Such a Pretty Girl (15 page)

I
try to keep busy, but I’m waiting for the end to begin and nothing really distracts me, not even calling and apologizing to Leah Louisa, who has left a slew of messages on the house machine and a few much more strident ones on my mother’s voicemail. She’s mad I skipped out on her yesterday, but after a minute of scolding I realize she’s just scared that my father is going to get me before she can legally stop him.

I don’t dare tell her that’s the plan.

She complains that her lawyer cautioned her against moving me in without getting parental permission first, as the odds of successfully taking me away from them without documented cause are slim. She cheers up when she hears about Steakhouse Sam’s, though, and the trashing of my father’s condo.

I tell her how my father gave people the finger and said he wasn’t staying in this miserable town and she says, “Good riddance,” and goes off on a rant before I can say that if he goes, we all have to go with him. Then she asks where they are and I say the shore and she mutters, “Pray for a riptide,” and I laugh because she expects me to, but when I hang up I wonder if I should go in and pray to the Blessed Virgin for dangerous currents.

I wander up to Nigel’s but his car is gone and Gilly isn’t in the window. The complex is a graveyard. I’m not surprised no one saw the cinderblock crash through my father’s door.

The Calvinettis’ minivan passes me on the way back. They’re unloading when I get home and one of the grandsons is so excited that he forgets who he’s talking to and tells me his grandmother got sunstroke and is in the hospital. I say “I’m sorry” and his mother tugs the kid away. His memory returns and he pats his butt and mouths,
Bite me.

I’m very sure that I will never have children.

I sit on the curb. Smoke. Think about tracking down Azzah and giving her a call, but it’s been more than a year and that’s too long. Think about the smattering of new friends I could have made, girls who tried to be nice despite the rampant “Meredith has cooties” attitude, if only I’d given them a chance instead of rejecting them before they rejected me. Examine my split ends, my toes, my cuticles. Watch a squirrel run along the fence line.

The day is endless without Andy.

I can’t stop waiting so I give in and think about what will happen tomorrow when my mother leaves for work and I’m alone with my father.

“No, Daddy, no.”

My stomach churns. I rest my head on my knees. Push through the memories and make my vows.

I won’t shower after the assault. I’ll call 911 as soon as he’s finished.

“Please stop!”

If I’m still coherent I’ll tell the counselors and cops every detail and watch them grow huge with anger. I’ll talk forever as they swab for samples because now I know that his punishment will spring from the details I provide.

“I don’t want to get him in trouble….”

I
do
want to get him in trouble. I should have told all the first time instead of worrying that my mother would hate me. That she wouldn’t love me anymore.

Now I know better. She might have loved me once when I was small and cute and a harmonious accessory, but never, never did she love me as much as she wanted him.

“Your father made a mistake, everybody makes mistakes, Meredith! Why did you have to ruin our family?”

I will not take the blame for his perversion. If I can stay sane, I can send him to prison for life or at least until I turn eighteen, which will give me three more years of peace.

I will save other kids from my father and hopefully I will save myself, too.

I lift my head. Wipe my face.

These are my vows.

The rest depends on the nature of the beast.

M
y parents get home after 10:00, right as I’m washing down the last of tomorrow’s vitamins with V8. I pull the band from my hair and shake the curtain closed over my face. “Have a good time?” I ask as they clatter into the kitchen on a salty, fishy breeze.

“Oh, it was great,” my mother burbles, slinging her beach bag onto the table and heading straight for the fridge. Her hair is spiky from wind and salt and her eyebrows are pale slashes against her sunburn. “The best I’ve had in a long time.” She laughs and a gust of stale, alcoholic exhale blows through the room.

“Good.” The rich smell of broiled coconut oil on my father’s skin turns my stomach. “I’m going to bed.” I try to sidle past, but he anticipates it and casually blocks my exit.

