On the night of Rachel’s scheduled performance, Patrick was to walk behind the grocery store located a block away to the east and pick up the plastic bag that would be waiting for him by the garbage bin in the parking lot. Then he was to hide in the trimmed bushes and put on the grey wool skirt, white blouse, and navy blue cardigan with the St. X. School for Girls crest on it. Esperanza would wait for him by the back door of the residence. Rachel was careful to pick a night when the nuns would be gathering for a meeting in the common room at the other side of the building.
“Are you sure Patrick’s gonna put on girl clothes just to come over here?” I’d asked Rachel.
“You’ve obviously never done it,” she taunted. “Boys will do anything you ask them to just to get it.”
I was startled by her sureness, thinking back to my morning shower, baffled by what could possibly compel boys to do anything you asked them to just to feel a little warmth and wetness.
“Isn’t he afraid, though, that you won’t let him in and he’ll just be left in a girl’s uniform? That he’ll get caught?”
“Oh, probably,” laughed Rachel. She shrugged. “I thought of doing that, too, but I like Patrick.”
“Really?”
Her face turned instantly serious; her eyebrows dropped. “Don’t you?”
“I don’t know. I guess . . . I don’t really know him.”
Rachel’s green eyes perked up. “Maybe he has a friend for you.”
Secretly I was both thrilled and anxious at the thought, but tried not to show it. The time was drawing close for the event, and I sensed that after tonight I would never be the same again. It was as if I were entering womanhood, but without the right equipment or the proper knowledge. I envied Rachel’s brassy confidence, her overt desire. I knew I looked awkward and childlike beside her, stuck with my ignorance of boys. Even the thought of letting a boy see me naked was enough to send me into strange nervous spasms.
“Let’s wait until you manage this first,” I said, staring at the curled ends of her hair, as if my gaze alone could protect them.
Esperanza received a carton of cigarettes, three chocolate bars, and a small red beaded necklace from Rachel. She put them in her laundry basket, underneath some white blouses to be cleaned, and left Rachel with her prize. Rachel had the lights off and the window open, a brand-new white candle in her silver candle holder shining like a solitary star in her room. Caroline and I were in Rachel’s closet, the door slightly ajar, waiting for them to begin. Patrick stood looking ridiculous, the white blouse wrinkled and rolled up over his elbows, two sweat patches underneath his armpits. His breath was laboured and quick, and if he hadn’t been smiling as he scanned the contents of Rachel’s room with his eyes, I would have suspected he was crying. Rachel helped remove the skirt Esperanza had found for him. Patrick had wrapped his leather belt around it, and the grey wool fell to the floor as her hands, shaking I noticed, undid the buckle. He pushed his bangs off his face with his hands, revealing gold freckles on his nose in the soft yellow light.
“It’s cold,” he said.
“I gotta keep the window open for the smell,” whispered Rachel, indicating the candle.
He nodded, and Rachel patted the baby blue afghan on her bed for him to sit down. He was now dressed in white undershorts and the blouse, crossing his legs over where we could spot a bulge.
Patrick pulled the edge of the afghan over his lap and knees. Head bent, his hands fiddled with the wool, moving his fingers through the holes in the design as if he were going to rip it, the fine brown curly hairs on his calves peeking out.
“Should I take off my shoes?” he asked.
