Gina and Mike (3 page)

I thought about what I could have done, what I should have done to stop Smith. I was mad at myself for not fighting him harder, and I vowed to take classes to learn how to defend myself better. 

I never said anything to Mike, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled when I got Smith for calc. His wife was nice enough. I actually met her through church. She sang in the choir with Mom and when she was looking for a babysitter a couple years ago, Mom suggested me. Of course, that was before I had Smith for class and Mike was my boyfriend.

Mike licked his dripping ice-cream cone. “What’s wrong with you tonight? I can tell something’s bothering you.”

I bit my lower lip. God I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t. For starters, Mike would confront Smith and probably kill the bastard and end up in jail. And second, what proof did I have? Zilch! Maybe I should have kept the sundress just in case I’d change my mind. But Mr. Smith’s semen on my dress wouldn’t prove that he raped me. It would just prove that somehow his semen got on my dress. The how was the important part and Smith would probably turn it around and I’d come out looking like a slut who came on to him.  

“Sorry I’m not my usual self. Guess I just have a lot on my mind,” I told Mike.

“Like what?”

“Just school stuff.”

“Like the physics exam?” Mike asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure you did fine. Probably got an A. Oh. Almost forgot. Did you hear about Dave and Diane?”

“Sues told me. I can’t believe it.”

Mike wiped his mouth with a napkin. “It wasn’t a complete shock to me.  Dave’s been talking about that Caryn chick for awhile.”

“The ninth-grader?”

Mike nodded. “Dave says he’ll get to third base on the first date.”

“You’re a pig.”

“Hey, I didn’t say that, Dave did.”

“Yeah, but you repeated it,” I told him.

“To you.”

“Still…”

“Man, you are a little edgy. Let’s get out of here.”

I grabbed my purse and followed Mike to his beat-up brown sedan with coffee-stained interior.  By the time we got to our making-out spot, my heart revved into overdrive.

Mike turned off the car and looked at me. “Gina, you’re shaking.” He cupped my hands in his. “If you don’t want to make out, it’s OK. I’ll take you home.”

“No,” I said. “I want to be with you.”

Mike leaned over and we kissed. Gentle kisses rolled into urgent ones.  And after a few minutes of deep kissing we grabbed his blue sleeping bag out of the trunk and headed into the woods. Our making-out spot was under a towering oak tree that scratched the sky.  

Mike unzipped the nylon bag the entire way so it was like a double-size blanket. The plaid liner faced up. I lay down beside him and we started kissing again. Mike reached under my shirt and I flinched.

“Relax, baby,” he whispered into my ear.

He unhooked my bra and I helped him unbutton my shirt. I tried to relax, but as Mike’s mouth trailed down my neck onto my chest, my heart raced. I closed my eyes. Maybe if I pictured the beach that would help me relax. It worked when I was in the dentist chair and he was drilling a cavity. But picturing the beach didn’t work. When I closed my eyes, I saw Smith’s bushy mustache and bald head and dime-size mole and heard him say, “Tight bitch.” 

I stiffened as Mike kissed one breast and then the other. He moaned. “Oh, Gina, baby. I missed you.”

I stiffened.

Mike stopped his trail of kisses. “Tell ya what,” he said, pushing back the strands of hair that fell across my face. “Not sure what’s going on with you, but I’m just going to hold you. We don’t have to do anything. Just let me hold you.”

I nodded. “Sorry.”

He lay on his side, and I backed up as close as I could to him. He slipped his bulging bicep around me and pulled me even closer. His bare chest was against my naked back. I could feel his warm breath on the back of my neck. 

“You know that I love you, right Gina?” he whispered. “I love you more than anything.”

I reached down and pulled up his pitching hand and kissed it. “I know. And I love you, too.”

I hated Smith. I hated him for what he did and for how he made me feel. I hated myself for allowing it to happen. If only I would have said no to babysitting. If only Mike hadn’t been working that night then we would have been together. If only, if only. I hated those two words, too.

