But What About Me?

by Marilyn Reynolds

  “Okay, okay,” I say, starting off in a jog back to the Humane Society.

  Sinclair walks past Beauty’s kennel as I’m putting her back. He stops.

  “My God, girl. I didn’t even recognize you at first,” he says. “Love your hair . . .” He starts in a joking manner but his smile fades quickly. “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I nod my head yes.

  “When your mom called to say you wouldn’t be in last week she said you weren’t feeling well.”

  “The flu,” I explain.

  I see that Sinclair is looking me over carefully, the way he might a new animal who isn’t quite right, but no one knows exactly what’s wrong.

  “Beauty’s looking good,” I say, anxious to direct attention away from me.

  “I wouldn’t have given a nickel for her life when Antoinette first brought her in—you’ve done a great job with her.”

  We both stand looking at the healthy dog who only a month ago couldn’t even hold her head up. Couldn’t or wouldn’t. Now she stands strong and alert, ears perked, tail wagging tentatively, hoping for another walk.

  “I’ve got to get back to work. The volunteers’ schedule is a mess—glad you’re back.”

  “Me, too,” I say, then walk back to the infirmary to see what’s needed for the health team today.

  Dr. Franz does a double take when she sees me. “New groomer?” she laughs.

  “Yeah,” I say, smiling.

  She turns me around, checks out the back of my hair, then says, “It makes sense to me . . . let’s get to work.”

  The time goes quickly—three cats spayed, four dogs inoculated, information recorded on charts, cages disinfected—it’s good to be busy.

  At the end of the day when I go to Sinclair’s office to sign out he tells me he’s been waiting for me. He holds a set of electric clippers, the kind we use to clip the dogs with.

  “Sterilized and everything,” he says. “Here, sit here.” He motions

  to the high desk chair that sits in front of the computer.

  At first I have no idea what he’s getting at, but when he drapes a towel around my neck it becomes obvious that he has plans for my hair.

  “Let me just even this up a bit. I’m good with the scissors and shears.”

  He takes the mirror out of the parrot’s cage and hands it to me. “You can watch,” he says.

  “I don’t think so,” I tell him.

  “Have I ever steered you wrong?” he says, pretending to be hurt.

  I look at the raggedy lengths of my hair, and suddenly, real as anything. I see Joey’s image in the mirror, my hair long again, his hand wrapped in it, pulling.

  “Well, have I?” Sinclair says.

  “What?”

  “C’mon, girl, stay with me here. Have I ever steered you wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, let me straighten the peaks and valleys of what was once your shining glory.”

  What can it hurt? I don’t care, anyway.

  “Okay,” I tell him, setting the mirror down on the table.

  Sinclair runs his hands through my hair. “What happened to you?”

  “I was tired of long hair.”

  “So you just hacked away at it?”

  “Exactly.”

  Sinclair looks at me for a minute, puzzled, then he turns on the clippers. I close my eyes, hearing the buzz, like a swarm of mosquitoes around my ears.

  “Better, huh?” Sinclair says, holding the mirror up in front of me.

  “I guess.”

  “No. Look! It is!”

  He gets some hair gel from his bottom drawer and rubs some through my hair, making it stand on end. It’s no longer than Dr. Franz’s now.

  “A fashion statement! I like it!”

  I smile, not caring about a fashion statement but knowing

  Sinclair is trying to help.

  “Color would help,” he says. “Either total blond, or something bright, maybe a pink or chartreuse.”

  “Right,” I say, taking off the towel and getting my backpack from my locker.

  “Think about color!” Sinclair calls after me as I walk out the door and to the front parking lot where my mom is waiting.

  After dinner we’re all still sitting around the table when the phone rings.

  “Erica, it’s Jenny, from the Rape Crisis Center,” Mom says.

  I shake my head no, but Mom just keeps holding the phone out to me, so finally I take it.

  “How’re you doing?” Jenny asks.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “How about if I come get you—take you out for a bite to eat or something?”

  “I just ate,” I tell her.

  “Well . . . I’d like to talk with you. When would be a good time?”

  I pause, not wanting to commit myself but not knowing how to get out of it.

  “Maybe tomorrow?”

  “How about later this evening? Maybe around eight? It won’t take long.”

  “Okay,” I say, not knowing what else to say.

  Mom looks at me questioningly.

  “She wants to talk to me,” I say.

  Mom follows me back to my room.

  “I’m glad Jenny called,” Mom says. I sit down in my desk chair and Mom stands behind me, rubbing my back like she used to do when I was little.

  “I think it’s probably a good idea for you to talk with her . . .” She stops rubbing my back. “What happened to the picture of you and Danny you always had here on your desk?”

  “I put it away.”

  “Erica, I’m sorry. Honey, I know we’ve been through this all before and you don’t really want to talk more about it, but . . . Danny . . . he wasn’t involved in any way, was he, in the, you know, what Joey did to you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what . . .”

  “I can’t be with Danny anymore,” I say. And then, before I can get away from myself, lift out of my body and watch, a wave of sadness comes over me, body and soul, and tears pour down my cheeks.

