Michael, Antoinette, and Me

 

Part Six

 

After a wash, Elaine circled Antoinette at Rube’s Hair Salon. “Toby –”

“I’m not looking for Cinderella or a Christmas miracle. Better would be good.”

“Better we can do.” She nodded to Antoinette. “You promise in the future to only let me at your head?”

“I do. Not like I had a choice. They held me down.”

“You could almost pass for a boy. Have you ever been mistaken for a boy?”

“No, never. I guess, if I wanted to, I could, huh?”

“Toby asked me to ambush you.”

“Huh?”

Working the scissors lightly, she glanced at me, then explained, “Piercing your ears. Pop, pop. Without warning.”

“My mother does call me a snotty little cunt.” I shrugged at Antoinette in the mirror. “It’s good for you, a girl your age not having her ears pierced is unheard of. It’s like a Christmas present from me.”

Elaine watched me in the mirror. “Does she really?”

“What, really?”

“Your mother?”

“She does, never to my face.”

Biting her lip, she watched me for a long time. Don’t even thing about asking to hug me. She didn’t.

Goo-ing her hands with clear gel, she worked body into Antoinette’s hair.

“I love it. It is a Christmas miracle,” I said. “Are you going to cry, Toni?”

“Not if I can help it!”

“The ears?”

“Yeah, do the ears.”

 

“I get what you meant in the woods.” Antoinette stood close in the milling crowd, us out of the main flows of shoppers.

“What, when?”

“Oh, about church. Not believing.”

“I believe in the good and that was enough for a while. Turns out, the church doesn’t believe in me, which I’ve known since I got kicked out of Trinity. When it comes to church, I’ve been beating my head against the wall until it’s a bloody stump. They’ve repeatedly told me they don’t want me. It’s time I believe them.”

“I won’t go then –”

“You’re going to go for your own good reasons. Levy, having a normal human experience. Having adults actually like you. The Palmers will welcome you, as will the Church, and that’s a good thing.”

“But, eh, I, well. If they ever find out –”

“Antoinette. Toni. What will come doesn’t matter. Enjoy dancing in the rain even while knowing the sun will break through the clouds eventually. Go to church for the good, then to breakfast with the Palmers. Bathe in the experience. Do it every week as long as you love it until the day you can’t.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I can’t take them out?”

“You shouldn’t, turn them every few hours. You take the posts out, the hole will try to heal over.”

She let out a long sigh. “Dad says anything, I’ll just say I did it on a dare.”

I fluffed her hair. “Just long enough, maybe no one will notice.”

“Maybe I’ll wear my knit cap pulled down, not like anyone in my family – or even school – looks at me. There’s this kid in my class, always wearing a knit cap.”

“Being invisible is a superpower worth cultivating. Coming over tomorrow afternoon? I’ll make dinner, wear my ball gown for you.”

“Sleep over again. I’ll walk to Levy’s from there.”

“Hang here a second.” I crossed the stream of people to the Harvest Chateau veranda. “Hey, Pam.”

“Toby! So good to see you!”

“I was just happening by.” Yeah, right.

She set dishes in the tub, hands on the railing, her head titling just a little, eyes drinking me.

“I got this thing, I mean, on New Year’s Eve. Black tie.”

“Sounds fun.”

I think you missed my question. “Would you like to go, I mean, with me?”

Her eye got big. She glanced the interior. “Oh my gosh, Toby, I couldn’t.”

That was not a I don’t want to. “You work Monday?”

“I do.” Her eyes, bright.

“How about I meet you here at eight. We can go down to The Tavern. I hear they have a great roast beef sandwich.”

Again, she glanced the interior, blushing slightly. “They do, the best. I’d really, really like that. I’ll meet you in The Tavern when I get done, might be a little later than that, I’m closing, you know what that’s like. Diane cannot know.”

I like clandestine.

 

I worked through the river of people, returning to Antoinette, smirking, maybe a smile, definitely blushing.

“Who’s the fat girl,” Antoinette cast down on me.

My gut reaction was to slap her across the face so hard, her grandchild would feel it, which I stayed, doing worse. “What a terrible thing to say.” Taking her upper arm, I put my cheek on hers, delivering a harsh whisper. “Michael.”

She recoiled.

“Well, Antoinette would not say such a horrible thing!”

Confusion draped her face as she considered her response, her first choice to turn, walk away. I had her arm.

“Sorry,” she said to her boots. “It’s just –”

“Just what?” I bent, watching her face.

Following much lower lip gnawing, she confessed. “I think I’m jealous. You were talking to, ah –”

“Pamala and I had some epic flirting going on. I’m surprised we didn’t melt the railing.”

“Yeah.”

“Like you and Levy.”

She nodded.

“We good?”

“Yeah, sorry. I guess I got an inner asshole just waiting to spring out.”

“I think we all do. I wanted to find you a pair of hoops for when you take the posts out.”

“My favorite on you.”

“Mine, too.”

 

I’d loved Antoinette since the moment I saw her, the fire never diminished, growing. Being with her, spending time with her across the mindscape, walking, talking, flirting, dancing by the fire, over the years birthed feelings in my body even before puberty swept across me. Masturbation, as I said, was immensely satisfying not unlike a hot bath with bubbles and candles on a cold winter night.

I’d read the forum sections in my adult magazines. I knew the experience should be more than like a hot bath.

Jessica, in the linen closet, was that ember jumping onto the wet leaves. When her hand glided across the silk, fingers sinking inside, the ember didn’t care about the rain, didn’t care about the leaves being wet, the fire released across the trees taking the woods, and me, into a glorious crescendo.

Since, masturbation had become much more than like a hot bath.

I wanted to fall in love with Toni. I wanted Michael to become my Antoinette. I wanted Michael to be a lump of clay I could form to my liking. Moments, Antoinette wearing my clothes, me on her lap facing her, making out, almost driving myself to ecstasy. Moments, in the market, her excited face as she presented bags of mixed fruit, her skipping up to me with a star for the top of the tree. Moments, a quiet walk to church in objective reality, not just her in my imagination. A cliché silhouette against a Christmas tree.  Solemn, holding hands in church. Laughing at my table eating pizza. Cringing with the ear pinch.

Friends that hug, a rare gift I give myself.

Then, the castle of glass shattered as if it never was with the simple question, “Who’s the fat girl?”

