Issy teased, “Where have you been girl?”
Jane smiled.
“OK, I stayed with Adam. No big deal, ” Lilly said.”Let’s go to Lake Chautauqua.”
“How was it?” Issy asked.
Lilly gave her a drop-dead look and then answered in true Sarah Bernhardt style, “It was so great … so magnificent. I didn’t know it could be like that. Now do you want to picnic at Chautauqua, or what?”
Issy seemed to accept her answer at face value and ran inside to change. Jane and Lilly stood looking at each other, not speaking for a minute and then they followed Issy inside. Lilly lingered at the lake into the late afternoon, fairly certain that Adam would come to Jamestown and wanting him to sweat it out.
Lilly followed Jane’s car back and then veered off, heading to Adam’s sister’s apartment in Little Falls. Sharon and Lilly spent a couple of hours fixing up for the night. Sharon did not seem oblivious to the head game Lilly was playing on Adam, but didn’t seem to hold it against her either. The stagnant heat that built all day refused to dissipate after sundown. Lilly and Sharon had to concede their makeup and hairstyles were destined to melt.
Adam came to the bar during the band’s first set. When they finished playing, Adam came up to Lilly.
“Where were you? We were going to spend the weekend together.”
Lilly feigned innocence. “I figured it would take a while to install that vat, so I went swimming.”
“It’s a barrel not a vat. We make Chablis, not piss,” Adam said.
“Don’t get so sensitive, Adam. I was over at Sharon’s.”
“Sharon’s? Issy told me you went with them …”
“You went to Jamestown? I did go to the lake, but then I came back to Sharon’s. We had fun. You know, girl talk.”
Adam didn’t answer but looked ruffled. They sat quietly through the rest of the break. Adam drank heavily the rest of the night. He passed out on the sofa when they got back to his house. Lilly went to bed alone, without considering the emasculating effects that her behavior might have on him.
Lilly was restless, and she struggled to sleep in the heat. She got up and showered and finally drifted to sleep. The next morning she woke to see Adam standing over the bed, quizzically looking down at her.
“Hi. Sleep well? Maybe I should have drunk, ’cause it was too hot to sleep,” Lilly said, sitting up.
Adam sat on the bed and kissed her.
“Just a sec.” Lilly jumped up and ran to the bathroom. She said lightly as she got into bed, “I’ve been known to have dog breath in the morning.”
Adam rubbed her breasts with the palms of his hands, pinched her nipples, and then rolled on top of her. She pulled back when she realized he was planning to enter her without vaginal or clitoral stimulation.
“Hold on, hold on,” she murmured, pushing him off of her. She caught his hand and brought it between her legs. She then pulled back the sheet that was covering him and started to kiss his chest. Lilly ran her tongue around his nipple, then, marveling at his bare chest, she ran her tongue to his other nipple. She heard him catch his breath. He had put his middle finger in her, and it had stopped moving. She ran her tongue down his belly, deciding maybe a little fellatio would relax him. He came seconds after he entered her mouth. He removed his finger and wiped it on the sheet. Lilly turned over, not wanting to look at him.
They rested for a while, and then he touched her back. “Where did you get this?”
Lilly caught her breath and answered, “It’s a knife scar.” She braced herself and rolled over. “See it goes through here.” She tried to sound nonchalant indicating the line under her breast.
“This too? You were stabbed twice?”
“No, this was a chest tube. They had to re-inflate my lung.”
“How old were you?” Adam seemed tenderly curious, regaining some of her esteem.
“Sixteen,” Lilly murmured.
“How about this?” He pointed to another scar.
“Appendix. Sixteen.”
“And this? Does this go all the way through, too?”
“Yeah, it’s from a pin that was in my shoulder. I also got this seam scar under my arm and a scar across my lower back from a splenectomy. Sixteen again. It was a tough year.”
“Who stabbed you?”
“He didn’t give me his business card. Actually, we weren’t introduced.” Lilly felt overcome with nervous tension, and she giggled. “I guess he was too attracted to me for any social amenities.”