  Mom steps in front of me and pulls my head against her chest, petting my short, short hair.

  “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she whispers. “So. so, sorry.”

  “He didn’t help me, Mom. I thought we loved each other. I thought we would always be there for each other, and he was so drunk he didn’t even know what was happening.”

  Mom reaches over to my bedside table and hands me a bunch of tissue.

  “I’ve thought about it a lot—it was just a pretend love.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If someone loves you, they help you when you need help, right?”

  “Right,” Mom says, rubbing my back again.

  “Well, Danny was just like—he didn’t have a clue. I tried so hard to help him with his mom’s death and all, and then, when I needed him most of all, he wasn’t there . . .”

  I gasp, trying to catch my breath, wanting to stop crying but not knowing how.

  Jenny arrives at exactly 8:00. She’s driving an old Volkswagen— beetle style. She takes me to the Tasty Grinder and orders an espresso. I just get a glass of water. We sit at a back table.

  “I want to encourage you to start meeting with the group I lead at the YWCA,” Jenny tells me.

  “Why?”

  “You’ve been through a very traumatic experience. It helps to talk about things with other women who’ve been in similar situations.”

  “You mean everyone in the group has been raped?”

  “Well, or abused one way or another.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to forget it.”

  “And how’s that going? Are you forgetting?”

  “Most of the time,” I say.

  “Those other times are the pits though, aren’t they?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Look, Erica. You’ll get past this more quickly if you work through some things in a group. Just give it a try. If you don’t like it, you can always quit.�
��

  Jenny hands me a card with the times and places for group meetings.

  I thank her for the card, even though I don’t plan on attending any meetings. Why keep talking about something that’s been done, that can never be undone? There’ll be plenty of time for that at the trial. If it comes to a trial.

  After I stay home from school for a week, my mom and dad have one of those long, insistent talks with me. What it boils down to is I either start getting myself to school or they’ll drag me.

  April picks me up in the car her dad got her for Christmas. Any other time I’d be at least a little jealous—like I used to be over April’s very own state-of-the-art home entertainment system, and her very own telephone and answering machine. But now—nothing much touches me right now.

  Everybody makes a big deal about my hair. That’s okay. Maybe it keeps them from seeing inside me. Maybe they won’t see the girl who’s been raped if they mainly notice my hair.

  “Welcome back,” Ms. Lee tells me as I take my seat in English. “Did you get your hair cut?” she asks.

  The whole class laughs but I think it’s a sincere question coming from her. She’s so involved in literature she barely notices real life. Maybe she’s got the right idea. Real life doesn’t seem so great to me right now.

  “Come see me after class and I’ll tell you about make-up assignments.”

  By the end of fourth period. I’ve got three pages of make-up

  assignments to do.

  Walking back from gym to Peer Counseling, someone down the hall yells “FAGGOT!” First, I freeze. Then the tears start. Without a plan, without a thought, I step into a narrow space between two temporary buildings. The tardy bell has rung, the halls are quiet, and I’m still standing there, sobbing, trying to catch my breath, while “FAGGOT” echoes in my head.

  “What’s up?”

  I jump at the voice of the campus supervisor.

  “You’re a mess.” he tells me, and then makes a call on his Walkie-Talkie thing. “Joyce, can you meet me near the fence, between B-l and B-2?”

  When Joyce arrives, the other guy leaves saying, “I bet this is a girl thing.”

  Joyce walks me to the restroom and hands me some damp paper towels for my face.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” I tell her.

  “Just out there watering the lawn with your tears, were you?”

  “That’s it,” I say, all sarcastic.

  “Come on. I’ll walk with you to the counselor’s office.”

  “I’m okay now. I’ll just go to class.”

  “Nope. You have to check in with a counselor first.”

  Ms. Security walks me to the office, talks with Ms. Wong for a minute, then motions me inside.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Ms. Wong says. “I’ve been planning to call you in anyway.”

  I suppose she means my slipping grades, or my recent absence, I don’t know.

  “Tell me about your hair,” she says, looking me over carefully.

  “There’s nothing to tell. I just decided it was too long . . . Can I go back to class now?”

  She smiles. “Then tell me what brought you to tears this afternoon.”

  It’s not that I don’t like Ms. Wong. It’s just that, right now, I’d rather keep my problems to myself. I wish there were somewhere I could go, a cave or something, where no one would know where I was, and no one would be asking, “What happened to your hair?” or “Are you okay?” or any of that well-meaning stuff that I don’t know how to answer.

  “Erica? You were crying?”

  “I can’t exactly explain it,” I say. And that’s the truth.

  Chapter

  19

  “Erica?”

  Danny steps out from the shadows of the building as I’m walking to the pet adoption van.

  I stop, stunned by the familiarity of his voice.

  He looks at me, frowning. “Your hair . . .” He pauses, seeming not to know how to finish the sentence. Then he says, “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “I’ve only got a minute before the van leaves.”

  “Then give me a minute.”

  “Okay,” I say. I sit down on a bench and look up at him, waiting.

