Of course, I knew how different she was from other mothers, but for me, it was always easier to humor Mother, to do what she asked, and whenever possible, as Haylee was doing, to change when we were out from under her surveillance. Haylee was far more defiant and even at the age of ten or so would deliberately do something to challenge Mother’s wishes. She tried to sneak past her wearing a ring I wasn’t wearing or different-colored socks from mine. Most of the time, Mother spotted what she had done and made her go back and change. Haylee said Mother should work for the TSA, but pretty soon, she stopped joking about it. She complained more to my father than I ever did and in a real sense drove him into the arguments with Mother that laid the foundation for their eventual divorce. It was devastating to me, but Haylee seemed pleased.
“Now our father will be more on our side,” she told me. She knew more about the ways children of divorce played one parent against the other. She was reluctant to be a good student, relying on me to help her or to do her homework, but she devoured any information about children of divorce after it looked inevitable that it would happen between our parents.
Now that I thought more about our past and all the little things I recalled Haylee doing, I realized I was the blind one in our home and deliberately so. I had more opportunity to see Haylee’s real goals and intentions, but I wouldn’t face up to it. Instead, I tried to placate her, do what she wanted us to do, and even tried to think about things the way she did. I wanted to keep the peace on a battlefield where there was no truce or any possibility of one.
In a real sense, then, I thought maybe Mother was right. I had caused it, too. I was in that conspiracy of silence she had described. Haylee might have been a victim of herself, but with my compromises and refusal to aggressively stop her, I had permitted her to do the terrible thing she had done. Turning a blind eye was exactly the wrong turn to make.
Thinking about all this now, I realized that there was no way I could refuse to see her psychiatrist. My father wanted me to decide after careful consideration, but there was nothing to consider. If I felt even the slightest responsibility for all this, I had to do what I could to bring about an end to the suffering we both endured, and even though she was the one incarcerated, I was imprisoned in a real way, too. I decided I would call my father in the morning and tell him to arrange the session with Dr. Alexander.
Meanwhile, for my date with Troy, I chose a pink long-sleeved blouse, a cream-colored sweater, and a pair of jeans. I had a black leather jacket with a white imitation-fur collar and a pair of black boots. I spent more time on my makeup than usual and decided to wear a black, fuzzy earflap beanie over my natural hair, which was still quite short but starting to look more fashionable. When I was ready, I went out to the entryway to wait for Troy. I wouldn’t deny that I was nervous, even trembling a little. This was my first formal date since my abduction. Had all the therapy been enough? I was in such deep thought about it that I didn’t even hear Jessie and Kim come up behind me. They were dressed for dates, too.
“Nice coat,” Kim said.
“Thank you.”
“What movie are you going to see?” Jessie asked.
I thought for a moment and then laughed. “I don’t know. I never even asked him.”
“Maybe he intends to take you to a movie in his house. I heard he’s got an entertainment center with a big screen,” Kim said. “Bobby Johnson’s parents have been over to the Matzners’ for a charity event.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t care where you go?” Jessie asked.
I saw Troy pulling into the parking lot and turned to them. “It’s not the destination. It’s the journey,” I said. They both looked like someone had hit them in the face with a snowball. “Have a good time tonight,” I added, and hurried out, smiling to myself. The goody-goody image was definitely washed off me now, I thought, but I couldn’t help wondering if I might regret it.
Troy was getting out of his car when I appeared. “Hey,” he said, “I was on my way to get you properly.”
“Why put you through the inspection?” I said.
He looked back at the entrance and saw Kim and Jessie looking out at us, and then he opened the car door for me. “You look very nice,” he said. “No,” he added, putting his hand on my shoulder to keep me from getting in. “You look like you belong on the cover of a magazine.”
“Better,” I said, tilting my head as if I were really thinking about it. “But keep working on it.”
He laughed harder than he had since I’d met him and closed the door after I got in. I saw that four more girls had joined Kim and Jessie, and both of them were talking at once, offering their opinions about me, I was sure. What sort of impression was I making? I was confident Marcy would tell me later.
“Am I out of my league dating you?” Troy asked after getting in. “I’d appreciate the warning.”
“Too early to tell,” I said.
He widened his smile and drove out of the lot.
I glanced back at the dorm. There were two more girls now, all watching us leave.
Troy looked into his rearview mirror. “We have an audience, all right. Have I brought you a little too much attention?”
“You do have a reputation,” I said.
“Which is?”
“No reputation.”
“Excuse me?”
“Apparently, from what I’ve been told by the dissectors, you haven’t asked anyone here on a date for as long as you’ve been attending Littlefield.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Too early to tell.”
He started to laugh and then stopped. “What exactly do they say about me?”
“Do you really care?”
He nodded and remained thoughtful for a while. I said nothing and wondered if maybe I was being too cute.
“I don’t want to care,” he said, “but I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t, and for some reason, I’m not comfortable telling you lies.”
I was afraid to feel the same way toward him. I needed my lies. “Some say you’re arrogant. Some say you’re gay. A few have these wild images of you seeing a much older woman.”
