by Robin Brande
“Honey, I’m sorry—” She must have covered the phone with her hand. I heard the muffled sound of her crying.
Good. Time to go in for the kill.
“You just left me, Mom. And what about Mikey? How do you think he feels?”
“Shut up,” Mikey urged, grabbing for the phone.
I wrestled it away. “Hope you’re having fun, Mom. Have a great life.”
I hung up on her. It felt good to do.
[2]
“Posie. Put. The newspaper. Down.” I said it like I was disarming a crook.
We had been hanging out in her room for the past few hours, spending far too much time hating priests.
Posie sighed. “It’s all so sad.” She switched her focus to me. “Okay, so where do you think they went?”
“Probably out for ice cream. Mikey’ll forgive anyone for ice cream.”
My mother had called back after I hung up on her. I let Mikey take it, and next thing I knew they had made a date for that night. He’s so easy.
“And she’s saying what?” Posie asked.
“I love you, I miss you, boo hoo, where’s Lizzie?”
“It’s so good you didn’t go. She doesn’t deserve you yet.”
“I wouldn’t be able to handle it anyway,” I said. “I’d throw up if she got all lovey dovey on me.”
The doorbell rang. I looked at the clock by Posie’s bed. Nine-thirty.
We heard Mrs. Sherbern talking to someone male.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
Posie shrugged. “Jason, I presume.”
My body felt like it dropped about twenty degrees in temperature. “Why?”
Posie said nonchalantly, “He’s finished.”
“With what?”
“With whom, that is. Marlena Hazard. She’s only two houses down. Sometimes he likes to come here afterwards.”
“Why?”
“You know why. She puts out, but she’s stupid. He needs a real conversation before he goes to bed.”
Which brings us to the other problem with Jason Wilder. He’s not just charming and sexy and hot, he’s actually smart. Really smart.
Both his parents are engineers, and he obviously inherited some special Math Gene, because he can do equations and proofs in his head as easily as some of us can spell. There must be some sort of dividing line in the gene pool: Math and Science people here, Literature and Arts people there. Like an orchestra where the only way we can make music is if everyone plays a different instrument.
The fact that Jason is a genius is why Posie first noticed him. She had seen him around freshman year, but assumed he was just another pretty face. That never impresses Posie. She’s going for substance. I think she’d date a troll so long as he discovered a new galaxy or maybe wrote a decent novel.
She told me being in Algebra with Jason was like sitting next to a computer in jeans and a T-shirt. It couldn’t have hurt that he was so easy on the eyes. Posie doesn’t like to admit it, but she must have had a crush on him at first. How could she not? It was only when they got to know each other that they decided being friends was far better than dating.
Or so she says.
Posie and I became friends in sort of the same way. I was just a freshman, and she was a sophomore, so there’s no reason we would have met except for the fact that I wrote a play that she ended up starring in.
It was The Fortune Teller, that play that won second place. Our school’s Drama teacher, Mr. Farmer, heard about it from my English teacher, and asked me if he could put in on. Well, duh. What playwright wouldn’t want to see her work performed?
Posie read it and loved it and decided she had to play the lead. She also decided she had to know me. We’ve been best friends ever since.
A brief history of Posie and Lizzie.
But back to Jason.
Posie’s bedroom door swung open and Jason strode in like he lived there and plopped down on the bed beside me.
I hadn’t seen him since I left him in Posie’s living room, groping my friend.
I moved over.
“Don’t pretend,” he said.
“No,” I said, keeping my distance, “I actually am repulsed by you.”
He smelled wrong. Like his own B.O., plus something else I didn’t like very much and couldn’t exactly identify, although it must have been eau de Marlena Hazard. Spare me.
“What’re you girls up to?” Jason asked.
Somehow I didn’t feel like chit chat. Not since he broke my heart. “I’m about to leave. Poz, I really should go. My dad—”
“Right,” she answered, getting up. She gauged the situation perfectly.
“I’ll take you,” Jason offered.
“No,” Posie and I answered in unison.
“My dad doesn’t like guys hanging around,” I said.
“I’ll stay in the car. Come on. I’m bored.”
“Go home,” Posie ordered.
“Why are you here anyway?” I asked.
“Just cruisin’,” Jason said.
“Finished so soon with Marlen—”
Posie shot me a look. I didn’t finish the sentence. She was right—it was totally uncool.
Jason pinched my cheek. “I love that you’re jealous. C’mon, I’ll ride with you guys.”
[3]
We pulled up in front of my house.
“Looks normal enough,” Jason said. He opened his door and started to get out.
“Stay here,” I told him. “You promised.”
“What’s the deal with your dad? Doesn’t he realize what a hot little number you are? Of course there’ll be guys hanging around.”
I couldn’t let him see I was flattered. “He calls the cops on guys like you.”
“Really? This I gotta see.” Jason bounded out of the car before I could stop him.
Our front blinds parted. Someone peeked out.
I jumped out to catch him. “Jason, go back. I’m serious.”