  He is wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, with a new pair of boots, and he looks as if he’s fresh from the shower.

  “I love you, Erica. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “I can’t be with you anymore,” I tell him.

  “But Erica, Pups, all I’m asking is a chance,” he pleads. “You’ll see. I’ll even stop drinking if you want me to, if that’s it.”

  “It’s too late, Danny. Too much has happened.”

  He sits down next to me and tries to pull me to him. A part of me wants to melt into him, but I sit straight, maintaining a distance.

  “It can’t be too late,” he whispers.

  “It is.”

  “Just give it a try,” he says, tears welling in his eyes.

  “I’m all dead inside,” I tell him. “I couldn’t try if I wanted to.”

  “But . . .”

  “I always was there for you, whenever you needed me. And then . . . It’s no use . . . I’ve got to go now,” I tell him, getting up from the bench and walking away.

  He follows me to the van. I can feel him watching me as I open the door, then I hear his footsteps crunching down the alley as he walks away. I sit on the upholstered bench opposite the driver’s seat and desperately fight to keep from crying about all that can never be. I try to do my trick of leaving my body and just hovering overhead but I can’t get away from me. All I know to do is hold my breath, tight, to freeze my tears inside.

  Sinclair gets in the van, carrying the last animal with him. It is a Siamese cat with a meow like fingernails on a chalkboard. He puts her in a cage, buckles up and starts the engine.

  “I really appreciate your making time to help with another mobile pet adoption,” Sinclair says. “I don’t know how in the world we’ll get along without you next year when you’re off to college.”

  His words, the warmth of his smile, melt my hardened tears free. I turn away, trying to hide my face from him, but Sinclair is not easy to fool. He shuts off the engine and moves over beside me, sitting with his shoulder touching mine.

  “What did I say?”

  I shake my head no as I wipe tears away.

  “This is about more than missing us when you go away,” he says.

  Yes, I nod.

  “Danny?”

  I shrug my shoulders.

  “Look. Erica, I see that things are different for you since you’ve come back from having the flu, or whatever. I don’t want to be nosy, and you don’t have to tell me a thing. But sometimes it helps to talk about things.”

  I nod.

  “Remember that night we sat in your driveway, and I told you how I wasn’t welcome with my family at their holiday parties?”

  “I remember.”

  “That meant a lot to me—that you listened to me and didn’t judge me.”

  I wipe my face again and try to control my breathing.

  “I can listen.” Sinclair says.

  I nod.

  We sit like that, shoulder to shoulder, hearing the animals shuffle around in their cages, and the grating sound of the cat, until Sinclair looks at his watch.

  “We’ll be late.” he says, and gets back in the driver’s seat.

  When we return and unload the animals, I stop to say good­night to Beauty.

  “We should take her on the next trip,” Sinclair says. “She’s healthy now, and looking good—just about eligible for adoption.”

  “Beauty?”

  “Yeah. It’s way past time for her owners to claim her.”

  “They shouldn’t be allowed to get her back . . .”

  Sinclair sticks his fingers through the fence and Beauty licks them.

  “Well, you know, she was their property. If they’d come for her, we’d have had to turn
her over.”

  “That makes me sick!”

  “Well . . . they’re not claiming her, so we don’t need to worry about that. And she’ll make a great pet for someone.”

  Lots of animals I’ve been very attached to have been adopted out. That’s the goal here. But Beauty? I’d never even considered the possibility.

  One thing I know, my mom would never go for another dog. I’ve tried that before.

  On the way home, Sinclair tells me about his niece who went into a deep depression after she’d had an abortion.

  “I haven’t had an abortion, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Well then, how about this . . . ”

  And he tells me about how difficult it was for his friend in high school to admit she was a lesbian, even to herself.

  “Actually, it was an awful time in my life, when I was trying to accept that I was different from the man my parents thought they’d raised. I was so tired of living in the closet—living a lie, and scared

  to death to come out.”

  “It’s not that, either,” I say.

  “Well, then, is it AIDS, is it pregnancy, is it drugs, is it parental divorce, is it worry over school, is it . . .”

  “Stop!” I say, smiling.

  “Hangnails, ingrown toenails, pimples or pox?”

  When he lets me out, Sinclair says, “Seriously, if you want to talk I’ll listen. Life can be so hard sometimes . . .”

  “Thanks.” I say, getting my keys out and waving to him from the porch.

  Mom and Dad are just opening cartons of Chinese food.

  “Some of your favorites,” Dad says. “Come eat with us.”

  I wash my hands at the sink and sit down.

  “Where’s Rocky?”

  “Spending the night at Gramma’s,” Mom smiles. “That’s how we can get away with eating Chinese and not having to listen to her whine.”

  As much as the three of us like Chinese food, our dinner together feels somehow tense and tasteless. It doesn’t surprise me when, after I’ve set my fork on my empty plate. Dad tells me that he and Mom want to talk with me.

  Man oh man, it seems like everyone has chosen tonight to want to talk with me. First Danny, then Sinclair, and now my parents.

  “Have you thought about what you’ll do if you turn up pregnant?” Dad says.