“Already?” he says, accepting the bottle of spring water my mother hands him. “Why? We just got home.” He slings a strong arm around my neck and pulls me against him. “C’mon, you must have missed us just a little.”

“Nope.” The flames from his body steal my breath and I twist free before they incinerate me. “I had my own stuff to do.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” my father says and the teasing drops from his tone. “You know, we never did talk about where you go running off to—”

“Charles, please, not now,” my mother interrupts, twining her arms around his waist and smiling up into his face. “We had such a nice day; let’s not ruin it.” She snuggles closer. “Besides, fifteen-year-olds need their secrets, too, you know.”

“Secrets?” he says, shrugging out of her embrace. “Don’t be ridiculous. What kind of secrets could a kid have, Sharon?”

She flushes. Doesn’t look at me. Smoothes her hair and says with studied nonchalance, “Oh, you know. Normal girl-type stuff. Best friends and diaries and—”

“Do you keep a diary, Chirp?” He sounds intrigued, like he wants to know if he’s been the star in my private show, the jock stud of my daydreams.

“No,” I say flatly and edge past him out of the kitchen. “Mom, wake me up before you leave for work tomorrow, okay? Good night.”

He knocks on my door a half hour later. My mother’s in the shower and I’m completing my pyramid alarm on top of the beanbag chair in front of the door.

“Meredith?” he says quietly.

“What?” I say.

“Open the door.”

“No,” I say loudly. “I’m getting ready to go to bed.”

“Shhh. Just for a minute.”

“No! What is it? I can hear you fine from here.”

The pipes clank as the shower goes off in the bathroom.

“Never mind,” he mutters irritably. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And don’t plan on running out of here early. I mean it. You and I have some serious catching up to do.”

Yes, we do, and I owe him so much. “Fine,” I say and put the finishing touches on my pyramid. Its foundation is unstable and its balance precarious; one nudge will reduce it to rubble.

I shut off the light and peer through the blinds. No patrol car, no Nigel and Gilly. I flatten my cheek against the glass and can just make out the dark corner of Andy’s building. I watch for a moment but nothing changes. I climb into bed without undressing, without building my pillow bunker or my window pyramid.

Drunken mobs never rampage on Sunday nights. The attack, when it comes, will be friendly fire.

I lie wide-eyed in the dark, listening. The obscene waits outside my door, counting the minutes until dawn when it will come at me again. And why not? What’s going to stop it? Laws, prison, and counseling didn’t. The distant threat of eternal damnation pales in comparison to the immediate gratification of corrupting young skin.

I draw a quiet, shaky breath and glance over at the Madonna.

She gazes back, serene and unblinking.

I’ve been hoping for a save in the last inning but now, when all the outfield chatter has faded and the other players have gone home, the only one stepping up to the plate is me.

C
offee. Toilets flush. Daylight leaks through the blinds.

My eyeballs have been rolled in sand. I creak out of bed and kick the beanbag chair. The pyramid collapses.

Voices. “Don’t forget the glass man is coming at one.”

“Now how could I forget that, Sharon?”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“I know but I’m a big boy, okay? I don’t need another mother.”

“Fine. Forget I ever said anything.” Silence. Running water. “I’d forgotten how cranky you were in the morning.”

“I just don’t like people nagging me the minute I get up.”

“I wasn’t…forget it.” Compact snaps closed. “Zip me up, please.”

“Okay. Watch your hair.”

“Ow.”

“I
said
watch your hair. Christ, who wears a turtleneck in the summer, anyway?”

“The store is air-conditioned. What is wrong with you this morning? Are you trying to piss me off or what?”

His silence hones the tension.

“So what are you and Meredith going to do today?”

Sigh. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Just lay off the third degree, all right, Sharon? Now, do you want a cup of coffee?”

Silence. “Sure. Fine. I’ll be out in a minute. Thanks.”

Heavy footsteps pass my door. Lighter ones hurry into the bedroom.

