Telling

by Marilyn Reynolds

  We were going in opposite directions, so I picked up our trash and went off to the science room. It was kind of a surprise to me that Fred had done that to Mandy. I think I sort of felt jealous at first. And then I felt stupid. How dumb I had been to think maybe he was in love with me. I remembered how I had been almost flattered that he was interested in me in a way that had to do with sex. I’m so unsexy! God, was I ever stupid!

  I felt a gentle tug on my hair and turned to look behind me. It was Jason. “Get my note?” he asked.

  I smiled at him. “Thanks, Jason,” I said. That’s all I could think of to say.

  “You’re welcome,” he answered. He smiled back, show­ing a mouthful of metal, then turned and walked back down the hall.

  On my way home from school that afternoon I thought about the time I’d gone to Disneyland with the Sloanes. It was last summer, when Tina was three. Angie had invited me so I could help with Tina and Dorian on some of the rides. And she told me it would be more fun for her and Fred too, if I went along.

  In the evening, when we were all tired, we’d gone on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. We sat in the first row of the boat, Angie on the outside edge. Then there was Tina, then me, then Dorian and then Fred. Tina was frightened by the fake cannonball shots and the fire in the jail, and she buried her head first in Angie’s lap and then in mine. Dorian laughed the whole way at everything we saw. We all got hit in the face with a huge splash of water when the boat went down the last waterfall. We were all wet and laughing when we got off, and I felt good to be with them.

  At the car, Angie told me to sit in front with Fred so she could get in back with the kids and maybe help them get to sleep. On the long ride back home, Fred asked me about what I thought I’d do when I grew up, and he told me how he first got started in the muffler business. He said he thought I was pretty smart and I should be sure to get a job where I used my brains. Angie had joked with me and told me that if I kept getting prettier and prettier I’d probably end up with some rich man and never have to use my brains.

  It seemed like they were really interested in me, and like they really liked me. I wondered, walking home from school, where that time had gone. What happens to good times when the bad times come?

  I had been so lost in my thoughts that I hardly realized I was almost home. I had just turned the corner on to Fairview when I heard the roar of a motorcycle behind me, right up on the sidewalk. I jumped to the side. It was Fred. He stopped in front of me, blocking my way with his bike. He got off and stood there, facing me. I started to walk around him, keeping my eyes on the ground, but he took two quick steps and grabbed me. His face was only inches away from mine, and his eyes were hateful.

  “You better keep your mouth shut, you little tramp!” he hissed at me. “You come hanging around me, begging me for a little fun, and then when you get your way you go trying to get me in trouble.”

  He was holding my wrists so tightly I could hardly move. I tried to pull away. “Leave me alone!” I shouted.

  He shoved me aside. “I’ll leave you alone all right. But you better stop telling lies about me!”

  I ran the rest of the way home. I didn’t even look back once. He must have come out looking for me. I hated him. What did he mean accusing me of hanging around him, and of lying? He was the one who was lying. And I sure never asked him to come home early from bowling the other night!

  Mom was watering the lawn when I came running up the driveway.

  “What’s your hurry, Cassie? You look a little red in the face.”

  I dropped my book bag on the driveway and sat down.

  “It’s Fred Sloane again,” I told her. “He came after me over on Fairview Street. He told me to keep my mouth shut, and he called me a tramp.” I was choking back tears. Mom came over and sat down next to me.

  “Were you afraid, Cassie? Did you think he was going to hurt you, or force himself on you in some way?”

  “Not really. It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to be scared. He did kind of hurt my wrists when he grabbed me though.” I showed Mom my wrists, which were still all red.

  “I don’t like this at all, Cassie. We’re going to have to call the police.”

  “Oh, Mom. What will they do? Will I have to talk to them? Pretty soon I can go to Grammy’s. Let’s just wait.”

  “No, Cassie. This whole thing has gone too far. We can’t be sure what Fred will do next. We’ll wait for Dad, but we’ll have to report this. In the meantime, I don’t want you to leave the house.”