I am aware girls can be cruel, catty, mean. My mother is a girl after all. Not Antoinette. She can’t be, not the image I wanted to create, not the person I wanted to reclaim from death.

I had a good reason to allow Michael to jerk off in front of me. I wanted the image burned across the cones and rods behind my eyes as a constant reminder that Michael, like my brother and Uncle Gropey, wanted to look at me when he jerked off.

When I asked Michael whether he always masturbated when he dressed up, he answered, “That’s kind of the point,” which haunted me.

I spent more time than was mentally healthy across the mindscape with my Antoinette, dancing around the fire with her, often without, walking in the rain on a sunny day, sitting under a canopy of stars on a grassy hill while I’m lying in bed searching for a night’s sleep.

Being my Antoinette, a better version of me.

Masturbation was never the point.

 

I knew I could never be Antoinette, yet there I was that cold night two weeks before Christmas thinking I could simply be her, joining her family.

 

Huddling in my hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and of course my boots, I sat on my front step nursing a mug of coffee, dark clouds threatening a welcomed rain. “Who’s the fat girl?” I moaned, wondering what Michael may think about me or Levy that he doesn’t say. “Snotty little cunt,” I said aloud. “Kind of odd pillow talk.” I couldn’t imagine how I’d even come up in barroom conversation to a stranger, maybe Sailor Max looking for women with children, children whose faces he could cum on.

I had thought at first blush Father Brown wanted to kill and eat me. I assumed him going ballistic at the vague hint of me being gay, he unconsciously or overtly wanted to fuck me or at least cum on my face. When we dropped off the turkeys, I did get a creepy hit off the dynamic between him and the two young men. “I didn’t think he liked girls.”

A compact red Chevy four door rolled to a stop, Antoinette twisting to deliver a lingering kiss to the driver, a man of maybe forty in a blue suit. Shuffling, the passenger door opened, she bounded out, gray sweatshirt, blue denim skirt, white knee shocks, black army boots, hair fluffy, backpack over her right shoulder. She looked good.

“Toby!” she called, the car speeding off.

I descended, meeting her at the bottom of the steps. I wanted to withdraw the friends that hug agreement, still haunted by the fat girl comment, the reminder this was not Antoinette.

“Toni,” I greeted as we hugged. “Friend?”

“Nah. Said he’d drop me off at your door if I give him a kiss. Men are so easy.” Stepping back, a slight stamp of the right foot, she rolled her eyes. “Can I take a long, hot shower?”

Her cuteness melted me.

 

“Must be lonely, just you in this huge house.”

I shrugged. “Well, there is Uncle Percy.”

“Yeah, right.” She presented her fork. “This is the best meatloaf, ever, and let me tell you, Mom makes a great meatloaf.”

“My mother played at being a mom. She’d start shit, like diner, get lost halfway through. I would think parents should be required to meet a minimum standard.”

Antoinette engaged her dinner. I was going to ask about her kissing the man in the car when she blurted out, “I can come live with you?” watching her plate.

I didn’t hesitate. “No, not possible.”

She glanced me, then back to her plate, her hands folded on her lap, hunched over just a little. “It’s not like you don’t have the room.”

“This isn’t my house. I’m renting. I have a really specific lease.” Once again, I was not proud how easily I could lie.

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Are things that terrible at home?”

“It’s not that. You know Dad’s angry all the time, disappointed in every little thing Mike does. I’m already bracing for my Christmas beatdown. I figured this year I’d get out early, hitch to the mall, hang out most the day.”

“Most the stores will be closed.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Invisibility is a strategy that’s worked for me.”

“You’ve said. I’m getting better at it.”

“I’ve got no plans for Christmas. You’re welcome to hang here.”

“Thanks. Still not the point.”

“What, then, is the point?”

“Last night, in the mall. You got me thinking.”

“Specifically?”

“Michael. His comment.”

“About Pamala?”

“Yes. I don’t much like Michael, either.”

“I never said I didn’t like Michael.”

“Not in so many words, but over the years, in so many ways. I still remember us in front of the school when you said you couldn’t be his girlfriend. In your bedroom after you got kicked out of school. There was this moment I thought we could be friends. You kicked me out.”

I shrugged, not about to defend Michael.

“If I were Mike right now, I wouldn’t be sitting here wearing your clothes. I wouldn’t have been invited to dinner at all. I wouldn’t blame you. Mike’s an asshole like his father. Nobody, not even you, likes Mike.”

 Persona, I thought. I am Toby and I am Antoinette, Antoinette a better version of Toby. I do understand I am not Antoinette. I simply wear her as a mask. Antoinette would have encouraged Michael to move into a spare bedroom where I scoffed at idea of having my space invaded.

Antoinette doesn’t exist in objective reality, rather something that goes on in my mind, even this Antoinette sitting at my dinner table.

“The boys, even men, in the mall Friday night were looking at me, glancing at me, the way you looked at that girl.”

“Pamala.”

“That guy dropping me off today. He drove three miles out of his way just to kiss me. He would have drove past Mike as if he wasn’t there.”

I thought to pontificate worthy of my father on the topic of boys chasing girls and the complexity of the simple dynamic that Uncle Gropey didn’t want to cum on my face – he wanted to cum on any girl’s face. Except for one of my gang rapists, they wanted to fuck any girl. In my sleep-deprived stupor, my body was available.

Antoinette halted me with, “Levy,” hunching a bit more, blushing.

One of the many images from my life I’ve collected to return to when contemplating the universe across my mindscape is that of Levy, Antoinette, the fireplace, and the Christmas tree veiled by the cheesecloth curtain of my front door.

“Yeah, Levy,” I said.

“If I could live here.” She paused, raising her face, watching my eyes. “I’d never have to be Mike again.”

“Out of my hands,” I disclaimed. “I’ll run it past Miss Locke when I get a chance.”

“Her? I don’t like her at all.”

“Like I said, not my decision.”

“I could get a job, find a cheap place to rent.”

“Live by the side of the railroad tracks, maybe follow the horses.”

“Huh?”

“Just thinking aloud. Do you have a social security card?”

“Somewhere.”

“Find it, you’re going to need it. When’s your birthday?”

“Why’s that important?”

“You’ll be seventeen. That makes a difference.”

“Kind of creepy you know I’ll be seventeen.”

“I’ve always known you’re a year older than me.”

“February.”

“How about being a bus person, dishwasher? I can talk to the owner at Harvest Chateau.

“That’s a boy’s job.”

