The interior of the house was not as nice as the exterior. The wood floors were scuffed and stained, a threadbare area rug did little to hide the imperfections. The only furniture in the living room was a large desk covered in paperwork, a tall bookshelf overflowing with books and file folders, and a large couch blanketed with a tie-dye flat sheet. The arms of the sofa were exposed and spewing bits of foam rubber. The nicest thing about the room was an elaborate cut-glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
David offered me a seat on the sofa, which I accepted. I was about twenty minutes early so I wasn’t surprised not to see any other actors. I’d wanted to rehearse with the extra time but David sat down next to me and soon we were talking about acting and our favorite movies. The next time I looked at my watch I saw it was a little after four P.M.
“The others should be coming soon,” I said.
David looked at his watch and shrugged and said, “Actors,” with a long-suffering expression on his face. Being early made me feel as if I’d have a leg up on the others when they arrived. We talked more. I started to feel a little uneasy when 4:30 came and still no other actors. Then David moved closer to me on the sofa, close enough that his outer thigh was pressed against mine. Then he threw his arm around my shoulder, pulling my upper body into him, and tried to kiss me.
At first I thought he was trying to reach over me. Then his face was close to mine; I could smell the minty gum he was chewing. I pulled away from him and tried to stand up but he grabbed my arm. That’s when I realized I was in trouble. My adrenaline was pumping and my anger surfaced. I tried to twist out of his grip, cursing and yelling at the top of my voice. He let me go and I was on my feet backing my way toward the door. He stood up showing me the palms of his hands.
“I’m sorry. Calm down. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.
I just kept backing away from him glaring pure hate. Then he lunged at me and got me by the throat, pushing me up against the wall. Anger gave way to terror. I fought him, but nothing I did could get him off of me. He was choking me, with his angry face inches from mine. Then everything softened and went black.
When I came to, I had a hard time taking in breath. I was on my back on the floor with David on top of me. I couldn’t feel anything, just the weight of him. I was numb. I just lay there pinned to the floor and looked up at the chandelier, the last pretty thing in the world.
When it was over, he watched while I got dressed, which weirdly was the most shameful part of everything that happened. After I was dressed, he lifted my face and examined it closely.
“You might have a shiner tomorrow,” he said clinically. “Next time don’t struggle and save yourself some grief.”
The words “next time” exploded in my head, but I didn’t say anything. I just wanted to leave. He grabbed some keys from his coat pocket, took me by the upper arm and walked me out of the house. It was dark out. I got in the passenger seat of his car and he drove me to the train station. Before he let me out of the car, he kissed me and said he’d call me later.
I went home. Not to China’s house. I went to Mama’s house. She was in her bedroom watching TV. I went in and she looked up at me with alcohol-clouded eyes, then turned her attention back to the TV.
I took a hot shower. Afterward, when I wiped the condensation from the mirror, I didn’t recognize the girl staring back. That’s when the tears came. I saw David a couple of times a week for the next few months. Sometimes he’d pick me up. Other times I’d come to the Victorian. I always left hurt in some way. When school started up, he told me it was over. I was relieved but a part of me also felt abandoned.
It took a long time for me to understand how it was that I had switched so quickly from a self-assured girl into a passive victim. Despite the cloak of specialness I’d pieced together for myself from the kind words and encouragement I got from Jane, camp counselors and others, I had been subtly groomed to be a victim all my life. Experience, in my family and in our community, had taught me that being a girl was to be vulnerable. I had witnessed firsthand attacks on my sisters, friends and strangers. From the moment I showed signs of sexual maturity, I was forced to be on constant vigil even from people a young person is taught to trust. When I was finally brutalized, I believe I experienced a feeling almost of relief, that this unavoidable event had finally caught up to me. I had been a hamster on a treadmill trying desperately to outpace the inevitable. So when it happened I was resigned to my fate. I gave up the fantasy that girls like me could aspire to anything more than early pregnancies, violent relationships and welfare. My attacker rendered me sullied and unredeemable. I gave up on myself and gave myself away.