“Did he rape you?” Adam asked quietly.
“Yes,” Lilly answered, feeling tears choking her.
Adam backed off, sensing her distress. She regained control and decided to get it over with all at once.
She sat up and spoke in a monotone, staring straight ahead. “I was babysitting. He broke in, overpowered me, dragged me out to the car, and put me in the trunk. Then at a building … an empty building … he raped me and beat me and stabbed me and threw me into a garbage dumpster.”
She caught her breath. Adam started to speak, but she hushed him. “I had nineteen broken bones and spent over a month in a hospital and missed a ton of school and ended up dropping out my junior year. So that’s it, OK?” Her voice was sharp at the end. She lay back.
“Your parents must have …”
“Forget my parents. Tony kept me alive.”
“Who is Tony?”
Lilly got out of bed. “Tony is my husband … my ex-husband. We were married for four years. That’s all though. No more questions. Also no one here knows what happened to me or ever should.”
“You were married? You’re divorced?” Adam sat up.
“So what? I said no more quest ….” Lilly spoke angrily.
“Yeah. Sure. Drop the bomb then … Jesus Lilly! I thought you were a virgin, then all of a sudden your clothes come off, and Lolita comes out. A scarred Lolita, no less.”
Lilly had been putting her clothes on as he spoke. She reacted angrily, “Jesus, Adam what sort of prick are you?”
Lilly ran out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house. She drove recklessly, alternating between feeling victimized and enraged.
Instead of going directly to Jamestown, she drove along the Allegheny River until she found a parking area with easy river access. She parked and went to the river, at first blinded by the confused emotions churning inside her, then slowly becoming aware of the serenity of her location.
Lilly picked daises and then settled under a weeping willow and fell asleep. She awoke, smelling the grass under her but distantly aware of male voices. She stayed supine but turned over and spotted two fishermen in a small boat, standing and casting as they spoke.
Lilly listened, hidden by the reeds at the river’s edge. She surmised they were brothers. One was married, the other single. Their bantering reminded her of Tony and Frank. She lay quietly and was transported to the Sunday mornings when Frank would come over and shoot the breeze with Tony until she got up, and then they’d all go over to the senior della Robbias.
The men in the boat were arguing about who got laid more often. Lilly got up and went to her motorcycle. While she checked her saddlebags, she noticed the fishermen’s argument had abruptly stopped. She glanced up to see them staring at her, looking embarrassed.
Lilly straddled her bike, then called out, “The married one. No contest. Quality and quantity.” She started her engine and drove off.
Adam was waiting for her at Jamestown. Lilly saw his car in front of her house and thought perhaps he was there to return her birth control pills.
She walked quietly into the house and heard her roommates talking to Adam in the kitchen. She started up the stairs as quietly as possible, but Adam heard her.
He went to the front hall. “Lilly, can I talk to you?”
Lilly started back down, but she didn’t want to have this conversation in the hearing range of her roommates.
“Lilly, I’m sorry I reacted like that. You blew me away. I ha
d no idea …”
“Wait,” Lilly interrupted. “We can talk outside.”
“You want me out of your life? Lilly, you’re a mess of contradictions. You …”
“Oh that’s right. I’m a mess … a scarred mess, no less,” Lilly hissed.
“Lilly, I didn’t mean that.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t know how to handle it. I’ve never known anyone who was the victim of such a violent crime. The knife marks on you, Lilly, you gave me no warning. Give me another chance. Lilly, I’ve never seen a woman as aggressive in bed. You blew me away.”
“You already said that Adam. I don’t know anything about dating.”
“Lilly, don’t take it … too much. I’ll teach you tennis. I can’t guarantee anything, but I think we could be good for each other.”
Lilly shrugged, “I’m taking tennis next semester as my gym class.”
Adam sensed he had the edge and kissed her. “You need all the tennis coaching you can get.”