I drag the beanbag chair away and cross the hall to the vacated bathroom. Pee, wash my face, and rush back to my room.

My mother knocks softly as I’m strapping on my overalls. “Meredith?”

“I’m up,” I say, jamming my feet into work boots. Double-knot the ties. My feet have spread out from going barefoot and now feel trapped and smothered under layers of socks and leather.

“Open up for a minute.”

I pack my survival gear into my pockets. Turn on the teddy cam, open the door, and am greeted by a choking cloud of perfume. “What?”

She steps inside. Glances worriedly over her shoulder and says, “Look, I don’t know what’s eating your father, but he’s in a rotten mood so just be nice and don’t antagonize him, okay?” A jagged-edged hickey peeks out over the top of her turtleneck. It wasn’t there when they came home from the shore last night. “I had to pay for everything yesterday and I think it hit him that I’m the only one earning any money. It’s hard on a man to be unemployed. The simplest things make them cranky.” She sighs. “So just be good, will you?”

Be good. Be a nice girl. Don’t ruin our happy family.

A searing flash cuts a chasm in my surface calm and I shock myself by saying, “Please don’t leave me here alone with him, Mom.” Whose plaintive voice is this? Not mine. Never mine.

The pain is scalding. “No, Daddy, no,” I beg, hysterical. “Mommy! Mommy!”

I want my mother. I have always wanted my mother.

“Oh Meredith, please, not now,” she mutters, rubbing her forehead and glancing toward the kitchen. “We have to trust each other if we’re ever going to be a real family again, can’t you see that? Your father’s trying so hard and it hurts him so much when you back away. So please, try just a little. For me.” She looks straight into my eyes for the first time in years and somehow it’s worse than not being seen at all. “Promise?”

Pain digs deep inside of me. “Fine.” The vow is void the moment it falls from my lips.

“Good,” she says and smiles. “That’s one less thing I have to worry about.” She hurries off to meet my father and I am left in my four-sided box, alone.

So I leave the teddy cam running, follow her into the kitchen, and make the one-word answers she requires of me. I don’t know when the basslike rumbling in my brain starts, but every time my father speaks it increases in intensity. Not in volume but in agitation.

My mother kisses my father good-bye and leaves.

The air vibrates.

I sit at the table with my back to the wall, one hand welded to a mug of steaming coffee, the other to the knife in my pocket. I move my thumb and press the smoke alarm camera remote. I would give anything to be someone else.

“Well.” My father leans back in his chair, cocks his head, and smiles. “We’re finally alone.” He waits but I don’t answer. “What, now that your mother’s gone you have nothing to say? C’mon, Chirp, you used to be such a chatterbox. Fill me in. Give me an update on the last three years.”

“They were great,” I say.

“That’s not what I wanted to hear,” he says after a moment.

I say nothing. Acid eats my stomach.

“I was hoping you’d say you missed me like I missed you.” His hand creeps across the table like a hairless tarantula until it touches mine. “There’s so much I want to say but you make it so hard.” He strokes the claws curved around the coffee cup. “Don’t punish me, baby. Look at me. I need to see your eyes.”

I can’t. I won’t. If I look, I die.

“C’mon, Chirp.” His fingers wander past my hand to my wrist. “Give it up. I’m not such a bad guy. Really. I love you, sweetheart. Just let me love you again.”

Leah Louisa, Nigel. Ms. Mues, I need your God. Andy, come home. The rumbling is ferocious. “You’re not ever going to stop, are you?” My voice is a thin, flat blade.

The thumb stroking my wrist stills. “Stop what? Loving you? Wanting you? No. Not until the day I die.”

So that’s it, then. I could put him away again and again, and again and again he’ll get out and come for me. It will never, ever end. “Dad, please.” I push the words past the lump in my throat. “You don’t understand. You have to let me go.
Please.”

“Chirp,” he says softly. “Just stop, all right? It’s not gonna change anything.”

