“Oh, wow, that is a lot of responsibility. What the hell is it you think I’ve been doing all these years? Getting my hair done? I’ve worked just as hard as you, I’ve made just as much money, and sometimes more. And I take care of everything inside the house, everything. I had no idea your life was so hard, Benny. How do you stand it?”
He leaned his head against his window, and he sighed again, and I looked over at him and saw a tear sliding down the side of his nose, and he said, so quietly as to be nearly a whisper: “I don’t know.”
I didn’t know where to look. I stared at him for another moment, then looked down at my feet, up at the sun visor, at the handle on my door. My eyes couldn’t stop moving, but my lips couldn’t start. I couldn’t begin to form a coherent sentence in my mind, much less allow it out of my mouth.
Neither of us spoke again on the drive to the party. Benny got through the snarl of cars at the head of the street by showing his badge, and when we pulled in behind a row of patrol cars, he said, “Stay here,” and got out.
I looked around at the sad scene and wondered what would happen to the parents. If they were present, they’d probably been arrested. If they were out of town, I quailed at the phone call they would be getting and at the condition of their house when they returned.
Benny’s command to stay in the truck meant little. After the things he’d said, I wasn’t particularly inclined to listen to him. In fact, I wanted to make sure that he, and I, knew that I was still my own person. My daughter was somewhere in this mess of flashing red and blue, and I was going to find her.
Benny strode purposely toward the house, but I stayed outside, trying to not miss anything. And then I heard the panicked cry of “Mom!” Surely I was the only one there who could rightfully answer to that, and within a moment I’d found her, locked in the back of a police car.
She looked awfully, heartbreakingly young. And for a breathless moment, I believed Benny’s accusations: I was, indeed, a terrible mother.
LETTY
She knew she was so dead.
She was so stupid, and so dead.
So.
Dead.
Seth got away, but they had his car, so she figured they’d probably be able to trace that. A bunch of kids got away, the ones smart enough to run on foot. Some tried to take off across the empty lots in their cars. That was a big mistake. Where did they think they were going to come out? The cops just blocked off the street and caught every single one of them.
She should have run, too. She just couldn’t. She couldn’t run from the cops. She froze instead. Besides, she had all her stuff in there, her school ID and everything in her purse. And then it would just be worse.
She’d told the cops who came into the bedroom that her dad was a cop. She thought, stupidly, that they’d just let her go. Instead they asked her name and got on the radio.
The neighbors had all come out to their driveways to watch the fun, and a little boy, like, eight, wearing camouflage pajamas, stood beside the cop car and stared in at her. She tried to ignore him, but he wouldn’t go away, and she finally smacked the window with her hand and made him jump. But he still didn’t go away.
A helicopter showed up, an actual helicopter, like it was a murder scene or something. Oh, she was so dead. Why wasn’t she at Emily’s? Jean had promised Emily a new bedroom for her birthday, and there were paint chips taped to the walls, and pieces of fabric hanging over the curtain rod, and masking tape on the floor where a queen bed would replace the bunk beds.
She closed her eyes and could practically see Emily and Jainie sleeping in the beds.
The back of the car stank. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She had no idea what would happen when her dad got there. Maybe he’d tell them to arrest her, just to teach her a lesson. The way he’d been acting lately, it wouldn’t surprise her. But she was even more scared of what he’d find when he went to get her things.
See . . . there was stuff in the bedroom where her things were. Especially, well, especially there were condoms. There were a couple in their wrappers on the floor beside the bed.
And there was one that was . . . unwrapped. It was on the floor, too. They didn’t use it. They tried, but it didn’t work. She didn’t know, something didn’t work, she didn’t know why, but it wasn’t . . . going anywhere. They’d tried it without one and that worked, and he promised he’d pull out and he did.
It was all very weird. It didn’t feel like she thought it would. She knew it was going to hurt, but she didn’t realize it was a hurt like that. It wasn’t, like, a good hurt, the way she thought it was supposed to be.
They say it’s better the second time, but she just didn’t see how that got mixed up with feeling good. It was really just, sort of, nothing. Just pushing at her. And she wished she’d gone to Emily’s. And she prayed, just prayed and prayed that nobody would see the condoms.
She watched out the opposite window of where the neighbor kid stood and saw her dad’s truck pull up. Oh God, oh God, let this not be happening, she thought. There was just no turning back from this.
But he got out, looked around; it was definitely her father, and it was definitely happening. He didn’t see her in the backseat, and she watched him wander around, talk to a couple of cops, show his badge. He took off in the direction of the house, she guessed to find the cop that had called her in.
And then, because her life always just got worse and worse, she saw the passenger door of the truck open and her mom got out. And at first it was even worse than seeing her dad, but then all she wanted was to see her. She slapped her hand against the back window and yelled, “Mom, Mom! Mom! I’m here! Mom!”
Her mom swiveled her head around and finally saw her. She came running and pressed her hands against the window.
“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay, I’m here. It’s going to be all right,” she yelled in at her.
