Chapter Fifteen
We decided to cook the turkey at Lisa’s house on Thanksgiving so as not to torture Ollie.
We went back to walk him while the bird was in the oven, then returned to Lisa’s for most of the evening.
It was strange to have just the two of us there, especially since there would have been at least eleven with my family, but it was nice.
There were no worries about whether I was putting too much or too little stuffing on my plate, no stress about what to talk about, no kids fighting in the other room.
After we were finished, we watched a movie, then went over to my place together to let Ollie out.
We ended up in bed. Most of our clothing was strewn on the floor, but Lisa’s shoes were on top of my tall dresser so Ollie wouldn’t carry them off. After one round, we lay together, my leg over hers, fingers intertwined. “Are you leaving tomorrow?”
I nodded. “I wish I could stay and drive up Saturday morning, but there’s too much to do beforehand and I’d feel bad asking Missy and Kevin to take care of all of it. My mom wanted me up for Thanksgiving.”
“I’m glad you said no.”
“God, me too. I can’t spend that much time with her. I enter that house and I’m thirteen again. How do normal people do it? How does this work?”
Lisa shrugged. I realized she’d never told me if she got along with her parents or not, just that she didn’t like big get-togethers.
All I knew about her family was that she had a younger sister in Vancouver and they often texted while I wrote.
I supposed there was a story there, but I didn’t want to ruin things by asking.
“June is like best friends with her mom. They talk every day and go shopping and to concerts and shit. And she talks about it all the time which gets super annoying.”
“How is it that some people can transition so seamlessly from child to equal? My mother is never going to see me as anything but a child.”
“Does she see your brother as a child?”
I lay back. “Not really. In some ways. She still thinks he makes bad choices like he’s fifteen, but she mostly treats him as a grownup. It’s probably the wife and kids, but June isn’t married, right?”
“Nope. It’s like her mom was just waiting for her to go off to college so she could have a buddy.”
“Honestly? I hate feeling the way she makes me feel, but I’d rather hang by my thumbnails than be buddy-buddy with my mom.”
“See, there’s a reason for everything.” Lisa was quiet for a moment, then nudged her face into the space between my shoulder and neck. “I assume you’re going to text me all the time to tell me all the gory details of this weekend.”
“If you want.”
“I want. Do you have a picture of this Gerald? So I know what to think when you mention him?”
“Ugh.” I grabbed my phone from the bedside table and called up his profile on Facebook. He hadn’t been active since 2015, but he did have a profile picture of himself. “Enjoy.”
“Yeah, about what I pictured. Is he as boring as he looks?”
“More so.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“I don’t remember.”
Lisa laughed and kissed me. “You’re in for a great weekend.”
I ran my hand down her side. “Shut up. Do you want to just stay here tonight?”
“Yeah.”
I reached to turn out the light and she caught my breast with her tongue. “So hot.”
“No, you.”
Her hand reached south. “No, you.”
The moment the light was out, Ollie leapt onto the foot of the bed, his cue to curl up. I was horrified. “Oliver Jeffrey Travis, get down!”
He hopped right down the other side, like he was just passing through, then gave me an injured look. Thankfully, Lisa started laughing.
“’Scuse me.” I opened the drawer on her side, worked a yak cheese chew out of the bag, and threw it down the hall. “There you go. Bring it to your crate.”
Lisa stared at me. “You have dog treats in your bedside table.”
“Well, for situations.”
“You gave him a…” She held up the bag and wrinkled her nose. “Yak chew…Yuck…To occupy him when you and Veronica went at it?”
I slid the bag back in the drawer and closed it. “Veronica and I usually went to her place.”
A smile spread across her face. “How old are those yak strips?”
I shrugged. “A girl’s got to have some privacy from time to time.”
Lisa rolled over on me and buried her face in my breasts. “So hot. Your dog has a middle name,” she added, “but you’re still so damn hot.”
Lisa left around noon with a kiss and a reminder that I could do this.
I waited until one thirty to pack, knowing that if I took Ollie to boarding at two, I would get to Saulsbury right at dinnertime, not any earlier.
What was I going to wear? Nice pants? A dress?
The mention of the country club in the invitation implied to everyone that this was at least a semi-formal event.
