He turns, follows me with his beady, creepster eyes, then starts laughing.
“Hey, I’m just kidding around,” he calls out between chuckles. “Don’t be such a pussy.”
“Get away from me!” I shout back at him. “Don’t talk to me, don’t touch me, don’t even think about me!”
“Ingrid?” It’s Pat at the shore, Bonnie beside him. “Everything all right?”
“I will get you when you’re sleeping and castrate you!” I continue.
I’m in the shallow water now, crouched down because of course I’ve lost my underwear and bra (and soap) in the tussle and now after everything, that bastard is going to see me naked, too, though, in the balance of things, this is the least of my worries.
“No, everything’s not all right,” I say, making the decision to stand up and walk over to them, all the while fighting the urge to try to cover myself. “Bob here thought he’d have some fun trying to threaten, harass, and assault me.”
Bonnie pulls her jacket off and covers me with it.
“Oh, come on, I told you I was joking,” Peace says, coming out of the water after me.
“Was that when you were holding me underwater, or when you were groping me? Which part was the joking part, Peace?”
Bonnie gasps, and Pat sucks in a breath. The rest of the group, almost all here now, gathers closer.
“Oh, that part? That was the part where I was trying to help you because you were having trouble swimming,” he says with an exaggerated scoff. “And this is the thanks I get.”
“Help me? ‘I could fuck you and drown you at the same time’—I believe that’s what you said, right after you held me forcibly underwater.”
Ally hands me a towel, which I happily wrap around myself, under Bonnie’s jacket. Then, shivering, I head to the fire.
“You lie,” Peace says, hot on my heels.
Pat holds his hands up. “Okay—obviously we have a problem here. Two versions of the same story and two very upset people. As a group we’re going to sit down and talk this out. But first, I’m going to suggest each of you goes your separate ways and gets dressed.”
I can see my body shaking, but I feel hot, not cold. And there’s a roaring in my ears—a roaring that’s almost a screaming, because it can’t be possible that I’m going to have to defend myself in a nightmare battle of he said/she said over this.
When everything happened in the dark . . .
And underwater . . .
Out in the lake where no one heard us or saw us.
Which was exactly how he planned it.
“Wait!” someone calls out, the female voice cracking slightly. “I have something to say.”
It’s Melissa, with Jin next to her, holding her hand.
When everyone’s attention is on her, though, she seems to shrink.
“After what I went through . . . it’s hard for me to . . .” Her eyes flick fearfully up, then back down. “I get so scared. But I have to . . . It’s even more important for me to . . .”
“Do it,” Jin says, squeezing her hand. “It’s okay.”
“I heard him say that,” Melissa says, looking to Bonnie and Pat. “About . . . how he could f-fuck her and d-d-drown her at the same time. I heard the whole . . . I was out on the rock just, you know, thinking. The sound . . . their voices carried. It wasn’t just that one comment. I heard her asking him to leave her alone a bunch of times and then asking him to let her go, and splashing, and the thing about the drowning. . . . I was about to come get someone when Ingrid screamed. She’s telling the truth.”
Dead silence.
In my peripheral vision I see Pat moving quietly back and around to stand behind Peace, and then Tavik closing in on the other side of him. Peace twigs to it and twists around, glaring at them, like he’s daring them to jump him. Which they will, obviously. Tavik looks deadly, and Pat’s eyes are filled with steely determination. Bonnie is suddenly running, heading to her tent and zooming inside.
Peace snarls and looks like he might lunge at someone, but can’t decide if it’ll be me, or Melissa, or Pat and Tavik. Ally moves close to me, as do Harvey and Henry and Seth. Jin steps forward, glaring at Peace.
“This is bullshit,” Peace says finally. “I’m out of here.”
He wheels away like he’s going to set off into the forest in the dark.
I almost hope he will, except then we’d have to worry about him being out there where we can’t see him.
He doesn’t get far, though. Pat, surprisingly fast and strong, grabs him around the chest, and in about five seconds, Tavik is on him too, and they’ve taken him down and are holding him in a wrestling lock. He swears and yowls like an animal, and kicks and punches, one hit landing on Tavik’s shoulder. Tavik retaliates, hard and fast, kneeing him in the stomach and then getting him in a stranglehold until Pat’s shouts penetrate his fury, and he stops, shifting to another hold Peace can’t escape from.
Peace has stopped struggling, but continues with verbal abuse and demands that they release him from their “capitalist bullshit.”
“Relax, Peace,” Bonnie says, striding up, a cell phone in her hand. “You’re about to get your wish.”
Forty-five minutes later I’m grateful to be dressed in my wilted, stinking clothes and standing on the beach. Duncan, with the aid of massive spotlights on his end, and flares on ours, is pulling the ferry into the cove.
“That was fast,” I say to Bonnie, who’s standing next to me.
“We have measures in place,” she replies.
“For emergencies of the nonemotional variety?”
“Uh-huh,” she says. “For the emotional ones, well, we are supposed to be the measures. This is different. I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” As much as I ever am, anyway. “What’ll happen to Peace?”
