All the Beautiful Girls

by Elizabeth J. Church

  “I don’t know, Jack! I want to put my hands around his neck and strangle him. Slowly. But it’s too late. I can’t promise that he’ll pay for what he’s done. I can’t kill a dead man,” he said, looking at Lily. “I can’t ever give you justice.”

  “It’s over,” Lily said, more a prayer than a statement.

  Finally, Jack spoke, as if he felt a professional compulsion somehow to intervene, to instill insight. “You’re a phenomenally resilient woman,” he said. “In large part—and horribly so—because of what you’ve survived. And,” he added, “it tells me that you had a very good family life, people who loved you, before you went to live with your aunt and uncle.”

  “My fault,” the Aviator said, nearly a whisper.

  Lily left her shawl behind, picked up her cane, and stood to give herself more authority. She moved across to where the Aviator and Jack sat, and she looked down into the face of the man she so loved. She searched for magic words, knowing all the while that there were no such things—no more than there was a curative draft he could concoct for her. All they could do was love each other, as best they could.

  “You make me happy every single day,” she said. “Every single day you make my life beautiful. I have never—not ever,” she emphasized, “been as happy as I am living here, with you two. You are my home.” She drew herself even taller, and then she said, “It was an accident. An accident. And if I tell you I do not blame you, then you have no right—none whatsoever—to blame yourself. That’s my call, and I’ve made it.”

  Jack turned from her to watch the Aviator’s expression. Lily could see the effort it took for Jack not to comment, to let the Aviator make the trip on his own.

  “What will it take for you to hear me? To believe me?” she asked.

  The Aviator looked up at her, beseeching, struggling.

  “Scoot over,” she said, and Jack obliged. Lily lowered herself between the two of them, leaned her cane against the couch, and took the Aviator’s hand in hers. “I want you in my life. But not as a guilty man who feels obliged. I want you in my life because you love me for who I am. For who I will become. Just as I want you in my life because of who you are—and that’s the reason I’ve always wanted you. Because of who you are—not because of what happened on some godforsaken highway.”

  “But everything that’s happened—” he said.

  “Is life,” she finished for him. “That’s what I’ve learned lately. Javier. My accident. Everything—it’s just life.” She thought a moment and then added, “And I am determined—so thoroughly determined—to see the beauty of life, to give it the power to overcome everything else. I mean, just look at what I have! I have Vivid, and Rose, even Dee. I have you two—oh, I have you two. I have the future,” she said, briefly putting a hand to her belly before letting it rest on the couch cushion. She felt Jack take that hand, and then the three of them sat holding on to each other as the firelight flickered across the library shelves, making the hundreds of hungry books dance with possibility.

  Her ankles were swollen, her breasts were tender, and she had trouble sleeping. But Lily was in the home stretch.

  Hearing the television’s low-volume blur, Lily knocked softly on their bedroom door and pushed it open. She’d ironed the Aviator’s shirts and wanted to put them away. Jack forbid it for himself, saying his style was rumpled and that he liked the natural look, as he called it. The Aviator was seated on the end of the bed and focused on the television screen; it took him a moment to register that Lily was standing there, holding a handful of hangers with his freshly pressed shirts.

  “Oh,” he said, clearly embarrassed. He went to where she stood.

  “What are you watching?” Lily handed him the hangers.

  “Nothing, really.”

  She made her way across the Navajo rug, careful not to trip. “Oh ho!” she said, and let out a big belly laugh as she alternated between looking at the television screen and the Aviator’s reddening face. “You watch roller derby! Oh, man,” she said, sitting where the Aviator had been. “Roller derby!” she nearly shouted.

  He hung his shirts in the closet, keeping his back to her longer than necessary. Then, a chagrined smile on his face, he came to sit beside her. “I like the female teams best,” he confessed, almost as if he were revealing his favorite sexual position.

  “Damn,” Lily said. “These women are tough! And just a little scary.”

  “Yeah. Watch them use their elbows. Or the overhead, two-armed hatchet chop. They’re wicked.”

  “And all while chewing gum,” she said, watching one woman blow an audacious bubble and eye her opponent. “Do you have a favorite team?”

