The Other New Girl Page 11

  “You’re a cutie, you know that?”

  “No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m just curious. And nervous. And . . .”

  “And what?”

  “I don’t know what. I’ve never felt like this with anyone before. You make me nervous.”

  “That wasn’t my intention.”

  “What was your intention?”

  He smiled at me in such a disarming way I smiled back and before I knew what was happening he had pulled my bra and sweater off and pulled me to a sitting position and was holding me against his chest with his arms around me and his hands on my bare back. There was no more talking after that as he kissed my neck and shoulders and moved his hands down to my jeans and unzipped them and pushed them down as far as he could. I could have stopped it. I could have pulled away but I didn’t want to and I let him feel wherever he wanted and where he wanted to feel no one had ever touched before. Soon he had my jeans and panties down around my thighs and his fingers were moving around like a musician playing an instrument, now fast, now slow, and I was unable to think at all and heard myself moan a couple of times and heard Wes call my name and then I think I must have lost consciousness altogether because all I remember was waves and waves of feelings cascading like a waterfall over and through me and Wes was doing something against me and I could feel him against me until all at once I heard him gasp and then it was over and he pulled his hand away and rolled away from my body.

  After a few moments he sat up and looked at me, still lying there with my bra and sweater off and my pants and panties down around my thighs.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I didn’t even take off my pants. You’re okay.”

  “I’m not worried,” I said it but at the same time felt I should have been worried.

  “Let me help you get dressed.” He picked up my bra and handed it to me. When I held it up to my breasts, he slid the straps up my arms and hooked it in the back.

  “If you haven’t come up here with other girls,” I began.

  “If what?”

  “Well if you haven’t, then how do you know so much about . . .”

  “About sex?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And about girls’ underwear and stuff.”

  He laughed. It sounded reassuring. At least he wasn’t angry with me for asking.

  “I met this college girl this past summer,” he said. “I had a job at a country club in the pro shop. She had just been dumped by her boyfriend and she was really sad and lonely and we started talking and got to know each other and one thing led to another. So I learned a lot. But I didn’t have real feelings for her, you know. I mean I liked her and she was nice to be around but not for more than a summer. And she had a lot of needs.”

  “You mean sexual needs?”

  “That and other needs. Anyway, she went back to college and that was that.”

  He stood up and helped me with my sweater. I wondered what other needs she could have had. While I was buttoning it up, he pulled my panties and jeans up and pulled me to him by the belt loops and zipped them up for me. But he didn’t let go.

  “I could do it all over again right now, you know,” he whispered close to my ear. “Just say the word.”

  I should have been embarrassed and mortified and shy and everything but instead I felt triumphant.

  “So what about it?” he asked. “About what?”

  “Are we a couple now?”

  I leaned forward and he took the cue and kissed me again and that was the answer. Whatever else might happen that year, I assumed it would be okay.

  SIXTEEN

  Talking Past Each Other

  I HAD NO IDEA MOLL WOULD SHOW UP AT A DANCE ONE night. How could I have known? In all the years that have passed, I still think about how different things might have been if only I had seen her first. Maybe run into her in the dorm or seen her at dinner where she could have mentioned her plan for that particular Saturday night. After sitting next to her in Quaker Life class for seven weeks, I thought we’d developed, if not a close friendship, at least some kind of trusting relationship. We’d all talked about some pretty deep stuff in that class and it felt like we’d developed a kind of respect for each other separate from whatever other friends we had—or didn’t have—at school. It was like in Quaker Life class we were on an island of equivalence that elevated our sense of ourselves and gave us a notion of what our places in the world might be.

  Since that first dance, Wes and I had become inseparable. I was still on demerit and he couldn’t go to study hall with me. So he made a point to go to the library while I sat in a classroom down the hall.

  “I hate to make you do this,” I told him the first time.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It gives me a quiet place to study. Even during study hours, the dorm is a hard place to knuckle down. Guys are always coming into my room and stuff.”

  It was true that some people went to the library voluntarily just to have a quiet place to study. See, the way it worked was, dinner was from five-thirty to six fifteen every evening. Then we had what was known as social hour, which really lasted forty minutes. Then a bell rang everywhere in the school as a five minute warning before you had to be either in your room, in the library, or in study hall for the two hours between seven and nine at night. Then another bell rang at seven telling you it was quiet time and you had to stay put wherever you were for study hours.

  I must have looked skeptical because he fake punched me in the arm and said, “Really. It’s okay.”

  Wes was that way. Never seemed stressed by anything, as if he was on a cloud slightly above everything going on around him. Other guys asked him for advice and hung around him as if there was something important happening. In general, boys were a mystery to me. What they talked about and what was important to them—it seemed like sports was the only thing they cared enough about to get really intense. The smarter guys—the ones who would end up at places like Yale and Cornell and Harvard—studied hard but didn’t seem to make a lot of noise about it. The girls who had competitive college dreams were always saying things like: “Oh God, I really messed up on that test,” or “The exam was so hard and I studied all the wrong stuff.” Then, when they’d get an A, they’d say they were just lucky.

