April Shadows (25 page)

"Start your own journey, April."
He went back to his sandwich, and I bit into my apple.
"Oh," I said. "My sister does have a ticket to the all-star game for you. Will you go?"
"I will go." he said.
"Good. I'll pick you up. I mean, we'll pick you up. Celia and I. She's really very nice. I've decided."
He laughed. "That's good."
We sat eating quietly. The first bell rang, and we rose to go into the building.
"I'11 see you at chess," I said.
He nodded and walked off to his class. I stood watching him for a moment and then turned to go to mine. Dolores and her friends were grinning at me again. I smiled back at them.
I'd already learned a lesson from Peter Smoke. If I'm comfortable with
who I am, I thought, they'll never be able to hurt me.
Peter and I had another good session. I was surprised myself at how much I remembered and some of the ideas I had for moves. I saw he was pleased. He didn't want me to take him home after school. however. He had other things to do that day for his aunt. We parted in the parking lot with plans to meet for lunch again. I told him what time I would be by to pick him up for the basketball game, and he made me reassure him that it was all right.
For the first time since we had left Hickory, I felt excited and happy. I was determined to travel the medicine wheel, too. Neither Celia nor Brenda was home yet. I changed into a jogging suit and went on a run.
I
nearly got lost because I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. This time. when I arrived home and Brenda and Celia were there, they were both pleasantly surprised, especially Brenda.
"You started doing something intelligent without my telling you or nagging you," she said.
"I'm turning north," I said.
"Huh?" She looked at Celia to see if she understood. Celia shook her head. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You'll see," I said, and went to shower and change for dinner. Now that I had begun this circle, I hoped I would finish.

Peter and I had another good conversation at lunch, and this time, we went inside early enough for him to walk me to my classroom. After school. I took him home and then hurried home myself to prepare for what I considered now to be our first date. Celia was already giving Brenda her massage. Only Celia appeared to notice or care how excited I was about bringing Peter to the game. Brenda left first. She never ate much before a game. and I didn't want to eat much. either. My stomach was swirling, and I felt as if I had swallowed a hive of crazed bees.

I showered and washed my hair. While I was working on some makeup. Celia came to the door and surprised me with a tray of cheese and crackers and a glass of white wine for me as well as herself.

"A little can't hurt you." she said when she saw how astonished I was. "It will relax you. I know you're nervous. You're worried about making a good impression, hitting it off. First social occasions are always the most testy. Unless, of course, you've already established same intimacy with Peter," she added, studying my reaction.
"We're just friends right now," I said.
"Good. You're not sure if it will turn out to be

"The truth is, we look good for ourselves. It makes us feel better and more confident about ourselves. Girls who dress and fix their faces just to please boyfriends are often not true to who they really are inside. It's like putting on a mask as far as they're concerned. They might have a boyfriend who hates their hair
one way, even though that way really enhances their looks. I guess the trick is not to see yourself as someone else sees you but how you, yourself, see yourself. Does that make sense?"

"Yes," I said, thinking about Peter and the medicine wheel. "You have to be comfortable with who you are,"

"Exactly. There," she said. "But before you look in the mirror, let me pluck these eyebrows a bit. You've never trimmed them?"

I waited while she did it, and then she said. "Okay, look in the mirror, and tell me what you think."

I stood up and gazed at myself. There was nothing I could do about my chubby cheeks. and I hated the way my nose looked so swollen because of the extra weight I carried, but Celia had done wonders with me. I never thought I could look glamorous, but the makeup did draw attention to my eyes, and somehow. I didn't look as obese as I felt. Do I dare think of myself as pretty ? I wondered.

