4. Then
D onna’s in her element with the boys here. She enlists me to help her cook and clean and dote on them because she genuinely can’t imagine I’d want to do anything else.
In some ways it’s as if I came to her as a mound of unformed clay, and she’s chosen to shape me into this thing she always wanted: a sweet, choir-singing daughter—a thoughtful and nurturing wife for her son.
I didn’t really have any plans for this ball of clay.
I don’t know why there’s this occasional impulse to snatch myself back.
I straggle into the house after a double shift to find the boys are already back from surfing.
Donna smiles at me when I enter as if I’m the most beloved princess of a fairy tale, while Luke simply glares. He’s already figured out that I’m the Big Bad Wolf.
“Can you start the rice for me, hon?” she asks.
I nod, going to the sink to wash my hands, wishing I could just sit for a moment.
I’m always achy after a double, but today this girl from Danny’s high school tripped me, so it’s worse than normal.
Every time I swallow, I can feel where my chin hit the chair as I fell, and as always, even when I’m not looking in Luke’s direction, I know his withering gaze is on me, saying, “ You’re not fooling me, Juliet . ”
Yet I can’t hate him. Not entirely. There’s something lean and underfed about Luke at mealtime, despite his size, that hurts my heart.
He eats fast, the way you would if you were starving, the way you would if you’d spent a lot of time starving.
And he might be; Donna isn’t making nearly enough food, and he’s a lot bigger than Danny and the pastor.
He’s also far more active. Danny’s got a desk job at the church this summer, but Luke’s working construction.
And in addition to surfing with Danny all afternoon, he’s getting up at dawn to surf before work as well.
He must need way more food than he’s getting, and when I reach the table after everyone else and discover he’s already cleared his plate, there’s this twist in my heart I can’t ignore.
He leaves the table hungry every night. I’m not sure how Donna hasn’t noticed.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she says, watching me pour the rice into a serving bowl, “you made twice as much as we needed.”
“Sorry,” I reply as if I did it by accident.
I’m the last one to sit, and when I do, Luke’s eyes darken as he studies my face. “What happened to your chin?”
I flush as everyone turns to look at me. “I tripped at work,” I say quietly.
I’m not sure why he had to call attention to it or why his nostrils are flaring as if I just lied.
Which I did, but what possible evil motive could I even have?
Does he think I’m working as a dominatrix on the side?
That I’m selling meth on the way home? When would I even have the fucking time?
He’s plowing through the extra rice I made like a champ, though.
I’ve forgiven him long before I’m through telling myself I’m mad.
“No iced tea?” asks Pastor Dan.
“You want caffeine this late?” Donna frets. She manages him sometimes like he’s her father, not her husband, especially since his visit to the cardiologist last winter.
“I’ve got to go back to the church for a counseling session,” he reminds her. “I need to perk up.”
She glances at me with an apologetic smile. “Juliet, honey, do you mind grabbing it?”
“Can you get the Tabasco while you’re up too?” Danny asks as I swing my legs over the bench.
It isn’t a big deal, but Luke’s nostrils flare once more. The Allens have always made me feel like I can still become a better person, but Luke’s silent, constant disdain says something else entirely. “Juliet, you fucking fake . This isn’t you at all.”
And I know it’s not. But is it so wrong that I want to change? That I still think I can become better than I am?
“You’re a saint,” Donna tells me when I carry it over.
I sit and Luke’s hard gaze meets mine. “Oops.” He holds up the milk. “Looks like it’s empty.”
There’s a challenge in his eyes. “Go ahead, Juliet . Be a good girl and hop up again. We’re all half done and you haven’t eaten a bite, but let’s watch you play your part . ”
A crack forms in my shell when he’s around, and I can already feel the old, bad version of me slipping through it. “You’ve got two legs,” I reply.
A glint flickers in his eye. “Not very saintly of you, Juliet.”
“Neither is the way you wandered off with that blonde last night.”
“Juliet,” Donna gently scolds.
Luke has won this round. He wanted to prove I’m an asshole and he did. By the end of the summer, they won’t want me anywhere near them. I grip the table, preparing to rise for the third time, suddenly near tears.
“Don’t,” Luke growls, standing up. “I’ve got it.”
The air hangs heavy between me and Luke for the rest of dinner, but the Allens don’t even seem to notice. They are baby fish, being circled by two Great Whites. They won’t know what’s happened until Luke and I have devoured them all.
* * *
We’ve started hanging out at the beach most nights with a group of surfers—Caleb, Beck, and Harrison—rich college kids who simply want to sit around a bonfire with a beer in hand and a girl beside them while they talk about surfing.
Sometimes Libby comes—she’s joined the choir too—but, otherwise, I stick out like a sore thumb.
Maybe it’s that I’m not rich. Maybe it’s that I’m not in college, but it’s also that I don’t dress like the other girls do, don’t act like they do.
I’m not sitting in Danny’s lap. I’m not making jokes about blow jobs or teasing someone about the long, hard night ahead. These girls are out here in little more than bikinis while I’m dressed like an Allen—nothing fitted, nothing cropped.
And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of staying covered up all the time, as if I’ve got something to be ashamed of, tired of the way things with Danny never progress.
I pull off my hoodie. I’m wearing a tank top and cut-offs, more than most of the girls here, but I feel conspicuous anyway.
Danny’s in a heated discussion with the guy beside him about where the biggest waves are and doesn’t even notice, but Luke’s teeth grind as he looks away. The girl in his lap barely even has her nipples covered, but me and my tank top are an issue.
