A Quiet Neighbor (16 page)

But why am I so afraid all of a sudden?

I once had a fairytale image of what this
momentous moment would be like. There would be music playing in the background
and candles lit around the bed. For one thing he’d be clean and shaven. My body
would be glistening and smooth from the bath. I’d be wearing something pretty
and laying on a bed glittered with rose petals. He would have just proposed and
I would be blushing with innocence. The moment would be beautiful and magical;
innocent and exciting.

My moment is nothing like that. It is awkward
and cold.

He combs a hand through his sweat-crusted hair
and awkwardly stands, transfixed. I wonder what he sees? I suddenly feel very
self-conscious. My body is not as curvy as I’d like and my breasts are too
small and lopsided. He probably thinks I look weird. I quickly get under the
blue cotton covers and wait. “Well? Are you going to join me or not?”

Mike still stands, fully clothed and gawking.
If I didn’t make the first move he’d probably have stayed in the same position
all night. Clumsily, he removes his workout clothes. I have to stop myself from
cringing; he didn’t take a shower. I really should have hinted at what I
planned to do. Too late to do something about his poor hygiene now. It is now
or never.

Awkwardly he jumps in beside me. Something hard
jabs my thigh and I move to avoid it. Both being virgins, silence hangs in the
air as we debate what to do next. Tension mounts, he jerks to the right,
jabbing his elbow into the side of my face.

“Ow.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” I say, trying to keep my voice
even. “Here, let’s try this.” I move under him so he is directly above me. The
position seems agreeable, and he leans in to kiss my lips. I taste salt and
chocolate protein shake.

“Are you sure?” His voice is husky with desire
and his eyes glaze over. I nod a solemn yes.

Next thing I know, the process is over and done
with. The gentle kiss turns hard as his body moves with instinctual force. As
he works, I have to turn my head to the side and bite down on my bottom lip. I
lay as still as I can, the pain, almost unbearable.

My body fights back. I am dry and not ready.
Pain slices into me when he enters. I blink back a tear. Closing my eyes, I
count softly in my head. Counting to twelve, the event is over and he lies in a
sweaty heap on top of my cold and paralyzed body.

Rolling over, with his limbs hanging off the
side of the bed, his lips curl into a lax and idiotic smile. Chest heaving, he
starts to giggle.

“Wow, Loral. That was great. You were amazing.”

“Yeah…great.” I fix a plastic smile on my face,
get up, drape a robe around my shivering body, and avoid his eyes. I don’t want
him to see the tears that are now streaming down my face.

As I near the door I hear tiny footsteps rush
down the stairs. I finally notice the door is parted open. Shame and disgust
skim through my veins. Was it Bella or Tory? I can’t be certain. I try to call
out but sickness washes over me and I rush down the hall to the bathroom.

Quickly I turn on the faucet full blast for
ill-conceived white noise. A clattering sound echoes the room as I jerk up on
the porcelain lid. Vile liquid burns my throat as it releases in involuntary
heaves. I lie limp on the cool tile floor, my skin clammy with a cold sweat.
The unyielding, unmoving tile surface feels palliative against the rolling
waves of directionless nausea inside.

Clamping my hands over my mouth I muffle
heaving sobs and shake violently in the corner of the bathroom. Disgust, dread,
and shame overwhelm me from the shock of what just happened. I started this. I
chose
this. I am ultimately at the wheel, ultimately destined to face alone the
consequences of whatever madness provoked me. In some convoluted way, I thought
that by losing my virginity, I would somehow get back at my harlot mother. Now
that it is over, I feel repulsed by my actions and can’t help wondering:
what
did I just do?

Tess is not here to scream at me, reprimand, or
feel threatened by my actions. It’s just me. Me. Alone.

Growing up is a bitch.

So what if Tess chooses to ruin her life by
having an affair whenever she wants. I don’t even know who this new guy is. Who
am I to judge? I don’t mean anything to her anyways. Why did I ever think I
mattered?

Water runs from the faucet for a good ten
minutes before I pick myself up and scrub my face raw. Gazing into the oval
mirror, I look ragged, my brown hair disheveled. Running a brush through the
tangled mess helps some, but my pale face, splotchy from tears, and deadened
eyes look ghostly. The slight jab to my cheek fortunately didn’t leave a mark
but my quivering lips show fear instead of happiness.

I’ve been gone too long. Mike is probably
worried. I assemble a smile on my face that hopefully simulates happiness,
square off my shoulders, and head back toward the room.