"There is an attractive girl in there. April. You've got to get down to her," she said.
Perhaps nothing else that was ever said to me, all the warnings and threats Brenda lay on me, for example, all the pleadings in Mama's eyes, all the nasty things Daddy had said during his Mr. Hyde days, had as much effect on me as Celia's words. Yes,
I've got to get down to myself I've got to let myself out from under all this fat.
"Thank you," I told her.
She smiled and hugged me. I felt I had a friend, a real girlfriend. She even followed me into my little apartment to help me choose what to wear. I always favored black because of how much thinner I looked when I wore it. Celia was hesitant about it. She didn't like anything I had in black.
"Nothing does your figure any good." she said.
"What figure?" I asked. smirking.
"You'll see," she said. "Just a minute."
She ran out and returned with a light black sweater with a deep V-neck collar she said would be attractive with my black skirt. She brought along a pair of gold teardrop earrings and a pearl necklace she thought would complement the clothes.
Normally. I was very shy and self-conscious about anyone seeing me undressed. but Celia seemed not to notice my bulges. Her interest was solely in what made me more attractive.
"You're not wearing the proper bra," she decided when I was down to my bra and panties. "When was the last time you bought one?"
"I don't know. A few months ago, maybe more like six months ago."
"You've developed since. That's for sure," she said.
"Here's a way to test." She put her finger on the cleavage area of my bra and pressed. "See how my finger bounces in and out. The cups are too small."
She ran her finger along
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the front edges of my bra and down the seams of my arm. I felt a tingle shoot through my body to my spine, but I didn't wince,
"You have bulges all along here. April, and it's not only because of excessive weight. You've out grown this. Damn, you should have let someone know so we could have taken you for some new
undergarments. I hate those loose-fitting bloomers, too. They belong on old ladies. We're going shopping tomorrow, but for now..."
"What for now?"
"I'm going to lend you one of my older bras. It'll fit you. I'll be right back." she said, and hurried out again.
When she returned, she brought a black. strapless Wonder Bra.
"Go on," she said when she saw my hesitation. "Try it on." I unfastened my bra and slid it off my shoulders and arms.
"Didn't you notice these stretch marks?" she asked me as I made the change and she studied my bosom. "You're really developing quickly. April. You've neglected yourself," she said, brushing her hand over my hair and cheek. "It's not your fault. though. You've been through so much. For a long time, you've really been alone. Go on. Put on my bra,"
I did as she said and then looked at myself in the small mirror above the sink. The bra lifted my breasts and made my bosom looked twice as big. She came up beside me and handed me the sweater. When I put it on, my cleavage showed deeply in the V-neck collar. Wasn't that too revealing?
"Very attractive," Celia said before I could ask.
"I don't think Brenda's going to like it. I said. It did make me feel quite self-conscious.
"Brenda is too occupied with Brenda to even notice," she replied. "And you're not Brenda. You're you. C'mon, finish dressing. We have to get started and pick up your date,"
I gazed at myself again and then finished dressing. If my nerves were on edge before, they were over the edge now. I thought.
"I just hate it when men claim a woman is too sexy or too provocative as an excuse for their own overt and obnoxious behavior. If you don't look like someone's granny, they are justified in groping and even raping you. The best to me is when these husbands criticize their wives for being too obvious but just drool over someone else's wife or some other sexy- looking woman," Celia lectured.
"Don't some women drool over men?" I asked.
"Sure, but nowhere in proportion. Gawking, leering, and lustful eves are mainly male
characteristics."
Thinking about some of the girls I knew at Hickory. I wasn't prepared to agree with her. but
I
said nothing. After all, she was the one with experience, not me.
Peter came out of the house the moment we turned into his driveway.
"Anxious boy." Celia said. "He must have been waiting at the window. That's positive."
I quickly introduced the two of them when Peter got into the car. In the shadows, he didn't quite see how I was made up or what I was wearing. Celia moved into the backseat. I was so nervous I accelerated without putting the car into reverse and almost drove into the garage door.
"Hey, relax!" Celia cried. laughing. "Do you always have that effect on women, Peter?"
"I don't know as I have any effect at all." he said. He kept his face forward,