“That’s what I was doing when you found me in the mall.”

She let out a deep sigh. “I guess I could try it.”

“There’s no try, Toni. You commit. Be the best bus person dishwasher you can be. If I recommend you, it’s my name on the line and these people are important to me.” I then understood the depth of the faith Bill Locke had in me. “You don’t have to decide now.”

“OK.”

“But to be clear: If I get you a job as Toni, you’re not only committing to washing dishes, you’re committing to Antoinette, too. You can’t wake up one day and say, Gee, I’m tired of peacocking for the boys, I’m not going to bother today. If you’re going to be a girl with a job at Harvest Chateau, it’s not for play.”

“I get it, Toby.” She pouted. “I’ve been thinking about all the coolness, none of the responsibility. I want to say right now, I’d really like to try doing something real in the real world.”

“We’ll talk more about it in the morning, after Church.”

“After breakfast.”

“Right.”

“I feel bad running off with Levy and his family, leaving you alone.”

“People really don’t get I like being alone.” Besides, I’m never alone, wraiths populating the shadowy mindscape.

 

“I really do love this dress,” Antoinette said as I set tea for us, the table cleared, leftovers put away.

My Antoinette dress. “Yeah, my favorite.”

“I’d like something more, eh, adult for tomorrow.”

I thought my bra camisole, garter, stockings, and three-inch sandals made the dress plenty adult. “How about my denim dress with my Mary Janes?”

“I guess that’ll do.”

I did my best not to telegraph my displeasure, regretting allowing Michael so far into me, thinking somehow he could be my Antoinette. I wanted my clothes back. Like with friends that hug, I didn’t know how to get back to the beginning. I’d thought at least Toni and I could be friends. The fat girl comment, kissing a stranger for a ride, and Michael in my clothes jerking off watching me all shattered the chance on the rocks of reality.

I finished my tea. “I’m going to wash the dishes, clean the kitchen, take a long, hot bath and go to bed. I’ll hang the dress in your room.”

“I thought we were going to –”

“We’re not. I thought I could do that. I thought I could sit there, you jerking off.” I stood, offered a casual shrug, gathering the mugs. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll make sure you’re awake in time to shower, get ready for church.”

Hands on her lap, face down, hunched over, she moaned, “I thought we were friends.”

I really wanted to say, Not even close. Sally’d shown me how devastating such a proclamation can be, even if it is true. “Antoinette, Toni. We are friends, but not the kind of friends who help each other masturbate.”

Still pouting, still looking at the table, answered, “I don’t get why it’s such a big deal.”

“You don’t have to get it, Toni. You only have to accept that’s the way I feel.”

She raised her sad face. “Can I hang out down here for a while?”

With the mirrors, “Sure. Don’t mess up my underwear.”

She blushed.

If Toni were really Antoinette, she’d have cleaned the kitchen with me then eye-fucked herself in the mirrors. As it were, Antoinette, across the shadowy mindscape, did clean the kitchen with me, us taking a few moments hands joined in a sweeping dance around the room to the tempo of my humming.

 

Haunted by the memory of Michael jerking off, I shut the bathroom door, wishing I didn’t have to. The toilet seat was up. Against my objection, I imagined Michael with my dress pulled up, underwear looped down, standing, peeing, one persona leaking into the other.

“Gross.”

 

The house, my house, sat quiet against the shadows of night, whispering in irregular creaks and moans. I pulled into my zipper-front blue hooded sweatshirt over my tee-shirt, which I slept in, slipping into my black leggings, bare feet.

Though my house embraced me, though I could not, I heard Michael’s breathing across the mindscape, intruding on my peace. Bacon sang over low heat, joined by two eggs.

“Hey,” Antoinette greeted. “I know, stay back from the bacon.”

“Good morning. The dress looks good on you.”

She blushed. “Thanks. About last night –”

I shrugged. “It’s all good.”

“I’m still trying to figure this thing out.” She dropped on a chair at the kitchen table.

“Toast?” I set a plate in front of her. “I figured you’d not want breakfast.”

“Thanks.”

I sat, poking at an egg with my toast.

“I thought about it last night. I don’t mean Antoinette. I mean me crashing into your life.”

Glancing, I confessed, “I do like my solitude.”

“I really don’t get that. Being alone drives me crazy. I’ve never had any friends.”

“I know.”

“Huh?”

“Back when you called Thompson an asshole –”

“I was right.”

“I know. You got tossed out of school. Thompson asked who was friends with you, who could take the assignments to you. No one raised a hand, which is the only reason I did.”

“Because you felt sorry for me?”

“I really don’t know. I’m not by nature a helpful person.”

“Yet, you invited me to dinner, bought me a wig.”

I wasn’t about to confess. “You going to be able to pull this off with the Palmers? I mean, we were sitting with them, holding hands. If not for Miss Locke, I’d likely been burned as a witch.”

“I look so much different without the wig.”

“You do.” The difference between Antoinette and Toni.

“I wanted to say, Toby, I appreciate everything.”

I nodded.

“Can I borrow your coat?”

“The red one? Sure.”

“I’d better get going.” She stood. “Sun’s coming up.”

“OK. Have a good time.” I thought if I stayed in the chair, I could avoid a hug, maybe begin to break the habit.

“OK. Eh, any advice, I mean, for today?”

“Matter of fact. Don’t leave the toilet seat up. Toni doesn’t pee standing.”

She blushed.

 

I wanted snow. I accepted the clear skies, forty-degree temperature, propping open many of the downstairs windows, finally stripping the last piece of wallpaper from the upstairs. I’d found a box of trisodium phosphate in the basement, read the instructions as Mort suggested, starting the long process of cleaning the walls and ceilings, the first task – the smaller of the downstairs bedrooms.

With the one room done, my arms about to fall off, I made tea, sitting on my front steps. I was going to call Mort, see if he wanted to work on the upstairs. My fence distracted me. Though I repaired it the best I could, I needed many new slats. I shrugged, rolling my eyes, thinking I should hire someone.

“I’ll take measurement, make a list, get Levy to make a run to the lumber yard,” I decided.

Four houses up, across the street to my right, a car caught my eye I couldn’t remember seeing before. Not that I notice cars. This car was cute, a tiny green MG with a black canvas top. I narrowed my eyes. The car had an occupant. I toyed with the idea that maybe for a kiss, I could get a three-mile ride in the cute car.

