The Wild Truth (10 page)

I lost my virginity to Jimmy three years into our relationship, when I was sixteen.

Still so hopeful and bargaining that my parents would be true to their word, I went to my mother after my special night. I lied about where it happened (their sailboat) but was honest about everything else, including that we had used a condom for protection.

I had expected her to say “Thank you for coming to me.” I thought she’d hug me, I would likely cry a little, and we’d have this bonding moment.

“You did
What
? How
could
you!” she screeched.

I looked at her, confused. “You told me to trust you,” I said. “You said you’d be cool with it.”

She stormed up the stairs to her bedroom and presumably told my father, because he boomed at me to come upstairs. As I walked up the staircase, my legs felt leaden, like I was going to have to pick out my belt of choice, but this time I was all alone. When I walked into their room, I saw my mom sitting on the toilet in their en suite bathroom—not using it but slouching on it with her head tucked down to her knees, her hands covering her eyes. She looked like she’d just been told about a tragic car accident. She looked up at me, face flushed, with this expression of utter devastation.

Dad stood next to her, his eyes flashing. “You’ve completely disgraced this family,” he said. “You’re a whore. Who do you think you are? You think you’re so pretty. You think you’re a woman? You’re not a woman. You look like a hooker with your makeup and long hair.” His eyes narrowed. “I’m going to cut your hair off while you sleep.”

I sat on their bed, dumbfounded, and said, “But you guys said to come to you. You said it would all be okay. That the only thing that mattered was that I be honest with you.”

“We can’t even look at you anymore,” said my dad.

“Just go away,” cried Mom.

I walked numbly to my room and called Jimmy.

“You told them
what
?” Jimmy shrieked through the phone. “Carine, why in the world would you do that?”

“But they said it would be okay! They said they wouldn’t get mad!” I tried to explain it to him through the tears that were now coming on strong. I also broke the news that it was extremely likely I’d never be let out of the house again.

“Oh geez!” Jimmy cringed on the other end of the line. “What were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” I cried, then I heard my parents’ footsteps approaching. “I’ve got to hang up. They’re coming! At least we can still hang out at school.”

I didn’t get out much after that. I stayed home while friends spent sunny days at Burke Lake, and I was rarely allowed to join them for nights at the movies. But, thankfully and surprisingly, my parents still let me date Jimmy. Perhaps they feared losing credibility in the face of my inevitable rebellion from such an edict. Or perhaps Chris had worn them down by his withdrawal from their lives and there was a twinge of fear that if they pushed too far, they’d lose me. Or perhaps they just thought it more suitable that if I had done the most abominable thing by having premarital sex, at least I was still seeing the guy. They made the whole situation as uncomfortable as possible, though, with my dad taking me to the gynecologist to get a prescription for the pill (my mom was the one who took me to every other doctor appointment in memory) and then to the pharmacy to pick it up. He asked the pharmacist detailed questions about side effects as I stood beside him, grateful yet mortified.

Jimmy and I spent most of our time at his house after that. His mother was “cool,” which meant he could tell her not to disturb us in their basement and she would comply. I went to church with his family. We went to the school dances. Mom bought me nice dresses for the events and tried to convince me, unsuccessfully, to tone down my excess makeup and over-teased hair. Dad documented our automotive endeavors by taking pictures as we swapped the 454 in our 1973 Suburban with the 402 in Jimmy’s 1972 Monte Carlo. It was a pure example of blind love when I willingly parted with that monster big block. But we could still get the Suburban, even with the smaller engine, to chirp second gear with its automatic trans, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Meanwhile, the Stingray’s exterior had evolved from a three-tone flat primer to a beautiful Chevy Autumn Maple with gold metallic that sparkled in the sunlight. To my dismay, the classic restoration outlived our romance. Jimmy and I broke up. I was in love with him, but I was feeling confused and perhaps a bit like Julie had with Chris. Then I found out Jimmy had lied to me and had kissed another girl while we were together. Still immature in matters of love, and seeing an out, I refused to forgive him. So much of me wanted—badly—to still be with him, but I felt like I had been made a fool of, so I decided not to make reconciliation an option.

