Hello Loved Ones (34 page)

I shall not want
. Anything. Anymore.

She arched her back away from the door. Cash mistook her movement for desire and pulled her hips further down the seat.

He maketh me lie down.

He moaned a little, like he was in pain. It must be that body part. It must hurt being in such a state. She felt responsible, like she should do something, but she had no idea what.

“Are you all right?”

“Move down more,” he whispered. She scooted a little. He seemed more comfortable, but it was still pressing on her.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me
.

She giggled, though nothing about this was funny. She felt him working her panties down her legs. No, not at all funny. How could she allow this to happen? All he had to do was lift her dress and there she’d be, naked and shameful. She could just see her virtue huddled in the corner of the girls bathroom, not getting the respect it deserved.

“Stop,” she said, but it wasn’t forceful enough, and the rasping of her voice in the steamy, close air embarrassed her. So did her nakedness, but… at least it was dark, and her panties had already been lowered. It was done. And if she made him stop, then what? He’d throw her out. Make her walk home in the middle of the night and she’d never see him again. She’d be back in school, everyone laughing and whispering.
You hear about Sally? Illegitimate. Bastard baby.
This brought a sobering thought.

“Is… is everything, you know, taken care of?”

His voice was silky smooth. “It’s your first time, right?”

She nodded. First time! What was she
doing
? Panic surged through her again, but she found if she waited it out, a dull, heavy feeling soon followed. How she welcomed it!

“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing can happen the first time. There’s skin or something there. My brother told me.”

She realized she didn’t care, so she did nothing.
I didn’t plan it! I didn’t!
She wanted God to know, as if it earned her points. Yes, it was all a game, and she wanted in. She would not be a poor sport. She stayed very still while Cash wrangled his pants down, her eyes glued to the metallic letters on the dashboard:
Impala
. She felt his thighs press against hers, solid and warm, and the sticky cool of the car seat against her bare backside. His hand was there then, in the dark, prying her open. Then came pain. Much, much more pain. She felt it all the way in her ribcage, stabbing at her heart. Oh, she had no idea! She swallowed tears. There would be no blessed union on her wedding night. No standing at the altar in a white gown. But she had no father to walk her down an aisle anyway, so what did it matter? What did anything matter?

“You’re all I have now,” she whispered, tears dripping from her eyes into her ears as a burning rose up through her belly.

“Okay, okay.”

He was moving on her now, and as he did his leg bumped against the radio and made it jump to the next station on the dial: WJOY. Sally knew it well. It was the religious station Nell listened to at home. If Nell only knew what Sally was doing! She wouldn’t ….Oh!
Breathe. Breathe.
The pain was lessening. She wouldn’t think about that. She concentrated on the music. It was a song she knew, a folksy ballad by a band called The Raptures:
Dear Mary, trust me for what I’m about to do. I’ve got three good reasons and one of them is you.

There were three reasons she shouldn’t be doing this. Three hundred. Three thousand. There was her mom, Nell, even Lenny. There was Frannie and Mr. Valkema and God. There was Mandy, who looked up to her, and Mrs. Dekker, who used to babysit her, and Aunt Flookie, who always told her she’d go far.

Cash seemed to finally notice the change in music. He reached over to turn the dial back.

Electric guitar.
Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name?

His leg bumped the dial again.

Violin.
You can stand on the mountaintop and wonder why the sky’s so blue. There are three good reasons and one of them is you.

He fumbled with it again. Static.

“Goddamn AM radio!” he exploded.

“Just forget the stupid music.” Her voice sounded far off, like someone else’s.

“Fine.” He turned it off, but then there was only the sound of his breathing and a clicking noise from the engine. And the pain. And the dark void of the garage. Beyond it a piece of black sky through a window pane. Not blue. Only black. Like a sinner’s heart.

“Turn it back on,” she said, and now there was an unmistakable sob in her voice. If he noticed he didn’t show it. He managed to get the electric guitar going again.

“I love The Doors,” he said, as reverently as a person might say
I love you
. Sally knew the song but could not have named the group, just like Cash could never name The Raptures. The differences between them were measured by a radio band, vaster than the airwaves. As he became more feverish she had a quick image of her mother with Pastor Voss. Was this the way it was with them?
Disgusting
. Cash was like a rabid animal now, moaning and gyrating. Finally he finished with such a shudder and moan, she wanted to say
oh come on! Aren’t you being a little dramatic?

This must be the hatred Pastor Voss spoke of.

“Get.
Off
. Me.” Her teeth were clenched. The windows were steamed and the air was suffocating.

“Wow.” He was damp and musty smelling. “Are you okay?”

She pulled her dress down. “I’ve got to go.”

“What do you mean? Right now?”

Where were her shoes? She felt along the floor. Nothing.

“I’ll be fine. I just need to...” She found the door latch and pulled. There was nothing graceful about her as she stumbled out of the car.

She ran down the long dirt driveway in her bare feet, not caring how dark it was or that she’d walk half the night to get home. She had knowledge that would cut through the dark like a fog light. The girls at school were all fakes. That was one thing she knew. They’d never done what she just did. If they had they wouldn’t be looking in the mirror, all aflutter with anticipation, acting like their future was still worthy of curled hair and a powdered nose. They would know how useless it is to giggle when there’s nothing more to lose.

