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“Erica?”
Danny steps out from the shadows of the building as I’m walking to the pet adoption van.
I stop, stunned by the familiarity of his voice.
He looks at me, frowning. “Your hair . . .” He pauses, seeming not to know how to finish the sentence. Then he says, “I’ve got to talk to you.”
“I’ve only got a minute before the van leaves.”
“Then give me a minute.”
“Okay,” I say. I sit down on a bench and look up at him, waiting.
He is wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, with a new pair of boots, and he looks as if he’s fresh from the shower.
“I love you, Erica. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I can’t be with you anymore,” I tell him.
“But Erica, Pups, all I’m asking is a chance,” he pleads. “You’ll see. I’ll even stop drinking if you want me to, if that’s it.”
“It’s too late, Danny. Too much has happened.”
He sits down next to me and tries to pull me to him. A part of me wants to melt into him, but I sit straight, maintaining a distance.
“It can’t be too late,” he whispers.
“It is.”
“Just give it a try,” he says, tears welling in his eyes.
“I’m all dead inside,” I tell him. “I couldn’t try if I wanted to.”
“But . . .”
“I always was there for you, whenever you needed me. And then . . . It’s no use . . . I’ve got to go now,” I tell him, getting up from the bench and walking away.
He follows me to the van. I can feel him watching me as I open the door, then I hear his footsteps crunching down the alley as he walks away. I sit on the upholstered bench opposite the driver’s seat and desperately fight to keep from crying about all that can never be. I try to do my trick of leaving my body and just hovering overhead but I can’t get away from me. All I know to do is hold my breath, tight, to freeze my tears inside.
Sinclair gets in the van, carrying the last animal with him. It is a Siamese cat with a meow like fingernails on a chalkboard. He puts her in a cage, buckles up and starts the engine.
“I really appreciate your making time to help with another mobile pet adoption,” Sinclair says. “I don’t know how in the world we’ll get along without you next year when you’re off to college.”
His words, the warmth of his smile, melt my hardened tears free. I turn away, trying to hide my face from him, but Sinclair is not easy to fool. He shuts off the engine and moves over beside me, sitting with his shoulder touching mine.
“What did I say?”
I shake my head no as I wipe tears away.
“This is about more than missing us when you go away,” he says.
Yes, I nod.
“Danny?”
I shrug my shoulders.
“Look. Erica, I see that things are different for you since you’ve come back from having the flu, or whatever. I don’t want to be nosy, and you don’t have to tell me a thing. But sometimes it helps to talk about things.”
I nod.
“Remember that night we sat in your driveway, and I told you how I wasn’t welcome with my family at their holiday parties?”
“I remember.”
“That meant a lot to me—that you listened to me and didn’t judge me.”
I wipe my face again and try to control my breathing.
“I can listen.” Sinclair says.
I nod.
We sit like that, shoulder to shoulder, hearing the animals shuffle around in their cages, and the grating sound of the cat, until Sinclair looks at his watch.
“We’ll be late.” he says, and gets back in the driver’s seat.
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When we return and unload the animals, I stop to say goodnight to Beauty.
“We should take her on the next trip,” Sinclair says. “She’s healthy now, and looking good—just about eligible for adoption.”
“Beauty?”
“Yeah. It’s way past time for her owners to claim her.”
“They shouldn’t be allowed to get her back . . .”
Sinclair sticks his fingers through the fence and Beauty licks them.
“Well, you know, she was their property. If they’d come for her, we’d have had to turn her over.”
“That makes me sick!”
“Well . . . they’re not claiming her, so we don’t need to worry about that. And she’ll make a great pet for someone.”
Lots of animals I’ve been very attached to have been adopted out. That’s the goal here. But Beauty? I’d never even considered the possibility.
One thing I know, my mom would never go for another dog. I’ve tried that before.
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On the way home, Sinclair tells me about his niece who went into a deep depression after she’d had an abortion.
