Nothing Can Hurt You

by Nicola Maye Goldberg

  Robert gets in his car and drives away. Sara waits until she’s inside, with the front door locked, to check if the money is still in her pocket. It is.

  Sara’s mom is in bed, lying on top of the covers, watching a documentary on TV. She’s always watching something on the History Channel or Animal Planet, something educational. It makes Sara sad. Why can’t she just watch a soap opera like a normal person? It’s like she’s trying to improve herself, like she thinks knowing a lot about the Spanish Inquisition or endangered species of sharks will lead to a better life.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hi, angel.” Her mother beckons her over and hugs her.

  “You smell good,” Sara says.

  “I took a long bath. Candles and everything.”

  Which women’s magazine told her to do that? Sara squeezes her mother’s hand. “I can tell. Your fingers are all pruney.”

  Her mother laughs and turns the volume on the television down.

  “How was babysitting?”

  “Fine. They’re sweet girls. We watched Pocahontas.”

  “Great. You fed them, cleaned them, all that?”

  “Yup.”

  Sara wonders what would happen if she told her mother about what Robert did. It feels like it happened a week ago, even though it took her less than a minute to walk up the stairs.

  How would her mother react? Outrage, definitely. She might even call the police. Or she might call Sara’s father and demand that he deal with it, insist that he defend his daughter’s honor, some medieval shit like that. Sara knows—she knew the second that it happened—that she’s not going to tell her mother, that it would not be worth causing her so much anxiety.

  Everyone knows that parents will do anything to protect their children, Sara thinks, holding her mother’s lavender-scented hand. No one talks about what children do to protect their parents.

  “I’m going to go over to Dawn’s,” she says.

  “Really? It’s so late.”

  “It’s a Saturday,” Sara reminds her. “And summer.”

  “That’s true. Are you going to sleep over?”

  Sara shrugs. “Maybe.”

  “Is Jack going to be there?”

  “Jack’s in Hawaii,” she reminds her.

  “Lucky Jack.”

  Sara is actually kind of upset that Jack didn’t invite her to join his family on their vacation. That’s what people do, isn’t it, especially if they’ve been dating for more than a year? Either Jack’s parents don’t like her, which she’s always suspected, or he’s planning to break up with her, which would be annoying, even though she’s probably going to break up with him before she starts college.

  She doesn’t feel that strongly about it. She can’t even really think about Jack for that long without getting distracted by something else, which is probably a sign that they should just end things already.

  Tonight the something else distracting her is Robert, his hand on her ass, his boring face. Thinking about it makes her queasy, makes her want to leave the room, like her mother might be able to figure out what’s going on just by looking at her.

  “Good night,” Sara says.

  “Good night. Eat something before you go out, OK?”

  “I will,” Sara lies, leaving her mother there in her cocoon of lavender.

  When she arrives at Dawn’s house, Sara finds her friend in the middle of a very messy room. There are two suitcases open on the floor, each of them half-filled with unfolded clothes. Dawn is going to Stanford. She doesn’t give a shit about leaving anyone behind.

  Sara already knew Dawn was starting college a full week before she was. But seeing the suitcases surprises and upsets her. She wants to lock them both in Dawn’s room forever, or, failing that, follow her to California. Sara pushes some clothes aside and sits down on the bed.

  “What’s going on with you?” Dawn asks. She is braiding and unbraiding her long red hair, which she does when she’s bored.

  “Weird night,” Sara says. “You’re packing already?”

  “Weird how? And ‘packing’ is a strong word. I’m just deciding what stuff I want to bring.”

  “That’s packing.”

  “So I’m a little excited. Sue me.” She rummages around under her bed and finds a bottle of very cheap rum and hands it to Sara. “Why was your night weird?”

  “I babysat these two girls. And then their dad gave me a ride home, because he said it was too late for me to be out alone. And then he grabbed my ass and tried to kiss me.” She wants to tell it like a funny story, but it doesn’t come out that way.

  “What the fuck?” says Dawn.

  “I know.”

  “Unless, like, was it hot? Like, do you have a crush on him or something?”

