All at once the world began shifting around me, jerking wildly, and I fell. In a dark corner I saw the figure of a woman, hunched and weeping, but she had no face, only a blank void where eyes and nose and mouth should be. She reached a hand for me in mute appeal, but her fingers were broken. The shaking grew worse, the world tumbling and turning around me, and I forgot I was being chased and he was there.
You"ve been difficult, you little s.l.u.t. Take off your dress and wake up.
Wake up.
"Wake up," Jennifer snapped at me, not gently but not angrily, either.
My head came up from the pillow. I was covered head to toe in cold, acid sweat. The light outside was still bruised from dawn, and cut lines on the tile floor through the blinds. Jennifer quickly drew her hand back from my shoulder as I curled up in a ball, twisted up in my blankets, and lay there panting.
She crouched next to the bed.
"You started shouting in your sleep. I don"t understand what you were saying."
"Oh. Sorry. I had a bad dream."
She gave me a cryptic nod. "Can you stay in the bed for a second?"
I nodded, and she gracefully slipped back up into the top bunk. I heard her shift around, the bed jerked, and she came down in a crouch, dressed in sweatclothes, and slipped on a pair of running shoes.
No one I"ve ever met exercised as much as she did. She was either studying, sleeping, or running or, later, riding a bicycle. She seemed to live on granola bars and cold oatmeal.
While Jennifer was out running, I went to the showers for the first time. It made me nervous, but there was plenty of privacy, a big curtain for each stall and room to change in front of the shower itself.
After that I didn"t know what to do with myself, so I took my schedule and went to the book store. I came back with two armloads of plastic bags, the handles cutting into my fingers, and neatly stacked the books on the little shelf on my desk. For the next hour or so, I started reading a microeconomics textbook, tapping my foot on the tiles. There was a tap at my window, a soft sound on the gla.s.s, then another, and another. I looked over and saw Victor peering through the gla.s.s at me, grinning.
My room was on the second floor.
I threw up the sash.
"What are you doing?"
"Let me in."
I fumbled with the screen, lifted it up. The windows were very large. I jumped out of the way as Victor clambered inside. He was barefoot, his shoes hanging from his belt, tied by their laces. He wiped sweat off his forehead with his hand, then scooped me up in his arms. He literally lifted me off the floor as he pulled me against him, and kissed me. This time I touched him back, putting my hands on his sides, just above his hips. The muscles bunched and tightened under his skin as he moved. The kiss was like a mouthful of warm honey, and left me breathless and shaking. He put his arms around me.
"What are you up to?"
"Reading," I said, glancing at the book.
"What is that?"
"Principles of Microeconomics, Third Edition."
"You"re reading a textbook?"
"What?"
He grinned at me. "I didn"t think you were that boring."
"I"m not boring." I sighed. "The book is boring."
"You"ll have time to read that later. Come with me."
"Where?"
"Anywhere but here."
Jennifer picked that moment to come back. She walked in, gathered up her robe and toiletry bag, and left, all while scowling at Victor.
"I think she"s starting to like me."
"I don"t think she likes you at all."
He sighed. "One day you will understand this. We earth humans call it "humor"."
"Oh. You were being sarcastic."
"Yeah. She has a key, right? Come on."
I locked up and followed him outside. He parked in the overflow, tucking the Firebird into a corner s.p.a.ce so the car in the next spot over was far enough away to swing the wide door open. As always, he opened mine first before getting in himself. I unlocked his door for him.
"So where are we going?"
"You have anything in mind?"
"Not really," I said. "I don"t know what to do if I"m not studying."
"You know, they have a drive-in down here."
"A drive-in theater? It"s what, ten in the morning? It won"t be dark for hours."
"Hours and hours," said Victor. "We"ll just have to find something to do until then. I have an idea. Have you ever been to the beach?"
"No."
"Let"s go. It"s only about an hour drive. If you obey all traffic control devices and posted speed limits."
The way he said it strongly implied he didn"t plan on it.
"Okay."
I"ve never seen any of this before. I stared out the windows as he drove. The whole place was so flat. I could see for miles and miles, the distance obscured only by trees here and there, or buildings. It wasn"t like home, where the rode rose and fell. I expected the ocean to be something like the river. Living in Philadelphia, my idea of the coastline was the Delaware river. A few times I glanced over at the instrument cl.u.s.ter, and felt my stomach drop when I realized we were topping ninety miles an hour. Except for a few gentle curves, the road was mostly straight. Victor slowed dramatically when a sign appeared warning of the end of the expressway, and the traffic grew heavier. He turned off past a car dealership, and the car rumbled over an iron bridge over a narrow ca.n.a.l.
"You"ve seriously never been here?"
I shook my head.
"No trips to Jersey, either? No Cape May, no Atlantic City?"
"No."
"Wow. I came down here with Mom all the time. She liked to shop at the outlets. When Dad was alive we came here every weekend in the summer."
There it was.
The land just... ended. Victor pulled into a slanted parking s.p.a.ce and I stepped out of the car. The air smelled salty and was strangely cool when the breeze picked up, even if the sun was hot on my skin. Victor slipped a pocket full of quarters into the parking meter and came to my side.
"You"re going to burn up," he said, taking my arm. "Come on."
