Текст книги "Naked"

Автор книги: Stacey Trombley

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Chapter Three

It hasn’t really hit me what’s happening until the van pulls up to my old house. It’s big, white, with a full, manicured garden. The Japanese maple tree sitting there, right beside the stone steps that lead up to the wraparound porch, staring at me.

Everything is the same. Except me.

I stand there, looking at the house I fled three years ago.

I can’t move. I can’t make myself go in that house.

Sarah comes around the truck and stands beside me. “Ready?” she asks.

I shake my head. I will never be ready for this. Never.

She doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t move. We stand there for at least five minutes. Five really, really, really long minutes. I’m still not ready to move, no matter how long those minutes seem. I’ll stand here for eternity if I have to, if it can keep me from facing those memories. From facing my father. My mother.

But Sarah seems ready, so she begins to walk across the massive yard—through the grass. My mother won’t like it—she hates anyone touching her perfectly sculpted lawn—but I suppose that’s okay with me.

Sarah doesn’t ask me to join her, doesn’t plead with me to go inside. She leaves me behind, and that’s what makes me go. Did she know that even the smallest of nudges would have kept me rooted even deeper in my spot?

I walk very, very slowly toward the house. I feel defiant for walking through the grass. One small thing at a time. My mother doesn’t own me anymore.

Sarah reaches the top of the steps as I cross the garden. She knocks on the heavy door. I stop at the bottom of the steps, unwilling to go any farther.

Slowly, the door opens. I close my eyes and wait, but I hear nothing.

After a moment of silence, I can’t take it. I open my eyes to see Sarah and the face I’ve been dreading—and hoping for. My mother’s. Apparently she’s gathered enough courage to see me face-to-face.

Her hair is done in a tight bun, and her makeup successfully covers whatever flaws she has developed over the last three years. It’s obvious she spent a long time preparing herself to see her long-lost daughter up close, without a police station hallway between us. Because clearly looking put-together will make this easier.

I want to roll my eyes, shake my head, but in truth, I’m kind of glad to know she hasn’t changed that much. I didn’t ruin everything about her. Even if the thing that didn’t change was something I never liked.

She doesn’t move, just looks at me. But I cast my eyes to the ground, and she clears her throat.

“Why don’t you both come in?”

I look to Sarah, who nods and walks through the open door first.

We walk down a very familiar hallway and into our huge, bright white kitchen. I’m a stranger in this house.

I’m not the little girl who used to see how far she could slide on the hardwood dining room floor and hid in the linen closet when she was in trouble. I’m definitely not the little girl who sang Christmas songs with her mother while doing the dishes, even in the summer. That girl is gone.

I left her in Grand Central Terminal three years ago.

My father is waiting in the kitchen, sitting at the table. I take in a deep breath, sit across from him, and run my hands through my hair. After a pause, Sarah takes a seat beside me. She gives me a reassuring smile that I don’t return.

My mother jumps right into the role of perfect host, walking straight to the refrigerator. Her greatest skill was always ignoring the truth, pretending nothing bothered her, that everything was perfect. I don’t know if she agreed with how my father disciplined me, how harsh he was with even the smallest of transgressions. I think sometimes I blamed her more than I did him. But she was too good at ignoring the truth. I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s doing the same thing now.

“Would you like some tea?” she asks Sarah without a single glance at me. I want her to look at me. I don’t even know why. I should want to run and hide. I should want to hate her, want her to hate me.

But somehow, I don’t. I want her to care.

Less than five minutes in this house and I already feel like a lost thirteen-year-old again. Maybe I’m not as different as I thought I was.

I’m still a stranger in this house, but that’s not such a strange concept to Anna Rodriguez. I never belonged here.

I never understood my mother’s Bible verse plaques that cover the walls of each hallway, or her obsession with being the trophy wife of the year. I never understood my father and his love of money and prestige. Both of them so good at hiding their imperfections.

And the times I didn’t hide what they didn’t want to see? My father reminded me of the price of failure. Why my disguise had to be perfect.

They were either proud or they weren’t. You did what they wanted or you were a disgrace. Pretty sure I know which one I am now.