She didn’t have to yell, Letty could hear her okay, but it sounded good, and she laid her forehead against the window while her mom turned around with her hands still pressed against it, like she’d found Letty at a sale and wasn’t going to take her hands off until the salesman got there.
And here he came, the cop who’d stuck her in here. Her dad wasn’t with him, but her mom talked at him, and he finally opened the door.
And then her dad was there. He had the overnight bag and purse in one hand, and he stopped when he saw her. He didn’t say anything, he just stared. She’d never seen his face like that before. Then he came over and opened the door to the truck, shoving her things in the back.
“Get in,” he said. Her mom didn’t say anything to him. She just nodded.
“Come on,” she said to Letty. “Hop up.”
That was when Letty really started crying.
“Get in the truck,” her dad said, only he said it through his teeth, and she scrambled up. Her mom got in and closed the door, and they watched without speaking as her dad and the cop who’d put her in his car talked.
Dad looked back once, and Letty flinched. She reached out for her mom’s hand, and for a second she didn’t think she was going to take it.
“Oh, honey, what were you thinking?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” Letty whispered. And she really, really was.
CORA
Keith, my flight instructor when I was a teenager, did have a plane available for the afternoon, and he said he’d have it fueled up and ready to go for me as long as I promised to meet him for lunch next week so we could catch up. That was a promise easily made.
Ali didn’t call as she’d said she would, but I imagined it had been a tough night. When I arrived at the store, I was surprised to see Letty first, sullenly straightening music scores. She barely looked up at me when I initially opened the door, but then she did a double take, and such relief washed across her face that I thought things must have been even worse than I thought.
“Aunt Cora,” she cried and ran to me, launching herself at me in a way she hadn’t since she w
as eight. She was also heavier than she was at eight, and I stumbled backward when I caught her.
“Hey there, Letitia Makani, how’s it going?”
I ran my hand over the top of her head, amazed at how straight girls could get their hair these days. With a start, I realized she had my hair, fine and silky under my palm, and wondered how on earth she managed no frizz in southwest Florida.
She groaned and pulled back. I let her go reluctantly.
“You know?” she asked.
I nodded. “I know enough.” I looked for Ali, but there was only a couple looking at guitars in the store. “Where’s your mom?”
“She went to pick up lunch,” she said.
“Well, I haven’t talked to her today yet, so tell me what happened. Was it really bad?”
She nodded and bit her lip, and I felt a surge of sympathy when I saw her eyes fill with tears.
“Come on,” I said, keeping my voice low, mindful of the customers. I steered her toward the counter and grabbed a tissue from the box there.
She sat on one stool, and I sat on the other and we watched the man fit a guitar to the woman he was with, adjusting the neck up toward her shoulder, stepping back to see how she looked. Letty blew her nose and took a deep breath. I’d sat on this stool hundreds of times, Ali on the one Letty now occupied, talking in hushed tones about one teen angst or another.
It was familiar and sweet, and I felt oddly proud and excited to be sitting here now, with this child going through the same things. It should have been all about her and how upset she was, but it was about me too, being someone she could turn to.
The man put the guitar back, and they left the store. Letty called out “Good-bye, thanks” as they left, and then turned to me, her face miserable.
“I’m grounded, of course, for life. And Dad went all through my room and went through my drawers, and he took my phone and my purse, and notes, and . . . other stuff.” Her face flushed bright red, something I’d never been able to control either. I wondered what else they’d found.
“Okay, wait,” I said. “Start at the beginning. You told your parents you were staying with Emily, but you obviously didn’t even go over there, so who took you to this party?”
She looked away. “This guy.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding. “What’s his name?”
As I watched her struggle with wanting to tell me and knowing she probably shouldn’t, I wondered if it was possible that my own emotions had played so nakedly across my face at her age, and if they had, had I learned to mask them, or was I still that transparent? She finally gave in.
“His name’s Seth,” she said.
“And he’s older?” I prompted. “He’s driving?”
“You have to promise to not tell,” she pleaded, clearly already regretting saying his name.
“Oh, honey—”
“Aunt Cora, please, you have to promise. Dad will kill him. He was crazy last night.”
“Okay, I promise I won’t tell your father.”
Letty wasn’t stupid.
“You can’t tell Mom, either,” she said.
I thought fast. I wanted to be her confidante, but if she told me something Ali needed to know, I was going to tell her. I made up my mind to lie.
“All right,” I said.
“Say it.”
“I promise.”
She sighed, believing me. “Okay. He’ll be sixteen next month, but he’s driving already because he lives so far out.”
“Wow, and his parents let him?”
“He just lives with his dad. It’s his own car, so I guess he doesn’t care. Or, well, I guess he doesn’t even really live with his dad anymore.”
“Where’s his mother?”
“I—I don’t know.”
She’d clearly never asked. How well did she know this kid?
“Where does he live, then?”
She shrugged and bit her lip. “He’s been staying with friends a lot.”
I filed that away to come back to later. “So, okay, Seth asks you to this party . . . then what?”
“Well . . .” She stopped speaking and looked up at the ceiling. “See, I knew Mom wouldn’t let me stay out late, so I said I was staying at Em’s.”
