15
Grandma was not pleased to see me when I rocked up at her door that night. She had changed the locks and my key no longer worked. But she let me in and gestured me to sit down.
‘I heard you left Longhurst. Your mother is distraught. What is it going to take, Ruby?’
‘Grandma, I promise you, I’ve been sober for ten days. I’m sober now. I don’t have to stay in that place not to drink. They said I could leave. Please, I have nowhere else to go. And I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused.’
‘Ruby, I can smell the drink from you.’ I had stopped in a bar and allowed a guy to buy me a few drinks, maybe three, but definitely not much more than that. ‘You are lying about this, like you lie about everything. The drinking. I know what the root of it all is. I know what happened back in Boston was terrible. We should have talked about it as a family –’
I zoned out at that point, but I could feel the anger rising inside me. I had been sober for ten days in there. I had only had a few drinks before I came home to give me the courage to face Grandma and apologize to her. I had proven that I could stay sober. I’d had no coke or pills at all.
‘Stop talking about Boston,’ I said.
She ignored me. ‘I decided when you came here that it was best to pretend it hadn’t happened, but I see now that was the wrong thing to do –’
‘Please, Grandma, I can’t –’
‘There are specialists, you know, who deal in cases of rape. There’s the Rape Crisis Centre in town. All you have to do is call them. Or your father would pay for any help you need with therapy. I’ve been reading about it. Don’t you know how lucky you are to have those opportunities? You probably have post-traumatic stress disorder. You need help.’
‘I got help. I told a psychiatrist in there everything.’
Grandma folded her hands on her lap. ‘I’m not a psychiatrist, but would you like to tell me what happened? You know I love you. You know I want the best for you.’
This was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I loved her too. How could I explain what happened?
‘You were just a child. What that monster did to you was outrageous. You did nothing wrong.’
‘It wasn’t like that, Grandma,’ I whispered. ‘He was a good man.’
‘He tricked you into believing he was. You can’t still think you were at fault?’
I had a devil that lived inside me, and I needed to get it out.
‘I lied. He didn’t rape me. I wanted to have sex with him, but he wouldn’t. I made it up.’
The words fell out of my mouth. I felt nausea rising from the pit of my stomach. I ran past Grandma, who was sitting stock-still, aghast, and threw up in the bathroom.
16
The Incident
Nobody but Kenny Carter knew that I wasn’t a virgin. He had shown me what to do and how to do it at Bible Camp just a few weeks before the incident. I had seen him around church that whole summer. All the senior girls flirted with him, but he never came to our group until the last day. He showed us how to do CPR. I was probably the third least attractive in our group of girls, but on that day, he singled me out every time for special praise and attention. When he demonstrated CPR, he used me as the model of the drowned victim, which meant he had his hands on my non-existent breasts, although there was a layer of clothing between us. There were a few giggles, but he took it so seriously, saying that this was a matter of life and death, that the girls soon hushed up. I got hot and excited, but I don’t think anyone noticed. He was the best-looking guy I’d ever seen. His teeth were very white and he had dimples on both cheeks.
Later that day, when camp was over and everyone had gone, I helped him to roll bandages and pack up his kit. He was probably about twenty-five, but he treated me like an equal, told me dirty jokes which I pretended to get. He had an infectious laugh. I liked him a lot. I asked him if he was married or had a girlfriend, and he said no, but then he looked at me, really looked, and I just decided to see what would happen if I kissed him. What happened is thathe kissed me back, and all at once his hands went everywhere. Then he stopped suddenly. ‘What age are you?’ he asked.
I was annoyed at the interruption. ‘Don’t worry, I’m legal.’
‘Shit, I could get in so much trouble for this.’
‘I won’t tell.’ We were in the back of the church, in Dad’s large office. No one else was around. Erin had gone to meet Saima. Mom had gone for coffee with Marcia’s mother.
‘We should use the couch,’ I suggested.
‘Have you done this before?’ he asked.
‘No, you’re going to have to show me.’
I locked the door and Kenny showed me, with enthusiasm. He pulled my clothes off while kissing me. He showed me how to put a condom over his wiener and then he had me straddle him while I pumped it and felt him grow harder until he guided himself inside me, and he showed me how to bounce up and down on him while he held my ribcage and my ass. It was painful and only slightly pleasurable but totally thrilling. I was a grown-up, doing things that Erin hadn’t done.
