Telling

by Marilyn Reynolds

  “I could hide in the garage.”

  “C.C.....” Lisa was beginning to sound disgusted with me. “I know what we can do. I’ll have Raymond drop me off at the Sloanes’ Saturday night. His dad will only let him keep the car out until 11:00 anyway. So I’ll come to the Sloanes. They won’t be home until late, will they? And then you and I can walk back to your house together.”

  “Could you, Lisa? That’s great!”

  “C.C.? Just remember not to let him get you alone when you get there. Just hang around Angie until they leave. Okay?”

  “Yeah, I will. No way will Fred catch me alone in the living room this time.”

  I was so relieved when I hung up from talking with Lisa, I almost forgot to be mad at Mom. When I went back into the kitchen, Mom and Daddy had their arms around each other and were laughing. I heard Mom say, “Death to male chauvinist pigs,” and then she started poking Daddy in the ribs. I couldn’t hear what Daddy was saying because he was laughing so hard. I wasn’t mad anymore.

  Usually when I babysat at the Sloanes’ I went a little early so I could talk with Angie. Saturday night, I waited until the last minute and arrived exactly at 7:30. They were ready to go when I got there. Fred opened the door for me and I walked in and stood right next to Angie. Even when she went back to their room to get her coat, I followed her.

  “Do you want me to hang up your jacket for you, Cassie?” she asked. I guess she thought that was why I was standing in front of her closet.

  “Oh, no. I’ll just wear it for a while.”

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of warm in here for a jacket?”

  Tina and Dorian came running in before I had to answer Angie. Dorian had a new Pop-Up book and he wanted me to read it to him right then.

  “Wait, Dorian,” Angie said. “Cassie can read to you when we’re gone.”

  “Angie, is it okay for my cousin Lisa to come over after awhile? She’s going to walk home with me and spend the night at my house.”

  “Sure, Cassie. Help yourself to food if you want anything. We should be back around 1:00.”

  Fred came back to the bedroom. “Let’s go, Angie. What’re you two yapping about anyway?”

  It was like he was kidding, but he looked kind of mad.

  “I’m ready, Honey. Just last minute touches. How do I look?” She flashed him a smile, striking a modeling pose.

  “You look great,” he said, and he sounded like he really meant it.

  Angie really did look great, too. It must have been some fancy party, because they were both totally dressed up. Angie was wearing a blue dress with tiny shoulder straps. The dress was made of some kind of light, slinky material. Fred was in a suit. I’d never seen him in a suit before. It was blue, too, but it was navy blue. He was wearing a vest, and a light blue shirt with a red and blue striped tie. Just looking at Fred, and trying not to think about the other stuff, I thought, truthfully, he looked pretty great, too.

  I walked out of the room and down the hall just in front of Angie, with Fred walking behind. Dorian and Tina kissed them both good night, and they left, just like that. I did the usual with the two kids, and then watched TV for a while. Lisa got to the Sloanes’ about 10:30. We watched some old Cary Grant, Grace Kelly movie, and Lisa talked on and on about Raymond and dinner at the Spaghetti Factory.

  The Sloanes got back about 12:30, Angie paid me, Lisa and I said good night, and that was it. I would almost have thought I’d imagined the whole thing with Fred Sloane, ex­cept that as we walked out the front door, we walked past him. He was standing there holding the door open for us. Lisa was right in front of me, and Angie was standing in the hallway. As I walked out the door he stepped behind me and slipped his hand up between my legs!

  “Thanks, Cassie,” he said, pulling his hand away with a squeeze.

  “’Night, Cassie and Lisa,” Angie called from the hallway.

  On the way down the driveway Lisa said to me, “I guess we took care of Slimy Sloane tonight, didn’t we? He did look kind of handsome though, huh, Cassie?”

  When I told her what he’d done at the door, she just stopped and stared at me.

  “But Angie was standing right behind him. How could

  he?”

  “I guess the way he was standing, maybe Angie couldn’t see his hands.”

  “I can’t believe he’d do that,” Lisa told me. “They look like the perfect couple.”

  “I know. But he did it for sure,” I said.