I left my steps in a brisk walk, out the gate, making an obvious beeline. As I approached, the driver cranked the window down.

“Jessica,” I greeted flatly.

Blushing, Jessica greeted back, “Hi, Toby.”

I smirked. “Mr. Locke?”

“Actually Mary. I wanted to talk to you.”

“I live over there.”

“I know. I was working up the courage.”

“I can’t imagine you being afraid of anything.”

“Yet here I am.”

 

“I almost didn’t recognize you.”

Jessica’s black hair framed her face, flowing over her shoulders. She wore a gray sweatshirt, faded jeans, sneakers, and like me, no makeup “You look different, too. Still beautiful.”

We sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fire facing each other, nursing hot chocolate.

I blushed. “Thanks.”

“I wanted to apologize for the other night.”

“I can’t imagine what for,” I answered.

“Well, Toby, it’s not like I drag random strangers into linen closets.”

“You didn’t drag me, and by the time we hit the closet, eye-fucking each other all night, we were hardly strangers. I didn’t see a problem, still don’t.”

She let out a long, sad sigh. “It’s Jake. My fiancé.”

I crossed my eyes.

“We had a huge fight. Well, he yelled at me a lot. I can’t push back too much. He can get violent.”

“My father was exactly like that. Being invisible is the much better choice over killing him in his sleep.”

She shrugged. “To feel better about myself, well, there you were right in front of me.”

“I have my own kink. I don’t judge.”

“It’s not just that.”

“I know.”

“Huh?”

“If it were just that, you’d not have been sitting out in front of my house on a Sunday morning.”

She blushed, watching her hands. “You’re really intuitive.”

“Keeps me alive.”

“Did you ever see someone and just know you love them for real and will for the rest of your life?”

“Matter of fact, I have.”

“Was that her this morning?”

Sitting in front of the house that long makes you a stalker. “No. She died. Is that why you accept the abuse from your asshole fiancé? You think you love him?”

“Sorry. I wasn’t clear. I was talking about you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“Just how well did you know, who?”

“Antoinette.”

“Antoinette when you decided you loved her?”

“First glance, real and true.”

“Even before you turned around. I think at the cut of your tux.” Her eyes pleaded. Her hand came over mine.

I took her hand. “Jessica. I don’t know what you want me to do with all this.”

“Well, how do you feel about me?”

My bones are melting. “Fiancé.” I put up as a phalanx as much for me as for her. Across the mindscape, a bit of guilt festered having cheated on Antoinette, and Antoinette didn’t exist in objective reality. I withdrew from Toni not only because I knew Toni could never be the Antoinette I wanted her to be, but also because she had a boyfriend, kind of, Levy.

Though my old house was a horror show, the home was a place to live, a secure lock on my bedroom door. My father took one whiff of Tammy’s skirt, that all went to shit. “Fiancé,” I repeated. “Not that the linen closet wasn’t beyond words, melting my bones, blowing the top of my head off, I’m not looking for someone to swept through once in a while and jerk me off.”

Her blushed deeply. “I could tell you liked it.”

“Jessica! So not the point.”

Her free hand came behind my neck as she rocked toward me, our lips barely touching for an eternity of five seconds. “May I tell you?”

Lucky for me she didn’t know I would say yes to anything. “Please do.”

Sitting back, holding my hand, she said, “My father owns a restaurant in the city.”

“I’ve seen ads in the newspaper.”

“Huh?”

“I read the paper. If I’d made the connection, I would have stalked you instead of you stalking me.”

“My father is popular and famous. My older brother was supposed to be prepared to take over the business. He’s off to Paris or somewhere, being an artist.”

“So, you have to take his place?”

“I must marry Jake so Jake can take his place. Jake was my father’s choice.”

“That’s terrible. I still don’t know what you want from me.”

“I want to sweep through once in a while and jerk you off.”

I giggled into a laugh. “No, really.”

“I’ve been so driven with school and work, even as a kid – I’m actually a chef – that I’ve had no time to make any friends. Or, I should say, I’ve not meet anyone I’ve felt investing time in to make friends with.”

“I know that feeling.”

“And, to sweep through, jerk you off once in a while.”

I answered leaning forward, my right hand under her hair behind her neck, whispering, “Fiancé,” our lips touching like kitten feet on a dusting of snow. “Friends that kiss,” I added, rocking back, blushing.

“No one can know.”

I rolled my eyes. “Are you free New Year’s Eve?”

“Damn you’re cute when you do that.”

“Roll my eyes?”

“Yes, and no. We’re doing the Locke’s party. I was hoping you’d be working. I wanted to have this conversation before then.”

I let out a long sigh, sharing a half smile. “I’ll be a guest at the party. Can you take off, be my date?”

“I had no idea you were that important. You met my father, which answers both questions.”

“I guess it does. Important?”

“Only the most important people get an invitation to that part.”

I shrugged. “If I’m important, I am not aware.” I bet my eyes sparkled when I asked, “Want to see what I’m wearing?”

“I do.”

“That’s not the same as I want to show you something in the linen closet.”

“I didn’t take it that way.”

Working to my feet, Jessica took my hand, me pulling her up and into me. “Friends that hug,” I said with a sigh, my arms hooked under her arms, palms flat on her shoulder blades, my chin on her shoulder, face buried in her hair, the scent of raw cinnamon filling my head. “Just like this, hold me.”

The universe fell away. The same feeling of dancing naked in cold snowy air around the fire in my soft asylum filled my head. I lost track of where I ended and Jessica began. For the eternity of sixty seconds, the world was perfect.

In that forever moment passing too quickly I knew I was in love – real and true. In that moment, lost in the raw cinnamon, I wondered why in all the universe I was so special, so important, that I’d get the gift twice, first Antoinette and then Jessica.

I clutched fists of her sweatshirt and cried.

 

With no thoughts toward the future, I held the fragile soap bubble in my fingers, letting Jessica go at the door. I wanted to walk her out, that we could steal a few more precious seconds from the universe. I lingered on the porch until the green MG with the black canvas top was swallowed by the dark around the corner.

With a symbolic gesture, I looked up then down the street, puzzling about Toni, wondering, maybe worrying that Levy discovered a truth, murdering her. I locked up, went to bed, awakened by pounding on the door.

Without greeting or invitation, Antoinette threw herself on me, embracing me, rambling, “Thank you,” repeatedly in my ear.

“Good day, huh?”

