“Ah, girl, don’t even joke about that.”
“I’m not.”
She met my eyes. “Yeah. I know.”
A girl bumped into Shanty, then gave her a put-out expression and didn’t offer an apology. She mumbled something to her friend about old people, and they both kept walking.
“Where do you suppose she is?” I asked.
“Let’s just keep trekking through the jungle till we find her.” This time Shanty’s intimidating stance didn’t begin to part the waters.
“I don’t mean to be unsupportive,” I said, “but do you think we should try to talk her out of it?”
“Yes.”
Shanty’s instant answer surprised me but also verified my own thoughts.
“There she is.” I pointed at a huddle of students near the post office. I could just see Nina’s black ponytail between the shoulders of two boys. She was standing in front of a nook of post office boxes, and above her head hung an advertisement for Priority Mail. The group around her seemed tame compared to the rest of the building, and my nerves calmed. A short distance away, I noticed a small pile of Nina’s clothes, a spiral notebook, and her Kindle. Did she ever go anywhere without something to read?
A girl took a marker and gently wrote something on Nina’s cheek. “People are good down deep, aren’t they?” I asked as we stopped at a bulletin board plastered with announcements and flyers. “Even on this crazy campus, people are good.”
The girl touched Nina’s wrist with her fingertip, letting her know she was handing the marker back. A boy had the other marker and was carefully drawing something on Nina’s back, then he stuck a finger in the side of her bikini bottoms and snapped the marker on her hip. I frowned, ready to step forward, but Shanty held up a hand to stop me. “I think it’s all right. They’re hormonal teenagers, right? That one looked like a freshman. Probably don’t know any better.”
“I suppose.” I rested my weight on one foot, unable to find a position that seemed natural. In a weird way, I was imagining myself as Nina, standing in this horrible place and wearing next to nothing. I could feel the marker on my skin, its wetness leaving trails that tickled and maybe stung a little. I even felt that boy’s finger pulling at the elastic of my bottoms and the plastic marker cold against my hip. But stronger than that, I felt the crowd around me, moving and shifting, three students walking past me, two others stopping, a girl and a boy standing so close behind me that I could feel their breath on my neck as they read the words on my skin. Then one of them snickered.
Shanty took one step.
Three boys were standing in front of Nina. They had a girl with them, but she stood back a few paces, watching with apparent disinterest. One of the boys wore a T-shirt with the arms cut off. He took a marker and bent down on one knee as though he were proposing, and then he began to write and draw just below her belly button. His friend had decided to write something on her foot. From where I stood, it looked like he was drawing an ankle bracelet.
Shanty took two more steps, and I followed her. We were closer to Nina now, but still far enough away that we didn’t hinder the demonstration.
The boy kneeling in front of her stood up and surveyed his artwork. He turned to the girl next to him and she shrugged. The other boy looked at it and guffawed before stepping behind Nina.
Shanty stomped forward. Three dark, bold words stretched across Nina’s abdomen, and a thick arrow pointed downward. F— me here.
Shanty’s hand came back, and her palm caught the boy on the back of the head.
Just as his friend unhooked Nina’s bikini top.
Chapter Forty-One
Nina hardly had an inch of skin that wasn’t covered with profanity. Shanty and I got her out of the student center as quickly as possible, but even then, kids stared and pointed. Our hasty exit might have been worse for her than the actual demonstration since she was no longer blindfolded and could see the reactions of the students around her.
By the time I left the campus, I had a circus of emotions tangling inside me, vying for position, and I couldn’t quite make sense of them or identify which one was going to end up at the forefront of my mood. Anger at the college students who had been so cruel to my friend. Irritation at Nina for doing it in the first place, without asking our advice. Disgust for her because she was such a follower. Shame for women in general, and hatred for men. Hatred was probably the emotion that would rise to the top.
I slipped into Graham’s office and sat down at my desk, and it was almost as though I hadn’t left. His door was closed, and I could hear muted voices on the other side. Had he even noticed I was gone? I opened the Solitaire app on my phone, but immediately pushed the device away and stood. I paced to the front window, then to the back of the room, then repeated the action. Over and over, willing my heart to calm. Willing my mind to erase the images of Nina’s skin.
When she had been blindfolded, she held her head high, probably thinking about Shanty’s demonstration and imagining herself in the same situation. But when her bikini top came off, she had instantly crumpled, scrambling to cover herself with one arm while she clawed at the blindfold with the other hand. Her eyes had widened when she saw Shanty and me—Shanty swatting at college boys like they were horseflies, and me, yanking off my overshirt to throw it around her shoulders.
We had taken her back to her dorm room, where her roommate looked on with distant interest. Shanty had held Nina while she cried, and I had scrubbed at the words with fingernail polish remover and Dove soap, reading each phrase as though they were entries in an urban dictionary.
Slut.
Whore.
Ugliest thing I’ve seen all semester.
555-915-0143 Call any time.
There was a messy drawing that I assumed was meant to be a penis. And on a different part of her body, another of the same that was perfectly drawn, as though the artist had been there a while, laboring over every detail, savoring the moment. Had the artist’s friends been watching, nodding, jeering? And scrawled on her inner wrist,
Jesus loves you.
