Blackbird

by Abigail Graham

  “You haven’t ever been to a party, have you?”

  I shook my head. “You weren’t allowed to go?”

  “Never invited.”

  “Oh.”

  “There was no one to invite me. I was home schooled. Tutors.”

  I shifted uncomfortably on my feet and rubbed my arms. Jennifer sat up, and slid to the floor with the same languid grace with which she’d climbed up. She spun her desk chair around and sat on it facing backwards, leaning on the back.

  “We’re supposed to talk,” she said.

  I sat down on the bed.

  “What should we talk about?”

  “Thank you for helping me carry my things. I appreciate it.”

  “You have a lot of stuff.”

  She shrugged. “It’s everything I own. I’m not going back. I already signed the papers to stay here over the winter break. I’m going to be in the room a lot. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Okay.”

  “Um,” she said, her face turning red. “I don’t like undressing around people. Have you been to the showers?”

  “Yes, it’s not like a movie. There’s stalls with curtains.”

  She shuddered. “I’ll make do. I might ask you to step out of the room now and then.”

  “I can do that.” I shrugged.

  “I’ll be in here a lot. I don’t go out much. I don’t have a boyfriend or anything.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Oh.” She sounded surprised.

  “Um,” I said, searching for something else to talk about. I would be leaving soon if I wanted to be on time. “What are you majoring?”

  “English. I want to teach. You?”

  “Business,” I sighed.

  “You don’t sound excited about it.”

  “I’m not. I should be going now. Are you coming?”

  “No,” she said, firmly. “I don’t do parties. Oh, that’s the other thing. No parties in our room, please. No drinking.”

  “I’m not old enough to drink, and I don’t know anybody.”

  She nodded, and seemed reassured. “Thank you.

  True to her word, Jennifer climbed up on her bunk and remained in the room. Walking through that door was like passing through a brick wall. I had to force myself to take every step. I expected there to be a stream of students on the sidewalk.

  There were a few, but no one seemed to be in any hurry to get to “the mixer”. There was some sort of a stage set up on the lawn in front of the college center and people appeared to be setting up a sound system. When they tested it with a burst of music, the speakers whined and popped. I felt a vibration through my feet. It turned into a sound, a throaty basso rumble that echoed off the brick buildings. As I turned to see where it was coming from, I let out a slow breath. Victor’s Pontiac came rumbling down the street. He pulled up behind me and motioned me over.

  Against my better judgement, I walked over to the car. I looked around, hoping no one would see me talking to him.

  “Hey” he almost shouted, his voice raised over the exhaust. “Need a ride?”

  “I have to go to the freshman mixer.”

  He laughed. “Are you serious? No, you don’t. Hop in. You eat dinner yet?”

  “No, I thought there would be food at the mixer.”

  “There’s food at McDonalds. Come on.”

  I looked back over to the lawn and chewed my lip.

  “You’re thinking about it. That means I’ve already won. I promise no one will even know if you’re there or not.”

  “I can’t, Victor. I’m not supposed to even talk to you.”

  He leaned out the window a little. “Come on.”

  “Are you going to speed?”

  “No way. I promise to obey all traffic controls and speed limits.” He raised his hand in an I-swear gesture.

  I took a deep breath, then walked around and got in the car. True to his word, Victor rumbled gradually down the block, and took the turn slowly.

  It was a bit quieter inside the car.

  “What are you even doing here?”

  “What? Oh, right, I’m a student here.”

  “You?”

  “I transferred.”

  “What?”

  He fished in his pocket and pulled out a student identification card just like mine, with his smiling face on it. I looked over at him and tugged on my seat belt. I noticed he wasn’t bothering to wear his.

  “You should eat. You eat anything today?”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay, burger time, then.”

  I tugged at my jeans, trying to gather the material in my hands. I ended up pitching forward with my arms folded over my chest.

  He didn’t ask me any questions. I watched out the window as he drove. At the restaurant, Victor opened my door for me and took my hand to pull me to my feet. He made a show of it, flexing his muscles. I really didn’t need his help. He walked close beside me, opened the doors for me. I walked up to the counter with him.

  I had no idea what to get. I’d never eaten at one of these before.

  “Um,” I said. “I don’t know what to…”

  Victor stepped up to the counter. “Two double quarter pounders with cheese, a quarter pounder with cheese, a large french fries, a strawberry milkshake,” he glanced at me, “and two large sodas.”

  He paid, too, and carried the tray. I sat down at the table he chose and gingerly unwrapped my cheeseburger, feeling the grease on my fingers. I lifted the bun-lid and frowned at the gunk on top, took a napkin and swept it off.

  “I didn’t know you like them plain. Sorry.”

  “I’ve never had one.” I pointed at the pile of lettuce and tomato. “I just don’t want that.”

  “Works for me,” he said, and did the same thing to his. He ate one of his sandwiches so fast it was almost unnerving to watch. I’d filled my cup with orange soda. I like oranges. It was so sweet.

  He put the milk shake up in front of me. “This is for you.”

  “It is?”

  He gave me a look.

  I shrugged and took a pull on the straw. It was too sweet, too.

