Various Positions (28 page)

“What things?”

“Before that.”

“Georgia, did he
touch
you?”

“Yes … well, no. No.”

“Yes or no?”

I wipe my nose with my fingers. “Not for very long.”

“What!?”

“But not …
you know
.”

“No, no, I
don’t
know.” She sounds frantic. “You need to tell me. Now.”

“I made him do it.”

“You made him touch you?”

“I … I don’t know.”

“Did he … god … did he … he didn’t force himself on you?”

“You’re not listening!” The tears pour out with my anger. “I … I might be in a lot of trouble.”

“For what?”

I am crying and gagging at the same time and it’s making horrible noises.

“Okay, sweetie, okay. You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s going to be okay.” She pauses and I keep crying. “I’m going to call you back in ten minutes, okay? Don’t worry and don’t go anywhere. I’m going to call you right back in ten minutes.”

I hang up the phone and stare at my clock radio. In eight minutes the phone rings.

“Hi,” I say.

“I’m coming right over. I should be twenty minutes.” Her voice is different now, organized. “I’ll sleep over at Dad’s tonight and then we’ll take care of things tomorrow morning.”

“Oh.” I like this, the efficiency of her manner. “But don’t tell Dad. Or my mom.”

“I won’t. I’ll just tell them you’re feeling down and want my company.”

“And you’ll help me tomorrow? We’ll make sure Roderick’s okay?”

“I’ll take care of you. We’ll take care of everything.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”

That night, Isabel sleeps on an inflatable mattress on my floor. I can’t sleep, so I watch her in the darkness. Her hair fans over the pillow in shadowy undulations and the light from the street pulls two stripes along her cheekbones. If she kissed one of her professors, he would not leave the room. He would take her in his arms and stay with her forever. But Isabel is not a ballerina, and this changes everything. I listen to her breathing and feel calmed by the consistency of it, the touch of my sister’s voice in every odd inhale.

SIXTEEN

In the morning, Isabel borrows my mom’s car and we drive south and west. I ask her where we’re going and she tells me not to worry, that I’ll find out soon enough. She eyes me skeptically after saying this, as if expecting me to object, and though I hadn’t been intending to, her expectation is unnerving. I look out the window and wonder if I should complain.

We turn down a residential street and then another. Salt rubs the city white, clings to the bottoms of everything. It’s an older neighborhood; the houses are tall here, and often semidetached, and most haven’t been completely restored, so that vines overgrow and paint peels elegantly from front steps. There are virtually no driveways, and instead of lawns, slender pathways lead immediately to front doors. Isabel slows down and scans the curb for a parking spot. I watch her hand on the gearshift, the long taper of each finger. She manipulates the knob, up, across, and down, making half the letter H, and we reverse smoothly between two cars. She undoes her seat belt and looks at me. Her expression is full of different things. I see a guilt that’s trying to redeem itself, trying very hard to be stern.

We walk along the sidewalk, retracing the direction in which we drove. I could ask her where we are, whose house we’re going to, but I let her lead me without speaking. And just as I think this, she stops in front of a house. It’s a pretty house, narrow like the others and maybe not as tall, with a hemplike rug over the front steps. The small porch is painted green, the rich green of pine trees, and a metal shovel leans against a corner by the door. I follow Isabel up the path toward it. Again she wears that look, half apology, half attack, as if she’s grappling with a duty she dislikes. I expect her to reach up and press the doorbell, but instead she holds up her ring of keys and selects one with a yellow band around its head for identification. She fits it in the lock and I follow her inside.

“Mom?” she calls out gently toward the staircase.

Pilar appears on the landing. Her hair is damp and she’s wearing wide-legged pants that sit high on her waist in the latest style. She pads down the stairs and the wood creaks beneath her stocking feet. She puts her hand on my shoulder and the look she gives me has a doubleness in it too, as tender as it is firm.

“Let’s go sit down.” Pilar gestures along the hallway.

I turn to Isabel. My face demands to know what’s going on.

