“Of course, Mother. It’s when we go on excursions like this that they come in most handy. We need to be excused now so we can both do last-minute things. Boyd will be here in ten minutes.”
“Don’t make any more mistakes, Kiera,” Mrs. March warned. “There’s no room for any more mistakes.”
“That’s all in the past, Mother. I’ll let someone else make mistakes.”
“Don’t belittle what I say, Kiera.”
“I never do, Mother. Sasha?”
I stood up and looked at Mrs. March. If she would or could ever see the hesitation in my face, she would see it now, I thought, and maybe she would forbid my going, but her mind was somewhere else. She nodded and looked down. Kiera tugged me, and we headed back up to our rooms. I was still brushing my teeth when she cried from my doorway that Boyd was there.
“Hurry up,” she said, “before my mother finds some reason to stop us. Believe me,” she continued as we went down the hallway, “she wishes she could.”
“Why wouldn’t she want us to have fun?”
“It’s a long story, but it’s because she had such a boring childhood. She’s just jealous.”
I shook my head as she descended in front of me. How could a daughter think her mother was jealous of her? Mothers wanted their daughters to have better lives than they had, didn’t they? She certainly wanted a better life for me, even if it was just to ease her conscience. Besides, I couldn’t believe Mrs. March had a boring childhood. Kiera just had a definition of “boring” that was different from most people’s.
Deidre was waiting for us in the car with Boyd.
“The others are meeting us at the dock,” she said. “Hurry up.” When we drove off, she turned and leaned over to whisper, “Ready for VA day?”
Kiera pushed her to turn around. “Don’t spook her,” she said. “She’s nervous enough.”
“Nervous about what?” Boyd asked.
“Being on the same boat with you,” Kiera said.
“Yeah, right. You have nothing to worry about as long as I’m there, Sasha,” he said.
Ricky’s boat was impressive. He had told me it was a seventy-five-foot Hatteras motor yacht. While everyone else waited, he took me on a tour to show me the galley, the salon, the master stateroom, and the guest stateroom. After that, he brought me up to the pilothouse, where I was to remain with him as he got us under way. Despite the conflicts going on inside me, I was very excited. When he started the boat and we were bouncing over the water, I couldn’t help but squeal with delight. He let me steer for a while, too. Boyd started whining about not being permitted to do half the driving, as Ricky had promised, so he let him come up with Marcia, and he and I went down to join the others in the salon.
Kiera looked pretty cozy with Ruben Weiner, and Deidre was practically on Tony Sussman’s lap. Margot was sprawled on a sofa with Jack Martin. The way everyone was smiling at us gave me the jitters. Did all of the boys also know what was supposed to happen on the boat?
“Looks crowded in here,” Ricky said. “Come on. We’ll go to the front of the boat, and you can feel the wind and sea spray.”
He took my hand and led me out. It was more exciting at the front of the boat. He pointed out Catalina and some of the other boats traveling to and fro. Because it was so bumpy, he held me around the waist, and we stood like that for a while. Afterward, we returned to the salon. I saw that Margot and Jack Martin were gone.
“Margot and Jack are in the guest stateroom,” Kiera whispered. “You have the master, of course.”
I glanced at Ricky.
“He already knows he’s been chosen,” she said.
Whether it was the prospect of really going forward with this or because this was my first time on a boat at sea, I don’t know, but I felt the blood drain from my face and a wooziness come over me. I faltered for a moment as my legs turned into jelly beneath me.
Ricky saw it coming and had his arm around my waist again. “Whoa,” he said, and scooped me up to carry me to the sofa.
“No,” Kiera said, seizing his arm. “She needs to be in the bed.”
He nodded and carried me to the master stateroom.
“I’ll get Boyd to slow down. That will help,” he said after he lowered me to the bed.
I closed my eyes. My stomach was doing flip-flops.
After he left, Kiera came in.
“Perfect,” she said, as if I had planned it all out and was pretending. “We’ll wait until the boat is docked.”
“I’m not fooling,” I said. “I feel sick.”
“You’ll get over it,” she insisted. “Rest a little.”
“But you said the pill would prevent this from happening.”
“Everyone’s different, Sasha. Don’t be silly. I was hoping it would work for you, but I guess it doesn’t. Next time, we’ll get you to wear one of those patches to prevent seasickness. Relax. The best is yet to come.”
“I don’t want to,” I said. “I don’t feel good.”
“What are you talking about? We go through all this effort to make it easy for you, and you want to back out now? Relax. You’ll feel lots better after we dock, and that will be the best time for your initiation. Besides, you don’t want to disappoint the girls after they voted to include you, and you especially don’t want to disappoint Ricky,” she added. “I’ll be back in a few.”
“I think I’m going to throw up.”
She stood glaring at me for a moment and then sighed and shook her head. “Okay. If you have to throw up, go into the bathroom. I’ll see if Ricky has anything onboard that will help,” she said, and left.
I closed my eyes and kept my hands on my stomach while I fought back the urge to vomit. No one else was this seasick. I was embarrassed. The feeling didn’t pass. I was about to get up when Ricky and Kiera returned. Kiera was holding a glass of something with a blue tint.
