Doe was fighting a great tug, that embarrassing, savage need of every dumpee to have the last conversation. Even though you knew the last one had already taken place. One more, you cried. There was always more to say and even more to take back.
She kept replaying Lark’s line in her head, that the privileged had to look for goodness just like everybody else. Wasn’t that just like Lark, to think that everybody looked for goodness? Doe never had. She had looked for the opposite. So she could be ready.
She would never have the last conversation. She would not be able to explain, to sum up what made her so broken, to explain what it’s like when you’re wired to feel every innocence that was lost.
She’d have to learn to be a better person. Was that something you could learn? Was Shari finally right about something other than laundry? Could she forget the tampon in her nose, and remember the tuna sandwich?
The last thing Shari had said to her was “Phoenix.” With no job and no money, they had nowhere else to go but to her aunt. Shari was going to wait until it was later and then call the odious Belinda. It would be hell, but for a girl who had always cultivated options, Doe had run out.
Doe mapped the route on her phone. Turned out there were a thousand ways to get to Phoenix, basically. Despite Shari’s pleas for “scenic stops,” Kansas City barbecue or New Orleans or the St. Louis arch, Doe was headed for a straight line down superhighways. When you blow town, you blow town.
“I read somewhere that the next thing that’s going to go is water,” Shari had said. “And isn’t it like a desert there already? I’m sure Phoenix knows what it’s doing, though.”
“Yeah,” Doe said.
“They have museums there. I looked it up. And fancy hotels. With concierges. Spas! We’ll get killer jobs. We won’t have to stay with Belinda long.”
Doe lay back down again, weighted by her mother’s buoyancy. She had been raised by a child.
The luck of the exile: You get to choose where to go. Well, not if you’re leaving Syria. But if you’re a pretty girl with a good brain, a dependable car, and $422.15 in your bank account, sure. She’d heard on a podcast that most Americans couldn’t find $400 if they had an emergency. She was $22.15 ahead of the game.
Jem and Ruthie had come earlier (waking her up—after this experience she would sleep for days) and she had endured Ruthie’s weepy thanks and Jem’s tears. Ruthie had kissed her on the forehead and said she was her friend for life. Which was a first, for Doe.
Then Ruthie had left to find Shari, who was out in the hallway somewhere, and Jem had looked at her miserably and Doe had felt worse, because they had an asshole in common.
Jem picked at the hole in her jeans. “Everyone keeps telling me it’s not my fault.”
Doe sighed. “You didn’t make the wind. You weren’t the crew. You weren’t the curator who forgot the instructions and didn’t tell the crew to take the things down. And you weren’t the guy who fooled around with a fifteen-year-old. First time?”
A deep blush began on Jem’s cheeks and spread to her neck. “Yeah.”
“Shit, that sucks.” Doe adjusted her position, which hurt, so she relied on eye contact to signal interest.
Jem looked at her hands. “Annie says you’re nice.”
“I like Annie.”
“I do, too. I sort of trashed her. I mean, we used to be friends.”
“Yeah. She still likes you, though. She hates that girl Meret.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s funny how people you don’t even like sort of make you do things,” Doe said. “I remember that from high school. Don’t worry, it wears off.”
Jem snapped off a thread and wound it around her finger until it was white.
“Hey,” Doe said. “Every single person on the planet has been an idiot about sex, okay?”
“Even you?”
“Oh, dude. Especially me.” Doe waited. She wanted to still Jem’s hands and rub some circulation back in that finger, but she knew better.
“There was this thing he said,” Jem said.
“Uh-huh.”
Jem twisted in the chair. “I said something about how weird it would be if his stepmom and my dad got married. And he said he thought that would be so cool, because hey, easy access for him. It was so…awful the way he said it.”
“Pig,” Doe said.
“I got pissed. So I said, Wow, how romantic. What the eff. And he said I was cute, because I wouldn’t say fuck. So already I’m thinking, How can I want to get with this person if I don’t even like him?”
