Now She's Gone: A Novel (5 page)

Anyway. Back at high school…

I almost kept getting into it with Melinda. She was such a little bitch. (Even more so than me.) She would make these shitty little comments like, ‘Retaining water today?’ and ‘God, look at that zit on your chin!’ and ‘We went by your house the other day… I mean your trailer.’

Oh, God. I hated her. Could I help it if we had to live in a fucking trailer? Sure, stuff like that shouldn’t matter, but it does. And I loathed being called trailer trash. We weren’t trashy people at all. We were just poor.

I would almost go at her, but someone would be around to pull me away just in time. Kelsey kept telling me to stay away from her and I did try. But whenever she could, she would have her ass near Wayne. (Couldn’t she take a hint? He doesn’t like you!) I was not going to let her near him and if she tried, I would beat the shit out of her. God I was so stupid!

It was bound to happen sooner rather than later.

I always looked forward to lunch because I got to sit with Wayne and then we’d sneak off and make out somewhere secluded. (Broom closets, the band room, whatever was available and it was soooo nice!)

So, the day came. I went into the cafeteria for lunch and there she was sitting right next to him! (I have to give her credit. She had a lot of nerve and a ton of persistence. But not much sense.) When I walked in, I could tell he was happy to see me because he got this really big smile on his face. Of course, I was furious. He should have told her to leave! But he didn’t! I was as mad at him as I was her.

I walked over and she didn’t move one inch away from him. I told her to get up and she told me to fuck off. That did it. Next thing I know, I had her pulled her out of her seat by her hair and I am slapping the shit out of her. Wayne pulled me off her and told me to ‘Stop it!’

And I would have. Only she got behind him and had the audacity to stick her tongue out at me! I went after her and she ran. I chased her out of the cafeteria and everyone was yelling, ‘CAT FIGHT! CAT FIGHT!’ and followed me. I caught her at the door of the gym and I grabbed her, again, by the hair of the head and threw her on the floor.

But before I could do some real damage, that damn Wayne had me up in his arms and was carrying me—kicking and screaming—away from the crime scene. He took me into the library and forced me into a chair.

‘What’s gotten into you?’ he hissed.

‘If you want her, you can have her!’ I yelled.

Everyone in there looked at us. I ignored them and tried not to cry.

‘I don’t want her!’ he exclaimed, shaking his head.

‘I hate you!’

‘What did I do?!’

‘You let her sit next to you!’ I cried and crossed my arms.

‘I didn’t let her do anything! She just did it! She wasn’t there for a minute until you came in!’

‘It’s cause I won’t have sex with you, isn’t it?’

Now that got a few looks.

He was flabbergasted. ‘What!’

‘You want to have sex and you know I can’t so you want her!’

‘I don’t want her!’ he half-yelled.

By this point I was sobbing. I just thought, for some reason, he didn’t like me anymore and my world was crashing down around me. It got worse. Before he could get any sense out of me, the speaker came on and informed me—and everyone else—that I was ‘needed in the office.’

I was up shit creek.”

I just sat there and stared at the wall for a long moment, feeling slightly stunned. Was this the same woman I was married to? Was this my Sandy, who went out of her way to be nice and kind to everyone she met? The Sandy who I thought didn’t have one jealous bone in her body and even scoffed at me when I got jealous of her?

You just never know someone like you think you do. You just never know.

“I got suspended. That damn Melinda didn’t get shit, but I got suspended. Three days vacation that I had to spend cleaning the trailer while Mom was at work.

Oh, yeah, Mom.

Mom was livid. She was just fit to be tied. She yelled at me for about an hour and I just sat there and let her, staring at the wall. It couldn’t get any worse, I figured, so I didn’t argue with her about how I was ‘Ruining my life!’ and about how I was ‘Just like your daddy!’

Oh, well. She finally stopped her bitching and went to the store for something and the phone rang. It was Wayne, who told me, ‘I’m not going to school either.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘If you’re suspended, I’ll be suspended, too.’

‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘It’s not fair,’ he said. ‘She should have got suspended, too. She started it.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I said and looked around for a pack of Mom’s cigarettes. I’d been sneaking them for a while. She caught me once and yelled at me for an hour. Which made me want to do it even more. I lit one up and inhaled, staring at it. I liked smoking. I thought I was cool.

‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said.

‘What?’ I asked and exhaled.

‘You think I’m going to let you sit alone in your house all day? No. I’ll pick you up in the morning as soon as your mom leaves.’

‘Wayne, my mom will kill me.’

‘She won’t find out.’

‘Why are you going to all this trouble for me? I’m not even sure if you like me anymore.’

‘I don’t like you. I love you.’

A warm feeling spread through my body.

‘Really?’ I squealed. ‘You love me?’

‘I just said it, didn’t I?’

He had. He had just said it.

‘Any girl that would do what you did for me, I have to love. It’s kinda like a compliment.’”

This guy was smooth. A little
hickish
, but smooth. I didn’t like him much, but I admired his smoothness. I remembered one of the first girls I really, really liked. I met her in college and she was so hot, she was smoking. Her name was Amanda. She was older than me by a few months. She also had a boyfriend who would have beat the shit out of me if he knew.

But she liked me and I liked her and we’d stare at each other in the class we had together and then look away quickly. This went on for a little while until one day she wrote me a note, “I have a boyfriend, but I can meet you after class as long as you don’t tell anyone. You want to?”

Did I want to? Was she crazy? Of course I wanted to! I jumped at the chance. I almost thought she wouldn’t be there when I showed up at our designated make-out spot, her dorm room. Her roommate was out and we were alone.

The first time we kissed, my knees almost buckled from under me. It was so different than I imagined. I had kissed a few girls, of course, but nothing felt like a kiss from her. It was better, but different. This went on for a little while. We’d meet, make out for at least a half-hour and she’d leave me extremely horny.

Finally, it happened. It was a Wednesday afternoon. She didn’t beat around the bush at all and got right down to it. But she was too hot and I didn’t last very long. After it was over, she started right back on me and we moved all over her dorm room. We kissed and rubbed each other so much we chaffed. We fucked well into the night and when it was over, we didn’t say a word. We just smiled at each other and she kissed me at the door.

We saw each other privately until we graduated then she moved away and I never saw her again. But, of course, I never forget her. She was one hot piece of ass.

I went back to the diary, sighing with satisfaction and wondering what ever happened to Amanda.

“I couldn’t stop grinning. Looking back at this, I have to wonder if he wasn’t just greasing my wheels for what he wanted—sex.”

Well, duh.

“But I know he did love me. And I wanted sex, too. Bad.

So, as soon as Mom left the next morning, Wayne was knocking on the front door. He had barely even given her time to get out of the driveway! And he looked so hot! He had on this crisp white t-shirt and these Levi’s that just hugged his ass. His face was clean shaven and he smelled delicious.

I took one look at him and all the lust in my body just jumped out and onto him. I didn’t even give him a chance to say hello. I just jumped his bones.

‘Hold on,’ he said and shut the front door. He gave me a long look and said, ‘God, I love you. I love you so much.’

‘I love you, too.’”

Okay. So maybe her story would be a little better, a little more romantic. I never told Amanda I loved her, nor did she tell me. We were just, as they say, fuck buddies.

“And I did. I loved that boy with every cell in my body. Everything I had I wanted to give to him. And he took it greedily, giving me everything I’d ever wanted or imagined. I was ready for him, wanting him. It was time. We’d waited long enough.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

I nodded. I was sure. I was ready. He was going to be my first and he liked being my first. I don’t think I could have picked a better man, and that’s what he was, a better man to give it to me the first time.”

A
better man
? I shook my head. I hated this Wayne guy. I absolutely hated the prick.

“I told him of course I was sure. And then we did it. While it wasn’t quite what I had expected, it was sweet. After we were done, he didn’t move for a long moment.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked quietly.

‘I’m okay.’

‘Do you think you’ll ever want to do it again?’

