Nightlife (14 page)

He said, “I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I watch you in the Princess.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. You’re the best-looking girl in Wheatfield.”

“Of course, Wheatfield is so huge. There must be twelve girls. And I’m not, anyway.”

“I’m serious. Everybody knows it. I remember when you came into high school. I was a junior. Everybody was blown away.”

She looked down, afraid that she might be blushing and that he could see it, even though they were under the porch roof, so the moonlight didn’t reach them. She couldn’t think of anything to say, so she said, “Thank you.”

They kissed again, and she began to feel her nervousness being replaced by a relaxed, lazy sensation that she sensed might be a sign of danger. If she didn’t stop, she was going to let him go too far. She broke off the kiss. “I’d better go in now. Thanks for walking me home.” Then she grinned. “And everything.”

She found her key chain in her purse and turned to unlock the door. He said, “Can I come in?”

She said, “I’m sorry. I can’t tonight. See you tomorrow.” She slipped inside and locked the door.

The next day Alice watched her and watched Tim during the day. At three, when they were outside for their break, she said, “Tell me exactly what happened.” After some hesitation, Charlene did tell Alice.

Alice said, “That’s it? That was all?” She seemed disappointed.

Charlene was slightly offended, but she realized that a woman twelve years older than she was, with a child, was probably used to more than that. She was tempted to embellish the story, but she didn’t know what to say that would be satisfactory, so she decided to wait and see whether anything else happened.

That Saturday, Charlene stayed late to help Tim lock up, so that he would walk her home again.

This time when they reached the porch, she said, “Would you like to come in for a minute?” He came in. She felt the heat of shame as he looked around him. She had always been aware that the house was smaller and less fancy than other people’s houses, and her mother’s boyfriends had been a problem, because she didn’t want to introduce them and then have to explain who they were and what they were doing here. Now they were gone, and she had spent hours over the past few days cleaning the house, washing curtains, arranging furniture, and putting fresh flowers from the front yard in jars.

She reminded herself that it was different now. She was only seventeen and this was her own place, where she could do anything she wanted. Tim still lived with his parents, and he was two years older. She had bought a six-pack of cola, so she offered him a drink, and brought it in one of the glasses her mother had only used for adults. Then she sat on the couch with him.

He kissed her, but it wasn’t the same as it had been the first night. He seemed more eager, but not more affectionate. He was insistent, implacable, barely letting her take a breath. She still liked him, but tonight she was a little bit afraid. She let him unbutton her uniform shirt, but then he took it all the way off, and her bra too. Once he had done that, it didn’t matter when she put her hands on his and tried to keep him from taking her other things off too. He just did it. She whispered, “At least turn the lights off,” but he said, “No. I like to see you this way.”

Pretty soon he picked her up, carried her into her bedroom, and set her on her bed. She said, “Tim, I don’t think we should do this. I don’t want to. I’m still a virgin,” and “Stop. Don’t.” Finally he hesitated, and she thought he had realized it wasn’t a good idea, but he had only paused to slip on a condom. And then he took her.

When it was over, she wrapped herself in the covers and lay there, quietly crying. He put on his clothes right away and tried stroking her hair and her bare shoulder, saying softly, “Please don’t cry. I’m sorry. I really like you, and I couldn’t help it. I thought you liked me too.”

Charlene hated him, and she loved him, and she hurt. She wanted him to go away, and to die, and to stay forever, being nice to her now that he’d had what he wanted. Then, without expecting to, she stopped crying. It was like a fever that abruptly broke. “Go home now,” she said. She heard his heavy steps on the floor as he walked out of the room, then heard her front door open and close.

The next day she didn’t go to work. The day after that, she went in at the usual time, started working, and wouldn’t look at Tim or answer him when he spoke. She didn’t go and sit outside with Alice during the three o’clock break, because she couldn’t bear to answer her questions.

At quitting time she left without a word. He left too, and walked beside her. As soon as they were on a dark street and alone, he said quietly, “I really care about you, Charlene. I want you to know I couldn’t sleep for the last two nights. I didn’t mean to make you hate me or anything.” They walked on for a dozen steps. “Charlene?”

