Poppies

“Mama!” Mara-Joy called out merrily at the door. “I’m leaving now.”

  Joanna, who was doing her homework with her two younger sisters at the kitchen table, looked up at Mara-Joy and wondered why she was so happy lately. It must be because of that boy, Chad. All Mara-Joy talked about lately was Chad, Chad, Chad. Joanna shook her head. What on earth did he see in Mara-Joy? Then again, Joanna was always surprised at how her sister seemed to draw people around her. It was like she was a magnet and everyone else, metal. For the life of her, she would never understand people’s attraction to Mara-Joy.

  She was beautiful, yes, but couldn’t anyone see past her looks and into her soul? Couldn’t they see how ugly Mara-Joy really was?

  Apparently not. Joanna absently shook her head and dove back into her schoolwork.

  “Another date with Chad, dear?” Jobeth asked, walking into the kitchen.

  “Make sure you are home by ten. Your father will be home with Oliver by ten thirty, so be on time or he will have both our hides. You know how he disapproves of you dating this young.” Jobeth leaned over and kissed Mara-Joy on her rosy cheek. “Luv you.”

  “Me too, Mama.” Mara-Joy beamed and flushed with excitement. Nothing was going to spoil her mood tonight. She was flying high on life and had no plans of coming down. “I better go. Chad is waiting.” She grinned, pecking

  Jobeth one more time on the cheek.

  “Bye dear, don’t be late.” Jobeth stepped away from the door. Mara-Joy nodded as she waved a hand behind her and ran down the patio stairs, into the waiting car.

  Jobeth watched her daughter hop in and drive away. She closed the door, slowly feeling worried that maybe Alan was right and it was time to tell Mara-Joy to start dating other boys and not just this Chad fellow. What did they know about him anyway? They knew he came from a good family, but that was it. Mara-Joy had barely introduced him. Well, if she intended to keep seeing this boy, he would have to be properly introduced to Jobeth and Alan.

  She turned to the girls sitting and staring at her from the kitchen table.

  Joanna was frowning disapprovingly at her once again. Jobeth turned away and went upstairs to get ready for Alan.

  This would have to wait until later.

  Joanna went back to her schoolwork, baffled. As much as she tried to get it out of her head, she couldn’t recall her mother ever saying she loved her.

  “Hi babe,” Chad said to Mara-Joy when she hopped into the car. She looked really pretty tonight. Her hair was curly as always and hung nicely on her shoulders. She was wearing a blue dress: one of the new styles that hung loosely to her knees. A beaded white necklace dangled low between her breasts.

  Chad leaned over to kiss Mara-Joy on her red, lipsticked lips. She turned her head away, leaving him with a mouthful of hair. He pulled back, astonished.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, gripping the steering wheel and looking out the front window. The sky had already turned a bluish black and stars were beginning to shine dimly through. His mood was good. He had the prettiest girl in town on his arm and she seemed to be quite happy with him. Every time they were together she could barely take her hands off him. The night of the party, when they first made love, was just the beginning of their passionate affair. Every night they were together in the past two months ended with them grasping at each other’s bodies and inhaling each other’s souls.

  What could possibly be wrong?

  “Drive to the point. We have to talk,” Mara-Joy said sternly, but with confidence, not bothering to look at his stressed face.

  Mara-Joy smiled to herself thinking of the secret she was about to share. Her news would get her what she wanted: Chad.

  “Sure, babe. Anything you say.” He was confused, but drove out of the driveway and toward the point, asking no questions.

  He stopped the car when they reached the clearing nestled in the bushes overlooking the town. He turned to face Mara-Joy who was smiling. Relief began to lift the heavy feeling off his chest. Maybe she wanted to make love again. It would not be the first time she had initiated it.

  “What did you want to talk about?” he teased, his hand reaching out for her breast. This was more like the Mara-Joy he had come to know.

  “First, kiss me, you fiend.” She reached out and pulled him to her, kissing him greedily like a starved animal to a bone.

  Chad pulled away, pressing his pulsing lips together. “You had nothing to tell me. You just wanted to come up here for some loving.” He smiled wickedly.

  “You do know me.” She lowered her eyes and began to unbutton her blouse.

  Chad reached over and helped to release her perky breasts. Dark nipples pointed out at him.

  A deep grumbling noise erupted from his throat. He lowered his head and sucked up a nipple into his mouth.

  Mara-Joy let out a squeal, holding tightly to his head. She wiggled out of her dress and began to work on Chad’s bulging pants. With his pants off she swung over his throbbing member and mounted him. Chad reached out and grabbed her thighs, rocking her back and forth in heated desire.

  A half hour later, Chad sat back in his seat inhaling deep of his cigarette. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. Mara-Joy was buttoning up her dress ,completely satisfied after their quick ordeal.

  “Chad?” she asked as she adjusted her dress around her waist.

  “Yah, babe?” he asked as he smoked, feeling gratified. He could lie in her arms for hours. Every time he was with her, he felt like a million sticks of dynamite had exploded in his body.

  “I do need to talk to you,” she leaned forward so she was situated closer to his face.

  “About what? He opened his one eye and focused through the twirling smoke.

  “Well,” Mara-Joy said calmly as she placed her white gloves on her lap, “I wanted to talk about our wedding.” She looked immaculate, no one would be able to tell that moments before she had been thrashing against Chad’s thighs like an animal in heat.

  “Our wedding!?” Chad choked, the smoke from his cigarette sliding down the wrong pipe. He ran his fingers roughly through his hair and inhaled deeply of his cigarette. He rested his head back against the seat and began to chuckle to himself. He thought he loved Mara-Joy. Or maybe he just desired her. One or the other, it was not enough to marry her. He liked what they had. Just thinking about it made him want her again, even as she sat there glaring across at him.

