My First Love and Other Disasters

by Francine Pascal

  The almost summer of Victoria Martin.

  Fired after three brilliant days.

  And shamed.

  The whole thing is so grotesquely embarrassing. And then, on top of everything else, my parents will have to know. How could I do such a dumb thing? And then be jerky enough to get caught.

  I’m crying. Well, naturally, what else am I going to do?

  All I figure I’ve got are two choices and they both stink. First one is I can stay here until the morning. But that’s no good because it’s going to be a mess when DeeDee comes in to wake me up and I’m not there. Besides, then they’ll think I stayed out all night long, which is worse than waking Cynthia up now—and what difference does it really make? Either way I’ve had it. So I take choice Number Two. I ring the bell.

  Do you know what it’s like to ring a doorbell at two in the morning when the whole world is sleeping? It sounds like a nine-alarm fire.

  I make a quick try at coming up with a plausible story but nothing sounds even half good so I decide to tell the truth, if she’s even interested by then.

  I can see the lights going on in Cynthia’s bedroom, then the hall light, and then she’s at the door. This is so awful.

  “Victoria!” she says, opening the door. And boy, is she stunned and confused. “Victoria! What are you doing out here?”

  “I don’t have a key,” I say, postponing the inevitable.

  “The door isn’t locked.”

  “Yeah, it is.” Wouldn’t it be nice if she just forgot everything else and we stood around and talked about the locked door.

  “But we never lock the”—she didn’t forget—“door. What are you doing out here anyway?”

  “Well, it’s sort of a long story.”

  “Why don’t you just come in here and start telling me?” And there’s a whole big change in her tone. Not good either.

  We get into the living room and I pick the worst chair in the room and sit at the edge of it. She sits opposite me. If only there really was something easy like a nine-alarm fire.

  “Okay, Victoria, let’s have it from the beginning. What are you doing out at two thirty in the morning?”

  “I don’t think it’s two thirty yet.”

  “All right,” she says, looking at her watch, “out at two twenty-five in the morning, when you’re supposed to be home in bed? I mean, what is going on here?” By now she’s really rolling and nothing’s going to stop her. “You know you have a one o’clock curfew and what’s even worse you just take off in the middle of the night without a word to anyone. I can’t believe you’d do such a thing! It’s so dishonest. Victoria, what’s got into you?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because I really am.

  “Where were you?”

  “Out.”

  “Out where? With whom? What’s going on? Don’t make me pull it out of you. For goodness’s sake, I think I deserve a proper explanation. After all, I am responsible for you while you’re living in my house.”

  I start to answer but she goes right on. “What if I weren’t home? Would you have just sneaked out and left my children alone? How can I believe that you wouldn’t? After this, how can I believe anything you say or do?”

  “I’m really sorry,” I say, “and I would never, ever, go out and leave the kids alone. I made sure you were in bed way before I even thought of going. I was only out an hour and a half.”

  “Where were you?”

  I try to answer her, but the minute I open my mouth I start to cry.

  “All right, Victoria, calm down and tell me everything. I’m not a monster. If it’s possible to understand, I will. Now please start from the beginning.”

  “Well . . . it’s this boy,” I begin, and it’s really rough. “I know him from the city and I like him . . . a lot. Actually I think I love him . . . except naturally he doesn’t know it because we only just met. I guess it’s all pretty dumb, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” Cynthia says, and it’s crazy, but I think she might understand. “Go on, Victoria, let’s hear the whole thing.”

  “There’s another complication,” I tell her. “He already has a girlfriend, but she’s really awful except she’s very pretty. I personally don’t see it but almost everyone else seems to think she’s absolutely beautiful. Anyway, he can’t be all that nuts about her because he’s definitely interested in me. That’s why I had to go out tonight. I’ve been working up to this since before school ended, and finally, today, he asked me out. Sort of.”

  “What do you mean ‘sort of?’ ”

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly a formal date. It was more like asking me casually if I was going to be at The Monkey tonight. But I could tell that he was really saying that he wanted me to come, so I had to be there. It was my big chance.”

  “And I said you couldn’t go.”

  “But you didn’t know how important it was.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t feel right asking you to change all your plans just for me, and besides, I guess I was kind of embarrassed about asking. Then I fell asleep and when I woke up you were asleep and I felt funny about waking you, and besides, I didn’t expect to stay out that long. And there were some other things I didn’t expect to do either.”

  She looks a little alarmed, so I reassure her that I didn’t mean that I had sex with him.

  “Absolutely not,” I say. “I just got sort of carried away. But I didn’t think I would because—well, I never did before. But that’s the way it’s been with Jim. All the things I plan and figure out for myself fall apart the minute he comes into the picture. I can’t understand why that happens.”

  “I don’t think I can tell you why, but I can swear it happens and not just to you,” she says.

  “You too?” I can’t picture Cynthia being out of control.

  Cynthia stops for a moment and looks hard at me as if she’s deciding whether she can trust me.

