Lemon Reef (24 page)

Because Del wanted to keep us a secret, I had resisted for nearly a year the overwhelming urge to tell everyone I knew I was fucking her. This public display of us was something I wanted desperately, but I hesitated nonetheless. I thought it was the drugs bringing her out that night. I feared she would regret our having done this when their effect wore off—that her shame would cause her to withdraw from me or to punish us in some way.

“Are you sure?” I asked, my gaze dropping from her eyes to her mouth. We had gotten good at sex by then, and the halting felt unnatural, but I was offering Del a chance to catch herself, snap to reason, remember our status, abandon her Rubiconic impulse. Del smiled a little, nodded, and pulling her side of the blanket with her for cover, slid onto me. Two bodies, one motion, hidden only by nighttime shadows and the blanket we had been sitting on. My fingers cramming into her; Del moving onto me, her mouth on my mouth, her palms pressing on my tits, her fingers seizing my nipples. Hair loose, tongues tangled, the rhythm and force of her coming on me, the smell, taste, feel, and sound of her everywhere—like breathing underwater.

*

I don't know why some of us made it and some of us didn't. She shouldn't have not. Del—sun-soaked, water soluble, as graceful traversing warring clans in school or working the register at the motel dive-shop as she was abandoning a volleyball game for a plunge in the ocean—Del knew bubbles travel upward. Brian, being his big-brotherly self, made certain of it when he taught Del and me to scuba dive. When diving, Brian said repeatedly, should you lose your way, become disoriented and confused about which direction is up and which direction is down, just follow the bubbles. Bubbles always travel upward. This one fact was supposed to bring us both home safely.

*

“Still feel like coming here was the right thing to do?” Katie asked. We had been jogging side by side in silence for a long distance.

“I don't know.”

I drank the hot Miami air, realizing that, no true San Franciscan after all, I thrived on it. I thought about Sid. As my body welcomed the wet heat, my mind flashed suddenly on images of Thomas, a baffled boy long acquainted with the limits of bodily control, being beaten incontinent and then out of existence. And of a mother being brought to this scene or left to imagine it. And the rest: the scheming and manipulation, wheeling and dealing that must have taken place behind the scenes to end up with one stupid, seemingly innocent, nineteen-year-old boy of color taking the fall.

“Seeing Sid in prison was so hard. I could still see the little boy in him.” We ran on, the repetitive, rhythmic sound of sneakers against sidewalk and synchronized breath-filled strides following us or anticipating us.

I revealed this next bit of information reluctantly, unsure as to whether it was just more of the same sex-hype lies that had plagued Del throughout her entire adolescence. “Sid says Talon was into watching Del, videotaping her having sex with other guys. It was a control thing. He thinks that's probably what we're gonna find in that box. Why she would want us to find that, I have no idea.”

Katie laughed a little. “I wouldn't mind watching those.”

Whoa!
Not the response I was expecting from Katie. For one thing, it was blatantly homoerotic—unconscious, perhaps, but nonetheless blatant. And it stung because I knew what she meant. I understood too well the pleasure we all could take in Del's humiliation.

“Don't get mad at me for saying this, but guys were always talking about how, you know,
good
she was.” Katie smiled slyly. “I'm just curious. That's all.”

I nodded, trying to fashion a quick response that would somehow redeem us both. “You mean you want to study her
technique
?”

Katie laughed. “Well, when you put it that way…”

I shook my head. “I can't believe we're having this conversation.”

She looked at me sideways and with suspicion. “You're not even a little bit curious, Jenna? You're not a little bit tempted to watch them, just to see her like that?”

*

When it came time to leave the Stevie Nicks concert, we checked in with each other and realized no one had made a plan for us to get home.

Gail said, “Don't leave it to Katie.” The rest of us laughed.

Katie rolled her eyes with annoyance over the amount of attention her recent solution of giving blow jobs for rides was getting. “I only did that twice.”