  “I like them all, really. And I love the names. Bay Bombers, Cincinnati Jolters. Detroit Devils.”

  “Whoa!” Lily said. “That one just came out and hit her. They can kick each other when they’re down?” she asked as one player stomped another with her heavy, wheeled skates.

  “It’s like wrestling—but with skates on. Different players have different functions, though. There are blockers, jammers—”

  “This is brutal!” Two referees struggled to pull a couple of players apart. “They have got to be covered in bruises!”

  “Yeah. Jack hates it. That’s Joan Weston,” he said, pointing toward one skater. “She’s called the Blonde Bomber.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “It’s the only game I know where men and women play by the same rules. They’re equally violent, equally agile, and skate at some pretty high speeds.”

  Lily watched as a woman grabbed another skater’s ponytail and hung on, whipping the ponytailed woman’s neck backward and tossing her over the railing. “Jesus. So, this is your secret vice, huh?”

  “Yeah.” The Aviator grinned at her. “But you can join me any time you want. We have to watch back here, though. Jack doesn’t even want to hear it.”

  “Some Quaker you are. You crack me up,” Lily said, lightly nudging the Aviator with her shoulder.

  “Well, good,” he said, nudging her back. “I like to make you laugh.”

  “And now I hate to say it, but we should probably head out,” Lily said, standing.

  They were taking Lamaze classes together. The married couples who dominated the class stared openly at the two men and their pregnant—what? Daughter? What? Lily smiled freely at them all. She wanted to shout, We are the amoral outcasts! The homosexual lovers and the Vegas showgirl! Instead, the three of them kept to themselves and took full advantage of the relaxation and breathing techniques they were learning. The Aviator’s huffing in particular made Lily giggle, sometimes uncontrollably.

  * * *

  —

  SHE’D STOPPED WALKING in the woods, afraid of slipping on ice. Instead, she spent languorous, quiet days performing stretches, listening to opera, sewing teeny-tiny bibs, and reading. Today, she was reading a book Jack had given her—a volume from his university bookshelves entitled Child Abuse and Its Sequelae. He’d marked the chapters on sexual abuse and told her he would be happy to talk about anything she might want to discuss—or not.

  Lily was approaching the book slowly, trying to take it all in and master the new vocabulary. She read of Freud’s repetition compulsion, of an abused person’s tendency to reenact and repeat a trauma in an attempt to master the event and redefine it. It was so close to what Vivid had said to her—that she was doing what was familiar, that Uncle Miles and Javier were conflated. She found it nearly impossible to believe how unerringly she’d gravitated straight toward a sadist to replace the sadist of her childhood.

  It fit with what Jack had told her about trust—that she had to look at actions, ignore words. Less and less did Lily chastise herself for her failings. How could she criticize the Aviator for the same behavior, if she didn’t try to change her own approach, reduce her own self-blame?

  But the
key passage in the book, the one that reached into her Pleistocene layers of shame, was the one about physiological reactions to sexual abuse. The body can respond even to a sexual assault in a purely physiological manner. A victim can be aroused, even if the act is forced. A rape victim can have an orgasm while being raped.

  Lily held her place with a couple of fingers, looked out the window at the leafless trees and blustery gray February day.

  That was precisely what had most shamed and confused her. It was the thing that had haunted Lily. Despicable, repugnant Uncle Miles had made her come. His tongue had brought her to orgasm. Her body had disobeyed and betrayed her. She had believed that she was that sick, that she actually liked having Uncle Miles touch her.

  It wasn’t her fault. Her body had simply responded, even if her heart, her soul, had begged for him to stop. It was an autonomic response; it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fault. She was not depraved. She was not.

  She opened the book and began reading once more. It said sexual pleasure and sexual aggression could become entwined as a result of sexual assault, in particular with repeated sexual assault.

  The burning shame she’d felt when Javier hurt her and she came. When she wanted to be hurt. When she felt pleasure braided with pain.

  Lily closed the book once and for all, thinking, Bless you, Jack. She felt herself buoyant, nearly weightless, despite the bulk of her advanced pregnancy. She was freed from the worst of herself. Absolution.

