Towelhead (9 page)

“It's not that,” I said. “I need to find out Melina's last name.”

“Why?” he said.

“Because,” I said, “I'm not allowed to call her Melina anymore. My father won't let me.”

Zack didn't say anything.

“I'll be right back,” I said. “Okay?”

He turned away and unmuted the TV.

When Melina opened the door, I said, “I can't stay very long. I just need to ask you something.”

“Shoot,” she said, walking back inside the house.

I followed her into the living room, where she was unpacking a box of books onto a tall wooden shelf. I noticed that some of them had Arabic writing on the spine. “I need to know your last name,” I said.

“Sure. It's Hines. Why?”

“Because,” I said, “I'm not allowed to call you Melina anymore.”

“Oh yeah?”

I nodded. “It's Daddy's rule.”

“Wow,” she said. “He sure has a lot of rules.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, maybe you could just call me Melina when he's not around.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Great,” she said.

“Melina?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“If I gave you some of my babysitting money, would you be able to buy me some tampons?”

She was quiet for a second. “Well, I don't know about that, Jasira.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“I guess I don't feel comfortable going against your father.”

“But you just said I could call you Melina when he wasn't around.”

She sighed. “Oh boy.”

“I don't see why I can't wear tampons,” I said. “They fit me fine.”

“Can't you talk to your mother about this?” Melina asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” I said, “she just tells me to listen to Daddy.”

“Is she Lebanese, too?”

“No,” I said. “Irish.”

“Wow,” Melina said. “What a mix you are.”

It bothered me, how she was trying to talk about my nationalities now, instead of tampons. “I better go,” I said finally.

“Are you sure?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I'm not supposed to leave Zack alone.”

“I'm really sorry, Jasira. I wish I could help you. I really do. I'm sure you'll figure something out.”

“Thanks,” I said, and I left.

I felt really angry with her on the way back to Zack's. It was like she had tricked me or something. Like she had said all that stuff about Daddy's rules being weird, but then it wasn't true. She thought I should listen to him just like everybody else did.

When I walked into the Vuosos' living room, Zack said, “Long time no see, towelhead.”

“Don't call me that,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “Camel jockey.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “Sand nigger.”

I took a step forward then and hit him in the arm. It wasn't hard, but he acted like it was, and he made himself cry. “You're in big trouble!” he screamed, and he ran up to his room and slammed the door.

I sat at the kitchen table then, waiting for Mr. Vuoso to come home. I guessed it was probably true, that I would be in trouble. If only I had hit Zack on the weekend, when we were just playing, nothing would've happened. We would've just been two kids.

At around six, I heard Mr. Vuoso's key in the lock, and I went in the living room to meet him. “Where's Zack?” he asked.

“Upstairs,” I said.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” I said, and I walked quickly out the door.

Back at home, I wasn't sure what to do. I got myself some water, then washed and dried my glass. As I was putting it back in the cupboard, the doorbell rang. I went to answer it, and Mr. Vuoso was standing on the front steps. He was still wearing his light blue oxford from work. “Did you hit my son?” he asked.

I was quiet for a second, then I said, “Yes.”

He stepped inside the house and closed the door behind him. “What kind of babysitter are you?” he asked, standing on the square tiles of the entryway.

“I don't know,” I said.

“Every day there's some new problem.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't you know enough not to hit small children?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” he said, “apparently you don't.”

I didn't answer him.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“I want my magazine back,” he said.

“What?”

“Go and get my magazine. I want it back.”

I didn't move. I didn't want to give the magazine back.

“Where is it?” he asked.

“In my room,” I said.

“Go and get it,” he said. “Now.”

When I still didn't move, he took a step toward me. He reached his hands out and put them on my shoulders, then turned me around so I was facing the back of the house. “Go and get that fucking magazine,” he said, and I tried to, but he wasn't letting go. Instead, he moved his hands off my shoulders and slid them down over the front of me, over my breasts. He started squeezing them. I tried to move again, but the more I pulled away, the tighter he held me.

Now his hands moved farther down the front of me, into my jeans. “I'll go and get the magazine,” I told him, but he wasn't listening. He was putting his fingers inside my underwear, then moving them down between my legs. “No,” I said, “don't,” terrified that he would feel all my pubic hair and think I was ugly just from touching me. But he didn't say anything about this. He just kept going, farther down. He started to rub me then, and at first it was kind of rough, but then he would pass over the certain spot and there would be a good feeling. I got a little bit wet, and soon his fingers started to move more easily.

I thought it wouldn't be so bad if he just wanted to touch me like that for a while, but then he stopped. Instead, he started poking me with his fingers, like he was looking for something. Soon, I could feel him pushing up inside of me. It didn't hurt too much at first, but then it seemed like he was using more than one finger. “Don't,” I said, and I tried to get free of him, but my arms were pinned under his. “You're hurting me,” I said, but he just kept doing it. It was terrible, to have a pain like that in the place that always felt so good. All I could think was that he was breaking something. That nothing down there would ever work again. I started to cry, and that was when he finally stopped. He pulled his hand out of my pants and there was blood all over it. For a second I thought it was my period, but then I knew that it wasn't.