  “Well, Chad darling,” Mara-Joy said, screwing up her lips in a matter-of-fact way, “I want to get married. And we have to.”

  Chad’s eyes flew opened, confused. If she thought they had to get married because of what they had done together, she was sadly mistaken. No one had forced her to take her clothes off. In fact, she had been the one to initiate everything in the first place. He lifted his head slowly from its resting place.

  “What do you mean?” he asked as he sat up straight looking at Mara-Joy for answers.

  “I am going to have your baby.”

  “What?” Chad choked. He had not been prepared for the words that escaped Mara-Joy’s lips. He shook his head, trying to erase her words form his brain. He clasped his hands over his ears and leaned against the steering wheel.

  It had to be a joke. This couldn’t be happening.

  But it could. They had never been careful. Not once. And they had been together intimately countless times over the last couple of months.

  What was he going to do? Mara-Joy came from a good family. He would be ruined in town.

  He sat up and looked out the front window into the night sky. He took a deep drag from his nearly burnt-out cigarette and exhaled.

  “I have heard of these places,” he began, formulating a plan, “these places where doctors can get it out.” He glanced quickly at Mara-Joy out of the corner of his eye. She was staring at him, her lips pursed tightly. “No one would ever know.” A cold sweat broke out on his brow; the car suddenly felt like a small cage slowly crushing him.

  “No,” Mara-Joy spoke
firmly. She continued to look at Chad, her eyes never leaving his crestfallen face. A grin of malice began to slip over her face as she spoke, very composed. “I want our child.”

  “No, Mara-Joy. I can’t get married. I won’t.” He shook his head furiously. He remembered his brother saying how some girls would do anything to get a guy to marry them. Why had he not listened to his brother? He was so stupid to not see this coming. What girl would give herself freely? He had been an idiot.

  “You will,” Mara-Joy said unruffled, “Yes, you will marry me, Chad, and we will have our child. No doctor is going ‘to get it out’ as you say.”

  Chad looked at her. She seemed so cool, so sure of herself. A chill went up his spine. He was soaked in the image of her sitting there glaring at him, defying him to continue. What did he know of this girl, anyway? What had he gotten himself into?

  “You see, Chad, if you don’t marry me, I will be forced to tell everyone you raped me and forced me to keep seeing you or you would kill me. I will say you used me every time we were together and I was so frightened of you that I kept quiet. Kept quiet, that is, until now.” She smiled, pleased with herself.

  “Imagine my horror when I discovered I was pregnant with your bastard child.” She leaned over toward Chad like a pouncing black cat and wrinkled her eyebrows. “Poor me. Ruined by a monster. The people in this town will tear you up for raping and impregnating a fourteen-year-old virgin.

  Not just any virgin either. A daughter of one of the town’s most respected families. It would

  be such a tragedy.” She looked deeply into Chad’s frightened eyes.

  “You wouldn’t get away with it. No one would believe you.” Chad stuttered, his future flashing before his eyes. Hate started to bubble up inside of him. This girl sitting beside him was not the girl he thought he knew. The girl he had held in his arms in the heat of passion had felt warm and inviting. The person in front of him was cold and conniving.

  “Oh, wouldn’t I Chad? My father and his friends would believe me. Have you ever met my father and his friends? They are very protective of me. They would kill anyone who would hurt me--especially someone who defiled their little girl.”

  Chad remembered Mara-Joy’s big burley father and the men he was always with: Mara-Joy’s uncles. Important men in the town. Men who were known to be protective over each other’s children.

  “They would move heaven and earth to see you pay for what you have done to me. Your reputation would be destroyed, ruined, finished.” She sat back in her seat and looked out her side of the window, letting her words sink in.

  “The authorities don’t take kindly to men who rape a fourteen-year-old girl and get her in a mothering way.”

  “You lie,” Chad whispered while his head slumped on his chest.

  “No, I tell the truth.” She pivoted to look at the collapsed form beside her. “So, what is it going to be, Chad? Your life or marriage to me?”

  “It seems you have already decided that for me,” Chad said softly, his eyes becoming unfocused as he stared mindlessly at the leathery steering wheel.

  “That is not true. You always have a choice, Chad. It’s just a matter of what the smart choice is to make? That, my dear, is for you to decide.” She leaned over and clasped his chin firmly between her palms. Her elbows dug painfully into his thighs as their eyes locked. “I have just laid out your choices.”

  Chad had made his choice. They were going to be married and it would be very soon.

  He drove her home not saying a word. Ghostly gray trees whizzed by the side window as he tried to grasp how he had gotten himself into this mess. For all he knew, Mara-Joy could be lying about the baby. She didn’t seem to have a problem with lying to people.

  “Chad,” Mara-Joy said, stepping out of the car and straightening the dress he had so easily and willingly pulled off her earlier, “tomorrow we will tell our families about the wedding.”

  She leaned over to kiss him but he turned his head mutely away from her pursing red lips.

  “You will have to learn that I always get what I want.” She rotated away and then swerved back again as though forgetting something, her purse thumped like a prison ball against the side of the car.

  “By the way, don’t get any ideas about running, either. The authorities will find you. My parents will make sure of that. Running away will only prove I was telling the truth.” She bent down and blew him a kiss through the window, turned and left. Her heels clicked merrily down the path leading to her house.

  The lights were on and Chad knew that behind the whitish-gray door, Mara-Joy’s mother would be waiting as always.

  “Everything is going as planned,” Mara-Joy said out, loud happily trying to contain herself from skipping down the pathway. “We will be one big happy family, Chad, you will see!” She laughed as her heels clicked up the front steps and up into the house.

  Chapter 28 —