by R. D. Power
How could he say no to such an appeal, to such an angel? “No, Taylor.” (That’s how.) “I’ll go to see the kids, but not the fossils. And do me a favor: the day when petting a dog and talking to kids is the highlight of my life, kill me.”
Kristen hoped that the more time he spent with her, the closer he would get to her. It worked. He enjoyed her company so much, he began to call on her during the week, though found she was seldom home. Robert was awestruck by her irresistible personality—her brilliance, her wit, her charm, her poise, her integrity, her affability, her vitality, and her compassion—and she was cute, to boot. To him, they were the best of friends.
To her, they were much more, despite his flaws. She looked beyond what he was to what he could be given what nature had bestowed on him; and what he could be, assuming he attained his potential, was a great man. No one else she’d ever met came close to his potential. Reason aside, she was falling in love.
By this time, the spontaneous smile that sprang to her lips and eyes whenever she saw him had become resplendent. She looked the more alluring for it, and his gaze became longer and more longing.
On Halloween, he stopped by to invite her out for an evening stroll. As they walked down her driveway, Robert said, “Hey, Taylor, watch this.” Kristen observed as he darted at a young boy and said, “Give me that bag you little bugger!” The lad screamed, surrendered the bag of candy, and ran away whimpering. “Scram, pipsqueak!” Robert yelled as he examined his booty.
“Robert Peter Owens!” Kristen berated. “I don’t believe what I just saw. How could you?” She called to the youngster. “Wait a minute, little boy. Come back.” He stopped and returned. Then she looked at Robert and said, “You set me up, didn’t you?” He started laughing, and the boy joined in.
“Give me my five bucks,” the boy demanded, and Robert handed it over.
“How did you know?” Robert asked her.
“It wouldn’t shock me if you’d done that in your past, but I didn’t think you could be that mean to a young child. I see how much you care about the kids on the children’s ward. You did have me going for a minute, though. Honestly, Bobby, will you ever grow up?”
“This is Kevin. He lives next door. I got the five bucks to take him trick or treating, and I spent it for your entertainment.” She smiled. “I have to walk him home. Walk with us, okay?” The good sport accompanied them. On the way back to Kristen’s, Robert, not having expelled all his juvenile impulses yet for the evening, stopped in front of Judy’s house. “Wait here a minute,” he said.
“What are you going to do? Bobby!”
“Just watch and keep your voice down.” She watched uneasily as he went to the corner of the house and dragged the Gilmour rain barrel, which was brimming with water, to the front door. He placed its base a few feet from the front door and leaned the top against the door. Then he waved at Kristen to hide in the bushes, rang the doorbell, and dashed to join her. Judy answered the door and unleashed a shriek as the contents of the barrel came rushing like a tidal wave into the front hall, soaking her legs in the process. Robert guffawed so hard that he started to shake.
Judy, livid over the peccadillo, came running out of her house and spotted the two. She attacked Robert, kneeing him below the belt and hitting him about the shoulders and face, while screaming, “I hate you! I hate you! I wish you were dead!” He didn’t know how to defend himself from an attacking girl, especially slouched as he was against the acute pain in his groin. He blocked what he could with his arms and backed away.
Kristen stepped in to halt the altercation. She appeased Judy and convinced her to go back into her house. Kristen then went back to Robert, who was leaning against a streetlight agitated, and said, “Are you okay?”
“They’re really sore,” he replied, igniting her sympathy. She stroked his cheek with her fingers. “Can you rub them better?” he asked, thereby extinguishing her sympathy.
“That was serious. She went crazy. I was worried she would hurt you.”
“You say that to a boy whose left nut is dangling from his liver? She’s beyond crazy. I think she’s wicked. Watch out for her.” He limped her home and called it a night.
The next Friday evening, Robert came by looking for some company. Kristen, happy to see him, smiled and invited him into her house. He took off his jacket. “Don’t tell me you’re wearing that awful shirt again,” she said.
“What’s the matter? You don’t like cows?”
