The Bitch Posse (10 page)

I grab my paper, pull my backpack up from under the desk, and join him, sliding my chair close to his; we are lovers, after all. “I just didn’t read it. I didn’t read the section. I’m caught up now. I’m really sorry, Rob.” And I invoke his name, desperately hoping he’ll forgive me. I care about drama and Shakespeare, I do, I do. Hell, it’s not even the first time I’ve read
Romeo and Juliet.
“I’ll do better next time.”

He takes the test from me and puts it in a folder on top of his desk. “This is what I wanted to show you.” He pulls open his grade book and slides his finger along the marks for
Taylor, Rennie.
His fingernail’s split, splotched with a snowflake. He lines it up with the Act Three test, and there it is, a bright red A.

“What? I didn’t get an A.”

“You deserved one. I know you read the play, and I know you’ve been busy, and I know you’re caught up now.” He reaches for my hair, pushes one of the long pieces over my ear. “So, it’s all right.”

All right?

“Isn’t it?” Those dark, glittering eyes pierce mine, open them, force their way in. “You’re special, Rennie. I just wanted to do you a favor.”

Special. I’m his special student. He could have any gorgeous girl in the senior class, but he picked
me.
Me!

“If it bothers you I’ll change it back.”

Senior grades don’t really matter. I mean, Stanford’s already accepted me. But there’s that perfect line after line of A’s on my report card, from freshman through senior year. It’s some organized obsessive part of me, I know, but I don’t want those A’s to be broken, especially not by my drama class, the one I’m supposed to love, the one I—

“Thanks” is the word that the air pulls from my mouth. I start to stand, but he rests his fingers on my arm and I keep sitting there.

“Rennie . . . ”

And that’s when I figure out why he locked the door.

It’s kind of a sexy idea. In fact, the more I think of it, the more excited I get, the sting of the air slapping my cheeks, my thighs, my nipples. I pull my chair closer and he reaches for my breasts, squeezes them gently, but hard enough so there’s a good little hurt that makes me gasp. All I can think of is Madame DuBois, and I say, “I have French class. . . . ”

He slides his hands under my sweater. “This is my planning period. We have plenty of time.” He kisses my neck, and that stings too, the splash of a belly flop into the Holland Community Pool. The air buzzes around me, alive. “I’ll write you a pass.” Crickets are chirping, and at once it’s perfectly natural to slip my sweater over my head and unhook my bra. My breasts tumble out and he reaches for them, but his fingers freeze midair like he’s thinking about it.

I run my tongue over my lips and he breathes out a laugh, shakes his head, looks away. Putting my fingers over his, I pull them to my breasts and whisper, “Juliet was only thirteen.”

His hands stay still.

I bite my lower lip, slowly, oh so slowly. “It’s too late anyway, you’ve already ruined me.”

Considering, his fingers skate over my bare nipples, and I link my fingers across his neck. “You know you want to, don’t pretend like you don’t.” I’m breathless as I’m taunting him. Someone else must have put those words in my mouth, but I don’t care, I want him. I pull him closer so his face is just a few inches from mine, brush the sexy tangle of hair away from his eyes. “Just kiss me already, you foolish, foolish man.”

The magnet pulls our lips together and I let mine fall open, kissing him hard, hoping he’ll bruise me. His tongue slides into every corner of my mouth and he breaks away for a moment, kisses my neck. He’s mine and he knows it. He licks my earlobe and whispers, “There’s something else I want to show you . . . ”

