Secrets of Southern Girls

by Haley Harrigan

  I don’t know if it was the crass, rough-edged way he described what August and I do together or the fear of it all coming out into the open, but I felt my eyes welling up. Tears wouldn’t help me, though. There is so much more at stake than even Toby realizes. It wouldn’t take much for my daddy to make the connection that the boy I’ve been seeing is the son of his boss. And then August would be in real danger. What was it they did to James Edgemont? Started a fire in his family’s front yard? Daddy wouldn’t settle for that.

  “I didn’t know you could be so cruel,” I said, which wasn’t true. I’ve always suspected that Toby could be this cruel, and then some. “Why would you do this?”

  “Life’s cruel, baby.” He stood, walked to me, primal in his approach, and I felt suddenly like prey. He touched me, shoulder to jawbone, softly with his rough fingertip. “You know…I’ve always been good at keeping secrets.” His breath was hot against my neck, and I knew I should step away, but an uninvited tingle spread along my skin. I should probably have screamed at him, but it would have wakened my parents, and then what? They’d burst in and find Toby in my bedroom, and things would be bad anyway. God, I was so tired, hadn’t slept in so many hours, and my bed looked so inviting and everything was going to hell in a handbasket, and I didn’t know what to do, only that I had to protect the only thing I’ve ever thought of as precious. August.

  “Just tell me what you want, Toby,” I said wearily. He slid his finger underneath the strap of my tank top. “Are you trying to…I don’t know, blackmail me, or something?”

  He froze, his finger warm against my collarbone, and then he removed his hand completely, and I was shocked and disturbed by the way my body tried to betray me, tried to move closer to him so he would touch me again. Was I so addicted to affection now that I’d take it from anyone?

  “No,” he said, his voice quiet. “No, not that. Guess I’m not as cruel as you thought. Break it off with the kid, though, Reba. You’re in way over your head.”

  Everything felt surreal—Toby close enough for me to breathe him in, the whiskey on his breath, my clothes sagging against my skin, the suffocating whiteness of my bedroom. I thought of the word savage, of the way people behave when they have something to protect, of the way instinct moves them.

  “I know,” I whispered. “You’re right. I’ll break it off, if you promise not to tell.” Trusting Toby was a risk, especially when I knew I couldn’t bear to end things with August. It was a dangerous game to play, but the words rang true enough. Toby seemed to believe me, anyway.

  52

  When he first saw Reba and the boy together all those years ago, Toby thought he’d hit the fucking lottery. What a punk kid he was. He thought he was going to finally get a chance at her—he had the ammo, after all. Truth is, blackmail was the only thing on his mind when he climbed through Reba’s window. But when he looked into her big, scared eyes, heard that frightened voice… Well, he couldn’t go through with it. Couldn’t be that guy.

  He could see it, though, that ache to be touched, not just by her little boy toy, but by someone who knew how. The way she shivered when he ran his finger along the delicate line of her neck.

  If he could be patient, he thought, maybe he’d have his chance after all.

  53

  REBA’S DIARY, 1997

  I haven’t told August that Toby knows. I don’t want him to think we’re in danger. I don’t know what he would do. Maybe he would go after Toby, which would be stupid. August may be bigger, but Toby’s not the type to put up with threats. More than that, I’m afraid that August might end things, that he’ll want to walk away when he understands, fully, how volatile Toby is, and what my daddy could do if he found out about us. I don’t want to lose August.

  I didn’t think about how easy it would be for Toby to check up on me, to see if I was telling the truth. His window overlooks mine, and now he knows to look, to see if it’s open.

  “You lied to me,” he said, when I scrambled through my window and saw him sitting in the chair a second time.

  “Yes,” I said. I may have been afraid of Toby, but it seemed stupid to deny the obvious.

  “Why?”

  Why would I lie to him, he meant, when he has dirt on me that he could spill at any time. “You should really stop sneaking in like this,” I said.

  “Yeah? You should stop sneaking out.”

