The Last Bridge Page 12

  Addison nodded and walked toward me with his arms up in surrender as I backed away.

  “You, Alex. You are his mother.”

  FOURTEEN

  “SO WHAT IS WALKING the plank?” Addison asked the next morning as I searched the room for my mother’s pearls. He was stretched across the bed with his arms behind his head and the sheet loosely draped over his hips. He looked like he was posing for a painting.

  I could feel him dripping out of me and wanted to take a shower and get back to the house before they came home.

  “It’s this stupid game my father makes us play.” I looked under the pillow I had slept on. “Can you help me find those pearls? Mom’s going to kill me if I lose them.”

  “Did you check under here?” he said, as he flipped the sheet off, exposing himself. I didn’t want to look. I had seen one other penis in my life and it was my father’s. I had no desire to compare them.

  “Addison, come on.” I felt the nausea of regret. What was I doing?

  “So much for pillow talk.” He sat up, pulled on his jeans, and made a halfhearted attempt to get me to smile, but gave up and went to the kitchen.

  I followed him. “Promise me you’ll look for them. I should get back.” The pieces of me did not fit back together smoothly. My dress was wrinkled and half-zipped, my underpants were missing, and I couldn’t remember if I had worn a slip. I had woken up in another body, a different model with controls and switches no one had warned me about.

  “You’re so …” He kissed me before I could stop him. He reached for my hand and put it on his crotch. “See what you do to me?”

  I pulled away. “I have to go.” I walked to the door and stopped. “At the far end of our property over by Rucker’s Creek, there’s a crack where the land splits. The ravine is deep and rocky and goes for about a mile. There’s a rope bridge that spans the crack that’s been there my whole life. My dad and your dad built it before my parents were married. You can climb across it and get to this sweet patch of wood and grass and a small hunting shack.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Walking the plank, I’m telling you about walking the plank.” I looked at him. All I saw were his flaws, the ragged way his hair fell in his eyes, the small pimples on the back of his neck, and the dirty soles of his feet. How could I have let him touch me like that?

  “Dad takes us there to camp. The game is getting across. The bridge is old and there are some gaps. We draw straws; the one with the shortest straw gets blindfolded and has to cross on their own.”

  “That’s dangerous.”

  “No pain, no gain,” I said.

  “What’s the point?”

  “Dad says it builds character, plus it’s thrilling to watch your loved ones quiver in fear. The reward for getting across, aside from the obvious one of being alive, is that you get first dibs on searching for the treasure.”

  “Treasure?”

  “Dad claims there’s money buried somewhere but I don’t believe it. Jared and Wendy have never found anything.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ve never made it across. I’m petrified. I tried once and didn’t make it. Dad punished me but it was worth the bruises not to have to go. After that Jared and I worked out a system: if I pulled the short straw he would go instead of me. We only had to do it once.”

  “Jared doesn’t mind?”

  “He hates it but he said he’d rather be blindfolded than to watch someone else cross.”

  “Is that the only way to get over?”

  “I think the land connects again on the Palmers’ property—and you could navigate back to the patch but we never do. That would defeat the purpose.”

  “Right.” He put his water glass on the counter.

  I had to say something. I had to be clear how it would be. I took a breath as I faced the broad stretch of driveway that connected our house to his. “If you tell anyone what happened, I’ll kill you.”

  I reached for the latch as I felt him moving toward me. He put his hand on my cheek and turned me back to face him. “I won’t tell anyone,” he whispered in my ear as his hands reached for my breasts. His mouth found mine before I could process what was happening.

  We kissed for the last time.

  “All clean?”

  My father was standing in the doorway of my bedroom when I came out of the bathroom in my robe. I had scrubbed my skin raw trying to remove the memory of Addison. Steam billowed around me as I stood dead still in the hallway with my brush in my hand.

  “You look different.” He inventoried my body like a landowner surveying his property. He was most dangerous when he was intensely sober. “You missed the fun. Jared almost didn’t make it.” If he were an animal, he would have sniffed me, checking to see if someone else had marked his territory.

  I looked down. His boots were covered with mud. Late spring rains had made the area slick. The slope to the rope bridge was slippery when it got wet. The first and only time I tried to cross, I slid and fell while blindfolded. The distance of the fall from standing to the feel of cold mud against my cheek felt longer than the sum of all the moments I was captive to my father’s wandering hands. That was when I discovered there were worse things than being touched.

  “Jared!” I called out, without taking my eyes off my father.

  “I sent him to the store with your mother and Wendy.”

  I waited for him to make his move just as I had since the first time he pulled me on his lap and put my hand in his pants and said, “Touch me like this. Don’t look at me while you’re doing it.”

  I was seven.

  “I hope there’s hot water,” he said, as he came toward me and pinched my cheek. I winced and stepped aside as he unbuckled the straps of his overalls. I fled to my room, closed the door, and lodged my desk chair under the knob.

  The afternoon sun was riding full and high, beaming a white hot light into our bedroom. I looked around as if I were seeing it for the first time. Wendy’s bed was neatly made, with two heart-shaped pillows resting side by side. Above it was a bulletin board where she taped pictures of models she thought she looked like and articles from magazines on how to be the best damn girl she could be.