My mother sets two cups of tea onto the table with shaking hands. Sarah takes hers with thanks. I don’t move.

The silence is thick. I can’t even bring myself to look around the house. I don’t want to remember this place. I stare at the wooden table, hoping to zone out, but a mark on the side grabs my attention. A simple “A” carved into the corner where my mother and father wouldn’t notice it. I run my thumb over the carving and somehow feel like that girl again, desperate but still full of hope.

I take a deep breath and look up and my gaze crashes into my father’s. I freeze beneath his stare.

Does he see his daughter? A girl he once loved?

Or does he see a stranger?

One look at the missing poster they gave to the New York City police tells you the kind of girl I was back then. And one look at my mug shot would tell you who I am now.

You can put all the fancy clothes you want on me, but the ripped stockings they replace will still itch my legs. I look around the room for the first time. The kitchen is exactly the same, down to the mugs that hang next to the coffeepot that was brand-new when I was eleven. The cups are even in the same order.

The refrigerator is bare. At least they don’t have my report cards hanging there anymore. Not that my last year at school was worth hanging. Eighth grade wasn’t my best year. By then I was already sneaking out at night to go to parties and sleep with high schoolers. Remember when I said my parents would have disowned me even then? Surprise! Anna was never a good girl, not really. She was just a good pretender.

One day you get tired of pretending, and the fear of all your lies being exposed becomes suffocating.

I knew I could never be who my parents wanted me to be. That’s why I’m not sure what I’m doing here. Why would they want me back now?

“This is going to be hard on all of you,” Sarah says, breaking the silence. “This situation, it’s…difficult.”

My father grunts indignantly. Mom says nothing. The perfect, obedient wife.

Sarah doesn’t continue. She looks to my father.

“Difficult, that’s what you call it?” he says.

“What would you call it?” I ask him, sounding braver than I feel. I know what he’s getting at, and I’d much rather he say it out loud. He thinks I’m disgusting. A disgrace. He doesn’t respond though, so I continue as if he had. “You’re the one who brought me here. If you think I’m so horrible…”

“Anna, please,” Sarah says, but she’s too quiet. Too polite.

My father ignores her and stands. “I brought you back to save you from that evil place. An evil life.”

“Mr. Rodriguez, please,” Sarah says.

“It was my job as your father to…save you from the evil in your life. Even if it means bringing filth back into my home.” He straightens his shoulders. “That’s our burden to carry.”

I laugh a little under my breath. It’s bitter, even I can see that, but who can blame me? At least he said it. At least he was honest for the first time since I’ve known him.

“Mr. Rodriguez,” Sarah says, louder.

He tears his hard, angry eyes from me to look at her. They soften slightly. Appearances, after all.

“I was saying that this is hard on everyone,” Sarah says. “Including Anna. You must understand, this isn’t her fault.”

“Not her fault?” My father’s hands shake on top of the table. “She…she….”

“I fucked men for money.” Everything stops. The room is filled with a silence that’s suffocating. But I’m not sorry. Not sorry at all. “There, are you happy?” I lean back in my seat and wait for his response. I’m not afraid of my father anymore, and honestly, that feels pretty good.

“Anna!” Sarah says, shocked at my bluntness, at my language.

I look at her and give an apologetic smile, but it’s mixed with disdain. I guess I am a little sorry. Not for saying that to my father, but for saying it in front of Sarah. I have more respect for her than my whole family put together. Three years on the streets hasn’t changed my lack of respect for parents who gave me more rules than love.

It’s also the first time I admitted I am—was—a hooker out loud to Sarah. She knew, of course, but when I wouldn’t talk about the years I spent in New York, she gave up and focused on the now. Why couldn’t the lie have lasted a little longer?

My mother turns and then rests her head on the kitchen counter. To pray? To hide her tears? I don’t know.

Truth is, she needed to hear it.

They all needed to hear it.

Sarah looks at me now. “Anna, you’re back now. And your parents are going to do whatever they need to do to make this work for you. But they need to know why you came back. What is it that you want out of all of this?”

My life back.

“Freedom,” I say lightly.

“What do you mean?” Sarah says.