“I haven’t had an abortion, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Well then, how about this . . . ”
And he tells me about how difficult it was for his friend in high school to admit she was a lesbian, even to herself.
“Actually, it was an awful time in my life, when I was trying to accept that I was different from the man my parents thought they’d raised. I was so tired of living in the closet—living a lie, and scared
to death to come out.”
“It’s not that, either,” I say.
“Well, then, is it AIDS, is it pregnancy, is it drugs, is it parental divorce, is it worry over school, is it . . .”
“Stop!” I say, smiling.
“Hangnails, ingrown toenails, pimples or pox?”
When he lets me out, Sinclair says, “Seriously, if you want to talk I’ll listen. Life can be so hard sometimes . . .”
“Thanks.” I say, getting my keys out and waving to him from the porch.
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Mom and Dad are just opening cartons of Chinese food.
“Some of your favorites,” Dad says. “Come eat with us.”
I wash my hands at the sink and sit down.
“Where’s Rocky?”
“Spending the night at Gramma’s,” Mom smiles. “That’s how we can get away with eating Chinese and not having to listen to her whine.”
As much as the three of us like Chinese food, our dinner together feels somehow tense and tasteless. It doesn’t surprise me when, after I’ve set my fork on my empty plate. Dad tells me that he and Mom want to talk with me.
Man oh man, it seems like everyone has chosen tonight to want to talk with me. First Danny, then Sinclair, and now my parents.
“Have you thought about what you’ll do if you turn up pregnant?” Dad says.
Nothing like coming straight to the point, I guess.
“Mostly I just think I’ll figure that out when the time comes.”
“When do you think the time will come?” Mom asks.
I look at Mom questioningly.
“Well . . . are you late?”
“A little. But they told me at the hospital that it wasn’t uncommon even to skip a period, or lots of periods, after a rape.”
“I’m sure that’s true. I just wonder if you’ve given it any thought.”
“Well . . . I’d probably have an abortion. I mean, Joey’s baby?”
“I hope that’s what you’d decide,” Dad says, studying the pattern
on his dinner plate.
“Or, adoption, if you’d have bad feelings about an abortion,” Mom says.
I sigh. “You know, I really would rather not think about this unless I have to.”
“Well . . . we’re just worried about you, Erica. You seem so withdrawn . . .”
“Your mother and I thought it might be a good idea just to talk about all of the possibilities . . .”
“Dad . . .”
“Okay. E.J. Okay. Just don’t shut us out.”
“I won’t. I’m trying not to,” I say, giving each of them a kiss on the cheek and then going into the bathroom to run the water for the scalding hot bath I’ve been taking every morning and every night since Joey made me so dirty.
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I’ve got a lot on my mind. My time is late, and I’m never late. I know what they said at the hospital, about it being pretty common to have your whole cycle messed up after a rape, but what if I am pregnant? God. I don’t want Joey’s baby! I don’t want any baby, but the idea of having a baby with Joey’s genetic make-up? No way do I want to add any more of those genes to the next generation!
And then there’s the AIDS test. HIV they call it, but what’s the difference? If you’re HIV positive, eventually you get AIDS. And the hearing is coming up. I dread testifying at the hearing. I thought I’d have a choice, like if we dropped the charges then I wouldn’t have to go through all that. But the lawyer told me that because Joey’s on parole I could get subpoenaed anyway. And then, after the hearing, maybe there’ll be a trial.
I want Joey to stay locked up but I get all sweaty just thinking about being placed on the witness stand and having to testify in public, and then being asked all kinds of embarrassing questions by a defense lawyer. It doesn’t seem fair—first there’s the horrible experience of being raped, and then there’s another horrible experience of a trial. But what can I do? I’ve always had plans and goals, but right now I’m sort of doing that one day at a time thing.
And speaking of plans and goals, I’m so far behind in school it scares me to even think about it. And another thing I’m scared to think about is Beauty’s going to be adopted out.