  “You know, you have secrets too.” I know about his drug dealing. Jules told me a long time ago.

  “Yeah. But nobody cares about my secrets, Reba. I bet your mama, and your daddy, and Nell, and Jules… They’d all have something to say about yours.”

  I turned my back on him and tried to pretend he wasn’t there. As if that were possible. I put the Fiona Apple CD on with the volume turned down low so it wouldn’t wake my parents, and I sat on the floor, back against the bed. I wanted to take off my dirty clothes, stained from the riverbank, but I knew I couldn’t with him watching. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but the feel of his eyes on me made me feel…important, or something. I was aching to pull out this diary, to write about my night with August. Odd that now that Toby is finally gone and I can write freely, he’s the one I’m writing about.

  His head tilted back against the little vanity chair, his eyes drifting closed to the slow rhythm of Fiona’s sultry voice. I studied him. I’ve never told Jules that I’m sometimes mesmerized by Toby. He’s sexy in a grown-up way, in the way of underwear models or men in cologne ads. In the way that makes you uncomfortable, because you know he’s seen and done the kinds of carnal things you can barely imagine. Even writing it down feels wrong; it would be too weird for Jules to know how I think of him. But I do think of him, and the idea that he was here, in my bedroom again, was making me feel a strange way.

  “Toby,” I whispered. He couldn’t fall asleep here. I got up and leaned over him so that I was whispering into his ear. The smell of him, whiskey and cologne, was overwhelming. “Toby, wake up.”

  “I’m awake,” he said. He was close enough to kiss. Helplessly, I leaned in, and then, when I realized what I was doing, what I wanted to do, I jumped backward, hoping he hadn’t noticed. But the smirk on his face told me he had.

  “Go home,” I said.

  I watched him stand, stretch, look me over one last time before he swung a leg over the windowsill. “Wait,” I said. “Are you going to tell?”

  Toby paused, halfway out my window. It isn’t fair that he is so much more graceful exiting my window than I am, when I’ve had much more practice. “What makes him so special, anyway?” he asked. “You think you love him or something?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

  Toby shook his head. “You don’t. Tell you what, Rebecca.” He raised an eyebrow. “Next time you feel like going to see him…come see me instead.”

  “Why would I do that? So you don’t tell?”

  “No,” he said. He was doing that thing he does, looking at me like he knew more than he should. “Maybe you’re curious. Something tells me you want to.”

  “I don’t.”

  “We’ll see.” And then he was gone, and I quietly slid the window back down and pushed the latch into place.

  I’m not going to do that, though. I’m not going to go to him, and I’m awful for even thinking of what it would be like. For even imagining it.

  54

  Julie can’t believe what she’s reading. She screams, trying in vain to purge this frustration, this anger. Her voice is loud and satisfying in the confines of her hotel room, but it isn’t enough.

  Toby. All of this time, and she never knew, never even guessed. She knew about Reba and August—hadn’t she seen them together with her own eyes? She was blind, though. Stupid. Toby had been a player in this screwed-up production from early on, and he’d never told her. He lied to her about it.

  She’s starting to realize that she doesn�
�t know this story nearly as well as she’d always thought.

  55

  REBA’S DIARY, 1997

  I wasn’t forced, wasn’t pushed. It was all my doing.

  Toby opened the door before I could knock, my right hand frozen in the almost act of it. He seemed surprised, but not for long. Then he was smug, looking me up and down in his way. His eyes told me that he’d like to devour me, and I thought of eating, of consuming. I thought of wet, ripe fruit, sweet peaches hot from the sun, dark plums. Things with skin. He was wearing a T-shirt, maybe blue, maybe green, hard to tell in the moonlit darkness. It was late, and the lights were off inside Molly’s house. I followed him into the shadowy living room. I couldn’t see, but my feet knew the way. Almost as though I was there to visit Jules like always, not there for him, for…for… I didn’t know why I was there.

