“I’m not mad at you, Theo,” she says to my reflection. “I just think you can do better. You deserve someone who doesn’t have to hide his relationship with you.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I look away from her. Step away from the mirror.
Two seconds later, her arms are around me, in a hug from behind. She slips her chin into the nook between my neck and shoulder. “But I still love you, and I want you to be happy.”
We stand like that for a while, and I feel so good wrapped up in Sara-Kate love, and I wonder if she’ll feel the same way about me if she finds out about Chris.
I think Phil is going to stroke out when he sees Sara-Kate in her evening finery. Honestly, his eyeballs nearly pop from their sockets behind the black-framed glasses he’s donning for the occasion. For good reason. Sara-Kate’s hair is the whitest shade of platinum blond, a stark contrast to the navy chiffon dress that hugs her hips. Her lips are painted ruby red and she looks like a modern-day version of Marilyn Monroe.
“You look . . . Wow” is all he can say as she approaches.
“Is that the official Philip Muñoz Seal of Approval?” Sara-Kate teases, her mouth turning up in a wide smile. She touches the rhinestone barrette clipped to the front of her hair.
“Yeah.” He gives a lopsided smile of his own, a smile so goofy, it looks foreign on Phil. “Something like that.”
He tells me I look good, too, and I can’t stop wishing it were Hosea saying it instead.
Everyone usually goes to a nice restaurant to eat dinner before the dance. Like Rizzo’s, the fancy Italian place with an actual maître d’ at the front. They make reservations and take their parents’ credit cards and try to sneak glasses of wine with their fake IDs.
We go to Pizza Bazaar, which is hardly fancy enough to be considered a restaurant. It basically consists of a long counter with bar stools at one end, a few booths, and some wobbly-legged tables scattered around the black-and-white tile floor. The lighting is bad and the pizza is just okay. But it’s empty and affordable and it makes Phil and Sara-Kate feel as if they’re not taking this dance thing as seriously as they are.
Phil goes up to put in our order. Slices of pepperoni and sausage for them and a small house salad—sans dressing—for me. I look down at the laminated menu caked with dried marinara sauce and sticky droplets of soda. The pizza here is mediocre but it’s hard to fuck up a slice of cheese, which is what I really wanted to order.
But the less I eat, the stronger I feel. A few flashes of weakness, constant rumbling in my stomach—it’s worth it. If I can sustain my willpower with food, I can do anything. Like face Chris in court next week. Decide what I’m going to say. Survive.
Phil takes his time at the soda machine, making sure he gets the precise ratio of ice to soda in each cup.
“Has anyone ever cared so much about a drink?” I ask as I watch him measure out root beer for Sara-Kate.
“I think it’s sweet,” she says, and when I look over and make a face, she shrugs. “It’s not like any of the other guys at school pay attention to detail. Or anything, really.”
I give her a curious look as Phil hunts for the right-size lids among the stack overflowing to the side of the soda fountain. “Still nothing with you two?”
Her cheeks redden, right on cue. “Nothing declared. But I . . . I think something might happen tonight. Maybe?” She starts to chew on the end of a cherry-red fingernail, then remembers her fresh manicure and stops. “It seems like something could happen. But who’s supposed to make the first move?”
“I don’t know.” I take a couple of napkins from the silver holder to my side, set them in a neat stack at the end of the table. “It just sort of happens when it feels right.”
She glances at me with anxious eyes as Phil makes his way back to the booth, slowly weaving his way through tables and chairs as he holds carefully to the three sodas. “Is that how it was with you and . . . you know?”
I can’t figure out if she’s being coy because she doesn’t want Phil to overhear or if it’s because she hates the idea of us so much that she can’t say his name.
“Yes,” I say, looking at her carefully. “It was exactly like that.”
“Like what?” Phil sets the sodas down with a flourish and nary a spill. He takes a bow and we clap for his effort.
“Like you should look into getting a job here, you did such a damn good job with those drinks,” I say, and I wink at Sara-Kate when he’s not looking.
Phil shakes his hair out of his eyes and removes his glasses, wipes the lenses on a paper napkin. He’s wearing a gray vintage suit with a skinny tie and onyx cuff links. Sharp as always, and as I look at them across the table, I think how good he and Sara-Kate look together with the old-Hollywood glamour thing they have going on.
“You all set for the big trial next week?” he asks.
I reach for my Diet Coke and take a long sip before I answer. “Not particularly.”
“It should be pretty easy, though, right?” Phil jams a straw into his cup. “You just get up there, talk about the morning you saw him and what he said, and then wait for them to prosecute the shit out of that dickbag.” I don’t say anything, so he looks at me a little closer and says, “Right?”
“Guys, I . . .” I look around to make sure no one else is listening, but we almost have the entire place to ourselves, except for the older man waiting for a take-out order at the counter, his newspaper spread before him. “Do you think Donovan was abused?”
Phil frowns. “You think he wasn’t?”
“I don’t know.” I wrap my hands around the cool, smooth paper cup. “Everyone thinks so . . .”
“But?”
“Not but,” I say, shaking my head so he won’t get the wrong idea. “It’s just . . . there’s no proof and he’s still not talking and what if things didn’t go down like we think they did?”
“Okay, but let’s think about this.” Phil is using the voice teachers employ when it’s clear how wrong you are but they want you to come to the conclusion on your own. “How many kidnapping cases do you know where kids go back to their families, totally unharmed? And I’m not talking about custody battle kidnappings—just regular old cases like this one. Can you remember any? I can’t think of one.”
“I’m not saying it didn’t happen.” I press my palms flat against the table. “I just . . . How will we ever know what happened for sure if Donovan isn’t talking?”
“That’s what the trial is for,” Phil says, shrugging. “And Donovan’s lawyers are trying to make sure they have as much evidence against this guy as possible . . . because Donovan isn’t talking.”
“Also.” Sara-Kate has been sipping on her root beer this whole time but she looks at both of us now, says, “Also . . . don’t you think it means something? I looked up selective mutism and he fits the profile. People with PTSD get it all the time.”
“Yeah,” Phil says with finality. He fingers the slanted edge of his black tie. “I don’t think there’s any other explanation.”
I look down at my soda and nod. This wasn’t helpful. Ruthie says Chris raped me every time we were alone in his car, but if that’s true, why didn’t I stop talking? Why didn’t someone see the same signs in me?
Rape isn’t supposed to be this vague notion. It’s a harsh reality and everyone knows what it is, can define it in two seconds flat. Chris didn’t rape me.
The stocky guy at the counter calls the number for our order, looks around the place like it could be anyone, even though the take-out guy left and we’re the only people in here now.