“Oh, Toby, the best! I absolutely love the Palmers and they love me!”

I backed into the house. “Tea? Hot chocolate?”

“Eh, no, I have to get a quick shower, get home. School in the morning. But let me tell you, I had no idea how wonderful a good family can me. Belly – that’s what we call Isabella – was so cute, showing me all her dolls. Of course, I had to make up stories about my dolls and even my family. I didn’t want the Palmers to think I was anything like you, with an improper family.”

I followed her up the stairs. Of course. I wanted to scream What the fuck. “Good move, really.”

“Right?”

We entered the bathroom, left the door open. I dropped the lid, sitting on the toilet.

“Toby?”

I shrugged. “I figured you weren’t done gushing.”

She hesitated before working at the buttons running down the front of my denim dress.

“Not like you’ve got anything I’ve not seen before.”

“My mother says that!”

“I think all mother’s do. You got a run in my stocking.”

“Sorry.”

“Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

“Oh, the girdle? At first. I got used to it. I have to control things, you know.”

“I was wondering.”

“You know, sitting there watching me undress, I could think you sending me a message.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“You know.”

“Like I’m asking for it?’

He bent over, rolling the girdle down. “Well, yeah.”

“Michael, if I ever want it from you, you’ll not doubt the message.”

“Noted.” He blushed. “Levy said he thinks he’s falling in love with, eh.”

“Toni.”

“Right.” He stepped into the shower.

I gathered my clothes. My Mary Janes were scuffed, which I could polish out.

Michael’s face, mascara running, appeared from behind the curtain. “I jerked him off.”

I didn’t know whether to take the proclamation as a brag, a boast, or an affirmation. “Did he like it?” was all I could think to ask.

“Hell, yeah! I mean, I know how the equipment works!”

“Did you like it?”

“I’m not gay!”

“Not what I asked.”

His face disappeared. “It’s, Toby, I love how he likes me – how he looks at me. I’ve never, ever felt like this before about anyone. Not just him, but the whole family.”

With no thoughts toward the future, I held Antoinette’s/Toni’s/Michael’s fragile soap bubble in my fingers, happy for his joy.

He thanked me again at the door on the way out, taking the steps three at a time. I locked the door and went to bed, my bedroom door open.

 

Bacon, two over easy eggs, chopped fried potatoes, and toast for breakfast on the open three-season porch in the back of the house, the air just not cold enough for snow, the stars blacked out. I liked my solitude, resisting the pull to conjure up my near constant companion the wraith, Antoinette.

I pushed back guilt. I didn’t know what to say to her.

With the kitchen cleaned from breakfast, everything put away, I spread an old towel on the kitchen table, pushed back the irritation with Toni, maybe anger, going at my Mary Janes with a rag and boot black. I’d put my silk underwear and stockings to soak in the upstairs powder room sink, even the stocking with the run, unable to let go, my denim dress dancing in the drier.

My first impulse was to simply tell Michael he couldn’t wear my clothes anymore. Rubbing until the back of my hand hurt, I thought the better solution was to buy him his own clothes, give him a drawer in the bedroom he sleeps in. I could give him a basic wardrobe under the guise of Christmas presents.

Michael working on his penis, wearing my clothes, his eyes dancing over me wasn’t when I gave up on Michael ever becoming a flesh and blood Antoinette to replace my wraith.

Who’s the fat girl haunted me.

My ghostly Antoinette, not existing in objective reality, was prefect, flawless. Michael was neither and being real, never could be. Just like back in sixth grade, I didn’t like Michael and just like sixth grade, here I put my hand up.

 

Most the windows had been painted shut, a solid hamming required to open the first day in the house. Even free, unlike the nightmare house, they didn’t go up easily and they didn’t stay up. With a glancing examination, obviously, the ropes were dry rotted, broken.

As a convincing distraction from the next room trisodium phosphate cleaning, my arms still sore from the day before, I took on the task of taking apart one of my bedroom windows, assembling a hammer, a chisel, and a razor knife. I destroyed half the first trim board attempting to just pry it loose, the board painted in. The other half surrendered easily to the pry bar after I ripped the paint seal with the razor knife.

On the second trim board, I not only ripped the paint seal, but took my left inner arm open four inches from the palm. Resisting a scream or any kind of panic, keeping my balance on the step ladder, I cut my dangling silk underwear free from over the window, holding the cloth tight to my wrist.

With warm water running over the wound, I chuckled at the idea of transparent tape, and as if I were a doctor, determined I’d not done any real damage, passing moments on the step ladder thinking I’d bleed out on my bicycle halfway to the hospital. A quarter bottle of hydrogen peroxide later, I secured a pad to my wrist with electrical tape from the basement.

 

The Paint Corner rested at a busy intersection two miles and change from the house. “We can arrange that,” Linda Harris answered my question concerning delivery.

She was a loud, robust woman, square face, strong jaw, straw hair pulled back tight in a high ponytail, bibbed denim coveralls, white tee-shirt. I liked her immediately.

“Middle of January is good.” I pointed. “This one,” one of the million and a half shades of white with a touch of gray and ochre, “White for the trim and baseboards.”

“How many rooms?”

“All of them.”

“Same color?”

“I don’t want to have to compete for attention.”

She laughed. “Ever painted before?”

I liked she didn’t assume I was shopping for a man or otherwise an adult. “I have not.”

“You need a good primer.”

I showed her Mort’s note.

“That’s the stuff. Ceilings are generally white.”

“I noticed. Thankfully, they didn’t paper the ceilings, too. I’ll be taking the wall color onto the ceiling. I’m feeling lazy.”

“Number of rooms?” Her pencil poised over a pad.

I provided her with square feet.

She whistled. “Can you handle five-gallon buckets?”

“Of course.”

Reading her reaction to my checkbook, I said, “Has my address and phone number on it. Will clear long before you deliver.”

 

Because I often make assumptions, I greeted with, “Good morning, Mr. Woodrow,” when I entered Woodrow’s Hardware a mile and change down from the paint store.

The man behind the counter, draped in gray work clothes, brown boots, a good head and a half over me, elderly, my grandfather’s age, dull gray hair cut short, sharp blue eyes, glanced me. “Good morning, eh?”

“Toby. I’m in the Marcy House.”

“Good morning, then, Toby. I’ve heard rumors. Marcy should have sold that house to the developers, gone off to die in Florida.”

I think he may have read me.

