Telling Read online

  The belly button search had been a distraction, but as soon as things were quiet, the numbness began to creep over me again.

  After the bedtime stories and trips to the bathroom and drinks of water and more trips to the bathroom, when Tina and Dorian were finally in bed, I went back to the den to watch “MASH” re-runs and diagram sentences. But I couldn’t concentrate. I kept feeling Fred’s body against mine, his tongue pushing at my mouth. It’s not that I kept thinking about it ― I just kept feeling it. My face felt hot, and my mouth felt dirty. I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my cheeks and forehead. I washed my face again and rinsed my mouth out, over and over. I looked in the mirror for a long time. Big nose. Thick eyebrows. Dull brown hair. Dull brown eyes. Ugh. In the summer, when the sun had tanned my face and lightened my hair, I wasn’t so bad. But in January, it was just dull, dull me. What if Fred’s in love with me, I wondered. What if he wants to divorce Angie and marry me?

  That night was the first time ever that I didn’t finish my homework for English. I felt bad, but I couldn’t keep my mind on dumb sentences like, “The boys had decided to surprise their mother by painting the fence while she was away.” I had only finished three of the fifteen assigned sentences when I heard the Sloanes’ van pull into their driveway. I put on my sweatshirt, gathered up my books, and met them at the front door.

  “Everything okay?” Angie asked as she walked into the house.

  “Fine,” I said.

  Angie went into the kitchen and got a glass of wine for herself and a can of beer for Fred.

  “Do you want something before you go home, Cassie? It’s early. How about a Coke or some ice cream?”

  “I have to go,” I said, my hand already on the doorknob.

  “Fred, you’d better walk Cassie home,” Angie said.

  “No, it’s okay,” I told them. But Fred was right behind me, following me to the front door.

  “Of course Fred will walk you, Cassie,” Angie called after us. “He can pay on the way.” She walked out to the end of the driveway with us. “What would your mother think if we let you walk home alone? Even Hamilton Heights has its share of crazies,” she laughed. “Don’t forget we need you Saturday night.”

  I kept my distance from Fred, feeling strange with him as we walked the two blocks to my house. He walked along, not looking at me or talking, looking at people’s yards, looking up at the stars. It was a crisp, clear night.

  As we turned into my driveway, Fred stopped and took some money from his back pocket. He walked on, counting out five one-dollar bills. Then he put the rest of the money back in his pocket and held the five ones out to me. When I reached to take them, he quickly grabbed my arm with his free hand and pulled me into the shadows at the side of our garage. He was so quick! He backed me against the garage and leaned his whole body hard against me.

  “Stay here awhile,” he whispered insistently. “No one will see us.”

  “I’ve got to go in. Please.”

  He leaned even harder against me. He pushed my head back with his hand, holding my chin tight. He put his mouth, open, over mine. It was sloppy wet and tasted of popcorn ― salty and greasy and stale. I tried to squirm away but I was pinned flat against the wall.

  “You’re getting to be quite a babe, you know? These cute little bumps are getting bigger,” he said, brushing his hand across my chest.

  “I’ve got to go!” I pleaded.

  He stood back a little. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You won’t lose your cherry. We’ll just have a little fun.” He pressed the money into my hand and turned and walked back down the driveway and toward his house. I stood there, holding my money and watching him walk away. I wiped my face with the front of my sweatshirt. When I saw him turn the corner to his house, I got the key from under the flowerpot, opened the front door, put the key back in its place, and went into my house.

  Usually my mom and dad are up around 11:00, but they were already in bed this night. I was glad. I didn’t want to see anyone, or have anyone see me. I put my books on the desk, just inside my bedroom door. I pulled off my clothes and threw them in a heap on my closet floor. I went straight into the shower.

  Sometimes my mother notices every little thing. It would have been just like her to want to know why I was taking a shower at night when I’d already had one in the morning and all that kind of stuff, so I was glad for my own bathroom connected to my bedroom, and that my parents’ bedroom was down at the other end of the hall.