Nell

It must have been three a.m. when Nell began rearranging the living room furniture in her head. Call it a compulsion, but a fresh room always made her feel reborn. Trouble was, she’d tried everything. The davenport had been under the window, against the wall, even angled in the corner. She was out of possibilities. She had only one idea left: she’d seen a magazine photo of a rug hung on the wall, like a tapestry. She might try that. Squeezing her eyes shut, she flopped over in her bed and tried to see it. Instead, she saw herself bending over the armchair, trying in vain to push it out of the way. Pastor Voss was sitting in it, laughing.
Heavy, huh?

She punched her pillow and prayed for sleep. Pastor Voss, Sally’s
father?
It was straight out of a soap opera, but even her beloved
Days of Our Lives
wouldn’t stoop to such depths. Viewers would revolt.
You call this entertainment? This kind of trash doesn’t belong on the airwaves!
And here she was living it. If you can call it living when you’re dying of embarrassment.

She felt tears welling again. Don’t even think about crying, you dumb cow! You think Pastor Voss is worth crying over? It was just that…well, she’d really believed she had a chance with him. She kept remembering a picture of a missionary family she’d seen in the church newsletter. Standing in front of a thatched hut was a father, mother, sister, brother, and they were holding hands in a circle, so no one was loose on the end. Four ventricles of a heart. She wanted it. The safeness of belonging. The sense of purpose. It was a dream that had always kept her going. Now it seemed she was destined to be alone, and she was afraid. What if she got cancer? What if she died a slow painful death, with no one at her side? What if, and this was a thought she hardly dared admit, what if there was no God? What if she spent her life devoted to a faith that in the end was as false as Pastor Voss?

If she had a best friend she might be told to stop being such a downer.
You’re only twenty-one! You’ve got your whole life ahead of you
. But the humiliation! The confusion as she tried to work through it all. Pastor Voss was a philanderer, just like her dad said. He had an affair, created a life, then walked away. No, not away. Only as far as the pulpit, where he stood before them every Sunday and
preached
to them.

She sat up in bed, too restless to lie there any longer. She simply couldn’t believe that Sally was his daughter. It was like being fourteen, when she’d first heard President Kennedy talk about sending a man to the moon. She supposed it had to be possible if the President was so excited about it, but that didn’t mean it would ever happen. It was just too farfetched. And yet. This was no mystery of science. Sperm meets egg and voila! The bang is so big it sends you spinning into another universe.

It could have been worse. Let’s say Pastor Voss had taken Nell in his arms and kissed her with a passion that was criminal, like Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
What a relief to know you feel the same! I thought I’d die of desire!
They’d agree to marry. They’d rush off to find Sally and Lenny, and most important of all, her dad.
I’m engaged!
The pastor would try to hide the truth but it would come out, somehow, and wouldn’t that be worse? To have a fiancé and lose him in a matter of hours?

But what if she didn’t lose him? What if she stood by him?

You mean you don’t mind that I slept with your mother and fathered your sister?

Darling, I forgive you.

She was disgusted with herself for allowing such a thought. She knew there would be no forgiveness, that she’d never go back to that church, to those people she thought cared about her, who only gaped when she dropped a plate of pie, their eyes and ears too glued on her father’s drunken rant to come to her side. Still, a film in her head played on: Pastor Voss delivering his next sermon.
Um, you may have heard a little something about my illegitimate child. It is truly heartbreaking. But nothing like the heartbreak I feel over her sister Nell. Because of all this I can’t love Nell in the way I would like. It wouldn’t be right.

Then a scene with her dad. What was it he had said?
Pull up a chair.
Like he cared. Like he wanted to know her. If they saw each other after this, they’d both be thinking the same thing. Nell was his only daughter. For good or bad, she had him all to herself.

What a funny thrill that gave her. What terrible guilt that followed.

She’d never wanted her dad back. Not before and certainly not now, after what he’d done. It turned out just as she predicted, and although she normally took satisfaction in being right, this time all she felt was a disappointment she didn’t understand. Anyway, this wasn’t about her. Think of Sally. How much worse it was for her, being rejected by not one, but two, fathers. And her mother. The shame Prudy must feel was punishment enough. She didn’t need Nell turning against her.

But how she hated her mother right now. She didn’t know if she could ever get past it. Maybe she could dump her anger into her trusty diary. Lock it up and throw away the key. But the thought of writing anything down ever again seemed useless. In fact, diaries were for babies. Look how much time she’d wasted pining away like a moonstruck teenager. It was time to grow up. She might not be destined for missionary work, but there were other worthy careers. She could be a teacher. Maybe even a real police officer. There were no women on the Holland force, but couldn’t she be the first? How unexpected
that
would be.
There goes Sergeant Van Sloeten. When I think of how I used to gossip about her, well, I’m just glad she doesn’t hold a grudge.

At least she had her job. Crossing Guard was no career, but it was a foot in the door.

When the clock said five, she got out of bed. Today she’d curl her hair. Wear make-up too. She’d be the best darn Crossing Guard the department had ever seen. When the high school kids came she’d nod at them with a small, professional smile. They’d come to respect her, over time. Next would come the middle-schoolers, the boys with the boys, the girls with the girls. They were still young enough to admire a uniform, and Nell hoped that one day they’d greet her by name. She’d love to be called Miss Nellie. Then, around nine, the real fun would begin. The little ones would come skipping and laughing with their mothers, decked in ribbons and ruffles and stiff little overalls.
Hey know what? I’m Batman! My cat’s name is Sheba. Can I blow on your whistle?
The young mothers would smile. And even if one whispered
did you hear about her family?
someone would defend her.
Aw, it’s not her fault. Besides, she’s so sweet and she does an excellent job
.