  “No.” Sara shakes her head. “Not even a little bit.”

  “How old is he?”

  “I don’t know. Dad-aged.”

  “That’s so gross. You should call the police.”

  “It wasn’t that big of a deal. And I am eighteen.”

  Fair game, that’s what eighteen means. Sara takes a long swig out of the bottle.

  “If you’re too young to ride your bike home at night, you’re too young to fuck,” Dawn answers firmly.

  “He didn’t fuck me.”

  “He would have! Given the opportunity.”

  “You’ve never even met him,” Sara laughs. Dawn’s overprotectiveness is endearing.

  “I bet he would have. Sometimes I just want to like, murder every single dude I see.”

  “That’s probably excessive. Maybe we can just, like, blind them. Hot poker to the eyes.”

  “What about Jack?”

  “Jack is probably fucking some girl in a hula skirt as we speak,” says Sara. She thinks for a moment. “I’m happy for her, actually.”

  “What? Happy for who?”

  “The hula skirt girl. I mean, Jack is a nice guy. He’s gentle. He won’t give her shit about wearing a condom. And his dick is big, but not too big.”

  As a point of fact, Jack’s dick is the only one Sara has seen in real life, so she can’t really comment on its relative size, but that doesn’t matter. Dawn has collapsed on a pile of her own clothing, laughing.

  “You’re a fucking saint, you know that?” she says.

  “I know. Saint Sara, Our Lady of Mediocre Boyfriends.”

  Dawn picks up her blow-dryer from her desk.

  “Just say the word,” she says, brandishing it dramatically. “And I’ll kill him for you. I swear I will.”

  “Jack?”

  “No, the creep. The dad.”

  “Oh.”

  “Though I’ll kill Jack, too, if that’s what you want.”

  Sara shakes her head. “I don’t even care. He’s just some pathetic guy. Not worth the time and effort.”

  Dawn takes the rum from her. “You know what? I bet he’s at home, right now, jerking off, thinking about you.”

  “Ew. That does not make me feel better.”

  “I thought you didn’t need to feel better. I thought you didn’t care.”

  Sara giggles. She’s a little drunk. “Are you trying to trick me? What’s going on here?”

  “No! I’m not. I mean, I am, kind of. I’m just saying, it’s OK if you do care. It’s OK to be mad and grossed-out when someone does something gross. Because that’s why they do it, you know?” Dawn is bouncing a little, which makes Sara think she started drinking before Sara got there. “Like, it’s not because your ass is so gorgeous he can’t help himself. Not that your ass isn’t gorgeous. But it’s because he’s some lonely pathetic asshole, and he sees you, and you’re young and pretty and smart and about to go to college, and he wants to think he’s better than you, but he’s not, so he has to grab your ass. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  Sara nods. “He gave me ten dollars.”

  “What?”

  Sara is now laughing so hard she has to bite her arm to keep from making too much noise. “Ten dollars! Is that al
l my ass is worth?”

  Dawn is laughing, too. “Unbelievable. What a fucking cheapskate. On top of everything. You know what? I bet he meant to give you, like, a fifty-dollar bill, to make himself feel powerful. But then that was all he had in his wallet.”

  “He deserves to die for being so cheap. Ten dollars!”

  “Do you have it with you?”

  She does. She takes it out of her pocket and holds it aloft like a trophy. “What the fuck am I going to do with ten dollars?”

  “All the liquor stores are closed already.”

  “We could go to a movie tomorrow,” Sara suggests. This is their favorite activity during the summer. The movie theater is air-conditioned, and it’s extremely easy to sneak in alcohol via Coke bottle.

  “No, we should do something real tonight. I’m worried if we wait, it will lose its magic.”

  “What magic? What the fuck are you talking about?” Sara laughs, but she knows exactly what Dawn is talking about. She could never explain it to anyone else on earth, but she knows.

  “Let’s call Owen,” Dawn suggests. “He’s probably getting off work around now.”