  “Yes,” she finally says, “with Jed. All the time, but it’s over now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She shrugs and throws out her hands like, What are you going to do? “I guess it was the hardest time of my life,” she says. “I let it happen. I let myself be the victim, sitting around in misery and tears waiting for the next blow. And they came. One woman after another. Finally one day I started to get angry and then I got furious, and I realized, my God, I’m finally alive. I threw him out, and even though it was like tearing something out of my body I survived it. And I’m okay now. I’m still angry but I’m not bitter. Bitter is just more self-pity and that’s not for me anymore.”

  See how you don’t know about people? I always thought of Cynthia as sort of nice but she’s definitely a lot more. She’s sensitive and understanding and a whole different person to me now, and I like her much more and I even respect her. I feel like we’re friends, really and truly friends.

  “Even though your situation with Jim is different,” she tells me, “in one way it’s the same: You’re being the victim. Don’t let it happen.”

  I say I’m not going to, but I’m not really sure because I don’t feel angry or anything like what she feels about Jed. All I feel is in love with Jim. And I want very much to stay out here, and if only she’ll forgive me I wouldn’t care how much work I had to do or anything.

  “All I can do is advise you about your love life,” she says, “but when it comes to your job, that’s a different story. There I can lay down the law. You did a lousy thing tonight, and the only way I would even consider allowing you to stay on is if I have your solemn word that this kind of thing will never happen again.”

  “Oh, it won’t! I swear!” More tears. I can’t help it, I’m a very emotional person. Besides, these are sort of happy tears. I think I’m out from under.

  “Well, I hope I’m not making a mistake. . . .”

  “You’re not. I promise!”

  “Okay then. We’ll forget the whole thing.”

  “Thank you,
Cynthia. I really appreciate . . .”

  “I don’t know how much you’re going to appreciate it when DeeDee starts pulling at you at seven in the morning. You know it’s after three. We better get to bed.”

  “Thanks, Cynthia . . . a lot.” And she turns out the light and we both go to bed.

  She’s really a terrific person. I don’t know how fast I’d be to forgive someone who did such a sneaky thing to me. She’s sensational and so understanding.

  On the other hand, I hear it’s pretty hard to replace a mother’s helper after the season starts. And DeeDee does get up kind of early.

  I shoot upstairs. Reprieved!

  Boy, this room will be so terrific in August! I know I keep saying that, but I know everyone will be so jealous when we start to get those cold nights. Right now, of course, it’s stifling.

  I throw off my clothes and plop down on the bed. What a night! I wish Steffi were here so I could talk to her about it. Except maybe I wouldn’t talk about everything. Now that it’s over, I’m beginning to feel a little funny, sort of embarrassed and—I don’t know—maybe I shouldn’t have let him go so far on the first date. Except Cynthia didn’t seem all that surprised. Oh, God, it really was the first date and I let him put his hand under my clothes. Oh, I’m beginning to feel awful. Why did I do that? It was all right to do some necking, but that was really heavy petting, and now he probably thinks he can make out with me anytime he wants. I wish I didn’t let him put his hand under my clothes. I don’t know why I let him. I never let anyone before. Oh, it’s so embarrassing. How am I going to ever face him again? He must think I’m really easy. Steffi would, too, if I told her. But I’m not going to. I’m not going to tell anyone else. But what if he does? Suppose he tells Barry?

  Maybe he went back to The Monkey and maybe he’s telling his friends now and they’re all laughing and talking about me the way they do about Sheila McCauley, who’s know for being . . . friendly with the boys. I’d die if they talked about me like that. I’d never go back to school or anything, ever again.

  Jim wouldn’t do that. He’s not that kind of guy. I know it, I think. I hope. Boy, that would really be low.

  Even though I don’t think he would be that low, still it takes me forever to fall asleep because I can’t keep my mind from thinking what if he was a bigmouth, and then I keep tracing it down to how it even got back to my family. I’m an expert at self-torture. The last thing I remember is dawn.

  Thirteen

  It doesn’t make any difference to DeeDee that it’s Sunday. She’s in there pulling on me before seven, same as usual. No fighting it, so I struggle up. I must be getting used to the room because this is the first morning I don’t bump my head on the ceiling when I sit up. I bump my knee.

  Among the piles of dirty dishes there’s a note from Cynthia saying we should not wake her up because she’s exhausted from all the nighttime activity, but she’d love it if I could just straighten the living room a tiny bit. She always leaves the cutest notes, like this one starts off, “Help! Help!”

  I give DeeDee her usual breakfast, which she wastes half of as usual. No matter how little I give her she leaves more than half. While she’s eating, I start to clean up the living room. It looks like the party Cynthia had the night before was great from the horrendous mess they left. In the middle of cleaning up, David comes down and I give him his peanut butter sandwich and go back to work. The kids watch TV for the next couple of hours until I finish everything. I want to do it right because I’m really sensitive about what Cynthia might think of me, especially after last night.

  After breakfast I start to get the kids into their bathing suits when the phone rings. Don’t let it be Mr. Landry, please.

  It isn’t. It’s my mom. We have a sort of strange conversation. At least from my end it’s a little weird. Naturally she wants to know all about my job, and if she called yesterday I would have given her an earful. I had planned to do some fancy moaning about all the work Cynthia dumps on me, but after last night’s horrendous fiasco I play it very cool.

