3
RIVER
I am small. I am quiet. I wish I was invisible.
In my old house, I hid when people came. One time, I was asleep on the couch next to Mama when her friend Harry came over. Harry is mean and loud, and I hate him the most. I pulled my blankie over my head. I held my breath and didn’t move.
But he pulled the blankie away. ‘This worthless critter’s still here?’
When he grabbed my arm, I shook my head until he was blurry. I’m not a critter. I’m not.
He laughed, and his mouth smelled like the trash under the sink. ‘Critters like this are even scrawnier when you skin ’em.’ His hand was like a claw, and I couldn’t make him let go even though I tugged hard as I could.
‘Harry, let him be.’ Mama’s eyes were squinty, but her lips weren’t pressed together, like when she was about to yell or hit. She never hit me very hard, but I didn’t like her to be mad. Sometimes she hugged me after and said she was sorry.
Harry squeezed my arm harder, like he wanted to snap it into two pieces. I wondered what sound it would make if he did.
His fingers looked like bones from a skeleton.
I found bones in the yard one time, under some old boards. They were a bird shape, but flat. I was real careful when I dug it loose and took it to show Mama, but her mouth made a flat line and she squinted and yelled to get that dirty dead thing out of her kitchen. I dug a hole in the dirt and put the bones in and covered it, because you’re supposed to bury dead things in the ground.
Skeletons are a lot of bones that make up a whole thing. I saw a person skeleton once, at Halloween. It was sitting in a chair, like it was waiting for somebody. There were big holes with no eyes, but it looked like it was smiling. No guts or brains or heart, either. It was empty.
Harry was like a skeleton wearing a skin T-shirt stretched over his whole body. Mama told him all the time he didn’t have a heart. When he wasn’t around, she told me he didn’t have a brain. I don’t know if he had guts.
‘Don’t he ever talk?’ Harry stared at me like I was a bug. Like he was thinking about squashing me.
‘Not really.’ Mama sighed, because I made her sad.
‘A boy his size that won’t talk? So he’s a retard? You should give him to me for a week or so. I’d learn him to talk.’
I stared at Mama, telling her no with my eyes. My eyes promised her that I would be good every day. I would do everything she said.
‘This little shit don’t even look like you. You sure he’s yours?’ When he laughed again, I tried not to breathe in the stink.
‘He’s adopted.’
‘You adopted him? Why the f*ck would you wanna do that?’
Mama looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I wanted a baby, I guess. A family …’
‘Shit, woman – you better not start whining about your old man again, because I will up and leave right now –’
Mama’s eyes got wide. ‘I won’t. I wasn’t.’ Her voice was shaky.
‘Uh-huh.’
Harry’s fingers let me loose a little bit and I yanked my arm away and ran to the stairs. My heart was bouncing inside me like it wanted out. It swished so loud in my ears that I couldn’t hear my footsteps or his. I got to Mama’s room and her closet door was open. I slipped into the dark and pulled the door shut behind me. I fell down on my hands and knees and crawled through the shoes and clothes and trash on the floor.
I found my spot in the corner and pulled my knees up to my chin. I wanted my blankie, and my stomach growled that it was hungry, but I wasn’t going back downstairs. Not until Harry was gone. Not until Mama came to find me.
*
Wendy never forgets to make dinner. I eat until my tummy’s full, but I hide food in my napkin and take it to the room that I share with Jerry and Sean. Sometimes I look in the kitchen trash can and find food in there too. I hide it all in my room. In a box under my bed, or in my closet inside my shoes.
Wendy breathes out a big breath when she finds it. She almost always finds it, but sometimes not for a few days. ‘Phew, what a horrible smell! Good Lord almighty. River, you don’t need to hide food any more. You get three squares a day here. Don’tcha know that?’ She pinches her nose and throws the chicken sandwich into a trash bag. I had to tear it into three pieces to hide it in my shoes.
I nod and stare at the floor.
Wendy doesn’t squint, and she never hits me, but she looks sad when she finds the food. When I have bad dreams, she shakes me a little to wake me up. She always says, ‘You’re safe here.’ I don’t say anything back. I don’t say anything ever. She’s sad about that too.
But I still hide food, and cry at night, and miss Mama, even if I feel bad for making Wendy sad. Just like I made Mama sad.
DORI
I just told my parents what Reid did for Deb last fall. They’re shocked, and grateful, but it hasn’t changed their opinion of him where I’m concerned.
‘He’s using his money to buy you.’ Mom shakes her head, aghast. ‘He has an endless supply of financial resources – as impossible as it would have been for us to pay for that private room, how is it a sacrifice for him? He’s not stepping out on to any limbs for you.’