  I was kind of shaky. I went into the den where Robbie was watching “Sesame Street.” I sat down next to him.

  “Do you like Big Bird, Cassie?” he asked.

  “Sure, I like Big Bird.”

  “Are you in love with Big Bird?” he asked, grinning.

  “No. Are you in love with Big Bird?”

  “No!” he shrieked, giggling. “I’m in love with Miss

  Piggy!”

  He laughed until his face was all red and he got the hiccups. He thought the dumbest things were hilarious. But as I watched him laughing and hiccupping, I was glad he hadn’t gotten sick and died like I wanted him to that time when he was only two years old. And I was very glad Fred Sloane hadn’t been all weird with Robbie.

  I started on my math homework, but my stomach kept reminding me that there was stuff to be nervous about. Mom had fixed one of my favorite meals, spaghetti with garlic bread and salad, but I wasn’t very hungry. We didn’t talk much at the table. I think Mom and Dad didn’t want to get into a lot of details about the Fred Sloane thing in front of Robbie.

  About 8:00 Aunt Trudy came over and invited Robbie to go out for ice cream with her. As soon as they left, Mom called me into the den where she and Daddy were sitting.

  “We thought it would be easier if Robbie weren’t around when we do a police report,” she told me. “Aunt Trudy offered to help out.”

  Daddy said, “We’re finished trying to talk with Fred Sloane. To think that he would assault you, after all we went through with him yesterday. I’d like to cram my fist down his lying throat.”

  He paused, looking at Mom. “I know,” he said, more calmly. “I’m the one who says violence never works. I sure feel violent right now, though. Let’s make that phone call.”

  Chapter

  13

  When Daddy called the sheriff’s station they said we could either come in to see them, or they could send a deputy to talk with us at home. Mom wanted to go to the station. I think she didn’t want the neighbors to see the black and white squad car in our driveway.

  The sheriff’s station was only about five miles from our house. On the way over there I felt really nervous. I’d been there once, in the third grade, on a field trip. They showed us their computer, and how they checked to see if someone had a record, or a warrant out for them, and they showed us an empty cell. I thought it was fun then, but I sure didn’t feel like this trip was going to be fun.

  We walked up to a long counter and waited for someone to notice us. There were three men in the room behind the counter, all in uniforms with badges, and guns in holsters. Two men were sitting at desks, facing us, doing paperwork. The third was leaning against a doorway, talking to someone we couldn’t see. When he noticed us he sort of sauntered over to the counter. His uniform was perfectly pressed, with neat creases down each sleeve. He was tall, with dark curly hair and dark skin. He would have been handsome, except he had a big belly hanging over his belt.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, gruffly.

  “I’m Les Jenkins. I talked with someone here about half an hour ago,” Daddy said.

  “Oh, yes ― the child molestation incident, right?”

  I felt my stomach twist and knot. I was shocked to hear the words child molestation. It sounded like something terrible that happened to kids I heard about sometimes on the evening news.

  Daddy said, “Well, I don’t know what to call it, but a neighbor’s been after my daughter for mont
hs, and I want it stopped.”

  “Let me get Sergeant Conrad for you. She’s in our juve­nile division. Have a seat. It’ll be a few minutes.”

  There were two pukey green metal folding chairs against one wall, and two against the other. Mom and I sat down, and Daddy pulled one of the other chairs up beside me. He took hold of my hand and held it gently. You could still see a red spot on my left wrist, where Fred Sloane had grabbed me earlier that day. Nobody said anything. We all sat there like we were most interested in the checkerboard patterns on the floor tiles.

  It seemed like we’d been sitting there a long time, but it was really only about ten minutes, when a woman came up to the swinging half-door between the counter and the wall we were sitting against. She held the door open a little.

  “Hi. I’m Sergeant Conrad. Would you come back to my office with me?”