“What?”

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Okay.” She walked in silence for another few seconds. “You raped me.”

“No, I didn’t. It was just—”

“You did. I said no, and you did it anyway.”

“I thought you were just saying that, like ‘no, no, no-oh,’ and then you stopped saying it. I thought that meant you really wanted to.”

“I was crying, Tim. You didn’t even notice.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think I was doing anything you didn’t want me to. If I’d thought I was, I would have stopped.”

They were at her house now. She climbed the porch steps and turned to face him, but he stayed down in the shadows by the railing. She took her keys out of her purse and unlocked the door. “Come in.”

“That’s okay,” he said.

“No. It’s not okay. You’re coming inside. Now.”

She held it open, and the light from the lamp she had left on so she wouldn’t have to come in alone in the dark was shining on his face. He looked down, but he came up the steps and followed her into the house.

Charlene shut the door and locked it. She didn’t turn on any more lights or offer him a drink. She said, “You were horrible. I liked you so much, but you hurt me and treated me like you didn’t care what I felt. You were like an animal or something, and you made me feel like one too. You were a pig.”

“I feel terrible. I don’t know how to make it up to you.”

“You’ve done it. You can’t undo it. But you’re not going to leave me feeling like this.”

“I can’t go back to two days ago. What am I supposed to do now?”

“You’re going to do it one more time. People say the first time is awful for everybody, but once you’re past that, it’s nice. You have to be sweet to me. Do it the right way this time, not mean.”

All these years later, she remembered the look on Tim’s face—shock, then something like relief. He treated her gently, as though she were made of porcelain, like the dolls in the window of the antique store. He was very slow and cautious, very patient. This time it was the way she had always imagined it would be, and she almost liked him. He stayed until three-thirty, then hurried home so he would be asleep before his parents woke.

For the rest of the summer, she allowed him to think of her as his girlfriend. At the Dairy Princess he did all of the heavy lifting that was involved in her job, then did the cleanup and walked her to the local hangout, where his friends were already drinking and talking with older girls.

Alice began to resent Charlene. She made a remark about how nice it must be having somebody to do her share of the work. Once when Charlene yawned, Alice told her she should sleep alone sometimes, then turned and went to the order window, leaving her alone. Charlene felt as though she had been slapped. She thought about it for a while, and then decided that Alice didn’t matter. Charlene just had to endure a few weeks, and summer would be over.

By mid-August, Charlene’s unpaid bills had all been turned over to collection agencies, and their attempts to get the money from her became more aggressive. She had to unplug the telephone to keep from being called all the time, but then when she plugged it in to make a call, it wouldn’t work.

The customers of the Dairy Princess had moved into the strange frenzy that seemed to hit people just before each summer ended, and made them frantic and selfish. She knew they were trying to get the last few days of pleasure before things turned dark and cold and wet again, so they lined up at the Princess in surly, sweating queues, crowding the lot in front of the store on the way home from some activity that had left them discontented. The sweet residue of ice cream and sugary drinks they spilled made the wasps drunk and vicious.

Charlene waited one night until she and Tim were alone and cleaning up before she said, “Tim, I’m pregnant.”

His mouth was open and he seemed to reel, as though he didn’t have enough air. She waited a few seconds, then said more loudly, “I’m pregnant.”

“I heard you,” he said, the slightest tinge of irritation slipping into his voice. She waited for him to say it, and he said it, exactly as she had imagined he would: “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the only one I was with,” she said. “Ever. It’s yours too.”

“I know that.” This time the irritation had shaded off into sadness. “Of course I’ll do what I can. What do you want me to do?”

His suffering resignation inspired her to torment him. “I guess we could get married. I’ll be eighteen in a few months.”

She could see that behind his widened eyes a film was running at great speed. It was about the things he wanted desperately—education, good jobs, prosperity, a beautiful young wife who would come into his life in about ten years—moving beyond his reach forever. He looked faint. “I don’t know. I want to marry you,” he lied. “But that’s—I don’t know. You’re not even eighteen, and I’m only twenty. We don’t even have a job after the first of the month.”

