Grand Avenue (25 page)

“A present?”

“For later.”

Chris felt her heartbeat quicken, her mouth go dry.

“I’ll leave it on the bed.”

Chris nodded.

“Hurry up with those shirts,” he said.

Just after the eleven-o’clock news, Tony announced it was time for bed. Montana groaned but otherwise offered no resistance. The boys were already in their
rooms, although Chris doubted Wyatt was asleep. She pictured him under his covers furiously manipulating the controls of his Game Boy in the dark, and smiled. Any room for me under there? she wondered, wishing she could disappear as easily. But there was no room for her anywhere. She knew that. Especially in her children’s lives. Tony had made sure of that. To them she was little more than a glorified housekeeper, someone they barked orders at or ignored, in equal measures.

Chris wasn’t surprised at the boys—she’d pretty much expected they would follow their father’s example. Rowdy was seven years old and growing up fast, and while she was still the one he ran to whenever anything went wrong, that would soon stop. Already she could feel she was losing him. Another six months, maybe a year—he’d be gone. Wyatt, she understood sadly, had never been hers. His father’s son since the day he’d pushed himself roughly out of her womb.

It was Montana who surprised Chris the most. She’d always clung to the notion that Montana would see through her father’s manipulations, his not-so-subtle bullying, his outright abuse. Maybe not when she was Rowdy’s age, or even Wyatt’s. But surely Montana was old enough now to grasp what was really going on. And yet, she blithely swallowed each sorry tale of her mother’s supposed clumsiness, accepting as fact that her mother was simply “accident-prone.” She ignored the evidence of her own eyes as steadfastly as she ignored the fear in Chris’s. She had little patience, even less sympathy, for her mother’s plight. Indeed, if Montana sympathized with anyone, it was her father. How could that be?

Chris recalled an article she’d read in the paper about how women jurors were often less sympathetic than their male counterparts to victims of rape. It was the women’s way of distancing themselves from the victim, the article claimed. If the women jurors could find some way to hold the victim at least partly accountable for what had happened, then it made them feel safer, assured them that such a horrible fate could never be theirs. Sympathize with the victim—feel vulnerable. Identify with the abuser—feel powerful. Feel helpless or feel in control. That was the choice she was offering her daughter.

No wonder Montana chose to side with her father. What other option did she have?

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Tony was saying now, sitting on the end of the double bed, watching Chris as she turned over the small parcel in her hand. “Open it.”

Chris quickly tore at the lurid purple tissue paper across which
Hot Times
was stamped at regular intervals in large hot-pink letters. She closed her eyes. Please, just let it be a scarf, she prayed, and almost laughed. Who said she had no sense of humor?

“Do you like it?”

Chris forced her eyes open, although she didn’t have to see it to know what it was. Her drawers were full of cheap black teddies, frilly garter belts and stockings, uncomfortable red bustiers. Tony regularly bought them for her, insisted she wear them while parading around in front of him, striking
Penthouse
-style poses, all as a prelude to increasingly kinky sex. Dear God, what did he have in store for her tonight? Chris stared
down at the sheer, lavender push-up bra and bikini panties, both trimmed with fake fur, a flowing chiffon cape attached to the bra’s straps. He can’t be serious, Chris thought, and might have laughed had she not been so horrified. “I can’t wear this,” she said, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Tony was instantly on his feet, advancing toward her. “Why not? Don’t you like it?”

Chris began backing up. “It’s too small, Tony. I can tell just by looking at it.”

“Too small’s half the fun.” He pressed himself against her, rubbed his hand between her legs. “Come on, Chris. Put it on.”

Chris waited until he removed his hand, then shuffled shakily toward the bathroom. What was the matter with her? Why was she giving him a hard time? She was only prolonging the inevitable. Hadn’t she learned anything by now?

Tony’s voice stopped her at the bathroom door. “I’ve been thinking about your friend Barbara.”

Chris turned around slowly, afraid to respond. Where was this coming from?

“I ran into her a few weeks back. Did I tell you?”

“You saw Barbara?”

“Did I forget to mention it?”

Chris nodded, knowing Tony never forgot a thing. “How is she?”

“Looks great.”

Chris smiled, pictured her friend in her mind’s eye, wondering how the years had changed her. “What did she say? Did she ask about me?”

