The Chocolate Money (19 page)

“For what it’s worth, I didn’t believe you cried during blowjobs. But even if you do, that’s not so bad.”

“I don’t,” Cape insists. I sit down on his bed and he sits beside me.

“I hope you don’t think this is too personal, but have a lot of girls given you blowjobs?”

“No. Just Meredith.”

“Just Meredith?”

“Yes.”

“Meredith would make anyone cry. She’s so aggressive about everything.”

“But
I don’t
cry.”

“Okay, I have an idea.” This is no longer about stealing from Meredith. I feel protective of Cape. I also want him to trust me, in case I decide to tell him about Babs and Mack. I’m tired of trying to make sense of what our parents did by myself.

“What?”

“Think of it as kind of an experiment. I’ll give you a blowjob and you can prove to me that you don’t cry. That should make you feel better.”

“Huh?” he says, confused but trying to seem nonchalant. What fifteen-year-old boy turns down a no-strings-attached blowjob? I’ve never given one before but am convinced I can figure it out.

“But wouldn’t it be cheating on Meredith? I don’t want to do that.”

“It’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.” This is Babs logic for sure, but here I sort of believe it. “I would never tell her.”

“I just don’t know, Bettina. Wouldn’t it be awkward? We just met.”

“You’re wrong about that, you’ll see.”

“Okay,” he finally says. I can tell he is still unsure but is too much the gentleman to say no, hurt my feelings, no matter how bold the proposition is. I know he will think about it later, feel bad about Meredith and chew on his fingernails.

We lie down on his bed. He pulls me on top of him and begins kissing me. I hold back, want to keep the clinical air of the experiment I have proposed. Otherwise he might feel like he’s indeed cheating on Meredith and then tell her. He rubs up and down on me, but I do not move with him. Finally, he senses my detachment. Does not whisper my name or make little noises to show he enjoys it, which I know he would do were we dating. At last, I feel an erection through his jeans. I now have to tackle his penis. Because I have seen Jake’s, it does not seem like a big deal. Just a body part.

I unzip his pants. Pull them off. His erection is now so pronounced it seems to threaten the thin cotton of his boxers. I take them off and get to work. I start by sliding his penis in and out of my mouth, careful not to graze it with my teeth. I’m surprised by how soft the skin is, how my tongue can dart in the tiny hole at the tip and circle the rim. I try to remember all the instructions Babs gave me about
raising the mast,
try to get a nuanced sense of what he might like. But the whole thing doesn’t seem to require tutoring. To me, it seems intuitive, interesting.
I’m good at blowjobs; they are like my specialty,
I want to tell Meredith.

Cape tries to reach up my shirt and touch my boobs but I push his hands away. He tries rubbing my back but I turn to the side so this is impossible. He finally gives up trying to please me and just strokes my hair. I focus all my attention on his penis. I rub his balls, surprised by the loose, relaxed way they hang in their sack. I can’t help thinking about Mack. I wonder if he ever thought I would be licking his son’s penis. If he were alive, would he send me a cease-and-desist letter? In the middle of my thoughts, Cape comes, shoots his “hot salad dressing” down my throat. He doesn’t cry. I swallow, marking the end of our experiment, and sit up on the bed. He lies there for a moment, looking at me, before he pulls his boxers on.

“Do you do this often, Bettina?”

“No. See, you didn’t cry.”

“Seriously. Why would you want to do that?”

“To prove you had been falsely accused.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Don’t worry. Feel better?”

“Yes . . . but.”

“Don’t think too much about it.”

“Bettina?”

“Yes?”

“Tell me, is Meredith really such a bitch?”

I say nothing. Don’t even nod my head. I do still feel protective of him, but there is only so much I can do. He’s going to have to make up his own mind about her.

He sits up and catches his breath. The bed’s barely rumpled. Cape has no shirt on, but the scene looks more “before” than “after.” Like we have just been sitting there talking. Nothing else.

The door opens. Cape and I both stand up. Lowell. He is wearing jeans, New Balance sneakers, and a faded Nantucket Red polo shirt. He looks at us in surprise. Was expecting Meredith, not me. But for boys like him, there are no awkward moments. I now wonder if he made up the part about falling and crying when shooting hoops in the paragraph he wrote for Donaldson’s class.