The air conditioning was blasting in the shop. Gooseflesh rose on my arms as Victor led me through the store. He grabbed a floppy straw hat off a rack, a big pair of sungla.s.ses, and a bottle of sun screen. Outside, I put on the hat and gla.s.ses. It was a relief not to have to squint. Victor kept the sunscreen. He squirted a generous helping on his hand and seized my arm, rubbing it into my skin. I tried to shake loose, but he was insistent. He did my other arm, and then crouched and smeared it on my legs. I yelped as his hand came up between my thighs. Victor grinned and dabbed a spot of it on the tip of my nose. I scowled at him but he grinned and smeared the stuff on his own arms, tossed the bottle, still half full, into a trash can and pulled me to him by the waist. I grabbed my hat on the brim to keep him from knocking it off.
My anger melted away when his lips met mine.
People were seeing us. I felt naked, and for some reason that made me press against him, and he put his arms around my waist.
He took my hand and walked me down the sidewalk to see the ocean for the first time.
I stopped at the edge of the boardwalk and just stared, gaping like a fool. It was huge. I"d never seen anything so big. The wind was strong, and the waves were surging, whitecaps forming as the water rolled in and fell back, rolled in and fell back with a tremendous roar that came from everywhere at once. It was so blue. I walked across the boards and leaned on the railing.
"Too bad you don"t have a bathing suit. We could go for a swim."
"In that?"
"What, are you scared?"
"Yes."
I was terrified of drowning. I had no idea how to swim, either. I"d never even been in a pool. The idea of diving into that deep dark water rooted me to the spot, terrified.
Victor"s arms slid around me from behind.
"I wouldn"t let anything happen to you."
"I can"t swim."
"We"ll have to fix that, sometime."
"What about sharks?"
"I don"t think anybody has ever been attacked here."
"Maybe another day," I said, my voice trailing off.
"What do you think?"
"It"s beautiful," I said.
"Yeah, Victor leaned on the rail. He wasn"t looking at the ocean at all. "Beautiful. I guess you"ve never been to Funland."
"Fun...land?"
"Yeah, come on."
He took my hand and pulled me along with him. The sea breeze whipped around my legs and chilled me, even as the sun beat down, so I was shivering and sweating at the same time. The light was hot on my skin, and Victor"s hand was warm. We walked past a dozen little shops, full of candy and toys and food. Ahead was this Funland place he mentioned, a small amus.e.m.e.nt park that covered a whole block. We walked past some carnival games. Blinking lights and chimes and music a.s.saulted my ears. It was more than I could take. I almost clung to Victor, clasping his hand in mine. He bought a ream of little tickets at a booth, after we stood in line for a good five minutes.
"They"ll close next weekend," he said.
"Forever?"
"Nah, for the season. It gets too cold, I guess. Come on. You need to try the frogs."
I wasn"t sure what "the frogs" meant until he led me over to a broad artificial pond. Fake lily pads floated around in circles, carrying cups shaped like flowers. A dollar bought three battered rubber frogs. The object of the game was to use a little catapult to hurl the frogs into the cups. It worked by bashing it with a hammer, which he handed to me. I did my best to line up the catapult with the moving cup and bashed it with the hammer.
My frog flew wildly and fell in the water with a heavy splash. That meant I lost.
"Try again."
My second try went no better than the first.
Victor slipped behind me. His arms came up around mine and he clasped his hands around mine as my back pressed to his chest. I wasn"t thinking about the frogs. He lifted my hands and brought the hammer down. The frog went flying, too high I thought, and came down with a solid thump on the edge of one of the cups. It hung there for a moment and I thought it would slide into the water, until it rolled in. The attendant brought over a small stuffed rabbit and handed it to me.
"Let"s do some rides," said Victor, taking my hand.
"Which one?"
He pointed at the far end of the little park. There was a huge viking longboat with a dragon head on either end, swinging back and forth until it went from horizontal to just past vertical.
"I am not riding that," I declared.
"Oh, come on. Look at all the people doing it. We"ll be fine."
Somehow, he ended up pulling me into the line with him. My heart pounded harder the closer we came to getting on. I almost ducked into the exit line when he handed over the tickets for our spots on the ride, but he gave my hand a squeeze and pulled me along with him.
"It"s not as bad if we sit at the end," he said.
Like a fool, I believed him.
A cross bar tightened over my legs, and I clung to Victor for dear life, hugging his arm and clutching my rabbit. He pulled my hat off and held it in his other hand, and the boat started to swing. It was only moving a little, building up momentum, but I knew it was a mistake. I clutched him tighter as it moved a little more with each swing, my stomach always just behind, or so it felt. When I opened my eyes next the boat began its first real swing, and the ground swept away, too far away. I screamed into his shoulder and pulled him tight, and then we reached the top. Everything went weightless. The boat swung the other way, and I felt like I was dangling inches above the ground at the other end of the swing, only to sweep backwards. Not being able to see made it worse and I jammed my face into his shoulder, hiding.
It was exhilarating. It couldn"t have been five minutes, but it felt like we were swinging for an hour. By the time the boat stopped, I was molded against his body and panting. I walked oddly down the exit ramp. He never once let go of my hand, until he settled my hat back on my head.
We took every adult-sized ride in the park. The spinning teacups had me screaming, the helicopter ride had me staring out at the ocean as it carried us high over the park. The only one I refused was the haunted house.
My head still swimming from the pounding I took on the b.u.mper cars, I walked with him down the boardwalk. We ate hotdogs on the way back to the car, and I ate a funnel cake on the way back to school. I broke off pieces and fed them to him as he drove, and shuddered in strange excitement when he lightly licked powdered sugar from my fingers. The crispy, sugar dough melted in my mouth, so sweet it made me sick, but I didn"t care.
I was so happy, I never once noticed that we were being followed.