She simpered and led him into the family room, warning him that Judy was there, but saying she seemed to be over her anger. Judy was in the middle of a story about her overcurious cat. “As I was saying before shithead got here—oh, nice shirt, Owens—my cat got sprayed by a skunk last night. My mother looked on the Internet to see what to do; you know, does tomato juice really work? She discovered that tomato juice is okay and shampoo is, too, but the best thing to use is Massengill. So we bought some and washed the cat in it, and it actually worked.”
“No. You didn’t just tell me you douched your pussy, did you?” Robert asked. Both Judy and Kristen shrieked—Judy in horror, Kristen in glee.
“You’re such a goddamn pervert, Owens,” Judy observed.
“We were going to play Trivial Pursuit,” Kristen said. “You and I can team up against Jeremy and Judy.”
“I hate games. They’re boring.” Robert groaned.
“You don’t want to play because you’re afraid it’ll show your imperfection,” Judy opined.
“I have to admit I did make a mistake once,” Robert conceded. “It was two years ago. I thought I had made a mistake, but I was mistaken.” Kristen smiled and broke out the game, set it on the table, and rolled the die.
The first question was for Kristen and Robert: “What are the four letters above Christ’s head on the cross?” Jeremy read.2
“O-o-p-s?” Robert quipped. Kristen laughed. Judy frowned.
“It’s I-N-R-I,” Kristen said.
“Too late,” Judy said. “He already answered.”
“Come on, Judy, he was joking,” Kristen protested.
“What could matter less, Kristen?” Robert said. “Just roll, Jeremy.”
“Two. Let’s go to geography, Jeremy,” instructed Judy.
Kristen skimmed the wordy question and just read the last part: “What country has the city of Condom?”
“Oh, how are we supposed to know that?” Judy grumbled. “You got an easy question. I don’t know. Jeremy?” He shook his head. Robert pointed and laughed. “Okay, smart aleck, where is it?” Judy challenged.
“On the Peninsula of Phallicia,” Robert jested.
“And where is that?” said Kristen with a grin.
“Due north of Sackville,” he said.
Kristen chortled and said, “No.”
Robert guessed again. “Fling Flong, Manitoba?” She shook her head. “Hardick—”
Kristen interrupted, “Okay, we get your gist. It’s in France. Our turn.”
Jeremy read, “What four-letter verb does the Bible use to indicate sexual intercourse?”
“I don’t suppose it’s fu—” Robert started to say before Kristen interjected, “Robert! Behave. You know I hate that word. The answer is ‘know.’”
“Hey, nowadays it means you can’t have intercourse,” Robert pointed out.
“I mean k-n-o-w, brat,” she clarified.
“Oh. Kristen, do you want to get to know me better?” Robert begged. “Let’s go to your room and know.”
“No.”
“I’m confused,” he admitted. “Did you say no or know? Does know mean yes or no?”
“Oh, shut up, pervert,” Judy scolded. “Roll the dice.”
“Know off,” Robert told her. Pulling the thread a bit further, Robert continued, “And the archangel appeared unto Kristen Taylor and commanded, ‘Thou shalt know Bob Owens as often as he may desire.’”
“Robert Owens!” Kristen chided. “You are absolutely nuts.”
“You ta
ke that back or I’ll get Mr. O’Toole to bop you on the head,” he said.
“Who’s Mr. O’Toole?” Kristen asked.
“My invisible leprechaun,” he responded, to Kristen’s amusement.
“Jeremy, read the next question before that idiot says another thing,” ordered Judy.
“What is by far the largest organ in the human body?” Jeremy read.
“On most people, it’s the skin, but on me—” Robert started before being cut off.
“Never mind,” Kristen said, “We know what’s coming.”
“You do?” he said looking down at his lap. “Even through my clothes?”
“God help us,” Judy griped. “You have such a juvenile, one-track mind. You can only think with your organ.”
“That’s not true,” Robert countered. “I also come and go with it.”
Kristen burst out laughing.
