Damaged Goods, page 10
“Shut up and feed me,” she said playfully, opening her mouth. He dropped a few peanuts in. She washed them down with another squirt. He dropped in more, and she washed them down again. This time, his fingers lingered a split second too long, and she closed her lips around them. He let the bag of gorp fall to the ground, took the bota from her, and tossed it in the snow. They kissed until his lips went numb, then he looked into her eyes and put his hands under her baggy sweatshirt. She nodded yes, so he ran his hands up her warm back and snapped open her bra. Her breasts were soft and warm against his cold hands, and her heart beat fast as he kissed her lips, face, and neck. He shifted on the rock as his erection pressed against his jeans and his ass went numb.
“That’s enough for now,” she said, rubbing her nose against his, gazing into his eyes, and smiling softly.
He stood and snowshoed to the edge of the falls, broke off two long icicles, returned to the rock, and handed one to her. Soon, snow clouds obscured the sun, and the wind picked up.
“We should leave,” she said, and they hiked out of the woods and drove back to campus.
That night, Laura’s roommate was visiting her boyfriend at Dartmouth. Brendan and Laura sprawled on her bed in their underpants, kissing until their lips were numb, pressing their bodies against each other and falling asleep on the covers. He woke up in the middle of the night and saw the moonlight illuminating her face, her amber hair draping across her breast. He admired the shape of her sharp, pink nipples against her slender biceps and the curvature of her hip bones. He stroked her cheek. She opened her eyes and gazed into his, slipped off her underwear, and pulled him on top of her.
Cassie
Winter Weekend 1977
I had been working hard at the animal clinic and was bored out of my mind living at home. I needed to blow off some steam. I was psyched when Bren invited me to his college’s Winter Weekend, and Dad let me borrow his car for the trip north. The sun shone brightly through the dirty windshield, but in my rush out the door, I’d left my sunglasses at home. Four hours later, as I walked into Bren’s dorm, my eyes felt like they were soaked in battery acid, and my head throbbed. There was a note on his bed: Sorry, Cassie. At a high school wrestling meet. See you at the ∑AE frat house at eight.
I dropped my bag of clothes in the corner of his room and searched the hallways for his girlfriend’s room. Laura’s roommate said she’d left suddenly to visit her sick mother. Too bad. I wanted to meet her to see if she was anything like Emily. Maybe we’d meet on my next visit to Painter. I was hungry and hoped there’d be food at the frat party, so I washed up in the dorm bathroom, changed into some fresh clothes, and walked down a long path in the snow to the frat house. There must’ve been four feet of snow on the ground, and I had forgotten my winter boots. My toes were frozen when I reached the frat.
The place was packed, and the kids were totally wasted, even though it was only six o’clock. Suddenly, a massive guy with a shaved head blocked my path. My nose barely touched his chest. “Welcome, lovely lady,” he bellowed. “My name’s Hugh. Identify yourself.”
Who says that shit? I wondered, but I played along. “Cassie O’Shay. I’m meeting my brother here later . . .”
“Brendan’s sister?”
“Do you know him?”
“Everyone knows Brendan. He’s our star freshman football player.”
Oh, brother, I thought—more of this nonsense.
He smiled and raised a finger high above the crowd. “Bring a beer for this damsel in distress,” he said, “and make sure it’s from the good keg.” I followed the other guy to the keg, filled a plastic cup, and gulped it down. There wasn’t any food, so I filled up on beer and mingled around the frat, squeezing between groups of bodies, glancing at the door, waiting for Bren to show up. Each time it swung open, Hugh turned away the guys trying to enter and let in the girls.
I refilled my cup and stepped outside for a smoke. It was freezing out there. Two girls in pink and green sweaters approached the main door as I dragged on my cigarette. One had blood-orange hair and was built like a jockey, while the other had a large chest, wide hips, and soft black hair that resembled the mane of a prize mare.
“Remember our plan,” the jockey said. “Have fun, but don’t go overboard. These guys can seem friendly, but deep down, they’re pigs. If you’re invited upstairs, check in with me before you head up.”