  I was fast behind Toby. Jules was at another drama club member’s house rehearsing, but who knew when she would be back? I couldn’t bear to face her, to have Jules find me in her house like this, with Toby. What lie would we tell?

  His room was hazy, black light glowing in one corner and thin tendrils of smoke rising from an ashtray on his nightstand, his eerie paintings covering the walls. Why do they call it a black light when it glows blue in a dark room? I hadn’t been in his room in years, since I was a kid and Jules and I would sneak in when he wasn’t home, would snoop through his things with childish curiosity. He represented, to us, the entire world of boys, of mysterious boyness. Stay out of my stuff, shitheads, he said to us the one time he caught us there. He was eleven.

  “I’m here,” I said, after he shut the door behind us. My arms were folded across my chest, fingertips rubbing the soft texture of my sweater as if it could provide some comfort. I wore a sweater and jeans, though God knows it is still warm enough for tanks and tees. Indian summer, they call it, even this late in the year.

  “Yeah, I noticed that.” His voice was low, quiet. Was he nervous? “Why are you here, though?”

  “You…you told me to come. I thought you wanted me to… I just wanted to see.” After a quick glance at his bed—unmade and messy with gray covers—I intentionally faced away. I looked instead at the strange art he had painted onto the walls. In front of me was a hummingbird, muted shades, long beak slipping into some delicate flower painted in light colors with crimson along the edges. Toby flipped on the radio, and suddenly there was music in the dim room. I stared at the walls, waiting.

  “Why do you do this?” I asked, gesturing to the walls.

  “Paint?”

  “No, not that. Why do you paint here, on the walls, and then cover it all up?” Jules and I have seen him do it dozens of times over the years.

  “Why not?” he said with a shrug.

  “Do you even take a snapshot when it’s finished?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why?”

  “Shit, Reba, I don’t know. It doesn’t have to last, you know? If it did, I’d probably lose interest. Its only value lies in its impermanence.”

  “Deep,” I said. “It’s fascinating, you know.”

  “Whatever.” He touched me from behind, hot hands on my shoulders, and I jumped. “Calm down, little Reba,” he murmured, his voice losing some of its usual edge, his lips against my earlobe. “Here.” He handed me some sort of cigarette, orange tip glowing in the dim light. I thought of swallowing it, of hot, bright fire melting like tangerine on my tongue.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “You do now. It’s a joint. Help you relax. Loosen up.” He drew out the word loosen, and it sounded sexy and scary at the same time, slipping from his Southern mouth. “Go ahead.”

  “I don’t want to,” I said. “I don’t want that.”

  “You don’t have any idea what you want,” he said. “Take it.” I took it from his fingers. He’d been right before. I was curious about all of it.

  “Put your lips on it,” he said, and I did, sipping the smoke into my lungs. I thought of summertime and sweet tea and straws with candy-cane stripes. “Hold it in,” he told me. I held it, longer than a normal breath but not so long that I felt my lungs would burst. “Now, let it out.” A cloud of pearly smoke unfurled from my open mouth. All of that, inside me. “Good girl.”

  “Yes,” I said. He was right—I did want it. It didn’t take long. I felt like a tight ball of yarn unwinding. “More.”

  “No. Not yet. Not tonight.” He put the joint down on his dresser—no ashtray—and I thought of fire, of things burning. Of embers. He was behind me again, hands touching me, moving from my shoulders to my elbows and back up again. I could feel the heat of his hands through my sweater. I was so warm all over, and I wished I’d worn something lighter. I closed my eyes as his hands traveled over my breasts. Toby’s touch wasn’t like August’s at all, not hesitant and respectful but certain, hungry. His hands slid lower, serpentine, one arm snaking around my waist and the other hand gliding along my denim-covered thighs.

