Full Circle (7 page)

“Goddammit, I told you I'd take you home. Now get in the fuckin' car!” He almost threw her onto the seat, and she realized that there was no arguing with him. She was alone with him, and he would do whatever he wanted with her. She had already learned that. She sat bleakly beside him in the XKE, and he roared off into the night, as she waited for him to take her somewhere else to rape her again, it all seemed so hopeless now. But he got on the highway, sank his foot to the floor, and the breeze whipping through the car seemed to sober both of them. He glanced over at her several times, and waved at a box of tissues on the floor. “You'd better clean yourself up before you go home.”

“Why?” She looked straight ahead at the empty road. It was after two o'clock, and even her eyes felt numb. Only a few trucks went whizzing by, driving straight through the night.

“You can't go home like that.” She didn't answer him, and she didn't turn to look at his face. She still half expected him to stop and try to rape her again, and this time she was expecting it. She would run as fast as she could, across the highway if she dared and maybe one of the trucks would stop. She still couldn't believe what he had done to her, and she was wondering now if it had somehow been her fault, had she not fought him hard enough, had she done something to encourage him … ? they were hideous thoughts as she noticed the powerful sports car begin to weave. She turned and glanced at him, and noticed that he was falling asleep at the wheel. She jerked on his sleeve, and he started and looked at her. “Why the hell'd you do that? You could've caused an accident.” She would have liked nothing better for him. She would have liked to see him lying dead by the side of the road.

“You were falling asleep. You're drunk.”

“Yeah? So what?” He sounded more tired than surly now, and he seemed all right for a while, until she saw the car weave again, but this time before she had a chance to grab his arm or shake him awake, an enormous trailer truck sped by, and the sports car veered. There was a hideous, grinding shriek of brakes, as the truck jackknifed and overturned, and miraculously the XKE whizzed just past the cab and came to rest with its nose crushed by a tree. Tana hit her head hard as they stopped, and she sat staring ahead for a long time, and then suddenly she was aware of a soft moaning beside her. His face was covered with blood and she didn't move. She just sat and stared, and then suddenly the door opened and there was a strong pair of hands on her arm, and then she began to scream. Suddenly the events of the endless night had caught up with her and she totally lost control, sobbing and hysterically trying to run from the car, as two passing trucks stopped, and the drivers tried to subdue her until the cops came, but her eyes were uncomprehending and wild. They were trying to stop the bleeding on Billy's head, and he had a terrible gash over one eye. The police arrived a short time later, followed by an ambulance, and all three victims were taken to the New Rochelle Hospital Medical Center nearby. The truck driver was almost instantly released. His vehicle had suffered more damage than he had, miraculously. Billy was being stitched up. It was also noted that he had been driving under the influence of alcohol, and as his third offense, it would cost him his driver's license for the next year, which seemed to worry him more than the wounded eye. Tana's entire body seemed to be covered with blood, but oddly enough the staff noticed that most of it was dried. They couldn't seem to get her to explain what had happened to her, and she hyperventilated each time she tried. A pleasant young nurse gently wiped her off, while Tana just lay on the examining table and cried. They administered a sedative, and by the time her mother arrived at four o'clock she was half asleep.

“What happened … ? my God!” She was looking at the bandage on Billy's eye. “Billy, will you be all right?”

“I guess.” He smiled sheepishly, and she noticed again what a handsome boy he was, although he had always looked less like his father and more like Marie. And suddenly the smile faded and he looked terrified. “Did you call Dad?”

Jean Roberts shook her head. “I didn't want to frighten him. They told me you were all right when they called, and I thought I'd take a good look at you both first myself.”

“Thanks.” He glanced over at Tana's dozing form and then shrugged almost nervously. “I'm sorry about … that I … we wrecked the car.…”

“The important thing is that neither of you were badly hurt.” She frowned as she looked at Tana's matted blond hair, but there was no longer any evidence of blood anywhere, and the nurse tried to explain how hysterical Tana had been.

“We gave her a sedative. She should sleep for a while.”

Jean Roberts frowned. “Was she drunk?” She already knew that Billy was, but there would be hell to pay if Tana was too, but the young nurse shook her head.

“I don't think she was. Mostly frightened, I think. She got a nasty little bump on the head, but nothing more than that. We don't see any evidence of concussion or whiplash, but I'd keep an eye on her.” And as she said the words, hearing them talking around her, Tana woke up, and she looked at her mother as though she had never seen her before, and then silently began to cry, as Jean took her in her arms and made gentle cooing sounds.

“It's all right, baby … it's all right.…”

She shook her head violently, taking great gulps of air, “No, it's not … it's not … he…” But Billy stood there staring at her, with an evil look in his eye, and she couldn't say the words. He looked as though he would hit her again, and she turned away, choking on her sobs, still feeling his eyes on her. She couldn't look at him again … couldn't see him … never wanted to see him again …

She lay on the backseat of the Mercedes her mother had driven out, and they took Billy home. And Jean was inside with him for a long time. They threw the last people out, made half a dozen others get out of the pool, tossed two couples out of Ann's bed, and told the group in the pool house to settle down, as Jean walked back to the car where Tana still was, she knew she had her week's work cut out for her. They had destroyed half the furniture, set fire to some of the plants, spoiled the upholstery, left spots on the rugs, and there was everything from plastic glasses to whole pineapples in the pool. She didn't want Arthur to even see the place until she had had it set to rights again. She got into the car with a long tired sigh, and glanced at Tana's still form. Her daughter seemed strangely calm now. The sedative had taken effect.

“Thank God they didn't go into Arthur's room.” She started the car, and Tana shook her head with a silent no, but she couldn't say the words. “Are you all right?” That was really all that mattered. They could have been killed. It was a miracle they hadn't been. It was all she could think of when the phone rang at three o'clock. She had already been worried sick for several hours, and instinctively, when she had heard the phone, she had known. And she had answered it on the first ring.

