“Then why doesn’t he switch her around or something,” Dyma said, “instead of just firing her?”
“He offered,” Jennifer said. “To have me work in Portland for him, doing … something else. Some office thing. I’m thinking about it.” Or panicking about it, but Dyma didn’t need to know that.
“What about Grandpa Oscar?” Dyma asked. “What does he think about it?”
Jennifer considered lying, except that she was a terrible liar. She turned red and stammered and was completely unconvincing. Besides, Dyma would know tomorrow anyway, as soon as she got home and talked to her great-grandfather. “He says he doesn’t want to move,” she admitted, “but that I should go anyway. This isn’t an interesting conversation for anybody else, Dyma. We can talk about it later.”
Dyma said, “Mother. I’m not a child. I can put college off a year and work, if that’ll help. I could save a lot in a year if I live with Grandpa Oscar, or I could live with you, because I think you should move to Portland if it means you can get a better job. You couldn’t finish college because of me, and high school was horrible because of me. You can’t keep not … not living forever because of me, just because one bad thing happened! Blake’s the one person who isn’t going to care if you have a college degree, because he knows you’re good at your job, so you should let him help you. Maybe I need you to fly too, did you think of that?”
That was all kinds of alarm bells. Jennifer said, “No. You’re not putting college off. You’re not. I’ve got this. It is not your responsibility.” She was so uncomfortable with this whole thing, she wanted to walk out the door. Unfortunately, she was miles above the ground, and she didn’t have a parachute. “I don’t know who told you high school was horrible for me or why they’d even care, but even if that was true, it was a long time ago. I didn’t stop living. I have a great life.”
“Yeah, right,” Dyma said. “Responsible for everybody. No help from anybody. Yeah, that’s a fantastic life.” Her face was flushed, and her voice was shaking a little. Jennifer loved her daughter’s passion as much as she loved her confidence. Just not right now.
She was about to point out all the help she had had, but Dyma told Harlan, “She’s not going to fall in love with you, you know. Just like she probably never fell in love with Blake one bit, even though every girl in town and every girl’s mom thinks he’s the hottest guy they’ve ever seen in person. That’s probably why she stayed with Mark, even though he was boring and he totally took her for granted. Because she thought he was safe, and he didn’t come on to me. I’ll bet she’s more cautious than any woman you’ve ever met. I used to think that was stupid, but then I figured out why. Also, now that she knows who you are, she’s probably going to make us fly home coach again.”
Harlan said, “I think you should let your mom tell her own story.”
Dyma said, “Yeah? Except it’s not just her story. It’s mine. Wouldn’t you feel like it was your story, too, if your father was your mother’s rapist?”
“He wasn’t a rapist,” Jennifer said. “Or not exactly. There were two people there, and I own my own mistakes. Dyma, just no. Please. Not now.”
“Then why did he go to jail for two years?” Dyma said. “Why did he have to register as a sex offender forever? Mom. We need to discuss this. You need to make decisions for you for once, and quit trying to protect me from the truth, and from … from life. You can’t, not anymore. The truth is the truth.”
Oh, boy. Not now.
Jennifer said, “The truth has been the truth for more than nineteen years. Do we have to discuss it at this exact moment?”
“You’re always busy,” Dyma said, “because you pick up the phone or run out the door for Blake 24/7, and then there’s your so-called personal life. And so am I, because I’m rocking that apron all the time. I’m the assistant manager at Burger King,” she told Owen, “which mostly means that I’m the only one they can count on to show up for my shift. But now here we are, stuck on this plane, both not busy, and we need to talk about it. Why wouldn’t this be the perfect time?”
“You could be doing your homework,” Jennifer suggested. ‘Then you’d be busy.”
Dyma crossed her arms. “Mom.”
Harlan was still looking cool. Now, he said, “We’ve got a couple choices here. You and Dyma can move to that couch in back of us, have at least a little privacy. Or you can stay here with us and talk this out. Don’t worry about Owen and me. We already heard you were sixteen when you had Dyma, and that sure doesn’t make us think any less of you. Besides, you know my family life wasn’t anywhere close to perfect, because I shared. I’m not real fond of sharing, and I can’t think why I did, but there it is.”