“Oh, Lizzie,” he shouted, “I love you, too.” He corralled me into his arms.
“It isn’t funny,” I said, pushing him away. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”
The front door opened.
“Who’s this?” my father asked.
Great.
Jason stepped forward. “Jason Wilder, sir, petitioner for your daughter’s hand.”
I was having a serious problem deciding whether to be happy or horrified.
My father ignored Jason’s outstretched hand. “It’s late,” he told me.
“Sorry,” I said. “Posie and I were doing homework.”
My father squinted toward the car. Posie waved.
Jason couldn’t take a hint. “Yeah, Lizzie was helping me with calculus. Do you know your daughter’s a genius?”
“Good night,” I said, giving Jason a push. I widened my eyes and murmured, “Go away.”
My father finally gave Jason the attention he so obviously craved. “My daughter is not allowed to date.”
“That’s a shame, sir, because she’s a sweet girl.”
My father’s face reddened. Never a good sign.
“Dad,” I interjected, “Jason is Posie’s boyfriend.”
“Oh, that’s not true, sir. It’s Lizzie I love.” Jason threw his arm around my shoulders to prove it. I elbowed him in the gut.
“Jason!” Posie called from the car. “Get in here!”
“See?” Jason said. “I could never date that.”
“You think you’re funny?” my father asked. He bent down and picked up a rock, then drew it back like he was about to throw it.
“Dad!”
“Get out of here,” my father warned. “Don’t come back.”
Jason walked backwards toward the car, still trying to charm my father all the way. “Lizzie’s a fine girl, sir. She’ll make someone a wonderful wife.”
This was exactly the wrong thing to say, considering that my father was still waiting for his adulterous wife to bring their son home.
&
nbsp; “Get out!” my father shouted. “Or I’ll call the police!”
Jason nodded at me approvingly, as if to say You were right!
Posie honked her horn. I shoved Jason into the passenger seat.
“You are a bastard,” I told him angrily. “That was not funny at all.”
Jason scratched the side of his head with an upstretched middle finger and shouted to my father, “Good night!”
My father pitched the rock. It landed on Posie’s hood. Posie screamed and peeled out of our driveway.
And now came the good part.
“Are you sleeping with that boy?” my father demanded.
“Of course not!”
“Liar!”
“I am not a liar!”
My father pointed to the ring on my left hand. “That doesn’t mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does!” I hated that he would ask that. I could feel the tears start to burn.
“Where did your mother take Mikey?”
“I have no idea.”
“If she’s not back in ten minutes, I’m calling the police.”
“Great, Dad. That’ll really help.”
“You’re just like your mother, you know that?”
“Thank you so much.” I fled to my room before he could see me cry.
Bastards. All of them.
Funny, the Things That Matter
It was the end of May. School was almost out. My mother had been gone for over a month.
I still wasn’t taking her calls. Why should I? What could she say?
Gee, honey, sorry I disappeared like that without telling you. Whoops, sorry I left you to take care of the house and my husband and child. Darn, did I mention how much fun I’m having with my new lover? Hope your life can be this good one day.
I tried to pretend I wasn’t part of this family. Finals were coming and I needed to focus. School is something I’m good at. I wasn’t going to let anyone mess that up.
So I pretended I was just a person staying in that house, a tenant living my own independent life, reading, studying, eating in my room, hiding out at Posie’s as often as I could. That poor Aimes family could go through their twisted tragedy alone. It had nothing to do with me.
Funny, the things that matter.
The thing that finally got to me was that the food was all wrong. My father didn’t know how to shop. Store-bought cookies—the cheapest kind, those vanilla and strawberry wafers that melt in your mouth and come six hundred to a package. Generic sodas, frozen pizzas, huge rounds of cheese that my father ate by the hunk, chips and crackers and candy bars—a bachelor’s pantry. Mikey loved it. It made me want to cry.
After a while I couldn’t look inside the fridge or the cupboards anymore. I didn’t recognize the colors or the shapes of any of the packages or cans or bottles. It was as if my mother moved out and took all the good flavors with her.
So I took her place. I did it because to live in squalor was too near to having no mother, and I couldn’t bear that anymore.
I had to eat regular food, so I started cooking it. For all of us. I made grocery lists so my father could get it right. I did the laundry and ironing not just for myself but for him because I couldn’t stand the smell in his room from dirty socks and underwear and sweat-stained shirts. I cleaned for my little brother who deserved a life like the one I had at his age. When I came home from school in third grade my mother was always there. It wasn’t fair that Mikey came home to no one.
None of it was fair.
As if that ever matters.
Virgins to the Core
[1]
Do you think you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? Yes, the sky rained sulfur and brimstone, Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt—those are the movie details.
Here are the details I’ve never missed:
Two angels come to Sodom, and Lot sees them hanging out in the town square as evening falls. Lot knows the men in his town, and knows that strangers do not fare well after dark. He insists that the visitors come home with him. He does not know they are angels.
