Towelhead (34 page)

Thomas nodded. “Sure.”

“Now,” Gil said, clapping his hands together. “Who would like coffee?”

“I'd love some decaf,” Thena said.

“One decaf,” Gil said.

“Me, too,” Thomas said.

“How about you, Jasira?” Gil asked.

“Okay,” I said. No one had ever asked me if I wanted coffee before. I'd always thought I was too young.

“I'll have some milk,” Melina said.

Gil nodded and went in the kitchen.

I sat down on the couch between Melina and Thena. Melina reached out and touched my hair a little. “Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good.”

I looked over the coffee table at Thomas, who was now lying on the floor. He had folded up his jacket and tucked it under his head like a pillow. His eyes were closed.

“You ready to go home, Thomas?” Melina asked him.

“Sure,” Thomas said, opening his eyes and looking over at us. “I want to try some of that baklava first, though.”

Thena nodded. “Rifat is a good cook.”

A few moments later, Daddy came down the stairs. He had a strange look on his face, and he was holding a piece of toilet paper in his hand.

“Rifat,” Melina said, “we're ready for your baklava.” It was the first time I had heard her say his name.

Daddy didn't answer. He just kept coming down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he walked over to where Thomas was lying on the floor and said, “Get up.”

“What?” Thomas said.

“Get up,” Daddy said again.

“What's the matter?” Thomas asked, sitting up. “What are you talking about?”

Daddy turned the toilet paper upside down then and something dropped into Thomas's lap.

“What the hell!” Thomas said. “That's disgusting.”

“This is yours,” Daddy said.

At first I couldn't tell what it was, but then Thomas picked it up, and I saw that it was his rubber from earlier.

Daddy turned to Melina and said, “What did you let them do?”

“I didn't let them do anything,” she said. “What are you talking about? What is that?”

“It's a rubber!” Daddy said.

“Oh my God,” Melina said, trying to stand up. I held out an arm to help her, but she didn't see it.

Gil must've heard Daddy yell because he came in and said, “What's the problem?”

“I found a rubber in your toilet,” Daddy said. “In
Jasira's
toilet!”

“What rubber?” Gil said.

“His rubber!” Daddy said, pointing to Thomas. “He's the only one here who needs a rubber.”

Thomas grabbed a napkin off the coffee table and put the rubber inside it. He stood up.

“Where do you think you're going?” Daddy barked.

“To throw this in the trash,” Thomas said. “It's disgusting that you took it out of the toilet.”

“Give it to me,” Daddy said.

“No,” Thomas said.

Daddy lunged at him and grabbed the napkin out of his hands.

“Jesus!” Thomas said.

“You're not going anywhere!” Daddy said. “You stay right here!” Then he looked at Melina and said, “I want to know why you're letting my daughter use rubbers.”

“I'm not,” Melina said. “I didn't.” For the first time, it seemed like she was stuck. Like she didn't know what to say.

“Then why did I find this?” Daddy demanded.

“Honestly,” Melina said, “I don't know.”

“You think I'm so terrible!” Daddy said, looking from Melina to Gil. “You both think I'm so terrible. But then you let my daughter take boys in her room and use rubbers!”

His skin was red and he was spitting, and I couldn't tell if his face was sweaty or if he was crying. I worried that he would try to hit someone, except there was no one for him to hit, not really. If he had tried to hit Thomas, Thomas might've hit him back.

“Rifat,” Thena said. She got up from the couch and went to stand by his side. “Let's try to calm down for a moment. Please.”

“No!” Daddy yelled, and he shook her hand from his arm. He turned to me and said, “Go and get your things. You're coming home.” When I didn't move from behind the coffee table, he yelled, “Now!”

“Hold on a second there,” Gil said.

“You have a picture of her leg, and I have this rubber!” Daddy said. “If you show the police her picture, I will show them this. You are terrible, too. You let terrible things happen, too!”

“Look,” Thomas said, “I'm really sorry, okay? It's all my fault. Blame me.”

“Of course I blame you!” Daddy said. “I blame you, and I blame her!” He pointed at Melina.

