Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver 2)

OCTOBER 20, 1981

Emily picked at her breakfast with her fork. Across from her, Gram did the same, not quite understanding why there was so much tension in the room but instinctively knowing to keep silent. Esther and Franklin were at opposite ends of the table, both dressed for work as if this was a perfectly normal day in their normal lives. He was reading the newspaper. She was marking up a draft opinion, her lips pursed in concentration. They both wore their reading glasses. Eventually, they would take them off, stuff their papers into their respective briefcases, then go to work in separate cars.

Emily had seen her parents weather countless upheavals this way before. How they got through was to pretend that the terrible things weren’t happening. Maybe Emily had a little bit of that ability inside of herself because she, too, was trying to pretend that last night hadn’t happened. And that yesterday morning at Dr. Schroeder’s office hadn’t happened. And that The Party hadn’t happened.

She was especially trying to pretend that her memories of Mr. Wexler driving her home that night were either figments of her imagination or vestiges of a bad acid trip.

As if by design, a sudden wave of nausea washed over her. The eggs on her plate had gelled into a yellow glob. The bacon grease congealed into a ridge around the toast. She had no idea how long she stared at her plate, but when she looked up, her parents were gone and only Gram was there.

“Do you have any plans for the day?” Gram asked. “I had thought that I would work a bit in the garden.”

Emily felt tears threaten to fall. “I’m going to school, Gram.”

Gram looked confused. She gathered up her silverware and plate before leaving.

Emily used the tips of her fingers to blot away tears. Putting on make-up this morning had felt like dragging sandpaper across her face. Her eyelids were chapped from crying all night. She hadn’t slept. The person who peered back at her in the mirror had looked like an alien.

She was not intact.

Why didn’t Emily feel anything other than shame? Sex was supposed to be a special, romantic time where she bonded with her soulmate, where she gave herself to a man who was worthy of her love.

Instead, it had happened in the back of her teacher’s grimy, cheap clown car.

Maybe.

Emily was wary of relying on the flashes of memories she kept having, an almost strobe-lighted horror show of things that could or could not be true. She’d been so certain—even while she told herself that she was uncertain—that it had been one of the boys. And now, she was not allowing herself to believe that Dean Wexler with his bushy, sweaty mustache and clumsy, fumbling hands had taken from her something that she was not willing to give.

Because that was rape, wasn’t it?

Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe her mother was right. And her father. If you drank too much, if you took drugs, you were accepting the inherent risk that a boy would do what boys do.

But Mr. Wexler was a man.

That made it different, right? If Emily told her father that it hadn’t been one of the boys, that she had been taken advantage of by a grown man, her father would look at the situation differently. Or maybe he would just look at her, because, since last night, he’d completely erased Emily from his line of sight. Walking through the room, sitting at the table, reaching for the coffee pot, reading his newspaper—not once did he actually acknowledge that he saw his daughter sitting a few feet away from him.

Emily looked down at her hands. Her vision blurred with tears. She wondered if she was disappearing all together. Would no one ever see her as the same person again?

“Emily.” Esther was standing in the doorway. She rested her hand against the jamb as she straightened the toe of her pantyhose. “Don’t be late for school.”

Emily looked not at her mother but out the window. She’d felt her heart rattle at the normal sound of her mother’s tone. Esther wouldn’t be angry about this again. There would be no more arguments or recriminations. She was a judge in every sense of the word. Once her decision had been rendered, she never questioned herself on the matter again.

When Emily looked back at the doorway, her mother was gone.

She let out a slow breath. She placed her knife and fork on her plate and took it to the kitchen. She scraped off the food into the trash. She put the plate and utensils in the sink for the housekeeper. She found her book bag and purse beside the garage door. Emily couldn’t remember dropping them there last night, but then she couldn’t remember a lot of things that were vastly more important than last night.

This was all she could come up with: The dark interior of Mr. Wexler’s car. The dashboard lights glowing. A song playing softly on the radio. Emily’s hands nervously working a tear in the hem of Ricky’s green dress. Mr. Wexler’s hand on her knee.

Emily blinked. Had that last part happened, or was she making herself believe something that was untrue?

The only thing she knew for certain was that she could not stand in the hallway thinking about this for the rest of her life. She had already missed an entire day of school—a scheduled meeting with her art teacher, a chemistry test, band practice, five minutes before PE to talk to Ricky about something that had seemed very important two days ago.

She opened the door. Her father’s Mercedes was already gone. She walked through the garage. Her mother’s driver was idling in front of the house.

“Em?”

She turned, surprised to find Cheese leaning against a tree smoking a cigarette.

“Oh, no, Cheese, I’m so sorry.” Her heart sank. She had told him he could sleep in the shed. “I forgot to put out the pillow and blanket.”