Mike is no longer zoned out in a blissful
sweaty heap over the far side of my bed. Nor has he left the room. He is
planted squarely at the edge of the bed, wearing only his navy blue boxers.
Making himself comfortable, he is deeply consumed in the contents of my
notebook.

Enraged, I snatch up my notebook from his
sneaky fingers and tuck it back under the mattress where it belongs. “What the
hell do you think you’re doing? That’s private!”

Sheepishly he rises. “Sorry, Babe. You were
taking a while and I just stumbled upon it. I was curious and…I just read a
couple pages. They’re really good, Loral. You should have someone look at
them.” He rakes a hand through his rumpled brown hair and looks at me with
pleading eyes.

“First, do not call me Babe. That’s ridiculous.
And second, I didn’t ask for your opinion. If I wanted your—”

Suddenly, I hear Brett’s voice over the
television downstairs. “Girls, where’s your sister?”

“Shit.” Grabbing the rest of Mike’s clothes I
shove him toward the window. “Go. Go.”

Panicked, Mike quickly pulls on his shirt and
jeans. I toss out his shoes and socks before he has a chance to put them on and
push him forward. Just as he manages to escape out the window, there is a tiny
knock at the door.

“Loral?” A timid voice calls out from behind
the closed door.

Smoothing my hair, I clutch the robe closed
high above my collar bone and open the door. Tory avoids my eyes and looks at
the floor instead. “Dad’s home…is…” her voice lowers to a whisper, “is Mike
gone?”

Great, the rush of tiny steps down the stairs
was Tory. No time to be embarrassed. I need damage control. Kneeling down, I
lift Tory’s chin and brush the hair out of her face. “Yes, he’s gone. I’m sorry
you had to see that. Don’t worry. It won’t happen again, okay? I made a
mistake.”

Tory’s timid eyes look up and she braves a
smile. “Okay. I won’t tell.”

“Okay. We’ll just keep this between us. Now
let’s go downstairs and get you and Bella ready for bed.”

Taking her small hand, we walk down the stairs
in silence. As we near the landing, I notice Brett in the kitchen selecting
leftovers from the fridge.

I clear my throat. “There’s some turkey behind
the milk.”

Poking his head above the open door he says,
“Yeah, I just found it. Thanks.”

“Sure.” The genuine smile that passes between
us startles me. It is like his head was suddenly cleared and some fatherly
sense was knocked back in. Does he know? Is it written all over my face that I
had sex? No, that’s a myth…but…I feel the heat burn my cheeks. Why the sudden
relaxed state? Maybe it has to do with where he’s been going the past few
nights. Was he having an affair, too?

“So, uh, where have been these past few
nights?”

“Oh, sorry, I guess I was so busy I forgot to
update you. I’m taking night classes at Grossmont.”

“You’re going to school?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m so old, but I’m really
enjoying it. I want to get a degree in Business Management so I can own a bar.
I thought I have so much experience with bartending and my dad’s a banker so I
figured business is in the genes and I should be good at it.”

“Your dad’s a banker?”

“Yeah. I guess I haven’t been very open with my
past. Maybe someday we’ll talk about it.”

“Yeah, someday…” I don’t want the conversation
to end so I try thinking of something else to say. “What’s the bar going to be
like?”

“I wrote it all down, that is, my vision of the
place.” Brett digs in his backpack until he finds the papers he is looking for.
“The professor is this weird old guy, but he’s really interesting and he told
us at the very first day of class to visualize the restaurant, hotel, or
whatever it is that we want after this class is over, and the place just came
to me. I guess it’s been on my mind for a while now.

“Here, tell me what you think.”

His vision is a sultry restaurant and side bar
at the top of a luxurious high-rise. There would be recessed lighting casting a
warm glow over the entire room. Dark gleaming wood, high open-beam ceilings,
orchids spurting out of tall crystal vases, and a piano positioned in a quiet
corner.

Low, comfy white chairs and gleaming, lacquered
tables would line the smooth black walls, decorated with bold impressionist
paintings from around the world. Candles would flicker in the center of each
table. And in the center of the space, there would be high round tables and
stools with a bright spotlight centered on each, for those who wanted to be
noticed, like Tess.

At the far end of the room would be the bar,
stocked with the best wines and spirits around. Spotless glasses would hang
from above the bar. And lights would be strategically placed to produce a soft
shimmering glow over the entire bar, so that the customers would be engrossed by
an ethereal web of light as though they were underwater, in a faraway dream.

