First Time Read online

  “You and Chad drove all over town yesterday after school.”

  “But that doesn’t count!” Lynn interrupts. “Not really. That wasn’t like a date or anything. It just happened.”

  “Well, what did you tell him?” Lynn doesn’t answer. “Did you tell him we already have plans?”

  I hear Lynn clear her throat. “Not... exactly.”

  “What did you say?” I already know. I want Lynn to have to say it out loud. Be truthful about the fact that this is the second day in a row that she’s blown me off for Chad.

  “I said that I’d go to the party with him.” There is a silence now. Because really, there’s not much else to say. I wait for a second or two more, in case Lynn decides that it would probably be nice if she invited me to go to the party with them. Since it is a party and not a date-date, like dinner for two. But she doesn’t. She just says, in an I’m-so-miserable-this-is-such-a-hard-choice voice, “I’m so sorry, Haley. I really like this guy, and it might be the only time he asks me out.”

  “Whatever,” I say and hang up the phone. I catch my reflection in the mirror, all dressed up and nowhere to go. “Great. This is just great.”

  I stomp out of the bathroom, flop on my bed. I wish I was a little kid again so I could bang my heels on the wall, over and over, wail my head off, until my mom came upstairs to see what was the matter. And then, after she’d comforted me, we’d go downstairs and make a big batch of sugar cookies. We’d use the heart-shaped cookie cutter, and she’d let me be in charge of sprinkling the red sugar crystals on the top. I miss those days. When everything was simple. Thinking about it fills me with this odd sort of longing.

  There’s a knock at my bedroom door. “Come in,” I say, half sitting up. Maybe Mom and I can go to the movies or something.

  The door swings open, but it’s not Mom who steps inside. It’s Larry. He shuts the door behind him. My stomach drops.

  “Haley...Haley...Haley,” he says.

  I feel scared. Don’t know why. “What are you doing in my room?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Could you please get out of my room,” I say. I’m trying to sound polite, like this isn’t sort of freaking me out. “I’d like some privacy, please.”

  He doesn’t leave.

  “Where’s Mom? Mom!” I call. No answer.

  He laughs, soft under his breath. “She can’t hear you. She went to the liquor store to pick up some Limoncella. I’m going to treat her to my famous lemondrop martini. Maybe we’ll even let you have one.” He smiles. “If you behave.” He pushes away from the doorframe. “Nope, it’s just you and me, babe,” he says, sauntering toward me on the bed. “And you are looking real good.”

  I get up off the bed two times in my head before my legs actually move me. I try to make it around him, but my feet slip, get tangled up in all the crap on my floor. It’s not enough to make me fall, but it’s that skid, that extra second of hesitation, that is my undoing. Suddenly, I’m falling to the floor. Falling, or was I pushed? I hit the ground hard. His body lands on mine. I try to get up, but I can’t get him off me. His body’s too heavy. Squashing me down. Can’t breathe.

  “Get off!” I push at him hard, with both hands. The next thing I know, he’s pinned my hands over my head. I’m stunned how fast this guy can move.

  “It seems that we’ve fallen,” he says, like he’s talking about the color of his necktie.

  “Get off.” I can’t get free, no matter how hard I twist and turn.

  “Hold still. Let me help you. You’re all tangled up in this stuff on the floor.” That’s what he says, but his hand is sliding under my top, pushing it up. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to cry. But I know what he’s doing. I can feel the cold air on my stomach first and then my breasts.

  “Stop...please don’t!” But he’s touching them now, and I can’t get away.

  “Oh yeah...You like that, don’t you.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. I hate to correct you, my dear, but you’re really quite wrong about that. I’ve never seen somebody so hot for me. But that’s okay. I’m a great believer in education.”

  I try to twist my body out from under him, get away.

  “Hold still, you bitch,” he says, his voice suddenly harsh. And it’s almost like I hear it before I feel it, his hand making contact with my face. My eyes fly open from the force of the impact. But I don’t look at him. Anywhere but at him. I will not cry. I won’t give him the satisfaction. “You’re hot for me. You want me. It’s really quite disgusting, you coveting your mother’s boyfriend. But the truth is there.” His voice switches again, soft and reasonable. “I’m always one to support the truth.” He kisses me on the forehead. I feel his hand start to slide down.

