Page 68 of Everything You Want Me to Be
Then she sat down next to me and got really serious. “Look, Hattie, I know you think you’ve got Tommy wrapped around your little finger, but look at him. He’s a giant.”
She stopped, tongue-tied, which was so not like her.
“What are you saying, Portia?”
“I’m just saying be careful.”
I left her on the bed and stood in front of her full-length mirror. It felt better to have this conversation through a reflection. “You’re saying be careful in case my boyfriend is a rapist?”
“Pretty much.”
“And this has nothing to do with the fact that you wanted to ask him to Sadie’s?”
“Are you kidding me? He was just one option. It’s not like I liked him.”
“Obviously not, if you think he’s going to force himself on me.” I started giggling. “Come on, Porsche. Tommy? Really?”
She looked put out by my laughter; she just sniffed and went back to picking out clothes and talking about all the fabulous things she was going to do in Nashville. We didn’t talk again before her trip, but as soon as their plane landed she started compulsively texting me, which was typical Portia. I just replied with stuff like, “Great!” and “That sounds awesome!,” which was typical Hattie.
Tommy ended up coming over on Tuesday during spring break. Mom was home, putting together a care package for Greg in the kitchen. We hadn’t heard from him in a few weeks because he was on an active assignment. No one really knew what it meant except that Mom had to start working on a package for him. She bought magazines she thought he’d like, made cookies and wrapped them in bubble wrap, and tucked in all sorts of odds and ends with sticky notes to tell him why she’d included them. She sent cartons of cigarettes, too—even though she hated smoking—because Greg said they were better than money over there. It sounded a lot like prison to me. He was scheduled to come home in July, and sometimes I caught Mom flipping the calendar pages back and forth like she was counting down the number of flips until she could breathe easy again. You didn’t notice when she was moving around, which was like always, but when she sat at the dinner table or read books at night her hands trembled. I didn’t remember them doing that before Greg left.
When Tommy came over, he asked about Greg. I always forgot they’d been on the football team together when Greg was a senior and we were sophomores.
“Here, Tommy, write him a quick note. He’ll be glad to hear from you,” Mom said.
Tommy seemed flustered by the pen and sticky note, but he squeezed himself into a kitchen chair and did as she told him. I grabbed a few sodas for us out of the fridge before we went upstairs, and as I passed the table I saw he wrote (all in uppercase): HI GREG. YOU KILLED OSAMA YET? GO SPARTANS! TOMMY
“So do you wanna go for a drive?” Tommy asked when we got to my room. He looked like a monster on my little twin bed and I couldn’t help remembering what Portia had said. It was the kind of thought that just creeped in all by itself and started whispering,rapist, rapist.I wondered what Tommy was really capable of with his strong hands and soft brain. There was that whole Lennie Small angle to consider. Even though the gearshift stayed between us every time we made out in his pickup, he still tried to move his hand down my shirt to my jeans. And every time I pulled away and said, “No, Tommy.” Like a dog, like how you would train an overeager Labrador. Then he would apologize without meaning it and eventually take me home. There was no gearshift between us in my room, though. The bed was here. The door was mostly closed and Mom was all the way downstairs, humming along with the radio.
“Maybe later.” I reached into my backpack for my script. “I have to memorize the rest of my lines first, remember? Will you help me?”
“Seriously?”
I nodded and he groaned. “Come on, Hattie. I can’t read that stuff.”
“It’s good for you.” I smiled, a flirty little smile, and sat down on the bed next to him, opening the book. “See, you just have to read whatever comes right before Lady MacBeth’s lines and then make sure I’m saying them right.”
I pointed out the highlighted text, but Tommy was concentrating on other things. He pulled me against him and landed a sloppy kiss behind my ear.
“Not now.”
When I tried to pull away he tightened his grip, keeping me close.
“Just a little,” he mumbled and moved to my mouth.
Somehow his other hand found the back of my head and held me still as he kissed me. I felt like I was suffocating and couldn’t even picture Peter the way I usually did.
“Tommy,” I managed when he came up for air.
“What?” His hand squeezed my breast. How did he grow so many hands?
“Not now,” I repeated and managed to squirm away.
He grunted and lounged back against the wall, not even bothering to hide the bulge in his jeans. “It’s not ever with you.”
“My mom’s here. And I really do have to learn this.”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this play.”
