Shadows 02 Girl in the Shadows (10 page)

it
had even occurred. He put his hands on my waist and gently pulled me into him before he kissed me again, this time holding his lips on mine while he moved his hands up to the straps of my costume and slowly pealed them off my shoulders and down my arm.
Was this really happening? I asked myself. Was I going to let it happen?
He didn't say anything. He stepped back slightly and continued to lower my costume. My breasts fell free. He stared at me a moment and then he touched my nipples as if he were examining them first. He kissed me again, but he did nothing more. It was as if he wasn't sure what came next or if he should do anything more.
I looked up at him, anticipating. He looked like he had just snapped out of a coma.
"I'm sorry," he said, his lips trembling. In fact, his whole face looked like it was in an earthquake. "I'm sorry. I...
I
have to get home."
He turned and hurried out of the motor home. I stood frozen and confused, not only at what he had done, but how quickly my own heart had begun to pound and how excited I had become. I wanted him to do more. Why didn't he try?
I
felt like I was drowning in disappointment.
My eyes fell to Destiny. I didn't remember turning her head my way, but that's the way it was. He must have done it while I was changing. I thought.
I had to sit and get myself calmed down before I took off the costume and put on my clothes. I decided to leave the videotape in the motor home to watch it there, and for now. because I was still trembling and confused. I decided to leave Destiny where she was.
I started back to the house in the darkness, my mind still reeling in confusion. Should I be happy about what had happened? Did my body turn him off finally? Should I be sad? Were the feelings
I
felt different from the feelings I had felt when Celia had touched me?
How would I ever fall asleep tonight? I paused for a moment and looked to the rear of the house where Trevor Washington had his own private quarters. His television set spilled a glow over the side of the house and onto the small patch of grass. How lonely his life was, I thought. How was he able to contend with that loneliness? Was his work enough? It hadn't been for Uncle Palaver. Trevor seemed so contented, accepting. Would I end up like that, alone into my senior years?
Rather than feel elated and excited by what had just occurred between me and Tyler in the motor home. I now felt frightened. I'll be rejected all my life. I thought. Why was I born?
Mrs. Westington had gone to bed and I imagined Echo was asleep. I stopped by her room and looked in and saw her in her bed, her eyes closed. Was she dreaming of Tyler? It occurred to me that in the darkness, she was truly alone. She couldn't hear me and she couldn't see me. I could stand by her bed and tell her things she would never know. Despite how terrible I felt about myself. I felt sorrier for her. I stood by her bed and looked down at her sleeping so softly.
"You've never heard the sound of your own name and your own voice," I told her. "It is truly as if you have been locked away in your own body. I'm sorry for you. Echo. I really am."
She continued sleeping and breathing regularly. "Who's worse off?" I asked her. "You or me?"
I went to my room and prepared for bed. For a while after I had crawled into my bed. I just lay there staring up at the darkness wondering if Mrs. Westington was right about my parents watching over me from the great beyond. What did they see, feel? What could they do to help me, if I could do so little, it seemed, to help myself?
We're all disabled in this house. I thought. Maybe that was why I was so comfortable living here. why I was so quick to accept Mrs. Westington's invitation. She was cutoff from her only child and struggling with her granddaughter. Echo was so dependent upon everyone around her, in danger of being cut off and left to drift. Trevor worked on a patch of a vineyard to cling to what had given him meaning in his life. His survival was so tightly entwined with those grapes. They would die with him and he would die without them.
And then there was me, a tiny voice trapped in a body it despised. I closed my eyes and dreamed I was a snake anxious to slither out of its skin.
I was tired when I woke up. I knew I had spent the night tossing and turning, twisting out of the grip of one nightmare after another. I barely had the energy to get up and get dressed, much less go for the morning jog I had planned to take daily. If Brenda was here, she'd be shaking her head and muttering about me. I thought. At least. I ate little at breakfast, which displeased Mrs. Westington.
"You're taking this weight thing too far," she said. "A body needs nourishment."
I ate a little more just to satisfy her. She tapped her cane in frustration.
"We don't really need enemies," she said. "We do plenty of damage to ourselves without them, thank you. Take a letter,"
Echo ate slowly, her eyes shifting constantly from her grandmother to me. She's deaf. I thought, but she senses people's moods and feelings with a sensitivity that might be greater than the sensitivity of people who hear.
"Are you all right?" she signed.
I nodded and gave her my best smile, but her eves told me she could see right through it, maybe down to my very dark and lonely soul.