‘Yeah, I think I will, Wayne,’ I said and couldn’t help but crack up. He was being so serious! After it was done, it was pretty much done to me and I wanted to get on to the better stuff. I just knew there was better stuff on down the road. Or that there had better be.

This went on for three days. On the last day of our rendezvous, my mother came home early to find us in her bed. Yes, she did. Oh, my God, it was the worse thing I have ever been through. She had come home early to make it up to me for being so mean to me about the whole thing. She was going to take me for pizza for dinner. She didn’t come home expecting me to be sitting on her bed making out with Wayne Eberhart. And thank God that’s all we were doing when she barged in.

When she entered, she just screamed like she had suddenly found herself at a murder scene or something. I jumped and was absolutely mortified at seeing her standing there with her hands in front of her face, as if she was shielding us from her sight.

I almost died. I almost wished I had. I couldn’t get out of this one. Nope. I was up shit creek. No. I was drowning in shit creek and there wasn’t a damn person around to throw me a life preserve.

‘What the hell are you doing to my daughter?!’”

I cracked up. I could just see her mother doing that. I would have loved to have been there to see the look on her face. On, second thought, no, I wouldn’t have.

“Okay, let’s get real here. What did it look like he was doing? He was just kissing me, that’s all. But, I knew she was going to go off! I had seen her pissed off before but nothing like this.

She stared at Wayne like he had an ax in his hand. She ran over and grabbed me and dragged me the bed, making me fall to the floor. This infuriated Wayne. He jumped up and held her off me. She pushed him back and he fell on the bed.

‘You son of a bitch! I knew it! I knew you were corrupting my daughter!’

Whatever.

She kept on, ‘If you think for one minute I won’t kick your ass, you better think again!’

‘Mom don’t! It wasn’t him! It was me! We’re adults! We’re both eighteen now!’

She turned on me, still infuriated and stomped out of the room. She was actually going to do something.

I ran into the living room to see her picking up the phone. Who was she going to call? I didn’t want to know. I took the phone out of her hand. ‘Mom, calm down.’

‘You little slut! How could you! And in my own bed!’

I felt bad, really, really bad.

‘To think how I’ve raised you! Getting thrown out of school and fornicating in my own house! How could you?’

Fornicating? Yeah, she actually said fornicating. ‘Mom, you don’t understand!’

Wayne walked into the room. She turned on him.

‘You better get the hell out of my house, boy!’

‘No,’ he said and crossed his arms. ‘You’ll hurt her.’

‘I’ll hurt you if you don’t!’

‘I won’t leave.’

‘Who do you think you are to come into my house and tell me what to do? You little piss ant!’

‘I love her.’

She doubled over with menacing laughter. ‘Love her? Let me tell you what that a quarter will get you. Nothing.’

He didn’t respond. By this time, I was so terrified, I was shaking.

She told him, ‘The best thing for you to do, boy, is get your sorry ass out that door and not look back.’

‘I’m here to take care of her.’

‘You? You think you can take care of her? How? What if she’s knocked up? You ever think of that? No, ya didn’t, did ya?’

He dropped his head.

‘You’ll never amount to anything, boy. I’ve seen plenty like you and they either end up drunk or dead. They don’t end up with girls like my daughter.’

I think she thought of me as some sort of property instead of as a human being.

He told her, ‘I will be something and I will take care of Sandy.’

She turned to me. ‘He’s gonna take care of you?’

I didn’t reply.

She turned back to him. ‘You better hope and pray she’s not pregnant. If she is, you’re going to pay!’

They went round and round over me. I just stood there like a bump on a log and after a while, I slipped out of the room and out the back door.

I stayed gone over a week. If I had my choice, I would have never gone back home. Never. I stayed with Kelsey until Mom showed up to ‘take me home.’ Then I ran away again and stayed with Wayne, sneaking into his bedroom at night until his mom caught on and kicked me out. Wayne gave me some money and I stayed in a motel. Mom found me about a week later.

I let her in. What choice did I have?

She cut right to the chase, ‘The way I see it, you’re ruined. Around here, you’re ruined. No man wants a girl who’s a slut.’

I’d hardly say I was a slut, thank you very much.