Gotta admit the boys, that dirty rat rape pack of lunk-heads lost their lucrative sideline jobs and their slippery income streams plus their get-outta-jail-free Monopoly cards when I spilled more ‘n Campbell’s Pork ‘n Beans about their sexploits. To the newspapers, but more important, to each of their ma’s good lissening. Guess more ‘n more, folks don’t take kindly to brutality. Few fresh not-blueberry fading bruises ‘round Charleroi had been speaking their minds and their hellbent tears and fears against these ne’er-do-well bully braggarts.
So, I guess a happier ending got pulled off when I jerked and pulled off masks that jerks wear when they think they can just go ‘round sneaky slipshod. Just took some figgerin’ on how to best tip and shine light on dark ways. I done the figgerin’. Beat takin’ being pushed around over and over and then some.
I’ve always been a thinking gal, a planning moll. As welcome mats go, I’m not the Other Wife, after all.
© 2017, Author Kate Pilarcik
“Skylark” – 1941, Lyrics by Johnny Mercer; Music by Hoagey Carmichael
# # #
GROW UP AND GET OVER IT
By Stephen Cody
Cassandra Pruitt held her breath as she reached to the back of her mother’s medicine cabinet. She didn’t know why she was being so quiet. Her mother wouldn’t be home for hours. It was just her and the cat in this little apartment her mother hated.
Hate is probably too strong a word, Cassie thought to herself as she pulled the brown bottle with the wide plastic top out. Her mother didn’t hate the condo in Manhattan Beach. She just didn’t love it as much as the beach house in Malibu. She also wasn’t crazy about the fact Cassie owned the apartment. Or that Cassie owned just about everything in it, too. She had been emancipated when she was thirteen. A judge found she could make her own decisions, rather than having to rely on her mother. Cassie let her mother live with her.
But all of that didn’t matter now. By the time her mother got home, the apartment and everything else would be her mom’s. Cassie was fourteen, but she already had made out a will with a lawyer and had an estate plan. Her mother would be well taken care of.
Even if she didn’t deserve it.
Cassie read the prescription bottle’s label, just to make sure. She didn’t want to take some of her mother’s old lady medicine. These were Percocet. Thirty of them. Just as strong as the others.
Cassie had been poaching the painkillers from her mother’s medicine cabinet for the last seven months. She never took any of them. She just hid them away. She hid them for a day when they might be needed.
She hid them for a day like today.
She went to her room and took the Percocet from her hiding places and sat on her bed, lining the pills on the edge of her nightstand. They’re a double conga line of death, she thought to herself.
She looked up at herself in her dresser mirror. She was fourteen, but looked older. She had always looked older. That was her curse. Her hair was blond and tightly curled, and she had cobalt blue eyes. Daily wear contact lenses had replaced her thick glasses at the start of the school year. She was still a head taller than most of the boys in her school and towered over the girls and even a few of her teachers.
“You look just like your father,” Grammy Pruitt would tell her every time she went to visit her grandparents in Anaheim.
There were pictures of her dad all over her grandparents’ house. But only one of them showed Cassie with her father. She was only a few hours old, a swaddled, sleeping lump in his arms. Her dad, Paul Pruitt, was hit by a drunk driver as he drove home to pick up a few things for her mother, things she absolutely had to have for her two-night stay in the hospital. Grammy had a copy of the picture made and Cassie kept it on her nightstand so her dad would be the last thing she’d see every night before she fell asleep.
Cassie wanted it to be the last thing she saw now before she … before she did it.
She picked up the letters from that day’s mail. These were things here she wasn’t meant to see.
Her mother had the original mailbox key, but Cassie told the condo manager she needed a copy months ago. And, of course, he gave it to her. After all, it was her condo and she signed the monthly check for the maintenance fee. Actually, it came from her checkbook, but it was signed by her guardian. Her money was handled by a law firm in the Century Plaza Towers. Her allowance was put on her debit card on the first of every month. She was the richest girl at her middle school and some of them had small parts on cable TV series.
