Girl
Page 5
When it was over everyone threw their graduation caps in the air. Some of them zoomed really high and others just sort of flopped up and fell right back down. And everybody cheered and hugged and I snuck outside as quick as I could. And I just wanted to leave but then I couldn’t find Darcy and I was stuck in the parking lot, moving backward as the people poured out. And people were loading their cameras and hugging each other and then I saw Mark Pierce with his parents and my whole body cringed. So I hid behind some other people and watched him through the crowd. They were taking pictures: Mark with Mom, Mark with Dad, Mark with Brian Babbit, Mark with Jim Dietz, who everybody wanted in their picture, Mark with Renee Hatfield, who tried to kiss him but she just got his cheek because Mark Pierce never looked anywhere but straight into the camera.
And I was getting a headache and it seemed really muggy all of a sudden and I leaned on a car but it was hot from the sun and it burned me. And then I burped and I remembered the tequila and Scott Haskell and his horrible penis and it was so awful I almost threw up. And I felt dizzy and weird and I looked for someplace to sit down but everything was cars and barkdust and asphalt. And my neck started to tingle and stars came in my head and I had to kneel down really fast so I wouldn’t fall. Then I went to a different place, a place totally away from Hillside and Darcy and everyone. It was peaceful there and nice but then I came back and I was in the gym and all these people were running around and waving air at me and sticking stuff in my face. And Mrs. Schroeder was giving me water and telling everyone to stand back. And Darcy’s dad was there and he was slapping my hand and Mrs. Schroeder told him not to worry, that every year someone fainted at graduation, it was just such an exciting moment for young people.
9
Once school was out the big question became, what would I do over the summer? My parents thought I should go back to Camp North Pacific. It was up in the San Juan Islands above Seattle and my mom knew someone who knew someone and they had sent me there for two summers in junior high. But I was sixteen now and I was too old to go there as a camper, even if I wanted to, which I definitely did not. So then they suggested I be a counselor but I was way too late to apply. So then they said I could go on the grounds crew or something and they were serious. In fact they were adamant. I was like, the grounds crew? Their argument was what else was I going to do? And they were obviously worried about me hanging out downtown and wearing weird clothes and Cybil shaving her head, though they wouldn’t admit it. And I was totally caught off-guard and didn’t have any arguments against them. And my mom still knew the someone who knew someone. So they won. I got signed on to the maintenance crew. I was going to wash dishes and cook and do laundry for ten weeks for almost no money. I felt like I was being sent into exile.
The first week was the worst. The people on the maintenance crew were the lowest people in the whole camp. They were from Harper’s Ferry, the little town nearby, and they had accents like Canadians, like “ay?” all the time. There was an older woman named Rita and a boy about my age named Brad who looked like Scott Haskell, blond and with freckles but sort of dopey and not really as cute. And the girl counselors were all girl-counselor types, rich and perky and cheerful. And the boy counselors were the same, big teeth and Izod shirts and just too perfect. And being on the maintenance crew they wouldn’t even notice me anyway except some who remembered me from before and they just looked at me like What happened to you?
The work was super hard and at first I was so tired I could barely stay awake at night. I’d eat dinner and crawl in my bunk and that was it. But after a while I would read some, just whatever books and magazines were lying around, and then Rita started giving me better books. One was about these artists in Paris who had sex all the time. I read that one a lot but it made me horny which made me lonely which made me depressed. But then after the first couple weeks I got used to everything and it wasn’t so bad. Our building was separate from the rest of the camp and we could stay up as late as we wanted and we had a little porch and steps to hang out on. And one day I passed one of the counselors with a group of screaming camper brats and I was actually glad I was on maintenance.