  Sloane Decker wore an unfettered outfit of her own, bold creation. Turquoise cowboy boots with silver-tipped toes. Purple tights beneath a wedding-cake skirt made of tiers of white lace. A ruby-red polyester blouse with enormous belled sleeves, a black velvet choker with a tiny bell sewn in the center. And on her head, a tightly knitted purple cap with multicolored ribbons dangling like long locks of hair. The eight-year-old’s dark brown hair—Javier’s hair—was stuffed beneath the cap. When set free, it tumbled down her slim back in heavy, undulating waves.

  When Lily named her daughter for the Aviator, she hadn’t realized the perfection of her choice, that in Ireland sloan had been used to refer to a warrior. Although Lily’s warrior no longer permitted her mother to hold her hand, that September morning Lily was allowed to walk beside her daughter along the dirt road leading from their lot in the Yucca Terrace Trailer Park to the bus stop. Lily carried Sloane’s mug of hot chocolate and her own cup of coffee. Sloane carried the framed photo wrapped in layers of protective newspaper.

  “I’m so happy this morning,” Sloane said, the bright polish of her boots’ toes catching the sun with each step. She twirled, and her skirt lifted like flower petals in a breeze.

  They waved at arthritic Mrs. Henderson, who slowly descended the shaky metal steps of her trailer in her pink chenille bathrobe, headed to retrieve her morning newspaper.

  “I’m happy, too,” Lily said, taking a sip of her coffee, which was cooling quickly. “Here,” she said when they reached the spot by the long line of mailboxes where the school bus paused each morning. “I’ll hold the photo. You drink your hot chocolate.”

  Lily had felt a brief flutter of reluctance when Sloane announced that she wanted to take the photo to illustrate the essay she’d written about her mother. Still, Lily resisted the impulse to squelch Sloane’s plans. She didn’t want for the girl’s enthusiasm to be in any way diminished. Sloane was proud of her mother, and Lily’s daughter would not be made to feel shame for any innocent act—ever.

  It was an eight-by-ten black-and-white portrait of Lily in full showgirl regalia, standing next to Tom Jones. His arm was about her bare waist, and his fingertips pressed into her soft flesh. Ruby Wilde wore cuffs of rhinestones, a wide fan of feathers at the crown of her head, a silver beaded G-string, fishnet stockings, and heels covered in a mosaic of mirrors. The photograph was autographed: For my favorite pussycat. LOVE! Tom Jones. At least Lily’s breasts were covered; it was an outfit that had been designed for less risqué performances and public appearances.

  “They won’t know who Tom Jones is.”

  “Then I’ll tell them,” Sloane said with a kind of confidence Lily could only envy. “I can even sing one of his songs! And besides, he’s famous!” Sloane added. “And you are too, Mom.”

  The bus brakes shrieked, and Sloane traded her mother an empty mug for the photograph. She even let her mother kiss her cheek before she bounded up the steps. The driver saluted Lily.

  Lily watched until the bus disappeared around the corner, and then she walked back to their trailer to finish getting ready for work. At first, Lily and Sloane had stayed on at the hacienda, where Jack and the Aviator could help with childcare. Then, when Sloane was ready to enter kindergarten, Jack’s connections had won Lily a job at the Santa Fe Opera. Lily and her daughter moved sixty-five miles north, to the outskirts of Santa Fe.

  She worked as an apprentice in the costume department, researching, designing, and creating costumes, wigs, and props. She’d traded applause and power-packed casino bands for backstage creativity, and it suited her. As a lowly apprentice, Lily wasn’t paid much, and Santa Fe was exorbitantly expensive. Nevertheless, she hoped eventually to rise to a level at the opera where she could afford to move herself and her daughter out of the trailer park and into a small house. For now, she was satisfied.

  The textbook for Jack’s Friday afternoon graduate seminar in deviant behavior sat squarely in the middle of Lily’s coffee table, next to her mother’s palmistry book. When she could, Lily drove with Sloane to Albuquerque for the weekend, and although Lily was nothing close to a graduate student, she enjoyed sitting in on Jack’s lectures and classroom discussions.

  The Aviator was unabashedly pleased that Lily was “using her mind,” and although she wasn’t yet ready to admit it to him, she was considering applying to the university and taking at least one class each semester. It was psychology that intrigued her—if only as a means of trying to comprehend the players in her life, those people represented by the myriad lines of influence in her palm.