I finally decided on a dress, nothing fancy or as cute as the one I’d worn for the wedding, just so Mom wouldn’t read me the riot act and seethe about me looking like the big bad lesbian I was.
My drive was uneventful. The weather was good, and there was surprisingly little traffic for the day after Thanksgiving.
I supposed that most people who had traveled were staying with their family or friends through the weekend.
Normal people who actually wanted to be there.
Or people who were stuck with it like me.
Yes, this was a big deal. The jeweler on Main Street always personalized their sign to congratulate couples on engagements or give birthday wishes to employees, and that day, it read Happy 50th Helen and John.
Small-town life was different, that was for sure.
By the time I pulled up outside my parents’ house, I was neck-deep in my usual bad attitude.
1991
Mom’s last bible study class finished an hour after youth choir did.
The main office was locked by then, but the director let me stay in the choir room afterward.
I felt safe there until one day the December I was twelve years old.
I was waiting for Mom to take me home, working on math, minding my own business, when the door burst open.
“There you are.” Jackson sounded as if he’d been searching for me for months. He probably had.
“Here I am.”
He jumped up the risers to where I was sitting and looked over my shoulder. “What’re you doing?”
“Homework.”
“Well, that’s boring.”
I shrugged. It was, but it was necessary and I didn’t need to agree with him.
He reached down and snapped my bra. “Your titties are even nicer now.”
I wanted to die. “Shut up.”
“There’s lots of room in here. We could do the wild thing.”
“Just leave me alone, okay?”
Jackson jumped off the risers and came down with a flat-footed thud.
I thought for a second that he was going to leave, but he went to the piano in the corner and started picking out some rudimentary tune.
I tried to concentrate on my math again and pretend he didn’t exist, but in another minute, he was in front of me again.
“Dare you to go out to the barn with me.”
It was dark out and I wasn’t about to go anywhere with him anyway. The old barn at the back of the property was falling down and creepy and probably full of rats. “Hell, no.”
“Are you scared?”
I was scared sitting right there in the choir room. “No, I just think you’re disgusting.”
“You said hell in church.”
“So?”
“You’re so tough.” He stood so close that his hair flopped in my face and he removed the pencil from my grasp and broke it in two. “Now what’re you going to do?”
I set my books on the riser and got up. “Get out of my way.”
Jackson jumped backward, holding up his hands like he was terrified. I took the opportunity to push past him out into the hallway. The women’s restroom was a few paces away on the opposite side, and I ducked in there and locked myself in a stall.
God. I hated being scared, hated feeling so small and vulnerable and alone.
I sat on the toilet and was halfway through my business when the door opened.
I ducked a little, looking to see whose shoes were out there, but I saw nothing.
What must have been half a second later, I heard the stall next to mine smack and Jackson’s head popped over the divider.
“Oooh, I see your pussy.”
Shame and anger engulfed me and I hit the wall between us so hard the entire structure rattled. Jackson disappeared from above me. I hoped he had fallen off the toilet and hit his head and he’d bleed out. Instead, the lights clicked off and the hallway door opened again.
Thank God. I didn’t care that I was in the dark; at least he was gone. I hurried to pull up my underpants and smooth my skirt, then flushed the toilet and unlocked the door, ready to feel my way toward the sinks. That was when a hand caught me by my throat and shoved me back against the divider.
I screamed, or at least I tried to. Jackson’s hand came tighter. “Shut up,” he said. “Or I’ll kill you.”
“I don’t care. I’ll scream again.”
“Don’t bother. Nobody’s down here. They won’t hear you.”
I knew he was right. Terror started in my toes and, like a merciless current, washed upward until I choked with it. “What are you doing?”
Jackson gave a smug little laugh but didn’t answer.
His free hand touched my left breast and he pushed his face against me in a horrible, forceful kiss.
Nobody had ever done that to me before but even within the panic, I felt indignantly that this didn’t count.
It would never count. I shoved him away with all my might.
It didn’t move him far, and it made him double down on my neck. I couldn’t swallow now, could barely breathe. I tried with both hands to pry his grip away, but he was too strong. As a last ditch effort, I clawed him.
“Ow.” He let go for a moment and slapped me in the face. “Cut it out, you stupid bitch. Pull down your panties.”
“What?”
“Do it or I will.”