“We’ll be writing up an in-depth report and he won’t be getting his money back. Also . . . you could press charges against him. You should. You don’t have to decide on that now, though.”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“Listen . . . I know you never wanted to be here. . . .”
“True.”
She hauls in a breath like she’s bracing herself for something, and then says, “You could go.”
“What?”
“Leave. On this ferry. I . . . have some idea that you’ve been through some rough times lately. Up to you whether you ever want to talk about it or not . . .”
“Not,” I say.
“But my point is, I don’t feel good about your lack of emotional preparation for this trip. About your being misled about what you were getting into. It’s hard enough without being blindsided. And it sounds like a lot for your mother to have asked of you, and a lot for you to handle, considering.”
“You would just let me go? Now?”
“I would give my permission, recommendation, and approval. I believe your mother would understand.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I say.
“Regardless, I’m saying you can leave.”
“With him?” I say, gesturing up the beach to Peace, who is sitting, guarded by Tavik, Jin, Harvey, and Henry. “I don’t want to leave that badly, actually.”
“No.” Bonnie puts a hand on my arm. “I mean, you can go first. Now, with Duncan, and he can come back tomorrow. We can handle Peace until then.”
Now what she’s saying finally sinks in, and I take a few moments to imagine going home.
Home, where there would be hot showers, clean clothes, my own bed to crawl into . . .
Normal food, no mud pits or mosquitoes or zillion-pound backpacks to carry, no one trying to insert themselves into my business or messing with my head . . .
Well, there would be lots of Mom stuff that would mess with my head. . . .
But surely I’d feel much better, muc
h stronger, once I was clean and warm and dry, and had had a decent night’s sleep. I’d stop feeling like crying all the time, and I would deal with Mom just fine.
And yet, is my mental health actually the most relevant factor in this decision, or is it the principle of the thing?
“No pressure,” says Bonnie, breaking into my thoughts, “but you need to let me know right now.”
“Oh . . . okay . . .”
I’m not having a good time.
I dislike almost everything about Peak Wilderness, I resent having had it thrust on me like this, and I’m a blubbering wreck most of the time.
But . . .
Although I appreciate Bonnie’s offer, and would love to take her up on it. I can’t leave. I made a promise, and I have to keep it.
“Thank you,” I tell her. “But I’m going to stick it out.”
We don’t exactly cheer when Peace-Bob leaves. In fact we gather at the shore to watch him float away with Duncan, in a collectively somber mood.
But once he’s gone, the vibe shifts. Bonnie and Pat don’t wait to start us talking about what just happened, so dinner is intense, and morphs straight into circle.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m numb, or because I’m so bone-deep exhausted, or because Peace’s departure is such a relief, but Melissa is way more messed up than me right now, or at least more able and willing to talk.
“Everywhere I go, there’s someone like him,” she says, huddled with her sleeping bag around her shoulders, in front of the fire. “Like our cult leader. Psychos, narcissists, control freaks, liars. I knew he was like that. Days ago I knew it.”
“And you distanced yourself,” Bonnie says, softly.
Melissa nods. “I felt him watching me, though. And Ingrid. I saw him. It sent me . . . into myself. I was scared. I’m still scared . . . that I’m going to have to spend my life on guard. Bob would never make it as a cult leader, though,” Melissa says. “He doesn’t know how to do the charming part, the bomb-you-with-love, be-everything-you-ever-dreamed-of part. Be the rescuer.”
“He just knows how to be an asshole,” I grumble.
“The worst part,” Melissa continues, “is that the first stage of someone brainwashing you—the amazing part? They’re so good at it. They figure out every one of your secret needs and somehow know how to meet them. It’s . . . amazing. And the whole rest of the time, when you’ve lost yourself and you’re afraid to even go to the bathroom without permission, and you’re blaming yourself for everything going wrong . . . all you want, all that time, is to get back to how that person made you feel, at the beginning. And you somehow believe that you will.”
“That’s messed up,” Jin says.
“I’m sorry I’m taking over the conversation like this,” Melissa says, looking at me. “You’re the one who was assaulted. It’s just . . . this took me back. I was such a fool, for so long, and such a coward.”
“Not tonight, you weren’t,” I say, reaching across to squeeze her hand. “Thank you. And honestly, talk all you want. I . . . have things to think about, but not much to say. At least not tonight. I’m okay. I’m much better now that he’s gone.”
Bonnie and Pat are thorough, helping Melissa sift through the issues confronting Peace brought up for her, and then checking in with everyone else, one at a time. Of course they do eventually come back around to me, and I know I have to say something because they won’t feel they’ve done their job otherwise.
“When I say I’m okay,” I tell them, “I really am. It was scary, but I fought back, and Melissa supported me, and . . . in a way, Peace gave me a gift.”
Everyone is silent, obviously surprised at these last words, and waiting for me to clarify.
“I was out there by myself thinking about death,” I say, having decided I don’t care if they know. “My own death. I had this moment where . . . I saw how sometimes it seems like it would be easier to just . . . drift away.”
Jin becomes very still, eyes sharp and on me. Melissa is nodding; Seth is looking at the ground. Ally looks like she might cry any second, and Tavik watches me with a fierce expression that I can’t read.