I loved Mike. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to marry him and have his kids, but every time he touched me I became defensive, like he was trying to hurt me. But Mike would never hurt me. He loved me. I kept telling myself that I would get better; that these feelings I had would pass. That I just needed time.  And I also realized how much I was dreading Monday. I was scared to death of Smith and how he would react the first time he saw me. The dread shrouded me like a morning fog, only this fog never gave way to sunshine. 

“You’re not mad, are you?” I asked Mike as he pulled in front of my house.

He turned off the car. “I’m not mad; I just don’t understand what’s going on. We haven’t been together for a while and I know that you were looking forward to tonight as much as I was. And then the way you acted, like you didn’t want to be with me or something.”

I looked at Mike with his puppy dog droopy eyes. His smile had run away from his face.  I hated that I was disappointing him. “It’s not you. I swear. I just have some things I need to work through. Things I’m not ready to talk about.”

He slammed the steering wheel. “But we tell each other everything.”

I sighed. “You’re right. We usually do. But…”

“But what, Gina?”

Mike was practically shouting and it startled me. I wasn’t used to him raising his voice.

“You just have to trust me on this one, Mike. I love you. It has nothing to do with you or my feelings for you. They haven’t changed. They’ll never change. But I need to work out some things and you have to let me and trust that I love you more than anything.”

He reached over and lifted my chin. “Damn. OK. I’ll give you time, but I still wish you’d let me know what’s going on inside that beautiful red head of yours.”

I smiled. “Just remember that I love you.”

We kissed long and deep before I said goodbye, got out of the car and walked inside.

****

I sat in church and listened to Pastor Greg’s sermon about Jesus going into the wilderness for forty days.  He said that we all have our wilderness stories, times in our lives when things didn’t go right.

“Some of you might be in the wilderness right now,” he said. “Jesus went into the wilderness as a carpenter’s son and came out as the Messiah.”

He told us to find meaning in our wilderness, glimmers of grace.

I was definitely in the wilderness, and I was not seeing any glimmers of grace. And I was pretty sure that when I came out of the wilderness, I wasn’t going to be changed for the better.

Screw the whole wilderness saga, I thought. There was no way I was going to find meaning in a wilderness that I had been forced into by a drunk teacher who I was pretty sure was also high on something.

Sue found me after church and asked if things went better on Saturday with Mike. I didn’t tell her about the rape, only that Mike and I were having a tough time. Saturday was more or less a repeat of Friday. Mike picked me up after work and we went to the movies and then to the woods. He ended up just holding me like the night before.

“You’re not going to end up like Dave and Diane, are you?” Sue asked.

My eyes spat fire. “It’s not that bad. Just a little rough right now.”

“OK. Just checking. Cause I really like Mike.”

“Me, too,” I said.  “Sometimes maybe too much.”

****

I wasn’t prepared to see the bastard at the gas station on Monday, but just as I rammed the nozzle into my gas tank he slid into the pump in front of me. I didn’t look at him. I looked at the ground and then at the pump and then back down at the ground. When the nozzle clicked, I hung it up, screwed on the cap and headed inside to pay. When I came out, Smith was waiting by my car. He had a doozy of a black eye.

“Look, Gina,” he said. “About Thursday night. Sorry that happened. Guess I got a little out of hand.”

“A little? No, I’d say a lot, you fuckin’ pig. And don’t you ever think about touching me again.”

He kicked the ground. “Well, remember what I said. Keep what happened between you and me and Mike gets to be a star. Don’t, and he might just have the worst baseball season ever.”

My eyes threw daggers.  I knew I had to be brave. I couldn’t appear weak, even though I was shaking and felt fear choking me. I needed to let him know that I meant business. I had practiced what I would say all day Sunday if and when I had the chance to confront him. I just had to keep calm and not lose my nerve.

“First, I hate your fuckin’ guts and the only reason I’m not saying anything to anyone is because I love Mike and want the best for him. But I have another condition.”

He tilted his badass bald head. “What?”

“I get an A in your class.”

“But you’re barely passing.”

“Guess that means I’ll be your miracle student.”

He twisted his lips into a smirk. “No one would believe you anyhow.”

“Fine with me if you want to take that chance.”

