Billie Standish Was Here (16 page)

We just bawled—there's no other word loud enough to describe it. Then we joined hands across the table and smiled wet, mottled-face smiles at each other. Then we bawled some more.

I had gotten my future back. It was going to be mine after all.

Miss Lydia and I had not tiptoed anywhere close to the subject since that day the doctor's office told her they'd lost my test.

But sitting there bawling in her kitchen made it pretty clear just how present the question had been in each of our minds.

Miss Lydia was put out with me at first when I blubbered on about how terrified I'd been that I'd have to go away. She said, “I thought we had agreed we could talk about anything?”

“Same to you,” I told her.

We sat and looked at each other accusingly. Finally she sighed and said, “Well then, can we also agree that keeping a secret all to yourself comes with a heavy price tag?”

“Agreed.” It sure had for me.

“And in this case it was a cost neither one of us could really afford?”

I nodded. We'd needed each other and both gone without.

“Okay. Then how about we make a pact right here and now that from now on we just trust each other?”

I swallowed and nodded.

It took a long time that night for sleep to come. I had stayed at Miss Lydia's till my folks came home, then pulled Mama into the bathroom to tell her. At first she blew out an exasperated sigh that raised the hair up off her forehead. Then she shook her head with her lips pressed into a thin line—like this was something I'd chosen to do and it was all to aggravate her. Then she showed me what to do and assured me that yes, it was that uncomfortable and I'd get used to it. I wasn't sure about that part.

Daddy acted so embarrassed later that I knew she had told him. It felt a little like being naked at the doctor's office—there was nothing officially wrong about it, but it felt kind of creepy anyway. I stayed as far away from him as I could.

It was bedtime before I was finally alone to think. First thing, I thanked God even though I was bent double with cramps by then. Then I said ten Hail Marys for good measure. And ten more after that.

I spent some time that night thinking about this new part of my life. I did some multiplying and figured I was going to have over four hundred fifty periods before they stopped. Whether I liked it or said “whoa, Nelly” didn't matter. They would come.

I couldn't imagine that any of the future four-fifty-plus would carry the emotional freight of this first one. But I had never considered the possibility that any of them would. No doubt there were millions of women staring at their bedroom ceilings at that very moment either because their period had come or because it hadn't.

I had entered the “childbearing years.” Every cycle of the moon, my body was going to remind me that it was designed as a baby-making machine.

I felt so much wonder. More than a little disgust, as well. Noble and beastly both at the same time. It was like being a member of a sorority with millions of members who hadn't elected to join.

And I had a whole lot more questions for Miss Lydia.

S
  he had baked gingersnaps the next afternoon that were still warm when I brought her the mail. She was humming, too, and I realized she really had been a lot more worried than she had let on. We sat and munched and made jokes about my day at school for half an hour before I got to the point.

“I gotta ask you about something,” I started.

“Sure, dumplin'. About what?” She was practically giggly.

“Intercourse.”

Well. If you ever want to stop a room dead silent and get some undivided attention, I could suggest using that word. It hadn't sounded all that powerful when Dr. Matassa used it, but it must have just seemed tame in the same conversation as “rape.” Right now Miss Lydia looked like a frog on the business end of a gig.

“You said we could talk about anything.” I could feel myself blushing and it was making me furious.

“We can. We most surely can.” She looked like she was reminding herself to blink. “You just shifted gears on me a little abruptly, that's all.”

We sat with our hands in our laps looking at each other. There was a fair amount of expectation in the air. After a couple of minutes, she cleared her throat. “What exactly was it you wanted to know about—it?”

“Everything!” I blurted out. Then we both let out the kind of nervous chuckle that doesn't signify anything funny has ever happened in the history of the known universe.

I backed up. “No,” I said. “It's just that I never knew—or at least I didn't realize I knew—until that day you first asked about my, um, ‘monthlies,' just how babies got started. Mama kind of skipped over that part.”

“I imagine a lot of mamas have trouble talking about that part. Mine sure did.” Miss Lydia stared into the distance and then nodded like she was making up her mind. “Okay, where do you want to start?”

I shrugged. Sometimes you feel like you don't even know enough to form a halfway decent question.

Her voice got gentle again. “Well, then, let's start at the beginning. How did you think babies got started?”

“I don't know. I can't remember thinking about it much. I guess I'd heard them called gifts from God and little blessings so much—”

“You figured you prayed for them and they came?”

It seemed stupid. Juvenile. “I guess,” I said. “Something like that.”

“Well, Billie Marie, I think that's pretty. I really do. But it doesn't take into account the babies that come by accident, does it?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I knew girls who had babies and weren't married had done something shameful, but I didn't know what. And I never put so much thought into it that I could have explained, but I guess I thought that even God makes mistakes once in a while. He sure seems to have bad aim sometimes, like when somebody good dies young and leaves his kids to grow up poor.”

Miss Lydia didn't laugh at me. She looked like she was turning it over in her head. “And that may be as good an explanation as any,” she said. “I'd never thought about it being a matter of aim before. But when it comes to babies, there's only one that's ever been born without a little human physical commingling.”

I nodded. “I figured that much out recently.”

Miss Lydia looked troubled. “Well, what was it that you thought—he—did to you?” We could talk about probably the most personal thing that existed, but she couldn't bring herself to say her son's name.

