The time traveler's wife (13 page)

"So this was the first time you went out
on a date?"

"Yeah. We went to this Italian restaurant
and Laura and Mike were there, and a bunch of people from Theater class, and I
offered to go Dutch but he said no, he never did that, and it was okay, I mean,
we talked about school and stuff, football. Then we went to see Friday the
13th, Part VII, which was really stupid, in case you were thinking of seeing
it,"

"I've seen it."

"Oh. Why? It doesn't seem like your kind
of thing." "Same reason you did; my date wanted to see it."
"Who was your date?" "A woman named Alex." "What was
she like?"

"A bank teller with big tits who liked to
be spanked." The second this pops out of my mouth I realize that I am
talking to Clare the teenager, not Clare my wife, and I mentally smack myself
in the head.

"Spanked?" Clare looks at me,
smiling, her eyebrows halfway to her hairline.

"Never mind. So you went to a movie,
and...?"

"Oh. Well, then he wanted to go to
Traver's."

"What is Traver's?"

"It's a farm on the north side."
Clare's voice drops, I can hardly hear her. "It's where people go
to...make out." I don't say anything. "So I told him I was tired, and
wanted to go home, and then he got kind of, urn, mad." Clare stops
talking; for a while we sit, listening to birds, airplanes, wind. Suddenly
Clare says, "He was really mad."

"What happened then?"

"He wouldn't take me home. I wasn't sure
where we were; somewhere out on Route 12, he was just driving around, down
little lanes, God, I don't know. He drove down this dirt road, and there was
this little cottage. There was a lake nearby, I could hear it. And he had the
key to this place."

I'm getting nervous. Clare never told me any of
this; just that she once went on a really horrible date with some guy named
Jason, who was a football player. Clare has fallen silent again.

"Clare. Did he rape you?"

"No. He said I wasn't.. .good enough. He
said—no, he didn't rape me. He just—hurt me. He made me.. " She can't say
it. I wait. Clare unbuttons her coat, and removes it. She peels her shirt off,
and I see that her back is covered with bruises. They are dark and purple
against her white skin. Clare turns and there is a cigarette burn on her right
breast, blistered and ugly. I asked her once what that scar was, and she
wouldn't say. I am going to kill this guy. I am going to cripple him. Clare
sits before me, shoulders back, gooseflesh, waiting. I hand her her shirt, and
she puts it on.

"All right," I tell her quietly.
"Where do I find this guy?"

"I'll drive you," she says.

Clare picks me up in the Fiat at the end of the
driveway, out of sight of the house. She's wearing sunglasses even though it's
a dim afternoon, and lipstick, and her hair is coiled at the back of her head.
She looks a lot older than sixteen. She looks like she just walked out of Rear
Window, though the resemblance would be more perfect if she was blond. We speed
through the fall trees, but I don't think either of us notices much color. A
tape loop of what happened to Clare in that little cottage has begun to play
repeatedly in my head.

"How big is he?"

Clare considers. "A couple inches taller
than you. A lot heavier. Fifty pounds?" "Christ."

"I brought this." Clare digs in her
purse and produces a handgun.

"Clare!"

"It's Daddy's."

I think fast. "Clare, that's a bad idea. I
mean, I'm mad enough to actually use it, and that would be stupid. Ah,
wait." I take it from her, open the chamber, and remove the bullets and
put them in her purse. "There. That's better. Brilliant idea, Clare."
Clare looks at me, questioning. I stick the gun in my overcoat pocket. "Do
you want me to do this anonymously, or do you want him to know it's from you?"

"I want to be there."

"Oh."

She pulls into a private lane and stops.
"I want to take him somewhere and I want you to hurt him very badly and I
want to watch. I want him scared shitless."

I sigh. "Clare, I don't usually do this
kind of thing. I usually fight in self-defense, for one thing."

"Please." It comes out of her mouth
absolutely flat.

