Chapter Twenty-Five. Grace #2
“What did I do?” she says. I look at her, stung, thinking here it is, now that Stanley’s gone, she’s going to call me a whore. “He was hurting you!”
I plant my hands on my hips. “So what? It’s not the first time. Do you think I’m the only girl whose boyfriend knocks her around a little?”
“Grace. Please. That makes it worse!” Rose searches my arms as though she expects to see bruises.
There probably will be bruises later, there above my elbows.
I look down at my knees, at the blood trickling through my torn stockings.
Shit. They’re ruined. I take my stinging hands off my hips.
Both of my palms are scraped raw. Now my nice church dress has bloodstains on it.
I glance back at Rose. “Stop looking at me like that!”
I can’t bear her pity.
“Stop yelling at me. I’m only trying to help!” she retorts.
“I didn’t ask you to help. This should have been my choice. Mine, not yours!” I’m not ready yet. “Stanley was the best choice I had. And you just—you took that away from me like it was nothing.”
Panic is flooding my whole body. I can taste it, metallic on my tongue. I feel sick.
I had a plan: Endear myself to Mr. G., get that drugstore job, placate my father by dating Stanley, earn enough money for a room in a boarding house somewhere, graduate, turn eighteen, escape. Now that plan is gone. “What am I gonna do? Oh my God. What am I gonna do?”
I sink down on the porch floor, my back against a column, and gulp the humid summer air like I’m drowning.
“If this is about money—” Rose sits next to me.
“Not everything is about money!” Even if she was willing to lend me some, I still have to make it through another year in this town.
I’ll be a pariah.
And where will Rose be, a year from now?
Europe.
“Tell me what it’s about, then,” she says softly. “Please. Explain it to me.”
“Stanley is going to tell everybody,” I whisper. My face flames. “I let things go further than I should have, Rose. I let him go all the way.”
She traces the floorboards with one finger, clearly caught between morbid curiosity and revulsion.
She’s so sheltered, does she even know what going all the way means?
I doubt she’s caught farm animals going at it like we have, and she doesn’t have a brother who used to run down the hall naked after his bath.
“School will be a nightmare. Everybody will whisper and call me names. They’ll throw spitballs at me. Put gum in my hair. Pass notes about me during class and write mean things on my locker. I don’t know, maybe I deserve it. Barb will say it serves me right for thinking so highly of myself.”
“I’ve never understood that,” Rose mutters. “Why shouldn’t you think highly of yourself?”
I shrug. “Pride is a sin.” I run a thumb over my bloody knee.
“When school starts, no one will sit with me at lunch, or partner with me on projects. No nice boys will ask me out. Even the teachers will look at me sideways. Everybody will be glad I’m not their daughter.
Their daughter would never. And doesn’t it serve Joe Harrow right. ”
I bury my face in my hands. The thought of my father finding out what I’ve done is so frightening that I can barely let myself consider it. “It’s going to be hell for me at school and at home. If my father even lets me finish school!”
I can’t go to college if I don’t finish high school. I’ll never get out of this town. I’ll be stuck here, under his thumb, forever.
Rose looks stricken. “He wouldn’t pull you out of school!”
How dare she be so naive! “Of course he would! He’s spent his whole life hollering at girls for being stupid enough to get in trouble! If he finds out his daughter is a known slut, he’ll—” I close my eyes. “This isn’t a game for me.” I huff out a breath as I climb to my feet.
Rose sets her pointy little jaw as she scrambles up. “This isn’t a game to me, either, and I’m not a fair-weather friend. We’ll figure it out together.”
She’s so earnest, but she doesn’t understand.
How could she? When has she ever had to deal with a man like Dad?
A town like Greeley? “Will you really? When school starts, will you sit with me in the lunchroom? Walk me to class and pick up my books when somebody trips me? Where will you be in October, huh?”
Rose stares at me, silent. We both know she’ll be back at Miss Parker’s.
“That’s what I thought. You’re so busy congratulating yourself on a job well done, you—”
Rose draws in a sharp breath. “He treated you like you were disposable. You are not disposable. You are bright and funny and cutting and brave. And you should be glad to be rid of him. But fine. Go ahead.” She throws her arms out to the sides dramatically.