  Knowing Wes was nearby made my demerit easier to bear and the weeks rolled by. Wes didn’t ask me to the dances after that first one. It was just understood. He’d say, “Meet you at Mrs. W.’s?” and I’d say, “Yes,” and that would be that. I knew Bleaker was still watching me, but I began to ignore it and just enjoy being away from home and sort of on my own. At least as on your own as you could be at boarding school. That was the funny thing about it. You didn’t have your TV and your refrigerator or your own bathroom. You had to check in all the time and prove you were where you were supposed to be, like at meals. You couldn’t just meet your friends somewhere. Being at boarding school was a lot more restricted than being at home. But that all depends on what home was like. And how happy you were at home—or at least how much home was a place of refuge and safety.

  That Saturday night was kind of different from the others because of what had happened at the trestle the Sunday before. The weather was starting to turn. The air felt snappy cold on your skin and the skies were that clear autumn blue with a hard edge to it. We had to wear heavy sweaters or jackets and the boys couldn’t get away with T-shirts anymore. Leaves speckled with brown were falling fast now. Soon, Thanksgiving break would arrive and we’d all scatter like the blowing leaves. I didn’t know what would happen with Wes and me when the break came. He was one of a few kids who came east from California for prep school. His mother was a Quaker and she wanted him to have a Quaker education. We hadn’t talked about it much—about being apart—because I was confident that things would be fine. I assumed he felt the same way. But as the weeks went by, and the Thanksgiving break moved closer, I began to worry. It crept up on me in small ways.

  And that Saturday night I was keyed up. When he met me at
Mrs. W.’s he noticed something.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked right at first.

  “Nothing, why?”

  “There is something. Tell me.”

  “I don’t know. I just feel kind of antsy.”

  “Like how?”

  “Honestly I don’t know.”

  “About me?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What then?”

  “I told you; I don’t know.”

  “You do. You just don’t want to tell me.”

  He sounded kind of petulant. It was the first time I’d heard that tone in his voice.

  “If I tell you, you might get mad.”

  “No I won’t. But if you don’t tell me I will get mad.”

  It was our first fight and it wasn’t much of one at that because I capitulated pretty fast. We were standing right by Mrs. W.’s and it felt too public to talk so I suggested we go up to the Social Room on the second floor—the room where I’d seen that couple exchanging tooth retainers. It was unlikely anyone would be in there on a Saturday night. You never knew for sure, of course. Sometimes kids used that room to study or have hall meetings or hall parties. But not on a Saturday night so we walked down the main hall and headed up the stairs to the second floor.

  The Social Room was empty. We chose a couch in the farthest corner over by a window as far away as possible from any of the standing lamps that dimly lit the room in spots. A half-moon was coming up in the east and its light slanted through the window and cast soft shadows on the floor.

  It was the first time I’d felt uncomfortable with Wes and I guessed he could sense it. I crossed my legs under me and kind of backed myself into the corner of the old couch.

  “So what’s going on?” he asked as soon as we sat down.

  Coming from the kind of turmoil at home that I’d grown up with, I’d gotten very good at hiding and keeping things to myself. I was not so good at expressing what was going on. I had a lot to fear at home and mine was not the kind of family where you got a fair hearing. So this was hard for me, and not what I had anticipated when we started going out. Actually it had never occurred to me that we might have to talk about anything serious. Or even about our feelings. Guys didn’t seem to me to be interested in feelings anyway, so I thought I wouldn’t have to deal with them either. Naturally I had feelings. All kinds of feelings. They sometimes leaked out like a dripping faucet. But I tried to get them under control. And this was one of those times. Except that I noticed I was wringing my hands and squirming on the couch cushion.

  “Hey,” Wes whispered close to my ear, “I’m over here right next to you.”

  He meant it as a joke but it only made me feel more under the gun and I almost jumped up and ran to my room, which was not far away outside the door and down the hall. And if I did run he couldn’t follow because boys weren’t allowed on the girls’ halls except on one day a year known as Open Dorm. This was not that day.

  Then he leaned over and kissed my neck. Well that did it. I turned to face him and tears pricked at my eyes. I didn’t know when or how I’d gotten myself so upset but there it was and no denying it. The light was too dim for him to see, so I tried to hide the tears and just looked down. He put a finger under my chin and lifted my face and tried to kiss me but I turned away, fearing that if I let him kiss me he would feel the wetness on my cheeks and know I’d started to cry.

  Well that just made things worse because he pulled back and moved away from me on the couch and kind of sat there with his hands hanging between his knees. He didn’t say anything and I didn’t know what to say to explain how I felt. I didn’t even know how I felt, only that something was bothering me and getting worse, like something stuck in your throat that just annoyed you at first and then you started to cough and before you knew it you were afraid you couldn’t breathe anymore. I felt like the room was closing in on me. I wanted to run but I was frozen to my spot on that couch.

  “Well,” he said finally, “I guess that’s it then.”