If Danny notices I’ve removed the hoodie, he shows no sign of it. For the next hour, though, Luke’s jaw grinds and he looks at anything but me until suddenly he’s on his feet, tugging the girl in his lap off into the darkness.
When Danny and I leave to get ice cream, he suggests I put the hoodie back on. “Just in case we see anyone we know,” he adds.
So he did notice, and the only effect is that he’s apparently…embarrassed?
I get mint chip with sprinkles, and he—fittingly—gets vanilla. A couple passes us as we return to the truck, pushing a sleeping baby in a stroller.
“I can’t wait to have kids,” says Danny. “This is a good place to raise them.”
I love that he thinks about what would make his kids happy. I love that he thinks about the future. From what I’ve heard, my dad didn’t think too much about the future, and he sure as shit didn’t care about making his kids happy. He’d taken off before I hit my first birthday.
But the future is a long time away. I’m still in high school, and I’ve barely lived yet. I want to know what it’s like to sit on someone’s lap with a beer in hand. I want to know what it’s like to be pulled into the darkness, willingly.
I want good memories to replace all the bad ones Justin left behind.
When Danny pulls into the driveway and I see that all the lights are out inside, I slide toward him and climb into his lap. “Kiss me.”
He blinks, guiltily looking around before leaning down to give me a small, soft kiss. I can tell he’s about to pull away, so I kiss him harder, my mouth open, my tongue seeking his.
He’s been careful with me for so long but he doesn’t need to be.
I lean closer, pressing myself against him until I feel him harden.
It thrills me, as if we’ve finally climbed aboard a train I’ve been waiting on for a very long time.
But no sooner has it started than he grabs my hips and pushes me away.
“Come on, hon,” he says, gentle and yet frustrated.
I sigh. “Danny, I turn eighteen this year.”
“It doesn’t matter how old you are…you’re not that kind of girl.”
“What kind of girl?”
“You know, the kind of girl who does that. Who has sex before marriage.”
He wants to wait for marriage ? It seems like the kind of thing he should have told me before now.
But I guess the fact that I didn’t wait for marriage is the kind of thing I should have told him before now too.
And even if I wish my first time hadn’t gone the way it did, I want the things that girl with Luke is getting right now.
I want to walk into a room, mid-party, with that satisfied, secretive look Maggie had on her face.
I don’t even know what I want, really. I just want more .
More than what I have now, which is so wrong, when I already have so much.
Danny walks me to my bedroom door, kissing me goodnight in that way of his—making me feel like a treasured object, something fine and fragile that must be handled with care.
Yes, occasionally I wish he’d kiss me like Ryan Gosling kisses Rachel McAdams in the The Notebook : full-on, hot, desperate.
But there’s something to be said for Danny’s way too.
I just can’t quite remember what it was as I look at Luke’s empty room.
* * *
Luke somehow escaped going to church his first week here, but the jig is up by the end of the second.
I’m already sitting with the choir when he walks in behind Danny, bleary-eyed on the two hours of sleep he got, looking like he’s preparing for battle: hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched over while he stares at the floor.
The only sign of life on his face comes when he realizes Danny has positioned them directly across from me.
He starts looking around, hoping for an available seat elsewhere, but there isn’t one, so his jaw locks and remains that way through the entire service, whether it’s the pastor speaking, prayers being offered, or me doing my solo.
“That was lovely, Juliet,” the pastor says as I take my seat.
He turns to the crowd and starts talking about his time as a missionary in Nicaragua, an experience which provided him endless stories of human suffering—and his own goodness.
I’d believe in his goodness slightly more if he wasn’t always milking the misery of others to prove it.
“But we don’t have to look to the third world for people in need, because they are all around us,” he says.
I stiffen. “Yes, they are all around us. They come in the form of a man who sits out on the corner begging for change, a woman who can’t afford formula for her baby, a girl who stays in the school library because she’s scared to go home. ”
My eyes lower to the floor, and my face burns as the church’s collective gaze slides to me.
They all know who this one is about. I’m used to it by now—the pastor’s thinly veiled references to me in his sermons are par for the course at this point—but I wish Danny hadn’t told his dad about the library thing and I wish Luke wasn’t hearing it too.
Maybe it isn’t even his disdain that upsets me—it’s simply the way it reminds me of all the ugly things I am, and that I’m unlikely—no matter how hard I fake it, no matter how hard I try—to be rid of them for good.
At the end of the service, I remain near the pastor and Donna, enduring the comments people make, the reminders posed as compliments.
“You sang so beautifully today, Juliet,” says the church secretary. “You’ve really blossomed since the Allens took you in."
I force a smile, though I wouldn’t say I’ve blossomed . The only difference between me now versus two years ago is that I have significantly fewer bruises. The price of being poor, I guess, is that there is always someone better off who will get the credit for your accomplishments.
Mrs. Wilson is the next to compliment me. “Juliet, what a lovely job you did.” There’s pity in her smile.
Luke, beside me, laughs as she walks away. “Prance, little show pony, prance.”
I don’t have to ask what he means because I already know: the pastor doesn’t want me to sing because I’ve got a decent voice. He wants me to sing to remind everyone that he was the one who dragged me out of the dirt.
“Go fuck yourself,” I reply under my breath.
His eyes lighten and his mouth twitches. “There she is,” he says, only for me to hear. “I knew she was in there somewhere.”