I peer at her. ‘What do you expect him to do to prove himself to you?’
Her arms crossed over her chest like a shield, she slumps back into her chair and scowls at the tabletop. ‘I don’t know if it’s possible, to be honest. We’re always going to be worried that you’ll end up hurt.’
‘Mom, horrible things happen, and we can’t prevent them. There isn’t some grand destiny controlling it all –’
‘Oh, Dori.’ Dad has tears in his eyes. ‘Have you lost your faith? Have you really?’
I stare at my hands, because I can’t look at him and answer truthfully. ‘Maybe what I have faith in right now is the fact that Reid loves me, and that I love him. And maybe some day that, too, will no longer be true … But we all had faith that Deb would become a doctor. We had faith that Bradford and she would get married, and they would be happy together. She had faith in those things too. I always thought that some day, when I lose you and Mom, I would have Deb to lean on. We’d share each other’s grief. And now, I’ll go through that alone. Or maybe tomorrow someone will run a stop light and you’ll lose me too –’
‘Dori!’ Mom gasps, and I glance up and see the shock on her face. ‘Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.’
‘But it’s true, isn’t it? Deb just slipped and fell, and now her life is basically over.’ At the agony painted on their mirrored faces, I amend, ‘She’s not who she was, and I can’t pretend she is. Nothing is certain. Nothing is preordained.’ Dad closes his eyes, and I hate knowing I’m causing him pain. But I have to make them understand how I feel, so they can learn to accept who I am. ‘All I know is this – I’m loved by my parents, and my dog.’ I lay a hand on Esther’s wizened head and she nuzzles into my hand. ‘And I’m loved by Reid. I don’t want to think about ten years from now, or two years, or next week.’
They exchange a glance, and I know they’ve already discussed their united reaction should they fail to talk me out of him. Their Parental Plan B.
‘Okay, Dori. Okay,’ Dad says. ‘What do you – what do you expect us to do?’
I know that any compromise reached will be strained, but I’ll take it.
‘I want you to give him a chance. You wouldn’t object if everything else in this relationship was identical, but it was with Nick instead of Reid.’
‘Nick doesn’t have a worldwide reputation for womanizing!’ Mom says, her blurted words finding a too-easy target.
My answer is subdued, because of course it hurts to think of all of the girls he’s been with, and all he has access to. ‘Reid didn’t love those girls. He loves me.’
‘You’re darn right he didn’t love them. Or respect them.’ My father shades pink, but doesn’t stop there. ‘How do you know what lies he may have told them to get them into bed?’
‘I only know what he’s told me.’
‘Exactly,’ he huffs.
‘He wouldn’t have to lie, or say an untrue thing, to get girls into his bed.’
Mom eyes me. ‘And that doesn’t worry you just as much? If not more?’
Esther’s muzzle sits lightly on my thigh, her eyes staring up at me, anxious. I reassure my dog with careful strokes, but I can’t convince my parents that their fears are misguided. The atmosphere is unbearably tense, and their protectiveness – a shield behind which I’ve always moved freely – has become a thick bridle. Even as I try to relax within it, I’m pulling against the restraint.
‘I believe what he’s told me. I believe what he says he feels. And when it comes down to it … what he says he does or feels is mine to believe or not. No one else’s.’ My voice strengthens with these declarations, and I see that this is how rebellions of all kinds gain strength – inside the avowals.
My mother narrows her eyes, and I know her question before she articulates it fully. ‘Dori. Are you and he –’
‘Mom. Please don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, because I won’t lie to you. Not any more.’
Her face is a picture of defeat, individual features downturned in surrender. ‘So you expect us to sit by while you begin a sordid relationship with a … a celebrity.’ Her voice cracks, but wobbles on. ‘A young man who’ll use you and cast you aside when he tires of you –’
‘If that’s what you want to believe. If that’s what you think I’m capable of.’
‘I don’t know what you’re capable of any more, Dori,’ she snaps.
I sigh. ‘I see that. But maybe you never did.’
Those are perhaps the truest words any of us have just spoken.
When I open the door, he pulls off his sunglasses and steps inside, as beautiful as always. He’s toned-down – as regular-boy as possible, for him: beneath his favourite Lakers cap, brim pulled low, wisps of blond hair fall across his forehead and curl around his ears and temples. He’s wearing his button-fly jeans. His navy T-shirt isn’t too closely fitted, but even still, it can’t hide the solid curve of his wide shoulders and sculpted torso.