“And then Peace came along and threatened me and held me underwater, and I discovered really quickly that my melodramatic notion of drifting away is garbage. I hate my life sometimes, but I want it. So, in fact, I almost feel better than I did before it happened. I know that’s weird. . . .”
Everyone is silent for a few moments, and then Ally goes, “Wow.”
“Yeah,” I say, ready to shrug off my seriousness. “So, yay, Peace.”
Jin starts laughing, and then most of us are laughing, and then I’m yawning.
“Can we go to sleep now, please?”
Pat finishes off by teaching us a centering meditation to step out of dangerous emotional thought loops.
“Step out of the thought loop, the emotion changes. Change the emotion, the behavior changes,” Pat explains. “Or vice versa. In fact, if you shift any part of it, that will cause a chain reaction of change.”
“Also,” Bonnie continues, “even if you can’t change the external situation, you can change how you’re experiencing it.”
A few minutes later, when I’ve just finished brushing my teeth, Tavik ambles over.
“Bonnie’s moving into our tent,” he says.
“What?” I frown. “Why?”
“Ah . . .” He looks away. “Just in case you’re feeling . . . you know . . .”
“What? So horny that I decide to jump your undefended bones in the middle of the night?”
“No.” He cracks up, then goes abruptly serious again. “In case you’re feeling vulnerable . . . you know, after what just happened.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake . . .” Just then I spot Bonnie, her sleeping bag slung over her shoulder.
“Bonnie!” She changes direction and heads over to us.
“I’m not afraid of Tavik,” I tell her.
“According to procedure I am supposed to—”
“I actually feel much safer with just Tavik than I did with Peace in there with us,” I protest. “And honestly, I was looking forward to the extra space. . . .”
“The rule is three in a tent. With everything that’s happened, I’m taking every precaution,” she says, and then goes to our tent.
“Oh well,” I say, and swat at a mosquito—mosquito number million and whatever; I’ve given up counting. “Hopefully she doesn’t snore.”
GLINDA’S AGONY
(Age Fifteen)
Andreas came home, finally, arriving just ahead of a big winter storm.
“Did Mom tell you?” I asked before he even got his boots off.
He frowned. “Tell me what?”
“About the play?”
No, she hadn’t. She was pretending it wasn’t happening.
I told him.
“Congratulations,” he said, and lifted me up in a huge, swinging hug. “You’re going to be fabulous!”
“What’s going to be fabulous?” Mom asked, coming down the stairs.
“Ingrid in The Wizard of Oz,” Andreas said.
“Mmph,” she said. “I only hope she doesn’t neglect her schoolwork.”
“This is a big deal, my love,” Andreas said. “Once in a lifetime.”
“I certainly hope so. I would like her to spend her time getting ready for the real world, not playacting.”
Up to this point I’d been hoping she’d come around. I’d even secretly imagined her coming around so much that my playing Dorothy helped her in some way, like that she’d offer to help with the songs, or just find herself so proud of me that it would help make up for the loss of her own voice.
But I was about out of patience.
“‘I certainly hope so’?” I repeated back to her. “Do you even hear what you sound like, Mom
?”
“The voice of reason, I believe,” she said. “And the voice of experience. You know as well as I do what can go wrong.”
“It’s the school play. And anyway, just because something bad happened to you . . . How can you act like this experience can have no possible value for me? Or me to it? I’m not you, in case you hadn’t noticed. And while in the grand scheme of things it’s not such a big deal, it’s a big deal for me. Why can’t you just be happy for me?”
“Don’t make assumptions about what I feel.”
“I don’t have to make assumptions; I live with you. I have eyes and ears and I’m not stupid, Mom! I don’t even feel like I can practice my lines in this house, much less sing a single note.”
“Practice, then,” she said, glaring. “God forbid you fail to learn your material and then make a fool of yourself and blame me for it. I doubt my benefits will cover the therapy.”
“You don’t want me to do it, but you do want me to practice?”
“My wants are evidently irrelevant, as is any wisdom I’ve gained over the years. But since you are going to do it, you had better do it well. I don’t want to be sitting, ashamed of you, in that audience.”
She turned to stalk out of the room.
“Wait!” I said.
She turned back, giving me an icy gaze. “Yes?”
“You’re . . . planning to come?”
“Of course.”
“I will never understand you.”
Her eyes narrowed and she allowed herself a very slight smile. “I hope not,” she said, and sailed up the stairs . . .
Leaving Andreas and me blinking after her.
So I started rehearsing at home. Not the songs, but the scenes at least. I even did it while Mom was home, albeit in my bedroom with the door closed. I felt horribly self-conscious at first, and worried because she continued to be moody—silent some days, affectionate others.
Meanwhile, at school, the great news was that Juno was playing the Wicked Witch of the West.
The bad news was that Autumn was Glinda, and she kept trying to make her part bigger.
“I feel like Glinda would reappear here,” she said when we were working on the poppy-field scene. “Like she could appear off in the distance, showing her anguish at not being able to help.”
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