“I…” I’m a little scared to say it, to tell them the full truth. I glance at my father. “I left, before, because of how controlling you were. I couldn’t be who I wanted to be. I just want to have a little freedom.”

“How? How can I let you do anything?” my father says. I’ve hurt him, angered him. “How can you expect us to trust you?”

“I don’t need you to trust me. Just don’t expect me to be your perfect daughter. I was never that girl. I’m not going to church, I’m not going to be a straight-A student, I’m not going to dress up and go to prom or be homecoming queen like you always expected. I don’t know what I want to be, but I know I don’t want to be that.”

“So what is it? You want the freedom to ‘be yourself’? ‘Yourself’ is a prostitute,” my father says. He stands up. “I can’t let you be that anymore. I won’t!”

I stand up, too. “No! I didn’t just wake up one day and say, ‘Maybe I’ll suck cock for a living.’ That’s all you think I am? Just a hooker? You don’t realize I did it because of you. I left because of you!”

The words are out before I can take them back. God knows what my father would do if Sarah wasn’t here. Something to make me take it back.

But Sarah is here, and however angry he is, he can’t afford to let down his disguise in front of her.

Sarah stands and grabs me by the arm. Is she being tough? But her hand feels like a feather on my arm, so light it amazes me.

Still, I do what she wants and walk with her through the sliding glass door on the other side of the kitchen and out onto the back porch.

I know she brought me out here to talk, but I find myself looking at a doghouse at the back of the yard, a water bowl beside it. We never had a dog.

“Anna, I need you to calm down. It’s hard for them to adjust to this, too.”

“Well, at least they get to make their own choices,” I say, still looking at the doghouse. There’s no grass around it, just mud. “If they choose to have their hooker daughter back, they better be ready to face the truth.”

“Listen,” she says. “I agree that they’ll have to accept the truth. They’ll have to come to grips with it. But that doesn’t mean you have to throw it in their faces.”

I turn back to her. My only friend.

How pathetic.

What would Luis think of me now? At least he’d tell me to stand up for myself.

“Yeah, right,” I say.

“Just stop for a moment and think. I want you to try to imagine how they feel.”

I shake my head, not at her, at myself. Why does no one think about how I’m feeling?

“What if I don’t want to think about what they’re feeling?”

I don’t know what she sees when she looks at me. Sometimes it’s like she looks straight into my brain, or soul, or something.

“Why not?” she says in a near whisper.

“Why would I want to be okay with my parents thinking I’m trash? Disgusting? Whatever else they think?”

“You’re thinking about this the wrong way. Yes, they think little of what you did while you were away, but that’s not what I mean. You were their baby, their little girl, and you left them. Ran away. Don’t you think that hurt them?”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

“As a parent, all you want to do is take care of your children, protect them. And they couldn’t.” Her voice gets softer, and for the first time I wonder if she has—or had—a kid of her own. “Now, in some ways they feel like it’s too late. It’s hard for them. Not just about you being a prostitute, but about all of it. They feel like more of a failure at being parents than they think you’re a failure of a daughter. I guarantee it.”

I stare at her, unblinking. I don’t know what to think about what she said. This is all so much. Now I’m supposed to feel sorry for my parents?

I turn away from her and cross my arms. “I didn’t ask to be here. No one gave me a choice. It’s not fair to put all of this on me.” Tears well in my eyes, and I feel like a child. I hate feeling like a child.

Sarah sighs. “Why don’t you hang out here for a while? Try to calm down a bit. Mentally prepare yourself. The truth is this will all go a lot smoother if you and your parents learn to respect each other.”

Yeah, like I can just make myself respect them.

Sarah walks through the door and leaves me alone in the backyard.

I look back out to the doghouse, which stands almost one hundred feet away from where I am on the porch. But I haven’t seen a dog yet, so I take a few slow steps toward it. I still see nothing; maybe it’s not even out here right now. Maybe they don’t even have a dog anymore. They might have killed it the way they killed me. Three years is a long time to live with people like them.

I see a large metal chain connected to a tree about ten feet away that leads directly to the house.

I take a few steps and see nothing. Another few steps and something moves, a small grunt of a lazy animal, and inside the dark hole of the large doghouse I see a bit of black fur.