She said, “Mr. Owens, you are unspeakably indecent. It’s your most endearing quality.”
The game went on like this for a while, ending with Kristen asking, “How many of every five boy babies were circumcised in 1982?”
“Oh, I give up,” Judy proclaimed, and she grabbed Jeremy’s hand and left (with all of him, not just his hand).
Kristen turned over the card and read “four.” Looking at Robert, she said, “Are you one or four in five?”
“I’m too shy to say, but I’d be happy to show you,” he said.
“I dare you,” she replied.
Robert looked at her with big eyes. “Okay. Not here, though,” he said. “In your room.”
“Right here,” she dared. He undid his pants button. “Stop it!” she commanded. “If my father comes down here, you’re dead.” He did his pants up.
They watched TV for a while together. The couple locked eyes and began kissing, lightly at first, but soon their tongues were probing each other’s mouths. Kristen disengaged when his hands began to get frisky. She asked if he would like to come by tomorrow.
“I’m with Jenny tomorrow,” he said. Jennifer had stopped spending weekends at Kristen’s and began spending Saturday nights with Robert, telling each Mrs. Taylor she was at the other’s.
“Do you have to keep seeing her?”
“I really enjoy seeing her.”
“I’ll bet you do, but would you consider stopping what you do with her for me?”
“What do you mean? Stop with her, and start with you?”
“No. I won’t make love to a boy until I love him, and he loves me. I’m not like my cousin.”
“That’s too bad. I’ll keep seeing her.”
“So all I am is a friend to you?” Kristen bleated.
“No. You’re my best friend, my one true friend.”
“Well, that’s not good enough for me.”
“So are you saying you want me to stop seeing you?”
“No! I want you to stop seeing her.”
“No way, Taylor,” he declared.
“You have no clue how hard this is on me, do you? Every Saturday night I lie in bed and die a little inside thinking of you with her.”
“I’m sorry about that, but I’m still going to see her tomorrow.”
“Just go home,” said the melancholy young lady. He left.
2 Parts of this scene first appeared on the website of the literary journal, Johnny America:
http://www.johnnyamerica.net/archives/2010/04/19/07.00.00
Chapter Eight
Shocker
Kara MacDonald had been the most beautiful girl in Windsor. She took Jim Taylor’s breath away when he first met her. Despite her questionable disposition, he had to have her, and the two were married after a whirlwind courtship. Jennifer came along within the year. Jim put up with Kara for twelve years, eleven of them for the sake of the daughter he loved, but couldn’t take it anymore, so he divorced her. He made the best case he could for custody of his daughter, but it was hopeless.
Still a striking woman, Kara continued to turn male heads. A steady stream of male suitors lapped up to her door, and she opened it to the best ones, but they were invariably turned off by her personality. By the time Jennifer was in eleventh grade, Kara was approaching age forty and worried about growing old alone. She lowered her standards, and within a few months she met an acceptable man by the name of Jordan Hicks. In September, he asked for Kara’s hand, and she accepted.
Jennifer reacted poorly, both because it meant the end of any chance of her father coming back to her, and because Jordan was a creep; his eyes were forever on the leer. She responded by spending as much time as she could away from home or locked in her room.
In November, Jordan was transferred to Sarnia, an hour’s drive west of London. Jennifer informed her mother she wouldn’t move, and Kara informed her daughter she would. She asked Aunty Lisa if she could move in with them, and she said, “As long as your mother approves,” but Kara did not. Jennifer screamed and cried, demanding to be allowed to stay with Kristen’s family. Kara briefly considered relenting until Jennifer said, “I love Bobby! You can’t take me away from him. We’re going to get married when we finish high school.”
Since Kara couldn’t entertain the idea of her daughter marrying the vulgar foster child, her resolve became impregnable. Jennifer threatened to run away, but Kara laughed at the idea, adding that if she went to her father he’d get in a great deal of legal trouble.
