Hot Little Hands

by Abigail Ulman

  “Come in, Ramona,” Principal Valetti said. “Have a seat.”

  “Hi, honey,” her mother said. Seeing her there in the middle of the day made Ramona feel like she was back in kindergarten; like it was her birthday and her mum had brought an ice cream cake for the class to share.

  The principal thanked Mrs. Parker and shut the door. No one spoke. Then Ramona heard someone clear their throat and a voice came from the other side of the room.

  “Ramona?” the voice said. “This is Mary. I’ve just been talking to your mother and your principal about what’s been going on.” It took Ramona a moment to see the phone on the principal’s desk, and to place the voice on the speaker as Dr. Carvden’s. She’d never known her as Mary before.

  “These are very serious allegations, Ramona,” Principal Valetti said. “You’re lucky Minyung’s mother called me and not the police, or family services. Now, I’m in a difficult position here.” Principal Valetti looked over at Ramona’s mother, then back at her. “Under mandatory reporting rules, I’m obligated to notify the authorities. But I want to hear from you before I proceed.”

  “What do you want to hear from me?” Ramona asked.

  “Once I report this, it’s out of my hands,” the principal said.

  “Then what’ll happen?”

  “Well, first child protection would be notified. And they would do their own assessment. The worst-case scenario might be that you’re taken away from your mother and stepfather. Your siblings might be as well.”

  “That would be the very worst case,” Dr. Carvden said. “And, I imagine, not very likely.”

  Ramona’s mother was leaning on the armrest of the couch. She had her eyes closed and her thumb and forefinger pushed into her eyelids like she did when she was stuck in a traffic jam, or when Ramona and Steve were fighting and she couldn’t make them stop.

  “It’s also possible you’d be taken out of Kenley,” the principal went on. “And sent to another school, somewhere else.”

  “I don’t want you to report it,” Ramona said, her voice straining around a fast-forming lump in her throat. “There’s nothing to report. I don’t need child protection. I take it back.”

  Principal Valetti nodded very slowly but no one said anything.

  “I take it back. I lied. Please don’t get me in trouble.”

  Her mother started to cry. “Why did she do this?” she asked. “Is it the PTSD?”

  “I don’t know,” Principal Valetti said. “There’s been an awful lot of drama with the ninth-grade girls recently. I can’t explain it. Mary, do you want to field this one?”

  “Well—” Dr. Carvden exhaled. Ramona knew the therapist was making a decision. “Maybe Ramona perceived something as a boundary cross and it wasn’t. Maybe Tony was just trying to help but, in doing so, made Ramona feel uncomfortable. There are a lot of mixed messages out there for young women these days. Scare tactics, even. It’s very confusing for them. Ramona and I will continue to discuss this in our therapy sessions, but I have to get going now. My next client has arrived.”

  When the meeting was over, Ramona walked her mum to the car. As they neared her English classroom she hoped the other girls would be looking out the door, so they could see the two of them there together, and wonder what was going on. But they were all leaning over their exercise books, writing, and none of them noticed as they passed.

  “Thank goodness that’s over,” her mother said when they got to the car park. “I didn’t enjoy that one iota.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “Honestly? I haven’t got a clue what to do with you anymore. You’ve put me in a terrible position. Do you realize that? Now whenever I come back here, for parent–teacher or sports day or to pick you up, all the other parents and teachers are going to be staring at me like I’m a terrible mother. Like I’m married to some kind of monster, instead of to sweet old Tony, who’s working nonstop to help me pay for everything and raise you kids. Do you understand?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. In, like, two weeks, no one will even remember any of this happened.”

  “I hope not.” Her mother opened the car door and tossed her handbag onto the backseat. “Now I have to go pick up Steve’s new goggles from the optometrist’s, rush over to drop off these cake pans at Rob and Lynne’s, get Lockie from soccer, and come home and make dinner. Jesus, what a day.”

  “Can I come with you?” Ramona asked. “I can help. I don’t have any important classes this afternoon.”