  “Don’t! Please, please don’t.” But his hand keeps moving. It’s working with the button on my jeans now.

  “I don’t imagine,” he says, his mouth on my breast, tongue circling, “that your mother would be too pleased. You, carrying on with her boyfriend this way, right under her nose. Inviting him into your room. All sprawled out on the bed the way you were. An open invitation.”

  “I didn’t...invite you in!” It’s too late. I’m crying now, can’t help it.

  “Oh yes you did, my dear. Never argue with a lawyer. I knocked. You said, Come in. Your words precisely. You invited me in.”

  He manages to get the top button of my pants open, starts working on the zipper.

  “Get off! Get off of me.” But I can’t move him. His hand is in my pants now, sliding down. “Get off!”

  He’s almost touching me there when the kitchen door slams and we hear my mom calling out.

  “I got Limoncella, Larry.”

  “Damn,” he says. His hand stills.

  “Larry?”

  Suddenly both his hands are wrapped around my neck, tight. Can’t breathe.

  “I should probably kill you,” he whispers, mouth up close to my ear. “Do your mother a favor. She’s a nice woman. Good and decent. She doesn’t deserve to have a slut like you for a daughter. It’s not fair. It would break her heart if she knew about you.”

  I’m scared I’m going to die. No air coming in, my face is going to explode, my lips and eyeballs are pulsing.

  “Tell you what. You promise to behave, no more coming on to me, and I won’t have to kill you. Okay? Nod yes if you can agree to what I am saying.”

  My vision is blacking out around the edges. I manage to nod my head. I don’t know how, his hands are clenching my throat so tight. My vision is only the size of a tennis ball now.

  Suddenly he releases me. The hands around my neck are gone. I feel him pinch my nipple, roll it around in his fingers. I don’t even bother to swipe his hand away. I just lie there. “Good girl,” he says. He stands up over me, adjusts himself, smooths his hands over his hair. “I’m glad we understand each other,” he says, and then he’s gone.

  Chapter Ten

  By the time I get to the rink, Teen Skate is almost half over. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, because the cost is the same no matter what time you arrive. But I needed to go somewhere. Get out of the house.

  I pay my money, go inside and get some skates. The guy behind the counter gives me a pretty beat-up pair. I doubt there will be much ankle support in them, but at least they are sharp. I lace up. It takes me a bit longer than usual because my hands are still shaking. Actually everything is. It started right after Larry walked back downstairs. I would have thought the shakes would have passed by now. It’s not too noticeable though.

  When I get my skates laced up, I walk stiff-legged over to the rink. I try to look normal, like nothing just happened on my bedroom floor with Larry. I’m just a regular kid, like everybody else, out for Friday night fun. I try to pretend that I don’t notice I’m alone. That Lynn’s not with me. Act like I couldn’t care less.

  Nobody should be able to tell what happened to me. I washed my face, reapplied my makeup. I wanted to take a shower, wash th
e memory of him off me, but I needed to get out of the house even more.

  I step onto the ice. Push off. Start skating. Focus on that. I’m an okay skater. Not good, not bad, just okay. At least I don’t fall down all the time or have to cling to the side. I can skate forward and backward a little bit. Not like the guys who play hockey. They can skate backward just as fast as forward and can stop on a dime. I can slow down to a stop, but I can’t do that abrupt sideways stop that sends ice flecks flying.

  My legs are burning, and I’ve only circled the arena three times. My throat’s ragged, like someone’s been scraping hard on the inside with a scrub brush. I feel like his hands are still circled around my throat. His words in my ears, how I asked for it. Invited him in.

  I try not to think about my mom. She would be upset, no doubt about it. She really likes him a lot. His word against mine. I wonder who she would believe. Her daughter? Or her boyfriend, a high-flying lawyer, a partner in Hamlin, Smith and Company? A man whose job is all about interpreting the law. And the problem is, I did invite him in. I thought he was my mom, but I have no way to prove that. I can’t believe how things got so mixed up. I mean, he thought I was coming on to him! That’s crazy. Why would I do that?