A few more steps, even slower now.

Then I hear a deep growl. The kind of growl you don’t want to mess with. Slow, confident. Scary.

I’m not scared of dogs, but I’m not stupid either. I’ve met my fair share of untrustworthy dogs in New York.

“Careful there.” I whip my head toward the male voice and see a boy over the fence, standing in the yard next door.

He looks at me, and his smile seems so genuine, so confident, that it can’t be real.He’s probably about my age, freckles and thick-rimmed glasses. A bit nerdy, but cute in a way I’ve missed. The kind of guy I’d never have talked to in my old life because I’d have thought he was too good for me.

But he already made the first move, so…

“No?” I say.

He shakes his head, that small smile playing at his lips. He looks at the doghouse. “He doesn’t have many friends, so he’s not usually good with strangers.”

A nose and a pair of eyes look out at me from the doghouse. Whatever’s in there isn’t growling anymore, it’s watching.

I take a few steps away and look back to the boy, who’s watching me, too.

Who is he? We never had a neighbor my age before. I’m not good at making friends, and I’m pretty sure this kid would hide under his bed if he knew just some of the things I’ve done over the last few years.

But somehow, the way he looks at me with those hazel eyes, bright and alive… It’s like I’m not the girl from the streets, not the girl who sold her body to strangers and fell in love with the man who sold her. Not the girl with no future. Even Luis never looked at me like this. To this boy, I’m just…normal. Just a mysterious girl next door he’s never met.

“You new?” he asks me.

I shake my head and open my mouth, but then I close it. How am I supposed to explain any of this? Nothing’s changed. I’m still dirty, tarnished Anna. I can’t throw that on some random guy.

He lifts up a Weedwacker I didn’t notice before. “I’m Jackson. I mow the lawn here sometimes.”

“Oh,” I say stupidly.

“What’s your—”

“Anna!”

I spin around to see my father standing on the porch.

“Get away from Czar. He’s dangerous.”

I see the dog’s ears perk up, possibly at the sound of his name. I shrug and walk away from the doghouse, but I don’t like to turn my back to him. I don’t like to turn my back to anyone. I listen intently and glance back, just a little, hopefully subtly enough. But the dog’s in the shadows again. Hiding. Waiting for a safer moment?

You and me both.

“That’s a guard dog,” my father says. “You leave him alone.”

I shrug and look back to Jackson. He waves to my father, who gives him a noncommittal nod in return. As soon as my father turns away and heads back inside, the boy pulls something out of his pocket and tosses it toward the doghouse, then winks at me before going back to trimming the grass of my neighbor’s yard.

A massive black dog with a wagging stump of a tail rushes from the doghouse and gobbles up what looks like a Milk-Bone.

I take one more deep breath and then head back inside, feeling surprisingly less tense now. Something else to think about besides the way my parents look at me when I come back inside, something other than the odd tension between us. And more importantly, what kind of hell the next few days will bring.

Then I’m back in the kitchen and wondering why I didn’t stay outside.

“We’re sorry, Anna,” my mom says.

I look up quickly, surprised to hear those words come from my mother’s mouth, and I wonder if Sarah has magical powers. Five minutes alone with them and she’s somehow given one of them a soul.

My father sits down, and his shoulders sag.

I look back at my mom. “Sorry for what?” I say. Knowing I’m pushing my luck to have already gotten this much, but I can’t help it.

My father looks at her, as though daring her to say more. My mom drops her head.

And suddenly I feel bad for pushing her.

Didn’t Sarah say this was hard for all of us?

“I’m sorry, too,” I say, and I decide that Sarah is definitely psychic.

Chapter Four

My heart pounds wildly as I stand in front of my bedroom door. I left my parents and Sarah in the kitchen so they could talk alone. They asked me to leave, as if I wanted to listen to them. As if escape wasn’t the first thing on my mind.

But now I’m not so sure this is the escape I want.

It’s amazing, all the horrors I faced on the streets of New York, other people’s worst nightmares, but the thought of facing a thirteen-year-old girl’s bedroom scares the freaking crap out of me.

How can I possibly be scared of my old bedroom?

