She looks over at me. "I've had five years to think about what happened. About what I did. Five long—"
"What was it like? Prison."
She sighs and drags her palms along the tops of her thighs. I don't want her to sigh anymore. I can't stop staring at her and when her body heaves like that...
"It was prison, Josh. I don't know what you want to know. I worked. I taught women who never learned how to read or write. I get thank-you cards from them sometimes, now that they're on the outside. That's very ... It's very rewarding for me." Her bottom lip quivers and she looks at me like I just called her a liar, even though I haven't said a word. "I like that, OK? I loved being a teacher. I really did. I love to teach people, to help people, and now..." Her breath hitches and she looks up at the ceiling again and she's got tears glimmering in the corners of her eyes.
I give her her moment to go through her mantra, whatever it is. I force myself to stare at her face, not at the hint of cleavage revealed by the tank top. I force myself to be good.
She wipes at the tears when she looks at me again. "What do you want to hear, Josh? I had to fight sometimes, OK? Is that what you want to hear?"
"Did anyone hurt you?" I mean to ask it like I care, with compassion, but it comes out flat and disinterested.
"Someone tried to stab me once. She was insane. They ended up putting her in a mental hospital. A fight broke out in the laundry room my second year there. I wasn't involved, but I got caught up in it and when the guards broke it up, they broke my left arm. I spent two days in the infirmary. I was—I was terrified until it healed. I was weak, see? I was defenseless without both arms. I thought someone..." She leans forward: more distracting cleavage, more distracting words. "I went to therapy every day for the first two years. Then three times a week, then twice a week ... I still go every week." She gestures at the door. "I have to go today. That's why I'm not at work."
"Where do you work?"
"I do some proofreading for a law firm here. They have an arrangement with my parole officer. And I'm trying to get a position at the community college, teaching adult education courses." She waits, as if expecting me to say something. "Do you have any other questions, Josh?"
"You're still married." Not a question. But maybe just the hint of one.
"He was humiliated. He was—"
"He beat the hell out of me in my own backyard," I tell her, my voice tight.
She lowers her eyes. "I know. I'm so sorry. And he was, too. He really was. He told me ... If it weren't for the restraining order, he would have ... He wanted to tell you himself."
She shivers suddenly and I think it's an act, but I see goose bumps on her bare arms, as if the temperature has dropped twenty degrees. "Josh, I've had five years to think about this. I've waited all that time. And I thought I'd have to wait forever. I didn't think I'd ever be able to talk to you, not with your parents—"
"I'm eighteen now."
"I know. Please, let me tell you—"
"Why did you do it, Eve?"
She shivers some more and hugs herself, looking like Rachel for just the slightest moment. She rubs her arms, warming herself.
"Josh..." She can't look at me.
"Why, Eve?" My voice trembles. I try to force it steady, but I can't. My cheeks are wet and I wonder where the hell those tears came from. "Why, Eve? Why did you do it? Why?"
She's crying, too, great wracking sobs that shake her entire body and send streams down her face.
"Why, Eve? Goddamn it, I've been waiting forever to know. Why did you do it? Why did you let me seduce you?"
And time goes still.
For a little while.
My question hangs in the air between us, floats like some gossamer, luminescent cloud, drifting over the coffee table, obscuring and illuminating all at once.
I sniff and wipe my cheeks with the palm of my hand. Eve's choking sobs stop with a single snuffle as she jerks upright and stares at me. "What?"
And now I can't stop the waterworks no matter how hard I try. The tears just explode out of me. "Why?" I practically scream it. "I ruined your marriage. I ruined your life!"
"I don't—I don't understand, Josh. That's not—"
And I tell her. About watching her as she slept, about those first steps taken toward her. About the wedding photo. About staring at her toes, her cleavage, her legs, her hips. About devouring her with my eyes a thousand times and a thousand ways. Everything I never told her before. Everything that was so critical, so important.
"You used to drink," I tell her. "Every day, we'd come to the apartment and you would drink and I took advantage of you..."
She stands up from her chair and comes halfway around the coffee table and I'm crying and willing her to come closer, yes, come closer even though it's all my fault, even though it shouldn't happen. She stops and just stands there, watching me with something like horror as I try to stop myself from crying, but I can't; it's hopeless. And here's your answer, Dr. Kennedy—here it is: me. I'm angry at me. But you had the question wrong—it's not what Eve did to me, it's what I did to her.
"Is that what you thought?" she whispers, still a few paces away. "Is that what you've been ... Have you been carrying that around all these years? Oh, God, Josh, I'm so sorry..."
Hug me! I want to scream to her. Come hold me, goddamn it! It's the only time I ever felt safe. The only time I ever felt loved, and even though it destroyed you, I want it again—I need it again now more than I need anything else in the world.
"Josh, how could you think ... You were a child! You were twelve years old! How can you possibly ... Oh. Oh, my God." And she stumbles to her knees in front of me, and I burn with pain and lust at the familiar position juxtaposed to the unfamiliar emotions. "All these years you thought ... you thought that it was your ... your idea. Your fault ... Oh, God."
