Vinnie's Diner

by Jennifer AlLee

There’s a small bookcase in the other corner, filled with an odd mix of Bibles and metaphysical and religious self-help books. A book called Let Go and Let God shares shelf space with a large print King James Bible, Discovering the Power of the Zodiac, and The Prophecies of Nostradamus.

  During the cleanout I had found a box of steamy romance novels shoved under the bed. Seeing the contents of the bookcase makes me wonder if those other books are already in my grandmother’s room, hidden in the shadows, or if her reading habits changed later in life.

  My eyes move to the walls. Representations of Jesus are everywhere. At least a dozen Jesus pictures cover the walls. Some show him before the crucifixion, some during, and some after. One’s a creepy combination of all three: Jesus, a crown of thorns on his head, walking across the water while holding his nail-pierced hands out to a crowd, while a burning heart glows in his chest. I’m not sure what to make out of that one. The only thing all the pictures have in common is that Jesus doesn’t look happy in any of them.

  “Why are you showing me this?”

  “You’ll see.” Ba’al whispers in my ear. At the same time, he turns my head toward the front door. “Here she comes.”

  The door swings open, and a girl walks into the room. She’s a teenager, probably fifteen or sixteen. She’s wearing a denim mini-skirt, high-top tennis shoes with slouchy white socks, and a baggy, cut off t-shirt that says RELAX in big, bold letters. A portable cassette player is clipped to her waistband, and she’s bopping to the music that filters through the headphones. Then she starts singing.

  “Wake me up, before you go go . . .”

  Shock nearly knocks the air right out of me. Aunt Bobbie told me once that my mother used to love Wham, but I hadn’t believed her. No way could I picture my mom being so loose and carefree. But here’s the proof.

  The girl who just danced through the door is my mother, and she’s an eighties cliché. Even more astounding, she looks happy. I can’t even begin to reconcile the teenager I see in front of me with the woman who raised me. There’s no glimmer of the person I know in young Georgie Burton.

  She hits a button on the cassette player, pushes back the headphones so they hang around her neck, and gives the room a good sweep with her eyes. Probably checking to make sure grandma won’t find her listening to devil music.

  Her attention is pulled to the hall, and she cocks her head to the side. She hears something. My eyes follow her gaze, my ears strain, listening closely. Now I can hear it, too. A low, muffled, wailing sound, like someone crying into a pillow.

  “Bobbie?”

  She heads down the hallway. I turn my head in the same direction, making the view on the big drive-in screen change, as if I were a camera man operating a steady-cam. There’s a bathroom at the end of the hall. In either direction from that there are closed doors. She turns to the right, opens the door, and walks into a room with two twin beds. One is neatly made except for the clothes strewn across the foot of it. It looks like someone couldn’t decide what to wear that morning. I ignore that bed and turn my attention to where Georgie is looking.

  A girl lies curled in a tight ball on the other bed, her pillow clutched to her face. Her slight frame shakes as she cries, and her silky blond hair is tangled and pushed off to one side.

  “Bobbie?”

  I should have expected the other person in my mother’s room to be her sister, but I still can’t believe it. This little wisp of a girl is my Aunt Bobbie?

  With a quick sweep, Georgie pulls the headphones from her neck and tosses them and the player on her bed. Then she sits next to Bobbie. She puts her hand on her sister’s shoulder, shaking her gently.

  “Bobbie, what’s wrong?” When she gets no response, she tries to make a joke. “The Go-Go’s didn’t break up, did they?”

  This just brings on a fresh round of wailing and head shaking. Georgie sits there, awkwardly rubbing Bobbie’s shoulder, until finally the crying subsides and muffled words fight to be heard through the pillow.

  Georgie leans forward. “What? I can’t understand you.”

  Bobbie lifts her head, and I gasp. Her whole face is swollen. Her eyes, nose, cheeks are all red and puffy. She’s already soaked from tears, but she can’t stop crying. The pain and agony spilling out of her is worse than anything I’ve ever seen. Worse than that film clip of Marilyn Monroe. It scares me, and I suddenly don’t want to know what could have done this to my aunt.

  “I’ve had enough,” I say. “I don’t want to see anymore.”

