Sitting next to him was torture. I always carried extra pencils because I knew Mooney would confiscate the one I was using. And I considered myself lucky that pencils were all he’d taken so far. At least, I was lucky until the week before our midterm tests.
Because the weather was nasty that Monday, our recess was taken in the gym. I was sitting on the bleachers taking a breather, watching Jenna chase Hugh in a game of tag, when Mooney confronted me.
“You’re gonna let me copy off your paper when we take our tests next week,” he said. “If you don’t, I’ll stomp you into the ground.”
He swaggered off, secure in the thought that I’d comply with his demand. I watched him in shock. Cheat? He wanted me to cheat on the tests? The Judge would disown me. I would never be able to look my grandfather in the eye again. There was no way I could let Mooney copy, even knowing he would kill me when it was over. Death before dishonor was my family motto.
But that didn’t stop me from being scared spitless. By the end of the week my life was in shambles. I couldn’t eat because my stomach stayed clenched in a tight ball of tension. I couldn’t sleep because when I did, I’d have screaming nightmares. I couldn’t even read because all my energy was focused on my impending demise.
It never occurred to me to seek help. French’s weren’t tattle-tales. Mooney was my problem and I had to take care of him on my own. My family knew something was wrong from my unnatural silence and obvious loss of appetite. At different times, each of them asked me if I was coming down with something. I even avoided Nick that hellish week, although I knew he frowned at me in puzzlement from his post behind Lindsey on the school steps.
The day of the tests dawned bright and sunny, if somewhat chilly. I gave Mama an extra-tight hug goodbye, hoping she wouldn’t cry too much at my funeral, and trudged off to meet my doom.
A small miracle occurred when I reached the school. For the first time ever, Nick left Lindsey and cornered me before I could go inside.
“You ain’t said boo to me in over a week. Are you mad at me for something?”
“No.” I fought hard to hold back the tears threatening to spill over. My teeth were chattering so hard I could barely speak, and nausea turned my stomach in circles. “But you probably shouldn’t plan on marrying me anymore.”
With that cryptic statement, I ran into the building, leaving him staring after me.
The trouble started immediately. Mooney glared a warning at me when I took my seat. Mrs. Wade handed out the first test. Swallowing hard, I picked up my pencil and curved my left arm protectively around the paper before I started writing.
Mooney’s foot shot out and hit my calf under the table. Hard. “Move your arm,” he hissed.
“No.” My voice quivered, but I held steady.
“Mooney, Alix, is there a problem?” Mrs. Wade watched us with an eagle eye.
“No, Ma’am,” Mooney answered before I had a chance. “I just had a cramp in my leg.” He bent over his test as though he was busy being a good little student. But from the corner of his mouth he said, “You’re gonna be sorry, you little bitch.”
The rest of that day was a blur to me. I don’t know how I got through it, or actually managed to pass the tests myself. When it was time to go home I lingered in the hall until I had no choice. I had to leave, not knowing when or where the attack would come, only certain that it would happen. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him, though. I’d fight to my last breath.
But Mooney made a mistake. Apparently he was so enraged by my refusal to give in that he couldn’t wait until I was off the school grounds to attack. I hadn’t even made it to the front sidewalk when someone grabbed my pig tail and threw me to the ground. My books flew in all directions and the air went out of my lungs with a whoosh.
I never had a chance. Before my screaming lungs could draw another breath, Mooney was on top of me, his ham-like fist swinging. The first one hit my left eye and I saw stars. For a second, everything went black and I didn’t feel the second blow. There was no third because suddenly Nick was there. He ripped Mooney off me and plowed into him with a determination that was fearsome to behold.
Someone screamed. Teachers came running from all directions, grabbing both boys and pulling them apart. Still Nick struggled to reach Mooney. I could vaguely hear Mrs. Wade, who was kneeling beside me, ask me where I hurt, but I couldn’t answer. All my attention was focused on Nick.
