Now or Never (43 page)

Still, a man had finally kissed her, and she was elated. Now she was like the other girls—she knew what it was like. It was only later, as she lay awake, analyzing every millisecond of what had happened, that she realized he had not asked her for a date. It must have been just a friendly kiss after all and not a real “boyfriend” kiss.

When he came to the café a few days later, she peered hopefully at him through her thick glasses, brightening when he gave her a big smile and said hello and how are you, Mary Mallory?

It was the
Mary Mallory
at the end that gave his greeting a special personal little meaning. With a little thrill of excitement, she hurried to get his usual order. He lingered over a glass of wine until it got quite late and she was ready to leave, and then he looked at her and said, “Like a lift home?”

She nodded, beaming, and ran to put on some lipstick and comb her hair. It was raining this time, so they couldn’t put the top down. But he turned up the radio, and symphonic music swelled and echoed in her ears as they glided smoothly through the wet night. She thought happily that this must be what it felt like when you were rich. And happy.

When he kissed her good night again, his lips were hard, but he did not put his tongue in her mouth, the way she had heard girls say boys did. She clung to him. No
one had ever held her close before, not her mother, not her father. She was starved for affection, for approval, for identity, and suddenly this man was giving her all those things. By holding her, kissing her, he was saying you are
someone
, Mary Mallory, you’re a pretty girl, you’re sweet and intelligent, and I really like you. In her mind, his arms around her meant she was loved.

She waved good-bye again as he drove off, but he didn’t wave back. She supposed he hadn’t seen her, standing in the dark and the rain. But the next night he was back at the café again. And again he waited to drive her home.

It was a cold, misty night. Mary Mallory shivered in her flimsy Indian skirt as she hurried to the parking lot across the street where he was waiting. But inside, the car was warm and the music was already playing.

“Get in,” he said, a touch impatiently.

“Sorry.” She slid quickly into the seat next to him.

He glanced around the lot. There were three or four other cars, but no one was around. He swung the BMW quickly out and drove too fast down the street.

They had been driving for about fifteen minutes when Mary Mallory realized they were not on the road leading to her house. She had been so content just being with him, cocooned together in the warm car with the soft music swirling around her. She had closed her eyes and imagined she was his wife and they were returning home together from a party.

She smiled at him. “Where are we going?”

He shrugged. “I thought we’d go somewhere quiet where we could talk. Where we don’t have to look at the garbage cans and smell the dog pee.”

She said, ashamed, “It’s not very nice, I know.”

He shrugged again, concentrating on the driving.

They were on a quiet road with woods on either side. The ground-mist rose like thin gray smoke, fluttering
through the leafless branches. She thought with a shudder that it looked haunted by witches.

He drove onto the soft verge and stopped the car. Then he put on the hand brake and leaned back in his seat, staring straight ahead. There was nothing in front of them but a deserted road: no houses, no lights, no other cars.

He turned and looked at her, and Mary Mallory smiled at him. He leaned across and removed her glasses, then he put his arms around her. She sighed, leaning into him, turning her face willingly up to his, ready for his kiss.

Her eyes were closed, and she could feel his hands on her long hair. He pulled it viciously. Her head snapped back, and every taut hair sent shooting stars of pain through her scalp. She thought her neck must be broken. She stared at him, bug-eyed with fear. A knife gleamed in his left hand.

“Don’t scream,” he said coldly, holding the knife against her throat.

Mary Mallory felt the panic shooting up her spine, she was hot from it, trembling with it. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t—”

He put the knife on the dashboard, and she sagged with relief. Her head snapped back again as he smacked her across the face with the flat of his hand, then a second time.

“No!” she screamed. He looked in her eyes, she was gasping from the pain, wild-eyed with terror. He began to punch her, over and over until she was submerged in a sea of pain.

Mary Mallory knew she was going to die, that was why he had brought her here. Now his hands were under her skirt. She kicked out wildly, he grabbed her by the hair again, and she screamed.

He picked up the knife and held it to her throat. “Shut up,” he said in a strange expressionless voice, as cold and brittle as ice chips.