I fumble in my pocket for the newspaper clipping. It's one I've read over and over. I have it memorized. "Then what about this?" I hold it out to her. She takes it. The headline reads:
Defense: Sherman Molestation
"Sin of Opportunity"
The defense attorney for teacher Evelyn Sherman today told reporters in a press conference that her client acted on impulse when presented with an opportunity to act in a "sexually charged atmosphere."
"You see?" I tell her. "See what it says? The opportunity presented itself and you couldn't resist. That's what it—"
"No, Josh. No, no, no." As if she can change the world—can change history, can change fact—just by denying it. "This was ... this was early in the trial. You hadn't testified yet. My lawyer did this. She was trying ... I didn't want her to, but she was trying to lay the groundwork for a plea. This isn't real."
She looks up at me. I swoon, remembering her doing this years ago, looking up at me from her
—Watch me—
knees.
—my hands and put them on her head—
"...was all my fault," she's saying as I blink back into the present. "I'm so sorry. It was wrong. I abused you. I'm so sorry. It wasn't your fault at all. It was all mine."
And I can only manage to say, "It was?"
"Didn't anyone ever tell you?" she yells, her frustration exploding from her. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that it wasn't your fault?"
I'm almost afraid to answer. But I have to. In a voice small and weak. "I didn't believe them."
"Oh, God," she moans, and puts her forehead on my knee and bawls like a newborn baby.
I want to touch her. Her forehead is like coals on my knee, burning me, like she's always burned me. Fire. She's a flame and she's always been a flame.
I hold out my hand over her hair and stop, pause an inch or so away and watch in fascination as my hand quakes in the air. I can't make it move down any farther. It won't obey me. It won't let me touch her.
"Then ... then when?" I whisper.
She doesn't hear me. She keeps crying, shaking.
"Eve." Louder. "Eve, when?"
She
lifts her head up and sits back on her heels. Her face is red, her eyes puffy and distorted and bloodshot. "When?" she asks.
"When did you decide? How far along did things get before you decided you were going to have sex with me, Eve?"
There's a thousand years before her answer:
"The day we met, Josh. The first time I laid eyes on you."
The first time...? In class? In history class?
"There was no grad school project," she says. She won't look me in the eyes now—she looks down at her lap, where her hands are entwined. "I made it up—I made the whole thing up so I would have an excuse to bring you to my apartment and keep you there."
Oh, my God. What? She ... Oh, God.
"I gave you wine. I treated you like an adult so that..." She sobs. "So that you would like me and want to stay..."
No. It's impossible. She didn't ... She couldn't have...
She nods, as if she's heard something I can't hear. Meets my eyes again. "I think ... I think you should go now. I don't think it's good for us to be together. I think it's bad for us to be together like this."
She's right. She's a thousand times right. I make my way up onto wobbly feet, swaying for a moment before I gain my balance. Without saying a word, I go to the door and pick up the bat propped against the wall.
I look back at her. Kneeling on the floor in front of the chair, her back to me. Shaking. She doesn't look over at me. I look at her and I feel...
I don't know.
I go outside. I force myself to close the door behind me. Oh my God. Oh. My. God.
I was molested. When I was twelve. And everyone in the world knew it except for me.
Chapter 25
Joshua Makes a Decision
I sit in the car for a while. I don't know how long. Seconds, years, centuries—they all whirl by and spin off like new galaxies uncoiling in the sudden heat/cool of the big bang.
I drive home.
It's not even noon, but I'm exhausted. I feel like I've been running laps all day, and all last night and all last week, for that matter. My brain won't work right.
I sleep.
I dream that I'm in a movie: Mom and Eve turn out to be twin sisters, the revelation made to a devastating drum sting and a blitzkrieg of strings and brass.
I wake up in a panic, wanting to scream, wanting to cry out for my mommy, aware as I think it that it's a grotesque sort of irony, but wanting to do it nonetheless.
I keep my mouth shut instead. I lie on my bed like a corpse in a casket.
Five years. Five years. What were these past five years? Who was I? What was I? Nothing as I thought it was. Nothing as it seemed.
Maybe Rachel was right all along. Maybe the past is past, history is history, and you just push it aside and look to the future...
Is that even possible? Do people really do that?
The acceptance letters and packets are on my desk. I look through them. A multitude of options. I used to think it was a curse, having so many options, so many possible end-games for each decision. But the truth is, it's a blessing. I have these options.
It's not an easy choice, but that's OK. Easy doesn't equal good. Difficult doesn't equal bad.
It's just life, is all.
So Dad's in his study and Mom's eating by herself in the kitchen and I'm in my bedroom, and in a house of three people no one's talking, no one's saying anything, because no one has decided anything.
Except for me. I've decided.
I call Rachel on her cell phone and get her voice mail. I leave her a message and then I ask my parents to join me in the family room. They sit on opposite ends of the couch, as far from each other as possible.
"I've been thinking about college," I tell them.
Midnight comes and I'm wide awake, sitting on the hood of my car and looking up at the stars from the parking lot at SAMMPark when Rachel pulls up and parks beside me. I watch her get out of the car, dressed in just a plain green'T-shirt and gray shorts. Her hair's a mess and she doesn't have any makeup on at all.