  A guy from my math class whizzes by, body low, arms swinging, long smooth strides. It’s funny. He’s so quiet and shy in class, you’d never know he was such a good skater. I try to lengthen my stride a bit, make it less choppy.

  My eyes feel funny. Like they’re still sort of bulging. When he was choking me, I was scared my eyes were going to shoot right out of my head, like stomped-on grapes. I don’t know if eyes can do that or not, but I tell you, have somebody wrap their hands around your neck tight and you’ll see what I mean. I hate that guy. I don’t know how he could have misunderstood me so badly. I definitely wasn’t inviting him in. I thought he was my mom.

  “Hey, Haley.”

  I look over. Michelle and Audrey are skating beside me. I don’t know how long they’ve been there. Did they just arrive? Or have they been watching me for a while? If so, did my face give any of my thoughts away?

  “Hey,” I say with a big smile. “Hi, guys.”

  “Where’s Lynn?” Michelle asks.

  “Oh,” I say, rolling my eyes, “she’s out with Chad.”

  “Chad? Not Chad Skylander?” Audrey squeals. “Oh my god, he’s so hot!”

  “Yeah,” I say,with a little laugh. “That’s just what Lynn said.” I’m really surprised at how conversational and normal my voice sounds. It’s like Lynn didn’t ditch me, and I didn’t almost get strangled on my bedroom floor. I’m just skating around the rink like I’m some happy-go-lucky feature in Seventeen magazine.

  “She’s so lucky,” Michelle says wistfully. “I bet now you guys will get invited to all the really hot parties and everything.”

  “Maybe,” I say. I don’t tell them that’s where Lynn is right now. At a hot party, and I wasn’t invited. I just act like, yeah, probably there will be tons of parties, and maybe I’ll go, and maybe I won’t. Depends on my mood.

  “Lucky,” Michelle says again.

  “Yeah,” Audrey says. Not much I can say to that, so I just smile and nod, like, yeah, life is so great. They skate off, and I’m back to skating around the rink by myself.

  Normally, after skating this many times around, Lynn and I would go get a hot chocolate or go to the bathroom to brush our hair and reapply lip-gloss, hoping to bump into some cute guys. But I’m by myself, and it’s totally different. So even though my legs are tired, I keep on skating.

  Chapter Eleven

  I take my time unlacing the skates and handing them in, getting my shoes. It always feels odd to walk after skating. It’s almost like I have to remember how. Everything feels sort of floppy.

  I’m one of the last people to leave. I take my time walking home. I hope Larry’s gone. That mom’s not having him sleep over tonight. It’s pretty dark. There’s not much of a moon out tonight, and it keeps getting covered up by clouds. There are a lot of cars though, casting off light, headlights arcing across the road, and then red glowing tail lights disappearing in the distance. Every once in a while one comes along, music blasting, and I scrunch down in my jacket. Hope it’s not Lynn. I don’t want her to see me walking home all alone, like some pathetic friendless loser.

  Another car speeds by. Someone flings a beer can out the back window. I jump back, but it really wasn’t necessary. The guy had bad aim. It missed me by a mile. “Screw you!” I yell, giving them the finger. Doesn’t really help things, but makes me feel better. Probably not the smartest thing to antagonize a carload of drunken red-necks. I’m glad to see their car doesn’t slow down, but just keeps on going, disappearing over the crest of the hill.

  I’m halfway up our drive before I realize I’m holding my breath. I let it out. Try to calm my body. I hope Larry’s not here. Maybe they went over to his house, or out or something.

  I come around the back of the house and there is his black Jaguar sitting in the drive. My first impulse is to hide. Which I realize, sitting here behind mom’s purple flowering rhododendron bush, is really stupid. It’s his car for Christ’s sake. He’s not even in it. What’s it going to do? Run me over driverless like in some kind of cheesy horror movie?

  Maybe Lynn’s back from the party and I could sleep over at her house. I call her cell phone. The ground is damp on my butt. Either she’s not picking up or her batteries are dead. I don’t bother leaving a message. I call her home phone. It rings four times. I’m just about to hang up when Lynn’s mom answers.

