A Song for Julia (23 page)

I exhaled, suddenly, and slumped into the chair at her desk. She was right. We were all wrapped up in his Asperger’s, and it hurt to hear him saying he wished Mom could love him for who he is. Because we all had that problem. 

“You think that’s part of his problem?”

“I don’t know, Crank. But … it can’t be easy to have that much pressure on you, all the time. That’s how I live sometimes, and it sucks.”

I sighed and looked out the window. The snow was still coming down hard. “I don’t get how you see it so clearly. And obviously you do, since it worked.”

She shook her head. “I’m good at watching people. But listen … it’s been … an incredibly long night. And … I need to go to sleep. Okay? Do you mind?”

“That’s fine,” I said.

She stared at me a moment, then said, “I know this is awkward. But I’m not going to make you sleep on the floor. Just … keep your hands to yourself, all right?”

“Why do you feel like you need to repeat that?”

“Why do you grope half the women you see?”

“Because it’s fun,” I replied. Then I winked at her. Because I’ve got zero frickin’ self control, and I knew it would irritate her.

She rolled her eyes, opened her dresser and pulled out some clothes. “I’m going to change into pajamas. I’ll be back.”

Without another word, she walked out of the room.

I hung my jacket on the back of the desk chair and pulled my own boots off. Dungarees on or off? I opted for off. I’ve got boxers. Screw it. I did keep the t-shirt on. Whatever. I threw the blanket back and climbed onto her bed, facing the window. This was as awkward and uncomfortable a night as I’d had in years. And normally, I was a winner with all things awkward and uncomfortable. Thing was … it mattered to me. It mattered to get this right. It mattered that I not put her off, that I not poke a hole in whatever limited trust we were developing. Somehow, I had to convince her to trust me. And if it took me lying here with blue balls all night long because I couldn’t touch her, then that’s what it took. 

But I didn’t have to like it.

I heard her voice, outside the door. She was saying something to the other girls, I don’t know what. Didn’t matter. I’m sure her suitemates were all nice, but they also weren’t that interesting to me. God knows what they were asking her, or what they assumed. I wished their assumptions were right. I felt bummed out, and kept my eyes on the window, watching the snowfall. Wishing for … something. 

The door opened, and I could see her reflection in the window as she entered the room and closed the door. I kept looking out the window, on my side. She paused then switched out the light, and I heard her light footsteps approaching the bed. Then the mattress moved as she slipped under the blanket next to me. My whole body tensed. I could feel her there. Inches away. I desperately wanted to reach out and touch her, feel her skin. I shifted and lay flat on my back. The faint light coming in from the Quad reflected off the ceiling, a cloud of shadow snowflakes moving across the room toward the window.

I looked toward Julia, trying to do it without her noticing. She was also flat on her back, hands clasped on her stomach, blanket pulled all the way up. Her eyes were open, tracking the shadow snowflakes. 

Whatever it was that snow reminded her of, I didn’t know. But her expression was … beyond unhappy. Her body was rigid, her face frozen, eyes wide and tearing up. But what was the right thing to do? I wanted to take her in my arms, tell her it was going to be okay, tell her that whatever had happened in the past, she didn’t have to let it define who she was now. That she was safe. I reached out, and very slowly wiped one of her tears with my thumb.

She flinched.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You just looked so sad.”

“I turned fourteen about two weeks before I met him,” she said. It seemed sudden, and I held my breath, willing her to continue. She did. “I still had … Barbie dolls and stuffed animals. I was young for that age, emotionally. I had … posters all over my room of singers and actors. My parents had this big party for me, and all the embassy kids came. I didn’t know any of them yet … we’d just arrived in Beijing. That’s where I met Lana. At the party. She ended up becoming my best friend.”

I kept my mouth shut. Better not to say anything at all, than say the wrong thing. I wanted her to trust me. But I couldn’t push. This had to be her.

“So on the first day of school, I was with Lana. And we were standing in line in the dining hall, and this guy approached. He was gorgeous. His name was Harry. Harry Easton. He was tall and played rugby, and he walked right up to me and stared at me, and he said, ‘Who’s your friend, Lana?’ And he didn’t take his eyes off me. It was overpowering. Who was this amazing guy, and why was he looking at me?”

