*****
I wake up in Max’s arms. I panic when I notice how light it is outside. Surely we’re late for school. Max is still asleep and I shake him awake. “Hey wake up,” I whisper, not sure if my mom is still at home or not.
“Hey,” Max says. There’s no panic in his voice, or in his eyes. It’s not like he’s lying in my bed after sneaking in my window or anything.
I jump up as soon as he moves his arm. I’m freaking out not knowing if my mom is here or not. Max can’t climb back out the same way he’d come in last night, one of the neighbors was sure to see him in the light of day. God, what time was it?
“Your mom knows I’m here.”
After closing my mouth, I say, “What?” I sit back down on the bed before I fall down. I’m weak kneed at the news flash.
“She came in last night to check on you, I was still up. She’s worried about you.” I look at Max unable to form words. “I told her I was worried about you too. I told her that I wouldn’t try any funny business and that I really like you.”
If my eyes were any bigger they’d fall right out my head. I sit in stunned silent letting the words sink in. Even knowing we have her blessing doesn’t help me from being nervous. I can hear my mom in the kitchen cooking breakfast. Having my mom be okay with it Max sleeping over is more surreal than the reason behind it.
“Hey,” Max says getting up, “Your mom knows I just want to keep you safe. She can’t always be here, but I can. I’m sure it won’t last.” He’s teasing me which eases my nerves a little. “Come on. Let’s go get breakfast, you hungry?”
“No,” I answer truthfully. My stomach is located somewhere right beneath my tonsils.
“Well you can watch me eat.” Max gets up and opens the door. The smell of breakfast greets us. “Smells good Ms. Freeland, what’s cooking?” He turns to me and holds out his hand with his sneaky sly smile plastered on his face. I take his hand and we enter the kitchen this way. I try to pull away but he holds fast. We sit down next to each other at the table.
“Good morning, Josette, Max,” my mom says, I know that Max is telling the truth. She’s going along with it...for now.
“Morning Mom, I say right back at her. “If you stayed home from work, why didn’t you wake us for school?” I ask.
She’s taking bacon from a skillet and putting it on the table. Max has already grabbed a plate and has a stack of pancakes he’s drowning in syrup. I light a cigarette and take the glass of orange juice my mom offers.
“I thought you needed your rest. You usually get up on your own so I figured I must be right when you didn’t.
“Max, I want to thank you again for what you did for Josette, but I want both of you to promise that whatever is going on between the two of you that you’ll make smart decisions and be careful.”
I’m looking at the ashtray trying not to fall dead in my chair from embarrassment. When I look at Max he has a very serious, very grown up look on his face.
“Of course Ms Freeland” Max answers. I look between the two of them; my mom standing at the end of the table, Max sitting next to me. There’s something passing between the two of them, an understanding.
“Well young lady?” My mom looks at me.
“What? I’ve already promised.” I say and give her the sour face.
“Good, now I’m going to work. Eat up because you and Max are going to drop me off today.”
“You’re going in? I thought you were off?”
“No I just changed shifts with Debbie. I have to clock-in in forty five minutes.”
My mom left to get dressed for work. I look at Max who is still eating and he leans over and kisses my cheek. I shake my head and watch him eat. Watch his mouth work as he chews his food. The cigarette between my fingers is forgotten as I watch the muscles work his arm up and down as he brings his fork to his lips. It’s sappy and dorky but it doesn’t unglue my eyes from him. Somewhere deep down I think I should be embarrassed at ogling him so. But he’s just so...yummy.
“Go get dressed,” he says between bites.
I pull on some jeans and go over to my mirror to look at the bruise. I untie my top and the bruise is gone. I stand there looking in the mirror knowing what I’d seen last night and was not seeing now. I put on a bra and shirt and go back to the front. Mom and Max are waiting on me.
We drop mom off at work and after she’d opened the door and went inside I turn to Max. “The bruise is gone,” I say touching the spot. I half expect it to hurt. Maybe it had been a trick of light that made me miss it this morning.
“Oh yeah?” Is all he says. I frown. At his response, and the sudden nervousness that washes over me like a cool breeze.
“Are you alright,” I ask, because I know that I’m not nervous and as sure as I was last night that he wanted to touch me, I know that the feeling belongs to Max. It had to be...right? It’s too weird for me to bring up.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says and gives me his million dollar smile.
We’ve missed first period but I plan on catching Mr. Lewis sometime today, maybe at lunch, to see if he will let me take the test after school. After Max parks the car he walks around and opens the door for me while I fool around with my backpack.
“Such a gentleman,” I say joking with him.
“Your knight in shining armor,” he answers and something in his eyes makes me know he isn’t joking and he’s thinking about last night.
“That you are.” I say getting out the car and letting him take my hand.
Second period has just started when I open the door and walk in. Mrs. Jones, my math teacher, doesn’t say anything as I mutter my apologies for being late and make my way to my desk. I did notice a few of the kids whispering between each other, but decide not to jump to conclusions. I sit down and open my math book. I keep my head down and Mrs. Jones doesn’t call on me one time in class.
The bell rings and I make my way to Max’s locker. He’s standing with a group of popular boys. When he sees me his face lights up and he stops mid-sentence. Everyone in the group turns around. He breaks through the crowd of boys and walk to me, taking me in his arms, “Hey baby, how you doing?”
The boys behind Max are looking at us stunned. They all know me. I have gone to school with them since first grade. I think we’ve shared ten words in all those years. I feel like everyone eyes are on me.
“I want to go home,” I say in a low voice.
“Sure.” Max looks at me with concern. “Let’s go.” He keeps one arm around me as we walk towards his locker. “I’ll catch you guys later,” he says. There are a few, yeahs and laters.
