Leslie's Journal (5 page)

Sleep? Forget it. Last night I snuck one of Mom’s pills. Even that didn’t help. I’d close my eyes and the movie’d start on the inside of my eyelids. Like, I’m not just having a nightmare. I’m living one.

And I can’t tell anyone without getting into trouble or having it blabbed all over. That’s why I’m writing it down. I can’t avoid it anymore. Can’t pretend it didn’t happen. I have to get it out. All of it. Thank god Ms. Graham’s off for a mental break. Our supply teacher is this old bald guy. He’s letting us write for the whole period, as long as we sit quietly.

Okay. So anyway, here goes:

I get to the mall early Saturday to buy some stuff to bury the crap Mom made me pack in my knapsack for my supposed night at Katie’s: a change of clothes, toiletries, a towel.

I do the mall tour, cramming my knapsack with brand names to impress Jason. (I plan to return them tomorrow, or guilt Dad into a cash advance. Once he hears I have a boyfriend, I figure he’ll use that as an excuse to ditch our Sundays for more time with Brenda. Fine. Let him buy off his conscience.)

Last but not least, I pick up a fancy shopping bag for my new club gear: this wild, fluorescent pink-and-lime baby-doll number, plus a white Day-Glo boa and a cheap blonde beehive wig. When I add my sparkle makeup and orange eyelashes, Jason’ll cream his jeans big time.

I look at my watch. It’s 5:30. I grab a Coke and stake out Starbucks from a table behind a pillar at the opposite end of the food court. That way I’ll be able to see Jason arrive without him thinking I’ve gotten there early. I can also check myself out in my compact.

I peek at the mirror every two minutes, making little makeup corrections, then wondering if the corrections are too much or too little, then smudging things, fixing smudges. It’s unbelievable.

Pretty soon it’s 6:00, then 6:05, then 6:10, then ohmigod 6:15! Panic attack! What if he came and I was staring at my compact and he didn’t see me and left?

I start to sweat. I tell myself to stop; all sweating will do is wreck my makeup. That thought gets me even more flustered and I start to sweat all over again. Fanning my armpits just makes things worse. And now it’s 6:25.

That’s it—he’s come and gone. He thinks I stood him up. Or maybe he stood me up? Or he’s at a different Starbucks? I’m soaking now, except for my throat, which is dry.

I glug my Coke. Somebody taps my shoulder from behind. I jump. Coke goes out my nose. I whirl around. It’s him. I’m wiping my face with napkins and my makeup’s ruined and he’s laughing.

“It’s not funny!”

“Sorry.” He’s still laughing.

“I thought we’d missed each other.”

He points to the
HMV
store behind me. “I’ve been there the whole time.”

“Why didn’t you come over?”

“I was enjoying myself.”

“Doing what?”

“Watching.”

Jason’s smiling, so I smile too, only I don’t really get the joke.

“So ... what time’s the movie?”

“There isn’t going to be a movie,” he says. “I’ve got a surprise.”

The surprise is his folks are up at their cottage. His dad is this big-shot lawyer in something called Mergers and Acquisitions, and he just finished a major real estate deal. His parents decided to take off at the last minute, which means Jason has the house to himself. The idea of being alone with him gets me a little nervous. But also a little excited.

Next thing I know, he’s got my stuff stashed on his motorcycle and I’m sitting behind him holding on like crazy. I’ve never been on a motorcycle before, and the wind in my face is scary and wonderful all at the same time. Plus the feel of my hands on his stomach makes my insides melt. I keep saying to myself, “Concentrate, Leslie. Concentrate or you could die”—not because I think we’re going to crash or anything, but because I’m afraid I’m going to faint off his bike into traffic.

His house is in a really nice neighborhood, the kind with trees and a park, where everybody cuts their grass or has somebody cut it for them. There’s a Camry in the driveway. I wonder if his folks have stayed home after all but he says no, it’s his mom’s. His parents always travel in his dad’s
BMW
.

He parks beside the attached garage and helps me off. I have my knapsack on my back, but he carries the bag with my club stuff. Nobody’s ever carried my things before, except for Katie the time I busted my collarbone.

When we get inside, I ask, “How come you go to our school when you live here?”