“Oh Jesus,” Mr. Vuoso said, looking at his hand. “Oh my God.” He went in the kitchen and I heard the water running. When he came back, he said, “I didn't mean to do that. I didn't.”

I had almost stopped crying, but now that he sounded so sorry, I started all over again.

“Oh Jesus,” he said.

I took a step forward for him to hug me, but he took a step back. “I have to go,” he said. “I have to get home to Zack.”

“No,” I said, “I don't want you to go.”

But he already had his hand on the doorknob. “I didn't mean to do that,” he said again, and he left.

I stood there crying for a few minutes. Then I went in the bathroom and undid my pants. There was blood all over my underwear and some had leaked through to my jeans. There was blood on my stomach from when Mr. Vuoso had pulled his hand out. I took off all my clothes and got in the shower. When I came out, I got a clean pair of underwear and stuck one of the big maxi-pads inside. Then I started washing my clothes in the bathroom sink. I tried to hurry, since I knew Daddy would be home soon. The jeans came pretty clean, but no matter how hard I scrubbed the underwear, there was still a brown stain. Finally, I just wrapped them up in some toilet paper and threw them in the trash.

I went in the living room then and waited for Daddy. I actually looked forward to seeing him, in a strange way. It was just that I wanted company, and I knew Daddy didn't like Mr. Vuoso, and that seemed like the best company to have.

I tried not to like Mr. Vuoso myself, but it was hard. Especially when I thought about how sorry he had seemed. No one had ever acted sorry to me before, and it gave me such a nice feeling. It was almost worth having someone do something mean to you if they were going to be like that afterward.

The first thing Daddy did when he got home was yell at me for not turning the floodlight on. I told him about Mr. Vuoso's visit the night before then, and he said, “You must be kidding me.”

“No,” I said.

“Well, that's just great,” Daddy said, reaching up to loosen his tie. “I bet he thought he was really hot stuff, coming over here like that.”

I nodded.

“You didn't tell him that I'd be out all night, did you?” he asked.

“No,” I lied.

“Good,” he said. “Because that's none of his business.”

I sighed a little then, and Daddy looked at me.

“What's the matter with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“You seem depressed.”

“I'm not.”

“Did you have a bad day at school?”

“No.”

“Do you think that every time you feel depressed, someone is going to ask you all kinds of questions to find out why?”

“No,” I said.

“Because they're not.”

“I know.”

“I give up,” he said, and he went to cook dinner.

I went in the bathroom then to check on my pad. The blood wasn't so bad anymore. I just felt sore. I was afraid to wipe myself after I peed, so I sat there and dripped dry. After a while, there was a knock. “Everything okay?” Daddy asked.

“Yes,” I said, getting up and zipping my jeans. The door was locked, but I still worried that he would find a way to come in.

“Have you got your period?” he said. “Is that what it is?”

“Yes,” I said after a second.

“Did you take any medicine?”

“No.”

“Well, take some,” he said. “There's no reason to sit around feeling miserable.”

“Okay,” I said.

I started to feel a little bit better during dinner. It was the medicine, but also, Daddy was in a good mood from his night with Thena. He described the food she had made him, a delicious casserole called moussaka, and also her terrible baklava. “Of course I told her it was very good,” he said. “But she uses sugar syrup instead of honey. That's her mistake.” Then he said that she might try to call me to see if I wanted to go shopping with her, and that I was to tell her no. “Just say you have homework or something,” he said.

“All right,” I said, even though I wished I could go.

“She needs to find friends her own age,” Daddy said.

Later, he told me I could lie on the couch while he did the dinner dishes. When he had finished, he came in and read the newspaper in his chair. At around eight, the doorbell rang. I was about to get up and answer it, but Daddy said to stay put. He set his paper down on the floor and got up. When he opened the door, it was Mrs. Vuoso and Zack. “Oh,” he said. “Hello.”

I sat up on the couch then, wondering if Mr. Vuoso was somewhere behind them.

“Hello, Rifat,” Mrs. Vuoso said. She pronounced his name with the word
fat
in it, instead of the way Daddy pronounced it, with the
fat
rhyming with
hot
. “May we have a moment of your time?”

“Certainly,” Daddy said, and he stepped back so they could come in. I saw then that it was just the two of them. Zack wouldn't look at me, but Mrs. Vuoso was looking at me a lot. Her eyes were gray, just like her hair.

“Well,” Mrs. Vuoso said, once they were standing in the middle of our living room. “We've come to give Jasira her last paycheck. I'm afraid it won't be possible for her to babysit Zack any longer.”

“Zack is going to babysit himself now?” Daddy asked.

“No,” Mrs. Vuoso said. “I mean, we're going to have to find another babysitter.”

“She hit me,” Zack said to Daddy.

Daddy looked at him. “Who hit you?”

“Jasira,” Zack said.

Daddy turned to me on the couch. “You want to tell me what's going on here?” he said.

I stood up, but before I could answer him, Zack said, “She hit me really hard in the arm.”