“Use mine,” Ned Weiner, his partner in painting, says, handing him a miner’s lamp-type light.
I follow Robbie out the back door.
If I planned this it wouldn’t have worked. It’s so silly that she picked Robbie of all people, that I have to smile, just a little one to myself. My luck, Robbie sees me smiling and probably figures this is what I want to happen. Under regular circumstances I would but not now. I swear I don’t.
It’s pitch-black around the back. The shed is about twenty feet behind the rec hall. When we get there Robbie holds the door open for me.
“Can you hold this for a second, please?” he says, handing me the light. “I just want to find the switch.”
The room is jammed with all kinds of props for plays and tons of sports equipment. It’s hard to tell where the wood would be. And Robbie’s having trouble finding the switch.
“Do you think it’s behind those screens?” I ask him.
“I’ve found it already but it doesn’t work.”
“Should I go back and get another flashlight?”
“That’s okay, you just shine it over here and I think I can get to the wood.”
We start picking our way deeper into the clutter. Now if I really had planned this whole thing, then I would delicately trip over something and he would catch me in his arms.
But I didn’t plan it, and besides I’m so solid on my Nikes it would take a wrecker’s ball to knock me over.
“Watch your step,” he says, turning to me. As he does, his foot slides off a pole on the floor and he loses his balance, grabs for the wall, misses, and comes crashing down. I catch him for a second and then his weight crumples me to the floor, with him on top. In my hands even the most romantic possibility turns into a mess.
“God, I’m sorry,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“I think so, if you can just get up….”
“Right, sorry,” he says, picking himself up and trying not to knock anything else over. “Here, watch your head.” He bends over me, giving me his hand.
I take it. But as I’m getting up I accidentally tip over a screen, and as it falls he grabs me around the back and pulls me against him out of the way.
I’m in his arms. The wool of his sweater is soft against my cheek and the warmth of his body feels good against mine. He’s holding me; my eyes are closed. I feel his face against the top of my head. Then I feel his lips. Somewhere in a far corner of my mind a tiny voice says don’t do this, what about Steffi, but I don’t move.
“Torrie.” Steffi’s name for me. Still I stay in his arms. With his free hand he gently tips my head back and his lips come down on mine. Softly, sweetly, his mouth slightly open against my lips that part to match his.
I feel an enormous rush of love for him, so strong I can’t stop myself from putting my arms around him and holding him as tightly as he’s holding me.
I know I’ve never felt like this before.
And then he says the very same words that are in my head, that he never felt like this before.
I don’t want to think. I only want to feel how good it is. I slide my arms around his neck and his hands trace the sides of my body along the curve of my waist and down to the tops of my thighs. The kisses become harder and stronger—not just his, mine too, and time falls out as we sink down to the floor, still holding each other.
We’re side by side and we can’t get close enough. His hand moves under my T-shirt along my bare skin; his fingers lightly touch my breasts. It makes me jump, not just from the coolness of his fingers, but because I know this is all wrong.
“Please stop,” I say, but I don’t move his hands or pull away from him. I feel like I can’t, and then his lips press even harder against mine and it’s like I’m lost. How could I do this to Steffi? How could I? But I do it, and the harder he kisses me the more I want him to, and when his hands begin to wander down into the top of my shorts I don’t stop him. I just keep kissing him as if that’s going to drive everything bad away.
I can feel his erection hard against my thigh, and I know I should stop this—not just for Steffi, but for me, too, before it gets out of control. I don’t know him. He’s not my boyfriend; he loves someone else. I’ve never been like this before with any other boy, not even if he loved me. I’ve wanted to be with Robbie since the first day I saw him. And even though I know all these things I still don’t stop myself.
But he does. He pulls back away from me. “Torrie,” he says, holding me by the shoulders and looking right at me. It’s that same electricity that I can’t ever get away from. “This is what I felt when I first saw you. You did too, that day, I know it.”
“I don’t want to feel this way. It’s wrong. It’s horrendously terrible.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t change it.”
“Yes, we can.”
“How?”
“Like we’ve been doing. We do nothing, that’s all. Just stay far away from each other.”
“No way,” he says and pulls me tightly to him. “No way.” There’s a terrible determination in the sound of his voice and the feel of his mouth pressing hard against mine. In a second we’re hanging onto each other closer than before, closer than I’ve ever been to any other boy. I never let myself go the way I’m doing now. I want him to hold me in his arms. I don’t want him to stop no matter what. That’s what real love must feel like.
We’re lying together on the floor, the length of our bodies touching, holding each other tightly, kissing; nobody’s in control, not him and not me. I just keep letting things go, getting deeper and deeper and further away from myself. It’s really heavy, I know it. I know how selfish it is, how I’m betraying my best friend, how heartbroken she’d be if she knew. I know all those things but the feel of Robbie, the possibility that he could be in love with me, just wipes everything else out.
I’ve never made love with anyone. I knew I wouldn’t with Todd. I just didn’t feel that way about him, but it’s different with Robbie. It could happen with him, but I don’t want it to. I don’t want to be in love with him. Right from the beginning I’ve been fighting it. But if he falls in love with me, I don’t know if I’ll be able to fight it anymore. I really want him like I’ve never wanted anyone before.