  I made the water as hot as I could stand it and soaped my whole body twice. I bet I must have soaped my face eighty times. I even washed my hair. And after I brushed my teeth, I flossed. I always said I flossed, but I never did. But this night I actually flossed. I put on my favorite worn and washed thin flannel nightgown, the one my mother kept threatening to throw away. I looked at my English book one more time, but it was no use, so I climbed into bed and turned out the light.

  I watched the patterns of the shadows on the wall opposite my window. There’s a street light in front of our house, and even with my bedroom curtains closed, enough light comes in to cast shadows on the wall. Ever since I was small, I would lull myself to sleep by watching the changing patterns of light filtering through the eucalyptus tree and on through the curtains.

  Sometimes the patterns seemed to be a shadowy dance, and I could hear music to go with it. Sometimes I would see children playing a game. When I was really little they played Ring-a-Round-a-Rosie and I guessed they were all at a birthday party, maybe my own. Later they played soccer, or Red Rover, Red Rover. At other times it was a big picnic scene, with lots of people and food. But this night the patterns wouldn’t come together. Just when I would start to make something of them, they would shift ― no dance, no games tonight.

  I tried to say “The Lord’s Prayer,” but I could only say “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep... ” I said that about fifteen times, but it didn’t help. Fred Sloane’s body, his popcorn breath, his insistent words, kept running through me.

  I knew something was wrong. Fred’s backing me against the wall was nothing like my Uncle Tom’s backing me against a wall and making me plead for mercy. I knew it was something dirty because it felt dirty. I thought about rape. But it wasn’t like what I’d heard about rape. I couldn’t think about what happened with words. I just kept feeling it.

  My mother had told me once that rape was when a man forced you to have sex with him. My cousin Lisa told me it was when a man pushed his thing in the private place between your legs and made you do it with him. She told me it was awful. I hadn’t known exactly what my mother was talking about when she told me about rape. But I knew what Lisa meant.

  I wished that Lisa was in my room with me that night, so I could tell her about Fred Sloane. Lisa’s three years older than I am, but even when we were little she was real nice to me. She never tried to act like I was a baby, or like she knew everything and I didn’t know anything, even though sometimes it seemed to me that she did know everything.

  Lisa was the first one to tell me where babies really came from. Not that old story about when a mommy and daddy love each other they feel real close and daddy’s sperm fertilizes mommy’s egg and a little baby grows up in mommy’s tummy until it’s big enough to come out into the world. No, Lisa told me ―I think I was about eight ― babies get started when people have sex. And she told me exactly what “have sex” meant. She also told me the meaning of the “f” word.

  Anyway, I always understood Lisa’s explanations lots better than anyone else’s, and I wondered what she could tell me about Fred. Maybe Mom would let me have Lisa over to spend the night tomorrow night. I could never have friends stay over on a weeknight. But Lisa could stay sometimes, because she was my cousin. Lisa and I didn’t see each other so much, now that she was in high school. But we still had fun together like at Christmas and stuff.

  Mom always liked it when Lisa and I got together. I think secretly she wanted me to b
e more like Lisa. I mean, Lisa’s real cute, and she makes a good impression on adults.

  It helped me to sleep, thinking about how maybe Lisa could come over and I could tell her what happened. Boy, did I want to see Lisa.

  Chapter

  3

  “Cassie, get up. I’m making hot chocolate for Robbie. Want some?” I pulled the pillow over my head and turned my back to the doorway where Mom was standing.

  “Cassie?”

  “Okay, Mom, I heard. Thanks,” I mumbled from under my pillow.

  “Cassie!”

  I pushed the pillow away and repeated my answer, this time so she could hear it. She turned and went down the hall. I thought about the night before, and Fred Sloane. Had he really kissed me like that? And talked to me that way? What did it mean?

  I could hear Robbie in the kitchen. He loved to sing. He was singing “Pop, pop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is,” as he poured milk over his Rice Krispies. He sang in a mono­tone ― a very loud monotone. He came up with some really weird combinations. Yesterday I’d heard him singing the alphabet song, “A, B, C, D, E, F, G, merrily down the stream.”

  I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower, thinking about how best to convince Mom that Lisa should spend the night.

  Breakfast at our house is not exactly like at Wally and Beaver Cleaver’s, with Ward and June all dressed up and everyone sitting together at the table. Mom’s always running around half-dressed, trying to get Robbie to hurry up, and we don’t even see Daddy in the mornings, except on weekends. He works at a bank in Century City, and he has to leave for work about 6:30 in the morning.