Andrew Torie, one of the rich kids at our school, appeared out of nowhere, his timing, as always, impeccable. He stared unabashedly at Del, her long hair catching the moonlight like silk, her tank top askew, hanging loosely from her thin neck and shoulders. She was revved, sweaty, a little disarrayed from having just been fucked. He knew Del was stoned, could smell sex on her, and—true to his vulturesque ways—circled in wait.

“Andrew will give us a ride home,” Del announced.

I shook my head. “My brother will come and get us.” I looked at Del firmly, hoping to sway her in my direction.

“It's fine, Jenna. Andrew's right here.” She leaned in and whispered, “I don't want Brian to see us stoned.”

Andrew dangled gold keys from his fingers, flashed the Mercedes symbol to which they were connected like it was a backstage pass to life. “Got my dad's car.” Then he shrugged at his sidekick, Donald Magowsky, and they both began to walk away. He was playing chicken with Del. She fell in behind him.

Katie looked at me and said sarcastically, “His
dad's
car.” She watched Del leaving, shrugged her shoulders as if to persuade us to just go along with the plan. The rest of us followed Katie following Del following Andrew toward the exit. Somehow Donald ended up in the driver's seat of Andrew's father's Mercedes. Katie grabbed the front passenger seat. Gail climbed into the backseat by the window. Andrew pushed Del into the middle of the backseat and slid himself in next to her, closing the door behind him. That left the rear floor of the station wagon for the rest of us.

As we drove along, I watched Andrew creep in on Del, putting his arm over the back of the seat behind her like a bad junior high school movie date. I began to eye the tire iron on the floor beside me. Del glanced back at me and smiled reassuringly. Edie and Susan watched me watching Andrew, both of them slightly stiff and suddenly dead sober. Andrew hooked his elbow around Del's neck and let his hand fall to where I could no longer see it. I watched Andrew intently, my hand moving slowly until it butted against the cold metal.

Del leaned forward, shifting out from under Andrew's arm, ostensibly to ask Katie something. When he moved his arm, she sat back. He waited until she relaxed again and then put his hand back where it had been, this time sliding his whole body in closer to her and smiling at her. I was stiffening with rage, envisioned smashing Andrew in the back of the head with the iron rod. I kept telling myself Del would not want me to make a scene. If I did hit him in the head, she'd probably be pissed off at me for calling attention to us. These thoughts were only barely working. If I killed him, however, I would have to go somewhere and that would mean being separated from Del. He touched her hair. I postured to slam him, one thinning thought remaining between the iron rod now firmly in my grasp and the back of Andrew Torie's oval head:
forced
separation
.

Gail who, like Susan and Edie, had been tracking me, blurted out, “I'm getting carsick.”

“Gail says she's carsick,” Edie repeated, only louder, her eyes dashing back and forth from my hand to Andrew's head. She looked at Andrew, her tone urgent, “Gail says she's carsick, I'd pull over if I were you.”

Susan chimed in. “Unless you want to bring your dad's car back with throw up all over it.”

Katie, who was busy finding radio stations, tapped Donald on the shoulder. “Gail feels sick. Pull over.” Donald kept going. Katie turned around and looked at Andrew.

“
Whatever
. Pull over.” Andrew sounded irritated.

When we stopped, Gail got out, and in the same motion, Del scooted away from Andrew toward the other door. I relaxed and leaned back against Edie, who put her arms around me. Gail walked around for a minute. Then she came back to the car and said to Del, “Will you switch seats with me? I need to be in the middle.” Del agreed.

Obviously bummed, Andrew said, “I thought carsick people need the window seat.”

Gail, who seemed proud of her intervention, climbed in beside him. “Nope, not for me. I have to be able to look straight out. If I'm stuck looking at the back of someone's head, that doesn't go too well.”

As we drove off, Andrew said to Gail, “Why don't you lose weight? If you weren't so fat, then you probably wouldn't get carsick.”

When it was about Gail, I could fight, but all I could think to say was, “Why don't you eat poison and die? You spoiled-rotten piece of shit.”

Andrew was startled but tried not to show it—like trying not to blink when someone nearly flicks you in the face. “Huh.” He was stalling, trying to think of a comeback.