The answer’s original, just like him. He went to a private school in Port Burdock, real snobby, and he was on all the teams. Everybody was after him because he was this big sports star, and it got to be too much. He tried to quit the teams, but they wouldn’t let him because he was on an athletic scholarship. So he said, “Fine. I’m dropping out.” And he did, just like that, and came to our school, where nobody’d know him. Amazing. I’d give anything to be popular. But he’s got the guts to just be himself.

Maybe he’s so brave because he almost died. In grade school, he got a major fever on a big family trip through Asia. Getting well cost him a year, which is why he’s eighteen in grade twelve. But he made it. He cheated death. I mean, he’s a hero.

And rich. By the time he’s showed me the upstairs, it’s clear his folks are loaded. The master bedroom has a fireplace and a wall-size flat-screen
TV
, not to mention walk-in closets and a six-piece en suite bathroom with a sunken Jacuzzi.

For a second, I wonder if there’s a reason we’ve ended up here. Is he planning to make a move? I’m half scared and half hoping, but he’s a perfect gentleman. “That’s it,” he says, and ushers me downstairs. I’m sort of disappointed, but also glad I can relax.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asks as we hit the kitchen.

“Sure. Do you have a Coke?”

His lip twitches in amusement. “Let me rephrase that. Can I get you something to drink?”

My heart skips. I’ve never had a drink alone with a guy before, and even if he can behave himself, I’m not sure I can. All the same, I don’t want to look stupid, and one can’t do any harm, can it? “What do you have?”

Instead of saying beer, wine, rum or whatever, he starts reciting labels: “Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Gilbey’s, Havana Club. Your wish is my command.”

I decide to play it safe. “I’ll have what you’re having.”

“Johnnie Walker on the rocks,” he says, and takes a couple of tumblers out of the cupboard, shoots in a few cubes from the ice machine on the fridge and pours. I’ve never had scotch before; it’s like I’m in the movies.

Jason hands me my drink and phones out for pizza while I have a sip. I almost choke. It’s not like beer at all. I mean, it’s puke foul. Who invented this stuff? All the same, if I don’t finish it, I’ll look like a reject. I know if I sip slowly I’ll start retching, so I make a quick decision. I stop breathing and swallow it in two big gulps. It almost comes back up, but I focus on Jason’s butt as he slouches at the counter by the telephone, and the sick feeling goes away.

Jason hangs up. He sees my empty glass. He’s impressed. “You sure know how to knock it back.”

“I was thirsty,” I say.

“I better freshen that up, then,” he says, pouring me another. Seeing as I’ve just made out I love the stuff, I can’t very well say no.

We spend the next half hour drinking and talking about parents and teachers and kids at school, and I discover that scotch is a lot like swimming in the lake in May: it’s okay once you get used to it.

Soon I’m on my fourth. It doesn’t taste so bad anymore.

By the time Jason pours me my fifth, I’m telling him about Katie’s sleepovers. He laughs, especially about the facials and fashion shows. I tell him how I hate Ashley and the others. He says I’m way out of their league. They’re still kids, and I’m practically a woman. Coming from a senior who had his pick at Port Burdock, that’s saying something.

When the pizza arrives, he says, “Let’s eat down in the rec room.”

I stand up. I fall back in my chair. “Whoa, what did they put in that scotch?”

“Scotch,” he says, which for some reason we both find majorly funny.

“I think I better stick to beer.”

He gets me a beer and we go down to his rec room, which is huge, with wood paneling and parquet everywhere. It’s full of stuff—leather furniture and a pool table and a dart board and another flat-screen
TV
and a sound system. It’s even got its very own minibar. Not to mention a bathroom. I go in and splash my face with cold water because I’m starting to feel a bit out of it.

I have a slight gap in my memory after that. We must have eaten the pizza, because I remember being back in the bathroom throwing up. I think the puking was after we smoked the joint, because that’s when we decide we’re too wasted to drive to a club and we’ll just stay in his rec room. We start doing a little kissing. After all my worrying, kissing doesn’t make me feel tense at all. It makes me feel great.

Then, just when I’m all relaxed, Jason starts to undo my pants. I say, “Maybe we should take a break.” He says, “Why?” And I say, thinking fast, “So I can show you the stuff I bought at the mall.” Jason gets this smile on his face and jokes how if I wasn’t going to be doing a fashion show at Katie’s, maybe I should do a fashion show for him. “Really?” I say. And he goes, “Yeah. I’d like that. Watching’s fun.”