  There was already a cup of hot chocolate for me by the time I got to the table. There was some toast, too. I sat down across from Robbie, who was tearing his toast into little pieces and putting pieces into his cereal bowl.

  Mom walked through, buttoning her blouse. “Get your­self some juice or fruit, Cassie.”

  “Juice or fruit, juice or fruit,” Robbie chanted.

  “Shut up, Robbie,” I told him.

  “Mom!” Robbie called.

  “SHUT UP, ROBBIE,” I hissed at him.

  “Mommm,” Robbie wailed. “Cassie keeps saying shut up to me.”

  Mom came sort of hopping back into the kitchen, wearing one leg of her special support panty hose and holding the other leg in her hand.

  “Juice or fruit, Cassandra,” she said, looking me straight in the eye for what seemed a long time. I didn’t like those looks.

  “Spank her, Mom. She keeps saying shut up to me.”

  “Robbie, can you remember the last time you saw me spank your sister?”

  “No. But you better do it or she’ll just keep on saying shut up, shut up, shut up, and you said you don’t like people to say those words.”

  Robbie was really pleading his case, like he was a lawyer or something.

  “Finish your breakfast, Robbie. We’ve got to leave in about five minutes,” Mom said as she walked back to her bedroom. “Hurry up.”

  As soon as she left, I leaned over to Robbie and whis­pered, “Shut up!”

  He took a breath to yell for Mom again, then thought better of it. He stuck his tongue out at me. I crossed my eyes at him. We started laughing. Robbie cracks me up when he laughs because once he gets started it’s almost impossible for him to stop.

  I carried my plate and cup to the dishwasher, poured myself about an inch of juice and carried it in with me to Mom’s room. I wanted her to see me drinking it. She was almost ready to go. She was wearing a blue plaid skirt with a blue tailored blouse and a sort of maroon cardigan sweater. Her shoes were sensible ― the kind older English teachers wear, even at Open House. She was a little bit older and a little bit fatter than most of my friend’s mothers. I guess she looked okay, for her age. She was forty.

  “I’m glad you got some juice, Cassie. I worry about your eating habits.”

  “Mom, could I ride with you and Robbie this morning? Could you drop me at Lisa’s bus stop? It’s near Robbie’s school. It wouldn’t be out of your way.”

  “You’re not even ready yet, Cassie. I’m supposed to be at the daycare center by quarter to eight. Why do you want to do that anyway? You can’t hang around Hamilton High with Lisa.”

  “I can get ready fast, Mom. And I can walk from Hamilton to Palm in about fifteen minutes. Okay?”

  “Oh, okay. But if you’re not ready by 7:35, we’re leaving without you.”

  I rushed into my room, threw off my ratty old chenille robe and pulled a pair of jeans from my closet, thinking all the time about how I could talk Mom into letting Lisa spend the night. I was ready in about three minutes. My hair was still damp, but I could brush it dry in the car.

  I opened the garage for Mom, put my books in the car and got into the front seat. Mom and Robbie came out a few minutes later. Robbie was carrying a Mickey Mouse lunchbox. He was wearing a Disneyland sweatshirt and a Mickey Mouse patch on the left knee of his blue jeans. When he first started kindergarten he used to always wear a Mickey Mouse hat with big mouse ears, but his teacher called Mom one day and said it was too distracting to the other kids, so Robbie couldn’t wear his Mickey Mouse hat to school any more. He really did crack me up.

  As soon as they got to the car, Robbie started in, “Why does she always get to sit in the front seat just because she’s older? It’s not fair.” Mom just gave him one of her looks and he crawled back. We backed out of the garage and I got out and closed the door. When I got in again I asked, “Mom, could Lisa spend the night tonight? I need help with pre-algebra.” I had my fingers crossed so she’d say yes, even though I don’t really believe in that stuff.

  “I thought you were doing well in math. Just last week you were telling me what a breeze it was.”

  “But we’ve started something new. It’s harder now,” I said. “And Lisa’s real good at it. She can explain it real good.” I was close to begging.

