by PJ Sharon
Carter and I waded into the cold lake holding hands. I squealed as the water came up over my hips and he pulled me in on top of him. The shock of the cold water and his hard body pressed against mine stopped my breath. Face to face, and so close that his warmth seeped into my skin like sunshine, my heart skipped several beats. The water flowed around us as if we were one unit and unstoppable on our journey leading away from shore. He guided me deeper into the lake, his hands gently surrounding my waist, and I wondered if the heat between us might start the lake steaming. When I could hardly touch bottom, he pushed off and swam a short distance away from me, the sudden chill stealing the warmth and security I’d been enjoying.
“I bet you can’t catch me,” he arched a brow playfully.
I grinned back. “I wouldn’t take that bet. I’m a very good swimmer.” I dove down, torpedoed off the bottom and grabbed his ankles, tipping him over and pulling him under.
We swam, splashed, played and rough housed like kids in a kiddy pool. He dunked me a few times until I jumped on his back and took him down with me. When he chased me, I laughed out loud—a happy sound I’d almost forgotten I could make.
Finally, exhausted by our childish antics, we made our way back to the blanket, dried off, and sprawled out in the warm sun. He hadn’t said a word about my thighs and in fact, didn’t appear to notice them at all. My heart swam with relief. I relaxed next to my hot new guy, basking in the sun, and feeling a little smug.
Sami and Bull sat hip to hip, chatting about nothing and blatantly flirting. “Where’s Katie?” I asked.
“She went for a hike with Tom a while ago.” Sami said, her brows furrowed with concern.
An uncomfortable twinge hit my gut. It wasn’t like Katie to go off alone with a boy. Before I had a chance to ask which way they’d gone, Katie appeared from the tree line, walking briskly toward us, her face rigid with apprehension.
“I think we should go now,” she said as she approached the blanket. Her hands shook as she smoothed some strays back into her pony tail and gathered her towel. Her eyes were glassy and red rimmed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing. I just need to get home.” Katie kept her eyes down, focused on the ground, her chin quivering. What the heck had happened in the woods?
Carter looked back and forth between Katie and Tom, like he wanted to ask Tom exactly that.
Tom sank down onto the end of the blanket, kicked back, and closed his eyes. I could see how upset Katie was, so I sent Sami the head tilt signal to go. I would find out just exactly what happened when I got Katie back to the car. Sami reluctantly rose to her feet. She kissed Bull with more than a friendly good-bye, and I smiled at Carter who nodded to me.
“I’ll see you Saturday?” he asked, his expression changing to one of hopeful optimism. My face warmed and my heart swelled. Carter looked at me like I was the best news he’d had in a long time.
“Yeah, I’ll see you at the party.” I said.
Chapter 5
Saturday dawned, bright and sunny. I spent the day with my ritual cleaning. Disinfecting of toilet, tub, and floors, dusting of Mom’s collection of angels, and vacuuming dust bunnies from every corner of the house—I was a white tornado of efficiency and speed. When the house was spotless, I breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Even if the place needed a major face lift, at least I had control over the dirt.
I spotted Mom through the open kitchen window. She sat reclining in a lawn chair under an umbrella where she spent the afternoon outside with Dad while he puttered around the yard. I smiled as I heard her giving advice on his hedge trimming. He didn’t seem to mind it coming from her.
Everything was set in place. I convinced Mom of my plan for a girl’s only sleep-over, and I agreed to meet Sami after supper. Katie backed out of joining us for the party, saying that her parents wouldn’t let her stay out on a church night, but it sounded like more than that to me. I think Tom really scared her at the lake. All he did was try to kiss her, but she freaked about it. Katie had good instincts about what was, and wasn’t trouble, and did her best to steer clear, despite Sami’s and my best efforts to corrupt her. She wasn’t ready for a guy like Tom. For her first boyfriend, she needed a date with training wheels.
Before I left the lake the day before, I’d given Carter my cell number and he had texted me three times in twenty-four hours. I couldn’t believe he liked me and I was dying to see him again. I wanted him to see me as mature and sophisticated, a bold young woman who was confident in her skin—everything I wasn’t.