“Good plan,” the horsey one said, stroking her haunches as the frat door swung open. I didn’t under-stand why the girls thought they needed an exit plan. The college guys seemed harmless to me. I flicked the cigarette butt into the snow and headed back inside when the friendly bouncer dragged out two preppy guys by the collars of their ski jackets.
“Get in your daddy’s BMW and get outta here,” Hugh shouted menacingly.
“It’s my Beemer,” one guy grumbled, “not my dad’s.”
Hugh didn’t seem as friendly anymore. When he spotted the jockey and the mare, his scowl transformed into a wolfish smile. “Welcome, lovely ladies. Identify yourselves,” he said, raising two fingers above the crowd. “Two beers for these damsels in distress,” he added, “from the good keg.” I suddenly realized why the girls had an escape plan.
Back inside, I refilled my cup and leaned against the wall, watching the show. Before long, the horsey girl was pawing at Hugh and kissing his neck. He caught me watching. “Hey, Brendan’s sister, want to come to the concert at the field house with us?” he asked. “Your brother can track you down there.”
I was tired of waiting for Bren, so I nodded and squeezed into the back seat of his car next to a bag of dirty laundry. The two girls with an exit plan piled onto the lap of Hugh’s friend in the passenger seat while Hugh swerved down the road like a blind man, sliding into the parking lot before skidding to a stop in a snowbank.
I squeezed out of the car and stumbled toward the main entrance, trailing behind the others as the two guys pushed through the crowd and got us so close to the band that I could touch the lead singer’s shoes. I was having a blast for the first few songs, but the music was so loud that I thought my skull might burst. I needed fresh air, so I wriggled through the crowd and stepped outside, hoping to clear my head before Bren arrived. Feeling dizzy, I sat in the snow, wishing my head would settle. Hugh and the horsey girl came outside and lit a joint, but they didn’t notice me sitting a few yards away, half buried in the snow and drifting in and out of consciousness. That’s all I could remember from the night.
Brendan
Winter Weekend 1977
As Brendan was about to enter the field house, he heard a cry for help. He dashed toward the voice, slipped on the ice, and fell hard on his back before reaching the girl hunched over a body lying face down in the snow. He knelt and turned the limp body over. Her face was swollen and frostbitten. His heart stopped.
“Oh my God! Cassie, not again!” he shouted.
She didn’t move.
He tore off his coat, wrapped it around her, and sent the other girl inside to call an ambulance. Then he hoisted Cassie onto his shoulder, carried her inside, and put her down on the floor of the field house foyer. Moments later, medics arrived and secured her to a stretcher. He climbed into the back of the ambulance with her, praying. “Please, God, help us. Please, God. Let her live.” He wasn’t sure he could endure an injured Cassie again. But he had to.
The medics rushed Cassie into the emergency room while Brendan paced in the waiting area, bargaining with God to save her life, hardly noticing the other people there for their loved ones. Finally, a tall, middle-aged doctor in a blue cardigan and brown wide-wale corduroy pants approached him.
“Are you here for Cassidy O’Shay?”
He studied the doctor’s sullen eyes for clues. “I’m Brendan, her brother.”
“Her face, hands, and arms are frostbitten, and her body temperature was dangerously low. But she’s stable now,” the doctor said.
“Thank you, Doc. I really appreciate it. I’m not sure what else to say.”
“I’m glad you’re here for her,” the doctor said. “She needs someone. And I’m glad you’re sober. You’re probably the only sober student on campus tonight.”
“I was assisting at a high school wrestling meet and arrived late to the concert. A stranger discovered Cassie in the snowbank. She disappeared before I could get her name.”
“A guardian angel,” the doctor said. “They’re out there.” He grasped Brendan’s forearm. “Cassidy might disagree with me when she wakes up, but this was her lucky night. You and her guardian angel saved her life.”
* * *
Brendan slept in a chair in Cassie’s hospital room that night, and the next morning, he walked to the frat house to get answers from the guys at breakfast.
“Your sister was on a mission to get fucking wasted,” Hugh said. “She must be sleeping it off this morning.”