“If you ever touch her again, I’ll kill you,” he snarled.
Mooney, like all bullies, changed his tune when he was on the receiving end. “They started it,” he whined, making sure he stayed out of Nick’s reach. “I wasn’t doing anything.” Blood poured from his nose.
There wasn’t a scratch on Nick, but his shirt was torn and I saw how he protected his right ribs.
“You stop your lying right now, Mooney Orr,” Mrs. Wade said. “I saw the entire thing. You should be ashamed of yourself, jumping on a little girl like Alix.”
All three of us were hauled to the nurse’s office and our parents called. Nick refused to leave my side, hovering over me protectively until Miss Sams, the nurse, made him stand on the other side of the cot so she could check me for injuries. I had skinned elbows, a busted lip, and a black eye. Nick had a large bruise on his ribs and some raw knuckles. But Mooney had lost two teeth and gained a busted nose.
When Miss Sams moved away to work on Mooney, I gazed up at Nick with my one good eye, tears streaming down and filling my ear. If there were tears coming from my other eye, the bag of ice currently resting on it froze them.
“You saved my life,” I sobbed.
Nick squatted beside me, awkwardly patting my shoulder. “Hey, you didn’t think I was gonna let you get out of marrying me that easy, did you?”
“Oh, Nick!” I sat up and wrapped my arms around him. The bag of ice dropped to my lap, and my lip started bleeding again, but I didn’t care. “I thought I was gonna die.”
And that’s how Mama, the Judge, and Mr. Viders found us. Me crying and bleeding all over Nick, him trying to soothe me without much success.
“My baby!” Mama wailed when she saw my face. She yanked me away from Nick and rocked me, so I cried and bled all over her until Mr. Viders took control of the situation. The Judge simply clenched his jaw and glared daggers at Mooney.
They made me tell them the whole story, even though I didn’t want to. Nick and I were praised and fussed over; me for maintaining my honor under cruel and unusual circumstances, him for coming to my rescue. Mooney was towed out of the building, his mother’s hand twisting his ear, presumably on the way to see the doctor. From then on, he was banished to a seat all by himself at the back of the class. I guess he learned his lesson because he never bothered me again.
Frank Anderson never showed up, but then, no one had really expected him to. Nick went home with us, and after I was tucked into bed Mama allowed him to come up and sit with me.
By this time, my eye was swelled shut and he touched it gently, looking mad all over again. “You should have told me. I’ll never let nobody hurt you again, Alix, I swear.”
But there are more kinds of hurt than physical ones, hurts that run ever deeper and leave bigger scars, and not even Nick could protect me from himself.
Four
When I was twelve, my normally unflappable mother stuttered and stammered her way through a rather muddled explanation of the facts of life, then shoved a book called “Becoming a Woman” into my hand and ran. By then, of course, Jenna and I had pretty much figured out the basics, thanks to a couple of dogs and a lot of gossip from the other girls in school.
My family kept a close eye on me for a few days after Mama gave me “the talk,” waiting to see if I’d been traumatized beyond repair. Personally, I think the only one traumatized was Mama. Every time I’d look at her she’d turn beet red.
Sex was a four-letter word in our family. When its use was required, it was always spelled, as if actually saying it would bring down the fiery w
rath of God on our heads. The age of free love might have come and gone in the rest of the world, but in Morganville girls who got pregnant without the benefit of matrimony were still talked about in whispers, behind shielding hands.
Even the women’s liberation movement was viewed as a rather puzzling oddity by our female population. They had always thought they were partners, not slaves, and to them a glass ceiling was just something that was apt to break in a hail storm. It was the combined goal of all our women to see their daughters happily married to a Good Man, raising a houseful of kids. A career to them was working as a volunteer at the library or hospital, or at the local five-and-dime in the make-up department for minimum wage.