  “Sure,” says Sara, trying to keep her face straight, but breaking into giggles. Owen is Dawn’s cousin. He lived with Dawn’s family for a few months when Sara was in tenth grade. She had a huge crush on him. If Dawn knew, she never mentioned it. Of course she knew, Sara realizes.

  “Where is he working?”

  “The 7-Eleven on Showalter.”

  “Thrilling.”

  “I know. They don’t have real booze but they definitely have beer.”

  “Even more thrilling. Can we borrow your mom’s car?” Dawn’s dad’s car is a Maserati. Just being near it makes Sara nervous, like if she looks at it the wrong way it will get a dent and she’ll be liable. Once, Dawn’s dad picked them up from a school dance in it, and Sara practically held her breath the whole way home. Dawn’s mom drives a much less terrifying Volvo.

  Dawn considers. “Not worth it. She’ll make it into a big thing. She hates Owen.”

  “She does? He’s her nephew.”

  “Technically my dad’s nephew. And he hates him, too. Calls him a reprobate.”

  Sara shakes her head. Dawn’s family fascinates her. They are so good at maintaining the facade of the Best American Family, and Dawn is willing to play along. In return for her performance—good grades, an indispensable member of the cheerleading squad—Dawn’s parents never dig too deep in their daughter’s life.

  They’d probably be horrified by what they found, even if Dawn’s escapades are well within the norm of suburban teenage shenanigans. One time, however, she got Sara to help her perform a satanic ritual involving tea lights and lots of chalk, but they both chickened out when they realized the ritual demanded the sacrifice of a small animal. They used one of Sara’s old teddy bears instead. That weekend, the cheerleading squad took home a state medal, so, according to Dawn, the ritual worked.

  They ride their bikes to the 7-Eleven. The parking lot is empty except for Owen’s car, a Ford that looks like it narrowly escaped being turned into scrap metal, and a white van.

  “Serial killer,” says Dawn, pointing.

  Sara checks around the side. “Nope. Dry cleaners.” She points to the company’s name, written in big blue letters.

  “A front, obviously,” Dawn answers. She sounds disappointed.

  Owen is behind the register, filling out a crossword puzzle. It’s such an old-man thing to do, a contrast with his long hair and sleepy eyes. It makes Sara remember, vividly, why she liked him so much. This time, though, she notices the acne on both his cheeks. If her skin was that bad, Sara thinks, she would never be able to leave the house. She hates herself for having such a mean thought and smiles at him brightly as if that makes up for it. He grins back in a lazy, enticing way, and the smile and the eyes cancel out the bad skin. Is it normal to think like this, like a boy is an equation? Sara wonders if she drank more than she meant to.

  “Hello there,” Dawn says, in a funny, elegant accent, like that of an old-movie star. “We’ll have two glasses of your finest Mountain Dew.”

  “Yes, milady.” He bows mockingly. Not medieval, Sara thinks, old Hollywood. No one except her and Dawn ever gets these things right.

  Sara and Dawn share a cigarette outside while Owen closes up. The white van is gone.

  “Off to go cut off some poor girl’s head, no doubt,” Sara says. “Though that sounds like a lot of effort. Physically, I mean.”

  “Ugh, yeah. Strangling is so much easier.” But the way Dawn says it, Sara can tell she isn’t having fun anymore.

  It’s interesting, the ways in which Dawn is tough, and the ways she isn’t. Grown men yelling obscenities at her on the street, sneering teachers, DAWN=WHORE written in Sharpie in a bathroom stall—these things don’t bother her at all. But once, during lunch at school, a girl started to describe a scene from a horror movie, and Dawn got up and left without a word. Sara found her sitting on the edge of the football field, gray-faced, digging her nails into the dirt.

  Owen comes out. Dawn allows him the last drag of the cigarette as they walk to the vacant lot a block over. There, under the dull glow of a streetlamp, Owen rolls a joint and Sara and Dawn drink the beers he brought along. They talk easily, quietly, about nothing. Sara and Owen are sitting very close, their thighs almost touching. She can tell he’s watching her but doesn’t know what he’s looking for. If she cheated on Jack, Dawn wouldn’t tell, but she’d probably feel bad. Her fourteen-year-old self, with her fourteen-year-old crush, seems so present it’s like a fourth person hanging out with them. Midway through the joint, Dawn interrupts.

