She tried, “Do you remember how you got from your car to the woods?”
“No. The doctors said that amnesia is normal after a significant blow to the head.” She had finished her vodka. She motioned towards Faith glass. “I know what it looks like when someone is pretending to drink.”
Faith slid her glass toward Callie. She knew what it looked like when someone was an alcoholic.
“I remember waking up in the woods.” Callie tossed back her head. Half the liquid disappeared. “I woke up several times, actually. I don’t know if it was the head wound or the shit he was forcing me to drink, but I kept falling asleep, waking up, falling asleep.”
“What did he make you drink?”
“Whatever it was, it made me absolutely stoned. I was delirious. I couldn’t control my thoughts. One minute I was terrified, the next minute I was floating in the ether. I couldn’t move my arms and legs. I kept forgetting where I was, even who I was.”
Faith thought that sounded a hell of a lot like Rohypnol. “Did you recognize the taste?”
“Sure, it tasted like piss and sugar. I prefer this.” Callie raised the glass in a toast, then finished the vodka in one go. The alcohol seemed to catch up with her all at once. Her eyes turned glassy. She had trouble placing the empty glass flat on the counter.
Faith reached over to help.
“You know, it’s bittersweet that Rod’s downfall was the thing that made me fall in love with him in the first place.” She explained, “He always needed to control me. He couldn’t just leave me there to die. He had to keep coming back. Three or four times, I would wake up and he was there.”
“Did you see him?” Faith asked. “Did you see his face?”
“No, he was too careful. But I could sense it was him.” She slowly shook her head side-to-side. “He always loved watching me. When we first met, I thought it was unbearably sexy. I would go to the café or the library and see this tall, strapping cowboy hiding behind the corner with this intense look on his face.”
Faith watched her bring the glass to her lips, then frown to find it empty.
The bartender had disappeared into the kitchen. Will sat at the bar drinking a Coke, staring into the mirror.
“When you’re that young, you think that kind of behavior is desperately romantic. Now, I realize he was stalking me.” She gave Faith a knowing look. “I figure it takes about three months of fucking you before a man really shows you how shitty he is.”
Faith pushed her back into the woods. “What else do you remember?”
She lazily rubbed her eyes. The vodka had made her loose. “Shadows. Leaves falling. The sound of Rod’s cowboy boots getting caught in the mud. It rained quite a lot while I was out there. I’m sure he planned it that way?”
She had asked a question Faith did not know how to answer.
The hair tie. The woods. The Gatorade. The paralysis.
Callie said, “I remember having this dream that he was brushing my hair. He started crying, then I was crying. It was so strange, because I felt at peace, you know? I was ready to give up. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. And the best part is, it’s all his fault. He really, really fucked up.”
“How?”
“Because he raped me.” She shrugged as if it was nothing. “He’d done it before. I mean, my God, how many times? So boring, Rod. Get a new playbook.”
Faith knew her matter-of-fact tone was a coping mechanism.
“He waited until it was dark. I couldn’t see his face. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel my skin. But my body started—” She raised herself up on the rungs of the barstool, then let herself down, then raised herself again, simulating the motions of sex. “And I remember thinking, ‘this is the last time you are going to do this to me, Rodney Phillip Zanger.’”
Callie shrugged it off again, but she was looking for the bartender.
Faith said, “Callie, what—”
“Whatelsewhatelsewhatelse?” She slurred the words together. “I spent fifteen years of my marriage in training for the what else. Taking a punch, learning how to pretend that my ribs weren’t fractured or my collarbone wasn’t broken or my ass wasn’t bleeding.”
Her hand went to her mouth, as if she’d said something comically inappropriate.
Faith asked, “What else?”
“He finished raping me. He made me drink the stuff. I swallowed it. He left. I threw it up.” She smiled. “Thank you, nasty teenage cunts at my boarding school, for teaching me how to vomit on command.”
Faith’s throat felt like she had swallowed fire.
“I must’ve sloughed out the lining of my stomach, that’s how hard I threw up.”
The pride in her voice was devastating.
“It was such a weird color.” Her hand sloppily brushed the front of her blouse. “I had to get rid of my clothes. I mean, not that I’d want to keep them, but it looked like one of those guys from that group where they dance and there’s drums—what’s that group? The one where they’re blue? They played Vegas?”
“Blue Man Group?”
“Right.” Callie searched for the bartender again. “I looked like I was gang banged by the Blue Man Group.”
She was laughing, but Faith could see the tears in her eyes.
“Anyway, I puked it all out. I stood up. I started walking. Stumbling, really. My legs were like spaghetti. I found the road. This nice couple picked me up. My God, I felt bad about that. I looked a mess, and they were so worried. I tried to pay them afterward, a sort of reward for saving me, and they refused, and I kept pushing, and finally, they had me donate the money to their church building fund.” She told Faith, “It’s a 501(c)3, but I didn’t take the tax deduction. Please don’t tell anyone. My career would be over.”
Faith tried to swallow the burning in her throat. She asked, “Did Rod ever admit to you
