She nods, her lip is pulled in and she’s chewing on it. I don’t understand what’s changed. We’re both changed after this night and I don’t fully get why.
“I’m not going to ask you for anything else.” She doesn’t say it in that catty passive-aggressive way. She genuinely means it.
I pull into my driveway and put the car in park. Without thinking, I took her to my house, but she may not want to stay here. Probably not. I leave the car running. The garage floodlights illuminate us as we study each other. Her acceptance is too easy.
“But you aren’t going to stop, are you?”
“No.” She doesn’t drop her gaze from mine.
My blood is boiling again. My hands tremble. I want to shake her if only to get some sort of reaction.
“Maggie.” I let out a sad breath. “What’s that expression? Anger is holding onto hot coals and expecting someone else to get burned. You have to let go of it.”
“You don’t know…” Something flames behind her eyes. “You can’t ask me…”
“I know he did something awful—”
“Please, just stop. I know I’ve made a mistake in mixing you up in my plans. I’ll help you with your stuff still, like I’ve promised, but you’re done helping me. I won’t ask you to do anything that goes against your personal code of ethics anymore. I understand. I really do.”
I can see it. I can see the wall forming around her. Every word like a block of ice covering her, taking her back from me.
“Zebulund may have you fooled, but I won’t stop.”
I let out a sigh and drop my head back. She thinks I’ve been duped. The conversation is over but neither of us want to leave the car yet. It’s like we understand that the second we do our connection is severed. I’m not ready, despite my frustration. I want to clutch her to me. I want to keep her safe. Safe from herself. I want to heal her.
“Did I ever tell you about my first real job?” she asks.
I’m shocked by the rapid subject change but shake my head, thankful for a few more minutes with her. She clears her throat. She’s facing forward, no longer looking at me.
“I was interning in college for the theater department. It was a coveted position. The director was this big deal Hollywood guy that wanted to really work on the craft that he missed. His words.” She picks at her thumbnail. “He was the cool artsy teacher that all the girls crushed on. Cultured, handsome without being oppressive.” She glances at me and I get the impression I was just insulted. “I was different from the other girls. I know everybody says that, but I was genuinely fascinated by theater and acting and the way people could be whoever they wanted. It was magic to me. He took me under his wing. He was my boss and mentor and we hit it off from the beginning. I got his weird humor and he got mine and it made me feel mature to make this sophisticated man laugh at all my silly jokes.
“One day after work, we went out drinking. The play had just done its last show, finals were over. I was light as air. I wasn’t even old enough to legally drink but he took me to all these bars where they didn’t care. They knew who he was and I was somebody because I was with him. His wife was going to meet up later and so I never thought anything of it. I was just so thrilled because all these people talked to me like I was in the industry. We talked shop and it was just so cool.” She notices she’s destroying her nail bed and fists her thumbs, dropping her hands to her lap. “I did shot after shot of tequila.”
My fists clench; I hate where this story is going. My stomach’s in knots and I don’t want her to go on.
She pries my hands off the steering wheel and squeezes my fingers. “This isn’t bad. This is just something I’ve been thinking about. Like maybe where things shifted for me.”
“Sorry.” I uncurl my hand and the blood flows back into my fingertips. I’m making it about me.
“Eventually, we’re back at his place. I was obviously way drunk but so was he. Like really drunk. And I thought ‘this is so cool’ people will never believe I was with him partying like this. That I got to see him like this. We had deep conversations. I can’t tell you how important this was to me. Like, it meant that I was special.
“We were leaning against the counter talking, and he asked me to kiss him. Just like that. Like it wasn’t a huge deal. Like he wasn’t my mentor and friend. Like he wasn’t married and I wasn’t his student. I told him no. And sort of laughed it off. He was drunk, I told myself. He wasn’t thinking. But he kept on. He kept saying, ‘Come on. Just a little kiss on the lips. Aren’t you curious?’ And even then I thought, ‘Well, jeez he wants to kiss me, that must mean I’m special.’ But it didn’t feel good. I knew it wouldn’t stop with a kiss. I was confused.
“A little part of me thought, maybe I should do it to keep him happy with me. I didn’t want him to think I didn’t appreciate all he did for me. Maybe it was some sort of test. But I kept telling him ‘No’ and eventually his wife came home and I left. That was it. Didn’t force himself on me. Things were different after that. He never said anything but soon he found a new protégé. I was replaced. He stopped talking to me.”
She glances quickly at me but can’t hold my burning gaze.
“The worst part was the regret. I kept thinking, maybe I should have let him kiss me. Maybe I did owe it to him. He only wanted to kiss me. Nothing more. I couldn’t even talk to anybody about it because it felt so small compared to other stories. I was ashamed that it affected me so much when maybe some women would have loved it. But I was changed.”
Maggie’s quiet. My skin is hot with rage. Muscles twitch outside my control. I want to murder this guy. It wouldn’t be hard to find out who he is and bash his kneecaps in. I sit, hardly moving, hands clenched between my knees for fear I’ll reach out and break something.
“It’s hard to understand your value when you think you’re one thing but people treat you as something entirely different,” she goes on. “Something like an object. I’ve always heard the comments. My whole life. I was eleven the first time I got cat-called. I remember it distinctly. I was playing hopscotch with my friend and a car drove by. I looked down at my tank top and shorts and realized my body had changed.” She laughs without humor.
“Some random family member at a reunion picnic who saw me eating a Popsicle told me I was going to be popular one day. I was fourteen. My teachers told me to cover up or I’d cause trouble. I’d always known that my body was my responsibility and anything that happened because of it was my fault. But even after all that I still thought I had something else to offer. After what happened with my mentor, I knew better. I should’ve known. I should’ve known that if I put myself out there, drank and laughed and wore clothes without worrying, then I’d be teasing men. I thought he was different. That he didn’t see me that way. And to be clearly thought of as a sexual object changed my value to myself for the first time. I thought that even the people who say they expect more of me are just…”
“Just what?” I study her face.
“It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not.” She shrugs. Her words are raw and mirror my own thoughts. Zebulund’s words. But this time it’s a revelation. “I guess by the time I met Marty Zebulund, I was already jaded.”