“Oh, I don’t mean I wished her dead, not that many people who didn’t know her wished her dead. I knew her well, very, very well. I mean, when people feel the time is near, they go to Florida.”

I held his eyes, sharing a neutral stare. “I don’t know if that’s a joke or not, Mr. Wilson. Either way, it’s funny. Florida, like an elephant graveyard for people.”

“Elephant graveyard?”

“I was reading about it in National Geographic, I think it was, I read so much, don’t keep notes. Anyway, when elephants feel death is near, by instinct, they go to the same place to die – elephant graveyard.”

He pulled on his unshaven chin. “Florida, like an elephant graveyard for people. I shall be stealing that.”

“If I can find it, I’ll drop the article by.”

“I’d like that. What can we get for you today?”

“I need some window rope.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, the rope that pulls the windows up, you know, attached to the windows, then the –”

“Ah, sash rope.”

“It wasn’t labeled, I mean, in the window.”

“Oh, I like you.”

I blushed.

“Rotted out, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

“You want rope or chain?”

“There’s chain? What’s the difference?”

“About 25 cents.”

“Which is better?”

“I’d say chain because chain is forever. Another forty years, you’ll have to replace the rope again.”

“Oh, I like you, too.”

 

Squat, like a troll, Mrs. Ambrose looked up at me from behind the desk with beady brown eyes, her mousy brown hair gathered sloppily on top her head. Irritation was written across her face, I imagined from having to deal with people all day.

“Merry Christmas,” I greeted, figuring the greeting appropriate, Christmas not far off.

She grunted, which could have been a greeting unfamiliar to me.

“3751 C.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember you.”

“She late?”

“Her kind is always late.”

I bent to the desk, writing in my checkbook, uninterested in what kind she thought my mother was. “Rent for December and January. After that, you can throw her the fuck out.”

Right there, I got my, “Well, I never!” I so often expect. Too busy scrambling for her figurative pearls, she didn’t bother to thank me, still blurting out, “There’s a late penalty,” which I paid in cash.

On the eight miles and change ride home, I realized, maybe, why my father was so pathologically and perpetually angry with my mother and just maybe why my father would run off at the first sign of a woman – though barely a woman – showed any interest in doing anything other than drinking.

 

Rain with wind ravaged across me a mile from the house as I piloted my bike along the roads. I snickered at the idea of taking refuge huddling in the doorway of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, walking my bike on the sidewalk instead. With my backpack water resistant, nothing would get ruined.

Home just after noon, I filled the tub with almost-too-hot water and bubbles, propped the window open with an old ruler, sank in the bath listening to the song of the wind and the rain.

 

“This should be snow,” I moaned, sitting on my three-season porch sipping tea, plotting the needed repairs. Water dripped from the ceiling in the far corner, which told me the entire roof may need attention. A formidable wooden extension ladder rested, secured in the weeds next to the garage.

“If I can free the ladder, and if I can lift the ladder, and if the ladder doesn’t fall apart, and if I climb onto the roof, I don’t even know what I’m looking at.” I shook my head, confounded by the thought I must do everything myself.

 

I really wanted to take a long walk in the punishing storm, choosing to dance in the backyard for half an hour instead. If I were just going to get my pay, I would have ridden my bike to the mall. I had other things to do.

I pulled my gray Temple College sweatshirt over my head, wondering whose it was, the sweatshirt a perfect match for my blue denim skirt with the silver button up the front, white socks cuffed below the knee and of course, my shiny black army boots.

Taking the red bandana with the white paisley design by the corners, I created a headband looped around my neck, pushed up into my hair for a different look. I liked the look, calling a cab.

The Red Rover Taxi Service was local, had a small ad in the Yellow Pages. The big ads all shouted reliable airport service. I didn’t much care about going to the airport, maybe a little concerned they’d be so busy with airport runs, they’d not have reliable mall service.

“Red Rover!” the man barked the greeting on the phone.

I supplied my information. He barked Twenty minutes at me, hanging up.

I toyed with the idea of asking for a Cab to come over. I figured he heard that a million times a day.

Just shy of nineteen minutes later, the cab pulled up to the gate, a beige Country Squire, a man, fortyish, bounding out, coming around the car, opening an umbrella as he entered the gate, coming up the walk, and up the porch steps, extending the umbrella. “Good day!”

I giggled. “Hello to you!”

“Rex,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

“Toby.”

Rex was a handsome man a full head over me, strong features, short cropped black hair, red shirt, black pants. “I like your bag. Suede?”

“Thank you, yes.”

Depositing me in the back of the cab, he said, “Careful not to get it wet. Suede doesn’t like wet.”

Paying the fare with two additional dollars, I told the driver he need not get out, but he ran around the car umbrella at the ready, taking me to the mall entrance. I turned on him, thanked him again, offered a hand, when he took it, with both hands, I placed a twenty in his palm. “Merry Christmas.”

“And to you! Don’t hesitate to ask for me.”

Lingering at the door, I watched the cab melt into the rain. “I won’t.”

 

Mary Locke passed my envelope through the window, sharing a wink.

“Oh? What have I don’t to deserve that?”

She shrugged. “Just for being you.”

“I like me, too.”

“Would you be interested in picking up some hours here?”

“In Playland?”

“Don’t look so terrified.”

“It’s the constant noise, Miss Locke.”

“We understand, besides, I see your timecard.”

“I ordered paint and primer today.”

“It’s good to be busy.”

I displayed the envelope. “Thanks again.”

Responding to Keira’s beckoning hand fluttering, I approached the roller coaster. “Hey, Keira.”

“Toby. I wanted to apologize.”

“For?”

“Assuming.”

I shrugged.

“I was talking like I have a dick. I’d heard people talking, mind you, I never got involved in any of the gossip, it’s just shit I happened to overhear. I made some phone calls.”

I shrugged again. “What other people think about me is really none of my business.”

“Well, there’s Robbie. He had no idea you were in the middle school. He still likes you. And, like you asked, he’s not raped anyone.”

“Not that they call it rape.”

“Roughhousing ­–”

“My warning still stands about boys will be boys.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple. If a group of people decide to play a game, that’s great for those people. If they decide to include a person in that game who doesn’t wish to play, that’s called rape. You said in the high school girls get raped in the bathrooms. Why would you think the middle school would be different.”

Keira turned away, bringing the roller coaster to a stop, stepping in, helping children off, loading children up. I thought about my cheek resting on her broad shoulder, her curly dark hair tickling my face.