“Well, that happens sometimes,” Doe said.
Jem twisted even more in the chair, winding her ankles around the legs. There was more.
“What else did he say?” Doe asked.
Jem dropped her head. “So he said, Are you a little girl after all, the little girl who can’t even say fuck, even when she wants it so bad?” Tears squeezed out of Jem’s eyes, and Doe watched them drip. “I hated him, and I did it anyway! I’m so stupid!”
Doe placed her hands under the covers and squeezed. The problem was that the world was full of men like this.
“Thank you for hitting him really hard,” Jem said.
“My pleasure.”
Jem’s face was now gross with tears and snot, so Doe groped for the box with the flimsy one-ply tissues that didn’t do shit. Did that make sense in a hospital, a building full of tears? She slid the box across the bed toward Jem.
“Let me guess. He called you Beauty.”
Jem looked at her over the tissue.
“He said, Let’s be alone, just us. I like the sound of that. Just us.”
“How do you…oh.” Jem twisted the tissue. “Oh.”
“I told you I was an idiot. Look, I don’t want to make you feel bad. I did a lot of things at fifteen that were worse than this. The thing is, you’ve got a gift you didn’t even ask for. You’re beautiful. You’ve got to be careful with that. Anybody will want to get with you, but you’ve got to think it through.”
Listen to her, giving advice. Easy enough, especially with her acres of hindsight.
“Someday,” Doe said, “you’re going to be sitting in some dorm room, talking about your first time, and you’re going to say ‘Bouncy castle,’ and everybody’s going to scream. I’m telling you, you’re going to kill it with that story, for the rest of your life.”
Jem smiled a little. “But it will never be funny, because you almost died.”
The sweetness of this girl! Doe remembered watching Teletubbies while Shane got out the kitchen door. How long had he been out there? How long did it take before she looked around and saw his bowl of Lucky Charms abandoned? The milk stained pink. Not long. Maybe two minutes. Three. Long enough. Seconds and minutes counted, and who knew that better than her?
“Hey, we’re a team,” Doe said. “We survived Howl’s Moving Castle, dude.”
“Are you really okay, though?” Jem asked.
I don’t know, Doe wanted to say, and she felt like crying.
Shari pushed open the door, followed by Ruthie. “We have doughnuts!” She saw Jem, slapped down the bag, and hugged her. “Honey! You were so brave! There you were, holding on for dear life, and I’m thinking, Jump, jump, but you waited for the exact right time! And you jumped! So brave!”
“Not really,” Jem said. “Doe was the brave one. She’s the one who said Go! And she’s the one who got hurt.”
“You know what I say, there’s a crack in everything,” Shari said. “That’s what glue is for.”
Doe dropped her face in her hands and groaned. “One time my mom picked me up at school in seventh grade,” she said.
“Not that story!” Shari cried. “Doe!”
“…and all the car windows were down, and Shania Twain was blasting, and she was wearing a bikini top and
orange pants, and she got out of the car and waved and yelled my name and everyone saw.”
“She yelled your name?” Jem repeated, in horror.
Shari shook her head, placing the doughnuts on the bed tray, pushing a cup of coffee toward Doe. Smiling as big as a river.
“Believe me, compared with that? This is nothing,” Doe said. Taking the coffee, smiling into the cup.
64
THE BREEZE OFF the water brought a green, loamy smell Ruthie’s way. She pictured peeling emotion off her nerves like bark off a tree, leaving her a pale column of oak. Like one of those mortals who got changed into a tree. She’d like to be a tree.
She felt calm.
First, Adeline.
Mike was with Jem, helping her pack. She had a little time.
Adeline opened the door. She didn’t look glowy and perfect. She looked like an aging beautiful woman with troubles, surrounded by cartons and suitcases. She said hello in a distracted way. “Come in, I’m sorry, I promise this will all be organized in some fashion. I know you and Jem are moving back in this week.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Ruthie stopped short. The painting was on the floor, leaning against a wall.
