Into the Woods (33 page)

Kirby often came by and looked in whenever I left my door open. He would stop to talk about almost anything, just, it seemed to me, to make conversation. He never stepped into the room without asking or saying. "Hey, how you doing? Can I come in a minute?"
Twice I had left the door open when I was half dressed and caught sight of him standing there. He moved an quickly without saying a word or knocking on the opened door to pretend he hadn't noticed,
"Hey, what are you reading now?" he asked this time, "Can I see?"
"Just some college brochures."
I
said, holding them up. He came into the room and looked at them.
"USC? You'd go to college as far away as Los Angeles?"
"We did a great deal of traveling. Kirby. Going to California isn't so overwhelming to me. For a while we lived in San Diego."
"Right. I know, but that's clear across the country. We'd miss you." he said. He had a different sort of look in his eye, almost a look of true sadness.
"Right."
"No. I mean it." he insisted, "We've become quite a threesome, and even though I know I'm dominating your time.
I
enjoy it.
I
hope you do. too."
"I do," I said, "otherwise I wouldn't be doing anything with You."
He smiled. "Why do you have to be so literal, so serious, Grace?
I
think that's part of your problem."
"What problem?"
"Making new friends. socializing. Can I be honest with you?" he asked, sitting beside me on the bed.
"That's all
I
ever want you to be with me, Kirby," I countered.
He smiled and shook his head. "You know, you make me feel we're batting a tennis ball back and forth whenever we talk these days. I suspect you're like that with most of the .guys who try to get to know you You're too defensive."
I turned away quickly, and he put his hand on my arm. "I don't mean to hurt you. Grace. but I hope we've gotten so we can talk to each other from the heart. Have we?"
I looked at him and nodded,
"Well, you give off this air of superiority."
I started to protest, but he put his hand up. "I watch you whenever we have guests here, especially guests who bring young sons along. You're always condescending, speaking to them like you're sitting atop a mountain." He thought a moment, his eyes darkening. "Can I ask you something very personal?"
"You can ask. but I don't know if you'll get an answer," I said.
"See? Okay. You've never been with anyone, have you?"
I looked back at him sharply. "What do you mean?"
"You know what
I
mean. Grace. You're nearly twenty-two, and I suspect you're far more intelligent than I am. so I know you understand the question."
"What difference does it make whether I've been with someone or not?"
"A lot of difference. I really don't think you are
a
snob. Grace. I think you're just frightened."
"Frightened?" I started to laugh.
"Of life, of experiencing it fully."
My smile flew away. "What are you doing, taking courses in psychology?"
"No, my school has been real life, no formal courses in anything. Well?"
"I
don't think it's necessary for you to know the answer to that question. Kirby."
"Okay," he said with a shrug. All I wanted to do is assure you that there is nothing to be afraid of when you give something of yourself to someone."
The tears that burned at my eyes were coming up too fast for me to stop. "You don't know what you're talking about." I said. "You don't know whom
I
gave myself to and what
I
gave and what happened afterward. Just leave me alone." I moaned,
"All right. Don't get upset. I'm just trying to be like a father to you, concerned. helpful."
"I don't need your help right now."
"Okay. When you're ready, I'll be there for you. That's all I want you to know."
I wiped the tears from my cheeks and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry
I
made you cry. Grace. That really pains me." "It's all right."
"I'm sorry," he said again, and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. He held his lips there just a second longer than
I
had anticipated, then pulled back slowly and smiled, keeping his face very close to mine. "Forgive me?"
"It's okay," I said, finding it hard to breathe. His lips were inches from mine.
"Great."
He kissed me again, this time smack on my lips, which really took me by surprise.
"Your problem is just your inexperience. Grace. A beautiful woman is like a beautiful race horse. You only have to find your stride. I can help you do that," he whispered.
"What? What do you mean?"
"Just a little thing like how to kiss. I bet you never kissed a man like this," he said, and brought his lips to mine while he held me tightly at the shoulders and pressed his tongue into my mouth. I tried to pull loose, but he held on as if his lips were glued to mine.
