Page 40 of In Her Own Way
She forced her thoughts back to Friday with Lauren. After their second session, exploring several sexual positions and activities that Lauren had never done before, Lauren asked if Victoria had liked doing the fantasy rape scene. Victoria had been honest when she said, “No, but it was something you wanted to explore, and I liked being able to do that for you.” But now two days later, Victoria knew she would never do a scene like that again. After that, they had cleaned up, hugged, and basically said goodbye to each other since Lauren said she needed to focus on her relationship with Heather and that she wouldn’t be back next Friday or ever. Victoria let Lauren leave first.
The scene and Lauren’s departure had soured her mood that evening and into Saturday, and it was still with her now. She looked up at her aunt and uncle’s house. Somehow, she had to go in there and pretend to like the people who’d helped ruin her father’s life. And hers.
“Why was I the only one who got arrested that day, Eddie? Donny? Why did they find all that shit in the car and blame me?” She punched her thigh as if reliving the moment. A police car had pulled up behind her that day and pulled her over as she was heading to the drop-off. All the copper from her father and uncle’s construction business the guys had ripped out of the walls was stashed in the trunk, ready to sell. Her cousins had promised her a 20 percent cut for her role as the driver. “Those cops put me in fucking handcuffs, assholes. And where were you guys? Saving your skins.” Tears burned her eyes. “You set me up to take the fall just like your father set up my dad years later. Family first?” She groaned and smacked the dashboard. “Fuck that.”
“What’d that dashboard do to you?” her cousin Erin asked from the sidewalk. “My mom told me to come out here and get you. I lied and said you were on the phone.”
“Reminiscing,” Victoria said succinctly. She took off her seatbelt, got out of her truck, and walked side-by-side with the one and only cousin she liked.
Aunt Jenny wrapped her in a hug the minute she got in the door. Victoria greeted her Uncle Jimmy but only nodded at him when he made to give her a hug. Eddie and Donny were watching a football game in the family room, so she gratefully got to ignore them until they sat down for dinner a little while later. When they did come in, Eddie said to Victoria, “Hey, cousin. You look good. Older but good.”
She smiled, knowing the smile didn’t reach her eyes, and said, “You look older, too.”
Donny burst out laughing, then simply nodded at her in greeting. She returned the silent gesture.
They sat at the table and held hands to say grace, which almost made Victoria burst out laughing at the hypocrisy of it.And as soon as they let go, Aunt Jenny got started. She must have been chomping at the bit to get the goods on Victoria.
“No husband? Boyfriend?”
“Nope,” Victoria said and passed the potatoes along without taking any.
“It’s the hair, Victoria,” Aunt Jenny said, plopping a large scoop of potatoes on Victoria’s plate. “You look so boyish. Let it grow longer. I’ll give you the name and number of my hairdresser, she’s wonderful. Now that you’re finally back home, you’ll need to get things like that set up. Oh, my friend Moira has a son who’s just divorced and available. I’ll arrange a meeting for you two to get acquainted.”
“Jenny,” Uncle Jimmy said. “Stop.”
“What? Victoria obviously needs my help.”
“Stop,” he said again.
And she blessedly stopped. Erin mouthed, “Sorry,” and Victoria simply shook her head as if to say an apology wasn’t necessary.
How Aunt Jenny managed to eat was a mystery because the woman never stopped talking. She berated her grown sons about not cleaning their rooms. Yes, they still lived at home, even though they were both closer to forty than she was. And when dinner was over, they bolted back to the family room to catch another football game on the television. They didn’t even offer to help clear the table, and Aunt Jenny didn’t ask them to.
Victoria simply stood, cleared plates, and helped Erin put the food away. Aunt Jenny made Victoria a to-go container of leftovers because she said Victoria looked too thin with her boyish, slim hips and small breasts. Yes, Aunt Jenny had commented on Victoria’s small chest. And then she continued, “There’s nothing we can do about your tall height. The hair we can fix,” Aunt Jenny said, “but how is a man supposed to be attracted to you if you look like a man yourself?”
Victoria had been in the Army Reserve. She knew how to keep a dispassionate expression in the face of badgering and harassment. But by the end of the visit, Aunt Jenny had given her meanest drill sergeants a run for their money.
And then Aunt Jenny’s final words permeated her brain. “Your mother was right. Your father was a bad influence on you. Taking you to ball games, teaching you the construction trade. It’s no wonder he’s locked up.”
“Mom!” Erin bellowed. “Not cool.” She turned to Victoria and said, “I’ll see you at home,” steered her to her coat, and walked her out.
“I have no words,” Erin said once Victoria was in her truck.
“I’m going to drive around for a while,” Victoria said. “Just a couple of hours. I won’t be too late.”
Erin pressed her lips together and nodded. Victoria drove away once Erin stepped back.
She drove around her old neighborhood. The house where she’d grown up had been sold when her father went to prison. It looked a bit worse for wear, but it brought back good memories of a happy childhood. At least she’d always thought she was happy. Until her mother left, that is. Then she became angry, just angry and sad all the time.
She drove to her old middle school next. She pulled over next to the playground. Funny how a middle school had swings, monkey bars, and a slide. She and her friends learned how to drink on that playground. She tried pot with them, but it left her too paranoid, so she abstained. They said she wasn’t fun anymore and stopped hanging out with her. Whatever. She didn’t need them.
Victoria’s next stop was her old high school.
“Good old Sewall High,” Victoria said, tipping her imaginary hat at the modern sign at the front gates. “Go Lions. Go Pride.” The gates were closed and locked, so she simply drovethrough the neighborhood surrounding the school and finally found the dead-end street she used to park on and make out with girls. That part of the street had been, and still was, surrounded by trees on three sides, so there was plenty of privacy. Victoria grinned at the memory of being alone with Eliza Gordon in her car. Victoria had been a sophomore, Eliza a senior. Oh, the exhilaration of hearing Eliza cry out in orgasm. But, oh, the stabbing pain of seeing her on the arm of her football-playing jock boyfriend at school the next day.
There were other girls, of course. Word got around that Victoria could deliver. Mariela was one of those girls. They became exclusive during the last half of their senior year. It was an open secret, not that they flaunted it, but it became known to those in the know that Victoria’s services were no longer available. Once they graduated from high school, Victoria and Mariela were going to spend the entire summer together, camping and maybe planning their lives together. Well, that was until Victoria got roped into her cousins’ scheme stealing the copper wiring. They convinced her that she’d have so much money, she could buy that pickup truck she’d been coveting down at Branson’s Auto.
But she never got that truck, did she? And she lost the girl, too, all because she had trusted people she shouldn’t have. Although she tried to keep up a relationship with Mariela, it was doomed because she suddenly had to enlist in the Army on her father’s orders.
