Hot Little Hands (9 page)

“Smile for the camera,” I'll say, capturing him in my viewfinder. “And I won't tell my parents about what went wrong.”

D
r. Carvden had been using the word
abuse
for months before Ramona said it for the first time.

“It just makes me feel gross,” Ramona told her. “Like I'm damaged goods.”

“You're not the damaged one,” the therapist said. “You're someone else's victim. This isn't your shameful secret, it's his.”

It was the end of the session and, as usual, Ramona didn't want to pull herself up out of the chair and leave.

“I feel like I'm an adult in here and a kid in the rest of the world,” she said as the older woman wrote out a receipt. “I feel like in here, we're grown-ups or equals or friends.”

“You could think of me as a friend you see once a week,” Dr. Carvden suggested. “Someone who lives far away, or goes to a different school. I'm still right here for you, though.”

Outside in the car her mother was listening to a talk-radio show about books.
If the author intended me to fall in love with the character, she wouldn't have named him Brick,
an irate caller from Brisbane was saying as Ramona climbed in.

“How was therapy?” her mum asked, the way other mothers of ninth-grade girls might ask,
How was play rehearsal?
or,
How was athletics?

“Okay,” Ramona said, buckling up as her mother put the car in drive. “We talked about school, and the accident again.”

“Oh, that's good,” her mother said. “Good to talk about those things.”

“She said I'm getting over the PTSD from the accident.”

“God, you'd think someone would let me in. What are they in such a rush for, anyway? To get to a red light?”

Ramona looked straight through the windshield at the painted lines on the road. “And then we talked about the sexual abuse that happened after the accident. Remember? When I had to take baths, and Tony used to come in and dry me afterward? That really sucked.”

There, she had said it. The word—two syllables, five letters long—that Dr. Carvden had been using to her face every week for three months now. There, she had used it, in front of her mother, who was watching the road, pulling in and out of lanes on Bell Street, extending her index finger to press down the turn signal without taking her hands off the wheel. Her mother, whose idea it had been for Ramona to see a therapist after an electric heater had caught fire last June and burned a red splotch into her leg, causing her to have nightmares for weeks, and to compulsively check every electrical outlet in the house before she left for school each morning. Her mother, who, when driving her to her first session with Dr. Carvden, had joked, “I'm glad you've agreed to talk to someone, but therapy can do funny things to people. Just remember: You haven't been abducted by aliens, you weren't Marilyn Monroe in a past life, and you never had a drunk old uncle with wandering hands.” Her mother, who was silent the whole way home, until they pulled into the driveway, the second story of the house blotting out the gold of the setting sun, when she stopped the car and said, “Well, then. I hope everyone's going to be happy with spag bol for dinner. I didn't have time to get to Safeway because I had to go get Steve from swimming practice, drop him at home, and then turn around to come get you. There's nothing in the house. Nothing. Just a packet of spaghetti, and some mince meat in deep freeze.”

Steve was asleep in front of a rerun of
M*A*S*H
when Ramona came into the living room. He was lying on the couch with one arm behind his head, still wearing his glasses, and Ramona leaned over to take the remote control from his hand.

His eyes flicked open. “Hey. What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” She aimed the remote at the TV. “I just want to see if
The Simpsons
is on.”

“I was watching something.”

“You were sleeping.”

Steve sat up and pressed his glasses to his face. “I was watching
M*A*S*H.
” He was raising his voice and Ramona, aware of their proximity to the kitchen, knew it wasn't worth the risk of attracting their mother's attention. She handed him the remote, and he changed it back to Channel Seven.

“Why are you watching that, anyway?” Ramona sank down onto the other couch. “I thought you were a pacifist.”

“I am.” Steve lay back and yawned. “Can you fuck off and leave me alone?”

Ramona felt an itchy sensation in her eyes and a whole batch of tears mobilizing behind her sinuses. “Don't talk to me like that,” she said, her voice cracking on the word “talk.” Steve turned his head to look at her. “I've had a really fucked-up day, okay? I basically failed an algebra test. Plus, Tony sexually abused me last year.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think Mum knew about it, too. Unconsciously anyway. That's why she was talking about sending me away to boarding school.”

“You were begging her to send you to boarding school.”

She shrugged. “Whatever.”

Steve looked at the remote in his hand and then flung it across the room toward her. It hit the seatback and fell onto the couch next to her thigh. He stood up. “You're really fucked up, you know that? Watch the bloody
Simpsons,
then.”

“Thanks,” Ramona said brightly as he left the room. She pulled herself off the couch and took his spot in front of the TV, where the seat cushions were still warm and flat from his weight.

Her mum had made dinner. Later Tony would wash the dishes. It was Ramona's job to dry them and put them away, Steve's job to set the table before the meal, and Lockie, the youngest, had to carry the plates of food from the stove, where their mother was dishing out, to the table, where the others were already waiting, hungry and quiet.

Lockie was the only one talking, chatting on about a project he was doing for school, a “roots project,” which had him drawing up a family tree that went back four generations and including whatever basic biographical details he could find.

“How come you don't know where Dad's father was during the war?” he asked as their mother sat down.