But those girls were mildly famous. Cassie had gained a kind of infamy she never wanted. The kind where the other kids whisper tales about you in the hallway or steal glances at you from across the cafeteria. They were all at an age when girls’ curiosity about boys and boys’ wonder about girls had quickened, and even the slightest, inadvertent touch could bring on awkward sputterings and short circuits of thought.
Cassie was the GIRL WHO WASN’T A VIRGIN. Cassie was the GIRL WHO HAD ALREADY HAD SEX.
Except that she didn’t have sex. It was forced upon her. And by someone she had once looked up to.
When confronted by other girls who called her a “slut,” she didn’t respond. She didn’t argue or explain. She walked away, not showing any emotion. But each time it happened, it was like a pin prick to her heart. And in the last four years, Cassie knew her heart had to resemble Grammy’s red velvet pin cushion. Cassie was amazed, sometimes, that her heart could still beat at all.
It all started at a country club in the San Fernando Valley when she was ten.
#
“Do I have to go?” Cassie pleaded with her mother. “At least let me take a book. I’ll find a corner and read until it’s time to leave.”
“No,” her mother said, digging through her drawers looking for a bathing suit that still fit. “All you do is grow out of your clothes. I can’t keep up with you.”
Delores Pruitt was a woman fighting the onset of middle age in a town that worshipped youth. She saw the pretty young things every day in the lobby of her office building. The biggest talent agency in L.A. was a few floors below and her law firm had lawyers specializing in entertainment. Delores was a paralegal, but she had enrolled in night classes at Loyola Law School. In another year, she’d be an attorney. The starlets came and went like the tide. They stayed the same age. It was Delores who kept getting older.
Delores found a yellow bikini at the bottom of one of Cassie’s drawers. “Try this on and let me see,” she said, tossing the bathing suit to Cassie.
Cassie knew better than to put up a fight. She’d try it on, but there was no way she’d go swimming at the firm retreat. Bleu Hogg Hart & Benton had rented out an entire country club for the day for a firm outing. All the attorneys and their families were expected to come. This was the first year that paralegals like Delores were included. It was something that Delores’s boss, Clifford Benton, had insisted on.
Cassie stepped out of the bathroom, self-consciously holding her arms in front of her, trying to shield the areas the bikini was already covering. Delores eyed her daughter. Cassie had started to grow taller. She no longer had a pudgy, teddy bear body and was on the verge of being a young woman. She looked like one of the slender elven waifs that adorned the covers of the fantasy novels Cassie was always reading. Delores pointed her finger down and spun it round and round. Cassie rolled her eyes and sighed disapprovingly, but did as instructed. She made one begrudging turn.
“It’s a little tight, but I guess it will do,” Delores said. Delores was glad she had already talked to Cassie about periods, but was holding off the talk about boys and sex until later. One crisis at a time.
Delores knew that there was no way that she could compete with the wives of partners who shopped on Rodeo Drive, but at least she and Cassie could outshine the rest of the paralegals and their families. She was grateful for the extra cash that Cliff Benton slipped her to show his appreciation. With that money, she bought new clothes for herself and a new top for Cassi
e from an upscale boutique in Glendale.
On a Wednesday morning in the middle of July, Cassie and her mother drove from their apartment in Glendale to the country club. They were checked in by a pair of firm secretaries. Cassie noticed they gave her mother the side eye for attending when the rest of the staff was back at the law firm working away. Delores insisted on taking Cassie into the women’s locker room and making her change into her bathing suit while she got on her golf clothes.
“I’ve got a tee-time with one of the partners,” her mother told her. “I’ll be back in time for lunch.” She took Cassie’s copy of The Fellowship of the Ring from her bag. “No reading. Go mingle. Promise me you’ll make new friends.” She kissed Cassie on the head and headed out of the locker room.