And because no one around me paid much attention to those things, I didn’t either. My main concern was my body. As usual, Jenna had beaten me to the punch yet again, starting her periods when we were twelve. I had to wait another whole year and I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with me. With every twinge or unusual sensation I’d run to the bathroom, hope warring with anxiety.
The year I turned thirteen was a momentous one for me in more ways than one. My body finally started to change, hard painful knots forming on my chest, and hair sprouting in places it had never been before. Mama took me shopping for my first training bras, and my monthlies started, which thrilled me for all of two months, and then I was sick of them. My hairstyle went from pigtails in fourth grade, to a ponytail in fifth, then to a braid in sixth. By ninth grade I was leaving it loose to hang down my back.
Mama wasn’t Mama anymore, she was Mother, usually followed by a “pallease!” when she wanted me to do something I considered beneath me. Like wear a frilly dress instead of my strategically torn, stone-washed, designer blue jeans.
That was also the year I discovered Boys. Or maybe I should say they discovered me. By then I knew what they wanted and I wasn’t buying it, although I will admit I was flattered by the attention and not above a little flirting. After all, I was southern, and southern woman are selectively bred for their ability to flirt. How else were we going to catch us a man and raise us a brood of kids?
The bane of my existence was that Nick didn’t seem to notice all the changes I’d undergone. He still treated me the same way he had when I was eight, with casual warmth and humor. But I sure noted the changes in him.
At fifteen, he was six feet tall. His voice had deepened into a rich baritone that did funny things to my stomach and made my heart race. His body, while still slim, had grown some muscular bulges that I couldn’t help but admire. And I wasn’t the only one. If boys had discovered me, girls thought they’d hit the jackpot with Nick. The fact that he was Frank Anderson’s son and a lone wolf only increased their interest, added a bit of danger to the mix. They didn’t view him as marriage material, but his looks made him desirable as a trophy.
I’d been forced to watch during the last school year while they strutted by his position on the steps, tossing their hair and sending inviting smiles his way. His expression remained stoic, but I saw the way his eyes moved over them and I wanted to yank out their hair, one fistful at a time. Strange, but I was never jealous of Lindsey, even though she’d filled out nicely, too. Maybe because I was used to seeing them together, and she was so quiet that I simply forgot she was there.
When my friends talked for hours about hunky rock stars, I smiled but didn’t participate. There was only one boy I wanted, and I lived for the times when I could be alone with him. It was simple. When I was with Nick, I was happy. When I wasn’t, I was restless and miserable. I became adept at finding excuses to touch him. A hand on his arm, innocently brushing a strand of hair away from his face, legs touching as we sat side by side.
He did nothing to encourage these feelings except be himself. For me, that was enough. But the biggest reaction I’d ever gotten out of him was a puzzled frown directed at the boys flirting with me, like he couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.
That was also the year my Uncle Vern moved back, looking tired and old, the traumatized survivor of a messy divorce, and brought his twin sons, Casey and Cody, with him. There were only two weeks of school left when I came home one afternoon and found these three strangers in our living room. I smiled politely while I was introduced and tried not to notice that my newly found, seventeen-year-old cousins were staring at me like I was some species of alien that had suddenly appeared in their garden. Sort of shocked, curious, and eager, all at the same time.
Both boys had a more masculine version of our family looks. Dark hair, blue-green eyes, medium height. Their northern accents sounded funny to my ears, sharp and staccato, and I felt a bit overwhelmed by so many males in my predominantly female household. But my family was ecstatic to have them back. Even Aunt Darla was excited now that my uncle had come to his senses and rid himself of “that woman.” The noise level in the house was giving me a headache and I’d smiled until the muscles around my mouth hurt by the time we finished supper. At the first opportunity I slipped out the back door into the warm spring night.
I was surprised to see a light in the shed since I hadn’t been expecting Nick tonight. He and the Judge had long since finished restoring the Chevy. It sat in the garage, covered by a tarp that protected the beige and brick-colored paint job. The Judge only drove it on special occasions, like the day he’d taken Nick to get his learner’s permit. He’d been offered a small fortune for the car, but he always refused to sell.