I couldn't help being nervous about Tyler's arrival. He was returning for his final lessons of the week. Weekends, he had told me, were particularly busy in his retail outlet and he had to spend most of the day in the store. They sold more than just the wine sauce they made. There were jams and honey and all sorts of wine-related kitchen and dishware items, as well as souvenirs and books about the valley. He'd revealed that Echo had never been to his store.
When he arrived, he looked at me without any sign in his expression that he felt either good or bad about what had occurred in the motor home. In fact, he didn't act in any way differently from how he had acted previously. It was truly as if nothing had happened between us and it had all been my imagination. He had never come to the motor home. I actually planned on returning to see if the videotape was there so I could confirm it had all not been an invention of my desperate imagination.
He went directly to the assignments. In fact, for most of the day, the only things we discussed were associated with the work. I had difficulty with some of the math and he concentrated on it until he was satisfied I understood. At lunch, he began a discussion with Mrs. Westington about Echo's future and he used me to support his points. It was clear to me the time when he was going to leave was drawing closer and closer.
"She's doing fine. Mrs. Westington, but she's not getting a fully rounded education as she would if she were in a classroom with other girls and boys her age. April is really the first companion she's had anywhere near her age, but April will be the first to tell you, she should be with more young people.'"
He looked at me and
I
nodded.
"It's true. Mrs. Westington. She needs to build self-confidence for her social interactions later on in life."
"Everyone's always rushing to grow up in this world today," Mrs. Westington said. "Take a letter. You young people don't realize what you have when you're young. You're so anxious to get older and take on all those responsibilities. She's got time for all that."
"It's worse to drop someone into the adult world without preparation," Tyler insisted. "She won't know how to meet and greet strangers. She won't--"
"Oh, fiddlesticks," Mrs. Westington said. She became very uncomfortable.
He saw it and stopped talking about it until she left the room. Then he turned to me immediately. Finally. I thought, finally he's going to talk about what had happened between us. I was waiting for either an apology or an explanation for his running out like that. Instead, he continued to talk about Echo,
"Mrs. Westington's not a young woman. If that girl gets left alone in this world, she'll be practically a social invalid. You know what her mother is like. Even if they find her and tell her what's happened, she'd probably put Echo into an institution. Keep working on Mrs. Westington," he said. ''She likes you very much and will listen more to you. perhaps."
I promised I would. I waited for him to talk about us, but he did what he always did when he ended the day's session: he gave Echo something to do that would distract her from his leaving. I followed him out, my arms folded, my head down, my heart thumping so hard. I was sure he could hear it or feel the vibrations that traveled from it, down through my legs and into the floor of the porch itself.
He stepped off the porch, glanced back at me, and headed toward the pond. I hurried after him. It was a cloudy day and it looked like raindrops were hanging at the bellies of the darker clouds, minutes away from dropping. The wind had come up from the west and trees were nodding, the leaves rustling. A ripple moved over the surface of the water.
He paused and turned to me. Finally. finally we were going to have a special, intimate conversation.
"I didn't want to say this in front of Mrs. Westington, of course. but I think you should let her know that you're not going to stay here indefinitely. As I told you last night, she'll use you as a reason not to permit Echo from leaving, just as she's used me, and as I stressed last night, my time here is coming to an end soon. Once you pass your equivalency exam, you'll think about moving on, too, won't you?"
"I guess." I said. Tears were coming into my eyes. How could he simply ignore what had happened, pretend it never had happened? And here was stupid, gullible me actually expecting so much more, expecting him to ask me out on a date.
"You should. You can't have much of a future lingering here unless you want to work beside Trevor Washington in a miniature vineyard."
I became suspicious. Why would any boy ignore what had happened between us?
"You don't have a girlfriend here, do you?"
"No," he said. "Between my work here and all that
I
have to do at our store and plant. I haven't had much time to socialize since I returned.'"
"Did you have a girlfriend back in Los Angeles? Is she coming here?"
"I had no one special." he said quickly. "We're not talking about me," he added a little sharply. "We're talking about them and about you." His tone and cutting words were equivalent to a slap in the face.
"You're right," I said. "I might leave soon, sooner than anyone thinks."
"Oh?"
"My sister is returning to the States soon. She's taken a position with a professional basketball team in Seattle," I told him. "I might go back to living with her."
"What about her lover?"
"They're not together anymore."
"Oh." He thought a moment. My response had given him pause. "Well, then that might work out for you."
"I'll see. We're going to meet when she stops in San Francisco."
"Good. Well. I'm happy we had this little talk." he said. "Stay on that math. It's your weakest area."
He turned toward his car. The first drops began, splashing over my face.