Things are weird at home, too. My parents are always watching me. My mom and dad are always totally serious, and sort of sad, all the time. My dad, who was such a big joker, hardly ever jokes around anymore. On the other hand, Rochelle hardly ever even looks at me, and when she does, it’s like I’m a stranger. I know she was scared to death that night, as scared as I was, I guess. But now it’s like I’m invisible, or something. I don’t know which is worse, feeling invisible, or feeling like I’m being watched all the time.
It’s weird at school, too. I feel like everyone is watching me, knowing I’ve been raped, whispering. April says no one even knows, and that I’m being too sensitive. It seems like I’m either too sensitive to everything around me, or I’m numb living somewhere out on Pluto. I can’t find a balance.
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On the day before the hearing, where April, Rocky and I will all have to testify, I’m so nervous I can’t even think right. A lawyer from the district attorney’s office has talked with us about every detail of that night with Joey. He’s told us what to expect from the defense lawyer and even had us practice answering questions.
Some of the questions get me really angry, like didn’t I always secretly wish Joey was my boyfriend, and wasn’t I wearing something that would reasonably cause Joey to think I wanted sex—questions that could make the virgin Mary sound like a slut. No wonder I’m all shaky.
It’s bad enough we had to go through all that stuff in the D.A.’s office. Now we have to say it all again at the hearing, in a courtroom, in front of a bunch of people, including Joey. I don’t want to do it, but I can’t figure a way out. April says she’ll just pretend she’s an actress in a movie, but I’m not sure I can do that. Lately I’ve had a hard time floating overhead, staying detached. Lately I’ve had to live with myself—no escape.
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Almost everyone is gone from the Humane Society. Sinclair is still in his office upstairs, and the caretaker is in his apartment across the alley from the back parking lot. The night-shift officers are out in their trucks. I check on a cat that was spayed this morning. It is quiet tonight in the infirmary, orderly and clean.
I stand facing the locked double doors that lead to the off-limits area. I know where the keys are kept. I know how to mix the solution based on an animal’s weight. I know it would be quick and painless. No hearings. No late periods. No HIV tests. No eyes watching, voices whispering, none of that, no more for me. Ten steps away, the keys are in the can that looks like furniture polish, in the bottom drawer of Dr. Franz’s desk. Dazed, motionless, I stand, staring at the locks on the doors, imagining a timeless peace.
I’m roused by a frantic barking, different than the barking that is always background for my work here. This is trouble barking, hurt barking. I run to the kennels and see Beauty, struggling to get through the fence, yelping, howling, making sounds I’ve never heard come from any dog before. All the other dogs are stirred now, adding their own racket to the clamor of the night.
As soon as Beauty sees me, she lies down, resting her head on her paws, suddenly calm. Sinclair stands looking down from the balcony outside his office.
“What was that about?”
“I have no idea.” I say, reaching through the gate and petting Beauty. She licks my hand and wags her tail. Her coat is thick now—no more mange or bare spots.
“Everything okay in there?” the caretaker calls through the back gate.
“I guess so,” Sinclair says.
I sign out and go home. Rochelle is on the phone to Jessica, giggling. My mom is at the desk paying bills, and my dad is washing the dinner dishes. I imagine for a moment how this scene would have changed with a phone call announcing my death, requesting that one of them identify my body, the sorrow and confusion that would have surrounded their memories of me. I apologize silently to my unknowing family—I’m sorry for even thinking such a thing.
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Was it coincidence that Beauty caused such a commotion in the kennels just as I was being drawn to the double doors and oblivion?
Or did she sense something and reach out to me, as I had reached out to her when she was so close to giving up? Two dogs have saved my life, first Kitty, when she attacked Joey, and now Beauty.
In a flash of clarity I know I will become a vet. I’ll get past the aftermath of the rape and the loss of dreams I shared with Danny. I’m not sure how, but I will.