Cassie debated with herself for a moment as to whether she should get dressed and find a nook to hide in until lunch. She reached into her bag and took out a T-shirt and grabbed her smartphone. When she left the locker room, she headed toward the pool. She made her mother a promise. She’d give mingling a try. Just in case, she turned on her cellphone and opened the Kindle app. She was holding a huge library of books in her right hand. She preferred dead trees, but she would read electrons if she had to.
There were only a few people at the pool, and none of them were her age. All of them looked to be even older than her mother. It was early and much of the pool area was still in the clubhouse’s shadow. She picked up a handful of white towels with the club’s embroidered logo and found a lounge chair. Before sitting, she wrapped one towel around her body and rolled up a second one and put in behind her neck as she settled into a lounge chair.
A waiter came over to her. “Can I get you something to drink, Miss?”
“I didn’t bring any money with me,” Cassie said, smiling apologetically.
The waiter smiled. “No charge. Your law firm is paying for everything.”
Cassie shrugged. “A Coke, I guess.”
The waiter returned in a moment with a tall, frosted glass filled with soda and topped with a wedge of lime. Cassie felt bad that she didn’t have any money for a tip. All she could do was smile and say, “Thanks.”
She opened The Fellowship of the Ring on her phone and started swiping, trying to find where she had left off. The pool was immense, easily ten times larger than the one at her apartment complex. There was a high dive platform at the far end. Cassie saw an older man, a little gray and a little overweight, climb the ladder and stride out to the end of the board. He flexed his legs and then began to jump, first lightly and then higher and higher until he built enough momentum. Then he was airborne, arcing upward and then stopping for a heartbeat before bending and diving to the water below. He split the surface cleanly without much of a splash, but did not come back up. Instead, he swam the length of the pool to her end before surfacing and drawing in a large, loud breath. The man came up the stairs, wiping the water from his face and slicking back his hair. He grabbed a towel from one of the stands and walked over to where Cassie was sitting and sat down on the lounge chair beside her.
“You must be Cassandra,” the man said as he extended his hand. He was deeply tanned and covered with hair and had a vertical scar that ran down his chest from below his Adam’s apple to just above his stomach. “I’m Cliff Benton. Your mother works for me.”
Cassie sat up and took the man’s large hand and shook it. Her mother had mentioned him often. He was reason that her mother worked late so many nights, sometimes not returning to the apartment until Cassie was getting up for school the next morning.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Cassie said, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “My mom talks about you a lot.”
“Nothing bad, I hope,” Benton said and smiled.
What was she supposed to say? That her mother thought you were a fool? Or that she couldn’t stand you? In truth, her mother only had good things to say about her boss. Cassie smiled back weakly.
“Cassandra,” Benton said in voice that had delivered a thousand closing arguments, “was the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, King and Queen of Troy. She was cursed by Apollo. Although she always spoke the truth, she was never believed.”
Cassie shrugged. “I don’t know. I was named after my mom’s grandmother. I never met her.”
“Your mom’s a terrific person. I don’t think my department could run without her. I’ve won a lot of cases because of the hard work your mother’s put in at the firm,” Benton said as he settled back into his lounge chair. “I know she isn’t home a lot.” He reached over and patted Cassie on the hand, something that made her feel a little uneasy. “Someday, I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
The sun crept over the edge of the clubhouse, filling their end of the pool with light and heat. Cassie went back to her reading, fashioning a sunshield from another one of the towels she had picked up earlier. After a while, she heard Benton clear his throat and she peeked out of her towel tent.
“Your mom is going to be back soon,” he said. “Let’s take a swim before we meet her for lunch.”
“We?” Cassie questioned.
Benton smiled at her. “Yeah, I’ve got a table at the grill for noon. We’re all having lunch together.”
“Don’t you want to eat with your family?” Cassie asked.
Benton shook his head. “My kids are all grown and my wife and I just split up. I mean, if you don’t mind …”
Cassie shook her head. “No. Of course not.”
“Great. Let’s hop in the pool before lunch,” Benson said as he stood and took Cassie by the hand, gently pulling her to her feet. There were still very few people poolside.