"There," he said. "That was like no other kiss you've had, wasn't it?"
I just stared at him, breathless, still spinning. He smiled, taking that for his love powers. I'm sure.
"That day you lost your bathing suit top, I said to myself, 'This is a beautiful young woman who, like a beautiful flower, just has to be brought to blossom,' Why not let me help you do that? You can trust me."
I kept shaking my head. What was he saying? What was he offering to do?
"Don't think
I
haven't noticed how you flirt with me. Grace. That's all right. It's only natural, natural instinct. You have needs you haven't even begun to satisfy."
"I
don't flirt with you."
"You don't? Well, maybe you're not
consciously aware of what you do, but you do it." he insisted. He smiled and brought his hands up to my breasts. "How perfect you are. Grace." He leaned toward me. "You're more beautiful than Jackie and will always be." he said. "I know what you want. Let me give it to you."
"Stop." I said, putting my hands on his chest. I pushed, but he resisted, his face still close.
''Go on." he said. "Push me away. Go on." he whispered. his lips closing on mine.
I started, but my arms seemed to weaken. He kissed me again and then stood up.
"That's just a taste of what's to come. It's better if you are left in anticipation. It will make it all the more delicious and wonderful."
He stood there a moment longer and then slowly started away. "'See you later." he said from the door.
I was unable to find the breath to speak. In a moment he was gone, and I felt the need to embrace myself. Why hadn't I pushed him away harder? Why hadn't I screamed? Why was he so sure
I
wouldn't tell my mother?
Had I been flirting with him? I hated myself for what he had awakened inside me.
.
If
I
appeared introverted and withdrawn to people before.
I
imagine
I
came off looking
practically comatose during the next few weeks. I couldn't shake off the veil of guilt that had been thrown over me. I was afraid it was clearly written on my face, and so I avoided Mommy, getting up much earlier than she and Kirby and having breakfast by myself. They were usually off somewhere for lunch and dinner anyway. When they weren't. I made some excuses and had my dinner brought to my suite.
I
went to sleep earlier and earlier and slept or dozed for hours at a time in the shade by the pool.
I
felt like a clam slowly closing its shell. Even the brightest days were cloudy to me, and when it rained I enjoyed the wind and the darkness just as someone with a morbid view of life might.
Mommy was unusually distracted with social activities during this time, even for her. Somehow she had wormed her way onto a committee for a major charity event to be held at the Breakers hotel. and that led to another and another event. The truth was. most of the women who went to the meetings, went to socialize and not really to do work. Mommy, on the other hand, was eager to get her hands on real activities. She accepted as many of the real
responsibilities as she was given. She would be glad to research and visit with different providers, write letters, do mailings. It became quite clear to me they were merely taking advantage of her. but like someone absorbed by one of those cult religions, she became a devotee of the charity events. Her name would be included on the list of organizers printed on the invitations, and for her that was an
accomplishment.
Every time I saw Kirby he smiled, but in a way so different from the smile he used to have. It was as though he and
I
shared a very intimate secret we kept from Mommy. I had no reason to feel this way. I told myself, but it didn't stop me from feeling it. and I was terrified that Mommy would see the exchange between us one day and wonder why. For now, however, she was as absent from my life as I had been from hers.
Eventually she even began to neglect Kirby. By month's end I saw they were doing more and more things separately. He was off on trips supposedly to find out about this investment or that. I noticed that a number of things took him to Las Vegas. too. A part of me was happy about this. Whatever activities he was involved in kept him from approaching me. It had been nearly two months since we had last gone sailing together, for example, not that I would have gone if he asked now.
Actually
I
was rarely in the mood to do anything physical. whether it was with him or not. My reading suffered as well because my eyes would drift from the page. and I would focus on something off in the distance and fall into a kind of trance, not realizing
I
was doing so until I blinked, looked at my watch, and saw
I
had let nearly twenty minutes drift away.
