Runaways (21 page)

Crystal turned, a look of confusion on her face when she saw me on all fours.

“What are you doing?”

I put my finger to my lips and both she and Butterfly became paralyzed with fear and curiosity. Then I rose and charged out the door and around the house to find Danny and his two friends squatting by the window. None of them had heard me and they all had their backs to me.

“Enjoying yourselves?” I asked, and they spun around. “I suppose this is how you get your kicks. Is it the best you can do?”

His two friends laughed nervously, but Danny showed no embarrassment or guilt. He sauntered toward me.

“We just wanted to see if you were a male or female,” he quipped.

“How would you know the difference?” I shot back. His friends laughed at him, and in the dim glow of the light that flowed from the bathroom window, I could see him turn a dark crimson.

Raven, who had been waiting in the parking lot, started to hurry around the side of the building. Crystal and Butterfly were behind her.

“Usually, I do,” he said. “But you're the exception. Maybe we'll find out now,” he added, throwing a look at his buddies, who drew closer, their faces full of lusty smiles. He reached out to seize my wrist and pull me to him. “How about showing us what you're hiding under there?”

Once, in the ninth grade, I got into a fight with a boy. His name was Eddie Goodwin and he was always teasing me because I had gone out for the boys' basketball junior varsity team and almost made it. The girls had their own team, but the coach, maybe as a way of jolting his lackadaisical players, let me come to a tryout. Eddie telegraphed
his every move, so I was able to steal the ball from him twice. He took a great deal of razzing from his friends about it and afterward came after me in the hall. I realized he wasn't just going to call me names and make fun of me. He was going to do something more, maybe even punch me. I didn't give him the chance. When he was close enough, I jammed my knee between his legs and he crumbled to the hall floor, squirming in pain.

Later, I had to go to the principal's office. Because I was the one who had been physical first, I got into the most trouble. I was suspended from school for two days. It didn't matter that I had felt threatened. I was punished at the foster home, too. I thought it was very unfair, but being treated unfairly in this world was not terribly unusual for me. Of course, beating up a boy like that didn't do my reputation much good. It simply reinforced the image of me most of my fellow students and even my teachers already had.

But I was tired of being put down for it, tired of being looked upon as some sort of freak just because I didn't fit some preconceived idea of what a girl had to be. We might as well be robots or mass produced in genetic laboratories, I thought, and I held onto my own self-image and self-respect, regardless of the cost, even if it meant I wouldn't ever be the object of some handsome boy's interest.

Danny's fingers squeezed down on my wrist. It stung. I felt my skin burn as he twisted my arm. He reached out to open my shirt with his other hand and I turned swiftly, bringing my right knee up and into his groin. The pained look in his face demonstrated his complete surprise. He let go of me, doubled up, and fell over, screaming and cursing.

His two friends gazed down at him writhing like
a snake that had just been run over, and then they looked at me with rage.

“Get her,” Danny ordered.

They started toward me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a broken wood crate and seized a piece of it that still had nails protruding. They stopped their advance when I raised it like a club.

“I'll use it,” I said shakily.

Raven came up behind me.

“What happened?” she asked, looking down at Danny, who was now on all fours, taking deep breaths.

“He tried to pull off my shirt,” I said. “I saw them in the bathroom window when I went to take a shower. He and his idiot friends were being Peeping Toms, getting their kick of the year.”

Danny's friends helped him to his feet.

“You bitch,” he said. “You'll be sorry.”

“Go soak yourself in tar,” I spit back.

“Now you've gone and done it,” Raven said “What's Patsy going to do?”

“Probably give me a medal,” I replied.

“Are you all right?” Crystal asked, coming up alongside us.

“Fine. Let's go back inside. I doubt he'll say anything to Patsy, Raven,” I told her. “He'll have to explain why he was behind the cottage and at the window.”

We saw the three make their way to a car in the lot. They lit cigarettes and glared our way.