  “Let’s go swimming,” she says. “I’m in the mood to swim.”

  “That sounds fun,” says Sara, dubiously. “At your house?”

  “No, at the club.”

  Until a few weeks ago, Dawn worked at the country club where her parents are members, teaching tennis to small children at summer camp. Sara has been there twice, once for Jack’s sister’s wedding, which was fun, and once for Dawn’s debutante ball, which was not.

  “You still have keys and stuff?”

  “They don’t use keys. Everything’s like, codes that you punch in, and I know those.”

  “You’re crazy,” says Owen. “Those places have a million security cameras.”

  “Not at the pool entrance,” says Dawn confidently. Sara doubts she knows this for a fact. “Besides I met the security guards and they truly don’t give a shit. They’ll see the tapes in the morning, be like, What the fuck?, and then just delete them like they usually do. They don’t save the footage.”

  Sara is dying to ask what television show Dawn watched to come up with this, but knows better. When she’s in this kind of mood, Dawn hates being interrupted. She’ll get hurt and angry, and then the whole night will go to shit.

  “I’m in,” Sara says.

  Owen looks at her, alarmed. “You’re crazy. We could go to jail.”

  Dawn scoffs. “What are they going to do, track me down to California? For swimming?”

  “I’m not going to California,” Owen says. “Neither is Sara, actually. You’re so full of shit, Dawn.”

  “So don’t come. We don’t need you.”

  Owen looks at Sara again, as if begging for an ally. She shrugs. It would be nice to have Owen there, but it’s not necessary.

  “See ya,” she says. “Thanks for the beer.”

  Sara and Dawn hop on their bikes and ride away, leaving Owen there in the dim neon, watching them go.

  The gates that surround the country club are more impressive and sinister than Sara thought they would be. Each pole narrows to a sharp, elegant tip. It looks like something out of a children’s storybook. It makes her want to get inside even more, but she can’t help but ask Dawn, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “One hundred percent,” Dawn answers, leaning her bike against a tree. “This is the furthest gate from the main
entrance,” she explains. “See, no cameras.”

  It’s too dark for Sara to know whether she’s right. Anyway, she doesn’t care. Some part of her brain might still be worried about getting caught, but her body doesn’t. It’s limber and fluid and burning. All she wants is to be in the water. Dawn runs her hand along the gate until she finds a metal box and opens it. She punches in six numbers, and then the gate opens with a low, welcoming groan.

  “There we go,” she says. Sara pretends not to be impressed.

  They work together to pull the cover off the pool. “Usually there are like six dudes in boat shoes who do this,” Dawn says, breathing heavily.

  “Welcome to the revolution,” Sara answers, and they both laugh so hard they have to sit down for a moment.

  They give up and leave the pool cover half-on, half-off. “Good enough,” Dawn proclaims. They take off their clothes and get in the water. Sara expected to keep her bra and underwear on, but Dawn gets completely naked, so she does, too. She imagines some fat security guard in a windowless office somewhere, watching them, and it makes her giddy.

  Sara swims a few horizontal laps. She is a good swimmer. She can feel all her muscles and bones moving together perfectly. It feels even better naked. When she comes up for air, she has to pull her wet, heavy hair from in front of her face.

  “I feel like a mermaid,” she tells Dawn.

  “Whatever makes you happy,” Dawn answers. She is floating, her arms and legs stretched out as if she were making a snow angel.

  “You’re bored already, aren’t you?” asks Sara.

  “No,” Dawn snaps, and then, “Yes. A little.”

  “I knew it!”

  “Fuck. What’s wrong with me?”

  I wish I knew, Sara thinks. “Nothing. You just need some pills, probably. Or a boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Dawn flips over and disappears underneath the water for a few seconds. When she reemerges, she says: “It would be nice to meet someone who doesn’t immediately make me want to claw my fucking eyes out.”