Chapter 41. Jenny #2
She didn’t understand. Had this been her fault? She had to leave his office. She got to her feet, legs quivering, throat tight, and ran upstairs to her room. She locked the door to her bathroom and had a bath so hot her skin turned red.
Maybe she had sat too close to him. Her laugh had been too bold.
Her questions had made her seem too interested.
He’d talked about the way she looked at him, but she could only remember wanting him to feel better about his book.
She’d made some sort of mistake. She didn’t know exactly what, but she couldn’t let it happen again.
That night, unable to sleep, she practiced ballet in her room. She didn’t stop when the blisters on her heels tore, or when her calves and thighs cramped. She welcomed the burn in her chest. When she was finally exhausted, she collapsed on her bed and fell asleep in her clothes.
She didn’t come down for breakfast and waited until late at night to sneak to the kitchen for her dinner, which she was barely able to eat. She threw most of it off her balcony.
She worried that Robert would come to her door. He might want to talk. Or worse. Sometimes she heard him moving around downstairs, but he never climbed the stairs. When she again couldn’t sleep, she practiced ballet. Her shadow danced along with her in the mirror.
Her mother returned Sunday night. Jenny remained in her room until she was called down for dinner. She considered saying she was sick, but any excuse would lead to questions.
Why are you sick? Were you in the rain? I don’t need my dancers with sniveling noses.
Then her mother would subject Jenny to some gross homemade cure that she’d read about in a women’s magazine. Like beef-bone broth or ground-ginger mustard poultices.
Robert sat at the head of the table. Jenny’s mother on his right, and Jenny on his left.
She kept her eyes on her plate and her knees swung to the side.
Robert and her mother were holding hands over top of the table, his thumb rubbing against her mother’s ring finger.
She was telling him about the clothes she’d bought, and material for new drapes.
Velvet. Maybe they should reupholster the sofa.
She was bored of the color. They talked about the dance studio.
Robert asked Jenny for the salt. She passed it and he flashed her a distracted smile, then turned his attention back to her mother.
He laughed at something she said. There was no shame in his eyes.
No fear. It was as though nothing had happened.
Jenny touched her legs under the table, felt the sensitive spots on her thighs and hips. The round bruises from his fingers.
Months passed. Although it was impossible to avoid him altogether, Jenny made sure she was never alone with Robert for long. She didn’t go near his office. If he entered a room, she left. She became a ghost in her home. She no longer thought it beautiful.
Fall changed to winter, spring, then summer.
Her mother put her on diet pills. They made her dizzy and lightheaded.
She couldn’t concentrate at school. Her mother complained that Jenny looked exhausted.
The dark circles under her eyes were ugly.
She was then given Valium. Jenny woke on her bedroom floor, downstairs on the couch.
Once, outside on her balcony. Her body covered in dew.
It scared her, these late-night wanderings she had no control over.
She began to split the pills in half, unbeknownst to her mother. The lower dosage was enough that she fell asleep easier and was able to ignore the burning hunger in her stomach, and she didn’t wake in strange places anymore. She was relieved. The problem was solved.
Until it wasn’t.
She jolted awake one night. Robert was beside her bed. The dark shape of his head and shoulders loomed over her. He placed his hand across her mouth. She smelled cologne and cigars. She thrashed and fought against him, pushed at his chest.
“Shh! Jenny, stop. You were having a nightmare. I had to wake you before your mother heard. Go back to sleep.” His shape moved away, so suddenly that she was left punching air.
The door closed with a soft click. The hallway boards creaked. He was going back to his room. The one where her mother would be sleeping, with her mask, and her hair in curlers.
She gasped for breath, her hand on her racing heart. Nothing had happened. She’d scared him away. Then she felt the cool air on her legs and realized that her nightgown was lifted around her waist. The blanket had been pulled to the bottom of the bed.
How long had he been in her room?
She got up and put a chair under her door handle. That night, and every night after. Her mother kept giving her Valium, but she flushed the pills down the toilet.
When she was sixteen, her mother again went to the city. Robert had planned to go with her. They’d taken several trips together over the past year, and Jenny had savored every second of them being gone. She could pretend she had a different life. She could pretend to be happy.