“Joe Bloom brought it over this morning,” Adeline said, waving at it. “Apparently Lucas found it in a storage unit.”
“I know, I saw it at the Belfry last night.”
“Well, Daniel can’t buy it.” Adeline gave it a quick glance. “I hate it.”
“Well, it’s not…flattering.”
“It’s not that. It’s a stupid thing. Embarrassing to admit, really. I think you’ll understand because you knew Peter so well. How he was with women.”
“Well, sure.”
“The thing is, if he turned his attention to you, he sort of…enshrined you. And you felt you were…special among women. If you were vulnerable to that, he had you. And I was vulnerable. Now I know, of course, how dumb I was. I loved him. But this…that he could paint me this way. Well. I deserve it. It’s my fault for wanting to be first among women.” She looked at the painting. “Jeez.”
“We all want to be first,” Ruthie said.
Adeline wrung her hands. Ruthie had never seen anyone do that before, and now she understood the term, watching Adeline’s slender, well-kept hands squeezing, rotating, squeezing.
“Lucas had sex with Jem last night,” Ruthie said.
Adeline gasped. “What? When?”
“In the bouncy castle.”
“Oh, my God. How is she?”
“She’s okay. She’s shook up, of course.”
“He didn’t—”
“No. Completely consensual. If there’s such a thing with a fifteen-year-old. Which there isn’t.”
Adeline sat down slowly. “No, there isn’t, is there.” Her hands were still, and she stared at them, clasped in her lap in a prayer position. “What are we going to do?”
“We have to talk to him.”
“I’ll get him.”
“Maybe first we should—” Ruthie started, but Adeline was already moving fast, her bare feet thudding against the hardwood.
She rapped on his door. “Lucas. Lucas.”
“I’m not awake.”
“Come out here. Now. It’s important.”
“Christ, you’re kidding me.”
“Now!” Adeline returned to the kitchen. They said nothing, just stood and waited in silence. In a few moments they heard the bedroom door open.
Lucas entered the room in a pair of shorts and no shirt, his hair messy. “Ruthie,” he said. “What are you doing here? Is there coffee?”
“Apparently you had sex with Jem last night,” Adeline said.
Lucas said nothing, but his gaze went from Adeline to Ruthie.
“Is that what she says?”
“So it’s true. Terrific. This is just what I need. Lucas!”
“Let’s forget about the fact that I was almost killed last night!” Lucas crossed to the cupboard and took out a cup. “That bouncy castle thing blew like fifty feet in the air!”
“And you jumped out and left Jem in it,” Ruthie said. “And Doe.”
“I told them I’d go first,” Lucas said. “It seemed safer.”
“Oh, please,” Ruthie said.
“I was going to hold it down!”
“Lucas! Let’s get back to the sex part,” Adeline said.
“He’s been pursuing Jem all summer,” Ruthie said. “Or maybe I should say grooming her.”
Lucas slammed down the cup. “Oh, here we go.”
“She’s fifteen!” Adeline cried.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Of course you did,” Adeline said. “Don’t lie to me!”
“I didn’t at first. So there’s an age difference. Look at you and your handyman!” Lucas smirked. “At least I kept it in the family.”
Ruthie breathed out her nose. She was going to stay calm because it was the way to win. “If we want to get technical, it’s rape,” Ruthie said.
Adeline closed her eyes.
“So what are you going to do, call the police, Ruthie?” Lucas asked. “I’d think twice about that if I were you.”
“I have thought about it,” Ruthie said. “A lot. Believe me.”
Suddenly he lunged over the counter. “You fucking bitch!”
Adeline moved faster than Ruthie imagined she could. She placed herself between them and shoved Lucas back. He knocked into the table and a cup turned over, spilling coffee before rolling off and smashing on the floor.