She stayed rigid, unmoving, but I saw her Adam’s apple move as she swallowed, and then spoke again. “So … I fell in love with him. I snuck out of our flat and I’d meet him in the middle of the night, wherever he said. He took me to these amazing dinners at restaurants in Beijing. He took me to the Silk Market, and the Forbidden City, to the Panda House, really all the amazing things in the city. I couldn’t be around him without melting. But it was all so confusing. I loved him … I was … consumed by him.”

She paused, and another tear slowly ran out of the corner of her eye, down the side of her face toward her ear.

“I wasn’t ready to have sex yet. Not even close. I was still just a little girl. But he wanted it, and he just … took. The first time scared me so much, I was just … paralyzed. I didn’t move, I didn’t say anything. I was so afraid. I was afraid he’d hate me if I said no. I was afraid of … everything.”

“After that, it was like … I didn’t have any control over my own life. He’d get mad if I hung out with Lana without him. He’d get mad if I even talked with a guy my age. It was like he was trying to isolate me from everything. And my parents: they were so busy, so wrapped up in themselves, they didn’t notice what was happening. My sister Carrie was nine then, and Alexandra four. It was too much for my mother. She couldn’t pay attention to her high schooler. I was invisible.”

She fell into silence then, her eyes still tracking the shadow snowflakes, which, if anything, had increased in intensity. I remembered that—feeling invisible. Feeling desperate. I remembered that all too well. 

“When I got pregnant, I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t even sure that’s what it was. I missed my period once, then a second time. I was sick, constantly. And so he got a home pregnancy test, and brought it to me, and it came up positive. Harry didn’t even ask what I wanted to do about it. He just … assumed. Two days later, he showed up at the flat and practically ordered me out. We took a cab a long way—Beijing is a huge city, much bigger than Boston, or even New York. There are whole huge districts where no one speaks English. I don’t know how he got the address for the place. Some fixer at the British embassy, who would do whatever it took to avoid a scandal. And … it would have been a scandal. He turned nineteen that fall, and I had just turned fourteen. There’s a lot of places in the States where you could wind up in jail for that.”

Suddenly she moved, turned toward me, curled up on her side. And she kept talking, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “The doctor and the nurses, they didn’t speak English. They made me lie down and gave me a shot. And then I felt it. Inside … cramping, a little bit of pain. Then a lot. I didn’t even really understand what was happening. They were … using suction. Sucking my baby out of me.”

She closed her eyes and began to shudder. I reached out, put a hand on her shoulder, and she whispered in a vicious hiss, “Don’t touch me. You promised.”

Shaken, I pulled my hand back. 

“Let me finish,” she said.

I nodded, and she continued.

“When it was over, they packed me with gauze and basically shoved me out the door. And … Harry was gone. I don’t know why. I never did learn why he left … why he couldn’t even be bothered to take me home. I didn’t know where I was, and I didn’t speak the language at all back then, and no one spoke English in the neighborhood I was in. It started to snow, and I just walked. I could … I could feel … blood running down my leg. And as I walked, people just backed away from me. They saw an American kid walking through the street, and they didn’t want to get involved. I started crying, I was so scared, but no one would help. I just kept walking and walking. It was so cold. And all I could think was—I wanted my mother. I wanted to find her, and hug her, and make all of this fear and pain and cold go away. I wanted to go back to being her little girl, and having her protect me and make everything better.”

She took a deep sobbing breath. “I finally found a police officer who spoke English, and waved around my diplomatic passport, and shouted at him. He put me on the back of his motorcycle and drove me to the compound. And dumped me off at the gate. I think he was afraid to get mixed up in anything … that the guard at the gate would want his information, and that he’d end up getting in trouble. I don’t know. But it was nearly ten o’clock at night when I got home, and Alexandra was throwing a tantrum, and my mother was freaking out, and she grabbed me by the arms when I walked in and screamed at me. How dare I go off and not call, or tell them where I was going. I started to freak out, and screamed at her, and she slapped me, and I ran to my room. I wanted to die. I … I really wanted to die.”

She inhaled through her nose, making a great sniffling sound, and wiped at her eyes furiously. Then she glared at me, her eyes deadly. “I’ve never told anyone all of this. No one.”

I just nodded and quietly whispered, “You can trust me, Julia.”

