“Keeping up academically was nearly impossible. Sometimes a new school would be behind me in some subjects, but the next school might be way ahead. If I got lucky and found a teacher willing to spend time with me, my parents moved again before I got enough help to make a difference. When I graduated, I had barely passed most of my classes. I excelled only in English, because I always escaped from reality by reading books from the school library. Even though I could decipher words and guess their meanings, I was a rotten speller.” Her mouth twisted with bitterness. “My folks often moved in the middle of the night. They owed rent. They hadn’t paid for their utilities. They sneaked away under cover of darkness and never warned me ahead of time. I’ll bet I took thousands of dollars in books from school libraries over the years.”
Ben tried to think of something to say. “Well, you were just a kid. It’s not as if you deliberately stole them.”
“Spoken like a man who always got to return his library books.” Her mouth twisted again, this time into a smile laced with fond regret. “Librarians are special. They enjoy when kids haunt the library, looking for wonderful books to read.” Her dark lashes swept low over her cheeks and then fluttered upward. “They don’t judge children by their covers, so to speak. They never seemed to notice that my clothes were bargain bin specials or that my hair had been hacked by my mother. I never owned a hair dryer or a curling iron until I ran away from home.”
Ben had moved beyond wanting to silence her. He was fascinated. Sissy was peeling away all the layers and revealing to him who she really was. His heart hurt for the little girl she’d once been.
She looked deeply into his eyes. “The school librarians were always my friends. By the time I was ten, when I arrived at a new school, the first place I wanted to go was the library. I knew I’d make a new friend there, if only for a short while.”
Ben wanted to hug her up in his arms. “Hey, you,” he said, aiming for a teasing tone. “I think you may be spilling beans tonight that you’ll wish you still had in the pot tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “I need to get all this said.” Her aching blue gaze locked on his. “You need to know who I really am, Ben. Otherwise, I can’t move forward with you. Do you get that?”
His stomach knotted. “Sure. I get that. I don’t think I’ve kept any secrets from you. I’m glad you’re not going to keep any from me.”
“My teens weren’t fun. The girls picked on me, and so did the boys, only in a different way. The poorer girls called me names, laughed at me, shunned me, and sometimes beat me up if they caught me alone. I was beyond poor, and I think it made them feel good to finally be able to look down on someone instead of being the ones who were looked down upon. The rich girls, with professionally employed parents, treated me like I had a contagious disease. It wasn’t only my awful clothes and haircuts. I couldn’t get good grades, no matter how hard I tried, so they thought I was a dummy as well as a scumbag.”
Ben winced.
“The boys saw me as easy picking. I had no friends. They probably knew I was lonely. The first time I got targeted, a boy offered to carry my books. I’d gotten to the school in spring, and there were no empty lockers, so I had to lug everything around all day. My parents couldn’t afford to buy me a book bag. Translate that to mean my father wanted the money for booze. This boy shared two classes with me, so in between those two periods, he’d carry my books to our next class. I thought he was so nice. He was cute and popular. I think it was about a week and a half before he demanded paybacks.”
She paused and swallowed. Ben’s heart hurt. “Paybacks?”
“Yeah. He coaxed me into an empty classroom and wanted sex. When I refused, he threw all my books at me.” She touched a tiny white mark above her eyebrow that Ben had never noticed. “A corner of one of them cut me and made me bleed.”
“Dear God. Did you go to the office and report it?”
She burst out laughing. “You really don’t get it, do you? If I had done that, the principal would have called my folks, and then my dad would have punished me for drawing attention to myself. He isn’t just a drunk; he’s crazy. He did jail time for car theft and assault. He jumped parole. He owed people money in every town we lived in. He stayed under the radar as much as possible. Before I finished high school I’d lived in thirty-six states.” She took a deep breath. “At the next school, a boy noticed that I had nothing to eat for lunch several days running. He bought two lunches in the cafeteria, found me, and handed me a tray. I was wary. I was starting to realize that nobody did anything nice unless they expected a payback. But he’d already paid for it, and I was hungry, so I sat with him in the cafeteria to eat. That guy waited until after school. There, if you lived within a half mile, you had to walk, and I was one of the unlucky ones who couldn’t take a bus. He waited. He’d been watching. He grabbed me off the sidewalk and dragged me into some bushes. He said I was his, bought and paid for. I curled my hand over a rock and bonked him in the face. I ran like a rabbit for home and never told my parents.”