By July I felt pretty settled. It was getting hotter at night and we’d sit outside and Rita would smoke and Brad would read comic books and 1 would write letters to Darcy and Cybil. Darcy was working at The Gap at Sunset Mall. She had a sort of boyfriend named Michael who worked in the mall except she thought he was gay because he would never touch her except sometimes he would let her give him back rubs. She said it was driving her crazy and she was so horny she thought she might explode. Cybil was practicing with Richard and Greg and trying to get a job. She didn’t write as much and her letters were mostly about fights with her mom or the new Girl Patrol record or some weird girl she met at the mall. Her biggest news was that she had convinced Richard to change their band name to Sins of Our Fathers. I wrote to Darcy to be careful she didn’t get AIDS or become a fag hag or whatever and how boring camp was and how stuck-up the counselors were and how cool Rita was and how cute Brad was, which was a slight exaggeration but she would never have to know and it made me feel better. To Cybil I mostly asked questions and tried to encourage her and tell her how much I liked her band and how sometimes their songs came into my head. And I asked her what she thought I should do next year in terms of which boys should I like and how should I dress and what did she think of boys from Learning Center? She never really answered these questions but that was okay. And sometimes I wrote song lyrics for her band, not that I would ever show her but just for fun and to see if I could do it. And sometimes I fantasized that Kevin and I were in a band together and went on stage at Outer Limits and everyone talked about us, even Todd Sparrow. And mostly I just wanted a boy to think about, and not a camp counselor and after a couple weeks I started thinking about Brad because he was shy and nice and he was really the only boy around.
And he must have been thinking about me because one night before bed he came and sat with me on the steps. And he didn’t usually smoke cigarettes but he bummed one from Rita and smoked it really fast. And when he finished it he bummed another one and smoked that one really fast. Then he whispered to me if I wanted to go into town with him that night. His plan was we’d sneak his motorcycle out of the main garage and walk it out of camp and then start it and ride into town which was about ten miles. I was pretty reluctant but he said he’d done it before and then Rita said, “And while you’re there get some cigarettes.” She’d heard the whole plan and by saying that I thought she was sending me a message of go for it so I said okay.
And it was weird because I’d convinced myself that Brad was cute but as soon as I was involved in his plan he seemed sort of dopey again and as we walked to the main garage he seemed really bony and awkward. He smelled nice though and he pulled me over to the trees and then went by himself into the garage and wheeled out his motorcycle. It made a soft whirring noise and I didn’t usually like motorcycles but I liked his. And we walked it along the road and coasted it down the hill and all the time I kept looking back. But no one had seen us. We had done it. We had escaped Camp North Pacific.
Brad started his motorcycle. He revved it a couple times but quietly and not in that loud obnoxious way that I hate. He got on and I got on the back and grabbed his T-shirt but he made me put my arms around him and sit close because it was safer. So I did and he started going, slow at first and with the headlights off because the moon was out and you could see okay. And it was scary but sort of fun and then he turned on the light and speeded up and I grabbed hold and we were flying! And there were little pockets of cold air and warm air and everything smelled like pine trees and cinder dust and I rested my chin on Brad’s shoulder and scooted forward on the seat so I was totally against him. And when we got to the main road we went super fast and that was really scary because we didn’t have helmets and the pavement was old and gravely. But Brad zoomed straight ahead and I closed my eyes and put my face in his back and I figured if I died it was
my parents’ fault because they made me come here.
But we didn’t die. We got to Harper’s Ferry and the only problem was, what were we going to do there at 11:30 at night? We drove down the main street and Brad told me to watch for cops because they knew him and they’d tell Mr. Fitch at camp. And the only thing open was Lenny’s Tavern anyway so we zipped through town and into this poor neighborhood with these shack houses and junk cars. We pulled into a vacant lot and parked and I asked Brad where we were going and he said we were visiting someone. And then he took my hand and we snuck through some trees and we came out in the backyard of this horrible little house. And I was getting scared and I said I wouldn’t go any further until he told me whose house it was. So he did, it was his mom’s.