  “No, just stay here,” her mother said, getting into the car. “For once can you just stick to the rules and do what you’re supposed to do?”

  —

  Before therapy on Wednesday, Ramona saw one of Dr. Carvden’s other clients. Ramona was sitting in the waiting room, staring at the poster on the wall of a marathon runner, below whom was printed the word ENDURANCE, when Dr. Carvden’s door opened and a man walked out. He was in his twenties, with light-brown hair and glasses, and he kept his hands in his pockets and his gaze on the floor all the way to the exit. Ramona wondered what Dr. Carvden did in the ten minutes between the man’s session and her own.

  “You were put on the spot,” the therapist said, once Ramona had come into her office and taken the seat opposite hers. “And I’m so sorry about that. But I’m glad your principal won’t report this. I’m glad you told them you take it back.”

  “You said it wasn’t my shameful secret.”

  The therapist nodded and used her left foot to pull the heel of her right shoe off. “That’s right, I did say that. It isn’t your secret. You can keep fighting this if you want, and I’ll support you if you do. But I don’t think the best thing for you right now is for child protection to get involved, or for you and your stepdad to be dragged through the family court system. I’m thinking about you, Ramona, and your healing process. I hope you understand that, and we can keep working together.”

  There was silence after that, several minutes of it. Ramona sat very still and listened to some kids playing in a nearby yard. She thought about how Dr. Carvden had said she wasn’t damaged. Did she really believe that? Or was that what therapists were trained to tell abused people, so they could try to get on with their lives; to give them the illusion that they might be just like everyone else one day, even though they obviously wouldn’t.

  “I haven’t told Adil I’m seeing you,” she said finally.

  Dr. Carvden shifted slightly in her seat. “Well, that’s not unusual. You’re pretty early on in the relationship. Maybe one day you’ll feel comfortable telling him.”

  “I think I’m gonna break up with him,” Ramona said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m just not into him.”

  “What do you think it is that he can’t provide?”

  “He’s just too normal, too nice. It’s boring.”

  “How long have you felt like this?”

  Ramona shrugged. “Since the beginning, I guess.”

  “So why have you stayed with him?”

  “I wasn’t that popular in first term. He was probably one of the only guys I could get.”

  “Is that the only reason? Because he was accessible?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I feel like I should be into him. He’s cute and funny and fun to talk to. He’s so nice, he doesn’t even know there’s bad things in the world. I’m scared that if I can’t be attracted to someone like him, there must be something really wrong with me.”

  “Well, you could try being attracted,” Dr. Carvden said, sneaking a look at the clock on the side table by Ramona’s elbow. “If you really want to, I think it’s certainly possible. You could try being in the moment. Concentrating on the details of what’s going on. Thinking about all the things you like about him. It might not work right away, but after a while you might find you can appreciate the excitement in the even-keeled.”

  —

  When Ramona came outside after the session, the station wagon was parked in the driveway, with Ton
y in the driver’s seat. She slid in next to him and put on her seatbelt.

  “Your mother had to cook,” he told her. “I said I’d come get you.”

  “Okay.”

  He put the car in reverse and backed out into the road. A couple of approaching drivers honked at him. He sped up to stay ahead of them.

  “Geez,” Ramona said. He was driving faster than he ever did when the family was in the car. Ramona wondered if this was what he did when he went out at night, sped around with the windows down, pretending he had nowhere to be.

  “Your mother’s very upset about the lying,” he said. “She thought about grounding you, but she’s decided just to put it behind us. If I were you, I’d watch my behavior from now on. You’ve put her through a lot.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ramona said.

  “What does that mean?” Tony looked at her.

  “It means I know.”

  Ramona leaned her elbow on the sill and stared out the window, at the park whizzing by, then the hospital, hoping they could sit in silence for the rest of the ride. But a minute later, Tony cleared his throat and said, “Remember my sister Leanne? You met her at the wedding.”

