A Girl's Life Online (24 page)

“I think it is something that really affects each and every one of us, even if we don't know it.”

“I just heard about a man in Boston who was charged with bringing a minor to Mexico; you could begin your research there.”

“I think I have something different in mind.”

It wasn't a question of whether I should feel responsible or guilty. I wanted to know how
much
guilt I deserved to feel. Frank was not pure evil. For a while he had been my closest friend, maybe even the best adult friend I had ever had. No one had ever tried that hard to know me, to understand me. I thought he must be sick, mentally disturbed. And I must have had something to do with it, too. But how much was me? How much was Frank? How much was this disease called pedophilia?

Of course, it was my choice to call it a disease and always use the proper word—
pedophilia
—instead of child molesting, or abuse, or assault. The word gave me shelter through clinical explanations, but it also came closer to what I had experienced. “Philia”—love—was somehow part of everything that had happened. The friendship and the excitement were as real as the shame. I didn't know if it was wrong for me to see it this way, but there it was.

It didn't surprise me that out of the sixty thousand books in the school library not one explained pedophilia. St. Paul's School has lots of old bricks and white clapboard, two chapels, but no books on pedophilia. It also didn't have a lot of books about homosexuality or AIDS.

If the library had rewarded me with a book or two, I might have been able to keep the whole thing at a safe distance. But when I came up dry, I turned to a special source, my own FBI agent. He could bring me closer to my essay topic. I didn't think much about how close. I just dialed.

As the phone rang in my ear I looked down at my fingers and then bit my hangnails. If I kept my hands busy, I couldn't hang up.

“Hi, Ron, it's Katie Tarbox.”

(I have to admit I didn't know what to call him. Mr. Barndollar, Special Agent, Ronald. I chose Ron because that is what my parents called him.)

“Hi Katie.” His voice was friendly.

“I hope I'm not interrupting you because I can call back later.”

“Anything for you, Katie, any time's a good time. What's up?”

“Well, I'm writing a research paper about pedophilia, and I'm having an awfully difficult time finding resources. I want to use my case in it, although I'm not going to reveal that I am the victim in the case. [Victim. There's another word I'm ambivalent about.] So I guess I am looking for any records that you can give me.”

Ron said I could have most of the records. He also promised to send me some books on how detectives investigate pedophile cases. But I wanted more.

“Can I get the interviews and the polygraph records?”

I knew these wouldn't benefit my paper in any way. But I needed them.

“Not a problem. I will send it all to you.”

Ron paused for moment. I didn't say anything.

“By the way, how are you doing? David and I talked and he mentioned that you were feeling guilty. You have absolutely no reason to feel any guilt at all. You should feel proud that you have pursued this to the end.”

Ron spent a long time, and a lot of words, trying to convince me that Frank was a monster and I was truly his victim. He told me about Frank's history of seducing teenage girls—and at least one thirteen-year-old boy—into sexual relationships. Intellectually, I had always assumed there were others. But until this moment I hadn't really believed it.

It turns out that besides owning an investment company, Frank did telemarketing out of a small office in California. He hired underage kids, mostly girls, and paid them cash under the table. According to Agent Barndollar, every once in a while he would choose someone to be employee of the month, and she—it was always a she—would get dinner out with him. Then he would manipulate her into going to his house, where he would take advantage of her.

Even though the same kind of thing had happened to me, I had a hard time believing it. It was even harder to accept what Ron said about some of the parents of these girls. They didn't file charges because they liked him.

“They don't feel as if their kids have been abused,” continued Ron. “They view him as a positive role model in their kid's life. He used to take out girls on a date. He would show up at the house in his BMW convertible, nicely dressed, and you know how he looks, Katie. Physically he is not a very overbearing person, not to mention he looks extremely young. He would meet the parents before taking their daughter out.”

“And they approved of this?”

“Katie, this is not all happening in New Canaan, Connecticut, where everyone has graduate degrees and earns millions a year. These are blue-collar towns, so for some of these families having a daughter dating a young professional was a very positive thing in their opinion.”

