Wilson choked on a mouthful of food, laughing, and grabbed at his lemonade to wash it down. I loved making him laugh, even if it was hazardous to his health.
Wilson recovered and shook his head, denying my claim that he was popular with the ladies. “I was always the orchestra nerd – whatever you Americans call them..band geeks? I got along better with my teachers than my classmates. I was the skinny kid with glasses and big feet who knew all the answers in class and who volunteered to clean the whiteboards after class.”
“Kids actually do that?” I interrupted incredulously.
Wilson just rolled his eyes at me and continued. “I was not a chick magnet at all, especially with girls like you . . . so the fact that you weren't all that impressed with me last year, well, that much hasn't changed. And that was always fine with me. Girls were never high on my list of priorities. Don't misunderstand, I noticed girls like you, but I didn't especially like girls like you. And girls like you never noticed guys like me.”
“What? Mean skanks, you mean?” I said this mildly, pretending I was kidding. I wasn't. His words stung, but “girls like me” knew how to roll with the punches.
“No, Blue.” He shook his head in exasperation. “That's not what I meant. Beautiful girls, hard girls, girls who grew up way too fast and who would chew up chaps like me up and spit them back out.”
“Yeah. Like I said. Mean skanks.” I pushed my plate away and slurped my drink loudly, indicating it was all gone. I stood up, communicating the end of our conversation and the end to our “cozy meal.” Wilson just stared up at me, and I could tell I'd made him angry. Too bad. I smiled at him slowly, sarcastically, showing lots of teeth. What had been a lighthearted conversation had suddenly take on a different tone. He ran his hands through his hair and pushed his plate away as well. He tossed a couple bills on the table and stood. He walked toward the register, away from me, dismissing me. He paid for both of our meals and left the cafe. I waved at Beverly, who blew me a little kiss.
“See ya in the morning, Blue. Tell Wilson I said cheerio.”
Wilson was waiting for me outside, his hands shoved in his pockets and his face raised toward the sunset. One of my favorite things about the desert were the sunsets. The sky above the lowlying western hills cast pink and purple ripples up into the descending night sky. Maybe it was because there was nothing to obscure the view – Las Vegas sat down in the valley, and Boulder City sat higher, to the southeast, around the bend of the eastern hills – but the sunsets never failed to move me and remind me of times with Jimmy when I wasn't so hard, when I hadn't had to grow up so fast. Wilson didn't speak as I approached, and we began to walk in silence. My increasing size forced me to waddle, but Wilson adjusted his stride as we made our way toward home.
“Why do you do that?” Wilson bit out eventually. I knew he'd been working up a good mad.
“Do what?”
“Assume the worst. Put words in my mouth, call yourself names, all of it. Why?”
I thought for a minute, wondering how I could possibly make someone like Wilson understand how if felt to be a “girl like me.”
“The first time I had sex I was fourteen, Wilson. I didn't necessarily want it, but there you go. He was an older boy, and I liked his attention. He was nineteen, and I was easy pickings.” I shrugged. “I've had sex many times since then. Some people might say that makes me a slut, and the fact that I make no apologies for it might qualify me as a bitch. Calling myself a mean skank is mild, if you look at it that way. I'm not proud of it – and I'm trying to change it – but it's the truth, and I'm not really interested in making excuses for myself.”
Wilson had stopped walking and was staring at me. “Fourteen?! That's not sex. It's statutory rape, Blue.”
“Yeah, Wilson. In many ways, it was.”
“Bugger!” Wilson whispered, incredulous. “I don't bloody believe this!” Then he yelled, “Bugger!” again, this time so loudly that some people crossing the street stopped and stared. A woman was driving by in her car with her window down as he yelled, and she frowned at us. The poor woman thought Wilson was yelling at her.
“Let me guess, nothing happened to him? Right?” Wilson turned on me as if it were me he was angry with. I knew it wasn't. In fact, Wilson's anger was incredibly validating. I found that telling him did not upset me and, for the first time, remembering didn't make my insides quake.