She was sagging into a black hole from which there was no escape. It was fogging the sides of her eyes, clouding her brain … she had to pull herself together, she had to fight. She brought her knee up and jabbed it at his groin, but he was too quick for her. He gave her a menacing glare, then a quick chop to her neck, and she fell into that black bottomless pit.

He was still lying on top of her when she came flailing back up from the depths. Stickiness oozed between her legs, and she thought he must have cut her with the knife. Then she looked at him, half naked, and she knew what he had done.

She thought, it’s over. Now he will kill me. She watched him pick up the knife again and knew she was right. He bent his face closer, staring intently at her, as though he were memorizing her face. In the faint light from the dashboard, his eyes were dark evil orbs, drilling into hers until she thought they penetrated her very soul, the way he had penetrated her body. He ran the knife lightly across her throat, as though testing its sharpness.

The scream wouldn’t come; it was locked inside her, stuck in her throat. Distantly, she thought she heard the wail of a siren, but she knew that even if it were the police, they would be too late.

“Son of a bitch,” he snarled, pulling himself off her. The blue lights were flashing in the distance. He quickly turned on the ignition, gunned the car, and shot down the road, leaving the flashing lights in the distance.

And Mary Mallory knew she was on her own again—with a madman. She pulled herself into a sitting position, clutching her blouse across her breasts, pulling down her skirt, not daring to look at him. She stared out of the window, planning on jumping, but they were speeding. Her hand was on the door handle. She knew she would be killed if she did it, but she didn’t care anymore.

Suddenly they were back in familiar territory, turning into her street. Hope flickered in her leaden heart.

He stopped the car at the corner. He leaned across, took her hair in his fist again, pulled her head back, and stared into her eyes.
“If you breathe one word of this, I’ll kill you,” he
said in a voice as icy as chilled steel.

He let go of her, opened her door, and pushed her out.
“Remember, I’ll kill you,” he
warned again as he slammed the door. He spun the car around and shot back down the street, away into the night.

She stared numbly after him. Her legs were trembling, and blood was trickling down the insides of her thighs. Clutching her shirt closed, she stumbled down the sidewalk, praying she wouldn’t meet anyone. She was lucky—it was Friday night and the house was dark. Everyone was out partying.

Mary Mallory slunk inside like a beaten dog seeking a hole to hide in. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eye was blackening, and there were red welts across her face. She took off the shirt and stared horrified at her breasts, already purple with bruises, the nipples ringed with bite marks. Then she took off her tattered Indian skirt and her torn underpants and saw blood seeping from her vagina and the stickiness that was his semen. She lifted her head and howled with the pain and shame and agony of it. She wished he had killed her.

Hours passed while she simply lay on the floor, crying. Her legs would not move—she was paralyzed with shock and pain. Dawn was breaking when she finally dragged herself upright. She went to the bathroom and turned on the faucets, waiting until the tub was almost full. Then she took the razor and stepped in, wincing as the hot water stung her wounds, gradually submerging herself, until only her head was clear.

It would be easy, she thought dully. He had almost
done it for her. A few more minutes, and she would have been dead anyway. They said it was not painful. Not that pain mattered anymore, but the thought of just drifting into sleepy oblivion lured her gently, like a moth to a flame.

She jolted upright, as a car pulled up outside. Had he come back to get her after all? Then she heard the laughter and voices and realized it was the other students returning from their party. She pulled out the stopper, climbed from the tub, wrapped herself in her old terrycloth robe, and slid, like a shadow, down the hall to her own little room.

She did not emerge for two days. Finally, weak from shock and hunger, she put on a long-sleeved sweater and jeans. She pulled a baseball cap low over her eyes, and even though it was raining, she wore sunglasses. She got her bike and cycled down the street to the pay phone to call the café and tell them she was sorry, but she had had bad news from home and would not be back. Then she went to the convenience store on the same block and bought milk and cornflakes and Snickers bars and retreated to her room again.