Luis wouldn’t let this go if he saw me now. I can almost hear his laugh. It always started light and rumbly, as if it bubbled up from somewhere deep and warm in his chest. I wish I could laugh with him. I wish I could go back to when I believed that laugh belonged to a safe space for just the two of us. Was any of that warmth real? Or was I just too blind to see the truth?

The fear of my childhood bedroom is laughable, but somehow this is different. Different from all the other horrors of my past. Like I’m not just facing physical pain or whatever, I’m facing my past. I’m facing myself.

And that is so much scarier.

I take a deep breath and decide I’ve wasted enough time being a wimp. That girl I left behind, she can’t scare me anymore.

I twist the knob and try to ignore the pounding in my chest.

I take a step through the doorway and remind myself that this room means nothing. I’m not this girl, and it doesn’t matter what she would think of me now. It doesn’t matter what she hoped for when she ran away—naive dreams of stardom and freedom. I might have failed that girl, I might have failed myself even now, but there isn’t anything I can do about it.

My heart still aches, no matter what my mind tries to convince me. My eyes still fill with tears, my mind with memories, images. A little girl with unruly curls and dreams too big for her own good.

That girl danced on the bed to all the stupid pop stars she hoped she’d become, stole from her mother’s closet just to try on her high heels and earrings. Then hid under the bed when her father caught her. When the game turned serious.

That girl waited while her mother ran into the room to stop the girl’s father. “She’s just a child, Martin,” she whispered.

“Hush,” he said. Softly, but leaving no room to question him.

But then my memories won’t let me pretend. It wasn’t some other girl under the bed. It was me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath, hoping he wouldn’t find me. That if I hid long enough, he’d forget.

But then a hand reached under the bed, grasped my upper arm, and ripped me out from my hiding place. My mother didn’t try to plead with him again, and neither did I. I knew it wouldn’t do any good.

His tight squeezes on my arms left yellow bruises, but those always faded after a few days. His belt was what did the most damage. Those swats left me stinging for days. But even those went away.

It was always the words that left me scarred.

“You run around here like a loose girl. Do you know what happens to loose girls?”

I didn’t listen.

His stories were ridiculous. They’d never happen to me, I’d never be like that. But I guess he was more right than I ever realized.

That wasn’t long before I started sneaking out the window to live my life in whatever way I could. When I started actually wearing high heels and earrings and short skirts, stolen from the mall and hidden from my parents—I got very good at hiding. All to attract whatever attention I could manage.

The purple walls of my room seem so close together now, pressing in on me and my memories. Rainbow-colored pillows cover the top of the pink bedspread and stuffed animals line the sides. My desk sits in the same exact place, and there’s a purple grape juice stain next to the left leg.

Nothing’s changed. Figured my parents would have made it into a workout room or something. I’m honestly not sure they’ve touched a thing.

The same pictures hang on the walls, my very last drawings before I ran away.

I suppose it makes sense that a sketch of the Empire State Building is pinned to the corkboard. I’d dreamed about going there for years before I decided to buy myself a train ticket. Before everything went to shit.

And the worst thing? I’m right back where I started.

I cross the room, grab the picture, and rip it from the board. I squeeze my hand closed and watch as the building—once the source of all my dreams—shrinks and wrinkles and disappears into my fist.

I toss it in the trash and walk out the door.

My parents are easier to face than this.

When I reenter the kitchen, my mother and father are talking quietly with Sarah.

“Welcome back,” Sarah says lightly, like she’s surprised I didn’t get caught up being back in my old room or something.

I shrug and sit at the table. “I don’t like it up there.”

She cocks her eyebrow. “Well, it’s good you came back when you did,” she says. “There’s something your parents want to talk to you about.”

I look up, surprised. I have no idea what they’d want to say to me. I mean, I’m sure I can guess some of the things they’d like to say…

“Hi, Anna,” my mother whispers.

My stomach squeezes, and my eyes water again. I really don’t enjoy feeling like a child, but right now I’m not sure I’ve got a choice.

“Hi, Mom,” I say.

This is so fucking weird.

My heart pounds. Thick, quiet awkwardness fills the air.

I turn to my mom and dad, who are both staring at the ground.