As Lot and his wife and daughters and the two angels sit down to supper, there’s a pounding at the door. The men of Sodom have come to welcome the two strangers. “Send them out so we can rape them.”
Lot begs the mob not to disgrace his house or his hospitality by doing this shameful thing. Instead, he offers them his two virgin daughters.
Before the mob can accept or reject, the two angels decide that was the last straw, and they smite the whole crowd. The angels had been sent by God to discover whether there were at least ten good men in the city of Sodom, but apparently not. The whole place must burn.
Fine. The rest we know. But let’s back up.
“Here are my two virgin daughters—take them instead”?
What were the girls thinking when they heard that? What did their mother say? What kind of a father chooses strangers over his own children? Or is it the fact that they’re girls that makes that all right?
I saw an Oprah once where this guy confessed to having intercourse with his daughter from the time she was three until she was five. His wife had left him and he was terribly lonely, and he said it seemed like his daughter was the only person in this world who loved him. He said he felt that having sex with her was just an extension of that love. He said it with a straight face.
And all I could think was how much that must have hurt the little girl to have a full-grown man’s penis inside her. It must have ripped her apart.
The father went to prison for a while, and now his daughter was grown and he wished she would see him, but he knew she had to make the first move.
He sat there, evil and bug-eyed, acting as if his daughter had wronged him somehow by cutting him out of her life. He had taken from her the only purity she would ever have and he sat there meek and abused, sad that his own life had gone so terribly wrong.
Oprah is a cool customer, but she looked like she wanted to lunge from her seat and rip the guy’s tongue out. She handled it well. She kept her voice moderate, she made eye contact, she let him have his say, as sick as it was. But I imagined her afterward, desperately ripping off her microphone and bolting from the stage and running to her dressing room for a shower. She’s a lot stronger than I would be.
And then you think more about a girl like that, helpless and small, her full-grown father looming over her and maybe kissing her and saying sweet things, and inside she’s burning and bleeding and she doesn’t understand why he has to hurt her like that. What child should ever have to give up her trust like that? What did she do to deserve such ruin?
And then your mind spins toward the other injustices against children—AIDS babies, children born to famine, children who die after a short life of nothing but misery.
That’s why I believe in reincarnation. What kind of God would say, “Oops, time’s up, sorry it didn’t work out, but that was your only chance”? It can’t be. Children who have been hurt must be first in line for the next glorious life that comes along. Children who have been raped or murdered or beaten must get to come back and live those lives we see and envy—the people who have more than their fair share of luck, it seems, but it isn’t more than their fair share at all. It’s justice.
And Posie and I are all about Justice.
[2]
“Look at this,” Posie said. “Angela’s representing a girl this time. Actually, a woman now, but she was a girl at the time.”
It was a Saturday afternoon in the middle of June, and we were having lunch together before Posie’s shift.
Regular school was over, but I was in summer school now—American Government, eight to noon every day. Torture. But it was better than hanging around the house.
Jason was in summer school, too, but at the community college. Even though he and Posie still had a year of high school left, Jason decided to get a jump on his future engineering career by taking some fun (for him) classes like Calculus and Physics for Math Freaks, or whatever i
t was called.
Definitely a different species.
Posie was the only one of us working. She waitressed at a place called Jimmy Rock’s where all the servers got to sing. And every half hour or so, when certain songs came on, they had to stop whatever they were doing and rock out and try to get the patrons to dance with them. Other than the few geezers who tried to take advantage of Posie’s short short uniform, it was a pretty fun job.
Posie showed me the article about Angela Peligro and her new client.
There were never any photos to go with the stories. “What do you think she looks like?”
“Who, Angela?” Posie said. “I don’t know, tall probably. Really severe—like an ex-nun. I bet she used to be a nun. She’s got the right amount of grit.”
That little piece of speculation out of the way, I scanned the article.
Angela’s client was thirty now. When she was fifteen, five priests visiting her parish from Mexico decided to spend their holiday raping her.
I couldn’t picture it. How did they do it? Did they hike up their priestly robes and make the sign of the Cross and tell her this was the will of the Lord? Or did they just grunt and slobber like any other rapist off the street?
The woman thought about killing herself, the article said, because she had had a strict Catholic upbringing and knew God wanted her to remain a virgin until she was married. But she realized suicide was a worse sin, and so she couldn’t do it. And of course she couldn’t even consider an abortion. So she lived with the shame of her pregnancy and the face of the child who reminded her every hour of the priests who had stolen her life.
It was so unfair. She didn’t ask for that to happen. You have one chance to give your virginity away—only one—and they took it from her. What did she have left to give?
And that’s when it occurred to me. I swallowed the rest of my chimichanga and thought it through a little bit more before I posed it to Posie.
“Do you think that girl was still a virgin?” I asked. “Afterward? I mean, was she still a virgin in God’s eyes? It isn’t fair that she wouldn’t be.”
Posie paused mid-bite. She laid down her taco and concentrated on the question.
“I think physically, no,” she said at last, “but morally, yes. It wasn’t her choice—she didn’t give it away.”