Sins of Innocence (55 page)

The guy behind the bar had a little too much gel in his hair, and he was missing a front tooth, but he zoned in on her tits right away. Ginny crossed her legs and flashed him a shot. Then she ordered a double vodka on the rocks and
hoped he’d get better-looking as the night wore on. They usually did.

“Hey, barkeep!” The slurry voice came from beside her. Ginny turned to see an older woman dressed in a flowered trapeze dress and a huge straw sun hat, which was tied under her chin with a matching flowered scarf. “I’ll take another while you’re pourin’.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Flynn,” the bartender replied, and threw a wink at Ginny.

The woman leaned toward Ginny and whispered with thick, boozy breath, “I think he wants to get laid.”

Ginny half smiled. She’d never cared what other women thought about her blatant attire, or the signals she sent out. She figured they were only jealous. She looked at the pathetic gray face, partially covered by dyed red hair, and at the sunken, dark-circled eyes.

“Rio is definitely the place for it,” she answered.

The woman nodded and sucked down the last of her drink. “Wonder how much he wants.”

“What?” Ginny asked.

“How much d’ya think I’ll have to pay him?”

Ginny laughed. The woman was too drunk to have noticed that it was Ginny he wanted, not some dried-up prune who looked like she’d gotten caught in a flower garden.

“How much would he be worth?”

The woman shrugged again. “Who knows? Depends on how big his dick is. They used to say you could tell by the size of their hands, but”—she shook her head—“that’s bullshit.”

The bartender placed two drinks in front of them, and Ginny took a big sip.

“Back in ’63 I think it was …” the woman continued, “yeah, back in ’63 in Sydney.” She stopped a moment, took a drink, and stared at Ginny. “Ever been down under?”

“No.”

“Great place. Great place. Least it was before the tourists took over.” She took another drink. “Anyway, like I was saying. Back in ’63 I met this sheepherder or farmer or
whatever the hell they call themselves. Had the biggest hands you’d ever seen. Tanned. Leathery. With big, thick fingers that made you wet just lookin’ at them.”

Ginny looked over at the bartender. He was watching them, listening to every word. She arched her back a little and cocked a shoulder, letting one breast tip out a little from the V neck.

The woman laughed coarsely. “What a lie! Had me in a barn that night. His dick turned out to be the size of a peanut.” She shook her head again. “Nope. Never can tell by the size of their hands.” She rested an elbow on the bar. “Ever been to Kenya?” She reached over and flicked open the neckline of Ginny’s dress. “With boobs like that, you’d have ’em lickin’ your feet.”

Ginny grabbed the fabric and pulled it back over her breast. It reminded her of something … long ago. Then she remembered. Her mother. Her mother’s Marilyn Monroe look-alike dress. The way her mother’s breast had popped from the dress that night. Suddenly Ginny saw herself as her mother. The mother she had adored, the mother she’d spent so many years protecting. Ginny had turned out no better, turning tricks for a drink, a meal ticket. Boozing it up, looking for love.

Then an angry thought blackened her mind.

Had her mother really not known that her husband had raped Ginny—raped her over and over and over again? Ginny was reminded of a Phil Donahue show she’d seen, where mothers of incest survivors talked about how they had all known their husbands were having sex with their daughters.

“I knew. Of course I knew,” one weepy woman had said. “But I couldn’t leave him. I had nowhere to go.”

At that point Ginny had clicked off the remote control. She hadn’t wanted to hear more.

Maybe, she thought now, her mother
had
known. Maybe. She stared into her drink. Maybe.
Probably
. And somewhere in the world was a girl who had been an innocent product of all their shame.

Ginny looked at the woman beside her. Old, disheveled,
used-up, her head sagging against her chest. If Ginny survived, she would be like that woman in another ten years. She’d still be sitting in a bar, trying to hit on disinterested jocks, settling for the ugly ones just to avoid going to bed alone.

She would be like that woman. She looked back to the bartender. No matter what he did, he’d never get better-looking. Maybe, Ginny thought, I’ve already become that woman.

She threw a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. Then she bolted from the barstool and raced back to her room, where she flung herself on the bed.

“Fuck,
fuck, FUCK!
”

Was it really possible she—Ginny Stevens—could self-destruct like that old woman … like her own mother? Why not? Wasn’t that what she’d been trying to do when she set the fire? Wasn’t that what she’d been trying to do all her life?

She rolled onto her back and hugged herself. Had she ever done anything in her life that meant shit? She couldn’t end it all. No. She’d found that out with the fire. If Consuelo hadn’t rescued her, sooner or later she’d have hauled herself outside, gasping and choking, but alive. No. She couldn’t end it all. She was too much of a survivor. But a survivor of what? For what? The only child she’d ever had was gone: She had run away from her, as she had run away from Jake. Running. Always running.