He kicked the ground again. “OK. You get the A. Slut!”

He walked toward the store to pay for his gas and I sped away as fast as I could. When I could no longer see the store in my rear-view mirror, I took a huge deep breath.  I couldn’t believe what I had just pulled off.  Somehow I was believable. Even if Smith wouldn’t have agreed to the A, I still wouldn’t have told anyone what he had done because of Mike. But at least now I didn’t have to worry about calc any more. I got an A.

Chapter 4

Mike

I hate funerals but Mom shamed me into going. She reminded me, as if I needed to be reminded, that if it hadn’t been for Coach Smith, I wouldn’t have gotten a full ride to Madison. And, if I hadn’t gotten into Madison, I wouldn’t have met Lisa my senior year. And If I wouldn’t have met Lisa my senior year, I wouldn’t have Jack. And Jack is the best thing in my life. He’s the only good thing that ever came out of my marriage to Lisa. 

When Jeremy called and told me Coach dropped over dead while mowing the lawn, I about had a heart attack. Turned out, that’s exactly what happened to Coach. His wife was looking out the kitchen window when she saw him fall to the ground. By the time she reached him, he was dead. Damn. When your time’s up, it’s up. No negotiating. No pleading. Nothing. You’re dead. End of story.  

Guess you never know for sure how your life’s going to turn out. I thought I was going to marry my high school sweetheart, Gina McKenzie. God, I loved that girl. And I thought she loved me. Sometimes when Jack’s over at Lisa’s, I dig out the old yearbook and read what she wrote in it.

Mike,

To the love of my life forever and always. Thank you for loving me and for always being there for me. When we’re old and gray, we can get out our yearbooks and read what we wrote to each other. That’ll be fun. Remember, you said you’d love me even when I’m old and wrinkled and have white hair and false teeth.

Love you always, Gina

Yep. That was the plan. We’d marry and grow old together.  After Gina dumped me, I swore off girls. Thought I’d never get married. The breakup happened the summer before our freshman year in college. I’m still not sure I know what happened.

****

1982

One day we were great and the next day we weren’t. I tried talking to Gina about it, but the more I tried, the more distant she became. The night of the prom was the beginning of the end. We went to the after party at Jeremy’s house and everything seemed great until we went to the woods to make out.

It was like Gina didn’t want me to touch her. I tried doing everything she liked, but she kept pushing my hand away or turning her head.  When I tried to slip off her bikini underwear, she pulled them back up. When I unhooked her bra, she seemed like she was pissed about it. She definitely wasn’t the Gina I knew – and loved. Something had happened, but damn if I knew what? And Gina sure as hell wasn’t talking about it. She had been acting this way for weeks.

“Gina, baby, what’s wrong?” I asked, rubbing my thumb over her full lips. “It’s been so long since we made love. I think I’m going to explode I want you so bad. Is it me? Don’t I turn you on anymore?”

Gina bit her lower lip.  “It’s not you.”

“Well, damn, Gina, I’m the only one here so it’s tough not to think it’s me. There was a time when kisses down your neck and chest would have had you clawing the shirt off my back. Now you’re colder than the deep freezer at work. What the hell am I supposed to think?”

Gina sat perfectly still on the sleeping blanket, wringing her hands, and staring straight ahead. She didn’t want to look at me. She was bathed in soft moonlight and I swear she looked like an angel. It killed me not to be able to touch her in the way I wanted to. 

“I just need time.”

“Time for what? You’ve been saying that for weeks, and I’ve given you weeks. But you just become more and more distant. It’s like I’m losing you and I don’t know what to do to stop it. At first I thought that whatever was going on, you’d tell me about it eventually. You always do. Well, did. Anyway, you haven’t and I know it’s still on your mind.”

“I’m sorry, Mike. I’m trying.”

She turned and looked at me and I searched her glassy eyes, looking for something I knew I wasn’t going to find. 

“That’s just it,” I said. “You used to not have to try. It just happened. We were great together.”

I’m not sure why it didn’t hit me before, but I thought maybe Gina was pregnant. She was on the pill, but still.