We drive the short distant to my house and he calls his grandmother from my house to tell her where he is. He calls my mom and tells her we’ve come home. She tells him not to worry about picking her up from work she’d catch a ride and then he comes back and sits on the couch with me.
“You want to talk about it?” he asks. He doesn’t touch me, just sits very close.
“How’d you know what was happening to me last night?” I ask.
This question has been eating away at the back of my mind since I woke and I don’t think I can go a second longer without knowing. Max looks at me a long time. The smile I have grown to like very much is back, but I’m not going to let that distract me.
“Well?” I press.
“I wanted to see you. I knocked and when no one came to the door I looked in your window.”
The smile disappears. It’s a real now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t moment. It’s gone so fast I wonder if it’d been there at all.
“At first I thought you were just in here with another willingly.” He looks at me. The thought of me being with another boy bothers him. “You were lying there so still. I couldn’t see, nothing more than outlines through your curtains. Then I saw you start to struggle. So I broke in. I didn’t know it was Mr. Denton until I’d knocked him out.” He looks at me now and something in his e
yes said that the story that he’d just told me isn’t one hundred percent true but wasn’t a lie.
“I’m glad you came,” I say.
“Me too.” He takes me in his arms.
We’d left the door open and the sun comes in through the screen door. There’s none of the younger kids outside today and I think of Mrs. Denton. What I would say to her the next time I see her sitting on her porch and about T. Would they tell her what her father had done or tried to do? I really hope not.
Through the open curtains of my window we watch a cab pull up in front of the Denton’s and I see the matriarch get out. She looks old and tired as she paid the driver and makes her way up her walk. A lump is in my throat. Poor Mrs. Denton, I’m sad for her. Max pulls me up and starts for the door. I realize too late what his plan is and find myself standing in my yard and Max calling out to my neighbor.
“Mrs. Denton.”
The elderly woman stops and looks at us. She doesn’t speak. As tired and old as I think she looked getting out of the cab, she has the same stern and strict look on her face that frightened me as a kid. Max leads me over, never moving his hand from around my back.
“How is Mr. Denton,” Max asks.
Ms. Denton looks at Max and then me. She lets out a breath she’d probably been holding since she saw us come out of my house.
“He’s holding up, I guess.” I didn’t think a face could hold so many emotions, but I see everything from befuddlement to rage. “Josette?”
I don’t think I have enough courage to look at the mother of the man that had tried to rape me, but I do. “Ma’am,” I say so low I don’t know if she hears me. I don’t think Max hears me, and he’s standing much closer.
“What Pops did was wrong. I want you to know that I know that. I don’t know what made him do such a thing. I can only hope in time you can find it in your heart to forget this. I have enough sense not to ask for forgiveness. Some things shouldn’t be forgiven.”
I waited for the two loathed words but she doesn’t say them. What was I thinking? Old people know when to be sorry.
“Don’t let this define who you are as a person or how you look at life. It’s over. Now we all have to figure out how to move on.” She looks like she was going to move towards me and then stops. Afraid I would reject her comfort.
“Thanks Mrs. Denton, I hate what Pops is putting us all through, especially T. She’s so young.” I say.
“Well, T’s strong and like I said we’ll have to figure out a way to move on. That includes T.”
I’m relieved to have spoken to Mrs. Denton, to get it all out of the way, but I can tell she’s ready to get this over with.
“Well, see you around Mrs. Denton.” I say.
“Did he say why he did it?” Max stands firm and his grip around me tightens when I try to pull away. He looks at Mrs. Denton and there is no way she can mistake or miss the anger in his face.
“No son, he didn’t. I was able to talk to him but he didn’t say a word the whole time, not even with me begging and pleading.” She bows her head, shaking it. Now she’s the old woman I saw climb out of the cab again. “Pops was a quiet child, maybe even a little strange, but I never would have guessed in a million years he was dangerous or able to do something like this.” Mrs. Denton looks at me again and I know this time she wants to hug me but I’m not ready yet.
“Well, I’m going to check on the children,” she says leaving us standing in the small patch of yard that separates our driveways.
Max and I go back to my yard. He sits on the rusty lawn furniture and I sit in his lap. He uses his leg to make the old piece of furniture rock back and forth. It’s hot but not unbearably so and as I doze I think it odd that I don’t hear the old furniture squeaking. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to get it to move. I don’t have the strength to put much thought into it and I fall asleep breathing in the comforting smell of the man who saved me.
My mom calls about six and tells me that she’s been called in to her part-time job at a bar. Forgot to mention that earlier. There are a lot of things we say jokingly about her number of jobs. I won’t repeat them; you’ll think they’re racist. For as long as I can remember she’s always working. I marvel at her stamina since it seems she only sleeps snatches at a time. She speaks to Max to make sure he has permission from his grandmother to stay with me until she can make it home. He says he does, but I wouldn’t doubt if my mom calls Mrs. Anderson when she gets off the phone.
“You want to go to my house?” Max asks after hanging up the phone.
“No, I don’t really feel like seeing anyone.” I look at him to make sure he isn’t getting cabin fever. We don’t have cable and we haven’t really talked much since our conversation with Mrs. Denton. But he seems content enough.
“Are you hunger?’”
“No, just tired. Can we lie down?”
Eventually he will tire of hanging out with someone that doesn’t do anything, but I really don’t have the strength to do anything. I’ve felt like I’m on the verge of tears all day. I haven’t cried much since the whole thing happened. Counting on my super abilities of indifference to save me, but a chink has been found in my armor and now emotions pecked away, trying to break through.
“No problem.” Max says and we walk to my bedroom and get into bed fully clothed. Max holds me as I drift off into the abyss.
Lupa (Second Edition) Page 9