As she ate the cornflakes, she considered what to do. She had no girlfriends to confide in, and she couldn’t tell the college counselors. They might think that it was her fault. Maybe they would even call the police. She could never talk about it, never tell what he had done…. Remembering the knife and his threat, a wave of terror washed over her. Her hands shook so badly, she had to put down the spoon—the cornflakes were choking her. She decided she would try to ignore what had happened, lock it away in her mind with the other horrors, the lifetime of rejections. It was all she could do.

A couple of weeks later, when the bruises had faded sufficiently and she was able to face life again, she went
back to class. A short while after that, she bumped into one of the waitresses from the cafe on the street.

“Hey, Mary,” she said cheerily. “Hope everything is okay again at home.”

Mary nodded and said yes it was, thanks.

“By the way,” the waitress said, “the young guy you used to chat with has left too. He said he’d been transferred to a hospital in another state.”

Mary Mallory’s heart lifted with hope. “Too bad,” she said. But what she meant was
Thank you, God
.

H
ARRY LIFTED HER HAND
to his lips and kissed it. He took each finger and kissed each one. He admired her for telling him, for her rigid control and the matter-of-fact way she had spoken. But he knew the hurt and the fear went deep. “I’m sorry, Mal,” he said gently. “I would do anything to erase that terrible memory from your mind.”

She leveled her gaze at him. “There’s more,” she said quietly.

Their eyes locked, his shocked, hers filled with shame. Harry got up, poured himself a bourbon, and took a gulp. “You don’t have to go through with this,” he said. “You can’t be sure it was the same man. I don’t want you hurt anymore. Just forget about it—it’s in the past.”

She shook her head, determined. “It’s my duty. I have to tell you.”

He sat beside her again and took her hand in his, gripping it tightly as he listened.

Mary Mallory was alone in the trailer, waiting for the Coast Guard to tell her what she already knew in her heart: they had given up hope of recovering her mother’s body. She sat on the orange vinyl sofa and looked at the dingy room. In some strange way she could feel her mother there more positively now than when she had been alive. The sharp odor of her cigarettes still lingered,
and the bitter aroma of stale coffee, and the sullen smell of poverty.

She went into the bedroom and stared at her mother’s clothes hanging on the metal rail. There were so few, and they were so old and tired. They looked infinitely pathetic. She wanted to cry.

On the shelf was her mother’s purse, red patent with a jaunty gilt buckle, pitted from age and the salt wind. She remembered going to the store with her to buy it, when she was just a child. And she remembered how thrilled she had been to see her walking down the street swinging her new red bag. But that was long ago, and the red bag had remained on the shelf since the day they arrived in Golden.

Her mother’s shoes were tossed on the floor: a pair of shabby sneakers, the cheap black pumps bought a decade ago on sale and never worn, and her old strappy white sandals. Mary Mallory picked up a sandal and put her hand inside it, feeling the place where her mother’s foot had rested. She had never realized before what tiny feet she had, only size four.

Her mother’s fuzzy blue mohair sweater lay on the unmade bed where she had tossed it before venturing out into the great storm. Mary Mallory held it to her face, breathing in the mingled scents that meant “mother.” Tears spurted from her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks like fat raindrops, merging into a torrent as grief overcame her. She flung herself onto the bed, clutching the sweater to her chest as though she were holding her mother.

“Oh, Mom, I need you, I need you,” she wailed. “Mom, I wanted you to need me. I wanted to say I love you, but you didn’t wait for me, and now it’s too late. And it’s all gone wrong. I wanted you to help me, you were all I had.” And she sobbed her grief into the soft blue sweater.

The next day the man from the Coast Guard came by
to tell her it was unlikely her mother’s body would ever be recovered. Mary Mallory nodded in acknowledgment and said thank you for all your help. They said no problem, then she closed the door and she was alone.

She went back into the bedroom and brushed the dust from the slab of unframed mirror propped against the wall. She took a step back and studied her reflection. She put her hands on the slight curve of her belly, then turned sideways and looked again. She groaned with despair. A baby was growing inside her from the seed of the rapist, from the madman who had wanted to kill her. She groaned again, overwhelmed by self-loathing.