But the wrongness of it is terrible. And then that thought takes over.
“We’re away too long,” I say, twisting out of his arms and standing up.
“Wait,” he says. “I want to talk to you.”
“No.” And while I’m still feeling determined I pick up a pile of sticks and start off toward the rec hall.
“Wait a minute, Torrie.” Robbie stops me outside the door. His hand is on my shoulder. I don’t turn. I don’t want to look at him, we’re too close. I want to keep thinking straight.
But he turns me, and even in the semi-darkness I can see enough of him to feel that intense pull again. “It can’t be the same, ever. Not with Steffi. That would be a bigger lie,” he says.
“She doesn’t have to know. Nothing really happened anyway. Nothing that will ever happen again.”
He holds my face in his hands and bends down to kiss me. I get an instant flash of that first day I saw him, when he got off the bus. That’s what he did with Steffi. Just like that, bending down slightly to kiss her. I remember it. “Please, don’t….” I slip out of his hands and start back to the door.
“Victoria, is that you?” A voice out of the dark. I get a horrible sick feeling. That’s the worst voice I could ever hear.
I turn around to look in the direction it came from, but I don’t see her.
“I thought so,” she says, still not coming out of the dark. “See ya around.”
“Who was that?” Robbie asks.
“Dena Joyce.”
Everyone knows about Dena Joyce. Even Robbie. “Damn,” he says, and I can see he’s lost his cool. “What do you think she saw?”
“Enough.” I feel like I could cry.
“It would take some
one really rotten to go back to Steffi with this kind of thing.”
“Don’t worry, she is.”
“Then I have to tell her first,” Robbie says. “Now before her birthday.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I’ll tell her the truth.”
“About this—what happened tonight?”
“No, not yet. That can come later.”
“What should I do about Dena Joyce?”
“Speak to her. Blame it on me. Say I came on to you, anything …”
“I’ll try, but she’s such a bitch I don’t think I’ll do any good.”
“Try.” Robbie pushes open the door. I hold it while he picks up a pile of wood and carries it inside. He comes back for a second trip. I pick up an armload and together we bring in the rest of the sticks. A couple of people look up at us, but mostly everybody is too busy to bother. It’s almost eight thirty. We have been gone a long time.
The rest of the evening is unreal. I’m supposed to be crisscrossing sticks, but Alexandra ends up doing most of the work. I can barely think straight. She knows something’s up but she can’t ask. Strangely enough, it doesn’t feel like anyone put two and two together about Robbie and me—no one but Dena Joyce.
I’ve got to talk to her tonight.
I know she’s been over to the Juniors’ bunks helping out with their songs, so I wait for her outside. I get lucky and she comes out alone.
“D. J.,” I whisper to her.
“Didn’t waste any time, did you?”
“I have to talk to you.”
“Wonder what about.” And just like that, she starts walking toward our bunk.
I catch up to her. “Look, it’s really not what it looked like.”
“Heavens no,” she says in that really gross voice. “You were just giving him artificial respiration, right?” She’s going to make me crawl.
But I’m ready to. I’ll do anything, and she knows it.
“All I mean is that that was the first time and it just … it just happened.”
“Sure thing.”
It’s hopeless. “Are you going to tell Steffi?” I come right out with it.
“Oh, I don’t know. What do you think I should do? After all, she is a friend of mine and I think she should know about her so-called friend.”
“It would be horrible if she found out. I would do anything so that she didn’t have to know.”
“Anything?” She practically licks her chops.
But I really will because, besides losing Steffi’s friendship, she would be so hurt it would be horrendous, so I say, “Yes, anything.”
“I’ll think about it,” she says, and dances off into the bunk.
“Torrie.” Two seconds later Steffi comes up behind me. “What’s up with her?” she asks, motioning as the last of Dena Joyce goes into the bunk.
“Nothing.”
“You look upset. Is something wrong or what?”
I tell her I have a headache. “I must be getting my period.”
“Again?”
“Maybe not. It’s probably just Color War getting to me.”
Now it’s really terrible, I mean with Steffi. I can hardly talk to her. All I can think about is what a rat I am, how I’ve betrayed her. And she trusts me so much.
“Come on, Torrie, get a grip. It’s not that much of a big deal.”
For a second I think she’s reading my mind and it makes me jump, then I realize that she’s talking about Color War.
“Was Robbie working on the scenery tonight?” Steffi asks me as we walk into the bunk. Of course, Dena Joyce hears and stops in the middle of pulling off her sweater. It makes a great picture with D. J. frozen into a listening position with her head inside her sweater.
“She never looked better,” Steffi whispers to me, pointing to her.
I pretend to laugh, but I find myself a little scared to be caught laughing at D. J. Then it hits me what a bad position I’m going to be in with her—all the time. And boy, is she going to use it. I don’t know if I can handle it. Like now, I pretend I have to rush to the bathroom. Am I going to spend the rest of the summer running off to the bathroom every time Steffi starts to speak to me?