  The burger was better than I thought it would be. I like having a little of the… stuff on it. The milk shake wasn’t bad, either.

  “You’ve seriously never eaten here before?”

  “I’ve never had occasion to.”

  “I mean at any of the chain stores.”

  “Victor,” I said.

  “Vic,” he corrected.

  “Vic. What do you want from me?”

  He gave me an enigmatic smile and a shrug. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  Vic reached over and set his hand on mine.

  I tensed.

  “Oh. Oh.”

  “You’re not good with signals, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  He sighed.

  My face reddened. I could feel it. He smiled, not so much for me as at me, his eyes darting all over my face and neck. I pulled my hand back and folded both together in my lap.

  “I can’t. I’m your sister.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, for like a month and a half.”

  “I already heard people commenting about us dancing at the wedding. Then there was the garter thing.”

  He leaned on his hand. “Fuck them.”

  I flinched.

  “Eve, do you like me? I think you like me. I like you.”

  “I think I do. I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t know what to do,” my voice cracked. “I don’t know how to talk to anybody or what to do or what to say or…” I trailed off. “I can’t. I can’t do it. If Father finds out…”

  “If he puts his hands on you I’ll break his legs.”

  I jerked back and looked at him. “He’s my father.”

  “Yeah. He is. My father never hit me. He never hit my mom either. He could have, if he wanted. He was a big guy. He taught me a lot.”

  “My father taught me a lot,” I said.

  �
��I can see that. My father taught me a man must have a code.”

  “A code?”

  “Yeah.”

  I swallowed, took a big gulp of milkshake and dabbed at my lips with a napkin.

  “I just want you to give me a chance. I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m not going to lock you in a tower and ‘ravish’ you like in one of those books you read.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “My mom told me.”

  Something about that was funny enough for me to start laughing.

  “People have told me things about you.”

  “Such as?”

  I started wringing my fingers.

  “You sleep with lots of girls. You don’t really care about me, I’d just be another…” what was it? “Notch on your bedpost.”

  “That’s a fun trick.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “You talk, and your father’s voice comes out.”

  My mouth worked silently. I looked at him, without looking away, the way he was looking at me. Just looking at someone had never made feel this way before.

  “What do I do? I mean, if I want to be your girlfriend. Um.”

  I sounded like an idiot. I knew it even then.

  “You don’t do anything. We hang out. Do stuff together.”

  “Like what?”

  “I can think of a few things.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Evelyn

  “He can’t be in here,” Jennifer said coldly, scowling at me from her top bunk.

  “He’s not staying. Besides, we can have guests until ten o’clock.”

  “Nice to meet you, too,” Victor smirked at her. “I guess this means I’m dropping you off.”

  “Yes.”

  “Classes don’t start until Monday. We should go out tomorrow.”

  “Alright.”

  Victor stood there, a wry smirk on his face. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, so I shifted from one foot to the other and worked my fingers, hoping he would give me some signal. His eyebrow rose and his smile widened a little, and then he put his hands on my shoulders, leaned down, and pressed his lips to mine.

  I didn’t know what to do. Did I just stand there. I pushed back a little, turned my head. It was pleasurable when I felt his lips move against mine. It felt good. His lips tugged on my bottom lip as he pulled away, and my chest fluttered. I felt strangely excited, like I wanted to start bouncing on my heels. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear and his fingers traced down the side of my neck and made me shiver. It was like a tickle, but different. I smiled dully.

  It was my first kiss.

  “I’ll be around,” he said, and squeezed my arm.

  “Nice to meet you,” he nodded at Jennifer.

  Vic strode out of the room. I rushed over and locked the door, went back to my new desk and sat in the old chair in a daze.

  “He’s trouble,” Jennifer said in a cold voice, and rolled over to face the wall.

  I gave her back a withering look, but she didn’t seem to notice. She ignored me completely as she tossed and turned, sat up, dug a book out of her bags and climbed back up with a little reading lamp.

  “I get up early,” she said, seemingly to no one in particular.

  “So do I. Lights out?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  I turned off the overhead light and climbed into bed. Her reading lamp lit the room softly for maybe an hour, then clicked off. I curled up tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. All I could think about was the way he touched me. It was just my arms, but no one ever really touched me. Then there was the kiss. I thought it was awkward, but I liked it. I wondered what it would be like to kiss the way they did in movies, open mouthed, writhing around, bodies pressed together in passionate heat. I pressed my legs together, too. I felt itchy, and hot even though the air conditioning made me shiver. I tucked up under my blanket and tried again to sleep, tried to clear my head and think about nothing. I should have fallen asleep easily. I was tired, I’d been awake all day, in the car and carrying things and unpacking. I had a full stomach.

  Sleep stalked me for hours but never pounced. When I finally dozed off it must have been in the wee hours of the morning, and it was a fitful sleep. When my roommate made the slightest move or sound, I snapped awake. I’d never shared a room with a person before, and every movement made me think intruder.

  I had a dream.

