But instead of saying, “Doug, I don’t want to see you anymore,” I rebelled.
It happened after another dance. I’d barely let Doug get to third base, so maybe he figured it was time to straighten me out. The plan was to go parking with another couple: Donna LaDonna and a guy named Roy, who was the captain of the basketball team. They were in the front seat. We were in the back. We were going someplace we’d never get caught, a place where no one would find us: a cemetery.
“Hope you don’t still believe in ghosts,” Doug said, squeezing my leg. “If you do, you know they’ll be watching.”
I didn’t answer. I was studying Donna LaDonna’s profile. Her hair was a swirl of white cotton candy. I thought she looked like Marilyn Monroe. I wished I looked like Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe, I figured, would know what to do.
When Doug unzipped his pants and tried to push my head down, I’d had enough. I got out of the car. “Charade” was the word I was thinking over and over again. It was all a charade. It summed up everything that was wrong between the sexes.
Then I was too angry to be frightened. I started walking along the little road that wound through the headstones. I might have believed in ghosts, but I wasn’t scared of them per se. It was people who were troubling. Why couldn’t I just be like every other girl and give Doug what he wanted? I pictured myself as a Play-Doh figure; then a hand came down, squeezing and squeezing until the Play-Doh oozed through the fingers into ragged clumps.
To distract myself, I started looking at the headstones. The graves were pretty old, some more than a hundred years. I started looking for one type in particular. It was macabre but that’s the kind of mood I was in. Sure enough, I found one: Jebediah Wilton. 4 mos. 1888. I started thinking about Jebediah’s mother and the pain she would have felt putting that little baby into the ground. I bet it felt worse than childbirth. I got down on my knees and screamed into my hands.
I guess Doug figured I would come right back, because he didn’t bother looking for me for a while. Then the car pulled up and a door opened. “Get in,” Doug said.
“No.”
“Bitch,” Roy said.
“Get in the car,” Donna LaDonna ordered. “Stop making a scene. Do you want the cops to come?”
I got into the car.
“See?” Donna LaDonna said to Doug. “I told you it was useless.”
“I’m not going to have sex with some guy just to impress you,” I said.
“Whoa,” Roy said. “She really is a bitch.”
“Not a bitch,” I said. “Just a woman who knows her own mind.”
“You’re a woman now?” Doug said, sneering. “That’s a laugh.”
I knew I should have been embarrassed, but I was so relieved it was over, I couldn’t be bothered. Surely, Doug wouldn’t dare ask me out again.
He did though. First thing Monday morning, I found him standing by my locker. “I need to talk to you,” he said.
“So talk.”
“Not now. Later.”
“I’m busy.”
“You’re a prude,” he hissed. “You’re frigid.” When I didn’t reply, he added, “It’s okay,” in a creepy tone. “I know what’s wrong with you. I understand.”
“Good,” I said.
“I’m coming by your house after school.”
“Don’t.”
“You don’t need to tell me what to do,” he said, spinning an imaginary basketball on his finger. “You’re not my mother.” He shot the imaginary basketball into an imaginary hoop and walked away.
Doug did come by my house that afternoon. I looked up from my typewriter and saw the pathetic white car pull hesitantly into the driveway, like a mouse cautiously approaching a piece of cheese.
A discordant phrase of Stravinsky came from the piano followed by the soft taps of Missy running down the stairs. “Carrie,” Missy called from below. “Someone’s here.”
“Tell him I’m not.”