As I scrubbed at that one, I noticed scars there that I should have noticed before. Jesus loves you. In tiny, messy handwriting, as though the writer had been hurrying to get away, and not at all confident in his own words.
Where had that guy been in the end?
I stomped my foot, and the voices in Graham’s office paused for a moment before continuing. I was only imagining males writing on Nina’s body because most of the students I’d seen near her were boys, but I had witnessed at least one girl write something. And several of the comments were written in neat, girlish handwriting with loops and curls. One phrase I remembered well: Get a life. Written just above Nina’s heart.
Shanty had taken Nina home with her. To comfort her and feed her and love on her.
I had come back here. To the office. To Graham.
I craved his reassurance, but after thinking about Nina and her ordeal, a small part of my neediness was beginning to chip away. She had been so vulnerable, and I wanted to be strong.
Graham’s door opened, and a moody-looking teenage boy walked through, passing me without acknowledgment and yanking the glass door so hard it slammed against the magazine rack. I watched him from where I stood at the back wall, feeling nothing. Even if the kid had broken the door, what would it matter?
“You’re back.” Graham stood next to me, his eyebrows raised. “Everything all right?”
What could I say? Where should I begin?
I shook my head.
“What is it?”
“Nina.” I whispered, and whatever minuscule amount of strength I had evaporated.
Graham pulled me toward his office, and I willingly followed, allowing him to sit me down on the sofa and nestle me in the crook of his arm. He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask questions, just ran his fingers through my hair and waited.
I closed my eyes and waited too. I waited for the peace I knew would come from being close to hi
m. Because it always came. He was like a healing tonic, calming and soothing.
“She did a demonstration like Shanty did,” I said.
“Not in a bikini.”
“Yes. In the Student Center.”
He tensed. “In the JBK? Should I call her?”
“She’s with Shanty now.”
He relaxed. “Was it very bad?”
“They were awful to her. People are terrible everywhere, aren’t they?”
“Hmm. Sort of.”
“I don’t know how to handle this.”
He pressed his cheek against my forehead. “Your heart is full of love for Nina, and disgust for the people who hurt her, but still . . . you need to pay attention to what’s happening in there.” He tapped my chest. “Respect your feelings.”
“Do you ever stop giving counseling advice?”
He shrugged. “That’s what I do.”
“I’m not sure that’s what I need you to do right now.”
He nodded, but didn’t answer. “Sometimes Mirinda says the same thing.”
My spine stiffened. “Mirinda?” I settled an elbow on the armrest on the far side of the couch. “I thought you couldn’t talk about your clients.” My voice held a challenge.
“Yes,” he said cautiously, “but I don’t think she would mind. Have you ever considered befriending her?”
“Befriending my ex-husband’s sister?”
He pulled at his earlobe. “She could probably help you work through this. And Nina and Shanty too. She could help all three of you.”
“You seem to have put a lot of thought into it.”
He studied me. “It’s my job, right?”
“That seems to be your explanation for a lot of things.”
He stood slowly, then trailed his fingertips across his desk as he stepped around it. I could physically feel the distance he placed between us as he sat down in his chair and began swiveling back and forth, once again making us the counselor and the client.
My fingernails dug into the couch cushion, and I gritted my teeth to keep from snarling. How dare he? Was I just another client now? I remembered his expression when I wrecked on the bike. He had glanced at my thighs, then looked away from me. Now I understood. Everything had changed when he realized what a mess I was.
“Saturday night, at the reunion,” he said, “you saw me with Mirinda.” His lips pressed together.
“A lot of people did.” Like Brett. And Michael. And Mirinda had seen me see them.
“It wasn’t what it looked like.”
I pressed my palms against each other, then squeezed them between my knees. “I wanted to believe that. I mean, for two days, you’ve said nothing, and I decided to believe it wasn’t anything. You’ve always said she wasn’t your type.”
“Cecily, it wouldn’t matter if she was . . . Men don’t fall victim to every woman they’re attracted to.”
“So you’re attracted to her?”
“That’s not what I meant. I don’t know. Sure, she’s attractive, but I don’t think of her that way.”
“What way do you think of her?”
“As a client.”
“A client you like to look at.”
He rubbed a palm over his beard. “You’re making more out of this than you should.”
I thought of Nina, standing in her bikini with black scribble covering her body. She hadn’t meant anything to those people who’d hurt her. She had been a source of curiosity, a joke, and for some of them—possibly—a reminder of their own pain.
I swallowed. “Mirinda is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met, Graham.”
He eyed me skeptically, wisely keeping his mouth shut.
“And she uses her beauty to manipulate people around her. Our world is a crazy mixed-up mess, and men are pigs—some of them—but Mirinda is the type of woman who supports everything our culture throws at women. Not only does she believe the lies . . . she makes them true.”
“She’s working through a lot of that.”
“And you’re there for her.”
He sighed. “Cecily, I’m not interested in Mirinda, I’m interested in you, and I find you incredibly attractive, but I can’t force you to believe that. I can encourage you, but you’re the only one in control of your feelings.”