• • •
The following summer I went back to Laurel Springs. On the ride up the mountain, I stuck my head out the van window and breathed in the fresh, cool air. Being in the mountains made me feel clean again. I’d forgotten how beautiful the world looked from a mountaintop. When we arrived at the lodge, my friends were there to greet and embrace me. There were some new faces, but many of the original counselors and some of the original campers were still there. I luxuriated in the feeling of being in a safe place again. But I was not the same girl. I could not bear to be touched, had nightmares, didn’t like being surrounded by lots of people and wanted to sleep constantly.
Unbeknownst to me, the counselors began reporting to Jane the strange changes they saw in me. I was not as vibrant as I used to be; they told her I was a candle on the verge of flickering out. When pressed about what had caused the change, I told my counselors about the rape.
When the news got to Jane, she came to have a heart-to-heart talk with me. I told her everything, even revealing my desire to get pregnant so that I could finally have someone to love and someone to love me. Jane was appalled and told me I’d be better off getting a puppy. “Having a baby and being a single mother at your age would be a disaster. You have to think about your future.” I told her I hardly ever thought about the future. I simply assumed I’d lead a life similar to my mother’s, sisters’ and other women’s in my community. My sad confession would later inform much of the work she would go on to do with adolescents in Georgia for her nonprofit organization, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (GCAPP).
After our talk, she told me she’d help me get out of Oakland. What she needed from me was to spend the next school year getting my grades back up. If I did, she would welcome me to come live in Santa Monica with her family for as long as I needed. She also wanted me to tell my family about the rape. I agreed to it all.
When I left camp at the end of summer, Jane kept in close contact with me via letters and phone calls. She also began helping financially. I was stunned by her kindness. Stunned that someone was giving me an opportunity to get away. I had given up on myself and my grades at school suffered, but Jane’s proposal renewed my interest in school. She threw me a lifeline and I grabbed it.
A few weeks after my return, I got up the nerve to talk to Uncle Landon and Aunt Jan about the rape and Jane’s proposal. They were heartbroken to hear about the abuse. Uncle Landon told me I should have told him. I told him I was sorry I hadn’t. He said I should have told my father too. “He’d kill for you, you know.” I could see the sadness in his eyes when I responded that I didn’t have any faith in my father coming to my defense. They both said they would miss me when I left, but both agreed living with Jane was a great opportunity for me. Next I told Mama. She asked a few questions, then never brought it up again. Her response, or lack thereof, did not surprise me.
Jane paid for me to see an Oakland therapist. I visited her twice a week over the course of the school year. I never felt comfortable talking to her in detail about the rape, which is what she wanted. I simply wasn’t ready. Instead I spent my time with her talking about superficial things, refusing to go any deeper than which subjects I was taking in school. But I stuck to the appointments out of respect for Jane.
By the end of the school year my grades were up and
, as promised, I sent my report card to Jane. In return she sent me a plane ticket. It had been an eventful year. I had unburdened myself from a painful secret and was finally realizing my dream of leaving Oakland with the blessing of my Uncle Landon, but I was far from happy. I hadn’t experienced a moment of happiness since the rape and I wasn’t convinced that a therapist’s couch or a change of scenery was going to change that, but I was up for an adventure. At sixteen, I packed up my few belongings and took my first plane ride to Los Angeles and into the care of Jane Fonda.
CHAPTER 7
WHEN MY PLANE LANDED at LAX, Jane and Troy were waiting for me at the gate. Tom was away on business and Vanessa was spending the week with her father. They both embraced me and looked me over, telling me how well I looked. The public display of affection was a bit overwhelming. This family was very touchy-feely. Back rubs, hugs and kisses on the mouth were normal. It took some getting used to. Troy was wearing a Dodgers cap and a goofy grin. He grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out of the airport and to the car, talking a mile a minute about how glad he was I was finally here. I loved this little boy with the dimensions of a spider monkey, who for some inexplicable reason seemed to adore me. Jane, with eighties big hair, walked beside me, holding my upper arm as if I would suddenly bolt like a caged animal.