“We called Ricky’s father, and he told us where this was in the galley,” Kiera said. “You drink it all down as fast as you can.”
She came to the bed. Ricky helped me sit up, and I took the glass. It didn’t look like anything anyone would want to drink.
“Drink it fast,” Kiera emphasized, “and you won’t mind the taste.”
I looked at Ricky. His face was so serious, his eyes intense. Was he that way because he thought that somehow this was his fault and he felt sorry for me?
“If she has a bad time, I’ll never stop hearing about it from my mother,” Kiera told him.
I looked at the glass again, took a deep breath, and gulped the contents. Kiera took the glass back immediately, and Ricky lowered me to the pillow again.
“Just rest. We’re almost at the dock,” he said.
Kiera was looking down at me in the strangest way. After a moment, they both left. I closed my eyes again and listened to the hum of the engines. I felt the boat slowing down, but I never felt it being docked. I fell asleep, I think, or maybe it would be better described as passing out.
The first thing I realized when I opened my eyes was that I was naked, and everyone was standing around the bed looking down at me, but their faces were going in and out of focus. Was I dreaming?
Then I saw the top of Ricky’s head. He was moving between my legs and lifting them at the same time. Faces continued to go in and out and then diminished, as if I were looking at them through the wrong end of a telescope. When I felt him pushing into me, I was sure I heard a soft chanting that sounded like “VA, VA, VA.” I know I cried out. My whole body was shaking. It’s really happening, I thought. This isn’t a dream.
I don’t know how long it lasted. Minutes seemed to float into each other. I wasn’t even sure how many times Ricky was there. At one point, as if they were all suddenly bored, they filed out, and I was alone with him for a while. Then he left, too.
When I woke up again, I was dressed. I could feel the boat moving. I sat up. The stateroom spun and then settled. My stomach was still woozy but not as bad as it had been. I called for Kiera.
I could hear them all laughing. There was music, too. I struggled to get to my feet and opened the door. Everyone but Ricky was in the salon. They were drinking vodka. I saw the bottle on the table. Deidre noticed me first and called out. They all stopped talking and laughing and looked at me.
“I hope you’re feeling better, Sasha,” Kiera said. “I can’t bring you home seasick. My mother called, and I told her you were on the island. She tried your phone next and then called me back, and I told her you left it on the boat. Remember to say that,” she added, and sipped her drink.
Everyone continued to stare at me.
“I want to talk to you,” I said.
“So talk. We don’t keep secrets from each other, remember?”
Everyone laughed.
I started to cry. “I want to talk to you,” I insisted.
She groaned, finished her drink, and stood. “Will you all excuse me? Babysitting duties call,” she said, and came to the stateroom.
I closed the door.
“What?”
“What did you give me to drink?”
“I don’t know. Something Ricky’s father had on the boat.”
“I don’t know what happened to me. I think … was I raped?”
“Raped? You were initiated, Sasha. Don’t think of it as being raped.”
“But I think everyone was there.”
She smiled. “No one was there but Ricky.”
“I … it was like a rape.”
“I told you. Don’t think of it as a rape.”
“What should I think of it as?”
She thought a moment and smiled. “Think of it the way you would think of a toothache. Now it’s over,” she said, and walked out.
30
Lies
I kept to myself for the remainder of the trip. No one tried to get me into any conversations, anyway. It made me feel like yesterday’s news. Even Ricky was aloof and indifferent. He never asked me how I felt. When we docked in Marina Del Ray, Kiera called to me to hurry along. She was anticipating another call from her mother any minute.
“I’ll call her first and let her know we’re on the way home once we’re started,” she said. That seemed to be the only thing that mattered to her now.
As I stepped off the boat, I saw the way the others were looking at me. None of the girls said good-bye or “See you later.” They all simply stared at me. When I looked back at them, they were huddled and whispering.
“Is everyone angry at me?” I asked Kiera after we got into a taxi she had waiting.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” she replied, and laughed.
“What does that mean?”
“It means what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, Sasha. Don’t go blabbing about our trip. I’ll describe some of the things on Catalina that you missed,” she added. “Just in case my mother gives you the third degree or something.”
She then narrated her version of our story, even elaborating on what we all had for lunch.
“Did you really do all that?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “Why would I lie to you?”
“It’s not that. I can’t believe I slept through it all.”
“Don’t mention being seasick. You can say you were a little woozy but you got over it,” she instructed. Then she put her earphones in and turned on her iPod and sang along. I couldn’t remember when she had looked and acted so happy.
After the taxi dropped us off, I turned to her and said, “So now I’m a full-fledged member of the VA club, huh?”
She paused at the front door and looked at me with the most curious expression on her face. “Pardon me?”
“The club,” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sasha,” she said, and opened the door.
I hurried in after her to pursue and understand, but before I could say anything else, both Mr. and Mrs. March came strolling out of the entertainment center, laughing. They paused when they saw us.
“Hey,” Mr. March called. “How was your day, girls?”
“Miserable,” Kiera said, and charged up the stairway.