  “Yeah.” Ramona pictured the skinny woman with the frizzy hair and sparkly black dress.

  “When we were kids,” Tony said, “she must have been ten or eleven, she was playing in the front yard when a neighbor walked past. He came into the garden and tried to—interfere with her.”

  Ramona turned from the window and stared at him. “What did she do?”

  “She yelled bloody murder. She screamed and scratched him. She said every obscenity she could think of, then ran inside. He never came back. I think he might have moved away. At least, we never saw the man she described.”

  Tony changed lanes without a head-check, and turned through a yellow light onto Moreland Road.

  “Geez,” Ramona said again.

  “What I’m saying,” he said, “is you never had to put up with anything you didn’t want to. I was just trying to help you out during a difficult time. If you didn’t want my help, you could have said so.”

  Ramona didn’t know what to say. She wondered what Dr. Carvden would tell her to do now. They had never discussed the possibility of a conversation like this.

  “That’s good that the guy never came back,” she said finally.

  Tony nodded. “It is good.” He reached over and turned on the radio, pressing the buttons without looking at them. I’ve sat on my veranda and watched them knocking over every rubbish bin on the street, one after the next, a caller was telling a radio host. I’m sure they’re doing it on purpose, and that’s our tax dollars. Ramona wished they could switch to an FM station with music, but she settled back into her seat and listened, glad the conversation was over.

  —

  Steve was setting the table when they got home, and Lockie was in the living room, drawing a big tree on the cover of his project. “Where’s Mum?” Ramona asked. They both ignored her.

  She found her mother in the laundry, tossing clothes into the washing machine.

  “How was therapy?” she asked.

  “It was okay.” Ramona watched her mum turn a pair of Lockie’s jeans inside out before dropping them in and reaching for the detergent. “But actually, I don’t think I need to go back.”

  “Why? I thought you liked it.”

  “I did. But my leg’s all better now, and I haven’t turned off an electrical switch in ages. Except for at the normal times, when you’re supposed to turn them off.”

  “That’s great, hon.”

  “It’s costing you guys a lot of money and I think I’m cured now.”

  Her mum closed the machine and turned the dial. “Did you discuss this with Dr. Carvden?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t you talk it over with her at your next appointment? See if she thinks you’re ready.”

  Ramona wanted to roll her eyes and say, Do I have to?, but she stopped herself and nodded. “Yeah, okay,” she said.

  —

  Ramona skipped dinner that night. She went straight to her room and thought about calling Adil, or chatting with some girls online. But she didn’t feel like doing either. Homework was out of the question, so she turned the light off and climbed into bed.

  Under the covers, she put her hands inside her school tights and tried to bring a story or scenario to mind that would set something alight in her. She tried to think about Adil and the smell of cinnamon. When that didn’t work, she tried to picture herself as Kirsty giving Jeremy a hand job in a room full of boys. Then she was a prostitute in an alleyway with a businessman behind her and a wad of cash in her fist. And then Camilla on Big Brother, being held down and humiliated in front of the entire country.

  And then she was herself, some sleepy winter morning last year, still in the bath when the door opened. She was rinsing conditioner out of her hair, her fingers pushing hard at her scalp, and wishing she could go away to boarding school. She was turning off the tap and stepping out with his help, raising her arms and inching her legs apart when he told her to. She tried to think of something to say but found she couldn’t locate a single word inside her head. She just stood there, shivering dumbly, as water fell onto the bathmat, one drop and then another, for what felt like forever.

  Downstairs, she heard dishes clattering. Her clock said nine fifteen when she opened her eyes. Soon Rove Live would be starting and everyone would be sitting down together to watch it. Steve would laugh at all the What the…? jokes, Lockie would beg to be able to stay up past his bedtime, and Tony and her mother would look at each other and say, Okay but just this once.

