It Happened to Nancy Read online

  I wish I could talk to El or Dorie or Red. I want to talk to at least El, so much that it hurts, but I can’t I know that they would just try to convince me that Collin is too old for me and stuff…but nothing…nothing…absolutely nothing in the whole world can ever stop me from seeing him. I know I’m not supposed to date until I’m sixteen, but this isn’t really dating. It’s…I don’t know what it is. I wish I did! I wish even more that I could talk with the kids about it, but they wouldn’t understand my deepest deep feelings, and they couldn’t possibly understand Collin! He’s so mature. But maybe I’ll try. I want to…I need to…I really do.

  Saturday, April 21

  10:01 A.M.

  I’m crossing my fingers, I’m crossing my toes…and my eyes. I’m wishing and wanting you-know-who to call. Please, please call.

  10:30 A.M.

  Collin is psychic. We have a special, special bond between us. He felt that I was trying to contact him, and he called me! He really did! Isn’t that almost scary? We can communicate mentally. I’ve heard of these things, but I’ve never experienced them before. We’re both going to cut school Monday, and he’s going to rent a little rowboat, and we’re going to go up the river. I’m going to take a picnic breakfast and lunch in my book pack, and he’s going to meet me at the bus stop at 8:45, just fifteen minutes after my school bus leaves. I wish it could be fifteen minutes before or an hour before or two or three…or right now! I can’t wait. I know I’ll never be able to sleep.

  Sunday, April 22

  1:45 A.M.

  I was right. It’s 1:45 A.M., and I can’t sleep. I hope Collin isn’t making a mistake in missing a day’s school. I’m worried. I know he said he had a light class load tomorrow and that he can easily make up his work tomorrow night and stuff, but I really don’t want him to get into any trouble or behind. College is serious. I’ll have to encourage him.

  3:30 A.M.

  It’s 3:30, and I still can’t sleep. I’ve relived every minute of every hour that I’ve known Collin. I wonder if maybe he’ll change his mind…no, I won’t even let myself think of that.

  I’ll think of the other afternoon in the park when it started raining. We were sitting in the Pavilion having Cokes, and he was being very formal and courteous like he always is when we’re around someone. He’s so shy! I wouldn’t dare tell him, but sometimes he almost seems like he’s my father. I’m sure it would hurt him if he knew that, because he’s just trying to be a real Southern gentleman, so I don’t say, I won’t say, anything. I’ll just live for the moments when we can be alone, and he can be his own true, sweet, loving, tender, understanding, compassionate, funny, fun self: Like, halfway through our Cokes he whispered seriously to me, “The sun shines brighter around you, the grass is greener, my appetite is healthier.” He got a mischievous look in his eye. “So let’s dash off and get a hot dog on the other side of the pond.”

  It was hard for us to walk seriously through the door and to the big tree beyond the turn in the path; then we laughingly loped off, hand in hand, through the warm, sticky rain to find a hot-dog stand in the park that was still open.

  Many words like life, fun and funny have all taken on completely new and wonderful meanings since I met Collin.

  4:10 A.M.

  How could a Sunday ever be sooooo endless.

  Monday, April 23

  7:01 A.M.

  It is finally Monday…THE DAY.

  8:49 P.M.

  What a wonderful day. I am sure it is one of the most perfect days that the Creator ever created. I spread our breakfast out on our special place. Collin had to go back to the car for something, and as I watched him turn up the little jogging path coming back toward me, my heart leaped like a wild bird trapped in a too small cage. For the first time, I raced toward his outstretched arms and hugged him tightly—unembarrassingly. I had put his daisy in my hair. “My daisy. My Nancy,” he whispered faintly. We were family!

  A whole new and exciting dimension has been added to my life. It is beyond comprehension!

  After breakfast we got into our little canoe and Collin soon paddled into the bayou area. We found a little island and landed. I felt like a combination of a Creole princess and an Indian maiden. After I’d stumbled into a little swampy puddle, Collin called me “Princess Mud on Nose and Toes.” I called him “Great White Paddler.” Together we explored our sovereignty and named it Nancol. I had more fun than I’ve ever had before. Collin wanted to do everything I wanted to do, explore when I wanted to explore, stop when I wanted to stop, go when I wanted to go, eat where I wanted to eat. I’ve never had a friend before who wanted to do everything my way, and said that made him happy!