The next thing I knew we were creeping across the lawn to one of the windows, which was flashing from a TV inside. We crouched under it and Brad smiled at me and did shhhhh with his finger and then straightened up enough to peek inside. Then he bent down again and his face was dark in the shadows and he froze for a second and then he squeezed my hand and led me around to the front of the house. “Mom’s got company,” he whispered and he pointed at the pickup in the driveway. He snuck over to it and quietly opened the passenger door. Then he waved me over and made me hold the button so the inside light wouldn’t come on. I asked him whose it was but he was busy going through the glovebox and looking under the seats. Then he popped the seat-back and pushed it forward and whispered “Score!” I was pretty much terrified by this point and looking around but the street was deserted and the other houses were quiet. And then Brad started handing me stuff, a half-carton of cigarettes, a big flashlight, a bottle of whiskey, and then there was a clunk and Brad pulled himself out from behind the seat and he had a gun. It was a real gun. It was big and black and totally scary. He opened it and pulled out one of the bullets and snapped it shut again. Then he dropped into a crouch and pointed it at the house and made a silent motion like he was shooting. And I was so scared my finger slipped off the light button and the light came on in the pickup and I grabbed for it and we both ducked down and looked around the neighborhood. But nothing happened. And Brad was pressed against me and his blond bangs hung in his face and his eyes were alert like a scared animal. Then he started grabbing stuff. He jammed the whiskey in the front of his pants and shook a couple packs of cigarettes out of the carton. He put the gun behind the seat and eased the seat-back until it clicked. Then he took the light button from me and shut the door, slowly and quietly and just until the door latch caught. And then, oh my God, did we run!
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10
I fell in love with Brad that night in a numb way, in a physical way, like I knew he was the one. And that night in my bunk I could still smell him on my hands and on my shirt where I pressed up against him. And I laid my head on my pillow like it was his chest and stared at the wall and thought of what a hard life he had and probably nobody loved him when he was a child. And the next day I walked by the shop and looked in and Brad and Mr. Fitch were working on the riding lawnmower. Brad saw me and when Mr. Fitch turned away he grinned and gave me thumbs up and he just seemed like the cutest boy.
But after lunch I felt differently. I felt like Brad was a hick. I mean, like a hick in his actual face, like his face was a little too narrow and the smile lines were a little too deep for being seventeen and he had this toughness in his shoulders and his bony arms that wasn’t like a jock, it wasn’t graceful, it was just hard. And I knew that part of my feelings were because he was here now and afterward I would never see him again and in a way I would have been ashamed if Darcy or Cybil saw him. And when I saw the preppie counselors I didn’t feel so superior anymore, I felt like I had fallen somehow, that they were hanging on to something that I had lost my grip on.
That night I sat on the steps with Rita and watched her smoke and we talked about men and sex but even that was weird because with my perfect teeth and my nice clothes I must have seemed as rich to her as the counselors seemed to me. Not to mention what Brad must have thought. But then in my bunk all I could think about was Brad. I hugged my pillow and imagined us making out and I was practically delirious with lust. And then when I saw him the next day I was suddenly all nervous. And at lunch I was just babbling like an idiot and teasing him about the stupidest things. And then later we were cleaning the horse stalls together and at first it was awkward but then he threw some hay on me and I threw some back and we were laughing so hard and chasing each other around and I swear, it was the funnest time I ever had with a boy.
And then one night I was sitting on the steps trying to write to Darcy and all of a sudden I looked up from my pad and I knew I was not going to be a virgin anymore. Brad was inside reading a comic book. Rita was sitting on the porch, smoking and reading and drinking some of Brad’s whiskey out of a coffee cup. And then Brad came out and stood on the steps above me. He had his hands in his pockets and he mumbled something and he was trying to ask me out. And my heart was pounding and Rita cleared her throat like, Say something. So I said, “Do you want to go for a walk?” And Brad said okay and he ran inside and got his coat and his whiskey bottle and off we went.
We walked around the lake to this old cabin that was boarded up and full of mice and had ferns growing out of the window sills. We sat on the dock in front of it and Brad lit a cigarette and took a long drink of the whiskey, which was pretty scary like he probably drank a lot and he was only seventeen and his parents were probably alcoholics. But he still smelled good and he hung his feet over the water and I guess he was just trying to calm his nerves. And he gave me the whiskey bottle and I tried to drink a little but God, it was awful. It burned my throat and choked me up and made my eyes water. “Rancid stuff,” he said. He always said anything gross was rancid. So I handed it back and he took some more and I got the feeling that he was too scared to do anything. And it occurred to me that I might be rushing it and maybe he didn’t even like me that much and why had I assumed he did? So I just tried to relax and enjoy the pretty night, the moon and the trees and the stillness of the lake.