Thrilled that I was going to see Nick tonight, I stopped in the shed door, my gaze going from him to the mangled Ford pick-up that occupied the spot where the Chevy had once sat.
Nick grinned when he saw me. “What do you think of my truck?”
“I think you need to jack it up and run another one under it.” The truck was in horrible shape, one door completely gone and the other bashed in. Jagged pieces of metal curled up around the fenders. It was impossible to tell what color it had once been. Now it was just rusty.
“Where did you get it?” I leaned beside him and peered under the hood, making sure my arm rested against his.
“Someone brought it to the salvage yard last week. It’s not as bad as it looks. The motor is in pretty good condition and the body can be fixed. The Judge said if I’d bring it over, he’d help me work on it. I’d like to get it finished before I get my license.”
“Are you going to take me to the Star-Vu to see a movie when you do?” The Star-Vu was our local drive-in. On the weekends it was taken over by teenagers, being one of the few places in town to take a date.
“Sure thing, Peewee.” He slid a finger playfully down my nose, and then glanced toward the house as a burst of laughter reached us. “Sounds like they’re having a party.”
“I guess they are, kind of. My Uncle Vern is back, and he brought his sons with him. They’ll be seniors when school starts in the fall.”
Nick frowned. “Are they going to move in with you?”
He wasn’t comfortable around other males, except for the Judge, and I realized he was afraid he’d have to stop coming over so often. I hurried to reassure him.
“No. Uncle Vern already has a job at the Morgan’s lumber mill, and he rented that small house of Mrs. Thompson’s on the edge of town. They’ll only stay here until it’s ready to live in, a few nights at most.”
“So why aren’t you in there celebrating?” He leaned back over the motor and removed the air filter.
“They were giving me a headache.”
“You don’t like them?”
I shrugged. “That’s just it. I don’t know them well enough to decide, but everyone expects me to treat them like I’ve known them forever. And the boys keep looking at me funny.”
He straightened, his gaze piercing as he stared at me. “Funny how?”
“I don’t know, just funny. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Stay away from them,” he growled. “Don’t let them get you alone.”
“Why not?” Maybe I was older, but my curiosit
y was still intact.
He looked away before he answered me. “Because they’re guys and you’re a girl, and you said yourself you don’t know them.”
Hallelujah! He’d noticed I was a girl! I was gloating over that when what he’d said sank in. Nervously, I chewed my bottom lip. “They’re my cousins, Nick. You don’t really think they’d...well, you know, hurt me, do you?”
“Trust your instincts. If those guys make you uncomfortable, there’s a reason.”
A shiver ran over me. What if he was right? At least I knew Nick had my best interests at heart, and I wasn’t too sure about my new relatives. “Okay.”
A sound from the front of the shed had both of us turning in that direction as my cousins came to an abrupt stop, identical expressions of surprise on their faces when they saw Nick.
The boys eyed each other warily while I stammered my way through the introductions. Although he was two years younger, Nick was three inches taller than Casey and Cody, and he didn’t look like the kind of person you wanted to mess with. I was extremely glad he was there.
“Are you Alix’s boyfriend?”
Casey was the one who asked. They were identical twins, but I’d discovered that Casey had a small scar nearly hidden in his eyebrow that Cody lacked.
Nick hesitated and glanced down at me. “You could say that.”
It was all I could do to keep from gaping at him. Lord, I wished I had a tape recorder in my pocket, because by tomorrow I’d be doubting my own ears. He gave me a half smile, and then looked back at Casey.
“You got a problem with it?”
Casey held up a hand. “No skin off my nose. She’s all yours.”
The twins didn’t stay long after that. As soon as I was sure they were gone, I turned on Nick. “You lied.” I was standing with my feet apart, hands on my hips.