I immediately started hanging out with a guy from another school. Jimmy lost interest in me and in the Corvette, which was now almost in complete working order. My dad and I finished it together.

IN THE SUMMER OF 1988,
my parents completed a custom-built waterfront vacation townhome in the Windward Key community in Chesapeake Beach, Maryland. Mom’s youngest brother, Travis—a drunk who was often in debt to Mom and Dad for one bailout after another—was in town, paying off his debt in trade labor, as was the customary resolution. He was adding a sauna room in the lower level. If Uncle Travis didn’t have a beer in his hand, his hand was shaking. His words were always slurred, his eyes lazy. But he was a good carpenter and handyman, and Mom’s brother, so they always let him stay.

My room at the beach house was a top-floor loft with a foldout couch, a deck, and a full bath. When I was just one month shy of seventeen, I woke up to Uncle Travis in my bed with his hands up my nightshirt and his beer tongue in my mouth. I’d worn a long thermal oversize nightshirt to bed with nothing underneath.

Travis was very drunk, and his movements were loose and clumsy, so it wasn’t difficult to get him off me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yelled, scrambling out of bed.

“I jus’ thought ya might wanna ’ave sex wimme,” he slurred, not meanly but confused.

I ran down to my parents’ room, where they were sound asleep. I woke them up and tried to keep my voice calm as I told them what had happened, but I was shaking. Mom got Travis back downstairs. Dad stayed in bed.

The next morning I came down from the loft and heard Travis working away on the relaxation room. “What’s going on?” I asked my mom. “Why is he still here?”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean? He owes us money, and the sauna’s not done.” She suggested that I ward off future advances by not wearing my bikini in from the beach. Later, I saw my dad bringing more beer down to Travis to keep his hands steady while he worked.

I missed Chris more than ever. If he had been there, I would have gone to him and not my parents. He would have never, ever let Travis get away with this. And if Travis hadn’t been forced to leave, Chris would have taken me out of there instead. But since Chris wasn’t there, I spent my summer nights sleeping on the bathroom floor behind the only lockable door in the loft, until the sauna room was complete and Travis returned to Illinois.

DESPITE TRAVIS
’
S PRESENCE
over the summer, the Windward Key house was a blessing because it gave my parents space from one another. During most of my senior year, they alternated between the beach house and the Annandale house on Willet Drive, living and working separately. Though I didn’t know who, I knew only one of them would be there when I came home from school each day. Without my dad, Mom looked more like the woman she had been on those apartment-hunting drives: lighter, stronger, more content. Without my mom present, my dad was more rational, kinder. I told him I was proud that he was controlling his drinking and his temper.

The calm ended, however, when my grades started to slip. I had a tough schedule of advanced classes. For the first time in my life the answers didn’t come easily to me, and I brought home a failing grade in calculus. My parents bore down hard on my lack of performance, and the more they scrutinized me, the worse I functioned. To make matters worse, whether it was from hormones or stress, my face broke out terribly, also for the first time in my life. My perfect complexion and my high GPA were both lost, and my parents accused me of being on drugs.

Giti was still the only friend I talked to about my home life, and the only teacher I spoke with about it was the band teacher, Mr. Casagrande. One day I skipped school, lied to Mr. Casagrande about it, and got caught. He was extremely disappointed in me and quick to explain just how much I’d let him down. When he confronted me about the lie, he pointed to a blue stripe painted on the wall. “Do you see this?” he asked. “If you told me this stripe was green, I’d believe you. I would doubt my own perception because of the faith I have in you.”

Mr. C. and I had grown very close over the past four years. Until now, I could not remember having disappointed someone I respected. I felt a trust from him that I had never felt from my parents. It was too much for me to take. Ashamed, I broke down. “I’m so sorry,” I cried. “I’m just not thinking straight.” I accepted responsibility for what I had done. I also told him about some of the stress I was feeling at home, but I only touched the surface. And, remarkably, he forgave me—another first for me. His attitude was
You’re a good kid. You’re a teenager and you’ve done something stupid. Wise up. Don’t lie to me again.
But what I heard through his reprimand, which I was most grateful for, was the sentiment:
And of course I love you anyway.