“Go crawling back to him. Apologize and tell him how wonderful he is. I won’t stop you! ”
I can picture doing it: sitting in the Grotowskis’ parlor on their mustard-colored davenport, with the soft pink Oriental rug stretched out across the hardwood floor.
The savory smell of Mrs. G.’s Sunday supper (roast beef and potatoes and carrots) filling the house.
She and his sister, Maja, will busy themselves in the kitchen, but they won’t let me help till it’s time to do the dishes, because I’m not family yet; I’m still a guest. His father and brother-in-law will listen to the baseball game on the radio, and Maja’s kids will be shrieking in the backyard.
I’ll have to grovel. I’ll have to tell Stanley that he was right, he’s always right, I should listen to him. Rose is a bad influence, and I won’t speak to her again. I’m lucky to have him, and can he please forgive me? I’ll do anything.
Then I’ll have to prove it. We’ll go for a drive after dinner, park in a field somewhere.
I’ll lie on my back on the cold metal bed of the pickup truck and look at the stars and wish I were somewhere, anywhere else, while I make little sounds and move my hips so that he thinks I like it, that I want it, that I’m mad for him.
All so that he won’t go around town spreading lies about me.
Once, last fall, I made a joke Dad didn’t like. He slapped me, then turned to Stan and said, She’s mouthy. You have to keep her in line. I wanted so badly for Stan to say, Not like that, sir. But he didn’t. He only nodded, as though he found it instructive.
Stanley knows what will happen if he runs his mouth all over town and my dad finds out.
He doesn’t care.
Rose is right. I deserve better.
Rose sees the look on my face and crosses herself. “Oh, thank God.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re not even Catholic.”
She hugs me. I’m stiff in her arms. “We’ll figure this out together. I mean it. Maybe … maybe I won’t go back to Miss Parker’s in the fall. Maybe I’ll stay here. Finish school in Greeley.”
I pull away, my heart leaping. “Would your father let you? Would your aunt stay here?”
Rose shrugs and fiddles with the side buttons on her shorts. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
I imagine braving my senior year with Cooper and Rose by my side, both of them, and it feels almost bearable. But she doesn’t really mean it; I can’t let myself hope for that. “I’m still mad at you. You’re very high-handed.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She looks properly contrite.
The truth is, even though Rose is conceited and bossy and condescending, she’s still the best friend I’ve ever had. Nobody else has ever told me that I’m worth more than how the men in my life treat me. I rest my head on hers, just for a moment.
The hotel’s front door opens. Rose and I both stand up straight.
“What are you doing?” Dad asks suspiciously. “It’s time for supper. Look at you! You’ve ruined your stockings. Those aren’t cheap, you know. And your nice dress! You can’t come to the dinner table like that.”
I’m bleeding, stockings torn and dress stained, and my father doesn’t ask if I’m all right.
I don’t know why it surprises me. It’s how he’s always been.
Maybe I’m starting to think that I deserve better.
“Where’s Stanley?” he asks. “Did he go home?”
“Yes.” I find myself inching closer to Rose, as though she can protect me. “Stan and I—we broke up, Dad.”
“What do you mean, you broke up?” His blue eyes narrow. “What did you do?”
Of course he assumes it was my fault. Everything is always my fault.
“He wants to date other girls,” I say, which is true.
“Did you mouth off to him?” Dad sighs. “Go down to the cottage and get cleaned up. After dinner, I’ll drive you into town so you can apologize.”
“Stanley pushed her. She fell on the gravel. That’s how she scraped up her hands and knees,” Rose says, outraged. “You can’t want her to go back to a man who mistreats her!”
“This doesn’t concern you.” Dad scowls at Rose.
“I—didn’t you hear me?” Rose persists. Has she ever met a fight she’ll back down from? “Stanley hurt her.” As though my father hasn’t given me his share of scrapes and bruises.
My father nods. The way he looks at her … it’s smug. Like he’s won, somehow. I don’t like it. I don’t trust it. “Grace, go on and get cleaned up.”
“I—I’ll wait and walk back with you,” I say.
“Don’t make me repeat myself a third time.” Dad’s voice is steel. “Miss Thorpe and I are overdue for a little chat.”