Zack Holler jumped me like a wolf on a weasel in the dead of winter. He had a hunger. He nipped at my neck. His teeth tugged my lips. Kissing Zachary was nothing at all like kissing Gwen. His mouth was dry and his tongue filled my mouth till I thought I’d choke.
He pawed and pushed. I didn’t have time to worry about what I was supposed to do with my hands before I was falling to the floor and Zack was falling on top of me and my skirt was riding up around my thighs. Zack clawed at my stockings till they ripped from belly to knee. I said no a dozen times, but maybe not out loud. My fingernails dug into the flesh of his back. He moved on me faster and faster. His belt buckle cut into my stomach; the stiff denim of his jeans gnawed at my bare skin, and I pleaded with him to slow down, to stop, he was hurting me; I was sure someone would hear us in the tree house, someone would see it rocking and know. But no one came. No one heard Zack cry out, unless my father heard it piercing through his brain above the roar of rough logs being sheared as he left the mill.
Zack collapsed on top of me and drifted off to sleep. My legs felt prickly and hot, like I’d rolled in poison ivy. The smell of us made me giddy, made me think of putting my whole face down in a barrel of apples being pressed into cider.
I liked that smell, though I knew it would be bad soon enough, something sweet turning to vinegar in the warm afternoon. I could have pushed Zack off: he was in no mood to wrestle. But I lay there. In the end, Zack was the first to go.
Daddy sat on the porch swing. It was past five. He’d been off work for an hour or two, so I knew he’d had time to suck down more than a couple of beers. He spotted me when I was still a block off, and I felt his stare as I dawdled along toward the house. I’d buried Mom’s tattered pantyhose in the gully. My naked legs were scratched and dirty, my hair a tangled mat. It was plain my father didn’t like what he saw, even at a distance. The idea of turning around and tearing down the street to avoid the whole scene crossed my mind, but I didn’t know where to run. Only Nina could fool our father; only Nina knew him well enough to hide forever.
The instant I touched the steps of his house he was on me. He grabbed my wrist and jerked me onto the porch, then shoved me inside the house, giving my behind a sharp jab with his knee as I stumbled through the doorway.
“Where’ve you been, dressed like that?” he shouted. Mother ran out from the kitchen to see what the ruckus was.
“Calm yourself,” she said, trying to wedge between us. My father had already worked himself into a sweat. Mom knew the slapping would start if she didn’t do something fast. Daddy pushed her out of his way with one hand and said, “Did you see your daughter leave the house today?” She refused to answer. The beer on his breath smelled sweet and strong and made me remember.
“What have I told you about girls who put that crap all over their faces?” he said to me. “What did I say I’d do if I ever caught you ratting your hair and wearing your skirt halfway up your ass?”
Mom tugged at his arm. “It’s just a little makeup, Dean. It doesn’t mean anything.”
But my father and I knew different. Daddy’s eyes were clear and pale, glacial ice reflecting just a hint of blue from the sky. Those eyes saw everywhere. He knew all about me and Zack. He saw us falling. He saw that I almost liked it, that I was already imagining it might happen again.
Damp rings darkened Daddy’s T-shirt from his armpits halfway to his waist. I never understood how he knew things about me. Maybe we were too much alike. Maybe at the moment he left the mill a squawking crow flew high above him. As he raised his head to see why she was yammering, she swooped in the direction of the gully and the vision came to my father as clearly as if he had followed Zachary up the rickety ladder of the tree house.
“Go take a shower,” he said. “And find a decent dress before you sit down at my table.”
I climbed the stairs with all the dignity I could muster, knowing how Father judged me. I remembered the smear of orange lipstick across my swollen mouth and heard Zack say, You’re not too ugly. But I was.
At dinner, dad wasn’t talking to me and Mom wasn’t talking to him. It was a four-word meal. Father stopped picking at his beans and chop, stood up, threw his napkin on the table and said, “Damn kitchen’s too hot.” He was only looking for an excuse to go outside for a smoke.
I went straight to my room after Mom and I did the dishes. I opened my window wide and hoped to hear the first crickets of spring, but they were still months away, hundreds of miles south of Willis. I thought of Zack as he stood to leave the tree house. I had stayed on the floor, staring up at his long legs, at the damp spot in his crotch. He’d grinned in a way that made me think he might put his foot on my chest before he left, lightly, a threat, a joke from his point of view. But he hadn’t bothered. And I’d watched his thighs as he squatted, easing himself onto the unreliable ladder. I covered my head with my pillow, but the memory didn’t fade.
Later the screen door whined, and I knew Mother had gone out on the porch. I pictured her folding her arms, just waiting for Father to turn around and snarl, “What is it?”
Their two voices rumbled along at first, slow and soft, as if they tried their best to be polite and have a real discussion, giving each other time to think and time to speak. But before long their words jumped on top of one another. Daddy swung so hard in the porch seat that it groaned, and I thought it might fly clean off its hinges. The squabble didn’t last long. Father won the quarrel by marching down the road and calling back to Mother, “You drive me to drink, woman.”
She sat for less than a minute before she came inside. I heard her on the stairs. I figured she had come to her senses and realized what a troublemaker I was, giving her one more thing to fight about with Daddy. I suspected she was on her way to give me the scolding she wouldn’t let my father give me earlier.
She tapped at the door and said, “Lizzie, Lizzie honey, are you awake?”
I told her I was. Only the devil could sleep after doing what I’d done that afternoon. I was no better than Zachary Holler. I was impatient and much too hungry. I remembered how I felt as I shoved Gwen against the tree in the gully, strong and mean, thinking only of what I wanted. I felt my own brutal kiss and tasted blood where my teeth cut the inside of my lip.
“May I come in?” I got nervous when my mother was that polite. “Why are you sitting up here in the dark, baby? Come down and sit on the porch with me. Your father’s gone.”
I didn’t want Mother’s company, especially if she was going to be so sweet with me when all the time I knew Daddy was right. Zack Holler never would have given me a second look if my lips weren’t orange and my skirt wasn’t tight. I would have been invisible, the same Lizzie Macon he’d always known, and nothing would have happened in the tree house.
“I’ve got something to tell you, Liz.” The way she said it gave me no choice, so I followed her downstairs to the porch.
She didn’t start talking right away. She was thinking so hard that she didn’t see how I watched her as we rocked together in the swing. Most times I kept myself from looking at her this way. Tonight I noticed her fingers were stiff, and she rubbed her knuckles one by one. I thought of Grandmother’s hands, crippled by arthritis, her joints so swollen she couldn’t remove the ring of the man who had deserted her. I wondered how long it would take before my own mother’s hands grew twisted, too weak to hold a pot of soup. I saw her by the stove, saw the handle slip from her grasp.
I wanted to swear no boy would ever steal me away. I would be there to mop the soup off the floor, to chop the vegetables and start another pot. I wanted her to put her head on my lap so I could stroke her hair and face and tell her I’d never be a problem to her again. But I did nothing; it wasn’t our way, not since Nina left, not since Nina stuffed all her easy love in a canvas bag and vanished in the dust on the road.