  Collin had brought his blow-up mattress, and just as he was getting ready to put it down, a cloud of gnats and mosquitoes swarmed around us in huge black clouds. It was like a nightmare movie as we tried to get at least part of our things together and run for the boat. After Collin had paddled down the river a bit, he stopped so we could get some of the pesky little critters out of our eyes and noses and hair. One had gotten in my ear and was buzzing around, making the noise of an airplane. Collin had to get it out with a bobby pin. Well, the gnats and mosquitoes kind of ruined our day, but nothing could ruin it really! Besides, we’d have had to leave in an hour or so anyway.

  Collin, on the way home, sweetly said he’d call me in the afternoon right after I got off the bus, so we could talk before my mom got there.

  I gave him a big grin, even though I felt like I had gnats in my teeth, and told him that we could talk as long as we wanted because Mom was going to be in the city getting final papers signed with a prospective buyer, and I was going to sleep over at El’s. I told him I’d planned on going over there right after school, but I could take care of that. El lived just a few blocks away, and I’d ride (to her house) on my bike after we’d talked.

  Collin grinned back at me and told me that would be “mag, in fact super mag.” It made me glad that he’d picked up at least one thing from me. I’d picked up so much from him. Of course, mine were good things and his was just a dumb word. Oh well…so be it…or whatever.

  Tuesday, April 24

  10:10 A.M.—English

  I’ve never had a dull, boring, humdrum school-day pass so slowly in my life. I don’t think one thing in one class registered. I can’t wait to get home and talk to my bro—but in a way he’s more than a brother, or is this how a really truly close, close family relationship feels? I wish I had someone to talk to who understands about these things, but I don’t know who that would be. I hope he doesn’t remember what a bawl baby I was and how I completely panicked when the black swarm of insects absorbed us. I really lost it! It’s a good thing he’s not a boyfriend or he would have dumped me verbally on the island or physically in the bayou, and I made such a sappy, dumb sap of myself, and I looked so gruesome with gnats in my eyebrows and my hair and stuff. How could he ever even want to talk to me again…ever?

  2:13 P.M.—Math

  I was so preoccupied and hyper during lunch that El and Dorie and Red were trying to hold me down in my chair in the cafeteria. Sometimes they seem so childish, without a care in the world or a thought in their heads. On the top of the blackboard, Mr. Nelson had the sign: ALGEBRA, THE REUNION OF BROKEN PARTS. 1. THE BRANCH OF MATHEMATICS THAT USES POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE NUMBERS, LETTERS, AND OTHER SYSTEMIZED SYMBOLS TO EXPRESS AND ANALYZE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONCEPTS AND QUANTITY IN TERMS OF FORMULAS, EQUATIONS, ETC.: GENERALIZED MATHEMATICS.

  Who cares? Who wants to tell the height of a telephone pole from its shadow? Who in their right mind would want to be in a dumb old math class if they could be out in the sun, having fun with someone like Collin? He’s more beautiful than the picture of a young Greek god in our history books, or the statue of David in Florence, Italy. I saw that when we went there three years ago. It didn’t seem like much then, but it does now, except that Collin is a little thinner.

  I just looked up, and Mr. Nelson gave me a big smile. He think
s I’m working. If only he knew how far away my mind is from here. Well, really I am working in a way to get out at 3. I don’t think I’ll even go back to home room. Twenty-four minutes and I’m outta here. Nineteen long minutes left. I think I’ll die.

  4:32 ½ P.M.

  Just as I raced in the house all hot and sweaty, the phone rang. Guess who? Who else? He said he’d called twice before I got in, but I couldn’t have gotten here any faster if I’d been able to fly. It’s like Christmas and all the birthday parties in the world combined, with the Fourth of July sparklers and fire-crackers thrown in.