  The kitchen was empty when Ramona came in. There was a wok, some bowls, and a pile of chopsticks sitting on the drying rack. Her mother must have made stir-fry for dinner. “Please?” she heard Lockie saying in the next room. “I never get to see till the end.” Ramona dried every dish and utensil and put it away in the cupboard or drawer where it belonged. Then she turned off the light, went into the living room, curled up on the couch with her family, and watched TV.

  There is a new boy in the neighborhood. Working at the gourmet ice cream place and bar-backing at the Make Out Room. He has a Japanese bike and a scar on his forearm and he always keeps a little notebook in the back pocket of his jeans. Gray ones. Tight. He has curly hair with a fringe that sweeps across his forehead and the eyelashes of a pretty girl. That’s what everyone calls him: the pretty one.

  I go to a reading at the Make Out. I don’t know why. I see him there, moving across the room with pint glasses stacked a meter high, leaned up against his shoulder. The girl at the door is watching him, too. I hold out my money until she notices me.

  Sean finds me at the bar. “Thanks for coming,” he says. “It’s nice to have groupies.”

  “There’s a warehouse party in the Bayview,” I tell him. “I can only stay for half an hour.”

  “I’ll be on late,” he says. “And I’m reading the part about you.”

  “Enthusiastic exclamation,” I say without smiling. I order a dirty martini. Sean pays for it with a sweaty drink ticket. “Well, in that case,” I tell the bartender, “I’ll have two.”

  “A humble you’re welcome,” Sean says. He hands over another ticket and joins the crowd in front of the stage.

  The place is filled with the literary strain of hipster: girls in bright T-shirts with jeans worn through at the back from sitting on desk chairs all day, and guys in plaid shirts they bought new, hiding bristly faces behind square-rims. Everyone has tattoos of text. Kundera and Eliot and others I don’t recognize—big blocks of words inked in cursive and Helvetica and Arabic script, crawling down calves, forearms, upper backs. The girl on stage has a big old DADDY tattooed in blue on her ankle.

  “The only. Thing. To fear,” she reads from a chapbook. “Is tears. Themselves.”

  “Can I get another?” I ask the bartender. This time I pay for myself.

  One after the next, they get u
p there, hands shaking, smiling at the microphone, prefacing with, “This is from this new thing I’m working on.” Some of it is probably really good but we’re in a bar, and the only bits that people pay attention to are funny or about sex.

  “I wanted. To sleep. With him,” reads a tiny girl with a big blond Afro. “But I had. Thrush.”

  The next time I order a martini it comes dry. “Can I get this dirty?” I call to the bartender, but it’s intermission and the kids have him slammed. “Excuse me!”

  I leave my glass where it is, stumble down off my stool, and sneak back behind the bar. I crouch down and open the door of the fridge. Behind me I can hear people calling for Anchor Steams and PBRs. The only things in here are half a jar of maraschino cherries, an open carton of milk, and a stick of celery sitting in a glass of water.

  “What are you doing?” Black Converse, tight gray jeans, a yellow T-shirt inside out, and a bunch of curly brown hair pushed to the side of his forehead. I stay where I am.

  “I’m looking for something.”

  “What?”

  “Olive juice.”

  He crouches down next to me, leans an elbow on the fridge door, and smiles. “Well, we haven’t properly met yet, but thanks, I’m flattered.”

  I wait for some smart reply to come to me, something drink-related or cherry-related or a play on the word dirty. But he’s looking right at me and he’s so damn pretty, I blank. I stand up, slide past him, and run away, back around the bar.

  “Hey, that’s my martini,” I tell some guy who’s holding an empty toothpick between his teeth.

  “I didn’t drink any,” he says. “I just got hungry.”

  The bar-back is turned away now, slicing lemons on a chopping board. I didn’t say “olive juice.” I said “elephant shoe.” That’s what I should have said to him. But it’s too late now to get the upper hand. My heart feels panicky and unfamiliar. I turn to the toothpick guy and, in a shaky voice, I say, “Why aren’t we kissing?”

  He takes the stick out of his mouth. “I don’t know.”