“Your dad never talked about that sort of thing with him. Apparently your Uncle Rob asked about the war once and your grandfather got out the wooden spoon. It was the only time he ever did it.”

“What spoon?”

“It means he bashed him,” Steve explained to Lockie. He sucked up a piece of spaghetti until it disappeared through his pursed lips.

“Steve!” their mother said.

“Well, it's true.”

“So there's a history of abuse in our family,” Ramona said.

“What history?” Lockie asked.

“Haven't you heard? Tony abused me last year.”

“Shut the fuck up, Ramona,” Steve said.

“Steve,” their mother said.

“She's a liar,” Steve said.

“She's in therapy,” their mother said. “Now, pass the salad.”

Tony sat next to their mum, looking tired and worn out as usual, putting food in his mouth, then twisting more spaghetti around his fork before he had finished chewing that mouthful.

“Can I put this in my roots project?” Lockie asked.

“Sure,” Ramona told him.

“No,” her mum said. “Ramona, everyone at this table has had a hard day. You're not the only one alive in the world, you know.”

Steve smirked as the toe of his shoe found her ankle under the table.

“Ow,” she said. “He kicked me. Mum! Tony.” Their mother tossed the salad and said nothing. Tony, his head still bowed over his bowl, raised his eyes briefly to look at Ramona, then turned back to his food. Tears filled her eyes and the table blurred as she pushed her bowl away. “Can I be excused?” she asked.

“Yes,” her mother said.

Ramona ran up the stairs, crying, but secretly pleased that she wouldn't have to dry the dishes that night.

In her room, she opened her laptop, hoping to find Kirsty or Minyung or one of the popular girls online. Instead it was just Danielle and Skye, chatting about the turkey slap incident on
Big Brother.

That girls a whore,
Danielle wrote.

Yeah they always say they forget theres cameras but as if u rlly would

Totally

Hows therapi? ;),
Skye asked her.

Ok. Now Im depressed

Y?

Ramona typed her answer and hesitated before pressing
ENTER
.
I found out I was sexually abused

R u serious? Like raped or something?

No but kinda like that

By who?

My stepdad

That sux!

Dont say anything

Omg I never would

Me neither :)

Are u still gonna have ur slumber party?

I dunno

By the time she got to school the next day, most of the girls in her year already knew.

“Hey,” they all said. “Are you okay?”

They gathered around her locker, watching her pull out her books. This was exactly how they'd been two years earlier when Amber's mother had died of leukemia: a crowd of mourners with big sorrowful eyes, who stood around exchanging hugs and sad meaningful expressions.

It was like that all day. Even the girls who didn't know what had happened could sense a shift occurring in the social structure at Kenley Girls. Seats were being switched, and notes passed in class, and everyone knew for certain that Ramona MacKenzie was riding the elevator to a new floor in the tower of popularity.

In PE, Mrs. Parker started the lesson by telling the girls to run two laps around the oval. Ramona raised her hand.

“I'm not feeling well. Is it okay if I sit out?” The teacher extended an arm toward her, her palm opened expectantly. “What?” Ramona asked.

“Where's your doctor's note? You either bring me a note or you run with the others.”

“But Miss.” Minyung stepped forward. “She isn't feeling well.”

“Yeah,” Kirsty agreed, one hand on her hip. “She's got personal problems.”

“Yeah,” some other girls joined in.

“You can't make her run.”

“She's having family issues.”

“Yeah, Miss! It's not fair.”

“Fine, fine.” Mrs. Parker held up her clipboard. “No one has to do laps today. Okay? But I want you all on the volleyball court in thirty seconds. Ready? Thirty, twenty-nine—” The teacher blew her whistle and the girls scrambled toward the court.

“Thanks,” Ramona said as Kirsty came up to run beside her.

“No worries.” Kirsty held her tongue over her braces as she smiled. “I mean, you didn't, like, go through horrible abuse to have a cow like Parker force you to do something you don't want to.”

“Totally.”

The volleyball courts came into view and Ramona realized that, for the first time ever, she was going to be picked first for someone's team.

At lunchtime, a few of the girls kept watch behind the gym while Ramona crouched beneath the windows and called Adil on her mobile.

“Hey,” he said. He'd picked up after one ring. “I was just thinking about you.”

“Oh really?” she said, as quietly as she could. “Do tell?”

“I don't know.” He sounded embarrassed, and Ramona could picture him kicking at something on the ground, a small, almost undetectable smile on his lips. “I guess I was just thinking about how nice it was to, like, hold hands with you at the movies the other night. I mean, I know my fingers were all greasy from the popcorn, but you were terribly gracious about not complaining and, you know, letting me have my way with your fingers in the dark on the armrest for a few minutes.”

“Well,” she said, “maybe I did complain about it. Just not to you. Maybe I complained about it to my friends.”

“Yeah, you see I thought of that, but I've got it covered. I asked my sources and they told me you were appalled by the shoes I was wearing and the fact that I had to ask you to lend me fifty cents for my ticket. But none of them said anything about popcorn or butter or hand-holding at all.”