I tried to use my head, my intellect, to make some sense of it. “So it is kind of like in ancient Greece,” I said. Pederasty was accepted then because it pulled the youth into the upper classes.

“Somewhat. So he would take this girl and they would hop in the car and he would conveniently forget his wallet. This required that they return to his house before going to dinner, which was the original plan. Frank would take the girl up to his bedroom where he said his wallet would be, put on a whole act of searching frantically for the wallet that was always in his back pocket from the start. When the moment was right, he would then pin the girl down. The worst part was he would just drive her home afterward, acting like nothing happened.”

There was more. Frank had used alcohol to get some girls to have sex with him, and he had run his number on at least one boy. He had even taken a few girls for vacations at Disney World.

“He is truly a bad person,” said Ron. “And you are not bad at all.”

I disagreed.

I can't really remember walking to the St. Paul's music building later that April morning. It was only the repetition of having gone there so many times that directed me down the paths. I didn't think about it, and once again I tried to distance myself from what was happening. If this meant having to drain all emotion out of my body, then I did it. I didn't have time to think about this, or so my mother told me.

As I walked down the paths I felt cold, even though it was around eighty degrees outside. I was so completely lost that when I looked over at the pond for a second I thought it was iced over. It was only after a third glance that I reassured myself it was in fact just a pond. All around me, people were enjoying the first warm spring day. They sat by the pond talking and laughing.

Without my mother there telling me to forget about it all, I didn't know how I should feel. As independent as I try to be, I like it when people tell me what I should do, and then I feel that I am doing things right. I have been this way my whole life. The FBI agent had just told me that Frank was evil and that I shouldn't feel guilty. But if I wasn't supposed to feel guilty, then what was I supposed to feel?

I walked into the lesson room and tried to force Frank out of my mind.

“Katie, how's it going?”

“Great,” I lied.

“Are we ready to play a little Chopin's ‘Revolutionary Etude'?”

I took out my music, placed it on the piano, and then just sat there, staring, frozen. My piano teacher probably assumed I was trying to focus on the music. In truth, the longer I sat there the more my mind wandered away from the music, from this room, from St. Paul's.

“I hope I am going to hear this
today
.”

And so there was my cue to begin and somehow forget Frank. I placed my hands on the keys. The next thing I knew, I was banging my head on the piano and crying.

“I am so sorry, but I just can't do this.”

My teacher suggested that I go back to the dorm and rest, maybe take a shower. He might have said something else, but I rushed out before I could hear anything more. I kept thinking back to Frank and how he'd asked me to play the piano the night we decided to meet.

I passed all the same happy people on the way to the dorm. They were soaking up sun. I was thinking about Frank. Why did he choose me? If it all boiled down to sex, or so I had been told, then why couldn't he have just hired prostitutes? I didn't understand why it was me.

After I reached my room, I decided that maybe I should take a shower. Perhaps it would help.

The next thing I realized was that I was under the flowing water and it was cold. I reached out to adjust the water. I looked down and noticed I was still fully dressed. My black chenille sweater was slowly disintegrating. I felt like my physical self was falling apart, too. The only thing that seemed solid, and real, was the overwhelming guilt I felt.

I didn't know exactly how long I had been there, how I had gotten there, and, more important, why I was standing there in my khakis, sweater, and shirt.

For some reason, I didn't take off my clothes when I realized this. I just took a shower as if it were any other time. If I didn't admit what was happening, maybe I wouldn't have to acknowledge that I was falling apart.

I put my hands against my face, pulled back my hair and put some shampoo in my hand. I washed my hair and rinsed it. I stood there for a long time before I finally turned off the water, got undressed, and dried myself with a towel. From the bathroom I went to the dryer to put my clothes in it. As I closed the lid, I began to cry once again.

My hair was still wet when I walked to the health center. The receptionist looked at me as if I were some kind of Halloween ghoul.

“I've been vomiting a lot lately, and not sleeping, and I just sort of came to, standing in the shower with my clothes still on. I don't know what's happening to me. Do you think I could see someone?”