  Lily refilled her coffee cup and went to sit on the steps. She wore her hair long, caught up on the sides with a length of creamy lace, and at most she briskly, scantily coated her eyelashes in mascara. Lily listened to the soft tinkling of her capiz wind chime, watched the Nelsons’ fluffy gray cat amble across the road. The house finches chimed in with their intricate arias, and the scent of dinner sifted through the screen door, making her mouth water. She’d filled the Crock-Pot with chicken, celery, onions, and carrots so that when she got home, there would be a rich broth waiting, tender meat falling from the bone. Simon would join them, bringing Sloane’s favorite dessert of rocky road ice cream, and Lily would steam some rice. And then the three of them would sit down to dinner and share the news of their days.

  Simon worked as a carpenter in the scenery department of the opera, building elaborate sets from often sketchy, incomplete plans. He could literally make dreams reality—this, Lily knew from having watched him over the course of the past year. His wildly curly, sun-bleached blond hair threw sparks as he worked, and his lean limbs were accustomed to hard physical labor. Simon could fix anything. Anything. Maybe even Lily.

  He smelled intoxicatingly of freshly sawn wood. His fingertips when he touched her were wounded, rough from labor, and he’d introduced her to Tom Waits’ guttural, blindingly beautiful poetry masquerading as song. And Simon made Lily laugh. Laugh until she begged for mercy. Laugh until it felt as though she’d done five hundred sit-ups. He made up stories—wild, exuberant, improbable, and outlandish stories. He was easy with Sloane, and she was easy with him, journeying alongside him through the vibrant colors of his imagination, worlds populated by inanimate objects come to life, animals who stumbled about just as badly as their human counterparts. He’d also taught Sloane to hammer and drill, and together they were building a sled for when winter draped a thi
ck blanket of snow over the shoulders of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains above Santa Fe.

  Lily hadn’t read Simon’s palm. She never would, although she knew he was there, a finely etched line in her own palm. When Lily had first spotted Simon’s interest in her, she told him that before anything could begin, they’d have a long conversation. “Full disclosure,” she’d called it, and then she had watched as Simon tried to hide his trepidation.

  She gave him honest Lily, not a mirage. He was her first, after Javier, and she hadn’t hidden anything—not her past’s freeway pileup of death and loss, the serial rapes, the confused push and pull of Javier. And then she’d told Simon to go, not to see her or speak with her for at least a week.

  Lily had waited. Waited for her words, the images they carried on their backs, to bleed into the soil of Simon. She waited until Simon truly knew who she had been, if not who she was.

  When he came back to her with clear-eyed certainty, she hadn’t quite known how she felt about it. He was absurdly convinced that he understood her, said he’d known pain too, that everyone was damaged in some way. But Lily knew that he couldn’t possibly understand her. Not this early in the game, if ever, and not any more than she could ever understand him. Who understood anyone, truly? But she was willing to try—to take a risk, as Jack had coached her. And, Simon had received the approval of both the Aviator and Jack, which gave her a sense of hopefulness.

  Lily longed for the respite of a man, the abiding sense of acceptance and belonging she hoped a lover might give her. But she was also afraid. Lily was afraid that Simon was nice. And she was afraid that, for her, nice would always be dull. Nice would be placid waters, cloudless skies, temperature-controlled rooms, and cookie-cutter housing developments with well-maintained lawns. Nice would not thrill; nice would not possess her, make her lose herself, starve her of breath. Nice would not be enough.

  A few nights ago, she’d put Joni Mitchell’s Blue on the turntable after dinner, and the three of them danced free-form to Mitchell’s splendid, soaring voice. When the needle reached “A Case of You,” Lily had slowed her steps and let go of the others’ hands, left Sloane and Simon to dance together. She stood against the wall, watching them and listening as Mitchell sang of her fear of the devil, her attraction to men who weren’t afraid. That’s it, Lily had thought—the menacing, rumbling, lightning-filled thunderhead of Javier. When Simon lifted Sloane off of her feet and spun her, giggling and red faced, Lily had feared she didn’t deserve him.