Suddenly Ginny longed to be with Jake; she longed for the comfort of his big, bear-hugging arms. She longed for a life of normalcy. And she longed to be loved. It was, she knew, time to stop running.

Maybe it wasn’t too late.

She sat up and lit a cigarette. Then, before she thought about what she was doing, Ginny picked up the phone and asked for the international operator. A few moments later Jake’s voice was on the other end of the line.

“Where are you?” he asked. “I thought you’d be here when I got home.”

“How did the shoot go?” Ginny heard herself saying.

“Fine. Fine. We wrapped up yesterday. I’ve been home since last night.”

There was a moment of silence; then Ginny spoke again.

“Jake?”

“What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

“I was wondering if you’d do me a favor.”

“Sure, honey. Anything. You know that.”

She bit back the urge to scream, “Say no! For once, say no! Don’t be so fucking nice to me!” Instead, she looked down at her wrinkled dress. She didn’t know if she could make things with Jake work out, but she knew he at least deserved her to try, and that letting him into her life was a beginning—letting him in on everything: the good, the bad … the painful.

“Could you meet me in New York?”

“New York? You’re in New York?”

“No. Not yet. But I’ll be there tomorrow. Can you meet me?”

“Where?”

“How about the Plaza? If you get there before me, get a room. Otherwise I will.”

Jake laughed. “What’s this? A spontaneous vacation?”

But Ginny didn’t laugh back. “No. There’s something I may want to do on Saturday, and I’d really like it if you were there with me.”

After she hung up the phone, Ginny knew what she was going to do. She was going to tell Jake everything. About her mother, about her stepfather, about her daughter. If he told her to go to hell, fine. But Ginny Stevens-Rosen-Smith-Levesque-Edwards wasn’t going to run away again.

Jess

Jess climbed the wide stairs to the veranda, filled with an inner peace such as she had never known. Now she only could hope that things would work out for the others, that they would all come, that they would all be reunited with their children. But Jess also knew the odds against everyone ending up happy were bleak.
This is not Oprah
, she remembered Miss Taylor saying.
This is real life
.

She stood at the door a moment, then rang the bell. She touched her purse, secure in the knowledge it held her daughter’s picture, the pretty, bright little girl who
had, it seemed, lived a wonderful life, short as it had been.

The door opened, and Miss Taylor greeted Jess with a warm hug.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Jess said.

“I wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Am I the first?”

Miss Taylor nodded. “It’s only one-thirty.”

Jess nodded and straightened her skirt.

“Good. I’d like to talk with you a few minutes before the others get here.”

“Are they?”

“What?”

“Are they coming?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

Jess stepped into the foyer and was overcome by a dizzy sense of having been propelled back in time. She felt alien, and yet familiar, as though she had stepped into a dream. She looked up the staircase, expecting to see Susan, P.J., and Ginny coming down the stairs, young and vibrant, their bulbous stomachs leading the way. But the staircase was empty; time had passed around it, leaving only the solid mass of wood as the lone proof that Larchwood Hall, and 1968, had ever existed.

“Oh my,” Jess said, and leaned on the mahogany staircase, trying to regain her balance. “I didn’t think this would have quite this effect on me.”

Miss Taylor put her arm around her.

“I thought it would be best if we sat in the library. The residents here went into town for the afternoon.”

Jess nodded and followed Miss Taylor into what had once served as the housemother’s office. Jess scanned the room. The desk was the same; it even seemed as though the books were the same. But something was missing. Miss Taylor’s scent. The lavender / tobacco fragrance had long since evaporated from this cozy room, and probably had been gone not long after the old woman had left Larchwood. Miss Taylor had never married, and for that, Jess felt sad.

“Miss Taylor?” she blurted out. “You and Sheriff Wilson …”

A faint smile crossed the old woman’s lips. “Ah, yes. Bud.”

“What happened?”

The woman sighed, a sweet, gentle sigh. “He was married, you know. His wife refused to give him a divorce. Back then,” she added, “divorce wasn’t as easy as it is today. When I left Larchwood, I left Bud. I knew it was time for me to stop taking care of others. It was time for me to start taking care of me.”

Jess nodded. She understood the feeling only too well. On unsteady legs she sat in the chintz-covered chair, the same chair where she’d sat that first day she’d come to Larchwood. She could almost feel her father’s presence, almost hear the click of his pen as he signed the check.

Miss Taylor sat in the leather chair beside Jess.

“It must seem odd, being here.”

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “Very.”

“Would you like to tell me your progress?”

Jess sighed and took the envelope from her purse. She hesitated a moment, looking down at the happy face of the photo, then handed it to Miss Taylor and told her about the search for her daughter.

When she was finished, she noticed the old woman’s eyes were filled with tears.

“So this has not ended happily for you, my dear. I’m so sorry.”

“Maybe it will be happy, though, for the others.”

An old black man stood in the doorway. He was stooped and white-haired, but even from where she sat, Jess could see that his dark eyes still sparkled.