"Oh. I'm sure a good-looking young man like you has an effect on the opposite sex."
He turned and looked at me rather than reply to her. I saw his eyes narrow as he drank me in. Then he turned away quickly, and this time. I backed out well and started away.
"April tells me you transferred here recently, too," Celia said.
"I've been here nearly a year," he told her.
"Do you like it here?"
"Yes," he said. "but I'm at home wherever I am."
"Really? What's that mean?"
"It means I see the earth as my home. Anywhere you go, you're under the same sky," he said.
Celia laughed. "You haven't been to some of the places I've been, or you wouldn't be so quick to say that,"
"Maybe not," he said. "We travel different roads, but we usually end up in the same place."
"Very provocative." Celia continued. "I see why you're a chess expert."
"I'm not an expert.'
"That's not what April tells me."
"It's all relative. She's just starting. A mediocre player looks like Mikhail Botvinnik."
"Who?"
"A Russian chess champion I admire," he said.
I gazed into the rearview mirror at Celia. She was shaking her head and laughing.
"Do you go to basketball games often?" Celia asked.
"This is my first here," Peter told her. "And I don't think I attended more than two at my previous school."
"It's a lot different from chess," she muttered.
"Not really," Peter said. "Strategy is strategy."
She began to ask him questions about his Indian heritage. I was happy when we pulled into the parking lot of the school where the game was being held. I knew what it was like to feel you were being interrogated.
"Sorry about all that," I whispered when we got out and started toward the gymnasium entrance. There was already quite a crowd at the door.
Peter said nothing. He didn't look at me, either.
We entered and took our seats in the bleachers. Now that we were under the bright lights. I couldn't help feeling self- conscious again. I was waiting anxiously for some comment from Peter about my hair, my face, anything. Instead, he concentrated on the game, the players.
"Who is your sister?" he asked.
"Oh. I'm so stupid not pointing her out. She's number eighteen." I told him.
He watched her warming up. "She looks strong," he said.
"Just wait until you see her in action," Celia bragged.
As it turned out, however, this was not one of Brenda's best games. I could see from her expressions and the way she moved at the start of the game that she was still quite upset with
the coach. The plays he designed and the position she was in often caused her to be in awkward or more difficult places for her shots. The other team had a very quick series of successful plays, and as the game progressed, the distance between them and Brenda's team grew wider and wider. Twice Brenda was taken out and sat on the bench. She was there for almost the entire third period, in fact, and when she was put back in, she was raging and so aggressive she quickly fouled her opponent.
Peter said little about it. I made some comments about Brenda's unhappiness and how it was affecting her performance. Celia kept saying, "Oh, we're in for it now,"
When the game ended. Brenda's team had lost by twenty points.
"Your sister is going to be fit to be tied. This is the worst. It would have been better if she hadn't been chosen." Celia said.
She turned to us as we were leaving the gymnasium.
"You two, just go off. I don't think it's a good time to have Peter meet Brenda."
"Okay," I said. I was eager to be alone with Peter, anyway, and I agreed with Celia. Brenda wouldn't be good company. "I'm sorry about all this," I said as we walked to my car. "It was supposed to be a fun night. Brenda is a much better player than the Brenda you saw playing this game. She hated her coach."
"Focusing on her dislike of him did nothing to help her," Peter said. "If a branch doesn't bend, it breaks."
"Brenda is very serious about her career in athletics. She could be in the Olympics," I said, a little annoyed with his comment,
"All I mean is she will have many coaches or people she dislikes, and she has to learn how to compromise and deal with it so she can still do her best," he said.
We got into the car. It wasn't until then that I realized I didn't know where we were going.
"You want to come to my place for a while?" I asked. "It's not much to see."
"Then why do you want me to see it?" he asked.
I suddenly felt so small. I could feel his attitude toward me changing. Whatever warmth there had been between us seemed lost.
"Let's go to my house," he said. "It's my aunt's bridge night, and she's out."
Oh, that's good, I thought, and drove out of the school parking lot. Feeling even more nervous than I had at the start of the evening. I began to talk a blue streak about Brenda's athletic achievements, her trophies and honors, the scouts who had visited in Hickory, her plans to be a physical education teacher in a college, and the possibility that she really would play in the next Olympics.