She looked at me as if gauging what she could tell me next and then went on in a rush. “And then the cops got called and busted the party, and I told them about Dad and they came to pick me up.”
I suppressed a smile. There was an awful lot missing between deciding to lie about staying at Emily’s and her parents picking her up.
“What did they have to say?”
“Oh my God, it was unbelievable! It was like he went nuts, and he went through all my stuff. He tore up my whole room, everything, went through my clothes, and my drawers, and even all my shoes and boots. And he flipped my mattress up, like I was hiding drugs or something. He took my cell, and my purse, and all my notes, and my diary—”
“And what is he going to find in those?”
She looked down at her knees. “It’s not going to be good.”
“About Seth?”
She nodded. I tucked my hair behind my ear and peered out the front window to make sure Ali wasn’t pulling up. Letty looked fearfully over her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” I said. “She’s not back yet. But listen, Letty, what’s going on with Seth? Is he your boyfriend?”
She nodded and wouldn’t look at me. I had to ask, but I didn’t want to.
“Are you having sex, Letty?” I said it softly, but she still jumped. When she met my eyes the answer was clear, and she looked terrified. “Okay,” I said, grasping her hands.
“When did this start?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Just last night,” she whispered.
“Oh, Letty.” I closed my eyes for a moment, just feeling her hand in mine, trying to adjust to the new reality of who this child now was. It had already happened, couldn’t be changed now. When I opened them again she still looked exactly the same. Scared.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Was it . . . okay?”
I wasn’t even sure what I was asking for. I certainly didn’t want details. I didn’t want to know if she liked it, if Seth was a skillful fifteen-year-old lo ver.
She looked down, unable to meet my eyes.
“I guess.”
I cast back to myself at sixteen, losing my virginity in my own bed at home after school, feeling like sixteen was so old. Some friends had said it hurt, some had said it hadn’t. It had for me, but not horribly, not as much as I’d built it up. The boy was a short-term boyfriend, though of course I’d thought it was love at the time. I tried to remember the things I’d felt, the things I was worried about.
“Letty? Did you use birth control?”
She nodded, and I almost shouted Amen out loud. I had not, despite knowing all about it, despite being terrified of getting pregnant.
“You’re pretty young, honey,” I said.
“Almost all my friends have already done it,” she said defiantly, but I wasn’t buying it.
“Really? At fourteen, all of your friends are having sex already? Is Emily?”
“No. I mean, not all of them, probably, but a lot of them. I’m gonna be fifteen soon.”
“I know, sweetie, I remember. It’s still pretty young. Are you in love?”
She seemed surprised I’d asked, and for a moment appeared at a loss for what to say. “I—yes, I am,” she said.
“Is he a nice guy? Do you go to school with him?” I was trying very hard to not allow my frustration to creep into my voice, to keep her talking and open. I knew I was being traitorous—there was no way I wasn’t going to talk to Ali about it—but at least I knew I was doing it for her own good. Which, in itself, made me squirm. I’d rarely ever done anything for my own good, much less anyone else’s.
“He’s a sophomore,” she said. “We have lunch together.”
Wow. Lunch together. Romantic. I resisted saying it aloud. “How long ha
ve you known him?”
“I don’t know, a while.”
“And where is he today? What happened to him last night?”
“I don’t know,” she practically wailed. “Dad took my cell, and I tried to call him when Mom left but there’s no answer, and I don’t even know if he got home.”
A flash of light caught my eye, and I looked over her shoulder to see Ali’s car pull into the lot. “Okay, get yourself together, honey, your mom’s back.”
She looked panicked and grabbed my arm. “Aunt Cora, you can’t tell her anything I said, you promised. You can’t tell.”
I nodded. “Okay, come on now, come on. Get to work.”
She scrambled off the stool and was in the storeroom by the time Ali came in, bearing subs. She was surprised to see me but smiled wearily. “Hey, I wish you’d told me you were coming, I’d have gotten you a sub. You can split mine with me.”
I waved her off. “No, I already ate.”
“All right. Letty!” she called. “Come get lunch!”
She looked at me shrewdly.
“You talk to her?” she asked.
I wanted to grab her arms and blurt out, Oh my God she has a boyfriend and thinks she’s in love and she had sex last night! But I managed to keep my mouth shut and just nodded as Letty joined us. She held her hand out for her sub, and Ali looked at her for a moment before giving it to her. Letty turned away and started back toward the storeroom.
“You’re welcome,” Ali said to her retreating back.
“Thank you,” came Letty’s sullen reply. I heard the storeroom door slam and whistled softly.
Ali sat on the stool and groaned, dropping her head in her hands. “Oh God, Cora, what am I going to do?”
“What happened?” I asked, certain I knew more than she did at the moment.
“Benny has lost his mind,” she said.
That I hadn’t been expecting. “What do you mean?”
“Well, after he picked me up he accused me of being a bad mother, basically blamed this whole thing on me because I work at the store, and indicated that he’d been miserable for years, because he’s responsible, not only for everything in our lives, but for everyone in the state of Florida.”
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