  “Sure you do,” Ba’al says in my ear. “How can you stand not knowing what caused all this? It’s like turning off a soap opera before the big reveal.”

  I hate it, but what he said makes sense. Just like digging through the contents of that awful chest, this is something I have to do. There’s no going back now.

  Bobbie opens her mouth to speak. She stops. Gulps in a breath. Tries again. “I can’t do it anymore.”

  Georgie’s eyebrows pull into a confused V. “Can’t do what?”

  “I can’t keep it a secret. What he—” Another gasp. Another gulp. “What he makes me do. I can’t. I can’t . . .”

  Bobbie throws herself onto Georgie’s lap, clutching at her legs, grabbing on as if her sister is a lifeboat in the middle of a stormy ocean. I go cold, and I can tell from Georgie’s face that she feels the same way. She’d like nothing more than to leave the room, start the day over, never know the terrible secret she’s about to find out. But there’s no going back for her, either.

  She lets Bobbie cry a bit longer, then grasps her by the shoulders, pushing her up, looking her in the eye. “I need you to stop crying. I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

  Bobbie sniffs. She wipes the back of her hand across her nose and mouth, smearing tears and snot and saliva across her cheek. “It started three years ago. When I was ten.”

  I quickly do the math in my head. That means Bobbie’s thirteen now, which makes Georgie sixteen. Not that it matters to the girls in the room. No matter how old they get, I have a feeling none of this will ever make any sense.

  “What started?” Georgie prods gently.

  Bobbie makes several false starts, opening her mouth to speak, but then snapping it shut and taking in several quick breaths. But when the words finally come, they spill out of her fast and sharp, like water barreling through a broken dam. “At first, he just touched me. He said it was our special secret, something just between him and me. Then he made me touch him. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like any of it, but I didn’t want him to be angry with me. He said I couldn’t tell anybody. He said people wouldn’t understand. They’d think I was a bad girl, and I’d get in trouble. You have to believe me. He said no one would believe me.”

  The pressure on my head increased. The demon is enjoying all this. His breath comes harder and faster beside my ear as his fingertips dig into my scalp. My stomach churns. I think I’m going to be sick.

  Bobbie looks up into her sister’s eyes. “I was so scared. So I kept quiet. I didn’t want to make him mad. And I didn’t want anyone to think I was bad. But then last week . . .”

  She trails off. Georgie keeps herself calm. I don’t know how she’s doing it. If I were in her position, I would have exploded by now. But when she speaks, the wobble in her voice gives her away. “Bobbie, who is he?”

  I think she already knows. From the way she asks, I think she’s figured it out, but she doesn’t want to believe it. Bobbie bites her lip so hard I can see blood on the tip of her tooth when she opens her mouth to answer.

  “Uncle . . . Uncle George.”

  Uncle George. Mom’s namesake. The guillotine-sharp blade of the words fall, slicing the world into two parts: before she knew the truth, and after.

  Georgie reels as though she took a punch. She stares at the wall on the other side of the room, focusing on a poster of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. She looks like she wants to tear it down, rip it to shreds. The background of the poster is a white and black ch
eckerboard, just like the tiles on the clinic floor. Maybe she’s counting the squares, too.

  When she finally turns her head back to Bobbie, she’s managed to bury her emotions again and her eyes are hard as glass marbles.

  “Uncle George. Mom’s had him picking you up every day from summer school.”

  Bobbie nods. “But he hasn’t been bringing me straight home, he . . . last week, he—” She can’t do it. She breaks into sobs, unable to put the monstrous thing into words. So her sister does it for her.

  “Did he rape you?”

  Bobbie’s head jerks up and down.

  “More than once?”

  It jerks again.

  I watch it play out in front of me, a terrible movie I wish I could walk out on, but I’m unable to look away. I’ve seen enough. I get the point. I don’t need to see anymore. “Make it stop.” I mean for it to be an order, but my voice is barely a whimper.

  The laughter in my ear is mocking, menacing. “Oh, come on, you don’t want to quit now. I’d offer you some popcorn but you look a little green. Besides, we’re just getting to the good part.”