“Let's go inside,” Crystal said.

I told them the whole story, every gritty detail.

“I forgot to hang a towel over the window,” I said. “He's probably been there before.”

“I'm sure it's the only way he'll ever see a girl undressed,” Raven quipped. She kept her eyes toward the window, waiting, hoping for signs of Taylor.

Finally, I calmed down, but I never got up the nerve to take that shower. Crystal, Butterfly and I decided to go to bed, but Raven insisted on staying up, sitting in a chair, refusing to go to bed because Taylor might still come for her. She sat in the dark, staring out at the parking lot.

“He's not coming, Raven. Why torture yourself?” I said after a while.

“Something very unexpected must have happened,” she muttered.

“Sure.”

“You're glad, aren't you?” she fired at me.

“Don't be stupid, Raven. I'll admit I wasn't happy about your getting too involved with someone while we stopped over here, but I don't want you to be unhappy. I just worry about you,” I said.

She simmered down and returned to feeling sorry for herself.

“I can never have a decent boyfriend. I'll never meet anyone but dorks,” she whined.

I turned over in bed and closed my eyes. A little more than a half hour or so later, I heard her sigh deeply, get up and prepare for bed. She finally crawled under the covers.

“Brooke?”

“What?”

“Are you still awake?”

“No. I'm talking to you in my sleep,” I said. “What?”

“I lied to you guys,” Raven said. She was quiet. Damn it, I thought. I felt like a fish, hooked. Reluctantly, I turned over.

“Okay, I'm biting. What?”

“I'm not as experienced as I pretended to be. Actually . . .”

“What, Raven? Actually what?”

“Last night was the first time.”

“Last night?” I started to sit up. “You were careful, right?”

“It was hard to be careful, Brooke. It's never happened to you, so you don't know what it's like. You just forget how far you're going. It feels so good and you keep telling yourself, there's time to stop. There's time to be careful, but . . .”

“But what?”

“There wasn't time.”

“He wasn't wearing any protection?”

“No.”

“Oh Raven. He's a creep to do this to you. Why wasn't he careful?”

“He's not a creep,” we heard Crystal suddenly say from the bedroom. “He's stupid. He doesn't know you from a hole in the wall and he takes a chance being sexually active with you? That's stupid.”

I smiled. Good old Crystal, pretending to be asleep and listening to everything.

“I did the same thing,” Raven admitted. “I was stupid too.”

Crystal came to the doorway and looked at us.

“Yes, you were. Let's hope you're lucky this time, Raven,” Crystal told her.

I'm scared,” she said after a pause. “Could I get pregnant?”

“Of course you could,” I said. “Right, Crystal?”

“When is your period due, Raven?”

“About three days,” she replied.

“You're probably all right. You've always been regular, haven't you?”

“Yes,” she said in a small voice.

“I think you'll be all right, Raven,” Crystal reassured her. “But I wouldn't go out with him again. He didn't care about you, that's for sure,” she said.

Raven was silent. She turned and buried her face
in the pillow. Then we heard her sob. I touched her shoulder.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm sorry I'm stupid. And I can't help being afraid.”

Butterfly was still asleep in the bedroom and apparently had heard none of this. Crystal approached the bed and gazed down at Raven whose shoulders were shaking with her sobs. She looked at me and then she crawled onto our pullout bed. She and I brought our heads to Raven. We touched Raven's head.

“We're sisters,” Crystal began. “We'll always be sisters.”

We chanted and held each other and prayed that Raven would be lucky.

The following morning we all rose and got dressed without any more mention of Taylor Cummings. We didn't even talk about Danny and his creepy friends. It had been a restless night for Crystal, Raven and me, so we were moving like zombies. Finally, we walked over to the restaurant and threw ourselves into the work.

Patsy was very chatty, happier than ever, talking about when she would close the restaurant for her holiday and where she might go for a vacation.

