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“Okay, then what happened that day?” I ask in a fierce tone. In truth, my will to stay mad at Carlton has been fading ever since he showed up at my apartment, but I still want to know why he would have been so heartless all those years ago.
Carlton nods thoughtfully, perhaps formulating what to say.
“That particular day, when we were all biking to the Cove, and I told you that you couldn’t come? Well, you refused to listen.”
I shrug. “What do you expect from a kid with hero worship? You know I adored you, even back then.”
He nods, his look pensive.
“No, I get that, or at least I do now. But as a kid, it was more than annoyance. The situation was… complicated.”
I scoff slightly, but wait.
Carlton sighs once more. “The guys and I were going to the Cove to look at naked girlie magazines. It was stupid, childish shit, but I knew better than to let you tag along,” he explains. “Even at that age, I knew those mags weren’t something you shared with a ten-year-old girl.”
I consider this justification, but there’s still a piece missing. Carlton was being so aggressive that day, and girlie mags just don’t seem that horrible. “But if that was the case, why didn’t you just say so? I mean, I wasn’t dumb.”
He winces, but then smiles tightly. “Because you were a brat who thought you were one of the guys. I was trying to protect you,” he says with a shrug.
I nod slowly, understanding his logic. “Okay, I guess I understand that,” I admit. “Sort of.”
He shoots me an even look.
“You’re not buying it, are you?” he asks.
I shrug.
“I mean, Penthouse and Playboy aren’t that awful. Not even when you’re ten. Everyone knows they exist.”
He sighs, looking down at the coffee table for a moment.
“Okay, you’re right. There’s more.”
I frown. “More? You mean like different magazines?”
Carlton once again looks pained, as if trying to figure out how to tell me the next piece of information.
“No, it wasn’t just about looking at the magazines because a lot of kids do that. The real problem that day was more personal. It turns out that my buddy’s mom had actually been featured, buck naked, in one of the magazines.”
I blink several times, surprised by this new detail. “Whose mom?” I ask immediately.
“You remember Jimmy Linder?” Carlton asks, his voice wry.
I nod, remembering a young boy who’d resembled a stereotypical California kid with his blonde hair and ocean-colored eyes. “Jimmy’s mom? Mrs. Linder?” I ask with surprised. “He was one your best friends. She used to bring us cookies every Christmas.”
Carlton nods at my observation. “I don’t know if you remember because you might have been too young, but Jimmy’s parents were going through a pretty nasty divorce then.”
“Oh,” I say softly. “No, I hadn’t realized.”
“Well, it turns out there were a lot of reasons in the end for their split, but when Mrs. Linder decided to pose naked for Grinder—”
I cut him off.
“Grinder? The one where they actually portray graphic sex acts?”
He nods.
“Yeah, that one. This wasn’t any soft-core porn, Ramona. This was Jimmy’s mom, buck naked, spread eagle, being penetrated by three different guys at once. As you can guess, that was the last straw for Mr. Linder.”
I gape. “That’s so shocking, and I had no idea! Poor Jimmy. But why were you guys at the Cove looking at photos of Jimmy’s mom?”
Carlton’s handsome face is grim. “Because we wanted to show him support. We didn’t technically have to look at the magazine, but we were having a heart-to-heart with him. I think it made a difference too. Jimmy broke down and cried in our arms, and you know, we’re still in touch to this day.”
I gasp, eyes going wide.
“You are?”
Carlton nods.
“Our friendship was forged in the fire decades ago, but I didn’t realize that by supporting Jimmy, I’d be losing you,” he says.
Suddenly, I feel like a total bitch. OMG. I stare back at Carlton, feeling so juvenile with my petty revenge plan. What was I thinking? I search for the right words to say, unsure how to justify my actions any longer. In fact, there may be no way to justify them, and tears pool behind my eyes.
“I’m sorry, too,” I say simply, because it’s the truth. “I had no idea about, well, anything.”
To my horror, Carlton begins to laugh. “Oh Ramona,” he says gently as he pulls me into his arms. “It’s okay, we’re okay. I understand why you would have been confused about that day. I get it now. When something like that happens, especially when you’re a kid, we tend to see it as bigger and more intense than maybe it is. It’s like when you go to your old elementary school and see the swing set, and realize how small you were as a child. It’s one of the signs that you’re past those early years,” he tells me with a chuckle.