He shunts aside some papers and the grade book and lifts me onto
his desk, pushes up my skirt around my hips, slides off my underwear and drops them on the floor. I fill my head with the vodka of Amy’s I drank on Friday, because now I’m a little nervous again, out of my territory. He pushes my legs apart and starts kissing my thighs, first the top, then the inside, where the skin is smooth, and all at once he’s kissing me
right there,
it’s like nothing I’ve ever imagined, and his tongue moves along all the ridges and folds, and I close my eyes, dizzy, milky, I’m going to shatter into a million pieces, and he’s lifted me up and placed me at the top of a mountain, and underneath I can see snow peaks and buildings and people, and his tongue rolls around me, wriggles inside of me, and I stare at the sky and it’s pure, stark white, oh, Jesus, I didn’t know it was possible to feel so good, and I knot my fingers in his hair and pull him closer, closer, and his tongue dips into me again, and all at once I separate from myself and it’s like there’s another Rennie watching his face between my legs, and it’s so good I know I’m going to die in a minute, oh I believe in fairies magic angels heaven God, I do, I do, and then my eyes squeeze closed and the Rennies crash together and a cry is pulled from my throat that doesn’t even sound like me. Every cell in my body explodes and I can’t breathe, and joy circles through me and squeezes out and finally the hum slows down. I open my eyes, and he licks my belly and draws a long line with his tongue up to my face and kisses my lips—salty, is that what I taste like? I’m sort of dreamy now, I could curl up and sleep right here on his desk.

“That you liked, didn’t you?” He’s hard against my belly and no, it’s not over yet. He spreads me open with his fingers and pushes inside of me, and this time it doesn’t hurt but I’m tired now, and I just sort of catch my breath as he presses inside of me. Now the tick of my thoughts starts going: Lord, anyone could walk in here right now and figure out what we’re doing, sure the door’s locked, but if someone knocked and we had to finish quickly and let them in, there’s sweat all
over my face, there’s a musty, flowery odor all throughout the room and it seeps into my nostrils every time I breathe in, and Jesus, couldn’t I get pregnant?

He pushes into me, deep, and I’m dizzy again, I’ve changed somehow, all I think of is sex, this isn’t Rennie, isn’t Rennie, isn’t Rennie, and someone (not Rennie) makes an “oh” sound and presses against him, and heat scurries across my arms. He’s cast his spell, pulled me up to the top again, and I’m spun off a helicopter, tossed into the valley, and I’m falling, falling . . .

And he comes and it’s over. This time he kisses my lips before pulling away. I’m left buzzing all over, aching for more, but he hands me some tissues and we clean up, together, silently.

“I told you it would be better this time.”

A chill spins over my shoulders, and I realize I’m cold. I snap on my bra, pull my sweater back over my head. I’ve turned into someone else, a character in a play, a slut, a whore, someone who’s just not Rennie Taylor. I want to go home, but I look at the clock and there’s thirty minutes left of French class. Already he’s writing me a hall pass, glancing at his watch.

I try to turn off the thoughts in my head like turning off the spigot of a hose, then pick up my crumpled underwear and slide them on.

“Will I see you after school?”

I’ve changed, this isn’t me. What would Dad think? Fuck Kelly, I don’t care about her, fuck Mom too, I bet she did stuff like this. Who the hell is Rennie Taylor anyway?

Part of me doesn’t care, just wants to be soared onto a cloud again by Rob Schafer, to feel his tongue working between my legs, to pull him inside me, to fall into outer space again. My throat thickens, and I can’t swallow.

“Dawn’s home at six-thirty but I can cancel play practice. We’ll go to a hotel, a nice one, out of town.” He puts a finger under my chin,
lifts it, pulls me into the quicksand of his eyes. “I’ll bring some wine, would that be fun?”

I jump off his desk, and this time the trickle of his semen sliding out of me feels good, a reminder of our secret, our delicious and wonderful secret. Rob Schafer and I are in love, I’m in love, Rennie Taylor’s in love. The delight at not being able to tell—I’ll never tell, not anyone, not even my best friends, not telling is what makes it so wonderful. Oh, my God, I’ll never be able to look at that desk the same way again, he’s married, I’m sleeping with a married man, I’m a homewrecker, a slut, and the realization thumps through my chest and makes my nipples hard again. Oh, God, how am I going to get through French class, what is wrong with me?

He’s still waiting for an answer about this afternoon and his eyes pull words out of my mouth like bunnies from hats. “Count on it.”

I pull my backpack over my shoulders. Sliding the hall pass from between his fingers, I make a little kissy face at him but don’t kiss him. Let him be tempted.