I halfway yelled, “Well, I didn't think he was trying to give me a baby!” I had known we couldn't have this talk without Curtis coming into it and I'd thought I was ready. I'd been wrong.

“No! No! That's not it at all.” She chewed on her lip so hard it started to bleed. “Okay. I see. So there was no reason then for you to make the connection between the two. The . . . intercourse . . . and babies.”

“Miss Lydia, what I want to know is why anybody would ever let somebody do that to them even if they wanted a baby real bad. How they could still like them and be nice to them afterward. Why any man who loved his wife would hurt her like that.” I had to stop and take a breath.

She took off her glasses and pressed fingers on either side of her nose like she had a headache. When she looked at me again it looked like her heart was broken. I hoped I hadn't done it.

“Lands, child.” She stared at an empty chair across the room like she was talking to it. “What was done to you, done to me too, never ever should have happened. It wasn't normal, any more than if a soldier came back from the war and shot his whole family just because once he got killing in his head he couldn't get it out.”

“I guess I don't see how there could ever be anything normal about it.”

“But you wouldn't, child, that's what I'm saying. In your instance—” She shook her head.

I wasn't sure she was getting my point. “But how can any man want to hurt somebody like that? I mean, if he loves her?”

“Billie Marie.” I had never seen Miss Lydia hunt so hard for her words. “There's all kinds of love. And love between a man and a woman, the kind that makes them want to get married, is complicated. I guess one of the ways you know you're in that kind of love is when you—want to do that with him.”

“Well then, why not just let him pull off your fingernails one by one with pliers? I guess that'd
really
show him you loved him!” I was getting hot.

“Sugar.” She pressed at her tear ducts again. “It's not supposed to hurt. At least not after the first time. And I don't know any more about what's normal for the first time than you do.”

“So Mr. Jenkins didn't
make
you let him do that? You
wanted
him to?” I hadn't planned to say that. It came out without warning. She had said we could talk about anything, but this was more than she had bargained for, I'm sure.

She closed her eyes for so long I was afraid she had died of shock. I concentrated until I saw the shallow rise and fall of her chest. When she answered me it was like a voice in a dream.

“Yes, child, I will tell you that I did. And it was then and only then—when I realized I wanted him to—that I stopped wishing I had died when my daddy . . . had his way.”

“Not me,” I said. “I'm never gonna want to. I don't care if it means I never get married or have babies or anything. I can't imagine—”

“Oh, but I hope that you will.” She raised her head, opened her eyes, and looked at me straight on. “Because that's how you'll know you got over it. That's when you'll know that you're well. Oh, baby child, I do hope that you will.”

“Nope,” I told her. “You told me I didn't have to get married if I decided not to. Well, if
that's
what it takes to be married, I've already decided.”

“No, no, no, no, no, Billie Marie. Listen to me.” Miss Lydia's face was clenched into a frown, thinking so hard. I leaned forward in my chair. “You're thinking . . . what was done to you and what goes on between a husband and wife who love each other are one and the same, and they're not. That's like saying . . .” She stared past my shoulder then back into my eyes. “. . . an ostrich and a human being are the same because they've each got two legs.” She nodded. “The two have got nothing to do with one another,” she went on. “What was done to you . . .
and
me,” she reminded, “had nothing to do with love whatsoever. The most you could call it was scratching a filthy itch . . . by a couple of jackasses no better than animals.”

I shuddered.

“It's something else entirely when love is in the picture,” she said. Her voice lost its hard edge. “Why . . . in those romance novels your mama favors that's what they
call
 . . . ‘it.' Making love.”

Mama had slapped my hand the one time I picked up one of her paperbacks. Now I guessed I knew why.

“Billie Marie, until you can separate the two—what he did to you and what you might do with someone you love—he's still hurting you. And oh, dear child, I do hope someday it'll stop.”

I finally told her I understood. That didn't mean I was convinced, though, and I'm sure she knew it.

At least the whole man/woman thing was something I didn't need to worry about just now—and after the days I'd had since St. Swithin's, I could do with a break from worrying. School wasn't even quite so bad without that dark cloud hanging over my head ready to let loose and drown me any minute.

A few days after that talk with Miss Lydia, Harlan fell into step beside me as we were coming in from morning recess. I still felt a little funny playing baseball, but like Harlan had pointed out that first day, it would have been downright stupid to spend all that time alone when they wanted me to play.

And I did enjoy it. Karen and Debbie rolled their eyes at each other for my benefit even more often than usual, but their snottiness had lost most of its sting.

“You must be feeling better,” Harlan said.

“Huh?” I hadn't missed a day of school yet.

“Youuu . . . muuuust . . . beeee . . . feeeeeeeliiiiiing . . . betterrrrrrrr.” He got right up in my face like ignorant people do when they're talking to a deaf person.

“I heard you. I just don't know what you meant.”

“Well, let's see. You've quit beating up your belly like it was full of poison and I haven't seen you crying for, oh, a day or two now.”

“Oh.” Oh, yeah. I wasn't invisible anymore. “Yeah, I guess I am feeling better.”

He started to say something else but Karen and Debbie brushed by just then and knocked my ball glove out of the hand that was swinging at my side. As they passed I heard something about boys and girls and those who were half and half.