“What did she say? Did she ask about me?”
Tony
mimicked cruelly. “Listen to yourself. You’d think you were lovers the way you’re carrying on.”

“I just meant …”

“Why don’t you give the Barbie doll a call,” Tony suggested suddenly.

“What?” Surely she’d heard him incorrectly.

“Call her up, seeing as you’re so interested in how she’s doing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She must be pretty lonely living in that ugly old house, no one to talk to but a teenage girl. She’s probably getting a little desperate for some male companionship. How long you think it’s been since she got laid?”

Chris said nothing, her mind racing ahead, trying to figure out where this conversation was going.

“How long?” Tony repeated.

“I don’t know.”

“Long enough, I bet. Which is a shame. She’s looking pretty damn good, I tell you.”

Chris twisted the flimsy undergarments she was holding until they disappeared into a tight little ball. “You wouldn’t mind if I called her?”

“Why would I mind? Hell, call the Barbie doll. Invite her over.”

“Invite her over? When?”

“When? When do you think? Tonight. Right now.”

“Now?” What was he getting at? “It’s late, Tony. She won’t come over now.”

“Sure she will. First sound of your voice, she’ll be halfway out the door. She’ll be here before you’ve had a chance to hang up the phone.”

And then what? Chris wondered. “And then what?”

“And then we let nature take its course.” Tony paused, ran a suggestive tongue along his bottom lip. “The three of us.”

Chris shook her head. He had to be joking. Was he really hinting at a threesome involving her and her closest friend? That he thought there was even the remotest of possibilities Barbara might agree?

“What’s the problem, Chrissy? You want to keep your little friend all to yourself?”

“You can’t be serious,” Chris whispered, aching to run for the phone, to call her friend, if only to hear her voice again.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to share? Didn’t she teach you it’s not polite to keep your toys to yourself?”

“This is crazy talk, Tony.”

“Excuse me? What did you say?” His head cocked to one side. “What’s going on here, Chrissy? Am I going to have to teach you a lesson? Is that what you’re going to make me do?”

Chris looked frantically from one dull mustard-colored wall to another, sweat breaking out across her forehead and upper lip. “Look, let me change into this nice outfit you bought me.” She began unraveling it, smoothing it out across her thighs. “We don’t need anyone else to have a good time.”

“I see how you look at other women, Chris. I know you’d like to have a taste of some of that for yourself. I’m just trying to do something nice for you.”

“You’re the only one I want, Tony.”

“Is that so?”

“You know it is.”

“Because sometimes I don’t feel appreciated,” he was saying, as if talking to himself. “Sometimes I go to all the time and trouble to buy you something nice”—he indicated the still-crumpled lingerie in Chris’s hands—“and you don’t seem real happy about it. That’s why I got to thinking that maybe you’d be happier if we were to bring another person into our lovemaking.”

Oh, God, Chris thought. How long had this idea been brewing?

“It doesn’t have to be the Barbie doll, if that would make you too uncomfortable. We could find somebody else.”

“Really, Tony. I don’t want anybody else. You’re all I need.”

“Is that so?”

She nodded vigorously. “Let me prove it to you. Please Tony, let me prove it to you.”

“Get changed.”

Chris ran into the bathroom, closed the door behind her, tears falling down her cheeks as her fingers scrambled with the top buttons of her nightgown. “Please, God, help me.” What was she going to do? She knew Tony well enough to know that this latest idea hadn’t just popped into his head, that he’d been mulling it over for some time, waiting for the right time to spring it on her. And it wouldn’t go away. Just because he’d temporarily put aside such thoughts didn’t mean he’d forget about them. No, Chris thought, pulling her nightgown over her head and stepping into the sheer,
lavender panties with their ridiculous fake-fur trim, pulling them awkwardly over her hips. There was no way Tony was going to let go of this latest obscenity until he got her to agree. “I can’t do it,” she whispered, snapping on the ill-fitting bra with its ludicrous flowing chiffon cape. “I won’t do it.”

Except that he would make her do it, she knew. He would berate her and bully her and beat her until she not only gave in, she volunteered. Just as she’d done tonight. Hadn’t she begged him? “You’re all I need,” she’d repeated more than once. “Please, Tony, let me prove it to you.”