“Maybe I'll go to California, too,” she said. “I haven't ever been there. Have any of you?”

As always, we waited for Crystal to answer the question and I saw that this was beginning to sharpen Patsy's interest in us. She watched us as Crystal replied.

“No, this is going to be our first trip, too. That's why we were all so excited about it,” she said.

“Mighty courageous of your parents letting the four of you travel across country like this,” she said. The first customer had yet to arrive.

“Well, we don't exactly have the perfect home life we made out to have,” Crystal continued. Raven and I polished silverware and straightened chairs while Butterfly folded napkins, but we were all listening. It was just as much new information to us as it was to Patsy.

“What's that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“Butterfly's mother died a few years ago. Her father travels a lot. My parents are divorced and so are Raven's. Brooke's adopted,” she added. “And recently her adoptive mother had a serious operation. Her adoptive father thought it would be good for her to travel with us while he concentrated on her adoptive mother,” she concluded.

Crystal was like a spider, weaving her cobweb of personal lives, events, tragedies and comedies to trap the unsuspecting listener. Patsy looked trapped. She turned and viewed each of us in a more sympathetic way.

“Oh,” she simply said.

“But we're fine,” Crystal jumped in quickly. “We were having a really great time until we ran into that unfortunate person, weren't we, Brooke?”

“Yes, and I've enjoyed working here. We all have,” I said.

Butterfly nodded vigorously. Raven stepped up to her.

“The girls told me about your wanting to warn me about Taylor. I should have listened. He's a creep.”

“Did he hurt you? Because if he did . . .”

“No, I don't want you to do anything. If and when he comes around here, I'll deal with him, Patsy. Thank you,” she said.

“I bet you will,” Patsy said, smiling.

The first customers arrived and we all began to work. Two young men who were friends of Taylor's were there, but Taylor didn't show. I saw Raven
speaking to them and then I saw her go off to the side and wipe her eyes. I left my tables and hurried over.

“What's the matter?”

“They told me Taylor went back to his old girlfriend. He was out with her last night. He just used me, Brooke. I'm such a fool.”

I hugged her quickly.

“It's his loss. He's the one that goofed up,” I said. “Let's get back to work and take your mind off of the creep.”

She wiped her eyes and nodded.

“Thanks,” she said and we returned to the tables. It was another successful breakfast, every available table taken with people waiting to be seated. Butterfly ended up working the counter. Afterward, when she did her count, Patsy told us again how the receipts were up.

“If this continues, I'll be able to retire soon,” she kidded. “I'm going over to the bank now to make my deposit from yesterday and this morning,” she said. “Anybody need anything from the drugstore?”

“I don't think so,” I said, looking at Raven.

“No, nothing,” she said.

We remained in the restaurant, having coffee and talking to Charlie, who wanted to tell us about his travels when he was a much younger man. He did have great stories. He had been as far as China!

“There is a lot of world to see,” he said, “a lot to learn, but what you learn for sure is a good friend is hard to find. You girls look like you all found each other. That's gold,” he said. “You don't have to travel anymore if you're looking for something more valuable than that.”

He made us all feel good, and even Raven was beginning to cheer up. But we both knew that it would be a while before her broken heart healed. We were about to leave and rest up in the cottage when
Patsy came hurrying through the front door. She hadn't gone to the bank yet. One look at her face told us something terrible had happened.

“My money's gone,” she announced, “my deposit. All of it.”

She stood there before us, the corners of her mouth trembling.

Crystal was the first to say it.

“Is Danny gone too?” she asked.

“No,” Patsy said, surprising us. “He was home, just getting up. He swore he didn't know anything about it.”

“When did you see the money last?” I asked her.

“Last night.”

She just stood there, gazing at us. It began to give me a creepy feeling. I glanced at Crystal, whose eyes were getting narrow.

“I've been ripping the place apart,” Patsy continued. “I searched Danny's room better than a hound dog.”