“Sure,” said Rachel, leaning backwards on the bed, her back against the wall. Her blonde hair had been pinned up by Caroline into a French twist, which Rachel slowly unwound, placing the bobby pins on her dresser beside a photograph of her father. The photograph was taken outside their home, and her father’s face was worn by the sun but happy, with a large grin for the person holding the camera, his hand waving. I almost called out to Rachel to get rid of the photograph; it seemed sacrilegious to have her father watch, his bright blue eyes intent and sparkling, Rachel’s old tree swing empty behind him. Over the next silent minute, as Patrick kept playing with the blanket, his eyes stuck on his sneakers beside his feet on the carpet, Rachel’s confidence seemed to drain away. All of a sudden, the rouge she had smudged on her cheeks made her look like she was playing house, her own uniform skirt hiked just above her knees and a silk orange scarf wrapped around her neck. She batted her eyelashes to the air, Patrick still not turning towards her. She started to cough, covering her mouth with her hands. Caroline nudged me in the ribs, her eyes restraining laughter, and she stuffed one of Rachel’s shirts into her mouth, biting on the cloth to keep from being heard. In the cramped space, which smelled of laundry detergent and mould, I hid behind Rachel’s thick winter coat, regretting that we had come, hoping Rachel would call the whole thing off, that we could go back downstairs and find Esperanza and get Patrick out of here. I was starting to shiver from the winter wind blowing straight into the closet from the window. I was afraid of catching a chill.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” Rachel finally asked coyly, yet obviously agitated.
Patrick shrugged, his skinny shoulders angling towards Rachel regardless. Rachel closed her eyes and slid her legs over the edge of the bed. Patrick bent over her, his hands covering her shoulders, and placed his lips on hers.
Caroline whispered, “He looks like a girl.”
He did; with the white uniform blouse on and his short puffy hair hiding his features from us, the two figures on the bed could both have been schoolgirls as they touched each other lightly over their clothes. But a minute later, when Rachel started giggling and helping Patrick off with his shirt, his sex was noticeable, the bulge in his shorts shoved up against Rachel’s midsection.
“You know what you’re doing, don’t you?” asked Rachel, her head emerging into our view again from underneath his chest.
“Course,” Patrick mumbled. He looked stunned, his eyes avoiding Rachel’s, his bangs long on his forehead.
“You gotta pull out before.”
“Yeah. I know. I know.”
Patrick pushed Rachel’s skirt up above her waist and pulled down her cotton underwear. We had helped her dress earlier, and it was the bra we had counted on him admiring. She didn’t want to wear the red bra I had stolen for her because she thought he might think she was easy and had done it with tons of boys; it was too flashy. Instead she wore a delicate white cotton bra with lace around the edges, the most elaborate bra her father had purchased for her, but Patrick didn’t bother taking off her blouse. His under-shorts were already discarded on the floor, and Rachel shifted positions to lay back with her head against her pillow, as if she were alone and too awake to sleep, her face to the ceiling, her eyes wide and anticipatory.
Caroline breathed against my neck and it tickled, but I didn’t dare move. I could feel her moving, trying to get a better view over my shoulders, pushing some of the hangers to my other side, shifting her weight onto one foot and then the other.
“He’s not gonna pull out in time,” she whispered.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The boy’s gotta pull out or else . . . bébé!”
Rachel moaned and bit her lower lip, her teeth like clothespins. Patrick was bobbing up and down on the bed, his face strained, not even watching Rachel, his bony knees pinching her sides together. He was moaning too, a lower grunting sound interspersed between loud breaths. I couldn’t imagine he would be able to leave that place, warm and wet, before he released himself. Though I didn’t know what that involved, I understood Caroline’s warning that Rachel could have a baby on her hands if he didn’t. Rachel had spoken to me about it, saying that buying rubbers was too risky and boys didn’t like wearing them anyway. It was like a game, she told me; you could get pregnant or you couldn’t. God just chose.
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br /> “He’s too loud,” I said to Caroline, turning for the first time to see her. She had her fingers covering the opening of her mouth.
“Shhhh,” she replied, her left hand snuggled around my waist so she could lean in. “I want to hear.”