I press my face to his chest. Pulling me close, he wraps his arms around me and takes a deep, easy breath as I curl into him. I know that nothing is static. Nothing remains the same forever, no matter how much I wish it would. But in this moment, I love this boy, and I know he loves me, and I don’t care if at some point that will no longer be true.
But my parents? I recall the words we exchanged and all the ones we held back, and I can’t picture them ever coming around to accepting him – accepting us.
‘Hey.’ He turns the brim of the cap backwards and tips my chin to examine my eyes. ‘What’s this?’
I duck my worried face back to his chest, muffling my words. ‘I can’t believe I thought this would work.’
He cups my shoulders in his palms, angling me away from his chest and peering into my eyes. ‘So little confidence in my charm, Dori? I won you over, didn’t I? Although I suppose we’d fare better if we don’t reveal a few of my more appealing attributes to your parents … Your obsession with my button-fly jeans, for example, might lose something in translation.’
I choke an incredulous laugh. This is never going to work. Without loosening my grip on him, I chew my lip and he quirks an eyebrow, waiting. ‘Can we just run away from home?’
His mouth breaks into a grin, eyes flashing mischief. ‘Sure. Where to? Paris? Madrid? It’s summer in Melbourne, you know.’
I’m so not used to these surreal sorts of conversations. I know he’s playing along with my apprehension, giving me an out he knows I won’t take, but if my request was serious, none of these are impossible destinations. A couple of days ago, he asked me about my birthday, which is a month away. In a humorous attempt at subtlety, he brought up cars a half-hour later, quizzing me about transmission types and favourite colours.
Not quite believing he was seriously considering such an outrageous gift, I mentioned that I won’t need a car at Cal. ‘Hmm, yeah,’ he said, preoccupied with a video game. I thought that was the end of it until later, sitting at his kitchen table, he asked me how I intended to get around in Berkeley without a car.
‘Awesome public transportation. And I’m taking my bike.’
He paused, a forkful of pasta halfway between his plate and his mouth. ‘A bike, as in a bicycle?’
I laughed. ‘No – the other kind of bike. I’m actually a closet Hell’s Angel. Wanna go for a spin on my Harley?’
I squeaked when he pulled me from my chair on to his lap.
Hands gripping my waist, he bowed his mouth to my ear and breathed, ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ And then his father strode into the kitchen, announcing his presence by clattering dishes on to the butcher-block island while feigning ignorance of our PDA-laden presence at the table.
Now, I tap a finger against my chin and pretend to consider running away from home to Melbourne. If only. ‘I guess I should pack my swimsuit.’
‘Mmm. Better and better. Do you own a bikini?’
‘Well, no.’
That single dimple appears at the edge of his lopsided smile. ‘Then I guess we have some shopping to do first.’ He lowers his mouth to mine just as my dad – who refuses to pretend he doesn’t see us – emerges from the hallway to his study and clears his throat.
‘Well, that went well.’ Sarcasm is a favourite line of defence for Reid.
I knew Mom and Dad might be inflexible. I couldn’t very well expect them to feign delight when they’re so opposed to the notion of Reid and me together, but I never thought they’d be openly prejudicial. My altruistic parents urged their daughters to reject racism, bigotry and intolerance, and our entire lives, Deb and I learned by following their examples. Now I’m facing the fact that their broad-mindedness only exists so long as the individuals aren’t famous and affluent.
I’m afraid to look up at him – to see how he’s dealing with the short, denigrating interview my parents just put him through. He seems remarkably unperturbed by what they said and how they said it – more so than I am. I’m livid and embarrassed.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would be that … unpleasant.’
He chuckles. ‘Unpleasant, huh?’
‘Understatement?’
‘A bit, yeah.’
My parents have gone to their room, leaving the brightly lit living room to us. The soft mumble of their voices signals their open door at the top of the staircase – an unspoken edict that Reid is not to set foot on the stairs, let alone into my bedroom.
They weren’t this watchful four years ago, when I was dating Colin, who pretended to be trustworthy and decent, not that I blame them for failing to see through his fa?ade. I just wish they could understand that one of the things I respect about Reid is – oddly enough – the fact that he’s honest about who he is and what he wants, no matter what it is. I guess that’s why I believe him when he says he wants me. When he says he loves me.
‘Hey.’ He bumps my knee with his, and then turns to draw my legs over his and pull me closer. ‘You okay?’
‘Are you?’
He half-smiles. ‘C’mon now. You don’t think I’d let a little parental reproach stand in my way, do you? You know me better than that. I live for disapproval. It’s expected of me. My fans would think I was dying or something if parents started randomly approving of me.’