  “If I heard that from anyone but you, C.C., I don’t know if I’d believe them.”

  “Yeah. I almost don’t believe it myself. He always seems so nice.”

  “He must have had a lot of practice to be able to get away with that stuff right in front of Angie,” Lisa said. “What do you think would have happened if I hadn’t been there and he’d have taken you home?”

  “I don’t know, Lisa. I’m really glad you came over to­night.”

  When we got back to my house and climbed into bed, we whispered until it was almost time for the sun to come up. Lisa still thought I should tell my parents and I still didn’t want to. It was strange. Lisa seemed to be more scared than I was. I guess I still couldn’t get past the feeling that Fred was my friend. I really didn’t think he would hurt me.

  Lisa talked for a while about Raymond ― how nice he was and how she wanted him to keep asking her out. I wondered what it would be like to have a boyfriend. Mandy thought Jason liked me, because of the notes in my locker and all, but Jason wasn’t really a boyfriend to me like Raymond was to Lisa. Usually Jason’s notes were just cartoons he’d cut from the newspaper with arrows drawn to funny looking characters and my name at the end of the arrows.

  I think I fell asleep first.

  It seemed like I’d only been asleep about ten minutes

  when I heard Aunt Trudy’s gruff voice.

  “Wake up. Wake up. Don’t waste your day asleep in the hay,” she yelled as she moved to open my curtains and let the sun in. She sat down on Lisa’s bed and started bouncing up and down.

  It’s hard to believe Aunt Trudy and my mom are sisters. Lisa and I used to pretend that one of them was adopted, but Grammy convinced us that they were both her natural born children. My mom is about 5’3” and a little on the chubby side. Her hair is like mine, kind of mousy brown. She wears sensible clothing, usually skirts and blouses. Even when she gets dressed up she looks sensible.

  Aunt Trudy is about 5’8” and she’s so skinny her bones stick out. And she always wears a lot of eye makeup. This morning she was wearing her bright orange dashiki tied at the waist with a purple, woven belt. Her earrings were long purple feathers and her eye shadow matched her earrings. Her lipstick matched her dashiki. In a way, I guess you could say she was color coordinated. Oh, yes. Her hair. Her hair was a strawberry blonde with dark roots, and it just kind of stuck out all over her head. Daddy said Aunt Trudy’s style was a cross between Phyllis Diller and Punk.

  Lisa was already out in the kitchen by the time I dragged out of bed. Aunt Trudy had brought bagels, lots of them, and everyone was sitting around the table munching away. I like Sunday mornings like that.

  I’d just started on my second cinnamon bagel when the phone rang. It was Angie, wanting to know if I could babysit again next Saturday night.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said. “Can I call you back later?”

  When I hung up, Mom said, “You’re not doing anything Saturday night, are you? You could use the money.”

  I didn’t answer. Lisa and I just looked at each other. I didn’t finish my bagel.

  Chapter

  6

  It was really stupid of me, but I kept babysitting at the Sloanes. It was hard coming up with believable excuses not to babysit. I mean, how busy can a twelve-year-old tomboy’s calendar be? And it wasn’t just making excuses to Angie. Mom always had to be convinced, too.

  I was careful. Like, I usually babysat on Fred’s bowling night. Angie would often go out with friends when Fred w
ent bowling. On those nights he left before Angie did, and she always got home first. Or if I knew Lisa could come with me, then I’d babysit. Even being so careful though, Fred managed some sneak moves. I was pretty sure he’d do more if he got the chance.

  I kept looking forward to summer. Except for last year, when she was in Europe, Robbie and I always stayed with our grandmother during the summer. She lived in a mobile home over in Santa Monica, not far from the beach. I held on to June in my mind, like all of my problems would just go away for the summer.

  In May, on one of those safe bowling nights, Fred came home early. As soon as I heard his motorcycle turn the cor­ner, I walked out the front door. I knew it was safer to meet him in front, even when it was nighttime, than it was to wait for him in the house. Just as I got out the door though, Tina let out a scream. I ran to her bedroom.

  “Tina, what is it?”

  “Big monster, big monster,” she sobbed.