Ben felt sick. He remembered when he’d tried to hang a heat lamp for her, and he finally understood why she had so adamantly refused, why she’d rejected his offer of friendship at first, and also why she never wanted to be indebted to anyone.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured.
She flapped her hand. “I’m not finished. Now I’m going to tell you about my first boyfriend. And trust me, your story about your first romance won’t be similar to mine, period.”
“Oh.” Ben tried to think of something he could say.
“He was actually my almost boyfriend. When I got to that new school, I was—hmm—sixteen, I think. I definitely knew the drill. Kept my head down. Didn’t stay in the bathrooms any longer than necessary because that was where other girls might draw on me with lipstick or beat me up. A hobo is what they called me there.”
Ben’s muscles jerked. “A what?”
Sissy giggled. “A hobo, or sometimes a scumbag or transient. Your childhood, compared to mine, was likely a walk on easy street,” she said with no trace of resentment. “Anyway, back to my story. I arrived at this new school. I thought I’d learned to be invisible. Watched my feet when I walked. Sat outside in a hidden place to eat my sack lunch if it was warm enough, or sneaked into an empty classroom to eat if it was winter. I went to a water fountain if I wanted a drink. Kids could leave campus if they had transportation, but some of them stayed to eat in the cafeteria. I didn’t want them to see what my mother had managed to make for me—or, most times, what I’d made for myself because she’d started working nights a lot by then.
“Anyway, I’d been at the new school for about a week when a guy cornered me out in the hall during lunch hour. He was very nice and said all the right things. ‘You’re so pretty, blah, blah, blah.’ And he asked me out to the movies. I about fainted. He was a very popular football star, and I couldn’t believe he’d even noticed me. His dad was the mayor and owned a huge ranch.” Tears pooled in Sissy’s eyes. “That boy was so out of my league, but I thought he actually liked me. So I said I’d go out with him.”
Ben felt her fingers loosen their grip on his and start to tremble.
“Instead of taking me to the movie theater, he drove out onto his dad’s property where he knew nobody would happen along. By then, I was nervous. No, actually, I was scared. I tried to get out of the car, but it was a fancy one, with door locks that the driver could control. He tried to rape me.” She lowered her gaze, her attention focused on the beef stain on the green scrub top. “He picked on the wrong girl. I was a nobody, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to be a victim because of that. So I fought him with every ounce of my strength.”
“Good for you.” Ben heard his voice. It sounded like a boot being dragged over gravel. “I hope you kicked his ass.”
“Not really. Mostly I just pissed him off. He called me a piece of white trash and said I wasn’t go
od enough to lick his feet. When I scratched him, he punched me in the face. At that point, I knew I had to outsmart him, so I went limp, pretending he’d knocked me out, and then I waited for my chance. He dropped his pants and straddled me, giving me a perfect target for a knee jab, and I gave him a good one. Then I punched him with an upward slam to his nose. While he cried like a baby, I crawled over him to release the door locks, and then I ran.”
“Oh, sweetheart. I’m so—”
“I’m not finished. That’s only the start of my story. It was darker than smut out there. I was new to the area and had no idea where I was. I ran blind. When I realized I was going the wrong way, I got off the road, stumbled through the woods toward distant lights, and reached town. Only then I wasn’t sure where our house was. I was disoriented. Couldn’t remember the street we lived on. After hours of walking, I finally got home.”
Ben realized that he was now squeezing her hand. He tried to loosen his grip for fear of hurting her.