And then a strange thing happened. I began to have great difficulty falling asleep at night. Some nights I would lie there and stare at the ceiling waiting for my eyes to close and stay closed.
I
didn't sleep, but often, as in a dream, the faces of the people I had known since Daddy's death appeared like pictures projected on the wall. There was Autumn Sullivan, her face writhing with anxiety because of what the girls had revealed about her abortion. There was Augustus Brewster almost struck dumb by his grandmother's passing, and there was poor Randy struggling to get out his words. Winston seemed forever in a dark corner, watching me, smiling softly. Suddenly there was the light of morning sweeping him away with the shadows. and I hadn't bought a single hour of sleep.
It made me lethargic most of the day, Vaguely I understood that something very serious was
happening to me.
It
was as if my identity, my selfawareness, was dissipating, thinning out until I was translucent. People would soon see right through me. and I would totally disappear just the way Augustus Brewster used to predict he would, and no one would even notice. I blamed it all on my insomnia.
One night when Mommy was out at one of her meetings and Kirby was off doing whatever things he was into those days, I snuck into their suite and rifled through Mommy's medicine cabinet to find her sleeping pills.
I
knew she often relied on them.
I
hated taking any pills at all, but
I
was at a point of near madness from the many sleepless nights and decided
I
had no choice.
I took one and went to bed. It made me doze and even drift off for a few hours. but I woke in the middle of the night and remained awake again, the same faces parading on the walls of darkness around me until the sun's rays burned through and around the curtains.
Encouraged by the few hours I had achieved, however. I took two pills the following night and slept longer. After that I began to rely on the pills more and more and eventually sent one of our servants to the pharmacy. The prescription permitted one more refill. I didn't tell Mommy about it, of course. Now I had my own.
Sleep became an avenue of delightful escape. I loved wrapping my blanket around myself and drifting into the haze. There were no simples, no hard memories to confront, no decisions to make. In sleep I was truly free and undisturbed. I felt no guilt, no insecurity. I needed no defenses,
Vaguely I knew my appearance was changing. I woke and didn't bother to brush my hair. Sometimes I didn't shower, either. I never put on makeup, not even a little lipstick anymore. I wore the same dress for days. Mommy noticed my hair and remarked about it, but she was so absorbed in her charity and social events she didn't see much more, which confirmed my mad suspicion that
I
was truly slowly disappearing.
I wasn't sure whether Kirby noticed or not or, to be even more accurate, cared or not Something was occupying his mind and his time, too, these days. He was in and out without so much as saying hello to me. I thought perhaps he was disgusted with me or with what
I
had let him do and had chosen to ignore me.
Then one night, the time being so blurred in my memory, he came to my suite. I was already in bed, captured within the powers of the pills, slumbering like someone in hibernation. What was real and what was part of my dream world were indistinguishable.
I
heard a knock, but in my mind the knock was within a dream. It was Daddy. He had come to my bedroom in Norfolk.
"Are you awake?" I heard.
"Yes," I said eagerly.
I
could feel the deep, happy smile carving its way into my face.
In my memory there was a full moon. and
I
had forgotten to close the curtains. The room was so bright with its illumination it looked as if it was an fire.
"Hey," he said. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. I'm glad you're here," I said.
I felt him sit on the bed, and then I felt his hand wipe the strands of hair from my cheeks.
"I've been thinking about you a lot. I'm sorry I haven't been around much these days, but that didn't mean you weren't in my thoughts. I wanted to give more time to you. I feel terrible about filling your heart with expectation and then not fulfilling my promise.'
"I know you do, but it's all right," I said, still smiling, my eyes still closed.
"I don't want you to feel alone or last, Grace." Grace? Why doesn't he call me Sailor Girl?
"You're missing a lot in your life. You're wasting the best years. You can't continue to live this way, shut up inside. As I tried to show you before, you've got to learn to let yourself feel, experience. grow. Whoever has tried to be with you was just wrong or didn't know what he was doing or, even worse, was simply too selfish. The best lover is one who gives as much as he or she gets."