  Everything was huge, like some torturous funhouse. Chairs were too high to climb, the carpet monstrously huge, scraping my tiny feet as I walked. I was in a strange place, a huge empty place. Sheets covered all the furnishings like ghosts, and there were light squares on the walls, specters of lost paintings. Boxes everywhere, a maze of them. There was something behind me, following me, stalking, moving closer. I looked over my shoulder and saw him. My father, gigantic and stooped, his head scraping the ceiling. His eyes burned with blue flames, like a gas stove, charred the skin around his too-big eye sockets. I screamed and ran and he chased after me on back-jointed legs, snapping a belt in his huge bony hands. The belt was made of strange pale leather, as wide as my hands and studded with gleaming metal points, wickedly sharp. I ran and ran and ran and called a name without remembering it.

  All at once the world began shifting around me, jerking wildly, and I fell. In a dark corner I saw the figure of a woman, hunched and weeping, but she had no face, only a blank void where eyes and nose and mouth should be. She reached a hand for me in mute appeal, but her fingers were broken. The shaking grew worse, the world tumbling and turning around me, and I forgot I was being chased and he was there.

  You’ve been difficult, you little slut. Take off your dress and wake up.

  Wake up.

  “Wake up,” Jennifer snapped at me, not gently but not angrily, either.

  My head came up from the pillow. I was covered head to toe in cold, acid sweat. The light outside was still bruised from dawn, and cut lines on the tile floor through the blinds. Jennifer quickly drew her hand back from my shoulder as I curled up in a ball, twisted up in my blankets, and lay there panting.

  She crouched next to the bed.

  “You started shouting in your sleep. I don’t understand what you were saying.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I had a bad dream.”

  She gave me a cryptic nod. “Can you stay in the bed for a second?”

  I nodded, and she gracefully slipped back up into the top bunk. I heard her shift around, the bed jerked, and she came down in a crouch, dressed in sweatclothes, and slipped on a pair of running shoes.

  No one I’ve ever met exercised as much as she did. She was either studying, sleeping, or running or, later, riding a bicycle. She seemed to live on granola bars and cold oatmeal.

  While Jennifer was out running, I went to the showers for the first time. It made me nervous, but there was plenty of privacy, a big curtain for each stall and room to change in front of the shower itself.

  After that I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I took my schedule and went to the book store. I came back with two armloads of plastic bags, the handles cutting into my fingers, and neatly stacked the books on the little shelf on my desk. For the next hour or so, I started reading a microeconomics textbook, tapping my foot on the tiles. There was a tap at my window, a soft sound on the glass, then another, and another. I looked over and saw Victor peering through the glass at me, grinning.

  My room was on the second floor.

  I threw up the sash.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Let me in.”

  I fumbled with the screen, lifted it up. The windows were very large. I jumped out of the way as Victor clambered inside. He was barefoot, his shoes hanging from his belt, tied by their laces. He wiped sweat off his forehead with his hand, then scooped me up in his arms. He literally lifted me off the floor as he pulled me against him, and kissed me. This time I touched him back, putting my hands on his sides, just above his hips. The muscles bunched and tightened u
nder his skin as he moved. The kiss was like a mouthful of warm honey, and left me breathless and shaking. He put his arms around me.

  “What are you up to?”

  “Reading,” I said, glancing at the book.

  “What is that?”

  “Principles of Microeconomics, Third Edition.”

  “You’re reading a textbook?”

  “What?”

  He grinned at me. “I didn’t think you were that boring.”

  “I’m not boring.” I sighed. “The book is boring.”

  “You’ll have time to read that later. Come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere but here.”

  Jennifer picked that moment to come back. She walked in, gathered up her robe and toiletry bag, and left, all while scowling at Victor.

  “I think she’s starting to like me.”

  “I don’t think she likes you at all.”

  He sighed. “One day you will understand this. We earth humans call it ‘humor’.”

  “Oh. You were being sarcastic.”

  “Yeah. She has a key, right? Come on.”

  I locked up and followed him outside. He parked in the overflow, tucking the Firebird into a corner space so the car in the next spot over was far enough away to swing the wide door open. As always, he opened mine first before getting in himself. I unlocked his door for him.

  “So where are we going?”

  “You have anything in mind?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I don’t know what to do if I’m not studying.”

  “You know, they have a drive-in down here.”

  “A drive-in theater? It’s what, ten in the morning? It won’t be dark for hours.”

  “Hours and hours,” said Victor. “We’ll just have to find something to do until then. I have an idea. Have you ever been to the beach?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s go. It’s only about an hour drive. If you obey all traffic control devices and posted speed limits.”

  The way he said it strongly implied he didn’t plan on it.

  “Okay.”

  I’ve never seen any of this before. I stared out the windows as he drove. The whole place was so flat. I could see for miles and miles, the distance obscured only by trees here and there, or buildings. It wasn’t like home, where the rode rose and fell. I expected the ocean to be something like the river. Living in Philadelphia, my idea of the coastline was the Delaware river. A few times I glanced over at the instrument cluster, and felt my stomach drop when I realized we were topping ninety miles an hour. Except for a few gentle curves, the road was mostly straight. Victor slowed dramatically when a sign appeared warning of the end of the expressway, and the traffic grew heavier. He turned off past a car dealership, and the car rumbled over an iron bridge over a narrow canal.