“Really? Sort of like Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate with Mrs. Robinson?”
“Any of it true?”
“Too soon to confess,” he replied.
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Where are we going?”
“There’s this really special pizza place in a small town about twenty miles outside of Carbondale. Another mom-and-pop establishment. These people are authentic. Not only do they have a real pizza oven, but they had the stone shipped from Naples many years ago.”
“How do you find these places?”
“I like to go off the beaten path. You know, like Frost . . . take the road less traveled. That’s what I like about you.”
“What?” I asked quickly, afraid he had somehow found out more about me than I wanted anyone here to know.
“You seem like someone who isn’t afraid of turning down a side road.”
I smiled. He knew nothing, really. If anything, I was someone who would be terrified of turning down side roads now. I wanted everywhere I went to be brightly lit and busy. Just the mention of the concept of a side road revived my memory of the road on which Anthony Cabot’s family farmhouse was located. I could shout for help all day and night and be heard only by rabbits and squirrels. I couldn’t even see the cars passing by, if there were any.
“You okay with this?” he asked when I was quiet for so long. “I mean, I could take you to downtown Carbondale or to a mall or . . .”
“No, I’m fine with it. I’ve never eaten pizza cooked on a stone from Napoli.”
He smiled. “That’s right. Napoli.” He sped up and we did start taking dark side roads where houses were few and far between.
Drive down the dark voices clamoring to be heard like ghosts in a graveyard, I told myself. When would they be gone forever? How long would it take for the memories to fade until they
seemed to be of things that happened to someone else?
“I’ve got about a dozen CDs in the glove compartment,” Troy said. “Maybe there’s something you like.”
I took them out and began to sort through them. There were folk songs, jazz albums, and two recordings of Mozart. Under those was one by someone named Tom Waits.
“Tom Waits? Really someone with that name? What’s he waiting for?”
“Try it,” he said.
I inserted the CD. He glanced at me with that wry smile of his and watched for my reaction. The first song was “All the World Is Green.”
“Well?” he asked halfway through it.
It had brought tears to my eyes, but I kept him from seeing it. All I could think of was the happy times in my life, when my father was still with us and Mother’s passion for keeping us loving sisters was something to behold and not fear. Back then, all the world was green for us.
“It’s beautiful. You’re full of surprises,” I said.
“I bet you are, too,” he replied.
Don’t find out, I prayed. Please don’t find out. We drove on.
I shook my head in wonder when he parked in front of a restaurant that had no sign in its window and nothing written on the window either. There was just the word MARIO’S over the dimly lit front door. I could see the place was small and almost all the tables were occupied.
“Someone had to tell you about this place,” I said. “Anyone would drive right by it.”
“Naw, no one told me. I just have a nose for authenticity.”
“It looks packed.”
He shut off the engine. “Probably is, but I called Mario Carnesi, the owner, and he and his wife, Sophia, always manage to save the small table near the kitchen for me. Hope you’re hungry. They have an antipasto to die for.”
He got out and opened the door for me, reaching for my hand again. This time, when I stepped out, he held my hand firmly and for a beat kept us close. I thought he was going to try to kiss me again, but instead he just smiled and turned us toward the entrance. I breathed in relief, and I hated having to do it. How could you have any sort of relationship with someone if you freeze or retreat from a touch, a hug, and especially a kiss?
Even before he opened the door, the aroma of pasta and sauces and pizza swirled about me, churning up my appetite.
From the look of the small crowd, I saw that we were definitely the youngest customers. The chatter and laughter suggested most everyone here knew everyone else. A few people looked our way but not for long. The owner’s wife stepped up to greet Troy, who introduced me. She led us to our table but was too busy to stay there and talk.
“They have a menu,” he said, “but I can order it all. What would you like to drink, a soda, iced tea?”
“Iced tea, thanks.”
I glanced around. The restaurant was cozy, with prints of the Amalfi Coast and small villages on walls that were painted deep red. The floor was hardwood. There was no bar. Toward the front, there was a couple who had brought along their small white dog, which sat obediently, hoping for crumbs to fall. Playing low, but not too low to hear over the chatter, was an Italian tenor singing “Nessun Dorma,” a song Mother loved.
“It really feels like we should be in Italy,” I said.
Troy smiled. “Authentic, as is the food.”
“Did you ever bring anyone else here?” I asked.
“Ah, so now we begin to dig in our chest of secrets,” he replied. “You want to know if I brought Mrs. Robinson?”
The waitress stepped up. She looked to be in her forties, her dark brown hair cut short, her light complexion flushed from rushing about in a room warmed by its customers and the stoves. She and Mrs. Carnesi were apparently the only waitresses. In one breath, Troy ordered everything for us, the antipasto and the pizza. She nodded, flashed a smile, and returned to something else she had to do.
“She’s new,” Troy said, looking after her. “Actually, I haven’t been here for nearly a month. No,” he continued. “I’ve never brought anyone else here, younger or older than myself, but now that you have started it, want to play truth or dare?”