  “Cynthia’s terrific, really, Mom,” I say. “I’m crazy about her kids, too. It’s the best summer job I ever had.” That’s a little overboard, seeing this is my first summer job. “I love it out here. Everything is absolutely perfect, really super. Boy, it’s just great. I tell you this is fantastic, sensational—”

  “Victoria?”

  “Yeah, Mom?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I must be getting my period,” I say, thinking faster than I ever thought in my whole life.

  “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, I didn’t think it was going to be so hard,” and even though I said I wasn’t going to let it happen, everything starts running out of my mouth—all the things that Cynthia makes me do. (If you can’t complain to your mother who can you complain to?) I go on and on about the laundry and the dishes and the cleaning and everything, and I can tell my mother is absolutely on my side. In fact she’s so much on my side that she’s beginning to hate Cynthia and in two seconds she’s going to tell me to quit and come home. Well, I certainly don’t want that, so I do a fast double about-face and go right into how, of course, Cynthia is right there working along beside me, she and the kids, and by the time I finish I make it sound as though all I do is sit around polishing my nails while everyone waits on me.

  “It sounds terrible,” my mother says, not one bit fooled. “But if you’re so anxious to stay, try it for another week. And don’t be shy, Victoria. If you think she’s being unfair, tell her.”

  My mother makes it sound so easy, but it isn’t like that when you’re a kid and an employee. I tell her I’ll talk to Cynthia, but I know I’ll never have the guts.

  Then my mom tries to make me feel better by telling me how lucky Cynthia is and she bets that I’m doing a terrific job.

  And I do feel better because except for mistakes like last night I really am doing a pretty terrific job, and even though it’s hard, it makes me feel kind of proud. If only I could handle the other part of my life the way I clean the house, I’d be in business.

  “I love you, Mom,” I tell her.

  “Love you too, sugar. Now what’s up for this afternoon? Are you going to the beach or does she have you scrubbbing the walls?”

  I laugh and tell her that we were just getting into our suits.

  “Have you been swimming yet?”

  “Are you kidding? David is a water demon. We go in four, five times a day.”

  “Don’t forget to take those vitamin pills Daddy gave you, and watch out for the sun, and . . .”

  And she’s off and rolling again. The rest of the conversation is filled with warnings to watch out for this and that and news of everyone back home. (What big things have happened in four days?) Plus not to forget that it’s really very important to Daddy about me staying alone overnight. Did I talk to Cynthia about that? I lie and say it’s all settled. I promise myself to bring it up in the next couple of days for sure. Then she says how I should make sure to write a nice long letter to Nina.

  Sure thing. “Dear toad, . . .”

  After I hang up from talking with my mother, I take the kids down to the beach. Funny, I really wasn’t homesick until that telephone call, but just talking to my mother suddenly makes me feel very alone. Maybe it’s because even though mostly it bugs me to pieces, still it’s kind of nice having someone worrying and caring so much about you. Isn’t it ridiculous? I miss my mommy. Oh, God, I sound just like DeeDee. The thought tickles me enough to make me feel better.

  By the time I get down to the beach Dana and Anita are already there, and of course they’re dying to know what happened to me at The Monkey last night. Naturally I don’t tell them anything much. I pretend that Jim and I danced and then went out to the end of the pier to talk. They both think Jim is something else and want to know all about him and when am I going to see him again. That
’s a little tough to answer, but I tell them probably tomorrow. That’s Monday, my day off.

  “Where’s he taking you?” Dana wants to know.

  “Well, we’re not sure yet,” I tell them, “but we might have a picnic dinner and then hit The Monkey later.” That’s not really a lie because if we do go out together tomorrow he’d probably love to do that.

  We chat for an hour or so while the kids play around, and then it’s time to go home for lunch.

  There’s a beautiful four-hundred-page thank-you note waiting for me on the kitchen table. Four hundred pages of explicit instructions. First, though, she says I did an A-1 job and she’s going to love me forever for saving her from waking up to such a huge mess and that she’s off to the Hendersons’ for a brunch party and not to wait for her for lunch. Then she says a couple of things about what to feed the kids and would I please get a few things started for dinner. She tells me exactly how to clean the chicken and prepare it for the oven and how to do the vegetables and clean the shrimp and make the salad (she must be having company) and everything. She must have taken twenty minutes just to write the note.

  DeeDee goes in for a nap and David eats his lunch watching TV. It looks like rain. Just as well because dinner is going to take me a while to get ready and at least the kids won’t be hassling me to go to the beach.

  The phone rings. I leap for it because it has to be Jim. It isn’t. But lucky for me, at least it isn’t Mr. Landry again. It’s Barry.

  “I looked for you last night at The Monkey,” I say. I want to find out if he was there and if he saw Jim.

  “We had company last night,” he says. “My cousins from Connecticut came, so I had to hang around. Were you there?”

  Obviously he didn’t speak to Jim yet so he doesn’t know, or maybe he did speak to Jim and Jim didn’t say anything because of the way Barry feels about me. “For a while,” I tell him.