I walked on, glaring back at Marla, who looked disappointed again. I was sure she had been hoping she would see something bad about me to tell Daddy.
She still had an opportunity for it, I thought later. Mark didn’t scare off easily. Right after homeroom, he was beside me in the hallway. I tried to walk faster, but he stayed alongside me.
“What do you want?” I muttered.
“What you’re asking for is impossible. It’s against Mother Nature.”
“Mother Nature?” I said, stopping and turning to him. The students around us paused as well because of how abruptly I turned and how loudly I spoke. “What stupid thing are you saying now?”
“The command to leave you alone, forget you,” he said in a very calm voice. He shook his head and looked sad. “Can’t be done. Every cell in my body, every beat of my heart, every corpuscle of my blood, is drawn to you the way nature intended. Even if I tried to forget you, my body wouldn’t listen. You’re like a beautiful magnet.”
I stared at him. He had a soft smile on his face, but his eyes were full of deep, serious feeling. If Daddy saw this boy, I thought, he’d understand why doing what he asked me to do was so difficult. In fact, if Daddy had a son, his son would surely look and act like Mark Daniels.
“Listen to me,” I said, imitating his soft tone but still speaking firmly. “I don’t want to go out with you this Friday. I don’t want you asking me to go out any Friday or any Saturday, ever. I would like you to leave me alone. Do you need that translated into any other language, or do you get the point?”
“That’s very good,” he said.
“What’s very good?”
“Your performance, for I know it’s a performance. You want to go out with me. I can see the struggle going on inside you. You’re saying these things, but you’re hoping I won’t listen.”
“Believe what you want,” I said, and walked away, but my heart was pounding so hard I thought I might faint. The truth was he was right, but how would he know that and be so confident knowing it?
For most of the day, I assumed that was that. Despite what he hoped he saw in me, he had gotten the message loud and clear. I had turned him off, and he would leave me alone. I avoided looking at him, and whenever I did see him, he appeared to avoid looking at me. He didn’t approach me again before lunch or in the cafeteria, but I could see that my outburst at him was the talk of the school. Some of those girls who I knew had been jealous of me from the start saw another chance to pounce. In P.E. class, Ruta Lee and a clump of her friends accused me of being gay.
“No one can come up with any other reason why you would blow off Mark Daniels,” she said. “You don’t date anyone. You refuse any other boy’s invitations. This clinches it. It’s all right if you want to be gay. We just want you to know we know and don’t appreciate your staring at us when we change clothes in here.”
All of her friends were grinning from ear to ear. I could hear Ava’s words: “Daddy sees through my eyes, hears through my ears.”
I nodded and stepped toward her. “Ruta,” I said softly, sympathetically, “we both know that you’re saying this in front of your friends just because I rejected your advances in the girls’ room. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“What?” She turned red.
I looked at the others. The tone of my reaction and comment took them all by surprise. “Has Ruta approached anyone else? If so, you know what I’m talking about. I couldn’t stop her in the bathroom. It was embarrassing.” I looked at her again and shook my head, my face locked in a sad-serious expression. “The way you came at me, complimented me on my clothes, my makeup. Really, Ruta, you should return to the therapist you said you were seeing.”
All the girls looked at her.
“I never saw any therapist. Shut up.”
I sighed and shook my head at the other girls. “I thought she was having an orgasm in the toilet stall beside me. I was so afraid Mrs. Gilbert would walk in on us. Ruta hasn’t noticed it, but Mrs. Gilbert has been very suspicious. She sees when you touch my hand in class, Ruta. I’ve asked you to stop.”
“You’re disgusting!” Ruta cried.
I didn’t smile. One thing about accusations, I thought. You could always depend on them to ruin or weaken someone else. I could see the possibilities swimming in the eyes of her friends. Had she ever touched any of them in a suggestive way or talked about homosexuality, maybe even wondered aloud what it would be like? She wasn’t very popular with boys. Would they think this might be why? She was the one who had used that to strengthen her accusations about me. As the Wiccans warn their own: do evil to someone, and it can come back at you three times.
Ruta seemed to shrink back, her eyes revealing a new sense of desperation. “I wouldn’t turn down Mark Daniels,” she claimed, searching for a strong comeback. She looked at the other girls. “No one here would. That’s for damn sure.”
“That’s not the issue here, is it? Now that you’ve brought it up, let’s talk about it. Why wouldn’t he or any other really good-looking boy in this school be after you? I’ll tell you why, Ruta. Boys can sense when a girl’s gay,” I said, looking at the others and nodding. “It’s instinctive.”
I saw Ruta’s eyes begin to tear. She looked as if she would turn and run.
“After all,” I delivered as a final killing blow, “why would being gay be the first thing to come into your mind when you thought about attacking me just now? Anyone else think that?” I asked the others. One or two actually shook their heads. Ruta’s lips began to tremble.
“That’s ridiculous,” Meg Logan said, stepping up to her defense.
“Is it? Haven’t you slept overnight at Ruta’s, Meg? Ruta told me how hot and heavy you two can get,” I said. “Did you put her up to this? Was it because you were jealous of how strong her feelings have been for me?”
“What?”