Neither Pamela nor I said a word. It was such a revelation—I mean, who would have expected this from
Elizabeth!
—that we didn’t know what to say.
She took a deep breath and continued: “I think I was about seven, in second grade, because I can remember the dress I was wearing the first time it happened. A sundress. This man’s wife had either died or they’d just divorced or something, and he’d come to Washington for a meeting—he lived out of state—and came a day early to visit us. We were living near Rock Creek Park, and he always brought a little present for me—a really nice gift— a puppet or a microscope or something. My folks thought he was wonderful. I did, too, at first. He was supposed to have done a lot for ghetto kids— got them scholarships and things …”
Elizabeth’s voice was still shaky but it was getting stronger; “Well, on this one visit, he asked if I wanted to go on a ‘secret nature walk,’ just he and I, and my folks said, why, wouldn’t that be
fun. It was hot, and we went down into the park. And he showed me lots of ‘secrets’—like the bugs and worms under a rock, moss growing on a tree, a cicada carcass—the kinds of things that interest a child.”
She stopped and began to blush.
“You don’t have to tell us anything if you don’t want to,” I said.
“Shut up, Alice.
I
want to hear!” said Pamela.
Elizabeth went on. “We came to this big rock— boulder, really—and he led me around behind it and told me to look real hard in a crevice in the rock where there were leaves and dirt, and see if I could find anything. He had … he was leaning on me from behind, his arms around me, his face against mine, like he was helping me look. And he brought his hands up under my dress in front and just … just casually rubbed my stomach, and then he … slipped one hand down inside my pants and”—she swallowed—“and stroked me between my legs.”
“What did you
do?
” Pamela asked.
“That’s the part I can’t remember,” Elizabeth said guiltily. “I
think
I squirmed away, and he just laughed and let me go. And on the way back to the house he said to remember that this was a
secret
walk, wasn’t it, that he and I had a lot of secrets, and we wouldn’t tell anyone about them, would
we, because nobody else would understand.”
“The creep!” Pamela said.
“And when we got back, my parents were doing the dishes, because I can remember a big white platter in my father’s hands, and it looked like a big white eye staring at me. Mother asked what all we had seen and the man winked at me and said, oh, we couldn’t tell, could we, but we’d seen all sorts of wonderful things. I just nodded yes. I really thought … for a long time I thought this … that my parents knew what he was going to do and had let me go because he was such a good friend.”
“And he did it again?” I asked.
“I think there was just one other time. Maybe two, I’m not sure. But the time I remember, he brought me a little box full of drawers, and each drawer had a tiny carved wooden animal in it. It was a great present; I really loved it. He called it the ‘secrets’ chest. And when he asked if I wanted to go on another secret walk, I said okay, because my parents were smiling at me and I knew they expected me to go.
“He said we’d need a strainer, and Mom gave me one. This time I had on shorts and a T-shirt. And we went down in the park again, and this time we walked right along the rocks in the creek, and we tried to see what I could catch in the strainer—
little water bugs and things. And then when we started home, he led me through some bushes and he was talking about how lonely he was, because his wife wasn’t with him anymore, and he wondered if I would do something for him… .”
Pamela let out her breath. We waited.
“And he … he asked me to stand very still and let him touch me. I let him lift me up to stand on a rock or something, and he pressed against me from behind and put his fingers down my pants again, and then we went home and he thanked me for helping him not to feel so lonely anymore.”
“And your parents still didn’t catch on?”
Elizabeth’s face was all scrunched up again. “I still thought maybe they
knew!
That they wanted me to do this for him. He was one of their best friends, and I felt I should do whatever he said. It was only a couple years ago, in thinking about this, that I began to see they simply thought it was a game. It was all in fun, our walks. But
I
took their smiles to mean they knew what he was doing to me. How could I have been so dumb?”
“Elizabeth, you were only seven!” I said.
“Eight, by then. And when I got home that day and went to the bathroom, I found that my shorts and shirt were wet and sticky in back and I changed them, and rinsed them out under the faucet. When Mom asked why I’d changed my
clothes, I told her I’d just got wet, and I guess she figured I’d slipped in the creek or something.”