I was a bit curious about what type of car Jane drove. I assumed a movie star would have a chauffeured car or a big shiny Cadillac. I soon saw she drove a Chrysler station wagon with wood paneling. Inside there was a smell I was totally unfamiliar with but I would soon learn had a name: new car smell.
The seats were covered in caramel-colored leather as soft as living tissue. And sitting on the console was, wonder of wonders, a mobile phone! It was black and boxy and as big and solid looking as a construction worker’s lunch box. Jane chatted happily, asking if I was hungry and what types of food I liked because she was planning on cooking something special. Troy wanted to take me to the mall where there was a new restaurant he was crazy about called Chick-fil-A. “They even give out as many free samples as you want so you don’t even have to buy anything!” he said enthusiastically.
I mostly stared out the window watching L.A. slide by. My first impression was that L.A. made you want to look up. I looked up at the tall buildings, the palm trees and the billboards hawking movies and high-end office space instead of cigarettes and cheap liquor like in Oakland. Even the sky itself seemed higher and brighter despite the smog. In Oakland I never looked at the sky.
The station wagon was like a spaceship entering the orbit of an alien world. Freeways gave way to a city center of skyscrapers higher than anything I’d ever seen, then we cruised in for a landing in a residential neighborhood in Santa Monica full of large, well-made homes on wide streets lined with palm trees so tall they seemed to lean in toward their neighbors across the street like giants conferring on important business. I noticed the lack of foot traffic aside from the occasional jogger, usually a skinny, tan, blond woman in a tiny tank top and white shorts who would not have made it one hundred yards wearing that getup in my neighborhood. I noticed the absence of graffiti, gang members, drunks, drug addicts, dirty old men and bubble-gum-popping fast girls. Where were the familiar candy and cigarette wrappers that blew along the street like citified tumbleweeds? No churches, no liquor stores, no stray dogs roaming the streets like lion prides roaming the savanna. I wondered where the black folk were.
We pulled down a back alley behind the houses. Jane pushed a remote control attached to her sun visor, and a large gate slid back on rollers, revealing the back side of my new home on 4th and Alta, which we referred to as the Alta house. Taxi, the family’s big black lab, bounded over to greet us with a huge avocado in his mouth like the world’s most slobbery welcome home gift. As I stepped out of the car, I saw where he got it from. The backyard was dominated by a huge avocado tree laden with fruit. A dozen avocados had fallen to the carpet of thick green grass in the shade under the tree. After a couple of belly scratches and a pat on the head, Taxi was content to return to his shady patch under the tree and resumed gnawing contentedly on his prize. Another dog, a border collie named Scottie, was a little more standoffish. He eyed me from a distance as if to let me know, unlike Taxi, I would have to earn his affection.
The smell of the sea was heavy in the air, as we were less than a block from the beach. There was also the strong aroma of fresh flowers. The backyard was partly a flower garden. There were rose bushes and other flowering plants I did not know the names of. Flowers poked out from every tree and bush, a profusion of color and fragrance. We entered the Spanish-style home through the kitchen. The flooring was handmade Mexican terracotta tiles. Jane pointed out where a little dog had left his footprints on several of the tiles, perhaps while they were left to dry in some tiny village in Mexico. I thought it odd that she would take such pride in the tiles that were marred instead of the pristine ones.
I marveled at the large dining room table that looked like a cross section of an ancient felled tree. One could still see the scars and knotholes though the wood had been sanded and polished. Two long benches of equally old wood served for seating instead of chairs.
Troy offered to give me a tour of the house while Jane got started on dinner. Two steps led up to a two-story living room with white adobe walls in which there were no straight angles. Jane told me the workers who built the house used bottles to roll away the right angles. There was a large sofa and love seat covered in a fabric crowded with giant pink roses. It was overstuffed and looked like a big bed with sofa arms. One could get lost in all the pillows that were piled upon it. A large-screen TV looked enticing.