To accomplish this, I thought I would wear the mini skirt and silk sleeveless top that Sarah brought me from New York the last time she came home. Being a fashion designer, she was always trying to get me into a cool new look. She said I dressed like a boy. Maybe it was time for a change. I wore skating outfits that showed more than most of the girls in their minis. Thighs notwithstanding, the skirt didn’t look half bad, I noted, as I checked myself out in the full length mirror. I couldn’t do much about the flips and waves my short hair did on its own, but between the makeup and the outfit, I did look a few years older. I sighed, thinking about Mom’s shock at seeing me in anything other than jeans to go to my friend’s house, and her anticipated complaints of me being too skinny.
I didn’t understand what the big deal was. All the skaters were either thin or dieting to get thin. At least I didn’t take pills or do laxatives. Some girls were more extreme than others, but it was all part of the training. A certain image was expected if you wanted to get anywhere. So, I educated myself about weight management and diets and lost twenty-five pounds in a year, but it wasn’t like I didn’t have it to lose. A hundred and thirty pounds was way too much for someone my height. All the height and weight charts said so. George had been telling me since I went through my growth spurt when I was twelve that I’d never find a partner that could lift me if I kept eating the way I did.
So I stopped, lost the weight and everybody but Mom was happy with me—except George, of course. He still complained about my skating. At least he had stopped calling me fat, and I got nothing but compliments and encouragement from other skaters and coaches.
To my surprise, Mom was the one who had a problem with my diet. With her Italian heritage, love and life were all about food. No matter what the skating world requires, a girl should have some meat on her bones. She was always trying to feed me meat and pasta, as if she thought feeding me would somehow save her. I hated the idea that while she was losing weight, I should be gaining. So I gave in when I had to, but food had become an issue between us. She saw me as too thin and I imagined that my thighs were made up of pork chops and penne.
∞∞∞
As I sat at the kitchen table contemplating my plan for escaping to Carter’s party, my stomach churned with nerves and I was too anxious to eat. I pushed noodles around my plate, meatballs drowning in red sauce screaming over which would be the first to go.
“Penny, stop playing with your food and eat,” Mom said as she ate her cut up pasta with a spoon, and chewed and swallowed like it took great strength. I had gotten so tired of battling with her that it was simply easier to eat and then throw up later rather than have her worry about it and complain how I was “fading away”. I’d learned how to do it from watching Cassie Phelps and it had gotten much easier after the first few times. Mom didn’t let up. “You aren’t leaving until you finish your dinner.”
Dad read the paper while he ate, cocooned behind the obituaries page.
It was no use arguing so I took a breath and wolfed my food down, barely aware of the flavors that passed my palate, trying not to think about my bulging stomach or the fat that would accumulate in my butt. When I was done, I smiled and excused myself from the table, and then I guzzled a glass of water and cleared the rest of the plates. Mom’s food was only half eaten. After I filled the dishwasher, I went outside to the garden and snipped a bunch of flowers from the perennial bed. Mom was still sitting in her chair when I return
ed, but Dad had disappeared.
“I think I’ll take my skates and go straight from Sami’s house tomorrow. Don’t worry; I’ll get a ride from there,” I said clipping the stem of a pale yellow day lily. I would be on foot tonight since I was staying in the neighborhood, but I had to be at the rink tomorrow for an afternoon practice and a late shift to make up for taking a Saturday off. Dad would have to deal with taking care of Mom on his own and me missing church, and come pick me up tomorrow night around ten o’clock. Hopefully it wouldn’t inconvenience him too much. I tried not to give him anything extra to gripe about.
“All right, be careful.” Mom sat in her usual spot, with her phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other, the smell of coffee strong in the air. I had already set up her meds for bed time. I arranged the flowers in a vase and set them on the table.
“I will.” I hugged her gently, feeling the bones of her shoulders prominent under her skin.
She smiled weakly, her eyes misting, “You look as pretty as those flowers. My baby girl’s all grown up.”