“Nora, why don’t you start?” Sarah prompts. It’s odd to hear my mother called by her first name. It’s not something I’m used to hearing from even my father, who, if he ever speaks directly to her, calls her sweetie or sugar, or something equally cheesy. But I remind myself that I haven’t been around in three years. Maybe that’s changed, too.

“We want you to go back to school,” Mom finally says.

“What?” I say, sincerely shocked by this. I’ve barely been back one day. I haven’t been to school since I left here. What’s the point in starting back now?

“We…” She pauses and plays with her hands some more. I wonder if she’ll have blisters by the end of this conversation. “We think it’s best that you go back…or try to go back…to your normal life.” Now she turns to me. “We need you to try.”

How could I possibly just go back? I’m not even the same person. But she said they need me to try, and my stomach aches a little. Why is it that after so long away from them, doing everything in my power and more to disappoint them, that I still want to please them?

“How?” I ask, so lightly I’m surprised they hear.

“You’ll start in ninth grade. You were close enough to the end of eighth to finish. And you’ll have a tutor, someone to help you catch up.”

I shake my head. “No. I mean, how…how can I just go back?”

My mother meets my eyes for the first time. She’s on the verge of crying. How can I love this woman despite everything?

“Can’t I just get my GED, and then go to college or something?”

“No,” my father says. “We can’t let you go off to college, not for a very long time.”

I want to argue with him that it would take me a long time to get my GED, I’m not smart enough for that to be easy, but I decide to keep my mouth shut.

It’s only now that I realize part of me hoped things would be different. That if I ever came back, my father wouldn’t be so cruel. And my mother might finally stand up for me.

I close my eyes and picture New York. I picture my old apartment, the streets, the subways. I hear the loud roar of the train as it passes overhead.

I open my eyes and look around. A weary mother and father who hate what I’ve become in a stuffy, too-formal room. I can’t believe I’m back here, but what better choice do I have?

Luis doesn’t want me, and even if I ran away again, I have nowhere to go.

A part of me just wants to see the city again. Why can’t I be a normal teenager in New York? At least then I can pretend to be someone else. That was what got me through my time on the streets. It would help in this, too.

I just want to belong, I want to be wanted. But I belong nowhere, and no one wants me, no one but the johns, the nasty men who paid to have sex with me.

“We need you to be normal, Anna,” my mom says. “We need it. We can’t handle more…mistakes.”

Mistakes.

“Is that what you think of me?” I say. “That I’m a mistake?”

My father says, “That’s up to you—”

“No,” my mother says, and I’m shocked when she continues, as though my father wasn’t already speaking. “You’re not a mistake. But we want you to get better. To have a chance at real happiness.”

My father glares at her, and I know she’ll hear about this later. She lowers her head, once again the good wife, but it’s too late. I saw a glimmer of something in her that I haven’t seen since I was a child.

“Okay,” I say.

Her face lights up with surprise. “So you’ll do it? Go to school, do your homework, join clubs—all of it?”

Wow, that’s asking a little much. “I don’t know about the clubs part.”

“What about chorus?” my father says.

“Yes! You had a lovely singing voice,” my mother adds.

I wince. Singing now would just remind me of more of my failures.

“Maybe give her some time to get used to it all before joining clubs or a choir,” Sarah says. “The social aspect is what will make it hardest for her, I think. So give her time to adjust. ”

“Fine,” he says. “It’s too late for her to join the Young Women’s Chorus anyway, but they’ll take new members around March or so. She has until then to ‘get used to it.’”

That’s my father. Why learn compassion now when he never needed it before?

We sit there in silence. After a minute, my mom speaks up.

“Anna, please,” she says. “Please try.”

I nod. For my mother, the mother I still hate in so many ways, I will try. Maybe I love my parents more than I’m willing to admit.

Besides, who the hell cares about what a bunch of teenagers think, right? I know I can do it; my skin is bulletproof.

Sticks and stones, fists and rope, can hurt me, but words won’t get past first base. I hold back a laugh at my stupidity.

High school. I thought that was a torture I was going to be lucky enough to avoid altogether.

Yeah, this is going to be tons of fun.