“You disgust me.” She spat at the image in the mirror, watched a trickle of spit run down the glass. “Wonder Woman,” she sneered, flicking at the fur-trimmed, lavender chiffon cape hanging limply down her back, thinking of her three children in their rooms down the hall, what they would think if they saw their mother dressed up like some sort of obscene cartoon. What the hell, she thought, opening the bathroom door, leaping into the bedroom, as if leaping off a tall cliff. “It’s Supermom!” she announced, knowing she’d taken leave of her senses, that Tony would find nothing funny about her impromptu display, that she was courting disaster, sealing her fate, signing her own death certificate. Had she done so deliberately?

She prepared herself for Tony’s fury, braced herself for his fists. Let’s just get this over with, she thought. Finish me off. You can do it. One good kick to the head and it would all be mercifully over. Lavender Woman bites the dust!

Except that Tony kept his hands at his side, his feet
on the thin brown broadloom. He stared at her calmly, his lips a flat line, his dark eyes hollow. Chris looked at him and understood that she was staring at her worst nightmare, that everything that had come before this moment was nothing compared to what was about to follow. “You think this is a joke?” he asked, his voice low, steady, controlled.

“I was just trying …”

“I’m just a big joke to you. Is that it?”

“No. Of course you’re not.”

“Call the Barbie doll.”

“What?”

“Prove I’m not a big joke to you.” Tony reached for the phone. “Enough of your stupid games. Call the Barbie doll right now. Invite her over. Now.”

“I can’t,” Chris heard herself mutter. Then more strongly: “I won’t.”

“Can’t?” Tony repeated wondrously, as if hearing the word for the first time. “Won’t?” He made a face, as if he’d bitten into something sour.

Chris shook her head. There was no way she was going to call Barbara. No matter what Tony threatsened, no matter what he did, no matter how desperately she wanted to see her, hear her voice. “I’ll leave,” she whispered, the words crashing against her skull with the ferocity of an unbridled scream. Immediately she tried to swallow the unexpected words, push them back down her throat, but it was too late. Already Tony was advancing toward her, one arm outstretched, angry fingers clawing at the air, a staccato burst of words, like machine-gun fire, shooting from his mouth.

“What did you say? You’re going to leave? Is that what you said?”

“Tony, please …”

“You want to leave? Right now? Dressed like that? By all means.” He grabbed Chris by the elbow, pushed her toward the hall.

“What are you doing? Tony, stop! Let go of me.”

“Stop yelling, Chris. You want to wake the children?” He pushed her toward the stairs. “You want them to see you like this? Do you want their last image of their mother to be this?” He flipped the chiffon cape up over her head. It fell across her eyes like a veil.

Chris grabbed the banister, fought to stay upright as Tony pulled her fingers from the railing, kicked her feet out from under her, forced her down the top two stairs. “Last image? What are you talking about?”

“You think you’ll ever see your kids again?” Tony grabbed the flowing lavender cape and yanked Chris to her feet. “Get up! You want to leave? Go! Get the hell out of my house!”

“What are you doing? You can’t throw me out dressed like this!”

Tony said nothing as he continued pushing Chris down the stairs. Every time she stumbled, he yanked her back up, pushed her farther down. She lost her footing, slipped down the last few steps, landed on her knees at the bottom of the stairs.

“Please, Tony. Let me put something on.”

But he was already behind her, grabbing her arms, dragging her toward the front door. Dear God, was he really going to throw her outside in the freezing December cold in nothing but her underwear? With
bare feet and no money? With nothing on her back but a goddamn chiffon cape?

“You can’t do this!”

“Watch me.” Tony opened the front door with one hand, pulled Chris toward it with the other.

Snow-filled wind swirled toward her, snapping at her exposed flesh. “No, Tony!” she screamed. “Don’t do this! At least let me get dressed!”

He stopped. “Maybe some fresh air will clear your head,” he announced calmly. Then he grabbed Chris beneath both arms and hurled her out the front door.

“Tony!”

The door slammed shut in her face.

“Tony!” Chris banged furiously on the door, the terrible cold of the landing burning into her bare feet, as if she were standing on hot coals. “Tony!”