Jason blasts hip hop out of the sound system, and suddenly I’m back in party mode. I go into the bathroom, change, and make my big entrance. Jason’s turned the lights down and switched on this color wheel. Reds, greens and yellows swirl around the room. We’re in our own private club.

Jason’s on the couch. I prance up and down in front of him, twirling the Day-Glo boa. He’s holding up his cell phone, making a video.

“Jason?”

“Keep going,” he shouts over the music. “We’ll watch it together. You’re great!”

All of a sudden, I feel sexy. I’m, like, a professional dancer. I flirt for the cell. Wiggle around. Step backwards. Out of nowhere, I’m woozy. So woozy. I feel myself falling.

Next thing I know, I’m on the floor. The lights are still low, but the color wheel’s off. The music too.

“Jason?”

He’s gone. I’m alone. I’m cold. Cold? Oh my god, I’m naked! My clothes are all over the floor. Now, for the first time, I feel this soreness. This throbbing ache. Down there. There’s blood and stuff caked on the inside of my legs.

What’s going on? I can’t remember.

I see his cell phone on a cushion. Oh no. It suddenly hits me. He was making a video.

I panic. Scramble over. Fumble with the buttons. Press play. There’s me on the screen, dancing like an idiot. I see me fall. Hear him call my name. Then it stops. Thank god. He turned it off. Whatever happened, there’s no record.

The lights go bright. Jason’s in the doorway, yelling, “Get dressed. You gotta get out of here.”

I squint. He’s pulling my dress on. I try to say something. I can’t. He wipes the floor with a towel and sprays air freshener. He hauls me up the stairs by my armpits.

He drops me at the landing. Runs back for my knapsack and shopping bag. Shoves twenty bucks in my hand. “I’ve called a cab to meet you at the end of the street. Go! Now!” He pushes me out the door, tosses my stuff after.

It’s like a bad dream. I’m awake and asleep and I’m running down the street. I get to the corner. Slump on the curb. There’s lights. A cab. I get inside.

It’s two-thirty when it drops me off at my apartment building. I can’t go upstairs; I’m supposed to be at Katie’s. So I go down to the laundry room. It’s got bright fluorescents, old machines, scuffed walls and cracked linoleum. At least I’ll be alone.

There’s a tub at the end of the machines. I strip down, wash myself, and dry off with my new top. Then I put on the clothes Mom made me pack for Katie’s; they’re in a plastic bag at the bottom of my knapsack. The new stuff I dump in a washer.

I’m not taking them home. I’m tying them in that plastic bag and tossing them in the garbage. But first I need them clean. I mean, what if somebody finds them? Sees the stains? It’s like I’ve committed a crime.

And know the worst part? If I’d been awake and sober, I would have said yes.

Ten

A
fter writing that down, I ran to the washroom. No way I wanted anyone to see me cry. I stayed in my cubicle till I figured everyone was gone for the day.

I figured wrong. As I walk down the hall, I see Katie, Ashley and a couple of other girls hanging around, pretending to be minding their own business. What they’re really minding is the fancy envelope taped to my locker door.

I open it and take out the card. It’s got a picture of a cartoon lion doing somersaults. Inside, it says, “You Drive Me Wild! No Lyin’!” Underneath is a handwritten note: “Had a great time Saturday. Hope you did too. I’m out on the bleachers catching a few rays. J.”

The card. It’s so casual—so
stupid
—it makes me think I imagined everything. Only I remember the blood, the pain. My face flushes: I’m mad. What planet is this guy on?

When I look up, the girls are staring at me. For one horrible second I think this is a repeat of a year ago, before my folks split, back in the time I was more or less normal.

I’d made the mistake of trying out for the junior cheerleading team. Needless to say, I didn’t make it. Like—duh—to be a cheerleader you have to be cute and perky and able to do the splits without falling over. All the same, when the list went up on the phys ed bulletin board, I was crushed. While all the Cute and Perkies jumped up and down squealing, me and the other losers hung around like a bad smell, congratulating everyone and pretending to smile.

When I got to school the next day, there was a typed letter from Ms. Patrick, the cheerleading coach, stuck in the crack of my locker. It said how there’d been a mistake and my name should have been on the list and I should show up for the first practice that night after school.

I practically bounced off the walls all day. I told everybody, even phoned home and left a message for Mom and Dad. After school I was the first one into the changeroom.

But no sooner were we lined up on the track than Ms. Patrick hollered out, “Leslie Phillips, what are you doing here?”