“How do you feel?” All she could do was stare at her mother and shake her head. “I want to go home.” The tears slid down her cheeks again, and Jean wondered again if she was drunk. It had obviously been a wild night, and Tana had been part of it. She also noticed that she wasn't wearing the same dress she'd been wearing when she left.

“Did you go for a swim?” She sat up, her head reeling, and shook her head, as her mother glanced at hei in the mirror and saw the strange look in Tana's eyes. “What happened to your dress?”

She spoke in a cold hard voice that didn't even sound like her to Jean's ears. “Billy tore it off.”

“He did what?” She looked surprised, and then smiled. “Did he throw you in the pool?” It was the only image she had of him, and even if he had been a little drunk, he was harmless enough. It was just damn lucky he hadn't hit the truck. It was a good lesson for them both. “I hope you learned a lesson tonight, Tan.” She began to sob again at the sound of the nickname Billy had used until finally Jean pulled off the road and stared at her. “What's happening to you? Are you drunk? Did you take drugs?” There was accusation in her voice, in her eyes, and none of that had been there when she drove Billy home. How unfair life was, Tana thought to herself. But her mother just didn't understand what Precious Littie Billy Durning had done. She looked straight into her mother's eyes.

“Billy raped me in his father's room.”

“Tana!”
Jean Roberts looked horrified. “How can you say a thing like that? He would never do such a thing!” Her anger was at her own child, not at her lover's son. She couldn't believe a thing like that about Billy, and it was written all over her face as she glared at her only child. “That's a terrible thing to say.” It was a terrible thing to do. But Jean only stared at her.

Two lonely tears rolled relentlessly down Tana's cheeks. “He did.” Her face crumbled at the memory. “I … swear…” She was getting hysterical again as Jean turned and started the car, and this time she did not glance into the backseat again.

“I don't ever want to hear you say a thing like that again, about anyone.” Surely not someone they knew … a harmless boy they had known for half his life … she didn't even care to think about what would make Tana say a thing like that, jealousy perhaps of Billy himself, or Ann, or Arthur.… “I never want to hear you say that again. Is that clear?” But there was no answer from the backseat. Tana just sat there, looking glazed. She would never say it again. About anyone. Something inside her had just died.

T
he summer sped past Tana easily after that. She spent two weeks in New York, recuperating, while her mother went to work every day. And Jean was concerned about her, but in an odd, uncomfortable way. There seemed to be nothing wrong with her, but she would sit and stare into space, listening to nothing, not seeing her friends. She wouldn't answer the phone when Jean, or anyone else, called. Jean even mentioned it to Arthur at the end of the first week. She almost had the house in Greenwich put to rights again, and Billy and his friends had moved on to Malibu to visit other friends. They had all but destroyed the house at the pool, but the worst damage of all was a section of the rug in Arthur's room which looked as though it had been cut out with a knife. And Arthur had had plenty to say to his son about that.

“What kind of savages are all of you? I ought to be sending you to West Point instead of Princeton for chris-sake so they can teach you a thing or two about how to behave. My God, in my day, no one I'd ever known would behave like that. Did you see that carpeting? They tore the whole damn thing up.” Billy had looked both subdued and chagrined.

“I'm sorry, Dad. Things got a little out of hand.”

“A little? And it's a wonder you and the Roberts girl weren't killed.” But on the whole he'd been all right. His eye was still bothering him a little when he left, but the stitches on the eyebrow had already been removed. And he still seemed to be out every night right up until they left for Malibu. “Damn wild kids…” Arthur had growled at her. “How's Tana now?” She had mentioned to Arthur several times how oddly Tana had behaved, and she really wondered if she hadn't had a worse blow on the head than they had first thought.

“You know she was almost delirious that first night … in fact she was…” She still remembered the ridiculous tale about Billy that Tana had tried to tell. The girl really wasn't all there and Arthur looked worried too.

“Have her looked at again.” But when Jean tried to insist, Tana refused. Jean almost wondered if she was well enough to go to New England for her summer job, but on the night before she was due to leave, she quietly packed her bag, and the next morning, she came to the breakfast table with a pale, wan, tired face, but for the first time in two weeks, when Jean handed her a glass of orange juice, she smiled, and Jean almost sat down and cried. The house had been like a tomb since the accident. There were no sounds, no music, no laughter, no giggles on the phone, no voices, only dead silence everywhere. And Tana's deadened eyes.

“I've missed you, Tan.” At the sound of the familiar name, Tana's eyes filled with tears. She nodded her head, unable to say anything. There was nothing left for her to say. To anyone. She felt as if her life were over. She never again wanted to be touched by a man, and she knew she never would again. No one would ever do to her what Billy Durning had done, and the tragedy was that Jean couldn't face hearing it, or thinking it. In her mind, it was impossible, so it didn't exist, it hadn't happened. But the worst of it was that it had. “Do you really think you're up to going to camp?”

Tana had wondered about that herself; she knew that the choice was an important one. She could spend the rest of her life hiding there, like a cripple, a victim, someone shrivelled and broken and gone, or she could begin to move out again, and she had decided to do that. “I'll be all right.”

“Are you sure?” She seemed so quiet, so subdued, so suddenly grown up. It was as though the bump on her head in the car accident had stolen her youth from her. Perhaps the fear itself had done that. Jean had never seen such a dramatic change in such a short time. And Arthur kept insisting that Billy had been fine, remorseful, but almost his old self by the time he left for his summer holiday, which was certainly not the case here. “Look, sweetheart, if you don't feel up to it, just come home. You want to start college in the fall feeling strong.”