“How does that work?”
“You never played it?”
“Maybe I’m from another country,” I said. There were many times when I felt that way.
“You ask someone a question he or she has to answer or else take a dare. You want to go first? Actually, you did when you asked me to tell you if I had ever brought anyone else here, so technically I can go now. What do you say? Game for the game?”
Saying no would only lead to more probing questions. “Okay,” I said, feeling like I was stepping out on thin ice.
The waitress brought our drinks.
“We’ll keep it as innocent as possible. How old were you when you had your first kiss?”
“That’s easy. A few hours.”
“Very funny. I meant a kiss from a boy.”
“You didn’t specify that, so I go now. How old were you when you kissed the first girl unrelated to you or she kissed you?”
“Actually, that’s perfect for this game. I was ten. My cousin Nora was sixteen, and she and her parents were visiting us, and Nora brought her friend Jenny. They started to play truth or dare in the room I was in, and when Jenny chose not to answer a question that had made her blush, my cousin Nora’s dare was for her to kiss me like a lover. I was so frightened that I ran out of the room. Naturally, they were hysterical.”
“Where was your sister?”
“Already sent to a private school.”
“That young?”
“Yes,” he said. His expression changed subtly, his eyes narrowing, his lips tightening. Then he quickly smiled again. “You just asked two questions. I go twice.”
“That can’t be fair.”
“All’s fair in love and war.”
“Which is this?” I asked.
Before he could respond, the waitress brought our antipasto. It was enormous.
“No one goes hungry here,” Troy said, seeing the way I was gaping at it. “They’ll box whatever we don’t eat, and you can bring it back to your dorm.”
He served me some, and we began to eat.
“Okay, truth or dare. How old were you when you had your first boyfriend?”
“Fifteen,” I said.
“How long did it last?”
“A few months.”
“How old were you when you had your first?” I countered. “Truth or dare.”
He looked at his watch, thought a moment, and then said, “Seventeen years, four months, three days, seventeen hours, and twenty minutes.”
I stopped eating. “I’m your first girlfriend?”
“That’s another question. You have to wait for mine. Did your boyfriend cheat on you and that’s why you broke up?”
How do I answer this? I wondered. Yes, he had cheated on me, but he didn’t know he was cheating on me. He was drugged and made love to Haylee, who had engineered the whole thing. Still, it was cheating, and I had been angry at him.
“Yes.”
Our pizza came.
“This is as good as it gets in the United States,” Troy declared, putting a piece on my plate for me.
“So you’ve introduced me to the best ice cream sundaes and now the best pizza. All within two days,” I said.
“The best is yet to come,” he replied.
Was it? I wondered. Not if we kept playing this truth or dare game, I thought.
When the pizza had cooled enough to eat, I had to confess that it was the best I ever had. He smiled with that self-confident, self-satisfied look that convinced everyone he was the king of snobs at Littlefield. I should have changed the subject, but I didn’t, partly because of my reaction to him. In some ways, his arrogance reminded me of Haylee, and I wanted to chase that ghost out as soon as I could.
“Truth or dare. Why didn’t you have a girlfriend before me?”
He held his smile. “I’ll take dare,” he said.
I sat back. “Okay, then. I dare you to eat the rest of this pizza and antipasto yourself.”
“Oh, come on. I can do it, but I’d be cheating you out of a great meal. Think of something else.”
“It would be easier for you to just answer the question,” I said, smiling.
He didn’t. In fact, he looked suddenly very troubled, a darkness coming into his face. He lowered his gaze. All sorts of theories flashed through my mind. A girlfriend had hurt him very deeply. He was unsure of his own sexual interests, and I was a sort of test.
“Maybe we should wait to play any more. You’re right. I’m hungry, and I don’t want to give up the food,” I offered as an escape.
That unfroze his face.
“Okay. I confess about the game. I was just being lazy trying to get to know you. Something tells me you’re a challenge.”
“Something tells me the same about you.”
He smiled again. The tenseness of the moment passed, and he talked about safer subjects like the places he had been, the time he had been in Italy. I kept him busy answering questions about places.
“Doesn’t sound like your family does much traveling,” he said.
“My father’s always been a workaholic, and my mother’s not fond of traveling.”
I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t ask me if I had any brothers or sisters. Claudia and Marcy, and therefore all the girls in my class and my dorm, believed I didn’t. If he really was seeking information about me, which was what he revealed, he would just assume that was true, too.
“Are you really up for going to a movie?” he asked. He looked at his watch. “I’m afraid we might violate the curfew.”
“That’s okay. This was wonderful. Thank you.”
“I’d like to show you something else, a sort of visual dessert.”
“As long as I don’t have to eat another thing,” I said, looking down at my plate. “There’s nothing to take back to the dorm.”
“Didn’t think there would be. No, nothing more to eat.”
He signaled for the check. Mario, although still very busy, took a moment to say good night to us. I saw him give Troy the high sign about me and smiled to myself as we left.
Troy was unusually quiet when we were in his car and driving off.