  Wendy’s desk was empty except for her math book and an open issue of this month’s Mademoiselle. Her side of the closet was full of neatly pressed dresses and coordinated skirts and blouses. Her clothes took up most of the rod, except for three hangers that held my warm-weather dress, a cold-weather one, and my dress for the summer dance that Nell gave to me. It was hers from last year.

  My bed was bare except for a white flat pillow and an old red and green Christmas afghan folded at the foot for when I got cold from the drafty window above my head.

  I reached under my bed and found the small duffel bag I used whenever I was allowed to sleep over at Nell’s, which wasn’t very often. I put it on the bed and went to the dresser Wendy and I shared. I took out my underwear and socks and as many pairs of jeans and shirts as I could fit. I left just enough room for my two sketchbooks: the crappy one I carried with me every day and the beautiful embossed book Addison gave me. The crappy one was in my schoolbag. Addison’s was hidden in the barn. I would have to get it before the dance.

  In the back of my closet, under a broken floorboard, I had $234 hidden. I started saving it the night he first touched me. Every chance I got, I stole what I could from him; sadly, it wasn’t very much.

  I stuffed the money in the side pocket of the duffel and slid it back under the bed. Tomorrow was the dance. I would get Mom to let me stay at Nell’s. Dad would get drunk and pass out after they got home. This was the best chance I had. I was going to take it.

  “You look …” Addison was sitting at the kitchen table when I came down the stairs dressed for my last night with my family. I was wearing Nell’s pale lavender dress, which fell above my ankles in a sweeping bell skirt. The bodice was fitted with a scooped neck and a small bow that rested at the tip of my breastbone. My
mother lent me a pair of white-heeled sandals that she said hurt her feet.

  “They’ll look better on you anyway. Your father hates it when I look too pretty,” she’d said as she crawled around the perimeter of her bed looking for the mate. She offered to get me the pearls, but I told her they would be too much. I would be gone by daylight; now I would never have to explain what happened to them.

  “Shhhh,” I said, looking upstairs, where everyone else was finishing getting ready. This was the first time Addison and I had been alone since we had slept together. He had spent the afternoon with my dad working in the barn—which had precluded me from getting the book. I was hoping to get it before we left.

  As the day unfolded, I thought of nothing else but how I would get out of Wilton. I had gotten permission to sleep at Nell’s and was planning on sneaking out in the middle of the night and taking her car. I would leave her a note and promise to pay her back when I got settled. My plan was to drive as far as I could and lie about everything else.

  Jared and Wendy came down next. Jared was wearing a suit my mother got at Goodwill. In spite of its poor fit, he looked handsome. His chestnut hair was slicked back and smooth. He winked at me when he caught me smiling.

  Wendy wore a slim, straight black dress she had also bought at Goodwill but had altered to suit her figure. She wore black stockings and a pair of plain black pumps. Her hair was pulled up in a French knot. Her schooling in magazine fashion paid off, as she looked like she belonged on a runway in Paris rather than at the Wilton Jaycees’ summer dance at the Elks Lodge.

  Mom wore the dress she always wore for weddings, which had gotten baggy as her stomach problems had gotten worse over the years. She doused herself in the Charlie perfume Dad bought her every Christmas. Wendy tried to get her to put on some lipstick, but she wiped it off when Dad told her it made her look cheap.

  In his midnight-blue funeral/wedding suit, my father looked like he was wearing someone else’s clothes.

  “Let’s get this show on the road,” he said, as he came down the stairs. He had small dabs of white tissue on his face from shaving. He was smiling and sober and happy. Every year the summer dance brought out this kinder man. And like the spell cast on Cinderella, it was beautiful while it lasted. I imagined this was the man my mother loved.

  “I’m going to get a dance with each of my girls tonight,” he said, as he peeled the tissue paper from his face. “You two are on your own,” he said, pointing to Addison and Jared.

  “Good, because I wouldn’t be caught dead dancing with my sisters,” Jared said in disgust.

  “What about a dance with your mother?” Mom asked, with just a hint of hurt in her voice.

  “What kind of a pussy do you think he is?” Dad answered.

  Wendy and Jared rode with Addison. I stashed my duffel in the back of his truck and figured I would grab it on my way home with Nell. There was no time to get the book from the barn. I squeezed in between Dad and Mom and took what I thought was my last ride in that red pickup truck.

  The theme of the party was Starlight Serenade, which basically meant the ceiling was decorated with twinkling foil-covered stars cut from shirt boxes. The refreshment table was covered with silver glitter that left a trail on everything that touched it. The esteemed Wilton community spent most of the evening either dancing to songs spun by Hal White, future sheriff, or standing by the punch picking silver glitter out of their food.

  I found Nell instantly. We stood together and chatted, not expecting anyone other than our fathers to ask us to dance. The evening was warm and humid with a threat of storms later. I had checked the weather earlier and was worried that my amateur driving skills would not be a good match for an Ohio downpour.

  My father danced with Wendy and my mother between taking long pulls from the silver flask he kept in his breast pocket. He made periodic stops to the truck to refill it from the fifth he kept under his seat.