  My head snaps hard to one side. The screen goes blank. Everything’s silent. For a moment, I wonder if I’ve finally died. But then another picture materializes in front of me.

  Georgie is standing outside a house, pounding her fist on the front door. A man opens it and smiles as soon as he sees her. But before he can say hello, she pokes him hard in the chest with her finger. “I need to talk to you.”

  A flash of anger crosses his face. Then just as quickly, his expression changes. It’s so fast I wonder if I really saw the anger in the first place or if I imagined it. Now he looks somewhat amused. Stepping back, he ushers her into the house with a wave of his hand. “I’m glad you’re here, Georgie. Because your mother and I need to talk to you, too.”

  Georgie is as shocked as I am to see her mother sitting on Uncle George’s couch. The older woman’s face is pinched, and she’s wringing her hands in her lap. She looks at her daughter standing in the doorway, and her expression becomes even more dismayed. Either she doesn’t like the way Georgie talked to her uncle or she disapproves with what the girl is wearing. Or both.

  “Well come in,” her mother says to her. “Maybe you can shed some light on this situation.”

  Georgie walks into the house, stands beside the couch, and looks from one adult to the other. My heart goes out to her. She probably had a speech all worked out on the way over. I’ll bet she knew exactly what she was going to say to her uncle. But now that she sees her mother, I can tell she’s been thrown completely off balance. “What situation?”

  Uncle George walks around to the front of the couch, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his slacks, shoulders bent forward. “I’m worried about your sister.”

  “What?” The word bursts out of Georgie and me at the same time.

  “She’s been acting different lately, secretive.” George shakes his head. He looks deeply saddened by what he’s about to say. “You’re mother and I have been discussing it, and we can come to only one conclusion.” He pauses. “I’m afraid Bobbie may have become sexually active.”

  I can’t believe the nerve of this guy. And the slickness. He must have realized Bobbie was getting ready to spill her guts and figured he’d beat her to the punch. Now that Georgie’s come to confront him, he’s doing the same thing with her.

  For a second, the room is deadly still. No one moves, no one breathes. It’s the eerie calm before the inevitable storm erupts.

  Georgie glares at her uncle, her cheeks flaming red. “She’s not sexually active, you pig. You raped her.”

  Ba’al begins to laugh as all hell breaks loose in the small living room. Georgie jumps at her uncle, fingers outstretched as if she’s ready to claw him to bits, but she runs into the corner of the couch and stumbles. Her mother clutches her chest and starts calling out, “Oh dear! Oh dear!”

  George catches Georgie as she falls, grabbing both of her wrists and holding her at arm’s length. A shadow in the corner of the room moves and catches my eye. It’s behind the rubber plant. I try to take a closer look, but Ba’al’s palms squeeze harder against my head. He turns me forcefully so I’m once more looking at my mother and her uncle.

  “Young lady, calm down right now,” George growls and gives her a shake. “Is that what your sister told you?”

  Georgie struggles against him. She’s clearly disgusted to have those hands on her skin, but he’s a strong man and she can’t pull away. “Yes. She told me you’ve been molesting her for three years and now you’ve moved on to rape.”

  Still on the couch, rocking back and forth, Betty’s cheeks are as red and shiny as a Roma tomato. “How could you?” She pushes herself up and staggers over to the other two.

  Then she points her finger directly at her daughter.

  “How could you accuse your uncle of something so vile?”

  Georgie stops struggling. Stops moving. George lets go of her, and she drops her hands, stumbling backward. She stares at her mother in utter disbelief. “You’re defending him?”

  The older woman pulls herself up to her full five feet and puffs out her ample chest. “Of course I am. Your uncle is a good Christian man. He would never do what you’re suggesting. He’s a deacon, for goodness sake.”

  I cringe at the words. He’s a deacon. As if that makes all the difference.

  Georgie blinks. “But why would Bobbie say he did those things if he didn’t?”

  “It appears she’s trying to deflect the guilt she’s feeling by assigning it to someone else.” George is speaking now, his voice low and mournful, as if he can’t believe the depths young Bobbie has sunk to. He looks at his sister. “Don’t be too hard on her, Betty. Bobbie’s obviously a very confused child.” He slides his arm around Georgie’s shoulders, pulling her hard against his side. “And Georgie, here, is just being a good big sister.”