“Just come,” she says, and then she and Pilar are moving down the hallway as if it’s assumed that I will follow them, as if there’s zero possibility I could do anything else. I should stand still and insist that Isabel tell me what we’re doing here, but my feet are too muddled to decide anything. They are propelled through a white corridor, walls high as cliffs. Pilar’s house. I’ve imagined it so many times, but I can’t feel any satisfaction at being here. The circumstances make everything too strange, and the strangeness fills me with worry. What has Isabel told her mom? I follow them into the living room. The floors are a hardwood that’s almost black and worn to reveal the odd nail, but this is contrasted with modern furniture, a chair the color of a tomato, a low couch in a metal frame. There are books everywhere, lining two of the three walls, and their spines make a kind of mosaic, mismatched colors like shards of broken art.

Isabel and I sit down on the couch, Pilar on the tomato chair. She leans forward so that her wrists cross over her knees and folds her fingers together between her legs. She looks extra big in this position, like a football coach hunkering down to talk to the team.

“Don’t be mad at Isabel,” she starts slowly. “Her decision to tell me wasn’t a personal one. It’s a legal one, because you’re under sixteen.”

Isabel is looking at me from across the couch. I can see her in my peripheral vision. But the realization weighing down on me is like sinking. I sink through the cushion and its frame. I sink through the floorboards and the basement.

“I know how difficult this may be for you to talk about. But it’s really, really important that you do.” Pilar pauses, unmoving. “If you want Isabel to leave the room, that’s fine.”

Isabel reaches out to touch my hand. I flinch. My heart is racing, trying to catch up with my brain. Maybe my heart is the last part to believe what Isabel’s done to me, the scope of her betrayal.

“I’ll go, George,” she says quietly. “Do you want me to go?”

I can’t look at her, can’t talk to her. The rage thumps through my body. If I say anything, I’ll scream.

“Georgia,” Pilar says. “Can you tell me what happened between Roderick and you?”

I hate the sound of his name on her lips. I stare at her wide mouth and imagine stitching it up the middle, sewing it shut with thick black cord.

“You don’t have to start with what happened in his office. You can start with something that’s easier to talk about. Maybe the first time he did something that upset you. It must have been confusing.” She raises an eyebrow, tilts her head to the left. “Do you want to talk about that? How it felt to be confused?”

I look down at the seam of my jeans. I wonder what would happen if I stood up and walked out the front door. Would Pilar run after me? Would she bar the way? I picture her muscled arm across the doorway. I could lift my leg high enough to kick it, but her strength is different. It’s the brutish strength of size.

“Do you want to talk about that, Georgia?”

I look up at her and shake my head.

“Okay.” She unfolds her hands and props her body back on the seat. She looks over at Isabel for a second and then places a hand on each thigh. “Is there a reason you’re afraid to tell me? Did Roderick give you a reason to be afraid? Did he tell you not to tell anyone?” She pauses again, her eyes on me steadily. “Did he threaten you with, with something to do with ballet? Did he say something like, oh, if you tell anyone, I won’t give you any good parts in the next recital? Or, I’ll make sure you don’t get into a good company? Or, I’ll ruin your career?”

I’m looking at the floorboards now. In each dark strip are veins as fine as hair strands. Even wood looks fragile in this room full of lies.

“No?” Pilar crosses one leg over the other. “Or maybe, maybe it happened the other way. Maybe he said that if you do something for him, if you do what he asks without telling anyone, he’ll make sure you get into a good company? That he’ll”—she pauses and illustrates her thought with a rolling gesture—“make you a star? Because that’s very typical. That’s part of what these predators do. They manipulate. They threaten. But you have nothing to worry about. Roderick won’t be able to hurt you. I promise.” She pauses, hoping I might speak. Finally she shifts her position, leans forward on her knees again so that she’s lower, closer. “We’ve had a lot of problems with Roderick already. I’m sure all you girls at the academy know that. He’s threatened other students this year. Not in quite the same way—” She stops for a second, catching herself from going on. “Everyone will believe you. No one will think you’ve done anything wrong.” Her lips pull inward, an expression that’s as much a frown as a smile, and her forehead is heavy with empathy. “So please, Georgia, take a deep breath and talk to me. You’ll feel so much better.”

I do take a deep breath. I look straight at her, though in my head I’m pointing daggers at Isabel. “Nothing happened.”

Pilar takes a second to absorb this, an empty look in her eyes. Then she nods once, twice. “Nothing happened?”

I shake my head.

Pilar’s eyes dart to Isabel. “Then what did you tell Isabel yesterday?”

I feel a pang between my ribs. I finally turn and look at my sister. “I made it up.”