In desperation, Jennifer went to Robert and asked if she could stay with him. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather less than for you to move away. I really want to help you stay, but it’s impossible. I’m just a foster child here, as you know. These cheap bastards barely feed me. They would never consider letting you stay here.”
“Then can we run away together? Maybe to the States. You’re American. We can go there.”
“God, Jenny, how? Where’s the money supposed to come from? I don’t see much of a future in the street urchin business.”
“What about your trust fund?”
“I can’t get that money until I’m nineteen except for a hundred bucks a month.”
“We could drop out of school and work.”
“There’s no future in that either. That would utterly ruin my prospects for baseball—or anything else. And what could we make combined at minimum wage? Barely enough to cover rent and food.”
“My dad might give me money. He wouldn’t let me starve in the streets.”
“Right. He’ll pay to have his daughter live in sin with the likes of me. He knows you’re better off with your mother.”
Jennifer called her dad to ask, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Staying with the mother is much preferable to a sixteen-year-old living common-law with an impoverished orphan—and, as much as he would have liked for her to move to New York to live with him, that would contravene the court’s ruling. In the end, a desolate Jennifer moved to Sarnia with her mother and Jordan.
This episode was a watershed for Jennifer. Like Robert, she had lost her support system, her secure loving home, her family. In her case, the losses were much more subtle and gradual, cushioned as they were by the love she felt in Kristen’s family—but now, deprived of the Taylors’ love and supervision, and left to her hardhearted mother and an unsavory step-father, the final effect was just as emotionally debilitating. She went into a shell and spent all her free time in her room. At school, she gave up trying, and her marks plummeted. She adopted a soft punk look to grieve her mother—and to ward off her step-father and boys at school. The poor girl’s life was a mess.
Robert, too, was forlorn. Had he the wherewithal he could have had her for a live-in goddess, but he had nothing. Now she was gone, and there was nothing he could do. He wept the day she moved away, though no one knew.
Christmastime was a sad occasion for the Taylors. Three elderly members of the family had succumbed that year. And Jennifer had moved away and said she wouldn’t be coming this year. It just didn’t seem like Christmas. Robert could have salvaged the day for Kristen, at lea
st, but to her dismay, he declined. Four days later, they found out why. Jennifer had come to Kilworth to be with Robert while his foster parents were away skiing. She’d told her mother she’d be staying with the Taylors. Kara called to check up on her and found out her daughter had lied. Lisa went to Robert’s to verify what they all knew.
Lisa rang the bell, but no one answered, so she tried the door and found it was unlocked. She walked in and heard the two talking. “Jenny! I have to talk to you,” she hollered. Silence from his room. She went to his room and caught a glimpse of Jennifer pulling up the sheet over her unclothed body. Robert was lying next to her. “Jenny, get dressed and come with me,” she ordered as she glowered at Robert. He blushed. “I’ll wait for you at the front door.”
Jennifer put on her clothes and came out of his room. “Please, Aunty Lisa, let me stay here. I love Bobby and I want to be with him.”
“You’re a sixteen-year-old girl. You’re much too young for … this. You lied to your mother and took advantage of us. This is unacceptable behavior, and we won’t let you get away with it. Now get your coat and come with me. Your mother wants you home tonight.”
Jennifer got her coat, kissed Robert goodbye, and began to cry. “I love you. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“Your deception will make that a lot harder, Jenny,” warned Lisa. “When you abuse someone’s trust, it’s very hard to earn it back.” She took Jennifer home and lectured her.
Bill was aghast when Jennifer told them she didn’t trust her step-father. He called Jim about it, who immediately called Kara to warn her that if his daughter was harmed in any way she’d regret it. Kara protested that Jordan had never touched Jennifer, and would never do that. She claimed Jennifer was making it up to make a case to move out. Jennifer had no choice but to return home. Jordan, worried about the accusations, stopped eyeing Jennifer and kept his distance. Jennifer was not allowed to travel to Kilworth again, though lack of permission is no bar when the parents have failed to earn their child’s respect.
Kristen’s parents ordered her to steer clear of Robert.