“It must have made perfect sense to them,” Pamela said. “The walk to the creek … the strainer … the biologist … the trusted friend. Who would have thought?”
Elizabeth pressed the palms of her hands hard against her cheeks, sliding them up over her temples as though wanting to wipe the skin right off her forehead. “The thing is … the thing is … when he touched me, it … it felt good. I didn’t think we should be doing that, but he wasn’t hurting me, physically, and even later— years later—any time I thought of telling Mom about it, I couldn’t, because I felt I was as guilty as he was. Because it had felt good … what he did.”
So many things came to mind just then—the way Elizabeth had always reacted to talk about sex and bodies, the way she embarrassed so easily. All her emphasis on sin and confession—her mother never struck me as being that way particularly.
“Elizabeth,” I said. “If a guy touches you without your permission and you get a ping out of it, it doesn’t mean you did something wrong. When somebody touches the right button, you ping, that’s all!”
She was thoughtful. “The next time he came, the next summer when I was nine, it was raining,
and he didn’t say anything about a secret walk. He and my folks were talking in the living room and I went down in the basement to play with this big Victorian dollhouse my dad had set up for me. After a while this man came down to see it. Dad and Mom came, too, and then the man sat down on a chair and he was sort of playing along with me, making silly things happen to the dolls. Dad and Mom stayed for a while, we were all laughing at him, and then they went upstairs and he stayed. For a while we were having fun. And then …”
I began to notice anger in Elizabeth’s voice. “Then he said it was too bad we couldn’t go for one of our walks, but did I want to
see
something secret? And he took one of my hands and … and put it on his pants. I could feel his penis underneath … and I pulled away from him and went upstairs to my room. I remember walking very deliberately; I didn’t run or anything because I didn’t want my parents to know I was walking out on him. I mean … believe it or not … it seemed so rude, and I just told Mom I was going to play in my room awhile.”
“What’d the guy do? Follow you up there?” Pamela asked.
“No. He came up from the basement and played the piano awhile, and then he and Dad and Mom sat around talking the rest of the evening. When I
got up the next morning, he’d already left for the conference.”
“When did you see him again?” I asked.
“I didn’t. About four months later he was killed in a car accident, a really freak accident, my dad always said. And … and it was like … like I’d made it happen.”
“But you didn’t!”
“I know, but the fact is, I was
glad
when I heard it. Mom cried when we got the news, and Dad had tears in his eyes, but I wasn’t sad at all, and they kept looking at me, like, what was wrong with me? This wonderful man who brought me presents and was respected in his field and had done so much for ghetto kids, and I wasn’t even sad? And finally … finally … I made myself cry, not because I was sorry he died, but because my parents were so d-disappointed in me!”
Elizabeth broke down again, and I began to see how problems can get so complex, how all these different feelings could get mixed and matched in your head, and be so hard to get out later. I couldn’t help but wonder about myself … feelings
I
might have had, or still have, about my own mother when she died.
I don’t know how Pamela and I knew what to do just then, but it seemed like we did the right thing: We hugged Elizabeth, Pamela on one side of her
and I on the other, so that we were sort of a warm moist ball of arms and faces, and I think that without quite knowing it, we were making Elizabeth feel safe with us and protected. We just let her cry, and she cried softly, like a little mouse, until she was limp and drained. When we let her go, she sat there on the bed with her head on her knees.
“You know, Liz, you aren’t going to be really free of this till you tell your folks,” I said finally. “They really need to know.”
“Why?” she asked, looking up at me, her face all streaked. “First, I’m not sure they’ll believe me. They’ll say I must have imagined it, or that it happened so long ago, I’m getting fact and fantasy mixed up. Or if it really happened, why didn’t I tell them before? He was their best
friend,
Alice! Everyone loved him. Everyone but me.”
“They need to know because they love you, and it’s a part of you that’s hurting,” I told her.