“She’s in the hospital,” Brendan said. “She nearly died. Why didn’t you cut her off?”
“Girls are on their own in this frat house,” Hugh said. “Even sisters.”
Brendan clenched his fist, but before he could throw a punch, Hugh hit him hard in the gut, knocking the wind out of him and pushing him against the wall. “I’ll let this go, Brendan. But if you try to throw a punch at me, you’ll find yourself in the hospital room next to your drunken sister.”
Humiliated, Brendan stumbled out the door and crossed the snowy fields to the hospital. When he arrived, Cassie was sipping orange juice and chewing on ice. Brendan didn’t even ask her how she felt before launching into her.
“I’ve been looking forward to Winter Weekend all year, and you ruined it. How could you get so wasted?”
Cassie sank low in the bed, tugging the sheets over her head. He threw his arms in the air and walked out.
The next day, he picked up the shopping bag filled with her clothes that she had left in his dorm room and drove their dad’s car to the hospital to pick up Cassie. In a calmer tone this time, he asked her once more if she always got that drunk.
“I have a headache that could take down an elephant. I don’t need lectures, superstar,” she said. “Not right now, anyway.”
“All right. Listen, stay in my room until tomorrow and take it easy. It’s a long ride home.”
“I can’t do that, Bren. I have work tomorrow, so I need to leave now. I’m sorry I missed Laura and that I ruined your weekend.”
“It’s not just that you ruined my weekend,” he said. “I’m worried about you. This is the second time in eighteen months that you’ve ended up in the hospital after a night of partying.” He still hadn’t admitted he’d caused her first accident. He wasn’t sure he ever would.
“Did you bring my clothes?” she asked as she slid behind the wheel.
He pointed to the bag in the back seat.
“Sorry again, Bren,” she said. Then she rolled up the window and left.
Brendan watched her drive off into the distance, catching the lingering scent of gasoline exhaust as he wondered if he could ever help her and contemplated the notion that a fluke incident had saved her life. If her guardian angel hadn’t been there . . . if he had arrived just seconds later . . . would she still be alive? He shuddered. It was the same question he’d considered after his football game. How much of success depended on preparation, and how much on fate, luck, God, or whoever or whatever else was out there? He was damned if he knew.
Cassie
Canada 1984–85
Bren had moved to New York City after college, and I was itching to escape too. My opportunity arrived unexpectedly. I was thumbing through the want ads in the back of Dog Fancy magazine during my coffee break at the animal clinic where I’d been working for nine years. A kennel in Canada was looking for a helper and my credentials fit the bill. Desperate for a change—a big change—I called the number and shared my credentials with the kennel owner, Chester Nelson.
“You sound perfect for the job,” Chester said. “Can you be in Winnipeg by the summer solstice?”
“Yes, I can,” I said, and only after hanging up did I realize that Winnipeg was halfway across Canada. But I loved the way he said “summer solstice.” No one talked like that in Nehoiden. The next day, I gave Dr. Johnson my two weeks’ notice. He said I was being rash, but I didn’t care.
When I told Mom about my new job, she cried and said it was a daughter’s duty to care for her parents, not to take a risky job in another country. They were in their fifties; Dad was losing his battle with stomach cancer, and Mom didn’t want to bear the burden alone. I don’t blame her for wanting to keep me close, but I had my own life to live, and time was slipping away. As for Dad, he gave me the silent treatment, which felt even worse. Still, I was determined to go.
Three days before the summer solstice, I packed a large green trash bag with my belongings—two pairs of blue jeans, six sets of underwear, five flannel shirts, five pairs of wool socks, blue Chuck Taylor sneakers, one braided cloth belt, and two T-shirts. I tucked it under the tarp covering the bed of my Datsun pickup truck and hit the Mass Pike heading west to a small town just south of Winnipeg, eighteen hundred miles away, with my cat, Misty, a stray who had wandered into the clinic, by my side. I enjoyed gazing at the unfamiliar landscapes of rolling farmlands, listening to the accents on local radio stations, and exploring diverse musical styles as I drove through various regions of the country. When I grew tired of the radio, I chatted with Misty. I ate at roadside diners and slept in truck stop parking lots with the doors locked.