"You'd better hurry up inside. Going to be a downpour!" he called back. He started to run and got into his car.
I stood there, permitting the rain to fall on me. He beeped his horn and started away. I watched him go and then, perhaps to drive away my
disappointment more than lose any weight, I started to run after his car, ignoring the rain and not really being able to tell the difference between it and my own tears anyway.
Maybe. I thought. I should just keep on running. Or maybe. I should go back, pack my things, and leave in my car right now. Our attorney can look after the motor home. Just like Mrs. Westington's daughter. Rhona. I'd disappear like a puff of smoke. That's all I really was anyway, just a puff of smoke. Yes. I should leave. I thought.
The only real companion I had was a doll anyway.

When I returned to the house. I was literally soaked to the skin and quite exhausted. I stood in the entry-way holding my side and catching my breath. Sometimes, when I watched Brenda train and go through her exercises. I thought she was punishing her body for disappointing her during the most recent game or contest. I couldn't imagine how she could enjoy driving herself into pain and fatigue, but right now. I felt good punishing myself, perhaps for being so naive and so hopeful.

"What are you doing?" Mrs. Westington cried when she set eyes on me. "How did you get so wet? That's a cold rain out there. girl. Let's get you into a hot bath right away before you come down with pneumonia."

Echo came up beside her and stared at me. confused. She signed, "What happened?"
I signed back that I had gone running and got caught in the rain. I slipped off my sneakers and pealed off my soaked socks.
"Give me that," Mrs. Westington ordered. I handed her the socks. "Go on up and get out of those wet clothes. Start running the tub. Lardy dee."
Like a puppy at my heels. Echo followed me upstairs. I mumbled to myself with her behind me.
"You don't have to worry about me stealing your boyfriend. Echo. He couldn't care less whether I stayed or left this place. All he seems to care about is his mother and their business."
As soon as I got to my bedroom. I began to strip off my clothes. Echo stepped into the bathroom to run the tub for me. She signed to me quickly, telling me to hurry up before I got sick.
"I won't get sick," I said. I'm not made of paper and even if I did get sick and die, it wouldn't make all that much difference to anyone."
She didn't understand all that I had said, but she understood enough from my dark expression of unhappiness to look confused. "What's wrong?" she signed.
"What's wrong? What's wrong? Look at me!" I told her.
She tilted her head and shook it to indicate she still didn't understand my outburst. I was standing there in my bra and panties.
"Why should I look at you?" she asked. "What should I see?" She raised her hands.
Of course. I thought, how could she possibly understand the frustrations I felt? She lived like a girl in a plastic bubble. Her only real windows on the world were the novels she read, the little bit of television she watched without hearing a thing, and whatever Mrs. Westington, Trevor. or Tyler told her. None of them could tell her about a young girl's disappointments in herself and in the people she trusted. She had yet to understand her own
disappointments, especially the full meaning of what her own mother had done to her.
She stood there looking so unaware, so innocent, so lost to reality. I thought, I should be giving her lessons in real life whenever I could.
"Take off your clothes," I ordered, "Go on, do it."
She stared at me, looked at the bath, and then shrugged and began to undress. When she was down to her panties. I took her hand and pulled her abruptly next to me. Standing side by side, we looked at ourselves in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. There
I
was with my tree trunk thighs and no waist standing in contrast to this beautifully developing young girl with curves and soft places I dreamed of being. We could be models for a before and after advertisement.
"See?" I signed, and seized the roll of fat around my waist and patted my bulging belly. "Sec?"
She still looked confused. I put my hand on her waist and on her belly. I pointed at her budding, perky breasts. "You're already pretty," I told her. "I'll never be."
She insisted I would and I told her not to worry about me.
"Just worry about yourself. I'm not worth anyone worrying over." She looked like she was going to cry. "It's all right. It's okay." I signed. "I don't care anymore."
I really didn't care anymore. I took off my bra and panties and stepped into the hot tub. She came over and spilled in some bubbly bath powder. I lowered myself into the water, tempted to just keep going until my head was underneath so I could keep it there and end my agony. Echo stepped around the tub, took a washcloth, and began to wash the back of my neck and my back for me. Despite my desire to feel bad and suffer, it did feel good. The hot bath, the delicate scent of the bath powder, and her soft touch relaxed me.
"I'm sorry I'm being so miserable," I muttered with my back to her. "but I can't help it. The love of your life kissed me last night. He did a little more and I thought maybe I could have a boyfriend, but he opened his eyes and I guess what he saw disgusted him so much he ran for his life. He's probably had nightmares about it and is trying to forget that it ever really happened.'