  His grip on my waist tightened and he pulled me against him. His hand was at the crotch of my jeans, and he was rubbing me there. I could feel his fingers and the stiffness of denim and the cotton of my panties all at once. “Reba,” he hissed into my neck as he held me tight against him, his mouth on my shoulder, on my ear, on the back of my neck with my hair flipped easily out of his way.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked, his voice rough. I opened my eyes, but didn’t respond. He rubbed his fingers into the seam of my jeans and I could feel his touch on me and inside of me and everywhere. I tried to hold it in, but the quiet moan escaped my traitorous lips. I knew I shouldn’t be there.

  “Rebecca, do you want me to stop?” And then he did stop, stilled his hand and his mouth and waited, and the quiet tingling inside me slowed and my breath was heavy to my ears. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me to stop.”

  “No,” I whispered, so quietly that he leaned his head forward to hear me clearly. “Don’t.”

  “Black Hole Sun” played on the radio but I didn’t think of sunlight, didn’t think of anything in that wild darkness. I lived in the feel of his fingers on me and the sight of the intimate puncture of the hummingbird’s beak into that soft flower, so vivid in my arousal that its wings seem to beat, to hum against every inch of my skin.

  I could feel his breath on me, hear it ragged against my ear. “When you leave here,” he growled, “will you go to him?”

  My voice was shaky, distracted. “No.”

  “Just me,” he said. “Say it.” He gripped me harder. “Tonight it’s just me.”

  “Just you.” It was a sigh, a moan, a whimper.

  “Again.”

  “Just you,” I said. “Just you,” repeated over and over as I came faithlessly against the hot concave of his hand. And then I was quiet.

  I started to tremble as it wore away, that savage pleasure I never meant to experience. Or did I? I’d come to him of my own accord. A bewildered, guilty gasp escaped my lips.

  “Shh…” he whispered, full lips kissing me where my neck and collarbone met. He released me, and I felt as though I might collapse. “Go home, Reba.”

  I ran out of his room and through the front door into the night. I scrambled clumsily through my window and curled up on my bed in the deceptive safety of my bedroom, covered in warm lamplight and shame.

  And now, here I am, confessing it all.

  56

  REBA’S DIARY, 1997

  I wasn’t ready to see August again. I needed more time to rid myself of Toby’s touch, in case August looked at me and saw traces of Toby left behind. But I couldn’t exactly tell him that, so I’d agreed to go along.

  August took me to see the new house his family was building. It is in the newest neighborhood in town, upscale, something my mama and daddy could never dream of affording. It has only been a few days since Toby, and I was confused, right and wrong
blurring inside my head and my heart and my body. I was covered in gray, every inch of me. I didn’t want to end things with August. Toby was right. I had been curious. And now I knew, and it wouldn’t happen again.

  It was a risk to go with August, in public, to his future home. It meant a drive through town in the front seat of his car. But I went willingly; I owed him even if he didn’t know it, and it was raining out, with hints of an approaching storm. I remember, all too well, what had happened last time it rained. I felt hot thinking about Toby, and I was repulsed by myself, by my body’s reaction, how he’d reduced me to a quivering mess, fully clothed, with only his touch. There was something about him, though, about the way he touched me. Like I was not made of glass, like I wouldn’t crumble beneath his hands. Like I was a woman, and not the timid girl everyone believes me to be.

  I could feel August glancing over at me, and I knew he could tell that something wasn’t quite right. But I couldn’t tell him what I’d done. I don’t want him to think of other men’s hands on me, don’t want him to know how much I liked it.

  So, I said nothing. I knew what August must have been thinking—that I had doubts, that I doubted my decision to be there with him. I tried to relax as we got closer to the house, and when we arrived, I could see why he’d suggested the place. It was only a skeleton still, plywood and exposed beams, surrounded by dirt that had turned to mud in the light rain. But no streetlights, not here. Not yet. No light at all, and no reason for anyone to take a second glance. His car, pulled into what would eventually be the driveway, seemed hardly visible should anyone pass by, which in itself was unlikely, given the hour.

  He carried a soft blanket—he’d bought one soon after the night we first made love on the riverbank. He spread it out in what would one day be the dining room, after first checking to make sure that no wayward nails marred the makeshift floor.