“You made it up?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you make up?”

“Everything.”

Pilar stares at me. “Why would you do that? Why would you make something like that up?”

I’ve moved out of the corner of the couch a bit and I lean back on the cushion, let myself take up even more space. Why would I make something like that up?

“For attention,” I say.

“You made it up for attention?”

“Yes.”

Pilar looks at Isabel again, and while I can’t see my sister’s expression, I know the two of them are working against me with their eyes.

“You’re confused,” Pilar starts again. “Roderick has done something very wrong, and right now, it’s very normal that you’re confused about it. But we’re going to need your help, Georgia. I need you to think about that, okay?”

I shrug.

Pilar looks at her watch. “Okay.” She presses her hands into her thighs and stands. “Now I have to get to the university.”

I stand up and walk to the doorway. Pilar and Isabel stay in the living room and I listen to the inflections of their whispers. What will Pilar do with what I’ve told her? Something tiny in me is burning. I should demand to know what she’s thinking but I don’t know how. I picture the mechanics of it, stomping one foot into the floor and then the other, pushing fists into my hip bones.

“Do you want a ride to school, George?” Isabel leans in from the hallway. Meekness lightens her tone. “Your academics start back this afternoon, right?”

Her face looks the same to me. I know it’s as beautiful as it’s always been, that nothing physical has changed. But the girl I’m looking at isn’t Isabel. Isabel had all my trust. And this girl in front of me, a beautiful girl with a dark honey braid on her shoulder and gray eyes like saltwater pebbles, has trampled on me. I let the door slam in her face.

It takes me more than half an hour to walk to the academy. Sixty is waiting for me on the front steps. As soon as she sees me she stands up and waves and a gust of wind carries her hair into her face. Blind fingers scurry over her cheeks. I am so happy to see her, even though there’s guilt lodged in the middle of my joy, the secret she doesn’t know I’m keeping. She reaches out her hand and places something in my palm. It’s a piece of string licorice, softened by her skin. Her lips move close to my ear and she tells me that everyone is talking about Chantal.

“They’re saying mean things. They don’t get it. I mean, they don’t understand how bad it really is.” I move my head an inch and see all the bewilderment in her eyes. “Do you think it’s Roderick’s fault?”

I shrug and mimic her solemnity as best I can, let her hook my arm and lead me up the rest of the steps.

We move through the hallway and into the lobby. There’s chaos without ballet class and the room teems with loose-haired girls with nothing to do but talk. They sit everywhere, bounce idle legs as though they’re kicking in water, trying to keep afloat. Instead of piano music, I think I hear Chantal’s name again and again. Someone calls out to Sixty. It’s Veronica. She’s perched on the railing with Anushka and a few older girls. She grabs Sixty’s hand and her wrist of bracelets clinks like wind chimes.

“Are her parents really suing?” Her eyes shift sideways to me. “She’s totally nuts, huh?”

Sixty just shakes her head disapprovingly, pulls me away.

In math class, I let my eyes roll over the blackboard. I realize that I’m not paying attention and I try to force myself to absorb the chalk equations scribbled above eye level. I can’t trace the moment when the negative exponent leads my thoughts to Pilar, but it keeps happening. I think of all the things I could have told her—that Roderick drove me home, that I sat on his lap and pushed his hand onto my boob, that I’d wrapped my photos with my thong and left them for him.

I forgot about the photographs.

The fear storms so quickly that it’s dizzying and I grip the side of the desk to steady myself. Has Roderick taken them or are they still there, where I put them in his drawer? I twist in my seat, uncross and recross my legs. I need to go up to his office and check. If they’re there, I need to remove them immediately. I eye the door and then Ms. McGuinness’s back. I could creep out right now like I was going to the bathroom. They’re probably just as I left them, and all I’ll have to do is slip by the other academic offices unnoticed, pray that his door is unlocked. Ms. McGuinness pauses at the end of an equation and I start to get up. But my legs stop moving. What if Pilar called someone, the principal, told them what Isabel told her? The teachers could be watching me for suspicious behavior. If I were seen prowling around the third floor, it would set off a hundred alarm bells. They would pounce on me instantly, probably ransack the office and find the photos themselves. The idea of strange eyes on the curves and gaps of my body makes me want to pierce my skin with my fingernails, tear through the evidence of myself.