That was true. Harlan had told her his story, at least a piece of it. Why didn’t that make this feel any easier?
“Harlan’s right,” Owen said. “The ink’s not even dry on my divorce. I’ve got no room to talk.”
“You’re divorced?” Dyma asked, and looked a little dismayed. Jennifer had been right, then. Some part of Dyma had been trying to think of Owen as just starting out, as in her league. Instead, he was an All-Pro NFL player, and undoubtedly a multimillionaire. Jennifer knew something about NFL contracts now. An All-Pro center? What was that, many millions of dollars a year? She wasn’t doing that calculation on Harlan, because it would be even more than that, and anyway, it was none of her business and none of her concern, except to say that, yes, he’d have private-jet money. Despite Owen’s teasing, he deferred to Harlan. It was subtle, but it was there. Harlan, she was pretty sure, was the big star.
Owen was not only an NFL player, though, he also owned a ranch. She’d had a chance to learn, working for Blake, about the kind of steady discipline it took to make it to the NFL, and to stay there. Emotionally, Owen was plenty old.
It was just as well that Dyma get set straight. Which was what made this conversation an important one, actually. Maybe Owen didn’t understand that age gap now, but by the time Jennifer was done, he was going to understand it.
“Yep,” the man in question said. “My divorce was final about three months ago. I’ve got good parents, though, and they’ve been married close to thirty-five years now. Can’t throw the fault for my marriage on anybody else.”
Jennifer said, “Right. This is halfway out there anyway, and there’s no stuffing it back in the bag now. It’s not that exciting a story anyway. Happens every day.” She could tell that she was sitting up too straight, her shoulders rigid, but this wasn’t exactly a relaxing topic. She told Dyma, “But you could have talked to me. If you wanted to know more, why didn’t you ask me before this?”
“Because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Dyma said. “And besides, Grandma told me when I first heard about it in third grade, so I didn’t have to ask you. And later on, she explained some more. I’m all clued in.”
“She did?” Jennifer didn’t have much else than that. Why hadn’t her mother told her?
“Did you seriously imagine,” Dyma said, “that, ‘Your dad wasn’t ready to be a father’ was going to be enough for any kid?”
“Well, I hoped,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t really know what else to say.”
“You could’ve told me the truth,” Dyma said. “There’s that option. Of course, Grandma wasn’t a whole lot better. She just said that all kinds of good people come from bad parents, so I shouldn’t worry about it. She was probably right, though. Even things like depression and alcoholism are only about half due to genetics. If I’d inherited sociopathy, it would’ve showed up by now. I think he was just a bad guy.”
“He …” Oh, boy. Here they went. “I don’t think he was a bad guy, not really, or not all the way. I don’t know. I have no idea where he is now, or how his life turned out. He moved away, and so did his folks, as soon as he went to prison. That part was true. He was just … thoughtless, maybe.”
“Thoughtless,” Harlan said flatly.
She could feel herself flushing. “All right, ins
ecure. Inferior. Whatever it is guys get when their life isn’t going the way they expected, and they’re still young and egotistical and entitled. Which you never were, right?”
“Which I was plenty,” he said. “Just not so much that I slept with any fifteen-year-olds.”
“Look,” she said, “he’d graduated from high school and gone from being a two-sport star to working at the lumber mill. His pretty cheerleader girlfriend went to college and he didn’t, because no college made him an offer, and he hadn’t exactly developed his other talents. All he had was sports, and it wasn’t enough. Don’t you feel bad, ever, about all those young guys who focus too much on football and not enough on anything else, because they’ve heard too many motivational speeches about their destiny and how they create it? From their coaches, from the movies, from guys like you? How many of them even play college ball?”
“Not many,” Harlan said. “And that’s still no excuse.”