“Hey, Bettina!” he says. “I know there’s no way in hell you are here to visit my idiot of a roommate. I must be late. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

Is he serious? I wonder. Could he really like me a little bit? But I just can’t see Meredith and me sitting at Oakley having dinner with these two beautiful boys. Meredith might tolerate me, but she would never let me get away with dating a boy like Lowell. It would be like stealing a fish from her pond.

“Shut up, Lowell,” Cape says. “Bettina’s friends with Meredith and came with a message from her to me.”

“My loss, mate. And if you had any sense, you would upgrade.”

Does he really think I am better than Meredith, or is he making fun of me? I don’t know him well enough to tell. Cape says nothing.

Lowell continues, now looking at me. “I didn’t know Meredith had her own personal courier service. You can deliver a message to me anytime,” he says, winking.

Cape’s tapping his foot. Looking down. Time to go.

“Good night,” I say, like a good sport. I walk out of the room. Take nothing but the salty taste of Cape in my mouth. Lowell gives me a friendly wave.

I get to Jake’s room. Jake opens the door, his copy of
Portrait
still in his hand.

“So,” he says to me, “mission accomplished?”

“Mission accomplished,” I say.

“What were they doing,” he asks, “serving hors d’oeuvres up there? It sure took you a long time.”

I want to laugh, to tell him everything, but I just can’t. He would punish me if he knew the truth. Probably by finding another girl and abandoning me. Right now, I’m not sure I could handle that. For the time being, he is mine.

“Well,” I say, “I need to get back.”

“Too bad,” he says. “Sex in my bed . . .” He leaves the rest to my imagination.

“Next time,” I say.

Jake pushes open the window.

M
EREDITH IS STILL OUT
cold when we all rally to go to breakfast. I go into her room and see Jess shaking her, saying, “You have to go shower, Mere. You reek.”

“Hmm,” Meredith replies, rolling slowly about in her bed. She finally sits up and strips off her clothes. There’s still vomit in her hair. She does indeed smell from our party. She walks over to her closet, grabs her monogrammed robe. Heads for the shower. For the first time since I have known her, Meredith looks like shit. She is pale. There are circles under her eyes.

Somehow, she pulls it together. We all walk to the dining hall. Late, but still within the limits. Meredith grabs a glass of orange juice and a bowl of Lucky Charms. She hates Lucky Charms, is always going on about how stupid it is that Cardiss serves kids’ cereals. But after last night, her body craves the sugar. Her hands shake as she carries her tray.

I scan the dining hall for Cape. He’s sitting in a corner with Lowell. Meredith’s trying to catch his eye, but to no avail. She has no idea about last night. Ha. Welcome to your hangover.

That night, Cape comes to Bright House during visiting hours. I see him from the window and go to open the door. Cape nods at me uncomfortably and asks if I can get Meredith. Did last night have no impact? Or am I now the one who has done something really wrong?

Meredith comes down, fully recovered from the night before. I watch her take his hand as they walk out of Bright together.

I need to distract myself so I go up to my room to write Babs about the package she sent. Thank-you notes are very important to her. I work for almost an hour to get the right tone.

Dear Babs,

Thank you for all of the goodies. They are fabulous!

I miss you too.

Bettina

Goodies
and
fabulous
are Babs words, but they seem appropriate to acknowledge such a gift.

By the time I address the envelope, it is eight o’clock. I hear Meredith walk down the hall to her room, just in time for check-in. I poke my head out and can tell by her red eyes that she has been crying. I think about asking her what’s wrong even though I already know. I have inflicted some damage after all.

Jess and Holly are waiting for her in her room, just as they always do after a Cape walk. I decide to join them. I am eager to hear what she has to say.

“I’ve decided to take a break from Cape,” she says, lighting a cigarette and skipping over all the details. “I just can’t deal with his neediness.”

All he needed was a nonjudgmental blowjob from you and no subsequent bitchy commentary,
I want to say, but of course, I restrain myself.