My head jerks up and for an instant our gazes lock.

I shove away from the table but am still anchored by his grip. Release my coffee mug and watch in slow motion as the cup hits the table and the steaming brew splashes, as he instinctively releases my wrist and jumps back.

“Whoa!” He grabs a place mat and drops it on the spreading spill. “What the hell are you doing? You could have burned us both!” He looks up and catches me backing away. “Oh, no you don’t. Get over here and help me clean this up.”

I shake my head. He likes it. Look at his eyes gleam. Ready to pounce. How much is enough? My work boots keep retreating. Fight or flight. Sacrifice me. Do it.
Do it.

“Come on, now,” he says, skirting the table and slowly coming toward me. “This is getting out of hand. What’re you so jumpy about?” And then he lunges faster than I can wheel and run, and my back is to the wall, my head hits the wall and his arms close around me and the rumbling in my mind drowns his apologies and declarations of love. My head sinks and the golden baseball strung around his neck presses hard and cold against my mouth.

“Oh God, baby, I missed you so much. I don’t want to hurt you.” His body is burning and his hands are everywhere, gripping, squeezing, rushing to unlatch my overall straps.

I am small and growing smaller. A desperate wail reverberates through my brain and I can feel the memory of blood running rivulets down my legs. “Mommy,” I whisper.

His head snaps up and he turns toward the door.

My shove catches him by surprise and knocks him backward.

I bolt for my bedroom.

“Meredith!”

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
The silent litany flows unbidden.
Queen of families, have mercy. Help me.

I shoot inside as my father thunders down the hall. Slam the door but he’s there, right there, turning the knob as I fight to lock it and he’s stronger than me so I back away with my own breathless blubbering in my ears, wordless terror a jagged, stuttering, “Hunh…hunh…hunh…” and the Blessed Virgin watches from my nightstand as he clamps down on my shoulders.

Bared teeth. Absolute intent.

Game over.

Paralysis comes and goes. In a flash I’m berserk, all claws and work boots. “I
hate
you!” I grind out, wild because I’m
not
going to be the one torn and bloody again, raped on camera, the pathetic victim sacrifice absorbing the sick pain of the sick fucking world. I’ll kill him first, I will, and somewhere deep inside of me, I realize I’ve always known it.

He grabs my hair and yanks my head back, exposing my face.

I go still. Adrenaline floods my veins, numbing me for the final blow.

His fingers tighten, bringing tears to my eyes. “Don’t ever say that again.” He licks his lips. “Now lay down.” Releases my hair and shoves me backward onto the bed. Unzips his pants. “Take off those disgusting overalls.”

The weight in my pocket nudges my thigh, suddenly becomes my knife. I put my hand to its unforgiving outline and can’t stop crying years of tears because if I don’t stab my father with my weapon, then he is going to stab me with his.

Palsied and blind, I fumble my hand into my pocket.

“What’re you doing?” he says and reaches for my arm. “What is that?”

My fingers close around the knife but I can’t get it open. I jerk away from him, panting, squirming backward across the mattress toward the headboard.

He seizes my ankles and drags me back. “What is that?” He kneels on the bed and grabs my flailing arm. “Give it to me.”

“No!” I twist and kick, but he pins me down, relentless, pulling me into the abyss and I know I’m losing, cracking, breathing in the impossible scent of roses and dark, rich soil as the golden baseball dances above me, flashing, mocking, and the Madonna stands steadfast and serene, a savior still within reach.

Queen of martyrs. Mirror of justice.

I stop fighting. Flick my wrist and the knife sails toward the door.

“Goddamn you, Chirp, what the hell
is
that?” my father snaps and releases me. The bed bounces as he backs off and turns to retrieve it.

I wipe my eyes and reach for the Holy Mother. Close my hands around the heavy, solid oak statue and with my own tears anointing my palms, rise up behind my father.

He straightens.

I plant my feet in a batter’s stance and swing.