  “It was a bad dream,” I said, picking her up and holding her. She was still sobbing when Fred came into the room.

  “What’s the trouble, Pumpkin?” he asked, taking her from my arms and smoothing her hair.

  “A monster,” she told him, “but it’s gone now, Daddy.”

  Fred gently put her back in bed and pulled the covers around her. I had been so involved with Tina, I had forgotten to be careful of Fred. I quickly walked out of the room and down the hall toward the door.

  Fred caught me at the end of the hall. He put his arms around my waist and pulled me to him, my back against his body. It was not rough though, just firm. He whispered to me, his cheek rubbing against the top of my head.

  “You’re a tough kid to catch alone. You know I won’t hurt you.”

  I felt his lips on the back of my neck, his warm breath and then the wetness of his tongue just under my ear. His hands moved gently, firmly, from my waist down to my abdomen, down my thighs and then back up along the inside of my thighs, stopping between my legs, gripping tightly. I didn’t fight. I didn’t move. Something kept me there. He kept one hand between my legs while he turned me to him with the other. He put his face to mine, lips to mine, his tongue mov­ing first along the edge of my lips and then into my mouth. He moved both hands to my butt and began pushing, rubbing his body against mine. He groped for the buttons on my jeans, trying to undo them. I pushed at him, and began to fight.

  “No, Baby. No. Please. I need this.” All the time pushing, rubbing.

  “Let me go,” I gasped.

  “Oh, Honey,” he breathed at me. “I’ll be good to you. You’re gonna love this. Please, Baby.”

  He was breathing fast. His eyes were half closed and he was pushing harder. I got scared. Really scared.

  “Let me go! Let me go!” I began to cry and yell at the same time. His pleading mood changed instantly.

  “Shut up!” he hissed, pushing harder still. Then I heard Angie’s car pull into the driveway. Fred let go and went down the hall to the bathroom. I ran out the front door and down the driveway. Angie was just getting out of the car.

  “Wait, Cassie, I brought us some ice cream.”

  “I can’t,” I yelled back, running to the street. I heard her call my name once more, but I kept running as fast as I could ’til I got to my house. The front door was unlocked. I burst in, still running, to my bedroom, slamming first the front door and then my bedroom door behind me. I threw myself across my bed and just lay there, panting. My parents were already in bed watching the eleven o’clock news.

  “Cassie! Lock the door,” Mom yelled down the hall.

  “Lock it yourself!” I yelled back.

  “Cassie!”

  I got up and locked the front door, went back to my room, slamming my bedroom door again, this time harder. I filled my bathtub full of steaming hot water and some old Snoopy bubble bath stuff. I put my clothes in the hamper in my bathroom and climbed into the tub. I was still scared. I was afraid to think about what might have happened if Angie hadn’t come when she did. I slid down the tub so that my whole body was submerged. I put the steaming hot washcloth over my face. I relived the whole scene with Fred Sloane. Partly, mostly, I was repulsed by it. I couldn’t get clean enough, my body, my mouth. I kept using more soap and adding more hot water. I even washed my mouth out with soap. Partly too, though, a little, I wanted to think about what might

  have happened if Angie hadn’t come home when she did.

  In bed that night I curled up into a little tiny ball, the way Daddy said I always used to sleep when I was a baby. “You were a cocoon kid,” he would laugh. That night I tried to be a cocoon kid again. My knees were drawn up, touching my forehead, my hands folded between my legs, where Fred Sloane’s hands had been.

  I dreamt I was in a huge, two-story house with no windows. I was in an empty room, both doors locked, but there was a trap door in the floor which I could open. From the trap door there was a very long ladder leading down to a basement, a furnace room. The furnace was roaring with fire, and the heat was unbearable. It looked as if the only way out was to run past the furnace and up the steps on the other side. I had to get out. I awoke, sweaty and sticky and crying.

  First thing in the morning, before I was even out of bed, I heard Angie and Mom talking at the front door.

  “Cassie left in such a hurry last night ― I didn’t even get a chance to pay her.”

  “Thanks, Angie. I’ll give it to her. She was in one of her little snits last night.”

  “I guess kids usually save that sort of thing for their parents, huh, Helen? She always seems like the model girl in our house.”