Katie, having somehow figured out the ruckus had something to do with Del and me—or just wanting to get rid of Del, because she had a crush on Andrew—turned around and said to Andrew, “If we get off here, we can drop Del and Jenna off first.”

Andrew grinned. “I'm gonna take Del home last.”

Del was quietly staring out the car window. She was upset, and by the feeling cast by her last glance in my direction, I knew it was with me. Maybe because I had let my jealousy show; maybe because she had wanted something to happen with Andrew and felt thwarted; maybe because I was not a real boy, and I could not restore her to honor in the way a real boy could, or protect her in the way a real boy could. A real boy, I thought, could have claimed her, given her an alibi that made her rejection of Andrew make sense, fucked her on the field trying to be noticed. Del's response to Andrew's invitation to be the last one dropped off came slowly, her words written from her mouth one letter at a time. It felt to me like hours before her thought had been completed. Without moving her face from the window she said, “Jenna is sleeping over. And I've really gotta get home.” I told myself it was the pot, that it really hadn't taken her so long to set the record straight.

Pascale was out cold on the couch. The younger kids were asleep. We crept in, the permutations of light from the television hurling our stretched, oddly angular shadows onto the wall and ceiling of the square room. We went down the hall toward Del's bedroom. Del turned off at the bathroom without giving me any indication of what her plans were or whether I should follow her. I sensed her rage at me and sheepishly went to her room to wait for her. I took off my clothes, found the T-shirt I planned to sleep in, and pulled it on over my head. Then I looked around in my bag for my toothbrush.

A few moments later, Del appeared, face moist and scarlet from washing, her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, a toothbrush hanging from her mouth, toothpaste bubbling from her lips and down her chin. What she had to say to me couldn't wait a moment longer.

Hoping to prevent a fight, I said, upon her entering, “I'm sorry I acted jealous.”

Her eyes burning, tears forming, “Fuck you, Jenna,” Del yelled-whispered. “I can't believe you stuck up for Gail and not for me.” All at once, she fought to speak, to hold back tears, to brush her teeth, and to keep toothpaste in her mouth. “He was putting his hands all over me. Why didn't you say something about
that
?”

How
, I thought, taken aback by the idea of what she had actually been hoping for from me. Expecting. I felt confused by her suggestion; where I thought my inadequacy was a given, she felt it was a matter of choice. I was distracted and disarmed by this glimpse of myself through her eyes. Not used to being undone in a fight, I groped for a more familiar mode and landed on accusation. “You were flirting with him. Gail was threatening to throw up on him. She was easier to stick up for.”

Del's face cracked indiscernibly; she walked out to lose the toothbrush. Reentering moments later, “Okay,” Del said, “that's really funny. Don't make me laugh, Jenna. I'm really mad at you.” Her eyes filled again. “I wasn't flirting with him.
We
had just been together. Did that mean anything to you?”

Mean anything to
me
? “Why'd we have to go with him?”

“I was thinking about getting us home. That was it.”

I looked at her. “Del, you do flirt a lot.” Gently, “Sometimes, I think you do it without even knowing it.”

She pushed me back onto the bed and then fell in beside me. We were on our sides facing each other.

“It's hard to say no to Andrew. I don't know”—she hesitated, then she admitted—“I think it's because he's rich.”

I was surprised. “So?”

“That's easy for you to say.”

I stared at the wall behind her, pained and enraged that she felt small compared to Andrew Torie. Nothing could have been further from true, but I believed she didn't know that. I laced my fingers with hers.

“Del, we're going to college.” I thought about how powerful she had seemed to me at the concert that night, how beautiful and self-possessed. And here now, with her sweet face and sad eyes and tender touches, she made my heart hurt. “We have two more years, five semesters, and then we'll be out of here. We can go someplace far away, and we'll only come home if we want to.”

Del deserved for it to go that way. She covered bruises to go to classes and took care of her sisters and brother and she never got a B. Honors Algebra, AP English. And it wasn't just that Del was doing so much with so little. It was that she was doing so much, with the little she did have constantly being stripped away.

“And who's going to pay for it?”