She heard nothing, of course. She washed down my shoulders. I closed my eyes and sat forward. She was doing a good job of massaging my neck. I continued to relax and just drift. I remembered when I was a little girl. I used to do this for my mother. She would moan with exaggerated pleasure. I was so serious, concerned I would miss a spot on her back or her neck. Why can't I return to that? Why can't I be a little girl forever and ever and not worry about being pretty or too fat and never finding love?
If only there was this time machine that you could activate when you were absolutely positive you were the happiest you could be and your family was the happiest they could be. You would push a button and time would stand still, freeze forever and ever. Na one would grow older and nothing would ever change.
Other girls my age were probably fantasizing about boys or becoming movie stars or sinning stars, but here I was fantasizing about being a little girl again. Something's very wrong with me. I thought. I'm a lost cause and I'm not even a lost cause for anyone else. There was no one else. I'm a lost cause for myself.
I lowered my head to my hands.
Echo leaned in to dip the washcloth into the bath water, and when she did, her breasts grazed over my back. A myriad of sexual imagery flowed over my eyes-- Celia caressing me and bringing her lips to my neck. Peter Smoke's kiss and touch. Uncle Palaver, naked beside his naked Destiny. Tyler lowering my costume and touching my nipples. I moaned, longing for the warmth of a loving embrace, anyone's loving embrace.
I reached up and held Echo's hand for a moment. She remained leaning over me. confused. I was sure. I was about to bring it to my lips, to run her hand over my cheeks.
"What in blazes is that girl doing?" I heard Mrs. Westington say. I let go of Echo's hand quickly and looked up to see Mrs. Westington standing in the bathroom doorway, a cup of piping hot herbal tea in her hands. She signed at Echo, asking her why she was almost naked.
"She just didn't want to get her clothing wet." I said quickly.
"Get your clothes on!" she ordered Echo. She put down the teacup and tapped her cane. She signed as well, saving, "Get dressed."
Echo moved quickly to her clothing. Mrs. Westington watched her and shook her head.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't ask her to wash my back. She wanted to do it." That wasn't a lie, I thought. It just wasn't the whole truth.
"That child has no modesty. Never did. She used to run around naked when she was five and six and even seven. I'd find she took off her clothes because this itched her or that bothered her. Just lucky we live out here with only a few birds and rabbits.
People would think I was raising a wild animal. Anyway, I have some tea and honey here for vou. Drink it before it gets too cool," she told me, and handed the cup to me.
"Thank you," I said.
Echo stood by looking remorseful.
"Go on," Mrs, Westington told her, and waved her hand at the door. She signed and spoke. "Leave April to finish her bath, get dressed and into bed before she gets sick." She punctuated it with another tap of her cane.
Echo glanced at me and with her head down, left the room. I felt sorry for her. It was my fault. I couldn't move a foot right or a foot left without causing someone trouble.
"I swear," Mrs. Westington said, looking down at me sitting in the tub. "the older I get, the more I'm amazed at the things people do to themselves. You don't know enough to come in out of the cold rain. I swear.'
How was I going to explain it? I sipped the tea instead and looked down, afraid now that she would say_ , "You're too much trouble. You should leave."
She said nothing more. however. She left me sipping the tea as I sat in the tub. After a few more minutes. I put it down, stepped out of the water, and dried myself quickly. I wasn't getting sick. but I felt tired and emotionally drained. I shouldn't have done what I had done with Echo. I thought. There was no reason to make her feel bad about my own problems. Perhaps I wouldn't be as good for her as Mrs. Westington had hoped I would be. Tyler was right. I'm not a proper companion. Maybe I really should be out of here as soon as possible. Even if I was afraid of living with Brenda again. I had little other choice but to leave. I belonged nowhere. That's why I was so content traveling from place to place with Uncle Palaver. Home was wherever we were that moment. We were two lost souls, drifting so that we didn't stay in one place long enough to see what other people had and then feel sorry for ourselves.
I crawled into bed. wishing I was crawling into my own coffin. I'd reach up and close the lid on myself. When I finally fell asleep, the darkness in my heart was as deep as the darkness outside.
Hours later. I was woken by the movement of the mattress and the lifting of my blanket. For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming or perhaps one of the loving dead souls, perhaps my parents, had come to me to reassure me, but when I turned. I realized it was Echo crawling into my bed to lie beside me. I quickly sat up and turned on the lamp on the night table.
"What's wrong?" I asked, seeing the terrible twisted expression on her face.