North Dakota was the starkest of all the places I traveled through—flat, grassy, and treeless. The wind whipped and pushed my truck across the highway. It was exhausting keeping the vehicle in its lane. Upon entering Canada, it felt like crossing a state border—there were no border patrol, fences, checkpoints, or even a noticeable road sign marking the boundary between the two countries. As I traveled through Manitoba, I spotted occasional stands of elm trees framing lonely farmhouses every few miles; otherwise, the landscape resembled North Dakota, with vast fields of waving grass beneath the expansive blue sky that stretched to the horizon in all directions. This stood in stark contrast to Massachusetts where trees, fences, stone walls, buildings, crisscrossing roadways, bridges, rivers, and hillsides interrupted the horizon.
I drove the last dusty quarter-mile of my journey down a hard-packed dirt road that led to Chester Kennels as the sun dipped below the outstretched plains, painting the undersides of wispy clouds violet. Finally, I arrived. The small white farmhouse with a wraparound porch and a red barn in the distance reminded me of an Edward Hopper painting I’d seen in an art class book. The dogs yelped loudly as I got out of my truck, stretched my arms, and inhaled the scent of clean earth and freshly cut grass. Misty jumped out of the cab, and when she spotted the chocolate Labrador retriever tethered to a column on the front porch, she dashed beneath the truck. I knelt to reach her, and when I stood up again, a man and woman were on the porch staring down at me.
The man was tall, with a deeply tanned face that appeared weathered by the wind. His blond mustache curled down over his upper lip. His grayish-blond hair was cut in a mullet and spilled out from under an olive green baseball cap with the silhouette of a white Alaskan Malamute stitched on the front. The visor was stained with sweat. His T-shirt hugged his muscular shoulders and chest and draped loosely over his slim waist.
The woman had a similar V-shaped figure, with thick brown hair cropped at the nape of her sinewy neck. Her high cheekbones sloped into a small, dimpled chin, and her lips seemed awkwardly plump for her narrow face. Her indigo blue T-shirt scooped low across her chest and the hem rested just above the waistband of her frayed cutoff shorts. She peered at me with deep blue eyes.
“You must be Chester,” I said, smiling and waving at him.
“Yes, and you are . . .”
“Cassie O’Shay. We spoke briefly a few weeks ago about the job.”
He took off his hat and scratched his head with the brim. “Cassie. From Massachusetts. We talked on the phone, and now you’re . . . you’re here.”
“You said to be here by the summer solstice.”
A puzzled smile crossed his face.
“This is Jessica,” he said. She nodded at me and wrapped her arms around herself as if the temperature had dropped below freezing.
“Well, come on in,” Chester said. “I’ll help you with your luggage.”
“I’ve got it,” I said, reaching into the back of my truck and lifting the green trash bag over my shoulder. “But you can help me with my cat.”
Misty jumped from his arms when he crossed the porch and hissed at the chocolate Labrador. Jessica stepped in front of the dog and tried to kick Misty away. I rushed over and scooped her up before any trouble started. I couldn’t believe she tried to kick my cat. Chester led me through the kitchen, and I noticed the dishes drip-drying on a wooden rack on the counter. I guessed they’d had supper without me.
I dropped my bag on the bed, and a cloud of dust rose from the bedspread. I washed up in the bathroom and changed into a clean T-shirt, then noticed them outside my bedroom window standing halfway between the house and the red barn, shouting with their arms waving. The wind blew away from the house, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I just hoped they weren’t talking about me, because judging by how they were acting, I didn’t think they had been expecting me.
I returned to my room, closed the door, and flopped onto the bed, stirring up another cloud of dust. I took off the bedspread and tossed it into the corner and lay down again. Despite being dead tired, I couldn’t fall asleep. My mind was racing. After a few minutes, the rocking chairs on the porch started creaking. The wind shifted toward me and carried their whispers through my open window.