“But I’m probably just as guilty as he was. I didn’t try to stop him, except for that last time. He said
stand still
so I did. I could have pushed him away.”
“You were eight years old, Elizabeth! That’s third grade!” I said. “And it wouldn’t have made any difference if you were older, because he was the adult and you were the child. Look! We’re considered minors till we’re eighteen, right? Up until then, adults are supposed to know best and we’re
supposed to obey them, and that’s exactly what you did.”
“Well, I’m not telling Mom. It would just kill her. Let them remember him the way they think he was. But I feel better having told you,” Elizabeth said.
We sat up another hour after that, talking. We heard Dad and Lester come in and go to bed, and when we finally turned out our light around one, Pamela and I in my double bed and Elizabeth on the cot under the window, I decided I was pretty sure what I wanted to do as a career. I truly did want to be a psychologist, someone who works with children before little problems become big ones. Someone who, maybe if she’d seen Elizabeth when she was eight or nine, could have helped her get the feelings out before they took up so much space in her life.
It turned out that Patrick and Penny hadn’t gone to the Snow Ball, either, Jill told me. She stopped by the Melody Inn the next day to show me pictures of herself and the sophomore who had taken her to the dance. Jill had worn a white strapless dress, and her bosom was bulging over the top. If she’d sneezed, she would have popped right out.
I wondered what it meant that Patrick hadn’t taken Penny, or whether it meant anything at all. But mostly I was thinking about Elizabeth. I couldn’t get her out of my mind—what it must feel like to go five or six years hiding a secret like that and feeling guilty about it.
Nevertheless, I had work to do, and Marilyn and I spent the day restocking the display of Christmas CDs near the front of the store and making sure we were caught up on telephone orders. We left at
the usual time, but Dad said he’d work another hour or two.
When I walked in the house, I could hear Lester rummaging about the kitchen, making dinner, but there was a message for me to call Karen, so I did.
“Alice,” she said as soon as I dialed her number. “I didn’t think I ought to call you at the Melody Inn. Is your dad home?”
“No. Why?”
“I just need to tell you something when he’s not around, and I’m not even sure I should be telling you in the first place.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, puzzled.
“Well, I was at my dad’s last night. I told you he was giving this party, and I was, like, helping out. Dad and Jim Sorringer are friends, you know. He bought that engagement ring for Miss Summers last February at Dad’s jewelry store, remember? The ring she turned down? Anyway, Sorringer was there at the party, and at one point he was at the buffet table with his back to me—I was gathering up dirty glasses—and a woman asked him how he was going to spend the holidays, and I heard him say he was going to England. I … I just thought you should know.”
At the first mention of Jim Sorringer I had felt a wave of cold rush over me, but now it felt as
though I had swallowed an ice cube, and I wasn’t even sure I could breathe.
“Alice … I … I didn’t know if I should say anything… .”
I tried not to sound worried. “Did he … say any more? Did he say he’d be going to Chester?”
“Yes. That’s exactly where he said he’d be going. The woman said wouldn’t Christmas in London be wonderful? and Jim said that actually he’d be spending it in Chester.”
I wanted to throw up. “Well, there could be all kinds of explanations, I suppose,” I managed to say. “There’s no law that says he can’t go to England.”
“I suppose so. It probably doesn’t mean anything at all. Maybe he’s going with someone else and he’s just stopping by to say hello to Miss Summers,” Karen said quickly.
“Was he with anyone at the party?”
“No,” she admitted. “He came alone.”
“Well, thanks, anyway, Karen,” I said.
“Yeah, thanks for nothing,” she said apologetically. “I just thought you should know, that’s all.”
After I hung up, I wondered if I was having a heart attack. If a fourteen-year-old girl could actually expire from anger and disappointment. And suddenly I lost it. I went stumbling out to the kitchen.
“I
hate
her!” I said, breaking into tears. “She’s a liar and a cheat, and I
hate
her!”
“Who was that?” Lester asked.
“Karen.”
“What did she do?”
“Not Karen. Miss Summers! Mr. Sorringer is going there for Christmas!”