  “Hello?” She sounds really sleepy. I think I woke her up.

  “Um...Hello, Mrs. Masterson, I’m so sorry to bother you. Is Lynn there?”

  “I don’t think she’s home yet, honey. Do you want me to go check her bedroom?”

  “Would you mind?”

  “No problem, sweetie.” She always does that. Calls me “sweetie” and “honey.” I don’t mind though. It makes me feel like she thinks of me as family.

  She comes back to the phone. “No, Lynn’s not back yet. Shouldn’t be long.” Lynn’s mom stifles a yawn. For a second I’m tempted to ask if I can sleep over anyway. But that might seem weird, so I don’t.

  “All right,” I say, my voice, cheerful. “Thank you for checking. Sorry if I woke you.”

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll go right back to sleep. No problem.” I hear her yawn again as the phone hangs up.

  Damn. Now what? I can’t stay hanging out in the bushes all night. I wish I had somewhere to go. I’ve got to make more friends. One is not enough.

  I decide to check out the house. I stay in the shadows, avoid the porch light. If I can figure out where they are, maybe I can get in without being seen. Hopefully they are in Mom’s bedroom. That would make things easy.

  I circle around to the side. The living room lights are still on. But maybe they forgot to turn them off. I can’t see into the room from this angle, only the top part of the wall, some crown molding and the ceiling. I think about sneaking into the neighbors’ yard and climbing their Garry oak, but then I see a shadow drift across the ceiling. They’re in the living room. I’m having the worst luck today.

  I try Lynn’s cell phone again. She’s still not picking up. I can’t sleep out here. Besides, that would be stupid. Larry’s not going away. They generally spend the weekends together and a couple of weeknights as well. So I better get it over with.

  I mean, sure, the whole thing in my bedroom was really creepy. A case of mixed-up signals, that’s for sure. But he made me promise to stop coming on to him, and I did. So that means that he knows I’m not going to be trying to seduce him, so he won’t misread the signals and think that I am. Hopefully the whole thing was a big misunderstanding and it will never happen again. I mean, that’s what we both want, right? So I’m probably making a big thing out of nothing. Freezing my ass off out here. It’s pathetic that I’m scared to go inside. I head toward the house.

 
I shut the door behind me quietly. It’s stupid that my heart is pounding so hard. I slip off my shoes, place them gently in the shoe bin by the door. I straighten and walk through the kitchen into the hall. I walk quietly, my feet making only the faintest, muted “shush” noise on the floor. I keep my eyes facing forward. I don’t even glance toward the living room.

  I’m almost past the doorway when I hear my mom call out. “Hello, Haley.” I freeze. “We’re having a little party in here,” Mom says. “Want to join us?”

  “Um...” I say. “I’m a little tired. I think I’m going to go to bed.”

  “We’re having lemon-drop martinis.” He’s talking now. “What do you think?” he says to my mom. “We could make her a baby one.” And there’s something about the way he says this, the way the words roll off his tongue that makes me feel all dirty, and I know he’s remembering, just like I am, what happened upstairs earlier tonight.

  “I don’t see why not,” Mom says gaily. I pry my eyes off the floor and sneak a glance at her. She looks so happy. Her cheeks all flushed, like she believes in Prince Charming and happy-ever-after. “She’s sixteen after all.”

  “She sure is,” Larry says. “Legal age for a lot of things. Not booze, but a lot of other stuff. One martini won’t hurt.”

  He steps into my view, slipping his arm around my mom’s waist. “And I won’t tell if you won’t,” he says, a little smile wrapping around his mouth.

  My mom thinks he’s talking to her. He’s standing behind her and she can’t see his face. But I can. He’s pretending to talk to her, but we both know he’s talking to me.

  Mom laughs, bats him playfully with her hand. “That’s so silly, Larry. Who am I going to tell? You’re so funny!”

  “It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I’m really tired. I’m going to bed.” I don’t wait for an answer, leave quickly. Head upstairs before they can stop me and insist that I stay. I lock the bedroom door behind me. As I do it, I feel this wave of sadness, like I’m shutting my childhood out. It’s over and I can never go back.