Then he laid back on the dock and leaned on his elbow and started talking about his mom and stuff, out of the blue, how he had a stepfather and a sister in Montana and it was this long sad story that I sort of didn’t want to hear but fortunately it didn’t go too long. Then he asked me about my family and I told him my dad was a dentist and about my friends Cybil and Darcy and how Cybil shaved her head which I knew he wouldn’t understand. And I told him a little about Mark Pierce but not too much. And he handed me the whiskey and I took it and pretended to drink some. And then I scooted closer to him and picked at the splinters on the dock and we were talking really soft and whispery and then I sort of tipped forward, right into his chest, right into his flannel shirt, like I just stuck my face in it for no reason. And at first nothing happened but then he touched my neck and pulled me on top of him and I kissed him and straddled him and I could feel him through his pants and I was pressing against him before I could even stop myself.
After a while he got up and ran behind the cabin and came back with a sleeping bag. So I guess I wasn’t rushing it. I guess we were both thinking the same thing. He untied it and spread it on the ground and then we laid down and started kissing again. Then he took off my shirt and my pants and he pulled the sleeping bag over us and took off his own pants and he even had a condom and everything. And I just laid there and he got on top of me and tried to put it in and it felt really strange at first, like I didn’t quite know where it was. But then he got it in. And I just held my breath and then he started doing it and it felt so weird. And I waited for something to happen but nothing really did except he made these little grunting noises. And then I thought of stuff I should do like grab his butt but I couldn’t really reach. And I wondered if we were going to do positions or stuff like in magazines but he just kept doing it and getting faster and faster. And then it sort of hurt and I closed my eyes and tried to shift my position and
then I got this warm shiver up my back and it felt pretty good. So I shifted again and that felt even better. So then I pushed back against him and got it in this one spot and that felt great. And I was sort of describing it to myself in my mind and also to Darcy but then he stopped and it was over. And I just laid there staring up at the stars and the tops of the trees and I thought, My life, my real life, has just now begun.
After that Brad smoked some cigarettes and we talked for a while and then we made out again and this time he kissed my breasts and licked me and he was even going to lick me down there but I couldn’t stand it because it tickled too much. And then he got on top of me and started doing it again but this time he was propped up on his arms and I touched his chest and grabbed his butt. And I mashed up against him and got him right in the right position and did it really hard and I was like “Oh! Oh!” which probably sounded totally corny. But then it was over and I was buzzing so hard and squeezing him between my legs and trying to keep him inside me for as long as I possibly could. And I could hear myself telling Darcy: “Oh, you have to do it, it’s the most wonderful thing!”
The next day was so weird. Brad was nowhere to be found. It was okay in a way because I wanted to be alone and think about things and try to get used to myself, my new non-virgin self. In the morning it rained and I swept and mopped the main lodge and it was quiet and you could hear the raindrops hitting the roof and echoing in the rafters. In the afternoon I worked in the laundry room and I was getting these weird pangs and then I started to cry for no reason. Then at dinner I was so excited and nervous and I wore my favorite shirt but Brad wasn’t there and Rita didn’t know where he was. And all day I’d been so hungry but now I just stared at my food. And it seemed so weird that he wasn’t there and I couldn’t understand why he’d be avoiding me. So I left and started back to the cabin but then I heard Brad’s boots in the gravel behind me. And he said, “Hey, Andrea,” and it just floored me, the sound of his voice, saying my name. And I turned around and he was grinning so big and I walked up to him and slugged him in the arm. He was like, “What?” and I was like, “You know what” and he said, “I don’t.” Then he said he’d been helping Mr. Fitch with the tractor and he’d been in town all day getting parts. I was like, “Really?” He said yeah. And then he said he thought about me all day and Mr. Fitch yelled at him because he kept spacing out. I said I’d felt sort of weird too and he said, “It was your first time, wasn’t it?” I said, “No, it was not!” And he didn’t say anything and then I wanted to kiss him so bad or go riding on his motorcycle or go to the lake or just anything as long as he was with me, in my sight, in grabbing range.