Patrick placed his left hand squarely on Rachel’s right breast as he started to bob faster, his breath whistling in and out through his nose. Rachel still had her teeth clipping her lip, but her face had relaxed a little, the baby fat on her cheeks loose. For a brief time I wished it were me underneath Patrick, with Rachel and Caroline admiring me from the closet, my breast being rubbed with his hand. But as the wind entered bitterly, and Patrick kissed her clumsily, smearing part of Rachel’s pink lipstick against her cheek, sucking the skin on her neck in his mouth, I wouldn’t have traded places with her for anything. Patrick hit her absently with his hand as he tried to regain his position, and Rachel caught his hair in her hands and pulled. He continued to bob, straining against Rachel’s body. They were messy and inelegant: pressing, slamming, sweating, heaving. I could clearly make out a mole on Patrick’s back and some large pimples on the flesh between his buttocks and his thighs, and the marks on his skin, the unevenness of it, bothered me. The smell bothered me too—their smell, of fresh cold sweat, and the scent of the musty clothes in the closet, and Caroline’s close salty breath near my neck, her left hand tugging at my waistband in her fixation.
“He won’t pull out in time,” she said again, directly into my ear, her voice high-pitched and pained.
She was right. He gave out one last grunt, louder than all the rest, his upper body arched, with his head almost hitting the far wall, and collapsed on top of Rachel. In those last seconds, with her blonde hair fanned out against her pillow, all of Rachel’s facial features drooped downward, and her shoulders and head doubled over. I wanted to push Patrick off her, make him leap out the window where the wind was disturbing her curtains. I grasped my locket in a tight fist. Rachel’s expression frightened me. Her face wore the same anguish my mother’s did when she’d say her eyes were burning and ask for pills.
And then the candle blew out.
Patrick had fallen asleep, or so we thought, by the time Rachel got up to relight the candle. I could hear her fumbling to find her matches on the dresser. When the room was once again filled with light and shadow, Rachel tiptoed to her closet in pinched steps, her hands pressed against her belly, her skirt crumpled and her blouse transparent in patches. Her hair was tousled, the usually curled blonde hairs frizzy and tight. She had pink lipstick in a line down her chin like dried juice. Caroline and I had waited patiently in the darkness, holding hands, our palms damp, her face burrowed in the nape of my neck, mumbling the opening lines of the Our Father.
“He’s asleep,” Rachel whispered. “But will probably wake up any second. Esperanza will be coming soon. You need to leave.”
I glanced at the clock on Rachel’s dresser. Caroline and I had been in Room 313 for half an hour; Patrick and Rachel’s act had lasted less than five minutes.
Caroline pushed her way out of the closet in front of me, scratching the skin around her neck where her sweater stopped. Patrick’s legs were bare, spread out in almost the same position as when Rachel had been underneath him, only his eyes were now closed, his breath even, his body inert. Though he never acknowledged us, I think he knew we were there and was waiting for us to leave. I don’t think he would have fallen asleep so easily in a strange building and a girl’s room, knowing he could get caught by one of the nuns at any moment. Plus, I could’ve sworn I saw him wink in our direction, but he may merely have been adjusting the angle of his neck, placing his hair between the wind and his reddish skin. I felt like a scared animal sheltered in Rachel’s clothes, unwilling to move out of the warmth towards the open palm in front of me.
Relenting, I took her hand, cool with perspiration and stronger than my own, and came out of the darkness. Rachel’s breath was hurried.
“Did you see . . . see his thing?” she asked, her eyes wide, glistening in the candlelight.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Too dark?”
I nodded.
“Oh well,” she sighed. “Maybe next time.”
Then she whispered in Caroline’s direction, “Funny little thing, it throbs. Beats like a heart and then just bursts.” Rachel made an exploding motion with her hands. “My legs are wet,” she added uncomfortably.
Caroline giggled and grabbed my arm as I tried to make out Rachel’s legs. I couldn’t see where the wetness was, but suspected it had escaped from her insides when his thing exploded.
“Let’s get out of here,” Caroline said quietly, and Rachel opened the door to her room, her body barring the view to her bed.
I took Rachel’s hand one last time, stroking it gently as I did my mother’s when she was in pain. I want to take this away from you, I thought, without knowing why. Rachel didn’t seem upset, and neither did Caroline, but I felt as if she had just suffered a wound, a wound that would open up in the coming months instead of clotting, a wound without the possibility of healing. Meanwhile, Rachel radiated a new power, even in her awkward steps, her tentative movements. She seemed to be floating.