“I got sick. Really sick. I don’t think there was much blood loss, but it lasted almost a week. And being out in the cold, wet, all those hours. So I spent a whole week out of school with the flu. I barely saw my mother. Carrie came and sat with me a little after school, but Mom made her stay on the other side of the room, in case I was contagious.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “It wasn’t much different later on. Because she decided that me being a slut would be contagious.”

I winced at the anger of her words. 

“When I got back to school, I saw Harry in the hallway. He met my eye and just turned away. He never spoke with me again. I guess it was a relief when he saw me back at school, that I hadn’t died or caused some big diplomatic incident that would have gotten him in trouble. But I did finally break down and tell Lana, later that year. For a while, she wasn’t speaking with me either, because I’d been so distant when I was with Harry. But by spring, we were friends again, and stayed that way for most of the rest of the time I was in Beijing.”

“The thing is,” she said, “When you trust people, they can hurt you. And my last week there, we got in a fight. A bad fight. And Lana emailed everyone in our class a story about how I supposedly seduced Harry Easton and got pregnant. She said in her email that we’d had sex in the school building. And she told them how I’d gotten the abortion, and that was why I missed that week of school right before Christmas. And … she included a picture someone had taken. A …
horrible
picture. The thing is, I don’t even remember it. Harry had taken me to a party, and I’d told my parents I was staying with Lana. He kept telling me I had to drink. I blacked out … I don’t remember that night. But someone took a picture of me, and it was … horrible. Someone forwarded the email to my parents.”

Mother of God, I thought. 

“The thing is … I’d put my life back together. I had a couple of friends … and I’d promised myself, I’d never let that happen to me again. I didn’t date. I didn’t … I didn’t even go out much with the other kids at school. I stuck to myself, and to Lana, and that was pretty much it. I worked hard. I learned Mandarin, fluently, so I’d never feel lost in the city again. I was never going to be a weak, scared little girl again. But when Lana betrayed me … it … it ruined everything. And the story followed me back to the United States. So my whole senior year in high school, it was … slut … whore. The guys would proposition me in the hallway, or grab my breasts or butt, and the school did nothing about it. They’ve got bullying refined down to a science at BCC. Then I’d get home, and it was worse, because my father was supposed to be on his way to Moscow by then. But Maria Clawson had somehow gotten hold of the email. She took my name out, because I wasn’t eighteen yet. But she published the rest, and Senator Rainsley put a hold on Dad’s nomination, and it sat there. And so every day I’d come home, and my mother was crazier and crazier. Because she thought my dad’s career was ending with a scandal. Clawson had implied in the blog that my father knew about the abortion … that he’d made arrangements for it. And my mother … she didn’t use the same words they did at school. But she meant the same thing. That I was a worthless whore.”

Holy Christ on Mars, why in God’s name hadn’t her parents helped her? I swallowed. “You got through it somehow.”

She nodded, slowly. “New Year’s of 2000.”

She held up her right wrist in front of her face, and she slid the bracelets she always wore up her arm, baring her wrist, then turned it toward me. “If you look closely,” she whispered, “you’ll see the scars.”

I sucked in a quick breath. I could barely see it—three long, vertical scars that went three inches up her wrists. Bad scars. Tentatively, I touched them, ran my fingers down them. When I did … when I made that contact, tears started to flow from her eyes, too many to staunch or swallow back.

“I slit my wrists in the bathtub. And this wasn’t some cry for help. I cut deep, and hard—I was going quick. I could feel myself dying, slipping away.” She sobbed. “And then I realized I could hear him laughing. There was Harry, that bastard, laughing at me. Because I’d let him control my life, even years after he was gone. And I couldn’t let him win. I couldn’t let him control my life any more. I couldn’t let him be the reason I died. I think it was almost too late, but … I wrapped a towel around my wrist, squeezing as hard as I could. And I let the water drain. I was so faint—I thought I was going to die anyway. But I … I washed the bathtub down, so you couldn’t see the blood. And I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, my sheet had blood on it—a lot of blood. But … it hadn’t been enough to kill me. So I got up and threw away the sheet and left, like I was going to school, but instead I went and sat at a coffee shop downtown all day, writing. And I promised myself that I would never again be that weak. I could make it through five more months of school, and then I’d leave home and never go back. I’d never trust again. I’d never … weaken myself again.”