“You’re right,” Jennifer said. “He was wrong. But so was I. Not as wrong as he was, but I was wrong. And stupid, of course. Romantic. Fifteen. About to start high school, and looking for magic. My parents had been divorced a long time, and I didn’t see my dad much. I didn’t know what men … or what teenage boys …”
“How much they want sex,” Harlan said. “What some of them will say and do to get it.”
“And I had …” She took a breath, then addressed the next words to Dyma. “I developed breasts early. They were big, and I wasn’t, so they looked bigger. That got me a lot of attention, and I wasn’t used to it yet. People said all sorts of things. Water wings, and how I’d always float. Other things, too, that were worse. And guys assumed I was something I wasn’t.”
“I guess I inherited one thing from the rapist’s side,” Dyma said. “Lucky me. Smaller breasted,” she explained to Owen, in case he’d missed the point.
“He wasn’t a rapist,” Jennifer said again, because this was, yes, another thing she had to say. “I was willing. More than willing. It was so exciting. Forbidden.”
“Except, again, that you were fifteen,” Harlan said. “And he was what?” He didn’t look easygoing now, and when Jennifer glanced over, neither did Owen.
“Nineteen,” Jennifer said. “Which is statutory rape, which just means a person can’t legally consent, because they’re too young. That large of an age gap, especially with somebody under sixteen, especially if they haven’t been fifteen for very long—turns out it can send you to jail.”
“Except that nobody ever does anything about it,” Dyma said.
“You’re right,” Jennifer said. “Nobody other than Grandma. You bet she was doing something about it, once she found out. Not that I wanted her to. It was the very last thing in the world I wanted. I just wanted nobody to ever find out.”
That had happened in the winter of her freshman year. She hadn’t actively wondered about the periods she wasn’t having, had pushed the thought away when it intruded. Magical thinking, they called it, and the way teenagers did tend to think. That it couldn’t be true, so it wasn’t true. Her period had always been erratic, skipping a month as often as not, and anyway, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It had only been a few times.
His name was Danny Howard, and he’d been the star running back of the football team and catcher on the baseball team before he’d graduated. Nineteen and so good-looking, with his muscular, compact frame and blue eyes. He’d said “Hi” to her at the lake one Saturday, all broad chest and thighs and white smile, and she’d turned around to see who he’d been talking to and then realized, with a flush of mingled embarrassment and pleasure, that it was her. The next Saturday, he’d run past and told her, “Check this out,” then swum out and jackknifed off the diving platform, his tanned body cleaving the water so neatly. He’d come back after that and hung out with her for half an hour, laughing and talking and teasing in a way she couldn’t believe was happening, then suggested they meet at the picnic area that evening.
“We could go get an ice-cream cone or something,” he’d said, and his smile had made her fluttery inside.
It had felt so powerful, like love at first sight. It had been her first real crush on a boy—the first, at least, that had gone beyond her imagination. It had been so flattering. It had felt like destiny.
She’d told her mom about the date, and her mom had said, “Who? What year is he in school?” And when she’d told him Danny had graduated, had said, “Absolutely not. Have you lost your mind?” And Jennifer couldn’t budge her.
She’d sat on the fuzzy green couch watching TV with her grandpa that night, all the windows open in the heat of a North Idaho July, barely able to hold still. She’d watched the time tick past eight, past nine, and imagined Danny waiting for her. He’d think she didn’t like him enough, and that wasn’t it at all. She didn’t even have his phone number to call him and explain. The next day at the lake, he ignored her, and she thought, Of course he’s hurt and mad, and felt miserable. Every time she looked over, he was talking to his friends, or flirting with somebody else, and she wondered, in the kind of despair you could only feel at that age, Why does my mom have to ruin everything? It was just ice cream, and now I’ve missed my chance! And he really liked me!
The next Saturday, though, he ran up to her again, looking so athletic, he made her heart pound. He sat down beside her on the sand and asked, “How come you didn’t meet me last week? Were you just teasing me? What, I’m not in college, so I’m nothing? Is that it? I thought you were different from other girls. More mature.”