“What the fuck!” Lucas yelled. “Don’t push me!”
He sounded like a child. Adeline took a step toward him, her palm out. “This will not happen. You will not threaten, you will not raise your voice, you will shut up and listen to me.”
“I don’t listen to you,” Lucas said, but he looked unnerved as he leaned against the counter and crossed his arms.
“The law says there’s no such thing as consent at Jem’s age,” Ruthie said. “Just so you know.”
“This is ridiculous,” Lucas said. “I just want you to know, Ruthie, she pursued me, okay?”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re completely innocent, as usual,” Adeline said, rubbing her forehead. “And in another minute, you’ll tell me you’re the victim.”
“Here we go again.” Lucas went to a thermos on the counter. He got another mug and poured himself coffee. “All the things that are wrong with me, right? Maybe you should have given one fucking shit about how I was raised. How I was shafted. He tied me to you, knowing that we hated each other.” He held his cup in two hands and sipped.
“I don’t hate you, Lucas,” Adeline said. “I never hated you. I tried. You got a bad deal, and you made it worse.” She rubbed her mouth. “How am I going to tell Michael?” she asked, but she wasn’t asking them.
“It all comes back to you, doesn’t it. Who cares.” Lucas threw his coffee in the sink. “This is slop. I’m going out.”
“You are not going out until we talk about this!”
“I’m sick of being blamed!” He stomped into his room, pulled on a shirt, grabbed his keys, slammed the door.
Adeline lowered herself into a chair. “My fault,” she said. “I should have seen something. I didn’t see a thing. They weren’t together in this house, I promise you.”
“It was only the one time. And I didn’t see it, either,” Ruthie said. “I think the fault is mine.”
Adeline pressed her fingers against her eyes. “When are you going to tell Michael? Should we tell him together?”
Ruthie took Lucas’s cup and rinsed it. It was one of her favorites, the one she saved for her tea. She’d never drink out of it again. She dried her hands and sat across from Adeline.
“I’m not going to tell
him.”
“What?”
She folded the dish towel and pushed it away. “Do you remember your first time?”
“What?”
“Was it lovely? Was it meaningful? Was it your true love? Do you cherish the memory?”
Adeline laughed. “Hardly. It was the guy my parents hired to paint the house. A college student. He wore white overalls with no shirt underneath. I was dazzled. He went back to school and never called me again. We did it in his truck. I was sixteen.”
“Mine was my high school boyfriend,” Ruthie said. “I held him off for months and then we did it at a party. It lasted about a minute. He broke up with me a week later.”
“Girls.” Adeline shook her head. “What we get through.”
“It’s just part of our story,” Ruthie said. “Look, I’m trying to figure out the right thing. I’m trying to see around corners. My daughter lost her virginity to a twenty-three-year-old. How she’ll deal with that over time is something I can’t see. There are so many traumas we absorb and then we just get on with it. We didn’t tell our fathers about how we lost our virginity, did we? Or our mothers? I don’t want to paper over this, but I know that if Mike knew, he’d never be able to look at Lucas again.”
“I know,” Adeline said. “I’m not sure I can, either.”
“Or even hear his name. Ever. And that would be the end for you both.”
Adeline opened her mouth, but then closed it. “But I can’t keep a secret from him.”
“I know, it feels terrible. For me, too. Mike and I are still partners when it comes to Jem. She doesn’t want him to know, she’s adamant. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I agree.”
“Why would you do that for us?”
“I’m doing it for Jem,” Ruthie said. She felt impatient. Adeline was staring at her hands. Keep up, she wanted to say. But then she’d had hours to think about this, to plan. “Having her father know would bring it home in a fresh way. Seeing Mike would be painful and embarrassing for her, and for a long time. If the two of us can keep this secret, I think we have a shot at keeping things okay for Jem. But Lucas can’t ever be in the same room with her again.”
There was a pause. “I can do that,” Adeline said.