“That's enough,” Gil said sharply. “Just calm down. You don't even know what happened.”

“I know exactly what happened,” Daddy said. “I know that my daughter lost her virginity in this house!”

“That's not true,” Thomas said.

“Shut up!” Daddy yelled. Then he turned to me and said, “Go and get your things. I already told you!”

Nobody said anything. Not Melina, not Gil, not Thena. It was like they all thought Daddy was right for once. Like they had no way to fight him. And I guessed they didn't. Not really. But I did. And I didn't want to go back with him. I just couldn't imagine it. I couldn't imagine living with him or my mother ever again. I could imagine visiting them, but then, in the end, I would need to come back to Gil and Melina's. To my foldout bed with the bar in the middle. To my bathroom. To my clothes in the linen closet. I said, “I didn't lose my virginity in this house.”

“She lost it at my house,” Thomas said to my father.

“No, I didn't,” I said.

Thomas looked at me.

“I lost it at your house,” I said to Daddy. “Mr. Vuoso did it. With his fingers. I didn't want him to, but he did.”

As soon as I'd said it, I didn't want to see anything. Especially, I didn't want to see anyone seeing me. I didn't want to know anyone who knew this thing about me, and I wished I hadn't said it. It was disgusting, like pulling a rubber out of the toilet. I turned then to the only person who was a stranger to me anymore. I turned to Dorrie, and I pressed my face against where she was, and I cried harder than I knew I could, and when I felt her kicking me lightly in the face, I was glad to know that one of us was so alive.

M
elina cried. She said it was all her fault. Gil told her it wasn't and tried to put his arms around her, even though she already had her arms around me. “Don't hug me,” she said. “Nothing happened to me.”

Thomas picked up his coat from the floor, put it on, and said he was going next door to kill Mr. Vuoso. Gil said no he wasn't and went and stood in front of the door. Daddy sat down in Gil's chair and put his face in his hands. I guessed he felt the same way as I had, like he didn't want anyone to see him. Thena went and stood next to his chair and put a hand on his shoulder. Instead of watching Daddy, I just watched her hand shake from his body.

I was glad that everyone was worried about how sad they were and whose fault it was. I was glad not to have anyone talk to me. It was embarrassing, the things I had said, the things they all knew. Even in front of Thomas, who I did intimate things with, I felt embarrassed.

Nobody could really calm down for a while. I said I wanted a glass of water and went in the kitchen and sat by myself at the table. Thomas came in and said where was my water, then filled us both glasses from the faucet. He came and sat down next to me and said, “You should've told me.” When I didn't answer, he picked up my hand and held it. He was the calmest of everyone, maybe because he was too young to think it was his fault. I didn't really think it was any of the adults' fault, but I liked how they thought it was. I liked how terrible they looked and how they shook and cried. It felt like I didn't have to worry about things anymore, now that they were doing it for me.

Thomas played with my hand. He scratched each one of my fingernails with the tip of his own. “Did it hurt?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Was there a lot of blood?”

I nodded again.

“That was my blood,” Thomas said. “Not his.”

Normally I would've liked when Thomas said something like that. Acting like he owned me. But now it didn't make me feel like anything. Mostly I just thought that it was my blood, and that Thomas shouldn't bring it up anymore.

There began to be the low sound of adults talking in the living room, and Thomas and I stayed quiet so we could listen. It was hard to hear them. They didn't want us to hear. I got worried that they were talking about sending me back to Daddy's, so I went and stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. “What are you saying?” I asked. They all looked at me. No one answered. I could feel Thomas at my back, breathing.

“I live here now,” I said to everyone in the room, and no one said that I didn't.

After a few moments, Thena said, “Thomas, I should at least take you home.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Your mother will be worried.”

“I don't want to go,” he said, and no one talked about it anymore. They all looked tired and scared. Daddy didn't have his face in his hands anymore. He'd turned his head from me and was staring straight ahead at the TV, which wasn't on. Melina had slumped back onto the couch. Gil wasn't directly in front of the door anymore, but he was nearby, like a goalie who felt safe coming out a little ways.