The wait staff would be dressed in all white,
each young and beautiful. They would serve scant, elegant dishes the size of a
child’s fist, with each plate holding an orgasmic secret of artful culinary
pleasure: rich, exotic, aromatic, bursting with color and flavor. The cost would
be on the high-end but definitely worth it. And absolutely no doggie bags
allowed.

“So what do you think? You think Tess would go
for something like this? It’ll be a big investment, but don’t you think it’ll
be great?”

“It sounds like her.”

He has a goofy grin on his face. “Yeah, I guess
you’re right.”

All I can process is that Brett opened up to
me. Finally, after all these years, we had a normal father-daughter
conversation. And Tess was going to fuck it all up.

Feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt, I
divert my attention to the couch. Bella is fast asleep, crouched in the fetal
position with her thumb in her mouth. Tory is obediently clearing the table of
her crayons and coloring books the best that she can—she swipes the pesky wax
bits onto the carpet, thinking that is considered cleaning. I make a mental
note to vacuum the living room carpet early the next morning before the wax can
be trampled permanently into the soft, champagne-colored fibers.

Uncomfortable by the sudden amity, I scoop up
Bella and motion for Tory to follow. Over my shoulder I say, “I’m going to take
the girls to bed now.”

“Yeah, that’s good. Thanks. You know…it was
great talking to you.”

I nod, amazed.

“Oh, Loral?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you know when Tess is going to be home?”

“Umm,” hesitating, I immediately visualize Tess
in the sexy purple dress escorted by her so-called client going to a so-called
business meeting and shake my head. “I think she said she had some business
function to attend and might be late.”

His eyes fall to his plate of reheated leftover
mish-mash and he nods slowly.

Quickly, before he can ask anything else, I
turn and head up the stairs. Brett deserves better than my mother.

Chapter
Thirteen:

Flashback
to:

Sunday,
April 22, 1979

3:00
P.M.

Young Neil Wilcox:

Elizabeth had just turned seventeen. That day,
I saw her run down the weather-beaten porch steps of the four-room shack she
shared with her father near the train yards. Their home (if you could call it
that) was an unfinished, no-color plywood box with a crumbling roof. The worst
sections of the roof were covered by tarred canvas tarps. The floor plan was
mostly one story, except for a small second story add-on loft toward the rear
of the structure. Their water was supplied by a garden hose, buried beneath a
few inches of soft dirt and attached illegally to a forgotten, rusty spigot
fifty feet away in the train yards beside their plot. The other end of the hose
threaded into the structure’s crude but leak-free copper piping system. The
effluent side of the plumbing—never properly tied into the municipal sewer
system—was instead routed directly into the ravine out back. Strangely enough,
there had been an electric service installed when the shack still had hopes of
becoming a house. A power line serendipitously ran along the tracks nearest
their abode; an umbilical, blackish-gray wire drooped and twisted from one of
the rakish wooden power poles to their eaves, providing Elizabeth with hot
showers, hot meals, and light by which to study.

When she reached me, her alabaster face was
splotchy and reddened from horror-stricken tears. The wispy hairs that
generally floated whimsically about her face lay plastered against her
forehead. A thin sheen of perspiration glowed on her skin as she clasped me in
a trembling embrace. Her frail arms clung to my neck and her face buried deep
into my shoulder, as a child does when paralyzed in fear of a looming stranger.
It was all I could do to stay strong, to not break at the sight of her.

Holding her close, I didn’t let go until I felt
the gentle yield of her strength. She was safe in my arms now. When the day
arrived to take her away from this vile situation, she would be safe forever. I
looked at my own bruised hands as I rested my chin on her shoulder. I was still
unprepared. But when would that day come? When would I be ready? At sixteen
years old, I felt like I was racing a time-bomb without a countdown clock.
These episodes with her father were getting more and more frequent. How many
years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds did I have before it would
be too late?

Pete Hayes was a towering man. Being six-foot-four
and stocky in build, he seemed to be built from one large slab of viciously
knotted muscle. He did not possess the kind of racked-up physique you get by
spending a few dedicated months with those toys at the local gym; he was all
ropes and rawhide beneath battle-scarred skin, with a beer-gut starting to
accrue on an otherwise Spartan frame. His face was grim and always covered in
40-grit stubble. His steel-gray eyes cut through the object of his gaze like a
sharpened knife. His shorn scalp exposed a grizzly scar that ran from the
permanent knot at the top of his head to the edge of his right eye, along with
the tattoo—
de oppresso liber
—which ironically meant “to liberate the
oppressed” in Latin.