  We turned the corner onto Primrose Avenue and nearly ran into Fred Sloane backing out of his driveway on his way to work at the muffler shop. As he stopped to let us pass, he honked the horn and waved. My stomach felt funny when I saw Fred. Robbie kept waving out the back window and yelling, “Hi, Fred, Hi, Fred,” over and over again until we turned onto Main Street.

  “Please, Mom. I need some help from Lisa.” Seeing Fred Sloane made me feel like I had to talk to Lisa.

  “Well. . . I guess it’s all right. Just be sure you get that room of yours picked up and your bed made before she gets there. I’m embarrassed to have anyone see what a mess you live in.”

  “I’ll clean it up. Thanks, Mom.”

  We pulled up in front of Robbie’s school. He gave Mom a big slobbery kiss, yelled “bye” to me, and was out of the car almost the instant it stopped. We watched him walk up the steps to the kindergarten classroom, swinging his lunchbox, and then we drove the two blocks to Lisa’s bus stop. Mom glanced over at me.

  “Cassie, why are you wearing that jacket? Yesterday, when it was cold, you insisted on going out of the house in a short sleeve blouse with not even a sweater. Now today, when the sun is out like summertime, you’re in that jacket zipped up to your neck! I swear, Cassie, sometimes I don’t understand you at all,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Just let me out here, Mom. Lisa should be here any minute.”

  She stopped the car. As I was getting out, she took hold of my hand. I turned to her. She had this really serious look on her face.

  “Cassie, Honey, I’m sorry. It seems like I’m nagging you a lot. I don’t mean to. Let’s do something fun, just the two of us, real soon.”

  “Sure, Mom. It’s okay,” I said. I was pretty sure we wouldn’t do anything fun soon, but I couldn’t think of much that was fun to do with my mom anyway. I got out of the car in a hurry, kind of embarrassed by her apology.

  I walked down the street in the direction of Lisa’s house. When I saw her, I was totally relieved that she was alone.

  Lisa’s popular, so she w
as usually with a lot of other kids. As soon as I saw her, I went running to meet her.

  “Hey, C.C.” (She calls me “C.C.” because my name is Cassandra Camille.) “What are you doing down here?”

  “Can you spend the night with me tonight, then we could watch a movie or something?”

  “I don’t even know if my mom would let me out on a Wednesday night.”

  “Oh, Lisa, she would, to our house. Please, Lisa.” I just wanted to grab Lisa and beg her to say yes. I hadn’t even considered that maybe Lisa couldn’t, or wouldn’t want to come over. All I had thought about was convincing my mom.

  “I don’t know, C.C. Diana said maybe she’d come home with me after school today. We’re doing a debate in speech, and we’ve got to be ready by Friday.”

  I started to cry. I don’t know why. I never cry except in the privacy of my own room, late at night, or in a really sad part of a movie, like in “E.T.” We’ve got that videotape and Robbie loves it, and even though I’ve seen it a thousand times, I still cry at least once before it’s over. But I think I really shocked Lisa by crying right there, in the morning, on the sidewalk, with no movie.

  “C.C., C.C., C.C.,” she kept saying, while I kept blubbering and wiping my nose on my jacket sleeve. Lisa looked up and down the street, like maybe she wanted to call for help, get the paramedics or something. When I saw how scared Lisa was, looking around frantically and repeating “C.C., C.C., C.C.,” all of a sudden I saw how funny it was and I started laughing. I was laughing, but I was crying, too. Then Lisa started to laugh. We were laughing so hard we collapsed on the Coulter’s lawn.

  “Okay. Okay,” Lisa gasped through her laughter. “I’ll see if I can stay over.”

  We were still laughing, trying to catch our breath, when we saw the school bus turn the corner. We gathered up our books and went running, but I was so weak from laughing I dropped everything. Lisa had to run ahead and ask the driver to wait. I finally got on the bus and took a seat next to Lisa. Her friend Diana was sitting right in front of me. Diana casually took a compact from her purse, opened it, and held the mirror directly in front of my face. It’s true. I looked pretty awful. My face was totally smeared from crying, and I had leaves in my hair. I felt really dumb. Diana had such a proper attitude.