“I burst into the house, thinking my parents would go to the police and press charges against the boy. But, as always, my dad was drunk. He’d been waiting for me and building up steam. Before I could tell him anything, he started hitting me and calling me a slut. I was so banged up the next day, I couldn’t go to school. And when my mother told my dad that it was the mayor’s son who attacked me, they packed up and left that very morning. My dad wanted no part of pressing charges against a mayor’s kid.”
“Sweet Jesus.” Ben’s throat suddenly felt as if he’d guzzled drain cleaner.
“At the next school, there were other popular boys who asked me out. I was never dumb enough to accept again. To them, I was nothing. And that was pretty much true. I lived in shacks. My clothes were awful. My mom used some of her tips once to buy me makeup, and when my dad found out, he beat the hell out of her.” She glanced up at Ben, her expression suddenly rebellious. “But being nothing doesn’t mean I’m someone to be used.”
Ben, gazing down at her precious face, couldn’t believe she’d ever felt that way about herself, and it was even more mind-boggling to realize that she possibly still did. Before he could get a word out, she rushed on to say, “When I met you, I immediately tagged you as one of those popular boys. Well, not a boy, definitely a man, but I still used the same measuring stick.”
Ben’s heart twisted. He had been popular in school. Everyone in town had respected and admired his parents. At sixteen, he’d worked for his dad on the farm and earned enough money to buy a nice used pickup with his father’s help. On the surface, he’d been the spoiled son of a pillar of the community.
“You come from a normal family. You not only got a good education as a kid but went on to university. What that boy said was true. My parents are white trash, and an apple never falls far from the tree.”
Ben tried to protest, but Sissy cut him off. “You need to listen. The worst thing for me wasn’t how the boys at school treated me. It was the way my father did. He couldn’t keep a job because of his drinking, so when I was in my teens, my mom started working double shifts at a truck stop to keep a roof over our heads, booze in the cupboard, and at least some food on the table. About three months before I graduated, she started working the graveyard shift. One night, I woke up from a sound sleep to find my father on top of me.”
Ben released his hold on her hands, not because he didn’t want to comfort her, but because he knew he’d grip her fingers with too much force. He still didn’t know her father’s name, but he did know the man would crawl and beg for mercy if he ever found him. Sissy. He remembered when she’d given him the finger times five, and tears stung his eyes. Snotty, cold-shouldered Sissy with a smart mouth and an attitude he didn’t understand. Now, though, he was starting to comprehend why she’d been wary of him for so long.
“My own father tried to rape me,” she whispered raggedly. “He thought I was nothing, too. I hit him on the back of the head with my bedside lamp. He was already drunk. The blow knocked him out. At first I was afraid I’d killed him—but I hadn’t.”
Ben nodded. He knew that wasn’t an appropriate response, but he couldn’t speak.
“What were the chances that he’d remain unconscious until my mom got home? And, as always, we lived on a rough side of town, so I wasn’t about to leave the house to hide from him all night, only to risk getting gang-raped. So I ran out to his old beater pickup, grabbed the tire iron, and sat in the dark living room, waiting for the bastard to wake up.”
Ben didn’t ask what happened next. Sissy, who’d always guarded her secrets so fiercely, had now opened her floodgates. “When he staggered out of my bedroom, mad enough to hunt bear with a butter knife, I greeted him with the tire iron, and I was ready to use it. I told him that if he ever tried again, I’d kill him, and I meant it. He called me horrible names, but he didn’t come near me. He finally got tired of yelling and went to my parents’ room, where he passed out again on the bed.”
Ben swallowed, trying to wet his throat so he could speak. “Did he ever try again?”
She shook her head. “I slept with the tire iron until I earned my diploma, and then, without a dime in my pockets, I moved out. Well, I grabbed what clothes I could carry and stole what was left of a loaf of bread. I’ve never contacted them since. I don’t know where they are, and I don’t care.”