Holly and Jess look disappointed. There will be no good stories for a while. Cape was almost as much their boyfriend as Meredith’s.

Holly ventures to say, “Are you sure, Meredith? He’s probably doing the best he can.”

“Well, it’s not good enough,” retorts Meredith with an edge in her voice. Only I know the cause of it. She has probably never, in her short, charmed life, been dumped.

“I told him to find a girl who could take it,” she says, putting out her cigarette. “I have lots of homework. Let’s bag this whole boring discussion.”

Holly and I have never seen Meredith study. The situation must be serious. We know to give her time alone.

T
WO WEEKS PASS, AND
Cape does not come to Bright to see Meredith. She sticks to her story that this separation was her idea, but I notice she seems to have lost her usual confidence. Her fifteen-year-old body seems to sag a bit. This takes her looks down a notch, and I realize that really beautiful people have engines inside them that generate the outside effects. When the energy wanes, the beautiful don’t shine so brightly. It is clearly time for her to find another boy, but she can’t seem to admit failure on the Cape front and move on.

In English that day, Lowell passes me a note. I recognize the writing from the poem. Cape! The small paper simply reads:

Bettina—Come to my room at midnight if you can.

Let Lowell know.

I have not been alone with Cape since the blowjob. I’ve been to Wentington to see Jake fairly often, and our sex has gotten even more intense. He has lashed me with his belt, tied a tie so tight around my neck that I almost passed out, and threatened to cut my hair. Inexplicably, I am not scared but bored. There is still no emotion between us, and the whole thing is starting to feel like a complicated form of calisthenics.

“So?” Lowell asks, waiting for my response.

“Tell Cape yes. But just so you know, Cape’s got nothing on you.” This is my attempt at flirting, and it has none of the levity of Lowell’s. It’s like my telling a joke to Babs. She almost never laughs.

It’s hard to sit through the day. Time crawls, almost rolls backward, as I contemplate visiting Cape again.

In my room that night, I hesitate over what to wear. I want to dress like Meredith, but lacking Laura Ashley skirts and cute little T-shirts, the closest I come to dressing up is a generous spray of Coco perfume. I wear my black pants and an agnès b. T-shirt, the same thing that I was wearing the first night I went to visit Jake. Hardly a sexy hook-up uniform. But I don’t want to look like I’m expecting anything, trying too hard. My recent encounter with Cape at our dorm has tempered my expectations. I dress quietly so I don’t wake up Holly. Since Meredith and Cape broke up, there have been no late talks. Holly’s usually in bed by ten thirty. Her mommy would be proud.

I walk to Wentington. For a moment, I’m scared about how Jake is going to react to my using his window to get to Cape’s room again. Will he allow me to just pass through? I knock on the window, but the room is dark.

Come on, Jake,
I think,
don’t let me down.
I knock again, this time more loudly. I see movement, and then Jake’s face behind the glass. He opens the window slowly.

“Bettina,” he says, “you didn’t tell me you were coming.”

I feel awkward, embarrassed.

“Actually,” I lie, “I have to go upstairs with another message from Meredith.”

“Well, come down when you are done.”

I wonder if he believes me. “Of course.”   

I walk up the stairs to Cape’s room. This time I am officially invited. I knock lightly on the door.

Cape comes to open it. He is again dressed in jeans, loafers, and a white T-shirt. I can’t believe how handsome he is, even more so than Mack. Maybe because we are the same age and he is available to me.

“Bettina,” he says once I am in the room. “I wanted to thank you for telling me everything Meredith said. We broke up, you know.”

“I know,” I say, “except she told everyone it was her idea. That you were just too needy.”

Cape smarts from this, yet again unprepared for Meredith’s cruelty. I know I verge on evil for telling Cape this, but it seems to seal his hatred for Meredith. He pauses, then regains his composure.

“Well, we both know this is a lie.” He adjusts his jeans and kicks his loafers a little too forcefully toward his closet. I think of the pennies inside. How valuable they are. I’m too busy thinking about them to say anything back.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” he continues.

“Why did I have to come to your room in the middle of the night? Why didn’t you just tell me during the day?”