The stringent scent of the hallway carpet and walls assaulted me as we moved towards our rooms. As each room number greeted us, I thought about the secrets trapped within their walls, wondered what had occurred in each of those rooms before we entered them or while we slept. Were the other girls engaged in similar acts or worse ones? Did we have nightmares because of them, their whispers and smells permeating the air, wafting forcefully into our dreams?
“She’ll probably feel sore tomorrow,” Caroline whispered conspiratorially as we reached the door to her room. “That’s what Aimée told me happens your first time.”
I assumed Caroline had been misinformed. Rachel had done this before, though not in front of us. Did it hurt more if people knew and saw what you did? Was there a first time for that? “First time? What do you mean ‘first time’?” I asked.
“The first time you do it,” Caroline said, turning her back to me to twist the door handle.
“But Rachel told me she did it before.” I was raising my voice, and Caroline fumbled with the handle, jiggling it in annoyance.
“Shhh. You want to get us caught?”
“But she told me—”
“She told me that too, but a couple of days ago she admitted she hadn’t. She thought I was lying that I had never done it. She thought I’d done it with the delivery boy. But I asked my sister what it’s like so I told her. Aimée says the boy has to pull out.”
As Caroline went into her room, tears welled in my eyes. “Good night, petit chou,” she said warmly, closing the door, leaving me alone and disoriented. And yet I did not wish to be with anyone, least of all Rachel or Caroline. Even if my mother had invited me to return home at that very moment, I’m not sure I would have. Everyone seemed to possess knowledge I didn’t. When would I no longer be in the dark? I climbed into my bed, the perfect size for one, and slipped on my warmest, thickest nightgown. The cloth around my body like a bandage. I tried my best to sleep, unsure whether Rachel had offered me a gift or a burden.
WHEN I WOKE UP in the morning, I saw the blood. The first thing I thought to do was phone home, but there was no answer. If Sister Aline hadn’t been sitting nearby, I would have slammed down the receiver. I knew what it was, my stomach bloated and cramping. The other girls frequently rattled on about their periods to each other in the washroom, but it was my first one, and I wanted my mother to come and help me. She had bought me a belt and the proper bulky paper pads, which I had packed, and yet, like an infant, I wanted her to strap them on, make me smell sweet like talcum powder, hold my stomach as I slept, like I held her hand sometimes when she was in pain. Why was it when I was in pain there was no one to help me?
Dismayed by the endless ringing at the other end of the line, I sought refuge in the washroom, stripping off m
y nightgown and showering. The hot water stung my skin, and I scrubbed my thighs rigorously as if cleaning a stained carpet. Luckily it was Saturday and I didn’t need to go to class, only to choir practice in the morning. It was meant to keep us Leftovers busy and out of trouble, even though we could in fact accomplish very little without Bella. We practised notes and breathing techniques; songs just didn’t carry when Bella wasn’t present to guide us. The last thing I wanted to do was sing, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by missing practice, so I waited for Esperanza to enter the washroom on her morning rounds. I hid myself in the shower stall, listening to a couple of girls come and go, water running, teeth brushing, and morning chatter. I heard Rachel say her father would take a few of us to the movies tonight; a new picture was showing at the theatre in the Market. A fresh white towel wrapped under my armpits, I watched the lingering drops of water spiral into the drain, my feet growing colder on the wet, beige-tinted tiles, and thought about my blood mingling with the dirt and sewage of the city streets like a dirty secret, travelling back to the canal.
Finally I heard the rustle of the hamper and the depositing of the washroom garbage into a bag. Through the curtain, I saw Esperanza in her grey uniform, starched stiff as living-room curtains. She bent over the sink, and her long skinny arms like cleaning brushes grazed over the floor, picking up stray towels and facecloths.
The Divine Economy of Salvation Page 9