At the very last moment, Robert said he had to stay home. The words were flowing. He couldn’t stop now. Her mother and Robert argued loudly. Robert slammed his office door.
Jenny watched from her balcony as her mother’s car sped out of the driveway. She never wished to spend more time with her mother, but in that moment, she wanted to run after her.
She crept through the house later to get her dinner.
She would eat in her room. Robert was in his office.
The steady tap, tap, tap of his typewriter was reassuring.
He would be focused. Too focused to hear her steps.
But then she dropped a spoon in the kitchen and watched, horrified, as it spun and clattered across the floor. She crouched to pick it up.
“Jenny? Can you bring me the sandwich your mother made me?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, took a breath. It had been more than a year since that night in his office. She was smarter now. She wouldn’t sit beside him. She’d leave right away.
She got his sandwich out of the fridge—envious of the thick cheese and deli slices, the oozing mayonnaise—and poured him a glass of water.
As soon as she walked into his office, she noticed the whiskey decanter on his desk. The top was off and a glass, half full, was by his hand. It was noon, but his cheeks were already flushed, and his eyes too bright. She wondered if he’d been drinking since her mom left.
She set the dishes carefully on his desk and began to turn.
“Wait a moment, I’ve been working on one chapter all day. Do you mind reading it?”
She did mind. That was what had happened before.
“I have homework.”
“It won’t take long. I promise. I really need your help.”
He did look desperate. Maybe he meant it this time.
“Jenny, please.”
She chewed her lower lip. He smiled at her, hopefully, and gestured to the couch. The one she had avoided ever since that night. She sat on the edge, knees together, hands clasped in her lap. Like in the lady’s book of manners her mom had given her one year.
Robert handed her the papers, then paced the room. From his desk to the window and back to the fireplace. Each time he came close to her she lost focus and had to start again.
“It’s good,” she said at the end, though she could barely make sense of it. She thought he had been writing a historical romance, but this seemed darker, depressing, with too many details. Pages and pages about a man living on a remote island and his battle to save the lighthouse.
“I don’t know. Something isn’t working but I can’t put my finger on the problem.” He sat beside her. She stiffened. “This book needs to be perfect. Everything depends on it.”
“You’ll figure it out. You work so hard.”
He rolled his head to look at her. “I wish your mother had as much faith in me.”
“She does.”
He made a snorting sound. A scoff.
“I need to do my homework.” She got to her feet.
“Sit with me, please. Just for a little while.” He tugged her back down onto the couch. She sat stiffly. Elbows pressed against her sides. Knees together. He rolled his head toward her, staring at her with glossy eyes. “I don’t have anyone I can talk to. Not really.”
Was he crying? Jenny had never seen a grown man cry. She awkwardly patted his shoulder. She had only meant to comfort him, but he grabbed onto her hand, kissing her knuckles, and up her arm.
“Jenny, Jenny. My beautiful girl.”
“Stop!”
She tried to pull free, but he was so much stronger. He pushed her down and trapped her on the couch. No, no, not again. He covered her mouth with his hand. He begged her to understand that he couldn’t help it, it wasn’t his fault, he’d tried to stay away from her.
Afterward, he sobbed, then threatened. Her mother could never know. Her mother, who finally had her nice house and rich husband and ballet studio. Everything she wanted.
Jenny had gone back to her room and tried to forget. When that didn’t work, she made plans. She would practice harder. She’d get into ballet school. She’d never return.
A year and a half went by. She failed her audition.
Her mother wanted her to try again the next summer, but this time for the teaching program.
Then she would work at the studio. Jenny told herself that she could still leave White Cliff after that.
She could get a job teaching ballet in a different city.
She didn’t think about falling in love or getting married one day.
She couldn’t see a boy without thinking about what Robert had done. What if they were all like that?
Valentine’s Day, he took her mother out for dinner and brought her back staggering drunk. He half lifted, half carried her upstairs. Jenny, trapped in the living room with her book, hoped Robert hadn’t seen her on the sofa. She tried to make herself small.
“Can you help your mother into bed?” he said over his shoulder.