  Collin is going to come over and fix dinner for just the two of us! He says he’s the world’s fanciest, smanciest cook, and it will be a dinner we’ll never forget, a special, special dinner that will be our very favorite till the end of time. And it will be! It truly will be, even if we have cow pies for dessert. Oh, why did I think that, it’s childish and not funny. I’m just hysterical, crazy, happy hysterical, but hysterical or not, I better go in and clean up the breakfast dishes and throw my bed together and my clothes that are on the floor under the bed or something, or blessed Collin will walk in and walk right out again. Talk to you later, dear Self. ‘Bye.

  Wednesday, April 25

  1:30 A.M.

  Blackness, cold, jellied blackness has settled in over the world, and I don’t know what to do…what to think, how to act…who to call. It started out so wonderfully…was that in another life? Another place? Another me? I’m so confused…so alone…I was going to say “so scared and hurting,” but I’m really not feeling anything. It’s weird! It’s like I’m really not me anymore! Where have I gone? Who is this stranger who’s writing? Will the real me, the happy, lighthearted, ditsy little-girl me, ever come back?

  How did life go from total happiness and light to total darkness and whatever this horrible feeling that I’m feeling is? Let’s start from the very beginning. As the song says, “A very good place to start.” My grandma used to sing that to me when I was little and had a problem. PROBLEM? I didn’t even know what a problem was then. Okay…be realistic, uncluttered…spit it out!

  I’d slicked up the house and froo-frooed myself in my new chiffon gypsy skirt, and the sun was shining and the music of life was playing, and Collin came with a bag full of groceries, looking like the cover of GQ magazine, only better.

  Maybe from then on, I brought this blackness on myself, and I can get rid of it. Maybe somehow I can make it light again, someday somehow!!!

  Anyway, Collin fixed steak and mushrooms and salad and garlic bread, and I put out Mom’s best dishes and goblets and candles. We laughed and fed each other, and he kissed each one of my fingers and told me something wonderful about myself with each kiss. It was brotherly…but it wasn’t too.

  It was fun. Like playing house for real, with real music and real laughter and real wine cooler in Mom’s beautiful, real champagne glasses.

  I didn’t tell Collin that I’d only tasted liquor once before. Last New Year’s Eve Red and I sneaked some of her dad’s Jack Daniel’s and tried it, but it was hot and nasty, and we both just felt silly and dumb. She threw up, and I fell asleep on the floor and caught a bad cold.

  But with me and Collin it’s like, now that I’m looking back at it…like a movie or something. I’m watching what happened, and it’s not real….

  Collin was so sweet and so kind and so caring about what I thought and how I felt at first. I want it to be that way again! I want to feel wanted and needed and loved and important and that I’m number one in somebody’s life…in his life. I’ll do whatever is necessary to bring it back to that. I will! I will!

  It was soooooo beautiful. We danced, and we rubbed each other’s back and feet, and he kept saying things to me that made me feel like a fairy princess and the most wonderful thing in the world. I’ve never felt so powerful and confident and priceless.

  After a while, he lit a fire in our little fireplace and oops—I remembered I was supposed to spend the night with El.

  Scared to death that her mom might drop by to pick me up before I could call her, I dialed the phone frantically. What would she think if she dropped in? And she might; she had a key for emergencies.

  It seemed like the phone rang one hundred times before anyone answered, but she finally did.

  I told her I had real bad cramps, and I wanted to sleep in my own bed.

  At first she seemed unsure; then she made me promise to go put the night latches on both doors, and she waited on the phone for me to do it. It was funny, Collin and I giggling quietly as we tiptoed to each door and bolted it.

  Finally, Mrs. Warner wished me good night and hung up, and Collin and I crumpled on the floor in fits of laughter.

  We were on our second bottle of wine cooler, but it was more than that that made us so happily happy. It was just being together. He said I made him feel much, much, much more fulfilled and happy than he made me. I don’t know how that could possibly be possible, but if he says so…

  I made Collin promise that he would leave at the stroke of midnight. I knew our old grandfather clock wouldn’t let him forget or try to cheat, because at twelve o’clock sharp it goes through a series of gongs and chimes that no one could ignore.

  Collin put on Mom’s Natalie Cole tape, and we danced for a while. He had turned out all the lights, and with just the glow from the fireplace and the shiny twinkling from the stars just a stone’s throw away from our balcony, it was heaven.