  I could feel him looking over at me, waiting for me to say something. My mouth was so dry and my throat so constricted that I couldn’t have uttered a word at that moment even if I had known what I wanted to say.

  “I guess I was wrong about how you felt about me—about us,” he said.

  He sounded bitter and angry and it just made me feel awful. I didn’t know what to say or do.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  He stood up then and walked to the window.

  “I guess the other guys have the right idea,” he said.

  Without thinking, my body suddenly relaxed and I asked, “What do you mean?”

  He turned back to face me but stayed where he was by the window.

  “You know, stuff like the nipple pool is a lot safer than getting involved. I guess I should have listened to them. But I thought you were different.”

  “Different from what?”

  “From girls who just lead a guy on and then dump him. Girls who care more about how they look than about really connecting with a guy. Girls who are flighty and needy and all over the place.”

  “Is that what you think of me?”

  “I didn’t. Before. But now I don’t know.”

  “Wes,” I was almost whispering now because I was so scared of the answer. “If you’re trying to break up with me, you can just say it straight out. I’d rather hear it all at once than in little bits and pieces.”

  And this is the thing about the teen years. What you imagine is as potent as what you actually experience. The two states are intertwined like a vine that’s wound itself around a tree, depending on the tree not only for support but also, after the initial embrace, by embedding its roots right into the bark, for sustenance of a kind different from what its roots pull from the soil. I know this now but only because I can look back over the decades and see the confusion that fueled my behavior at that time. So I imagined Wes was breaking up with me. Even though, separately and logically, I knew that it was me creating our stalemate. Yet I felt powerless to stop myself.

  Which is another irony of my state of mind at that age. In front of Bleaker I could use the blocking tactic that had protected me from my mother’s rages and depressions, scoldings and accusations about things I never did. It was not serving me well with Wes.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  That question snapped me back to the moment.

  “I mean if you want to break up . . .”

  He came back to the couch and sat down close to me again.

  “I don’t want to break up. I thought you did.”

  “No,” I shook my head. “That’s not what I want.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I still didn’t know what to say and I started to cry again because I was just stuck in neutral and couldn’t move forward. Wes put one arm around me and hugged me to him.

  “What’s wrong? You can tell me. I won’t get mad or anything.”

  “Thanksgiving’s coming up,” I started.

  “So?”

  “So I have to go home.”

  “So?”

  “And so do you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s going to happen to us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  And at that moment it occurred to me that guys just didn’t get what was going on with girls.

  “I mean are we still going out or what? If you’re in California, and I’m in Connecticut, then what happens to us? I mean ‘us’ is based here, at school. This isn’t the real world. It’s the school world. And here we’re fine. But we have to be together here. At home we don’t. And then what happens?”

  “First of all, we don’t have to be together here. We choose to be together. And Thanksgiving is only like, what, less than a week? I don’t think we’ll forget about each other in that amount of time. Do you?”

  “I guess not. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Oh, nothin
g. It’s not worth talking about it.”

  We sat there in silence for a few moments. I didn’t know what Wes was thinking. I was beginning to realize what was bothering me and it felt too huge to bring out into the open. I never talked to anyone about my home life. It was painful, sure. But I also didn’t think anyone would understand about it. It was complicated enough for me to get my mind around the situation with my mother, much less to expect anyone else to get it.

  “You could come out to Carmel with me for Thanksgiving.”

  Carmel. It sounded so exotic. I’d never been to California. So if ever there was a time to tell him about my mother, it was now.

  “Wes,” I began. He took my hand and laced his fingers between mine. “Look, when I said we’re together here, what I meant was . . . well I meant that but I also was thinking about home. My home. See it’s probably not like yours.”

  “You mean in Connecticut?”

  “No, I mean my home life. Besides my parents also have an apartment in New York. But the thing is, I probably would be going to the house in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. That is I would if . . .” I stumbled again.

  “If what?”

  “Well, yesterday I got a letter from my father.”

  “Are you trying to tell me your parents are getting a divorce? Because if you are, that’s not a big deal. I mean it is a big deal but it wouldn’t matter to me.”

  “No. That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “What was the letter, then?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” I took a deep breath.

  SEVENTEEN

  My Mother’s Not Like Other Mothers

  EVEN NOW, AT MY AGE, WITH GROWN-UP ADULT CHILDREN, and now a grandchild, it’s hard for me to get my head around how I felt about my mother back then. I know how I feel now. I know what I’ve forgiven and what I’ve come to understand. I know what pain and hurt I’ve let go of, and what anger I’ve gotten past. I know that your past is always a part of you but it doesn’t have to define you. I don’t know about the philosophy that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger but I do know that survival depends on the way you heal your wounds. Broken bones that knit together well can be stronger than before the break. In the Japanese art form of Kintsukuroi, broken pottery is repaired with gold or silver lacquer to make an even more beautiful work of art from the shards. If I know one thing now, it is that my struggle to make sense of my mother, while a work that seemed too monumental ever to be realized when I was fifteen, at last devolved into acceptance and forgiveness, even love, although not the kind relegated to the cloying sentiments on a Mother’s Day card.