"It's good that you have respect for your sister and are so interested in her," Peter said. "Now you must have respect for and interest in yourself." he added.
I know he meant well, but the remark brought tears to my eyes because he sounded so critical.
I drove into his aunt's driveway, and we got out and entered the house.
"Would you like something to eat or drink?" he asked.
"Just some cold water. My throat is dry from cheering, I think."
He nodded and got me a glass of ice water and one for himself. Then we went to his room. He sat on his bed and looked at me.
"Why did you dress like this?" he asked. "Dress like what?"
"Like you are dressed. The makeup, the clothes. Is this who you are?"
"I just tried to make myself look nice," I said.
He sipped his water. "I'm just surprised," he said, putting the glass an the nightstand.
"Don't you think I look nice?"
"I'm not sure if nice is the right word." He patted the bed. "Relax."
There was something about his expression that sounded alarm bells in me. I moved hesitantly to his side.
"We really don't know all that much about each other, do we?" he asked. "Even
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moment is a new discovery. It's not unlike competing against a new player in chess. You wait to see his or her moves and learn how he or she thinks. Only then can you make your own moves wisely."
"You can't compare everything to chess," I said.
"Why not? The world is a great board game to me, and most people in it are merely pawns."
He took the glass from my hand and leaned over to place it next to his own on the nightstand.
"So, I am to discover the real you tonight, is that it?" he said, smiling lustfully and bringing his face closer to mine.
"No. I wanted you to go to the game and see Brenda and..."
"You talk too much about your sister," he said, and then he kissed me.
He pulled back, grimacing at the taste on his lips.
"That lipstick," he said. "It's on you like a few layers of mint or something."
He leaned over to pluck some tissues out of a box and brought them to my lips, wiping hard.
"Hey," I said, pulling back when he actually began to hurt me.
"You don't need so much," he said. "And why did you put on so much eye makeup?"
"I thought I looked good."
"For a clown." he said. "You don't need it, in my opinion."
I turned away, and he reached out and put his hand under my chin.
"Just be yourself, April. Don't try to be anyone else."
"I am myself!" I declared firmly.
"Oh? Maybe you are," he said, and he kissed me again, this time bringing his hand off my shoulder and alongside my arm.
The kiss was longer and harder. He then kissed me on my neck and moved his hand over my arm and then over my breast, pressing himself against me as he did so.
I lay back on the bed, and he surprised me by lifting my sweater and kissing me on my stomach, moving the sweater up to make a path for his lips. my heart was thumping so hard I was sure he could feel the beat in his face. When Peter reached behind to undo my bra, the memory of Luke's sexual attack came rushing back. For a moment. I actually saw Luke's face instead of Peter's. I couldn't help it. I began pushing him away.
"What is it? What's wrong?" he demanded.
"I can't. I... can't." I said, pulling my sweater down.
He got up and glared down at me, his face filling with blood. He looked more embarrassed than I was. . .
"You know, there is a name for Girls who do what you do," he said, quickly exchanging
humiliation for anger.
"What did I do?" I wailed.
"You take me home after school, you kiss me after meeting me only twice, you invite me out with you and dress like this, and then you come to my house, and when I try to be intimate with you, you push me away. You're playing with me," he accused.
"No. I don't mean to. I'm sorry."
"Forget it," he said, turning away. "You'd better leave. My aunt might be home soon, and she might not like me bringing a girl here at night."
"Don't be angry at me, Peter,"
"I'm not angry at you. I'm angry at myself," he said. "Go on home. It's better if you go," he insisted.
I rose, the tears floating over my eves now finding the strength to climb over my lids and streak down my cheeks. He kept his back to me.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I really am."
He said nothing, and the way he kept his shoulders up made me think every word I said, my very presence, was unpleasant for him.
"Good night." I mumbled, and hurried out of his house.
Just as I was opening the car door, another car pulled up beside mine. I saw his aunt looking at me with great interest. She was a dark-haired woman with a face rounder and more chubby than mine. Before she could get out of her car and ask me anything, I got into mine, started the engine, and backed out of