Adam and Lilly’s relationship budded into friendship, which offered Lilly the added benefit of safe sex. They conversed by the hour. Adam acted as a sounding board for all Lilly was seeing and learning in school and at the hospital.
Adam was drunk when told her he loved he. It was December, the afternoon of the first snowstorm of winter, when Lilly answered his announcement of the night before.
“Adam, last night when we … well you meant you loved me being in bed with you, right?”
They were at her house, in the living room. He didn’t answer immediately, but picked at the tan chenille bedspread that covered the old sofa.
“Adam?” Lilly persisted.
“Lil, I do care for you, even if it’s not reciprocated,” Adam said evenly.
“Adam, I do care about you. You’re a good friend, a special friend, but I’m not going to fall in love, not now, maybe never. I’m not ready for any sort of serious, family-type relationship. I’ve already lost two families, and I’m not going to form a third I can lose.”
“Lilly, you don’t have to assume every relationship will fail,” Adam said quietly.
“But they do. I’m a loser in love, every type of love.”
Later in the day, they walked around Jamestown, admiring the pretty little city freshly blanketed in snow. Adam invited her to celebrate Christmas with his family. Lilly declined, reasoning that Christmas was a family holiday and she wanted him to know she would never be family.
Lilly developed into a nurse over the winter. Her confidence surged as she proved to herself she had the skills and knowledge necessary to excel. Meanwhile, their relationship corkscrewed further into the sadness of unrequited love.
Adam planned a log cabin atop a hillside overlooking his vines. He took her to the site on the first warm, sunny Saturday in April.
“Why would you build another house?” Lilly asked. “Your house seems sufficient.”
“That’s really the caretaker’s cottage. Next fall, if all goes well, we intend to bring in two more barrels. Then we’ll bring in a wine master to supervise, and he’ll live there. Besides, it won’t be big enough forever. Eventually we will need more room.”
Lilly walked around, kicking a few stones while she decided what to say to him. Adam misinterpreted her silence as a softening in her attitude. He walked over to where she had settled on a large rock.
“Lilly, this place is beautiful. Life could be peaceful.” Adam’s eyes were pleading, but his voice was without emotion.
“This is lovely, and I hope your home will be beautiful. I also hope you can find someone to fill your home with love and healthy babies. I’m holding you back from finding her. It’s not fair. After graduation, I’m leaving. I don’t know where I’m going, but there’s nothing in Jamestown for me.”
Adam turned away from her and didn’t answer. Lilly could feel his pain and wanted to run away and shut it out, but she didn’t have her motorcycle with her. Seconds dragged by. Lilly heard him try to stifle a sob as he sucked in air. The moment was exquisitely painful for them both. Time hung relentlessly.
Adam was torn between disbelief and vague hostility. Growing up in Little Falls, members of the Monte family were truly big fish in a little pond. Adam was accustomed to getting what he wanted and even being chased by the best-looking women.
Whenever he decided her lack of caring came from coldness in her, something would happen that deepened his fixation. The week before, he had been sitting at the kitchen table with Jane, waiting for Lilly to get home from the hospital. Lilly and Carly had come home arguing.
Carly had included Jane and Adam in the argument, saying, “Can you believe it? She sat down on a prisoner’s bed and she hugged him. It’s unbelievable. The head nurse said a guard told her he had murdered someone, and Lilly almost got into bed with him.”
Lilly had stood silently a moment and then left the room. Adam had jumped up and followed her to her room. He had sat on her bed while she changed out of her student nurse’s uniform.
“Adam it wasn’t like that. He was dying. He had a brain tumor. He’s dead now. He was terrified. He’s from Brooklyn and has no one here. It’s another planet here. Maybe he murdered someone. Shit, he probably did. Being poor and black in the city is different from being white and middle-class in middle America. Anyway, how can I judge him? He was alone. I’d do it again. My nursing instructor said it was ‘blatantly unprofessional.’ Everyone is giving me shit.”
Adam had thought for a minute while she dressed. “Lilly, everyone around here knows someone who works in the prison. They all think the prisoners are animals. It’ll pass.”