Ben stared down at her slender hand that he’d recently been holding. “You still wear your mother’s mood ring.”
She nodded. “My mom isn’t bad, Ben. She’s just crazy. That’s my only explanation for her staying with him all these years. I despise my father. A part of me still loves my mother, even though I know she doesn’t deserve that. She was the adult. She was obligated to protect me. Instead the only thing she ever did to make him stop pounding on me was to step into his line of fire and take the beating herself.” She lifted her hand and stared at the ring. “The mood ring is symbolic to me. It changes colors, according to how the person wearing it feels. While growing up, I lived with a man whose moods predicted whether we had fair weather or foul inside our home. When I look at this ring, I don’t think about how much I love my mom. I think about how I can avoid ever being anything like her.”
Ben wished he could come up with something more to say, but he was fresh out of words. Sissy’s former euphoria had been pushed aside by sadness and rage. He guessed that the narcotic could take a person either way. Only, in all honesty, he couldn’t blame all this on the happy syrup. She had every reason to feel sad and outraged. Who wouldn’t?
“So, after you left home, did you encounter any more jerks?”
“A trucker who pretended he had a spare set of tires that would fit my car if I’d meet him outside after my shift. Another trucker intervened, so except for a few bruises, I survived.” She shrugged. “The bad guys were everywhere, and I had a talent for finding them. A couple of bosses who offered me better shifts to earn more tips, provided that I would go into the storage room with them every night and put out. Male waiters who busted ass to help do my work when it got busy and wanted favors in return.” She smiled slightly. “I did meet a couple of good guys along the way, only it turned out the really nice one was gay, and the other one was already in love with someone else.” She held up a finger. “And I can’t forget my last boss, Gus. When he got mad, he threw pots around the kitchen, but he never laid a hand on his waitresses. And when I inherited the café, he spent hours on the phone with me, teaching me how to cook.”
“I’m sorry that so many bad things happened to you.” Ben flexed his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck. “At least you’re out of it now, a businesswoman who’s worked hard for success.” He gestured around them. “Just look at what you’ve done here! You’ve doubled your aunt’s business. You’re remarkable. Remember when I couldn’t figure out my accounting program and I sent you my files? You figured it out after I’d been struggling with it for weeks. The apple did fall far from the t
ree in your case. You don’t have to put up with any of that crap ever again.”
Sissy surprised him by saying, “I know. After I got the café, I took online courses at night after working all day to improve my spelling, vocabulary, and math skills. Intellectually, I know I’m now just as good as anybody else is, when it comes to cooking, anyway.” She pressed her fist over her heart. “But way deep down, Ben, that girl and young woman are still inside of me. Their voices still whisper inside my head. Not really voices, but feelings that remind me I’m not as good as everyone else. I try to chase them away, but they often sneak back in.”
Ben took her hand again. “Maybe later, when things are back to normal, you should get some counseling.”
“Maybe, but how could it help? When you’re raised like I was, I think ‘low-class’ gets branded on your heart.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “But, like you say, the bad times are behind me now. The problem is, I can’t leave behind who I really am. My father is crazy. My mother is nuts. I’ve never met any of my relatives on either side, but I’m pretty sure I’ll find a bunch of fruitcakes if I try to find them. I’ve got bad blood.”
Ben’s skin went cold. “You rose above it. Look at yourself now. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Law of averages. What are my chances?” She sighed as if talking so long had drained her. “At least you know who I really am now. I’m not from your world, Ben. As kids, we didn’t even grow up on the same planet. Everywhere I ever lived, I was the daughter of the town drunk.”
Ben struggled against his urge to gather her into his arms. “Sissy, will you do me a favor?”
“If you’re about to ask me for sex, the answer is yes.”
Ben laughed, and he couldn’t quite believe he’d done it. Talk about bad timing. “I will ask for that sometime, but not tonight. The favor is this. I want you to brand something new on your heart in huge, bold print.”