you.”
They kissed again, and she began to feel her nervousness being replaced by a relaxed, lazy sensation that she sensed might be a sign of danger. If she didn’t stop, she was going to let him go too far. She broke off the kiss. “I’d better go in now. Thanks for walking me home.” Then she grinned. “And everything.”
She found her key chain in her purse and turned to unlock the door. He said, “Can I come in?”
She said, “I’m sorry. I can’t tonight. See you tomorrow.” She slipped inside and locked the door.
The next day Alice watched her and watched Tim during the day. At three, when they were outside for their break, she said, “Tell me exactly what happened.” After some hesitation, Charlene did tell Alice.
Alice said, “That’s it? That was all?” She seemed disappointed.
Charlene was slightly offended, but she realized that a woman twelve years older than she was, with a child, was probably used to more than that. She was tempted to embellish the story, but she didn’t know what to say that would be satisfactory, so she decided to wait and see whether anything else happened.
That Saturday, Charlene stayed late to help Tim lock up, so that he would walk her home again.
This time when they reached the porch, she said, “Would you like to come in for a minute?” He came in. She felt the heat of shame as he looked around him. She had always been aware that the house was smaller and less fancy than other people’s houses, and her mother’s boyfriends had been a problem, because she didn’t want to introduce them and then have to explain who they were and what they were doing here. Now they were gone, and she had spent hours over the past few days cleaning the house, washing curtains, arranging furniture, and putting fresh flowers from the front yard in jars.
She reminded herself that it was different now. She was only seventeen and this was her own place, where she could do anything she wanted. Tim still lived with his parents, and he was two years older. She had bought a six-pack of cola, so she offered him a drink, and brought it in one of the glasses her mother had only used for adults. Then she sat on the couch with him.
He kissed her, but it wasn’t the same as it had been the first night. He seemed more eager, but not more affectionate. He was insistent, implacable, barely letting her take a breath. She still liked him, but tonight she was a little bit afraid. She let him unbutton her uniform shirt, but then he took it all the way off, and her bra too. Once he had done that, it didn’t matter when she put her hands on his and tried to keep him from taking her other things off too. He just did it. She whispered, “At least turn the lights off,” but he said, “No. I like to see you this way.”
Pretty soon he picked her up, carried her into her bedroom, and set her on her bed. She said, “Tim, I don’t think we should do this. I don’t want to. I’m still a virgin,” and “Stop. Don’t.” Finally he hesitated, and she thought he had realized it wasn’t a good idea, but he had only paused to slip on a condom. And then he took her.
When it was over, she wrapped herself in the covers and lay there, quietly crying. He put on his clothes right away and tried stroking her hair and her bare shoulder, saying softly, “Please don’t cry. I’m sorry. I really like you, and I couldn’t help it. I thought you liked me too.”
Charlene hated him, and she loved him, and she hurt. She wanted him to go away, and to die, and to stay forever, being nice to her now that he’d had what he wanted. Then, without expecting to, she stopped crying. It was like a fever that abruptly broke. “Go home now,” she said. She heard his heavy steps on the floor as he walked out of the room, then heard her front door open and close.
The next day she didn’t go to work. The day after that, she went in at the usual time, started working, and wouldn’t look at Tim or answer him when he spoke. She didn’t go and sit outside with Alice during the three o’clock break, because she couldn’t bear to answer her questions.
At quitting time she left without a word. He left too, and walked beside her. As soon as they were on a dark street and alone, he said quietly, “I really care about you, Charlene. I want you to know I couldn’t sleep for the last two nights. I didn’t mean to make you hate me or anything.” They walked on for a dozen steps. “Charlene?”
“What?”
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Okay.” She walked in silence for another few seconds. “You raped me.”
“No, I didn’t. It was just—”
“You did. I said no, and you did it anyway.”
“I thought you were just saying that, like ‘no, no, no-oh,’ and then you stopped saying it. I thought that meant you really wanted to.”
“I was crying, Tim. You didn’t even notice.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think I was doing anything you didn’t want me to. If I’d thought I was, I would have stopped.”
They were at her house now. She climbed the porch steps and turned to face him, but he stayed down in the shadows by the railing. She took her keys out of her purse and unlocked the door. “Come in.”
“That’s okay,” he said.
“No. It’s not okay. You’re coming inside. Now.”
She held it open, and the light from the lamp she had left on so she wouldn’t have to come in alone in the dark was shining on his face. He looked down, but he came up the steps and followed her into the house.
Charlene shut the door and locked it. She didn’t turn on any more lights or offer him a drink. She said, “You were horrible. I liked you so much, but you hurt me and treated me like you didn’t care what I felt. You were like an animal or something, and you made me feel like one too. You were a pig.”
“I feel terrible. I don’t know how to make it up to you.”
“You’ve done it. You can’t undo it. But you’re not going to leave me feeling like this.”
“I can’t go back to two days ago. What am I supposed to do now?”
“You’re going to do it one more time. People say the first time is awful for everybody, but once you’re past that, it’s nice. You have to be sweet to me. Do it the right way this time, not mean.”
All these years later, she remembered the look on Tim’s face—shock, then something like relief. He treated her gently, as though she were made of porcelain, like the dolls in the window of the antique store. He was very slow and cautious, very patient. This time it was the way she had always imagined it would be, and she almost liked him. He stayed until three-thirty, then hurried home so he would be asleep before his parents woke.
For the rest of the summer, she allowed him to think of her as his girlfriend. At the Dairy Princess he did all of the heavy lifting that was involved in her job, then did the cleanup and walked her to the local hangout, where his friends were already drinking and talking with older girls.
Alice began to resent Charlene. She made a remark about how nice it must be having somebody to do her share of the work. Once when Charlene yawned, Alice told her she should sleep alone sometimes, then turned and went to the order window, leaving her alone. Charlene felt as though she had been slapped. She thought about it for a while, and then decided that Alice didn’t matter. Charlene just had to endure a few weeks, and summer would be over.
By mid-August, Charlene’s unpaid bills had all been turned over to collection agencies, and their attempts to get the money from her became more aggressive. She had to unplug the telephone to keep from being called all the time, but then when she plugged it in to make a call, it wouldn’t work.
The customers of the Dairy Princess had moved into the strange frenzy that seemed to hit people just before each summer ended, and made them frantic and selfish. She knew they were trying to get the last few days of pleasure before things turned dark and cold and wet again, so they lined up at the Princess in surly, sweating queues, crowding the lot in front of the store on the way home from some activity that had left them discontented. The sweet residue of ice cream and sugary drinks they spilled made the wasps drunk and vicious.
Charlene waited one night until she and Tim were alone and cleaning up before she said, “Tim, I’m pregnant.”
His mouth was open and he seemed to reel, as though he didn’t have enough air. She waited a few seconds, then said more loudly, “I’m pregnant.”
“I heard you,” he said, the slightest tinge of irritation slipping into his voice. She waited for him to say it, and he said it, exactly as she had imagined he would: “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the only one I was with,” she said. “Ever. It’s yours too.”
“I know that.” This time the irritation had shaded off into sadness. “Of course I’ll do what I can. What do you want me to do?”