  From the way he was stumbling I figured he had an hour left in him and then he would have to go home.

  If I didn’t know any better I would have sworn Addison was getting paid for dancing with every available (and not so available) woman in Wilton. He periodically looked over at me and nodded or waved; I shrugged it off.

  Jared was with his jock buddies over in the corner. They stood in a clump with their arms crossed, acting like they’d rather push tackling sleds across the floor than dance with a girl.

  I was anxious to leave before I lost my nerve. It was strange I would pick the only day of the year when my family seemed normal. Stranger still, I was having second thoughts as I watched Mom and Wendy dance together and saw my mother laugh for the first time since that day on the phone when she spoke to Addison’s father.

  Dad went out to smoke with a few of his friends. Before he left he looked at me and made the shape of a gun with his thumb and index finger and then pulled the trigger.

  “So how about a dance?” Addison had slipped up next to me.

  I shook my head. “Bad idea.”

  “He’ll be gone for at least ten minutes. Come on, one dance.”

  “What’s the matter? Did you run out of women?” I asked.

  Addison took my hand and pulled me to the floor. We weaved in and out of families, couples, and the odd pairing of girlfriends dancing until he found a spot in the center of the room under the twirling disco ball.

  He stopped short and I tripped into his arms. He held me there by putting his right arm around my waist and interlocking his left hand with my right. “Sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns,” he said, smiling.

  “So I’m a bull?”

  “A beautiful one.”

  I tried to pull away. “What if my dad …?”

  “I’m watching the door; don’t worry.”

  “I love this song,” I said, surprising myself at my own enthusiasm. Nell found the tape in her father’s music cabinet. We used to lie in her bed and listen to it over and over again; we didn’t know the lyrics or even the name of the song; we liked the way the sound pulled you away from yourself. We liked the message about wanting to stop the world to be alone with one person and the chorus that promised things would get better.

  “Me too,” he whispered, as he leaned forward and made up his own lyrics and sang them in my ear.

  I laughed; it was the height of cheese to sing lyrics in someone’s ear. Addison laughed too and spun me around. I opened my eyes and focused on his smile, the thin cool lips, his straight ivory teeth, and the laugh lines framing his mouth like quotation marks. He held me as if the lyrics were true.

  “Let’s go.” My father’s voice sliced through the music as his thick hand grabbed my wrist and tore me away from Addison. “You dance with me and no one else.” His words sprayed spit in my ear.

  The crowd parted around us, leaving Addison, my father, and me in the center of a widening circle. My heart raced as the electronic beat of the music vibrated the floor.

  “I can explain,” Addison said.

  “You couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, could you?”

  My toes felt like they would snap from the pressure of all my body weight pressing down on them. Why hadn’t I worn flats? How was I going to run in high heels?

  My father pushed Addison.

  “Dad, don’t!” I said. Addison’s face drained of color and his jaw slackened like he had been punched instead of pushed.

  My father pulled me by the hair out of the lodge. I struggled to keep my balance as he twisted my hair in his fist. If I could have scalped myself to get away from him, I would have.

  He slammed the exit door open so hard it swung back on its hinges and banged against the side of the building. It had grown dark. There was a cold wind blowing up from the north that whipped my dress above my head. Bad weather was coming.

  “Get in,” he said as we reached the truck. He opened my door and shoved me in. I banged my head against the gearshift. I held my temple and tried to focus as I blinked away the sting of
tears. Everything was double and blurry, like waking from a dream in the dark. I reached for the door handle.

  “Open it and it will be the last time you feel anything,” he said as he climbed into the driver’s seat and caught my sleeve in his grip. My dress ripped.

  My head throbbed. I could feel a welt forming over my left eye.

  Outside, dark clouds swirled above us like hands waving in a funeral parade. I worked at the straps of my shoes, hoping I could get away faster in bare feet.

  My father put the key in the ignition and tried to start the truck. The engine was having difficulty turning over.

  I pushed the heel strap on my right foot down with my left big toe, trying to move as little as possible. I got it down but still had to get out of the other intertwining straps. One good flinch of my leg would get it off me.

  I was hoping someone had followed us into the parking lot or called the police.

  “You’re just like your mother,” Dad said as he kept trying to start the truck. He banged on the dashboard. “You couldn’t keep your hands off him.”

  Someone had to be coming for us.

  I got the other heel strap down.

  I took as deep a breath as I could muster and in one swift motion kicked both my legs out and shook the shoes free as I reached for the handle and slammed my body against the door to get it open fast.

  The engine turned over just as my father caught the back of my dress and pulled me back toward him.

  “No, you don’t,” he said, as I cried out into the parking lot. He gripped my thigh and squeezed hard.

  My voice was faint, like I was gurgling underwater and not screaming for help.

  So this is how you save yourself?

  Outside, the sky opened up with a squeal of thunder and a deluge of rain.

  “Son of a bitch,” my father shouted, as he banged the steering wheel and tried to navigate his way out of the parking lot.

  The windshield wipers blinked furiously back and forth, trying to ward off the blanketing rain. Empty bottles of Jack Daniel’s rolled at my bare feet.