  We followed her through the door and down a hall to an office in the back of the building. Her office looked really different from the other part of the sheriff’s station. I mean, it wasn’t like anything you’d see in one of those fancy magazines, but the chairs were soft and comfortable, and her desk was an old wooden one, instead of the metal kind like were in the first big room. And there were plants all over. There was a huge Creeping Charlie plant hanging from the corner of the ceiling near a high window, and there were lots of other little plants on a bookshelf.

  Sergeant Conrad sure didn’t look like a sergeant. She was tall and skinny ― a black woman with really short hair. She was wearing a gray blouse, silk I guess, with a black skirt and black high heels. She looked like she could have been a model.

  “Sit down,” she said, motioning to the couch. We all three sat together, me in the middle, and she pulled up a chair and sat opposite us. She didn’t say anything for a minute, and although she wasn’t exactly staring, I had the feeling that she was noticing everything about us. Not just what we were wearing, but how we were sitting, and if our fingernails were clean, and all that stuff.

  “Tell me why you’re here,” she said.

  Daddy started. “A man in our neighborhood has been after my daughter for months. I just found out a few days ago. She goes there to babysit, and he won’t keep his filthy hands off her.”

  “And are you here to press charges, Mr. Jenkins?”

  “I don’t know,” Daddy said. “I just want that bastard to know he can’t get away with this kind of crap!”

  “And you, Mrs. Jenkins? Are you here to press charges?”

  Mom sighed. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

  Sergeant Conrad said, “Why don’t you and Mrs. Jenkins go on home? It will take an hour, maybe two, to interview Cassie. Then we’ll know more where we stand.”

  “Maybe we should just wait,” Mom said.

  “Of course you can wait if you want to. I’ll probably want to drive Cassie home anyway, just to get locations straight. I don’t drive a black and white, so your neighbors won’t notice me,” she smiled.

  I wondered how she guessed what my mom was worried about, when she didn’t even know my mom.

  “Well ... all right,” Mom said. They got up and walked toward the door.

  “We’ll see you in a little while, Cassie,” Daddy said.

  I thought he didn’t want to leave, but he went out anyway. As the door closed behind them, Sergeant Conrad asked me to tell her all that had happened.

  I began again with the same old story. Sergeant Conrad just listened. Even though I’d told the story many times in the past few days, it was still embarrassing and hard to say, and it made me feel dumb and confused. When I’d told as much as I could think of to tell, Sergeant Conrad began asking questions.

  “Cassie, do you think this Fred Sloane person does this with other girls, too?”

  I told her about Mandy.

  “No two people are alike, Cassie, but usually if a man is doing this with one twelve-year-old girl, he’ll be doing it with others, too. Most of these guys have a kind of pattern.”

  I was quiet. I didn’t know what else to say. But my stom­ach wasn’t so tight anymore. Sergeant Conrad was pretty easy to talk to.

  “I want to tell you some things I’ve learned on this job, Cassie. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, relieved to have someone else doing the talking for a change.

  “Well, first of all, I’ve learned that these incidents are never the kid’s fault. You understand?”

  “Never?” I asked. That seemed pretty hard to believe.

  “Never, never, never,” she said. “Fred Sloane is an adult, and it is his responsibility to act like an adult. That means not exploiting children, no matter what the child has done. Did you ever feel like you were partly to blame for the way Fred was treating you?”

  “A little,” I admitted. “’Cause, you know, he told me I’d been asking for it, hanging around and all.”

  “Well, first of all, I don’t think you were asking for it. Do you?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “And second of all, even if you were taking your clothes off and taunting him with sexy belly dances, it would not have been your fault because you are still the child and he is still the adult. Do you see?”

  I nodded. I even sort of laughed. The idea of me doing a sexy belly dance was pretty funny.

  “Now let me tell you about something else I’ve learned on this job. Okay?” She was smiling a kind of gentle smile at me. I liked her a lot.

  “Girls often feel ashamed, like they’ve done something dirty, even though the man was forcing himself on them. Did you ever feel that way?”