Having served twenty years in Special Forces
and a more recent twelve as a mercenary for a “private security” firm, Pete had
plenty of experience with getting his way, fighting dirty, and greasing people
who got nosy.

Rescuing Elizabeth the old-fashioned way wasn’t
going to work. Elopement wasn’t going to force Pete into quietly relinquishing
his place as the sole man in his baby’s life, and he sure as hell wasn’t going
to freely give his blessing to a skinny sixteen-year-old kid from the
neighboring town to take over the role. Pete thrived on control and dominance,
and Elizabeth—his Lizzy, his
babygirl
—was his chattel.

Pete was trained to intimidate, and if
necessary, annihilate. How was I supposed to defend myself against such a
monster?

Ever since the day I first saw her, I started
walking Elizabeth home from school, that is, whenever I was able to find her. I
would wait by the old handball courts until she came out. When the bell rang
I’d rush over to make sure I wouldn’t miss her. Sometimes if my teacher needed
to speak to me after class, I’d be too late. She never waited for me, for fear
that Pete would get mad. And I didn’t doubt that Pete would.

When I was lucky enough to catch her, I
wouldn’t get home until well after sundown since the detour to Elizabeth’s
tripled my typical three-mile walk home. My dad was gone for a job and my mom
worked late and never kept strict tabs on me, so it wasn’t really a problem.
And with my brother gone, no one really cared about what I did. It’s when I was
home that caused the problem.

Most of the time Elizabeth wouldn’t speak;
she’d just walk stoically behind me, head bent, and eyes set to the floor. I
had to do most of the talking, which I didn’t mind, especially if I got her to
smile. Whenever she wore long-sleeved shirts to school, I had to be careful to
keep my anger in check. I didn’t want to frighten her even more. But slowly,
when she realized I would always be there for her, she began to trust me and
learned to relax. She began to show me the bruises and I showed her mine.

One day when we made our trek back to the
plywood shack, we heard a yowling from the weeds beside the dirt road.
Elizabeth hesitated but stopped when I began searching through the dense brush
for the source. The yowling abated into a guttural, painful noise and then
ceased altogether. I trudged forward, swatting through the knee-high grass in
the general direction of the last outcry. Taking a quick look back, I made sure
Elizabeth was still there. I knew I needed to move fast or she would get scared
and leave without me, but I couldn’t ignore the sound.

Peering through the spindly thistles, a set of
frightened eyes lured me forward. A cat, gray with white-tipped tail, was lying
beside a fallen log licking its gashed leg. Panic flashed from the cat’s golden
eyes.

In a soft voice I called out, creeping slowly
toward the injured cat. “It’s okay, Kitty. I’m not going to hurt you.” I paused
for a second to show the cat I was harmless and knelt beside it. The cat relaxed
and proceeded to lick his wound, purring as he did so. I scooped up the cat and
carefully walked it over to Elizabeth so she could see.

“Look, it’s a kitty. He’s hurt.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Not sure.”

“He must belong to someone, or else he wouldn’t
have let you pick him up. Oh, you poor thing—”

At the time, I didn’t understand that the cat
reminded Elizabeth of her own aches and pains. Rummaging through her backpack
she produced a plastic sandwich bag filled with ointment, gauze, and bandages.
With gentle fingers she applied the gauze and wrapped the wound in a strip of
cloth that she ripped from her shirt. “There.” She smiled, pleased.

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

“Oh,” she shrugged, “I’ve had practice…” Fear
flashed in her eyes. “Oh no...” She started to run, flailing her arms as panic
momentarily derailed her sense of direction.

“Wait!” I tried calling after her but she
didn’t look back. She just continued to run. Soon she would be a tiny speck on
the horizon. I set the cat down on the road and ran after her.

I stopped a hundred yards from the shack,
panting, sweat drizzling down my face and back. I lurched forward on my knees
as I gasped for breath. I was too late. In the distance I saw the grizzled man
drag his daughter inside before the door slammed closed. Now, all I was able to
see was the poorly built shack and the closed door.

Timidly I approached the front door and placed
my hand against the rough grains of the wood. Pressing my ear to the door, I
strained to hear Elizabeth’s voice. What I heard instead made my stomach
tighten.

Through the thin walls, consecutive meaty slaps
could be heard making contact with flesh, her flesh. My hands clenched into
fists at my sides, while heat bellowed from my gut. A throaty voice thundered
over the racket of destroyed furniture and the wounded victim. Pete’s
babygirl
.