“But Adam, what do you think?”
Adam said. “Lilly, if I were ever sick or in pain, I’d want to have a nurse like you.”
Lilly stood grinning at him. “You should have been a diplomat.”
Now in the heavily charged silence, Lilly could feel her resolve caving in.
“Adam, I don’t want to hurt you.”
Adam raised a hand palm out. “Lil, it’s OK. You’re leaving. There’s probably someone else you want to see.”
“No, Adam. It’s not that. I think maybe I’ll be hurting you more in the long run if I stay.”
“How, Lilly? By hanging out with me, talking, laughing, making love?” Adam said carefully.
Lilly said, “By letting you think I’ll ever be here as a family with you.”
“I know you won’t be,” Adam answered. He added, “Can’t we stay friends until you leave?”
Lilly could see through his “I’m a seventies, casual-type guy” façade, but she didn’t have the heart to dash it there.
*****************************
21. May 1976
Lilly sat in class trying to pay attention because her finals were the following week. She was thinking how to tell Eileen she would miss her wedding. By the September date, Lilly would be thousands of miles away.
But foremost on her mind was how to achieve the vilest, most gut-wrenching revenge against Lonnie.
The next thing claiming her attention was her plan for the future, so secret and new she hadn’t even told Dizzy Issy about it yet. After graduation, she planned to stay around working until she sat for state boards and then do something so daring it gave her chills to think about it. Lilly wanted to go to Thailand and work with the Cambodian refugees.
On top of all these distractions, Lilly had a strong aversion to the subject under discussion in this class. She had always thought she would enjoy working with mental health patients and would empathize with them until she did her rotation on the mental health unit.
Most of the patients were there to ride out a temporary crisis or to start receiving help to cope with alcohol abuse, but two of the patients were psychotic. They terrified Lilly. Neither was violent or threatening, but hearing their litany of warped perceptions and delusions had reminded her, strongly, of the man who had attacked her. Lilly had spent most of her time on that unit trying to hide her fear and to avoid c
ontact with those two patients, usually by embedding herself in a group session.
She was relieved the lecture was drawing to a close. She could see that Michelle, who was seated next to her, had drawn a caricature of the lecturer. Lilly suppressed a giggle.
Michelle always made her laugh. Since Issy had flunked out, Lilly had gravitated to Michelle for sarcastic commentary on the lectures. While Michelle was not a soul mate, she was a worthy classmate Lilly thought half of Michelle’s charm was how unworthy Carly deemed her to be.
Michelle was divorced and was the sole support of her two children. She often joked about how the child support check was late again. The problem was that her husband had left town “to get a better job” and had disappeared. Michelle worked as a bump and grind dancer four nights a week. This was the big secret of the nursing class. If the instructors got wind of her dancing, she’d be out on her ear. Michelle, in her most woman-done-wrong mood, would sit with Lilly dissecting her ex-husband and looking for her also-divorced friend to say “me too.”
Once Michelle had said, “I wonder who his slave is now. Don’t you wonder who your ex’s slave is?”
Lilly had gotten mad. She said, “Mine never treated me like a slave.”
In frustration, Michelle had said, “Oh, I forgot. We never talk about your lord and master.”
Lilly could only take Michelle in small doses after that.
Walking home from class, Lilly pondered her problem with Lonnie. She didn’t want to waste her efforts on small revenges – not giving phone messages, putting Lonnie’s clothes, left in the washer, on the basement floor. She wanted to do it right, but with the magnitude of Lonnie’s offenses, revenge would be difficult.
Lonnie’s first crime had been seducing Issy’s Joe. Lilly thought Lonnie had gone after Joe because Issy was a gentle girl who wouldn’t fight back. In any case, one night when Issy and Lilly had gone to the movies, they arrived home to find Joe and Lonnie in bed.
Issy was crushed. Lilly thought Joe was a milquetoast, not good enough for Issy. Issy and Joe fought. Lilly lit into Lonnie.
A Yonkers Kinda Girl Page 29