Also in the living room was a large antique credenza that seemed to sag under the weight of dozens of antique silver picture frames filled with family photos: black-and-white photos of Jane as a cherub-faced toddler as well as photos of Henry Fonda and Jane’s mother, Frances Seymour, lying out on a blanket with a young Jane, a young Peter and their half-sister Pan. There were more recent photos of Vanessa and Troy and Jane’s husband, Tom. Images of Jane at award ceremonies. There was one where she is in a beaded gown raising the Oscar triumphantly overhead. A group photo of Henry Fonda receiving his first Oscar at the age of 76, infirm in a wheelchair surrounded by his family. Photos of smiling, happy, accomplished people. How in the hell am I supposed to fit in? I wondered.
The most magnificent room in the entire house was a tiny room to the right of the front door. Behind a solid wood pocket door was a small library with bookshelves reaching all the way to the ceiling. Like at a real library, there was even a ladder on a runner one could use to reach the books high up. Later I would put my Stephen King collection on the highest shelf. There was a large window with a view of the front yard, which also boasted a flower garden in bloom and a large fence with tall bushes that obscured the house from passersby on the street.
Next I was led upstairs to where the bedrooms were. I’d be sharing a room with Vanessa. Her room had a loft area where I would sleep and Vanessa would sleep on a futon below. I could see that Vanessa had wallpapered an entire wall in photos: photos of her cradled in her mother’s arms shortly after birth; many photos of her with her father, the famous French director Roger Vadim. Vanessa on the deck of a boat in a bikini pulling for all she is worth on a fishing pole longer than herself. Vanessa as a child sitting just offstage while Jane, sporting a pixie haircut and clothes that were fashionable in the early seventies, is in the middle of an impassioned speech with a fist raised in protest. There were dozens of photos of friends, family, vacations and her beloved dog, Taxi. This was her life on the wall and, from what I could see, she was a loved girl who had seen and done a lot.
The minute I dropped my duffel bag in Vanessa’s room—Vanessa was spending the week with her father, who lived a few minutes away—Troy dragged me into his room, which was across the hall. He had a collection of Dodgers memorabilia. “I’m going to play professional baseball one day!” he told me, pulling a signed ph
otograph of Tommy Lasorda from the wall for me to admire. He also had a small collection of books about the Mafia, which he was obsessed with. He told me about his favorite mafioso, Al Capone, and said if baseball didn’t work out he’d be a mobster. Then he told me he had a secret place he wanted to show me.
In Troy’s closet there was a panic room. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Jane and Tom had recently built the house with a great emphasis on security. Protestors of Jane’s anti-war involvement in Vietnam and of Tom’s political aspirations had thrown objects through the window of their previous home, and bomb threats were a regular occurence. The threats prompted them to install a remote ignition device that started their car’s engines from afar in case a bomb was lurking beneath.
If I had known all this, I would have been even more intrigued by the little door in the back of his closet, which opened onto a tiny room barely big enough for two people. I poked my head inside and saw that Troy had used it mostly like a little cave, where he had drawn several primitive drawings on the walls in crayon. “If something bad happens, like a home invasion, this is where I’ll go. You can come too. We’ll be safe in here. It’s even fireproof.” The fact that this family that looked so secure and happy had a safe room made me feel my fascination with hiding spaces wasn’t so strange.
After I unpacked and had a shower, Jane called us down to dinner, which she had prepared herself. We were having fried chicken with a salad of lettuce, green apples and walnuts with vinaigrette. I only ate the chicken and explained to Jane that I didn’t eat green things, which Troy found hilarious. Jane looked at me with an expression that I would learn said, “I’ll fix that.” For dessert, there was baked Alaska. Oh the things white people come up with! is all I thought as I devoured the rich treat.
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