She answered, stumbling over the words with the need to explain, “Of course not! I’d never think that. My mom wouldn’t let me go, because she … I don’t even know. Because she doesn’t know you, I guess. Maybe you could come by and meet her, so you could tell her where we were going and she’d see it was OK.”
He laughed as if she’d said something hilarious. Or, more likely, hopelessly immature. “Are you kidding? Your mom’s not going to like me. She’s going to say I’m bad news because I’m not in college, even though I’ve got a job and a car and I’m doing great. She probably wants you to go out with some skinny kid from the debate team. You aren’t prejudiced like that, are you? Or do you think I’m bad news too?”
“No. Of course not. Besides, it was just ice cream.”
“Exactly. How come parents never get that? I tell you what. You just say you’re going to your girlfriend’s. You can go over there afterwards. That way, it’s not even a lie. You’re just not telling her every little thing.” He smiled, and that smile made her warm all over. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
Danny’d had a car. She’d never known anybody with their own car. He still lived with his parents, but he’d told her, “I’ll have enough saved next month to move out. The job’s just temporary, too. My buddy’s going to get me into the electrician’s union, and his boss is going to give me a job. In a few months, I’ll be earning big bucks once I’m getting all that overtime, and pretty soon, I’m going to start my own company and not have to take orders from anybody. This is all just for now.”
Well, that had turned out to be true. Once he’d been arrested.
The whole thing had lasted barely a month, first to last. Meetings in the park had turned into rides in his car, driving too fast with all the windows open and her bare feet up on his dashboard, feeling glamorous and pretty and grown-up, and then, one night, parking off a dirt road. Kissing had become touching, the windows open to the warm night air, the crickets chirping their summertime song, Danny’s hot breath in her ear.
And then the night when he said, “Come on,” took her hand, and pulled her into the back seat, and he wasn’t just touching her under her clothes anymore.
She didn’t like the end part as much as the touching and kissing, but he sure did, and he was experienced, so it must just be that she didn’t know how to do it right yet. And when he told her, “That was so great. You’re so beautiful, baby,” her heart swelled with gratitude and pleasure,
and she thought, So this is how love feels.
She didn’t tell anybody except Nicole. She had to tell Nicole, in case her mom checked in. Nicole thought it was romantic, that she was daring, and so did Jennifer. She felt, for once, more knowledgeable and older than the other kids, worldly wise in a way they couldn’t be.
“People act like virginity is some big deal,” she told Nicole after the first time, “but I don’t feel any different, except that maybe I understand what it’s all about, you know? It’s really just body parts touching, though, and feeling good. What’s wrong with feeling good?”
“You’re right,” Nicole said, and looked at her like Jennifer was daring, and adult, and mature. Jennifer felt off-balance and giddy and confused, and every time she lied to her mom, to her grandpa, she felt horrible, but Danny told her he needed her, that this was the only good part of his life right now. That she was helping.
And that he loved her.
And then there was the night when he didn’t show up. Jennifer sat on the picnic table by the lake as dusk turned slowly to dark, getting colder by the minute, and finally walked home, thinking of all the things that could have happened to him. About an accident in the mill. A car wreck. He could be lying in the hospital right now, and she wouldn’t even know. When she tried calling him, though, his mom answered and said he wasn’t home, and she didn’t sound worried at all. And when Jennifer left a message, he didn’t call back. She called three more times, and finally, his mom said, “Hon. I’ve told him. You need to stop calling now.” And she ran to the bathroom, the embarrassed heat overwhelming her, and threw up.
What had happened? She couldn’t find out, and she couldn’t concentrate on school. She wanted to tell her mom, but how could she ever do that?
The next Saturday, Danny was at the lake with Eileen Gerrity, who was a senior, and he didn’t look at Jennifer once, even when she tried to catch his eye. The next day, he didn’t come to the lake at all, and neither did Eileen. She hung around all afternoon, then walked home, her throat dry and her eyes burning, and wondered what she’d done wrong, what immature thing she’d said. She didn’t call Nicole, because she didn’t wanted to admit that it was true. But it was. He was gone.
Shame the Devil (Portland Devils Book 3) Page 13