“What's going to happen?” Thomas asked.

I thought Daddy would yell at him and tell him to butt out, but he didn't. He said, “We have to call the authorities.”

“Why?” I said. I worried that I would have to tell my story again to people I didn't even know.

“Because,” Daddy said, turning around to look at me. “What that son of a bitch did is illegal.”

“But I don't want to talk about it anymore,” I said.

“Too bad,” he said.

Gil said something in Arabic then, even louder and more sharply than the thing he had said to Daddy when Daddy had snapped at Melina. Daddy made a hard face at him but didn't say anything back. I knew Gil was defending me, and it made me feel terrible that I couldn't understand any of the words.

Melina sighed. “You're right, Rifat. We have to call the police.”

“No,” I said.

“I'll sit with you,” she said. “The whole time.”

I almost said no again, but then Daddy said, “Melina will sit next to you,” and I stopped. I didn't want to ruin Daddy and Melina's getting along.

“Should we call them now?” Gil asked.

Nobody answered.

“Or wait until tomorrow?” he said.

“I don't know,” Daddy said. “I can't think.”

“Maybe we should wait until tomorrow,” Thena said.

All along, there had been the smell of Gil's coffee drifting out from the kitchen. It was strange to have something bad happening when something was smelling so good. “Coffee's ready,” Thomas said.

Everyone ignored him.

He shrugged and went back in the kitchen. I heard him open cupboard doors and get down cups and saucers. I heard him open drawers and pull out silverware. “Help me, Jasira,” he called a couple of minutes later, and together we carried in the coffee for the adults. We put the cups on the coffee table with milk and sugar, but no one would drink from them. Thomas went back in the kitchen and brought out the baklava. He had removed the foil from the top of the dish, and now it sat at the middle of the table, the filo pastry cut in Daddy's neat, perfect diamonds. Thomas tried to scoop out the pieces with a spatula, but it just made the flaky leaves crumble and fall apart. I waited for Daddy to yell at him to stop, but he didn't. I waited for Daddy to tell him you had to recut the diamonds after it was baked to be able to lift out the pieces, but he didn't. I waited for Daddy to get mad at me for knowing all of this and not telling Thomas myself. But he just sat there, watching the whole thing fall apart, all of his hard work.

 

Gil took everyone home that night, even Daddy and Thena. He walked them past the Vuosos' house so Daddy wouldn't get mad and bang on the door. I knew Daddy wouldn't have done that, though. He wasn't like Thomas.

That night, Melina slept with me in my bed from the beginning. I guessed she thought I would definitely have a bad dream, so she might as well just tuck me in and stay. “I'm sorry,” she said while we lay there in the dark.

“Why?” I said.

“Because I should've figured all of this out.”

“I didn't want you to,” I told her.

“Yes, you did.”

I was quiet for a moment. I had to think if this was true.

“Jasira?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Were there any other times?”

I didn't answer.

“Tell me if there were any other times, please.”

“It's not good for the baby,” I said.

“The baby is fine.”

“Yes,” I said.

“How many?”

“One.”

“You're going to have to tell the police that, too.”

“What if I wanted to do it that time?” I asked, then I started to cry from being ashamed. Not because I really had wanted to, but because I had acted like I did with Mr. Vuoso, and he would tell the police that, and that would make it true.

Melina pulled me next to her and whispered, “It doesn't matter. If a grown man has sex with someone who's under sixteen, it's rape. Even if she wants to do it.”

“I didn't really want to,” I said. “I just acted like I did.”

“Why?” Melina asked.

“I don't know.”

She touched my hair while I tried to stop crying. It was hard when she was being so nice to me. Before we fell asleep, I said, “I used to hate Dorrie.”

Melina laughed a little. “I got that.”

“I don't anymore,” I said, even though I kind of did.

“You can hate her,” Melina said. “Older kids always hate their little brothers and sisters.”