"I had a bad dream," she signed back. She then put both her hands side by side, the fingers together, facing her heart, opening and closing them quickly over her heart. With the expression on her face. I remembered that meant she was frightened. She continued the sign until I put my hand out to stop her.
I looked at my door. Had Mrs. Westington heard her come into my room? Would she burst in on us at any moment, confused and upset? I thought I should quickly tell Echo to return to her own bed before we were both in trouble, but one more look at her face told me I couldn't just throw her out. She did look terrified.
"What was your dream?" I asked.
She shook her head. She didn't want to talk about it. but I could feel her trembling still. I wondered if she had ever crawled in beside Mrs. Westington after she had a bad dream. I couldn't imagine it. Mrs. Westington was too afraid to show affection. She didn't even like me catching her looking at Echo and smiling to herself. How alone and frightened Echo must have been all her young life to never have anyone to comfort her. How many, many times I recalled snuggling up beside my own mother or between her and my father when I was little. At least I always had that.
What was I going to tell her now? That it wasn't right for her to be in my bed? How would she understand that, and why wasn't it right for her to do it anyway? Didn't girlfriends sleep together in one or the other's bed? I was never close enough with any of my school friends to be invited over and do so. but I knew others did.
"Okay." I told her. 'You can stay with me, but you have to go back to your room as soon as it's morning."
She nodded and cuddled closer, putting her arm over my waist and bringing her head to my pillow. I kept my back to her. Many mornings I had looked in on Brenda and Celia and seen them so entwined, still asleep, clinging to each other as if their nights were free falls through the darkness. Sometimes. Celia's lips were still touching Brenda's neck, Her mouth was slightly open with her lips looking as if they were caught forever in an endless kiss. I had never been that close to my sister and I couldn't help but be jealous.
I could feel Echo's body soften and relax in the comfort of being beside me. I lay there with my eyes open, intrigued with the way my own body was reacting to the feel of her breasts against my back, her leg touching mine, her breath on my neck. She moaned almost as soon as she fell asleep and then drew herself even closer to me. My body tingled and a wave of warm, erotic excitement traveled up my legs and settled in the pocket of my sex. It frightened and yet intrigued me. Should I be having these feelings? Do all girls who sleep together experience them? Does it mean anything?
I tried to move away from her, but she held on firmly in her sleep. Images in a slow, syrupy way began to flow under my closed eyelids. I felt Tyler's fingers on my nipples again. I saw myself beside Echo gazing in the mirror at our bodies. The excitement began to grow stronger inside me. This wasn't the first time I had experienced this, but with Echo beside me. I was embarrassed by my own oncoming sexual crescendo. I tried to hold my breath, to slow my heart, to think of something else, but it was relentless, my heart now like a parade drum pounding a march to accompany the promenade of sexual images. She had pressed herself closer to me and when she moved.
I
suddenly thought she might be having an erotic experience as well.
What about that? I wondered, She was old enough now. She had her period. She read about people being in love. She surely had sexual fantasies about Tyler. Although she had wanted to talk about all this. I had been avoiding it. How could I. with my little experience, give her any sensible advice anyway?
I
was still unsure about myself.
Many times I was tempted to ask Brenda how she first knew she was a lesbian. When she found herself attracted to another woman, did she know if she was bisexual or simply attracted to a friend? Did she know what she was from a very early age? I knew she never had a conversation about it with our mother and certainly not with our father. Was there someone with whom she would have such a discussion? I couldn't remember anyone with whom Brenda was that close. She certainly wasn't close to any other relative. Maybe she had formal discussions with the school nurse.
After I had discovered what she was and whom she loved, I read about lesbianism whenever I could. I knew that some women, just like some men, didn't discover these things about themselves until they were in their forties or fifties, and all that time, they had been living heterosexual lives. Some were even married. What a shocking revelation that must have been for their partners! Could such a thing happen to me? Would I find some young man. think I was in love, marry him, and then discover I was just like Brenda? What if I had children? What happens then? Do they hate me, find themselves embarrassed at the sight or the mere mention of me? What sort of fate was that?
Right now. I wasn't really worried about such an event, of course I didn't think I'd ever have a partner, male or female. The only one who would be shocked by my discoveries about myself would be me.
All these thoughts and feelings blossomed out of Echo's merely coming to my bed to get some comfort. She was years younger emotionally than her chronological age. She was like an eight-year-old when it came to something like this. But even adults get terrible nightmares and reach for someone in the night to reassure them. Mama once told me even Daddy had stunning nightmares and looked for the comfort of her embrace.