“Mom, don’t get all mushy on me. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” A flicker of guilt twisted in my chest. I shoved it down. I needed this time away. I deserved a break.
Dad came down the hall from his cave/shrine. What else would you call a room where he hid out in the dark with statues of Saint Francis and the Virgin Mary, and had an altar with a gold framed picture of the Pope? He walked into the kitchen, his dark eyes wandering from me to the flowers. “You didn’t cut all of the balloon flowers, did you?”
My shoulders tensed. “No, I left a few.”
“I wish you wouldn’t mess around in my garden,” he said, moving the vase to the counter and rearranging the happy white daisies and blue delphinium. He pushed his thinning hair back, the gray far outnumbering the brown since he had stopped coloring it last year. It startled me how old he looked. Being that I was a late in life baby, my parents were older than most of my friends’ parents anyway, but the wrinkles creasing his forehead seemed to grow deeper by the day.
“Sorry. I thought Mom might like them.” I sighed, a frustrated sound that didn’t begin to express my true annoyance.
Mom winked at me. “They’re lovely, Penny.”
Dad eyed me critically. “Where you going dressed like that?”
“Sami’s...for a sleepover.” For some reason, it was harder to lie to him. I’d already worked this all out with Mom. Why did he even care?
“Hmph. Skirt’s a bit short, don’t you think?” He’d gone back to fiddling with the flowers. My jaw clenched as he trimmed a few stems, making them too short to sit right in the vase.
“Sarah gave it to me,” I said, no other defense coming to mind.
“Oh.” He put the vase back on the table, slipped a beer out of the fridge, and disappeared into the living room searching for the remote and mumbling under his breath—something about fashion and the decline of morality.
A few minutes later, I swung a packed overnight bag over my shoulder, grabbed my skates, and headed out the door. As the screen slammed behind me, I heard my father grumble about me missing church, and something about the damnation of my immortal soul. He had no idea.
Mom called after me. “Have a good time, Sweet Pea.”
Chapter 6
I hit the pavement and headed for my destiny. The party would be heating up by now. Airy expectation filled my heart—the wings of freedom, at least for the next twenty-four hours. I all but skipped my way down the street. Sami texted me and wanted to meet on the corner right in front of Carter’s place, so I would have to nonchalantly pass her house, hoping her mom didn’t see me. Sami said her mom was at some speed dating event with a friend. What if she came home early and saw me? That could screw things up, considering Sami was supposed to be sleeping over my house. We had done this a hundred times. Stop worrying.
Thoughts of Carter momentarily kicked the worries to the far corner of my brain. I wondered if he’d smile that crooked smile at me, if his eyes would light up at the sight of me. My body responded with a shudder that made my stomach go queasy. Warning bells sounded in my head. Watch your step. Don’t fall for him. You’ll only be disappointed. What if these guys ended up being jerks? Or even worse, killers or rapists. What was I thinking staying out all night and partying like I was twenty-five? Shut up, I told my sensible self. You’re a kid. You’re supposed to be wild and irresponsible. You deserve to have a little fun.
I wondered exactly how old Carter was, and what he would think if he knew I was only seventeen. Sami had insinuated that we were at least nineteen, so how could I tell him the truth now? The truth was I felt older. If life experience counted for anything, I was like thirty. I could tell him after the party. Maybe if he got to know me, it wouldn’t matter. I felt my stomach tighten, causing the dinner I’d forced down to bubble up like a volcanic eruption. The skirt felt tight at my waist and the voice in my head reminded me that no prince charming would drop in my lap and take me away from my hellish life if I was fat.
I stopped at the edge of the dirt road that was flanked on each side by woods. The old power line road was a combo shortcut to Main Street and a local hang out for the pot smoking crowd. I hunched over, my hands on my knees, and took in a deep breath. I stuck two fingers down my throat, gagged, heaved...once...twice... and no more pasta. My throat burned, my heart pounded, and my stomach felt hollow, but I popped a couple of breath mints into my mouth and shook off a shudder, satisfied that my new skirt felt a little looser.