Mr. Benton was someone who probably didn’t hear a lot of people telling him no. She dropped the towel wrapped around her and pulled her T-shirt over her head.
“That’s a really cute bathing suit,” Benton said. “When I was kid, there was a song on the radio about a girl with an ‘itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie, yellow polka-dot bikini.’”
“This one doesn’t have polka-dots,” Cassie said.
“Close enough,” Benton told her, raising one eyebrow with a smile.
They got in the water and dipped down until their shoulders were just below the surface. They bobbed and they talked about all sorts of things, but mostly about Cassie and what she liked to do.
“Do you like to ride horses?” he asked Cassie. “I have a ranch in the hills in Santa Barbara. I’ve got horses. It’s right next to where Ronald Reagan used to live.”
Cassie had to think for a moment before she remembered who Ronald Reagan was. He was president years before she was born.
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes. You and your mom can come up on the weekend. Do you have a boyfriend?” Benton asked. “You could have him come with you, too.”
Cassie blushed. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m only ten.”
“Really?” Benton said, but Cassie couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her. “Then invite one of your girlfriends from school. We’ll all make a day of it.”
“I’ll ask my mom,” Cassie said.
Just as Benton smiled, several people from his firm started pouring into the pool area. Most of them were young—Los Angeles tanned and Ventura Beach trim. Cassie guessed they were young attorneys and law student clerks. Mr. Benton had made her feel at ease, but she felt self-conscious with all of these people around. She started moving toward the stairs. Just then, several people above her either jumped in or were pushed, falling on top of her. She was kicked in the head and pressed hard to the bottom of the pool, knocking the air out of her.
Cassie started to struggle and panic. The drunken associates had not noticed her. Her vision began to narrow and darken and the pounding of her heart soon crowded out the muffled noises she heard under water. She soon felt two strong arms around her chest and her bottom, lifting her out of the water and taking her up the stairs. She was grateful for the lifeguard.
When she opened her eyes, she saw it wasn’t a lifegua
rd who had her, but Mr. Benton. He had an expression of horror on his face as he set her down on a lounge chair. The lifeguard rushed over, together with several waiters. The pack of young drunken lawyers who had fallen on Cassie melted away. She started coughing up the water she swallowed.
“Call 9-1-1,” the lifeguard called out to someone on the other side of the pool.
Cassie sat up and waved her hand. “No. It’s okay,” she said. “I’m fine.” She took a deep breath and began to shudder and her teeth began to chatter.
Benton bent her forward and wrapped her into several towels, holding her tightly to him. Cassie caught her breath and then exhaled as the rush of adrenaline started to fade.
“Really, I’m fine.” She looked up at Benton. “Thank you for saving me.”
He smiled in relief and kissed her lightly on her forehead, the way she imagined her father might of if he had been the one to save her. Benton looked over at the lifeguard and shook his head.
“I think we’ve both had enough of the pool for today, Cassie.” He looked up at one of the women who were still crowded around them. “Bev, would you take her to the locker room so she can change? We can wait for your mom in the grill.”
Cassie got to her feet, at first unsteadily, and walked with the woman to the locker room. Someone brought her bag with her clothes and she put them on.
She went out to the grill where Mr. Benton was waiting at a table for her. He stood when she approached, and he took her hands in his.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked. “We can take you over the emergency room to get you checked out.”
“No. I’m fine,” Cassie insisted. And it was true. She was fine. She had been scared for a moment, but she was better now.
Her mother hurried onto the patio of the grill still wearing her golf spikes, a look of worry on her face. She hugged Cassie and then pulled back and took the girl’s face in her hands, looking her first in the eyes and then all over. Her hands slid from Cassie’s shoulders to her upper arms, trying instinctively to feel if there was anything broken or swollen or bruised. Cassie told her mother what had happened after they sat down and how Mr. Benton was a hero for saving her.
Betrayed: Powerful Stories of Kick-Ass Crime Survivors Page 23