Not once did I hear a cry for help. She was
silent. The worst sound a victim could make. It was the sound of defeat, of
helplessness. She no longer hoped to be saved. I felt sick from the knowledge
that my choice to help a cat in pain had come back to hurt Elizabeth ten times
over with a fresh spray of bruises, gashes, and pain.

This was my fault. I caused this.

I stayed affixed to the door until the sounds
ceased and the television turned on. Slowly I peeled myself away and turned
back to the open road. I sulked back home.

Daylight was fading fast as I made it onto my
street, but I felt no rush to get home to an empty house. I walked slowly,
releasing my aggression on the shrubs that dotted the sidewalk’s edge. Lost in
my thoughts I didn’t see the boy skidding down the sidewalk on a skateboard
until he brushed past.

“Hey! Watch it!”

The boy gave me the finger and continued
swerving down the sand crusted sidewalk, pausing every few seconds to tack a
yellow flyer to a lamppost before moving on to the next one. Frazzled, I turned
back to see bright yellow flyers tacked onto every post and building as far as
my eye could see. I pulled one off the nearest post.

A large black and white picture was printed on
the front. It was a grainy and poorly contrasted mimeograph, a copy of a copy
of a copy. A svelte white man sporting a mustache, dressed in a chunky black
robe belted with a sash around the waist and another around the forehead stood
menacingly over a prostrated hulk of a black man with bulging muscles. The
brawny man looked unconscious and the clearly scrawnier man looked to be the
cause—
you just picked on the wrong scab, Cochise
, the diminutive
victor’s glower conveyed. In large block letters, I read,
THIS CAN BE YOU!
In
smaller letters near the bottom of the page was a description of the new
martial arts center in Ocean Beach. Hargrove Martial Arts, named after the
scrawny, mustachioed man pictured above, no doubt.
First class free!
, it
advertised.

I folded the bright yellow flyer, tucked it
into my back pocket and ran home. I now had a plan.

After the first session, I enrolled in as many
martial arts classes as I could afford with one goal in mind: protect
Elizabeth. After weeks of training, unfortunately, I hadn’t noticed any
significant change in my overall build except for the scrapes, bruises, and
welts I received during class. Time was running out. I didn’t have the luxury
to master all the forms, positions, and elegant techniques in time to be
considered ready to handle a man like Pete Hayes.

Although scared shitless, I cared about
Elizabeth too much to watch another day pass worried about when and how Pete
was going to hurt her, feel her, lay an ugly, violent hand over her delicate
skin.

Ready or not, time was running out and I had to
make a move, and soon.

Then one day during the class’s warm-up
session, I overheard one of the students discussing a story about this guy who
killed an intruder using just his hands. No strength was required except for
the dexterity of his fingers, quick thinking, and fast reaction time to jab the
right spots on his opponent’s oblivious body.

“One neck jab and he’s outta there!”

“Na-ah. Stop making up stories, Victor. You’re
such a liar.”

The smaller kids joined in, snickering, “Liar.
Liar. Pants on fi-re.”

“No, I’m not,” Victor pouted, clearly
frustrated that he wasn’t being taken seriously. “It’s the truth, my older
brother Dan told me about it. There’s these spots, you see, on the body, that if
you hit someone there they go
ka-put
and their mind goes blank. You can
actually kill someone if you hit them right.”

“Yeah like punch their lights out!” The
obnoxious boy got a bunch of other guys hooting in laughter again, as they each
swung listless punches and kicks at the air.

Frowning, Victor watched the other boys
continue to taunt and make fun of him as they threw unwieldy kicks and lazy arm
swats. Enjoying the sporadic horseplay, the boys forgot about teasing Victor
and focused instead on outdoing the others in a friendly game of
who-can-jump-kick-the-highest.

I watched Victor’s dark eyes widen in
excitement. Suddenly, he was running over to Sensei Hargrove. Victor gave a
brief, respectful bow, and whispered in the Sensei’s ear. Sensei gave a quick
nod and motioned him back to the mat where the other boys were sprawled out in
a heap of sweat and testosterone.

We gathered around the sweat-stained,
blood-spotted sparring mat, staring in amazed horror as we listened to the
Sensei tell his story. I was the kid in the back—a foot away from the
rest—contemplating, with a glassy-eyed distant stare, the logistics and the
likelihood that I’d make it out alive against Elizabeth’s father.