  I could tell my face was turning red. I looked down at the floor. My throat felt tight. I remembered how I felt when Fred had grabbed me from behind and started rubbing his hands on me and kissing my neck. I didn’t say anything.

  Sergeant Conrad sat for a while, not saying anything either. Then she told me, “Those feelings are nothing to be ashamed of. All they mean is that your body is working right. Certain things feel good to us. That’s how our bodies are made. The Fred Sloanes of the world know that, but they misuse it. You’ve not done or felt anything to be ashamed of, do you understand, Cassie?”

  “I guess.”

  “It’s absolutely wrong for a man of Sloane’s age to be getting those feelings from your body. The time for you to be experiencing such things is in a few years, with someone you trust and care about and who is nearer your age. And it’s okay for you to start learning these things about your body by yourself, at your own hands, so to speak. But not ever with a guy like Sloane, or with anyone, no matter how old, who is just using you for some kind of thrill. Do you understand, Cassie? You’re an innocent victim.”

  I really didn’t want to cry, not in front of Sergeant Conrad. I could feel tears starting anyway, and my nose about to run. She handed me a box of tissues from the top of her desk.

  “It’s also all right to cry,” she smiled at me.

  I smiled back, teary eyed. I didn’t know why I was cry­ing, except maybe for relief. I was amazed that this Sergeant Conrad, who I’d just met about an hour ago, could know so much about me. She was able to talk to me about my most confusing feelings, and then I didn’t feel so confused anymore. What she said made sense to me. I was really glad she’d told me that stuff.

  “Let’s see, now. Have I missed anything about what I’ve learned on this job? Maybe I should tell you that a lot of girls your age have similar experiences. Does it help to know that?”

  “I guess,” I told her. “It really helps to think it wasn’t my fault though, or that those other feelings don’t mean I’m a dirty person.”

  “Well, you’re not, Cassie. And actually, you’re a pretty strong kid. Do you know that?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.

  “Look, Cassie. You did a lot of the right things. You got help from someone older and you figured out a way to take care of yourself. Now, it didn’t all work out exactly as you and Lisa planned, but
you were working at it.”

  “My dad thinks I should have told him and Mom right away,” I said.

  “Well, yes, that’s probably the best thing to do, but if you feel like you can’t talk with your parents about something like this, then it’s good that you found someone you could talk with. What if this happened to you again, would you be able to tell your parents now?”

  “I think so. I feel better with them now than I did a few months ago. I guess now I’d want to tell my parents. Especially my dad.”

  “What’s your biggest worry right now, Cassie?”

  I had to think for a while about that one. “I guess I’m still kind of worried about the Sloanes. I mean, I know they’ll never like me again and I feel sort of bad about that.”

  “Because you’ll miss Angie, or Fred, or the kids?”

  “I guess the kids. Also, I think Angie’s feelings are hurt. I don’t know, I just have this bad feeling about the Sloanes, even if it’s not my fault.”

  “Well ... it will take some time to get past these things. You’ve been very calm outwardly, through this all. But you’ve had a lot of inside turmoil, and you’ve got to keep working at getting it straightened out. I have one more thing to tell you that I’ve learned on this job, then I’ll take you home. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “It is very important for every kid who goes through this kind of experience to see a counselor for a while.”

  “That’s what Angie said ― that I should see a psychologist,” I said. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me, too?”

  “Not at all. That’s back to the false theory that what happened was your fault. That’s not the case.”

  “Then why do I need a counselor if there’s nothing wrong with me?”

  “You’ve been caught at a hard time in your own development,” Sergeant Conrad said. “You’ve had to deal with some things which you shouldn’t have to deal with yet ― kind of like taking a tadpole and expecting it to stay out of water as long as a frog does. Give that tadpole time, and of course it can stay out of water for a long time. But force it to deal with air before it’s ready and that’s very dangerous for the little ole’ tadpole. Are you with me?”