  “Oh, Angie. Just wait until Tina and Dorian hit adoles­cence! You just don’t know,” Mom said with a laugh.

  I hated it when she talked about me that way, like I was some kind of adolescent idiot or something and she was the know-it-all mother.

  “Well, if Tina and Dorian are as nice as Cassie, I won’t worry,” I heard Angie tell Mom. “Fred says he never worries about the kids when Cassie’s with them. She’s so level headed ...

  I went into the shower so I wouldn’t have to hear any more of their stupid babbling. They didn’t know me at all!

  I was all ready for school by the time Mom and Robbie left. Mom asked if I wanted a ride, but I said I’d rather walk. I started out for school and then did something I’d never done before. I turned around and came back home. I cut school. I hadn’t even planned it. I just turned around without thinking.

  I was a little numb again. Like I had been after the first time Fred Sloane grabbed me and kissed me and talked about my cherry. I watched the rest of the “Today Show.” I won­dered what Katie Couric would have done if she were in my place. I couldn’t figure it out. I watched a rerun of “I Love Lucy,” and then I called Grammy Healy.

  “Cassie? What a nice surprise. How are you, Honey?”

  “Fine, Grammy. Am I still coming to stay with you when school’s out?”

  “Well, I hope so! There’s a new pizza place just down the street from me. You can swim every day, and then we’ll eat pizza and go to the movies every night. Don’t tell your mother, though,” Grammy laughed.

  “Grammy? Could I please come stay some weekend before summer?”

  “Oh, Cassie, that would be wonderful. Tell your folks to bring you anytime. Just call me a day or so ahead of time and I’ll sweep all those old codgers off my doorstep.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Cassie? Why aren’t you in school today?”

  I thought fast. “Teacher work day,” I answered. It wasn’t exactly a lie. I supposed teachers were working even if I wasn’t there. “Bye, Grammy. I’ll see you real soon.”

  I felt a little better after I talked with Grammy. I got some ice cream from the freezer. There was only a little in the carton, so I poured some chocolate syrup in, and some raisin-granola, and went back to the TV. I started watching “The Flintstones,” but they were too stupid even for me. I switched to “Days of Our Lives.” Someone was falling
in love with someone else’s husband. I turned off the TV and went into my parents’ bedroom. They have a big king-sized bed, with lots of pillows and a down comforter. When I was real little, if I was sick, Mom would let me sleep in there and bring me juice and stuff and read to me. I crawled into their bed and went to sleep. I was still in their bed, watching Oprah talk to husbands of abusive women, when Mom and Robbie got home.

  “What are you doing in here?” Mom asked.

  “I just felt like watching TV here,” I said.

  Robbie came running in and threw himself on the bed as Mom walked out to the kitchen. He began poking and tickling me and rolling all over the bed. As I started to get up, he threw his arms around me and started kissing me. He put his lips on mine and stuck his tongue in my mouth.

  “Robbie!” I pushed him back, shocked. “Why did you do that? What’s the matter with you, anyway? Why did you do that with your tongue?”

  Robbie looked scared.

  “What’s wrong with that, anyway? Dorian does that. Tina does that. That’s how their dad kisses.”

  “Oh, Robbie,” was all I could say.

  “So! You’re not my mom!” Robbie yelled as he stomped out of the room. When Mom came in to get me to help, I told her I was really sick and I wanted to be left alone.

  “Then get into your own room, Cassie. Keep your germs to yourself.”

  Daddy came in to talk with me when he got home from work.

  “What’s wrong, Cassie?” he asked. He looked so worried that I almost wanted to tell him, but I was afraid. I didn’t know how to start.

  “I think I’m getting the flu,” I said.

  “Well, just stay here and rest, Sweetheart. Call us if you need anything.”

  I knew he meant it, to call him if I needed anything. I just didn’t know how to do that. I felt awful.

  Mom came in after dinner and sat on my bed. “I’m going to a meeting at the daycare center tonight, Cassie, but Dad and Robbie will be here.”

  I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, least of all Mom. She shook my shoulder. “Cassie?” I still pretended to be asleep.