“Wouldn’t your parents help us? They must have some money.”

“I don’t know. My father will be pissed. My mother—God, I can’t tell her this.”

“It’s their grandchild. I’m pregnant, and I can’t even afford vitamins.” She was very proud of that one.

“Oh, God,” he said. “We always used protection. How did this happen?”

She looked at him with distaste. “Obviously, once it didn’t work. It leaked or something.”

He said, “We’ve got to think this through. How pregnant are you?”

“My period was supposed to start eight days ago, and I’m never more than a day or two late. I bought a test, and I took it yesterday. I bought another today, and used it. I wanted to be sure, and now I’m sure. I called the doctor because he doesn’t charge to talk on the phone, and he said the accuracy of the test is almost a hundred percent.” She gave a sad little smile that she had practiced for this moment. “He told me congratulations.” Then she made herself cry.

Tim held her and rocked her back and forth, but she didn’t stop, so he released her and finished closing the store. They walked to her house, but when she asked him to come in, he said he needed to be alone to think.

For two days, they exchanged looks of worry in the kitchen, where Alice and the customers couldn’t see them. Three days after that, when she arrived at the Dairy Princess he was waiting for her outside the back door, and they walked to the park. He was so nervous that she could see the sweat on his forehead. They sat on a park bench and he said, “I’ve thought about this. I have something for you.” It was a plain white business envelope. Inside were some green bills. He said, “It’s twelve hundred. Most of what I saved this summer.”

“You’re trying to buy me off?” Tears came to her eyes. “For twelve hundred dollars?”

“No,” he said. “It’s not to buy you off.”

“Keep it.” She tossed the envelope on his lap. “I can’t live on it if I have the baby, and I’m not getting an abortion.” She stood up. “I thought by now you would have talked to your father. You can’t keep him from knowing this.”

Tim was horrified. His eyes were swimming, but he wasn’t crying. It looked the way a person’s eyes watered when he was hit in the nose. “You’re not going to go to him. He’ll kill me. He’ll disown me. Really.”

“We’ll see.” She got up and started to walk.

“Wait. You’re right.” When she heard him running to catch up with her, she kept going. “Please,” he said. “Give me one more day.”

The next morning when she was almost dressed for work there was a loud knock on the door. She could see from the shadows on the curtain that it was two men. She was afraid it might be the sheriff’s deputy with an eviction order, but when she pushed the curtain aside a quarter inch, she saw it was Tim and an older man wearing a business suit, who didn’t look happy. She smiled into the mirror, fixed her hair, then went to the door.

When she opened it, Tim surged forward. “Can we come in?”

The older man held Tim’s arm in his hand and pulled him back, then stepped in ahead of him. “I’m Tim’s father. I know who you are.”

“I’m Charlene.”

“Tim tells me he knocked you up.”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve both been very foolish. Neither of you had the right to do that. I’m here to try to settle this right now, while we still can.”

“How?”

“Tim tells me he offered you some money, and you told him it wasn’t enough.” He reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat, took out an envelope, and held it out. Charlene could see it had come from the same box of envelopes as Tim’s had.

“How much is in it?”

“Enough to see you through the pregnancy, or to get you an abortion. Three thousand dollars. In return, you sign this paper, saying he’s not responsible.”

Charlene said, “I appreciate your coming here to help me. But I haven’t decided what to do yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“The first time it happened, Tim forced me.”

Tim’s father’s head spun to face the boy, his eyes protruding. He looked like a bull. Tim’s eyes stayed straight ahead, staring at her as though he had been punched. “Charlene . . .”

Charlene said, “He was my boss at the Dairy Princess. I was afraid to tell, and afraid to say he couldn’t do it again. It was the only job I could get in town. I needed to work to pay for college, and I’m only seventeen, so I couldn’t work in a regular restaurant where there’s a bar. I’m thinking about talking to somebody about it—maybe a lawyer.”