I stood looking after her with just as shocked a face as they had. She didn’t look back. She pounded her way up as if she were trying to stamp out bugs on the steps.
“What happened?” Mrs. March asked me as she approached. “When I called, she said you were all at a restaurant and were having a great time.”
I shook my head. What was I supposed to be saying? Had Kiera forgotten to prepare me?
“Did something bad happen on the boat?” Mr. March asked, stepping up beside Mrs. March. “No accidents, I hope.”
“No,” I said.
“Well, then, what is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“What the hell …” He looked at Mrs. March, who just shook her head.
I moved quickly to get away from them, fearful that I would say the wrong thing. Kiera had her door closed, so I knocked. She didn’t open it or respond.
“Kiera? What’s going on? Your parents are confused, and so am I.” I looked back to be sure they hadn’t followed me up. “What am I supposed to say?”
She opened the door partway and looked out at me with a face so full of anger it took my breath away. I stepped back.
“Tell them whatever lies you want,” she said. “I’m tired of covering up for you.”
“What?”
She slammed the door. I stood there dumbfounded. When I looked toward the stairway, I saw that Mrs. March had come up and was standing there gaping at me. I hurried to my suite and went in quickly. My head was spinning. I was still woozy and a little confused from what had happened on the boat, but this added so much weight to it I felt as if my head had turned to stone. I sat on my bed, dazed, my heart thumping. I hadn’t closed my door, so I heard Mrs. March knock on Kiera’s door. Instead of the usual unfriendly “What do you want?” I heard the door being opened, muffled voices, what sounded like Kiera crying, and then the door being closed.
I sat absolutely still, trying to hear something more, but I heard nothing for the longest time. Then I thought I heard heavy footsteps in the hallway and got up to listen at my doorway. I heard Mr. March ask, “What’s this all about?” Then he, too, went into Kiera’s room, and the door closed again. I closed my door softly and retreated to my bathroom. From the moment I had stepped off the boat, I could think of nothing else but a hot shower. I felt so dirty inside and out. I decided to wash my hair as well. Afterward, I wrapped a bath towel around myself and went to my vanity table to blow-dry my hair and brush it out.
The shower had refreshed me, but I could feel the deep fatigue in every muscle in my body, even in my bones. My eyes wanted to close and did for a moment. When I opened them, I saw both Mr. and Mrs. March captured in the mirror. They were standing behind me, looking very upset. I spun around.
“Sasha,” Mrs. March began. “Do you have a tattoo very low down on your back?”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. My throat tightened so hard I couldn’t breathe. Why would Kiera have told them about that? There was no other way, no other reason, they would be asking about it.
“Yes,” I finally said.
“I’d like to see it,” Mr. March said, more to Mrs. March than to me. “Now,” he emphasized so sternly that I winced.
“Please turn around again, Sasha, and undo the bath towel so we can see the tattoo,” Mrs. March asked. She looked as if she was going to burst into tears any second. “Please,” she added.
I fumbled with the towel so I could open it and cover the front of my body while lifting the towel enough to expose the tattoo.
Mr. March stepped closer and looked at it. “Where’s Alena’s digital camera?” he asked Mrs. March.
“Donald, please.”
“Where is it?” he practically shouted at her.
She looked flustered for a moment but then went to a drawer in the desk and took out a camera. She brought it to
him. He turned it on and took a picture of my tattoo.
“You ask about the rest,” he said. “I’m going to my office to send this to have it checked.”
He left the suite, and I wrapped the towel around myself again. I had no idea what I was supposed to do or say. Had someone informed Kiera’s parents about the VA club? Were we all in trouble? Mrs. March, her body looking as if it was slipping off her bones, slinked over to a chair and sat.
“Kiera is upset,” she began. “She says you stole her boyfriend today, Ricky Burns. She says you were intimate with him on the boat and didn’t care that everyone knew it. She says you seduced Ricky.”
It felt as if a sheet of ice was sliding from the back of my head down my back, over my stomach, and down my legs to my feet.
“That’s not true,” I said.
“She was so upset that she broke down and confessed about other things. She told us she took you to buy those clothes because you wanted them, and she thought we’d want her to make you happy.”
“What?”
“I knew they weren’t her clothes. They looked new, and they fit you.”
“That’s not true, either. She’s lying. I don’t know why, but she is.”
“She said it was your idea to lie about the play audition.”
“No.”
“Otherwise, why would you go along with it? She says you have a reputation as a big flirt in school, and all the boys were after you, and she was frankly embarrassed about it since we had described you as her cousin. She claims she tried to get you to calm down, but today was the end. You could have had any boy on the boat, but you chose Ricky just because he was her boyfriend. She says that you were plotting and conniving to get your revenge in subtle ways, this being one.”
How could she say these things? I thought. I wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
“No, no, Mrs. March, I didn’t choose Ricky. They did.”
“Who’s ‘they,’ Sasha?”
“The other girls … the VA club,” I said.
She stared for a moment, looked away, and then turned back to me. “Now, what is this supposed to be, the VA club?”
“Virgins Anonymous. That’s what this tattoo is about. It’s calligraphy of the V and the A. All of the girls have a tattoo there.”