I manage to avoid my best friend long enough to get undressed and get in bed, and then it’s lights out and I can pretend to go right to sleep. Dena Joyce wishes me a special goodnight and happy dreams.
Just so happens I have a wonderful dream, all about Robbie and me dancing really close at someone’s birthday party. It’s fabulous until just as I’m waking up I realize whose birthday it was.
“I would love to borrow your leather jacket,” D. J. coos, half in and half out of my dream. I try to squeeze myself back into the dream, but when she repeats herself it’s very real and no more cooing, now it’s the Wicked Witch of the East and I’m not messing with her.
“On the floor, the pile near the end of my bed.”
“Thanks.” She’s back to cooing.
Later Steffi asks me how come I lent D. J. my good leather jacket. I have to set up something for the future because I think there’s probably going to be a lot of borrowing from now on—in one direction anyway—so I’d better have a good reason to be nice to D. J.
“You know,” I say, trying not to choke on such a big lie, “I think she’s really changing.”
“Yeah,” Steffi says completely unconvinced. “Into what? A toad?”
“C’mon, Steffi….”
“Gag me with a spoon.”
There’s no way I can pull this off except by changing the subject quickly. “Did you have your strategy meeting last night?”
“Yeah, how about you?”
“Right after breakfast this morning. I got on the planning committee.”
These strategy meetings are for a very important event of Color War. Each team tries to put their flag up on top of Mount Mohaph. The one who gets it up there first wins five hundred points. The only other thing worth that much is the musical the last night of Color War.
It’s not a big-deal mountain, more like a little hill, but each team has kids standing guard from early morning until dark. You’ve got to get past about ten people to get up. It’s really hard and usually it turns out to be a big chase; most years nobody gets there.
“You better come up with something great because we’ve really got a winner. Ken thought it up. He’s really smart.”
Oh God, if only she could like him. That would solve everything.
“And very nice …”
Maybe she can.
“And I can tell he likes me. And he lives in New York.” She sounds like she’s playing with the possibility so I get right in there with the heavy guns.
“I think he’s fabulous, really terrific.”
She looks at me sort of surprised. “Do you?”
“Absolutely. He’s super.”
“Oh, Torrie, now I feel terrible. I didn’t know you were interested. I would never go near anyone you were even the tiniest bit interested in….”
“Are you kidding? I’m not even the slightest bit … I mean, no way.”
“But you said he’s so fabulous.”
“For you, not for me. He doesn’t appeal to me at all.”
“Me neither. Robbie’s all I need … ever!”
“Excuse me, but I think I have to go to the bathroom.”
“You think you have to go?”
What she says about Robbie being all she ever needs does it for me. Just like I predicted, this is going to be the summer of the bathroom.
“Excuse me, Steffi. I’ll be right back,” and I rush off.
It’s simple to wait in the bathroom long enough for everyone to start leaving the bunk.
“Come on, Torrie,” Steffi calls to me. “You want to be late or what?”
Now it’s safe to come out.
“What do you think?” Dena Joyce asks me, modeling my jacket, practically drooling with pleasure.
Steffi makes a gag-me-with-a-spoon face, and
Edna, the PA announcer, saves me with the waitress call, and we all start the stampede down to the flagpole.
The strategy meeting turns out to be very exciting, and it takes my mind off Robbie and gives me some breathing space. Nance, Nina’s friend, has a really great idea. She suggests that we get one of the little kids to dress up in somebody’s sheepskin jacket, and then when it starts to get dark, sort of late twilight, pretend to be a furry little animal and crawl up the mountain real fast.
It sounds crazy, but if it’s dark enough and the kid was really little he might be able to sneak up through the wooded part of the hill. We all decide it’s worth a try. The only trouble is they need the right little kid. I say Henry, but everybody else thinks he’s sort of a scared little kid. Everyone knows how Steven pushes him around.
“He’s the perfect size,” I try to convince them. “I think he’s the littlest kid in the whole camp, and he’s fast. I’ve seen him run.” But they all have the same feeling about him, that he couldn’t pull it off. They may be right, he does let everyone push him around a whole lot and he’s always crying about something. Still, it would be so great for him to get a chance to prove himself. Boy, if he could do this, nobody would ever dare take advantage of him again, and he’d feel so good about himself and have such confidence that he might not even wet his bed anymore. Well, maybe.
We spend a lot of time trying to figure out who could do it, but Ronald Benter, the only kid who’s really right for it, is too big. I keep pushing for Henry. Finally Alexandra says maybe we should give him a try.
“It’s no big deal really,” she says, “because chances are it’s not going to work anyway.”
Then everyone agrees it’s such a long shot, so what, let Henry try.
“Let me handle it,” I say. “We’re good friends. I know I can get him to try. Besides, no one will notice if they see him with me.”
They all say okay and one of the boy counselors offers to lend his jacket.
“You better hurry, Victoria,” Al says. “We should really have him try to do it tonight. I hear the grays have a super good idea this time.”
“I know where he is right now,” I say. “See you later,” and I hurry off toward the baseball field.
Love & Betrayal & Hold the Mayo Page 14