God, she's beautiful.
"Got your message," she says, walking over to me. "Tried to call you a couple of times when I was on break, but your parents said you were out, and then it got too late to call."
"Sorry."
"You've got to get a cell phone."
That's not going to happen anytime soon, but I nod to her anyway. "Look, I'm sorry. About yesterday."
The ever-popular "pregnant pause" rears its ugly head between us.
"I'm really sorry," I tell her. "I said some shit that was uncalled for. I shouldn't have. You've been nothing but cool with me and I don't even deserve it. So I'm sorry. And if you want to walk away, that's fine, but I wanted to bring you here because I have a surprise for you."
She arches her eyebrow. "How can I turn that down?"
I bow and gesture into SAMMPark. "After you, madam."
She fakes a curtsy and we're off. "This isn't the part where you kill me with a hatchet, is it?"
"No."
She stops near the statue. "Hey, Josh, I'm enjoying breaking your balls, but about what I said yesterday—"
I hold up a hand to stop her. "You don't need to apologize, Rache. Everything you said was dead on."
"I'm not so sure about that."
"I am." I look over at the statue. "I never even looked at it twice until you pointed it out to me. Did you ever notice the dates?"
She squints at them. "Yeah. She was young."
"She was only nineteen."
"Not much older than us."
"'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may...'"
"Keats? Yeats?" Rachel frowns. She doesn't have my weirdly eidetic memory.
"Herrick."
"Oh."
We walk to the baseball diamond. Halfway there, she takes my hand.
Once there, I make her stand on the mound with her back to the plate. "This is when the hatchet comes out, right?"
"Stop it!" I yell back to her as I race over to the bushes behind the backstop. It's only been half an hour—at this time of night, the odds of anyone being here, much less stumbling upon my hidden stash, are pretty remote.
I drag the big cooler and the bundle of blankets and pillows stuffed into a trash bag from out of the bushes. I position everything in front of home plate and go to get Rachel. "Keep your eyes closed."
I hold one of her hands and use my other around her waist to guide her. She keeps her free hand over her eyes and giggles.
I stop near the plate and tell her to open her eyes.
"Welcome to a picnic lunch at..." I check my watch. "Half past midnight."
She claps her hands. "Oh, how sweet, you cooked."
I laugh a bit self-consciously. "Well, I spread hot mustard and put meat on bread, at least. Sorry—I had to buy this stuff at Sup-r-Shop because I didn't want you to see."
"That's OK. I won't dock you too many boyfriend points for that."
"Boyfriend, huh? Still?"
"You don't break up with someone just because of an argument, Josh. At least, I don't."
I spread out one of the blankets and we sit and eat. "My parents are getting divorced."
She puts down her bottle of soda. "I'm sorry."
"Well, you know. I don't know what to say. My mom was screwing around on my dad. It all started a while back."
She leans toward me and kisses me on the cheek.
"You're having a bad few days, aren't you?"
I chuckle at that because it's an understatement and an overstatement all at once. "I thought so. But, you know, I've made some decisions and that's made all of this other stuff a lot easier to deal with."
"What kind of decisions?" And I can tell from the expression on her face that she's wondering. Wondering what I've decided about us.
"I saw her today."
Her face goes blank. "Who? Your mother?"
I have to laugh again; her only means one thing in my mind, or at least it has for so many years. I just assumed..."No. Eve."
>
"Oh." She brushes some crumbs off her shirt. "I see." She starts to get up. She's upset, moving with those jerky, staccato motions that tell me she's too distracted to think straight. "Thanks for the picnic."
"Rache." I reach up and grab her hand, pulling her down to sit beside me. "Stay. Please. Listen to me."
She looks into my eyes with an anxiety I've never seen in her before. Not even when I was at my worst, refusing to look at her or speak to her. "You're old enough now. She's what you've wanted, Josh. She's what you've always wanted. It's so fucking obvious—"
"Look, Rache. You said yesterday that I couldn't touch you without hating you or hating myself. I'm touching you. I'm holding your hand."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know. Let me start slow, OK?"
And I tell her. About visiting Eve. About what I learned about myself that everyone else already knew.
She takes my face in her hands and kisses me hard on the lips.
"You've been telling me to get over the past five years, Rache. And it turns out that the past five years weren't even what I thought they were.
"So I'm throwing them out. That's what I've decided. To hell with it. Who needs it? I'm looking forward now, not back."
She kisses me again and something happens. Something I never expected to happen. I close my eyes and lean into the kiss and I slide my hands up her arms until I'm surrounding her, holding her, hugging her to me. Her arms slip around me and we're clenched tightly together, kissing. My hand goes up and skips past her bra strap, then runs through her hair. She digs into my back with her nails, worn short for softball. I hear myself moan into her.
And I think of nothing.
I think of nothing but Rachel.
What happens next is pure magic, and is for us and us alone.
Huddled together in the blankets, we look up at the stars together. I want to point out Mars, which you can see with the naked eye tonight if you look just right, but Rachel shifts against me, leans out of the blanket for a second, just long enough to tap home plate.