“It’s not boys will be boys, Toby. Some girls ­–”

“Deserve it? Are asking for it?”

“Did Randell deserve it?”

“Who? Oh, him. I was defending myself.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re saying over in the high school there might be a girl who is a snotty little cunt and the boys, to defend themselves against the snottiest little cuntness, gang rape her in the bathroom after home economics?”

She cringed.

“The boys, I understand, but Keira, get your head out of your ass.” I fished through my bag, producing my checkbook, writing on a back ledger page, ripping off the piece. “My phone number if you want to talk. I have no idea why I like you, but I do.”

“You have a checkbook? How can you have a checkbook?”

 

“I like your hair like that,” Tex said.

“Thanks. I was kind of hoping Carol was working.”

He turned from the grill. “I got the impression you don’t like her.”

Looking over my teacup, I answered, “I don’t dislike her. She’s familiar.”

“I actually understand that.”

“What’s back there?”

“Where? Oh, more kitchen.”

“Can I slip back there?” I displayed my wrist and a small bag. “I want to change my bandage.”

His expression went dark. “Go.”

 

Sitting at the sink, working at the tape, Tex appeared, taking my arm. “Oh, silly girl. What did you do?” Quick work with a sharp knife freed the bandage.

“An accident. Blade slipped when I was taking a window apart.”

“You should get stiches. You’re going to get a scar.”

“That’ll work. Other than my forehead, all my scars don’t show.”

“Not deep, no major damage,” he said, as if to himself.

My arm caught fire.

“Alcohol.”

“I used a gallon of hydrogen peroxide,” I said through my teeth.

“I can tell.” Lining two bandages along the injury, he wrapped my wrist tight with gauze, splitting the end, tying it off.

“You’ve done this before.”

“I was a boy scout. Why were you taking your window apart?”

“The window ropes broke.”

“Sash ropes.”

“Yeah, them.”

“You get it done?”

“Sure, but I have maybe a zillion more windows. I learned my lesson. I’ll be more careful.”

“I’ll do them. The sash ropes.” He rolled his eyes. “Three bucks a window.”

 

The door being half open was an invitation, Bob Edwards glancing up, talking into the phone, waving another invitation with his free hand. My father’s age, much better kept, pleasant round face featured busy eyebrows, kindly brown eyes. Even at the Locke’s party, he was attentive, which I liked in a person I was doing business with.

“Toby,” he greeted, placing the phone on its cradle. “Make my day and tell me you’re here to take me up on my offer.”

“Oh, Mr. Edwards, if only I could make that dream come true.”

“Well, it’s good to see you anyway.”

I bit my lip. “I have a friend, looking for work.”

“I see. Is he dependable. A hard worker like you?”

“She. I wish I could say.”

He narrowed his eyes. “That’s not a ringing endorsement, Toby.”

“I don’t want to say anything that isn’t true, anything I don’t know.”

“That says much about you.”

“She needs a job.” I held his eyes.

“OK. I got this. I need an extra Wednesday the 24^th.”

“Christmas Eve.”

“The mall closes at six, we’ll be doing the same.”

I nodded. “Noon to six?”

“Noon to maybe seven. If she’s half as good as you, I’ll give her the offer I gave you.”

“I really appreciate the opportunity, Mr. Edwards. You’ll have your extra, noon to seven, Wednesday.”

 

 Coming back through the kitchen, Diane caught me. We spent four minutes talking of absolutely nothing, me glancing over her shoulder, Pamala working on a ham twelve feet away, glancing back. I wasn’t sure how clandestine we had to be. I didn’t say hi.

 

Mr. Blanc stood over me about a head, a soft oval face with tan eyes too much like mine not to be spooky, his short hair caramel. Lost in a daydream coming from the Harvest Chateau, I almost walked into him.

“Can we talk?” he asked down on me.

I wanted to blurt out, Have you been stalking around here every day looking for me? “Hi, Mr. Blanc.”

“You look so much like her.”

You’ve said. “What do you want?” I avoided his eyes.

“Can we go somewhere, talk?”

We stood close, a bit too close to be comfortable, the mass of people moving around us like a busy river. “I’m good here.” I did understand Mr. Blanc’s pain. I didn’t discount he may wish to kidnap me, lock me in the basement, call me Antoinette.

He twisted his face as if biting into a lemon. “May I buy you something, something nice, a Christmas present? What do you want?”

“I appreciate the gesture, but no.”

Sad eyes grew sadder. “We thought, well, we talked about it. What is your home life like?”

I assumed the we to be his family. “I don’t see where that’s any of your business.”

“You were going to come live with us, that night, that Christmas. That doesn’t signal a happy family.”

“My family is, well, eh –”

“If you hate where you’re living, if you feel unsafe where you’re living, any reason, we’re willing to take you in, no questions asked.”

“And you’d call me Antoinette?” I took his eyes.

He tried not to baulk, blushing slightly. “If you don’t mind terribly. We’ve bought you Christmas and birthday presents each year, all waiting for you. Every family meal, we set a place for you. We talk to you.” He paused, then added, “I know that sounds crazy.”

“To me, no, Mr. Blanc. I’m sure to anyone else.”

“You could call me Daddy.”

I closed my eyes for a long moment. “I’m not Antoinette. I can’t be Antoinette. She was a much better version of me, with a much better life than mine. You may think, in all your pain, you can have her back, but in the end, I will only disappoint you. You’ll lose her all over again, the pain will be worse.”

I watched his eyes watching me.

“You look so much like her.”

“I am not her.” I thought I could have her back and fucked everything up.

“If you ever change your ­–”

“I won’t.”

“Can you do one thing for me, just once.”

“Depends.”

“Say: I love you, Daddy, and let me hold you.”

Keeping his eyes, I said, “I love you, Daddy.” He gathered me up, my hands on his back.

“I love you, Antoinette.”

He sobbed. I didn’t.

 

The rain sang to me, holiday shoppers hurrying into and from the parking lot, me under the overhang at the bus stop. I wanted to clear out the ocean of thoughts and emotions before meeting Pamala. Mr. Blanc scared the fuck out of me. I wrote his address on the back of my sales ticket from clothes shopping.

“If I ever disappear, rescue me from this address, likely chained up in the basement.”

Tex eyed the scribble, gave a sharp nod, placing the paper in his wallet. I expected him to ask, You’re kidding? or something.