“What about your control?” I snapped, anger rising in my gut. “You’re the one letting her press her body against yours right there in front of everyone in our senior class. In front of Brett. He was laughing at me. And probably laughing at you too for being blind to her slutty ways.”
Graham clenched his teeth before he spoke. “You despise being judged by your outer shell. You detest it. Yet you continue to judge Mirinda—partially, at least—by her appearance.”
“Maybe you’re doing the same thing.”
“No. Actually, I’m not.” He shook his head just as his cell phone chirped. When he pulled it out of his pocket, he flinched, then read a text. “I have to go.”
“You’re not eating lunch here?”
“Not today.” He stepped to the door. “I’ll talk to you later?”
He waited a few seconds, but when I didn’t answer, he opened the door and walked away.
My heart followed him down the hall and out the front door, and I was left with emptiness. The office suddenly felt like a vacuum, sucking the air out of my lungs, and without thinking, I walked to the window, thirsty for one last glimpse of him and hungry for the feel of sunshine on my cheeks, any kind of light to shine on my shadow, but what I saw only made my darkness more complete. Black and blinding.
Mirinda was getting into Graham’s truck, and they were leaving together.
Chapter Forty-Two
I left the office unattended again and didn’t go back. Even though it was irresponsible of me, I couldn’t find it in my heart to care. If Graham could leave with Mirinda, then I could spend the afternoon sitting on the edge of the canyon, wishing the earth would swallow up all the feelings that were running rampant through my soul. I squinted at the enormous gorge before me and speculated if it would be large enough to hold them all.
I flipped my spiral notebook to a blank page and wrote Shanty’s latest challenge at the top. Then I grunted at the irony.
Make a list of people who have committed offenses against you. Then forgive them.
Shanty and Graham had both insisted I needed to forgive everyone on the planet, as well as myself—whatever that meant—but at the moment I wasn’t in a forgiving mood. On the other hand, I was definitely in a make-a-list-of-those-who-had-offended-me mood. No problem. This could easily be the simplest journal entry yet.
Graham.
Maybe I shouldn’t have written his name first, but he was at the forefront of my mind. I had thought he was different than other men, but now I couldn’t be sure.
Next to his name, I wrote,
not what I expected.
He was much more primal than I had thought. A stereotypical man, driven by hormones, chasing after long legs, tanned skin.
I squeezed my eyes shut momentarily, then scribbled in my notebook again.
Mirinda, for being herself, and making the lies true.
Brett, for obvious reasons.
I stopped there, and a tear slid down my cheek. Brett had hurt me so many times. So thoroughly, indifferently, callously. More than once he had loomed over me as I lay naked on our bed. By then, he had stopped making eye contact. Instead, he held his phone in one hand, his face illuminated by the lighted screen as he watched some other woman he found titillating. When he needed his hands free to support his weight, he tossed the phone on the pillow next to my ear and continued to watch. Until he was finished with me.
I slammed the notebook shut and pulled my knees up to my chin. Shanty’s assignment was completed.
My fist closed around the pen, and I held it in front of my eyes, clicking the end repeatedly and watching the roller thrust out of the casing, then back in. Click-click. Click-click. My thighs were pressed aga
inst my chest, but I shifted them far enough away so that I could run the pen forcefully from my kneecap to my hip. Then I did it again, harder. The pen was safely inside the casing, and the action caused minimal pain and left no visible marks on my jeans, and probably none on my flesh beneath. It was pitiful really. Self-pity and wallowing. I held the pen behind my head and hurled it into the abyss, watching as it sailed through the air, turning end over end as it arced into the canyon, disturbing a branch on a mesquite tree before it bounced to the ground.
I snickered. I had wanted to throw the object far away from me, letting the expanse of the canyon swallow it up dramatically, but it hadn’t gone more than twenty feet, though it seemed a little farther because of the slope. My arms had little strength, but I had gotten the pen—a weapon at the moment—away from my legs and out of my hands. I may have been offended by Graham and Brett and Mirinda, but I was sick and tired of the emotional spiral that always ended with me hurting myself.
Then I wished I had the pen back, partly because I didn’t want to mar the beauty of the canyon with trash, but mostly because I realized I should’ve written my mother’s name. I loved her more than I could express, but I was beginning to realize I was offended by her death. Even though she couldn’t help it, and her disease had nothing to do with me, my hurt feelings hadn’t recovered from the loss.
And then I thought of Ava, and a sob caught in my throat. I hardly ever thought of my baby. Why was that? Whatever the reason, Graham would tell me it was normal. To be expected.
I hugged my knees tightly, realizing I needed to forgive my sweet girl. Was that even the right terminology? I couldn’t forgive her for an action she didn’t intentionally commit, but I could release my bitterness toward the situation itself. I could let it go. I could allow myself to live life, happily, without her. I could stop tormenting myself with all the guilty thoughts that swirled around her memory.
Daddy’s truck hummed into the yard behind me, and I wondered why he was home so early, but I didn’t move from my spot. He would go in the house, fix himself a sweet tea, and eventually mosey onto the back deck and see me thirty yards away. And that would be all right. So far Daddy hadn’t made it onto my list of offenders.
Looking Glass Lies Page 20