"Of course." We continue down the
drive, and stop in front of a large, new faux Colonial house. There are no cars
visible. Van Halen emanates from an open second-floor window. We walk to the
front door and I stand to the side while Clare rings the bell. After a moment
the music abruptly stops and heavy footsteps clump down stairs. The door opens,
and after a pause a deep voice says, "What? You come back for more?"
That's all I need to hear. I draw the gun and step to Clare's side. I point it
at the guy's chest.

"Hi, Jason," Clare says. "I
thought you might like to come out with us."

He does the same thing I would do, drops and
rolls out of range, but he doesn't do it fast enough. I'm in the door and I
take a flying leap onto his chest and knock the wind out of him. I stand up,
put my boot on his chest, point the gun at his head. C'est magnifique mais ce
n'estpas la guerre. He looks kind of like Tom Cruise, very pretty,
all-American. "What position does he play?" I ask Clare.

"Halfback."

"Hmm. Never would of guessed. Get up,
hands up where I can see them," I tell him cheerfully. He complies, and I
walk him out the door. We are all standing in the driveway. I have an idea. I
send Clare back into the house for rope; she comes out a few minutes later with
scissors and duct tape.

"Where do you want to do this?"

"The woods."

Jason is panting as we march him into the
woods. We walk for about five minutes, and then I see a little clearing with a
handy young elm at the edge of it. "How about this, Clare?"

"Yeah."

I look at her. She is completely impassive,
cool as a Raymond Chandler murderess. "Call it, Clare."

"Tie him to the tree." I hand her the
gun, jerk Jason's hands into position behind the tree, and duct tape them
together. There's almost a full roll of duct tape, and I intend to use all of
it. Jason is breathing strenuously, wheezing. I step around him and look at
Clare. She looks at Jason as though he is a bad piece of conceptual art.
"Are you asthmatic?"

He nods. His pupils are contracted into tiny
points of black. "I'll get his inhaler," says Clare. She hands the
gun back to me and ambles off through the woods along the path we came down.
Jason is trying to breathe slowly and carefully. He is trying to talk.

"Who...are you?" he asks, hoarsely.

"I'm Clare's boyfriend. I'm here to teach
you manners, since you have none." I drop my mocking tone, and walk close
to him, and say softly, "How could you do that to her? She's so young. She
doesn't know anything, and now you've completely fucked up everything... "

"She's a.. .cock.. .tease."

"She has no idea. It's like torturing a
kitten because it bit you."

Jason doesn't answer. His breath comes in long,
shivering whinnies. Just as I am becoming concerned, Clare arrives. She holds
up the inhaler, looks at me. "Darling, do you know how to use this
thing?"

"I think you shake it and then put it in
his mouth and press down on the top." She does this, asks him if he wants
more. He nods. After four inhalations, we stand and watch him gradually subside
into more normal breathing.

"Ready?" I ask Clare. She holds up
the scissors, makes a few cuts in the air. Jason flinches. Clare walks over to
him, kneels, and begins to cut off his clothes. "Hey," says Jason.

"Please be quiet," I say. "No
one is hurting you. At the moment." Clare finishes cutting off his jeans
and starts on his T-shirt. I start to duct tape him to the tree. I begin at his
ankles, and wind very neatly up his calves and thighs. "Stop there,"
Clare says, indicating a point just below Jason's crotch. She snips off his
underwear. I start to tape his waist. His skin is clammy and he's very tan
everywhere except inside a crisp outline of a Speedo-type bathing suit. He's
sweating heavily. I wind all the way up to his shoulders, and stop, because I
want him to be able to breathe. We step back and admire our work. Jason is now
a duct-tape mummy with a large erection. Clare begins to laugh. Her laugh
sounds spooky, echoing through the woods. I look at her sharply. There's
something knowing and cruel in Clare's laugh, and it seems to me that this
moment is the demarcation, a sort of no-man's-land between Clare's childhood
and her life as a woman.

"What next?" I inquire. Part of me wants
to turn him into hamburger and part of me doesn't want to beat up somebody
who's taped to a tree. Jason is bright red. It contrasts nicely with the gray
duct tape.