Will he think of me all through his planning period? Will he be unable to grade papers, with the smell of our heat still soaking up the room?

I’ll do anything to feel that way again, anything, anything.

March 2003
Freemont Psychiatric Hospital

Sitting in a chair in the lounge, Cherry breaks the seal on the envelope whose return address reads
Echo Alagazine.
Her heart’s skipping with the last remaining beats of anticipation she permits herself to feel anymore. After the fuck-this-fuck-that scene the other day with Michael, she can’t afford to let herself feel much of anything. Feelings come too intensely. When they do, it’s as though someone pulls a blindfold over her face, wraps her arms behind her back, pushes her off the cliff. But emotions seize up in her as she opens the flap, even though she can tell it’s just a tiny, white square of paper.

Dear Ms. Winters,

I’m not sure what you were thinking when you were submitting this, but your poem is far too bleak, grim, and unrefined for
Echo.
Please, don’t ever send us this type of writing again.

HG-S

Her hands shake as she covers HG-S’s words with her palm to read the Xeroxed message below:

Dear Writer,

Although
Echo
receives tens of thousands of submissions a year, less than five percent of those support our publication in any monetary sense. Won’t you fill out the enclosed subscription card today?

All best,

Hattie Gibson-Smythe, Poetry Editor,
Echo

A coil of hatred for Hattie Gibson-Smythe runs through her, unwinding along with the realization that perhaps Hattie’s right. Perhaps her poetry is bleak and grim and unrefined. She guesses she wouldn’t know. The poem she sent slips out of the envelope onto the floor, and she reads her words again:

Disoriented

My brain’s compass
is demagnetized.
I can’t steer my ship
in this swim of thoughts.
The needle spins
like a roulette wheel,
until East is West,
North is South.
In this Bermuda Triangle,
my ship sounds the SOS
before surrendering
to the deep.

A few years back, she read in a writers’ monthly that her old friend Rennie Taylor had just published a novel, with Random House or Viking or some big-deal publisher, the closest to which Cherry’ll ever get will be running her fingers across a bookstore shelf, that is, assuming she ever gets out of this place.
Go Ahead, Embarrass Ale
by Wren Taylor. Wren. That hippie name she complained about back in high school suits her just fine in California. Wren Taylor, Mill Valley novelist, Wren Taylor, Puck MacGregor’s buddy, Wren Taylor, literary superstar. Thank God Rennie doesn’t write to her anymore, she couldn’t bear to read about success after success. Rennie Taylor, Stanford graduate, straight-A student in high school. Rennie Taylor, everything Cherry Winters could never be. She’ll never buy that book. Hell, it’s probably about her and Amy Linnet, dishing dirt, fictionalizing their drama, their whirlwind relationship, the Bitch Posse, the girls they once were. No thanks.

Cherry crumples the envelope and hurls it, a slip of crispy ice like the top layer of snow that she crish-crished through on her way to the Student Union all that winter, into the trash can that for some reason’s always overflowing with snowballs of tissue.

At least her weaving project’s going well, a jumble of triangles,
blue-green-red,
mountains in front of mountains in front of mountains. Cherry’s half-afraid someone will steal it, or wreck it, so she takes it from the OT room each day and hides it under her bed, works on it sometimes before she goes to sleep. The therapist doesn’t mind. Just another little quirk of the mental patient. The tortured weaver.

Writing’s another story. She should just quit. Of course she should be happy for Rennie, her old friend. Who deserves success more than the smartest girl she ever knew? And of course she’ll never stop loving
Rennie, but the girl broke her heart, damn it. So Rennie’s book reminds her of all she doesn’t have, and never will. Obediently choking down meds, sitting through yet another round of useless group therapy as the Stanford grad spins stories while sipping coffee under the wings of that famous mountain in Marin County, what’s it called?

Rennie, sobbing, at the clinic.

And, much later, at the Porter Place.

Those days are over. Their friendship, long over.

Than to give up his life for his friends.