I made my way back onto Barrett Street, passed Sami’s house—relieved to see the driveway empty—when I heard the music vibrating from the tiny, green shingled cape on the corner. I slowed to a stop in front of the house where Carter lived. The house, old and faded, didn’t match him, I thought. It should have been bigger, more powerful, nicer looking...sexier. I giggled at the thought. There were lots of cars lining the driveway and street, and hordes of people milling about on the front lawn. Music emanated through the screen door and I could make out the pounding beat of a Jay-z tune blaring into the warm, June evening.
Sami ran up to meet me. “This is gonna’ be a blast!” she dragged me bodily through the crowd and into the house. Tom met me in the hallway and took my bags, handing Sami his twenty ounce cup. “Get me a refill, will ya’?” Just like that, Sami was off.
“Pen, right? Man, what have you got in here, a weapons cache?” He tossed my skating bag over his shoulder and turned toward a back bedroom. I followed, loudly explaining the skates over the booming speakers, wondering where he was going with my prize possessions and contemplating arguing, but I could barely hear myself think.
I glanced around the cluttered one story house and had a moment of gratitude that my own home was a step up. A small dining area that opened into a kitchen showed its age, the wallpaper faded and peeling even worse than ours. The whole place was kind of a disaster area—dishes piled high in the sink, empty cans and bottles lining the counter, and a cracked linoleum floor that looked like it had been there since the 1970s and hadn’t been washed in a decade. There were three small bedrooms and a bathroom down the narrow hallway. Every corner of the place buzzed with activity, bodies bumping and milling about like a herd of heifers in a corral. The smell of sweat, beer, and pot smoke hung in the air.
Tom tossed my skating bag into a bedroom closet along with my backpack. “You can come get your stuff before you leave. It’ll be safe in here.” I stood in the midst of a cramped, lived in space, with a king sized bed, a dresser, and a night stand—without room for much more. A pile of clean folded clothes were heaped on top of what appeared to be dirty ones in a basket in the corner. The walls were bare as if the inhabitant didn’t plan to stay long.
“Thanks.” I turned to follow him, ready to give him a hard time about coming on to Katie, and bumped squarely into Carter entering the room. Thank God he was empty handed. Tom disappeared down the hall, answering the call for someone to grab another case of beer up from the baseme
nt.
“Hey, Penny, I’m glad you made it.” Carter kissed me on the cheek, my thoughts scattered, and I felt heat rise up from my neck. His hazel eyes lit with genuine appreciation as he looked me up and down. “You look great.”
He had a faded “E=MC2” shirt on with a picture of Einstein on the back, and a pair of worn jeans that looked soft and comfortable. My gaze dropped to his feet which were bare and covered with dirt and grass stains.
“Do you have something against wearing shoes?” I asked.
He looked down at his feet and wiggled his toes, chuckling. “We were playing touch football.” As if that explained everything.
He blocked the doorway and my throat instantly went dry. I could still feel the acid burn in my throat from the pasta. “Could I get by you and find something to drink?” I put on my grown up face and tried to act natural.
“Absolutely, we’ve got whatever you want.” He took me by the hand and led me down the hall to the kitchen. He pulled open the refrigerator door and peered over the top at me, a few days growth of facial hair darkening his cheeks and chin with patches of what looked like soft, fine whiskers. “What’ll it be?” he asked.
“Maybe a soda for now, and I promise I won’t spill it on you,” I said, half joking. He laughed and it made me smile. If I could hear that sound daily, it would lift my spirits better than any amount of drugs or alcohol. Not that I did either as a rule. They seemed like a temporary solution to more permanent problems with lots of downside. I’d seen enough of the effects of alcohol to know I didn’t want the hangover or the generally bad behavior that went with it. If I drank at all, I needed to eat a lot of food and coat my sensitive stomach with ginger ale to prevent puking or losing control, whichever came first. And if I went past the two drink limit, one or the other would definitely happen, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself on our first date. I resisted the urge to giggle at the thought that this was our first date.