I hoped Melina wouldn't say anything else then. I just wanted to hear the words play over and over again in my head. They were so bright and shiny, like when you looked into the Texas sun, then shut your eyes tight, and there was still the outline of the circle.

 

The next morning, Saturday, I talked to the police. Daddy brought them over while Melina and I were eating breakfast. There was a man and a woman officer, but I didn't have to talk to the man, just the woman. The man stayed in the living room with Daddy and Gil. The policewoman had asked Daddy if he wanted to be present for the interview, but he said no, that Melina would sit with me. The policewoman wanted to know if Melina was a relation, and Daddy explained that she was a friend of the family. I thought this was kind of funny since no one in my family except me actually liked Melina. Still, it was nice that Daddy said that. Mostly, though, I was just glad that he wouldn't be listening to me talk.

We were sitting in the kitchen. The policewoman was recording me on a tape recorder, but sometimes she would write something in a notebook as well. Melina had her knitting, probably because she didn't want me to feel like she was paying too much attention to me while I was feeling ashamed.

I told the policewoman what I had told everyone the night before, except she had a lot more questions. She wanted to know every little thing Mr. Vuoso had said to me, every way he had looked at me or touched me. Some of the things that had been nice between us now sounded kind of bad when I was telling them to the policewoman. Like Mr. Vuoso taking me out for dinner, or visiting me while Daddy was at Thena's to say that the floodlight wasn't on, or letting me interview him for the school newspaper. After I told these stories, the policewoman would ask a question, like, “And when he visited you, he could tell that your father wasn't home?” That was when I would know I had been seeing things in the wrong way.

When it seemed like the interview was over, the policewoman asked, “Is there anything else?”

I looked down at the table. I just didn't want to talk about the other time, when I had let Mr. Vuoso do it to me because I'd thought he was going to war. I didn't want anyone to know how stupid I had been to believe him.

“Jasira?” the policewoman said.

I looked at her. She was black and stout, and I liked the way her uniform fit, rising snugly over the mounds of her bottom and breasts. “Yes?”

“Did you have any other contact with Mr. Vuoso?”

When I didn't answer, Melina said, “Yes, she did.”

“Can you tell me about it?” the policewoman asked.

I looked at Melina.

“Go ahead,” she said.

I waited for a second, then told the policewoman about the other time. I was getting tired of having to say words like vagina and penis and breast and erection. Even saying fingers or mouth was embarrassing. I noticed that in the worst parts of the story, Melina knitted faster than usual. I watched her and pretended like I was her engine. Like my talking was pushing a kind of pedal that could make her hands speed up. I didn't cry until the end, when I described how Mr. Vuoso had called me a slut while we were doing it. Melina put her knitting down then and told the policewoman that we had probably talked enough for that day. The policewoman nodded and capped her pen. She turned off the tape recorder and stood up. Before she left, she touched my arm and said, “You're a good girl. You remembered lots of details.”

A few minutes later, Daddy came in the kitchen. “How did it go?” he asked. “Did you answer all her questions?”

Melina nodded. “She did very well.”

Daddy looked at her, then back at me. “Why are you crying?” he asked.

“Rifat,” Melina said, “it was hard. These were hard things to talk about.”

Daddy kept looking at me. “I can't understand why you never told me about this before.”

“I thought you would be mad,” I said.

“Why would I be mad if someone was hurting you?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, I wouldn't,” he said, looking at Melina. “I'm not that kind of person.”

Melina didn't say anything. Just then Gil came in. “Everything okay?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I'm pooped,” Melina said.

“Well,” Gil said, “maybe we should all take a little time to ourselves.”

“What does that mean?” Daddy said.

“I'm just saying maybe we could take a break for now, then get together a little bit later.”

“You mean you want me to go home?” Daddy said.

“Just for a little while,” Gil said.

“What if I want to stay with my daughter?”

“You can see her later,” Gil said. “After she has a rest.”

“She can rest at my house,” Daddy said. “She has her own room there.”

“C'mon, Rifat,” Gil said.

Daddy didn't answer. He'd been holding a business card from the policewoman, and now he flicked the edge of it back and forth with his fingernail.