Several months later, I teared up when I saw what he wrote in a letter of recommendation for me to his alma mater, Ithaca College:
One of the biggest compliments I can give Carine is that she’s someone you would want your own daughter to emulate.

The contrast between Mr. Casagrande and my parents was hard not to see. I returned home from school one day, and when I opened the door to my room, it was trashed. My closet and all my drawers had been emptied, the contents piled high in the center of my room. Atop the pile were all my prized music accolades and drum major trophies, broken into pieces. I was devastated. Mom said she’d had to go through my room like that in order to find where I was hiding my drugs. Of course she found nothing.

One week after my high school graduation, I returned home from a date with not a minute to spare before my eleven
P.M.
curfew. I knew my father was sleeping in Annandale that night, and I unlocked the door quietly, hoping to delay until morning the questions about where I’d been and what I’d been doing.

Before I finished turning the key, the knob suddenly lurched out of my hand, jerking me forward as the door swung open. My father, angry eyes on fire, reeked of gin. I recognized his contempt, aimed as much at himself as at me. He had been needing this release. At that moment, he saw me as just my mother’s daughter.

My feet crossed over the threshold without touching it, my sandals falling to the floor as he lifted me by the neck and shoulders, repeatedly slamming me against the wall. A deep, fierce roar escaped him as he threw me onto the couch and trapped me under his weight.

“You don’t do this anymore, Dad, remember? Stop!” I pleaded. “You don’t want to do this. You were doing so well. Stop!”

He closed his hands around my throat to silence me. “This is your fault!” he accused. “Look at what you’re making me do!”

“No! Don’t!” I begged between breaths. “Please stop this, Dad!” I wrestled one arm from under his knee and began to strike him in the face. But it didn’t faze him. He just stared straight at me and tightened his grip. I saw the coldness in his eyes and a panic over his loss of control, and it terrified me. He brought his face down close to mine. I could feel his heated breath and taste the foulness of the alcohol.

“You think you’re all grown up now?” he seethed. “You think you’re in control now?”

I jerked and freed one knee to kick him in the groin.

“You fucking bitch!” he screamed.

As his grip released, I placed both my feet onto his chest and launched him to the other end of the couch. I ran up the steps to my room and barricaded the door with every piece of furniture I could muster. Then I grabbed the phone and retreated into my closet, slamming the door on the cord trailing behind me. It did not even occur to me to call the police. I wish it had. Instead, I called my mom at the Maryland beach house.

“Hello?”

“Mom! Help me!” It was hard to talk through my syncopated breathing as I told her what had happened. As soon as my father picked up another receiver, I knew my words were unnecessary. She could easily recognize the tone of his defenses after a drunken rage.

“She’s lying, Billie!” he claimed. “It was all her fault! She came home late! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

I exhaled and waited for her to reply to his intoxicated nonsense.

“You know what, Carine? I think you’re a lying bitch” was all she said before hanging up.

I stared at the phone in disbelief until the dial tone became rhythmic and snapped me into understanding. Admitting he had done that to me meant accepting he would do that again to her. She couldn’t allow that reality.

I threw the worthless phone onto the floor and wept for a few minutes. Then I took several deep breaths, picked myself up, and walked to my bed to look out the window. Too far to jump down. I walked into the center of my room, stared at the blockade mess at my door, and screamed through it, “You stay the fuck away from me!”

The house was silent the rest of the night. I awoke in the morning to a knock at my bedroom door and my mother’s voice. “Carine. Get yourself cleaned up and come downstairs.” I walked down the steps to see my mother and father sitting at the dining room table. Her expression was void of any emotion. Dad played the wounded innocent, a pattern long ago established as guilt.

Mom instructed me to pack my things. “You’ll need to quit your job,” she said, “because you’re moving to Windward Key to stay with me. Your father will not be allowed over.”