  Georgie jerks out from under his arm and turns on him. A loud crack echoes through the room as her palm makes contact with his face. “Keep your filthy paws off me.”

  Betty gasps, steps backward, and almost falls over the coffee table. Georgie is trembling.

  George frowns and holds his cheek. He turns to the older woman, his movements slow and deliberate. “Would you give us a minute alone, Betty?”

  I can feel what Georgie’s thinking. Don’t leave me alone with this monster. Please, Mom. I need you here. But her mother is oblivious. Shaking her head, she totters from the room. “Yes. I need to . . . to . . . splash some water on my face.”

  As soon as the bathroom door clicks shut, George drops his carefully maintained veneer of civility. He lunges at Georgie, grabs a handful of her hair and bends her backwards over the side of the couch.

  “I could snap your neck if I wanted to, so keep your mouth shut.” Not only is he strong, but he’s quick. Somehow, he gets both of her hands behind her back and is able to hold them with one of his. Then he lets go of her hair and moves his hand to her neck, ringing his fingers around her throat as he talks.

  “I told your sister nobody would believe her. She should have listened to me. Little idiot.”

  She came to this house to protect her sister, but now that she’s in danger herself, Georgie has been reduced to a scared little girl. A mixture of terror, disillusionment, and anger contort her face as tears slide unchecked down her cheeks. “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t understand what?”

  “Why? How could you be like this?”

  He swears, then he shakes his head, as if she ought to know better. “You girls just don’t know how hard you make it for a man. You parade around in your revealing clothes, tempting us. Everything you do screams ‘come and get me’ but then you get all freaked out if we try to touch you.” His gaze travels down her body, and his breath comes a little faster. “Just look at you. Not quite as pretty as your sister, but you’ll do.”

  His hand leaves her neck, following the pat
h his eyes had just taken. Down the front of her shirt. Her eyes grow wide as she realizes what he wants to do.

  In that instant, everything changes. The fear leaves her. Her eyes flash. Her face is hard. She becomes a woman determined to do what she needs to do in order to survive.

  Manipulating her lips into a brittle smile, she says, “If you want me so bad, then who’s stopping you?” Her voice is breathy, inviting. Tempting.

  George is thrown for a moment. He’s wary of her sudden turn around, but his ego and carnal desires get the best of him. Even I can see the lust in his eyes, blooming, exploding. Just like Ethan.

  She takes advantage of those few seconds of confusion. Her knee comes up hard, catching him in the groin. He grunts, doubles over, loses his grip on her. She rolls off the side of the couch and before he can straighten up she brings the toe of her Reebok crashing into his nose. Blood spurts out on the carpet. Betty walks out of the bathroom just in time to hear her brother spitting out a string of swearwords that no deacon should know, let alone say.

  The woman screams, one hand clutching the door frame, the other balled in a fist against her stomach.

  Georgie is breathing so hard her shoulders jerk up and down from the effort. She stands over her uncle, like a teenage version of Wonder Woman, hands on her hips, his blood spattered on her right shoe and sock. “Stay away from me and my sister. Or I will kill you. That’s a promise.”

  She looks up, and it’s as if we’re staring at each other, eye to eye, nose to nose. My heart cries out to the sixteen-year-old girl in front of me. That morning, she was a carefree teenager with a world of possibilities spread out in front of her. Her biggest problems had been figuring out what to wear and what cassette to pop into her Walkman. But she’s just become a different person.

  I recognize her now.

  She’s just become my mother.

  29

  The Drive-In

  “Enough!”

  I gather together all the strength I have left and inject it into the screamed demand, twisting my body hard at the same time. The images fizzle and disappear from the screen, leaving it a blank rectangle of dirty white. The clouds roll back, but instead of bright sunshine the drive-in is bathed in harsh, brown-orange light. Ba’al, who now stands across from me, seems to be losing his luster as well. His long black duster has faded to a dull, dark grey, and his hair, once again the color and texture of old straw, whips around his face on the hot wind blowing through.