 

“Lori,” I repeated the name, half a head over me, twice my age, dark hair tied back in a ponytail, rich brown eyes, cocoa complexion lending her an exotic appearance. “Someone will be meeting me.”

I liked The Tavern, booths along the wall, tables spread enough to not call crowded, dim lighting, small lights on each table, no canned music to interfere with thoughts or conversations.

She put me toward the back, near the kitchen. Nursing coffee, I watched the door. The wait was not long, Pamala spotting me, hurrying through around tables, standing over me at the booth.

“Well?” she asked. “Why are you still sitting? Or and I being presumptuous?”

“I didn’t want to be.”

We embraced like a mother sending her son off to die in a war on the other side of the world, my head filling with the scent of scorched pine, basil, sugar cookie dough, and cinnamon. “You,” she whispered in my ear, “are a great hug.”

“Friends that hug. A rare gift I give myself.”

We sat across from each other just as Lori arrived, pointing at Pamala with her pen. “I know what you’re having.”

Pamala blushed, just a little.

“I’ll have the same,” I said, unaware of what her order may be.

“Do you have a lot?” Pamala asked.

“Of?”

“Friends that hug.”

“I do not. I’m not a people person.”

“Really? The day we worked together ­–”

“Though Mr. Edwards was paying me to clear dishes from tables, run that monster of a dishwasher, by extension, I became a representative of Harvest Chateau and as such, I was being paid to be nice to the customers. I only seemed like I enjoyed interacting with people. I’d always rather be home by the fire reading a book.” I held her eyes. “Rare moments like this, of course, being the exception.”

“I think I understand. There’s oftentimes a customer will just act like a jerk for the sake of acting like a jerk. Like you just said, I’m paid to be nice to him.”

“People are assholes.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

Our food arrived, open face roast beef sandwiches, Kaiser roll, French fries drowning in beef gravy, root beer. “With a knife and fork,” Pamala answered my unasked question.

Positioning her plate, she offered, “Diane says you have an attitude.”

I shrugged. “My mother calls me a snotty little cunt. I think she means the same thing.”

She gave me the wide eyes, open mouth. “You go to Riversides High School, huh?”

“I thought that name really weird. I looked on a map. I don’t see any river.”

She giggled into a laugh. “That’s a guy’s name. Stanley Riversides. I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not. We live in the district. We’re not naturally occurring Catholics like Diane and her family.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Oh, they’ve always belonged to the Catholic Church, she’s always gone to Catholic school. My parents weren’t big on church, much, now and then, the holidays, never Catholic, I don’t think.”

She rolled her eyes. “Then Maria, that’s my older sister, got assaulted in the boy’s room.”

“Really?”

“Well, it’s not like she was using the boy’s room.”

“I’d guess she got dragged in out of the hall by a gang of boys.”

“It’s like you were there. Anyway, I thought Dad was going to burn the school down. No one took Maria seriously and when anyone did, blamed her for what happened. Overnight, our whole family got religion – this was five years ago, I guess. I landed in parochial school.”

“Boys will be boys,” I said flatly.

“My gosh, it’s like they were chanting that!”

“I was in Marshfield.”

“That’s a great school!”

“I liked it, pretty much minimum assholery, the scholastics almost challenging. Transferred to Riversides Middle School last September. That lasted almost a day.”

Pamala set her knife and fork down. “How old are you?”

I shrugged the question away. “Great sandwich.”

“I love to get the French fries soaked.”

“Love that shirt on you. It’s like your body’s struggling to get out of it, to be free.”

She blushed, just a little. “I should maybe wear a tee-shirt under it.”

“I love that I can see the lace. Who told you that? Diane or your father.”

“Diane.”

“That would have been my guess.”

“She says it’s too small.”

“It pulls at the buttons when you move, which is just one thing I like about it, like it’s part of you.”

“I like food. I like to eat,” she said as if a confession. “At seventeen, I’m still growing. What fits today may not fit next week. Diane says I’m just fat.”

“And you’re friends?”

“She doesn’t mean it that way. She says if I ever want a serious boyfriend, I should lose some weight. I have mirrors at home.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not the girl Diane says she was with, are you?”

She blushed. “Gosh, no. We’ve been best friends since seventh. I think she just said that to sound cool or something.”

Tourist. “I can’t imagine why’d she even think that would impress me or even why’d she want to impress me. I got the hit off her she didn’t like me.”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m pretty bright for a girl.”

She rolled her eyes, bouncing a little. “You’re really a hard worker. Dad and I were really impressed. You work like you own the place.”

“I take all my responsibilities seriously, even if it’s just washing dishes.”

“Diane’s dad requires she work. She’s going to be a doctor. She doesn’t care much for washing dishes.” Pamala bit her lower lip. “She said you’re lucky you’re good at busing tables.”

“Oh, the girl wasn’t to impress me. It was a put down. Not so complicated. Typical people stuff. As I said –”

“I know what you said.”

“You have a crush on her.”

The blush broke out again.

“You’re terrified she’ll think you an abomination.”

“She’s used that word referring to those people!”

I shrugged. “It’s in the Bible.”

“Really?”

“What Diane thinks of me is none of my business.” I literally waved Diane away, holding Pamala’s eyes. “I have a New Year’s Eve Party to attend. I’d be terribly honored and proud to have you go with me.”

Her eyes went wide. “My gosh, Toby. You said. I asked Dad. He said no and had an arm’s length of reasons why.”

“Did you give him any details?”

“I didn’t have any.”

“Well, you did. That you’d be going with me. I’m not going to be a doctor, but I bet that would make all the difference.” Again, I narrowed my eyes. “Let me be perfectly clear. Do you want to go to this party with me?”

“I do, really.”

“It’s formal.”

“I have just the thing, from Maria’s college graduation. If it still fits. If not, I’ll get Dad to take me shopping.”

“Good, Pamala. I’ll stop by to see your father.”

“You can call me Pam. Everybody does.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?”

I wanted to offer a shrug and it’s complicated. I kept her eyes. “Had an uncle, Uncle Gropey I called him. Holidays, family gatherings, he’d chase me around the house. Often enough, he’d corner me in the bathroom, hold me down, jerk off, cum on my face. He said he’d cum on my face so much, I could call him by his first name without the uncle.”

“Oh. My. Gosh. What did you mother say?”

I twisted a bitter smirk. “Boys will be boys.”

 

 

Part Seven