  Collin mixed a little bottle of something in our wine cooler, and it kind of ruined the taste, but at this point I couldn’t say or even think anything negative. He had started becoming a little handsy, and I liked it…but I didn’t like it too.

  He pulled me down on the floor and explained to me about our relationship, how it had grown from a brother-sister type thing to a loving, respecting girl-boy thing. That made sense at that time, in that place and that condition. We drank a little more and listened to music and snuggled together, just loving and kissing. Dumb me, Collin even had to teach me how to kiss, but he was so gentle and patient and even fun and funny about it that I wasn’t even embarrassed. He said in some movies people kiss like they’re cannibals, and they’re trying to eat each other.

  We giggled, and I told him about the time El and I had watched an X-rated movie on cable when we were baby-sitting. It was gross and perverted and disgusting, but it was nice having someone mature like Collin to discuss it with.

  It seemed like only seconds had passed when the clock started chiming midnight. I scrambled to my feet, tipsily walked toward the door to hold it open for him.

  The next thing I knew, Collin had picked me up bodily and was carrying me into my mother’s room. I struggled like crazy…I wanted to…but I didn’t want to…Collin whispered I should…I cried I shouldn’t….

  Collin dropped me down on my mother’s soft flowered comforter, and I fought back with all my might. Red neon thoughts flashed through my mind…committing fornication on my own mother’s bed…I was still a good little Catholic girl who had been taught that sexual impurity was not simply a venial sin easily pardoned, and to commit it on my own mother’s bed…never…I wouldn’t!

  The whole scene keeps going over and over in my brain like a stuck record. My pleading, then screaming, “No, Collin, no. Please. Please, Collin…don’t.”

  After a while, Collin pulled back and looked at me like I had hit him in the face with a crowbar or something. He seemed mortally wounded. “You mean you don’t love me?”

  I could feel his pain. I’d felt just like he looked when Catsup, my red kitten, had been squashed in the busy street and no one had stopped. I’d felt then that no one had ever loved me or would ever love me…or Catsup.

  In spite of myself, I blubbered, “Yes…I guess I love you…but…” He started again, and I tried to squirm away, hitting and pushing. “Collin, I’m only fourteen, I’m only in junior high school…I shouldn’t…I don’t want to…it’s…I think it’s a mortal sin.” Tears and
snot were running down my face. It was awful, but he didn’t seem to care. I tried every way I knew to get away. I even bit him…but he…raped me—NO, NO, he didn’t. He wouldn’t do that! Collin is not a rapist. I won’t even think the word. He couldn’t be that. He’s kind and thoughtful and…but he really is a rapist. No, I brought it on myself. I must have made him think…no, I didn’t. He really didn’t have a right…

  It was like he was somebody else. Not Collin, not sweet, thoughtful, kind Collin. He was a stranger who hurt me, hurt me a lot, all over, and he didn’t even care.

  I don’t know him. Maybe I never did know the real him. But that’s not so strange. I don’t even know myself now.

  Oh, how I wish I had talked to my friends. How I wish I had stayed over at El’s. I couldn’t have kept my secret from her all night. At some time I would have had to creep from my twin bed to hers and tell her every single detail about the last few days—about the concert, about Collin, about my feelings.

  I’m so, so, so confused…and hurt. My feelings are hurt almost more than my body, and it’s pretty hurty. I could hardly walk to the bathroom. Oh chips, why does life have to be such a pile of chips anyway?

  3 A.M.

  It’s 3 A.M., and I can’t sleep. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep again. I’ve cleaned up the house, gotten rid of every single thing that remains of…him. I even took the trash to the canister outside the building. I don’t want it anywhere near me. Or any other reminder of…anything.

  When it was over, he just got up and left. No good-bye. No “I’m sorry.” No nothing.

  If I’d just talked to my mom about Collin, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe she’d have known how to handle things. How would I know? Sometimes I think I’m so smart-assed, and I try to pretend that I know everything, and there’s no way I can be wrong, but chips, I’ve only lived fourteen years on this planet. I’m just a kid. Well, maybe I’m not a kid anymore. I guess now I’m a woman. Anyway, Mom probably wouldn’t have known either.