"Oh," says Clare. "You know, I
think that's enough."

I am relieved. So of course I say, "You
sure? I mean there are all sorts of things I could do. Break his eardrums?
Nose? Oh, wait, he's already broken it once himself. We could cut his Achilles'
tendons. He wouldn't be playing football in the near future."

"No!" Jason strains against the tape.
"Apologize, then," I tell him. Jason hesitates. "Sorry."
"That's pretty pathetic—"

"I know," Clare says. She fishes
around in her purse and finds a Magic Marker. She walks up to Jason as though
he is a dangerous zoo animal, and begins to write on his duct-taped chest. When
she's done, she stands back and caps her marker. She's written an account of
their date. She sticks the marker back in her purse and says, "Let's
go."

"You know, we can't just leave him. He
might have another asthma attack."

"Hmm. Okay, I know. I'll call some
people."

"Wait a minute," says Jason.

"What?" says Clare.

"Who are you calling? Call Rob."

Clare laughs. "Uh-uh. I'm going to call
every girl I know."

I walk over to Jason and place the muzzle of
the gun under his chin. "If you mention my existence to one human and I
find out about it I will come back and I will devastate you. You won't be able
to walk, talk, eat, or fuck when I'm done. As far as you know, Clare is a nice
girl who for some inexplicable reason doesn't date. Right?"

Jason looks at me with hatred.
"Right."

"We've dealt with you very leniently,
here. If you hassle Clare again in any way you will be sorry."
"Okay."

"Good." I place the gun back in my
pocket. "It's been fun." "Listen, dickface—"

Oh, what the hell. I step back and put my whole
weight into a side kick to the groin. Jason screams. I turn and look at Clare,
who is white under her makeup. Tears are running down Jason's face. I wonder if
he's going to pass out. "Let's go," I say. Clare nods. We walk back
to the car, subdued. I can hear Jason yelling at us. We climb in, Clare starts
the car, turns, and rockets down the driveway and onto the street. I watch her
drive. It's beginning to rain. There's a satisfied smile playing around the
edges of her mouth. "Is that what you wanted?" I ask.

"Yes," says Clare. "That was
perfect. Thank you."

"My pleasure." I'm getting dizzy.
"I think I'm almost gone."

Clare pulls onto a sidestreet. The rain is
drumming on the car. It's like riding through a car wash. "Kiss me,"
she demands. I do, and then I'm gone.

Monday, September 28, 1987 (Clare is 16)

Clare: At school on Monday, everybody looks at
me but no one will speak to me. I feel like Harriet the Spy after her
classmates found her spy notebook. Walking down the hall is like parting the
Red Sea. When I walk into English, first period, everyone stops talking. I sit
down next to Ruth. She smiles and looks worried. I don't say anything either
but then I feel her hand on mine under the table, hot and small. Ruth holds my
hand for a moment and then Mr. Partaki walks in and she takes her hand away and
Mr. Partaki notices that everyone is uncharacteristically silent. He says
mildly, "Did you all have a nice weekend?" and Sue Wong says,
"Oh, yes" and there's a shimmer of nervous laughter around the room.
Partaki is puzzled, and there's an awful pause. Then he says, "Well,
great, then let s embark on Billy Budd. In 1851, Herman Melville published
Moby-Dick, or, The Whale, which was greeted with resounding indifference by the
American public... " It's all lost on me. Even with a cotton undershirt
on, my sweater feels abrasive, and my ribs hurt. My classmates arduously fumble
their way through a discussion of Billy Budd. Finally the bell rings, and they
escape. I follow, slowly, and Ruth walks with me.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"Mostly."

"I did what you said." "What
time?"

"Around six. I was afraid his parents
would come home and find him. It was hard to cut him out. The tape ripped off
all his chest hair."

"Good. Did a lot of people see him?"

"Yeah, everybody. Well, all the girls. No
guys, as far as I know." The halls are almost empty. I'm standing in front
of my French classroom. "Clare, I understand why you did it, but what I
don't get is how you did it."