“Listen,” Willow says. “He’s going to come back. I know it. He’s going to come back.”
Willow struggles to remain calm but it’s clear she’s scared, terrified even. I have never seen Willow afraid before.
From behind the bushes we watch as the man drives past us. We wait together in the shaded foliage for some time before we run back to Willow’s house, back to safety.
We don’t tell anyone what’s happened. Willow makes us promise.
THE next morning, I wake up to find my mother reading the newspaper and drinking coffee at the dinette table. My father is playing golf and my brother is watching cartoons.
Amongst the frozen dinners there are breakfast choices as well: frozen waffles, sausages, and biscuits. I decide on Poppin’ Fresh Biscuits and put them in the oven to bake.
“What are you going to do today?” my mother asks, not lifting her eyes from behind the newspaper.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh,” she says, and continues to read.
I eat breakfast and watch cartoons. At noon I get dressed, and the back door slams behind me as I head for the yard. I get down on all fours and inhale to make myself smaller, still trying to fit through the opening in the fence. Standing up on the other side, I remove the twigs and grass from my stained, bare knees, and trace the impressions left on my skin with a finger.
Sally and Katy are with Willow in her room when I get there. Willow wants to play inside given the humidity. She hates to sweat when it isn’t absolutely necessary.
They want to play blind man’s bluff, and so Willow closes the blinds to make it dark in her room. Small specks of light manage to penetrate through the aluminum slats and I find myself hiding in front of the secret tunnel. I keep staring at it, feeling for the place where he wallpaper ends and then begins again. The darkness scares me and I hold my breath as Willow walks by, blindfolded. I try to escape by rolling on the bed.
She stands up tall and rips the blindfold from her face. “I got you!”
“You did not!” I yell back.
I turn on the light and see the red in Willow’s face. Her anger takes over, and her distorted expression frightens me more than the darkness did.
“I did too. I felt you go by,” she insists.
“You didn’t touch me,” I say, standing up to meet her glaring eyes.
“Yes I did, you liar.”
“You did not, Willow.” But I say this with less conviction, and Willow can sense weakness.
Sally and Katy agree with Willow, and I feel defeated by their judgment.
“I quit!” I yell.
As I close the door behind me it occurs to me that I have nowhere to go. I’m sure no one is at my house. I wish my friends would beg me to stay.
Alone in the hallway I hear another angry voice. I walk closer to the noise, clinging to the wall. Through their open bedroom door, I see Willow’s father holding her mother’s arm and twisting it so that she is forced to go down on her knees. Tears spill from her eyes, and she begs her husband to let go.
“You’re hurting me,” she cries.
“How many times have I told you not to answer me that way? I warned you, but you never listen.”
He is towering over her, spit flying from his mouth as he reprimands her, twisting her like clay. He drags her by the hair across the room to his worktable, to the lamp that is always on.
I back away and then lean in further so I can see.
He smashes her face into the magazine that lies open on the table.
“You never learn,” he says.
He pinches her cheeks between his hands and shakes her hard.
“Do you?”
He rolls the magazine into a tube and swats at her as if she were a fly. She crawls around their bedroom floor trying to break away, one arm raised as a shield, soiling the white wall-to-wall carpet with her misery.
I shut my eyes and shake my head hard as if I can shake the image of Willow’s whimpering mother out of my mind.
When I turn around, Willow is there. Black tears well and fall from her eyes. I look down, unsure of what to do. Neither one of us moves, and then I reach for her the way a mother does for her child. Hugging, we inhale and exhale together, sharing in that moment what connects us. After a few minutes I need to step away, but Willow follows, staying close. Her hair is caught on my earring, and we are stuck together, face to face. I lift my hand to wipe her tears as she works to unravel her hair. When we finally part I take Willow by the hand and lead her to the kitchen. She washes her face.
“Now you know,” she says.
“It’s OK.”
“Swear you won’t tell anyone.”
“I swear.”
“Does it look like I’ve been crying?”
“No. You look fine.”
We walk back down the hallway to her room. I don’t hesitate. I know I will continue to go to Willow’s house. I will continue to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches around her kitchen table, steal and burn report cards as they arrive in the mail, and invent creative ways to hide the marks the boys in the neighborhood leave on her neck.
There is music coming from Willow’s room, and I envision Katy and Sally singing and dancing wildly, holding fake microphones and wearing high heels. I lift my hand to touch my aching ear. I didn’t feel the pain before, but now my ear is throbbing.
We stop right outside of Willow’s bedroom door, and Willow looks deep into my eyes as if to remind me this is our little secret. She opens the door to her room, and I am taken by the festivity, the room bursting with music and dance.
Katy moves towards us and screams over the music, “Where were you?”
Willow doesn’t answer. She boogies into the room as if a question has not been asked.
Within moments, as if nothing has changed, we are all singing and dancing to Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and as I dance, I hold my earlobe between two fingers, rubbing gently, and think about the day Willow and I got our ears pierced. She insisted on going first and sat motionless as the woman at the jewelry counter marked her ear with a black pen. The woman held the gun that would fire a fourteen-karat gold earring into her ear, and I held her hand until it was done.
ALL YOU TOUCH
Isat with my seat reclined as far back as possible, could barely see out the windshield. My left foot was up on the seat next to me. The windows were down; the air, sweet. The smell stirred up the soul—the passion of New Orleans. Music blasted, and Willow and I sang that song by Supertramp, “The Logical Song.” Carefree, we cruised over the expressway past Lakewood South.
“That must be it,” Willow said.
“Where?” I asked.
“Over there, upstairs.” She pointed to a two-story building that appeared abandoned.
“Are you crazy? Who are these guys?”
“I told you. I met them last night.”
“You met them at a bar, Willow. This is crazy.”
I pulled around to the side of the building and parked. The dilapidated structure was behind a gas station, and while this was concerning, I was more intrigued by who lived inside. It was cool we were meeting new people, especially boys, so I took out my purse and stared into the rearview mirror, outlined my lips with dark liner, then applied a coat of shimmering gold gloss.