"I don't live in a fantasy world and I don't live like a child."
"We all do," I said and they turned to me. "I mean, if you aren't happy with things, you daydream a lot, don't you? I do," I confessed. "And you've all described doing it in one way or another, too."
"Cat's right," Star said, nodding. She glanced at Jade. "There's no point lying to each other just because everyone else lies to us."
"I spend a lot of time in my room, alone, just . . . dreaming," I told them, "a lot of time. That's what made my parents want me to see Doctor Marlowe in the first place. I hated stepping out the front door, hated going to school, just hated leaving the house at all. I missed a lot of school, claiming headaches and stomach cramps or just being too tired. It got so bad the nuns were talking to my mother about getting me a home tutor, and you know how much she would hate having a stranger in our home every day."
"Do you have a nice house?" Misty asked.
"It's okay, but it's nothing like this. We've got a good size backyard: The property's walled-in with oleander bushes growing up the walls to give us lots of privacy. My mother's always planting something that will close it in more. Mostly it's just grass and a couple of grapefruit and lemon trees. My father used to talk about building a pool. My mother would ask, 'What for?' and he would look at her as if he was giving it lots of thought and then say, `To swim in.'
"'It's too much work,' my mother muttered, 'and with your schedule, who's going to do it?'
"He said he would hire someone just like everyone else he knew who had a pool, but the discussion usually ended with that and nothing was ever done.
"I used to think if we had a pool, I could invite some girls over, but then I thought, what kind of bathing suit would my mother approve? Certainly not a bikini, and who would I invite anyway and suppose I found some girls who would come and they wore bikinis Mother would ask them to leave."
"Well, if you invited friends over now, you could hang out in your bedroom, right?" Misty asked, and I wondered if she would ever want to visit.
"I suppose. You all would probably think my room was too plain. I don't have any posters or pictures up. It's probably not as big as yours or Jade's, but at least it has two big windows that face east so I get the morning sunlight. I have a pinkish gray rug and a double bed with a mahogany headboard and two posts at the foot of the bed. Beside the mirror and dresser, I have my desk, another dresser and bookshelves built into the wall. I don't have a television set or a phone in the room. My mother would never permit either. She says they're both bad influences on young people."
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