Invisible(33)

“What a little bastard,” Lara said angrily, and put an arm around Antonia’s shoulders.

“I shouldn’t have let him in.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. You’ll know better next time, and thank God he didn’t rape you.” It would have been a tragic summer for her if he had. Similar experiences had happened to Lara’s friends when they were in college, and more than once to her. Some guys just thought they had the right to do anything, and got away with it. “I’ll try and get your room back in better shape,” she said when they moved on to other subjects. Antonia didn’t tell her father about the near rape, or she suspected he’d never let her take another summer job away again.

    Her room at her father’s apartment seemed almost beyond salvation by then, and the message in it was clear to her. It had become a dumping ground as well as her father’s home office. There was no room for her anymore, or her belongings. She couldn’t even get to what was there. It was an ordeal extricating what she had left there in June and needed in school. She took it back to school herself this time. Jake had said he’d set up her TV and stereo. By sophomore year, parents didn’t usually go, and Brandon said he was relieved. Lara was willing, but Antonia said she could do it herself. Her father rented a van for her to use, she drove it all down to the Village, and met Jake on the street. He looked tan and relaxed after his three weeks in Tahoe. Antonia looked as though she had been through the wars. The heat in L.A. had been record-breaking all summer, and she was pale and thin and worn out.

He helped her unload the van, and carried everything upstairs for her. She had told him she’d do the hanging and decorating, make his bed for him, and put his clothes in the drawers if he would do all the heavy lifting and technical stuff for her, and there was a lot of it. It sounded like a good trade to both of them. They were finished by early afternoon, went for a pizza, and took a walk in Washington Square Park. It was a beautiful late summer day. She had told him all about her job over lunch, and he was sorry for her. And she told him about Jeff’s attempted rape. Jake was incensed.

    “What a shithead. You should have called the police.”

“They probably wouldn’t have believed me. And he got hurt and I didn’t. I would have gotten in trouble, and I couldn’t prove what he did.”

“Thank God,” Jake said gratefully. If there had been proof, it would have been rape. “You did absolutely the right thing to clobber him. You were damn lucky!” He hated the thought of what could have happened to her, and was enormously relieved it hadn’t. He gave her a big hug as they left the restaurant. “I’ll be your bodyguard from now on.” She didn’t usually need one, and nothing like it had ever happened to her before. Jeff had taken her by surprise, and taken full advantage of her trust and innocence. It had been a huge lesson for her. She’d heard stories like it on campus the year before, during freshman year. Assaults of that kind were common in colleges, workplaces, even on dates with boys girls knew. Lara had told her that she had to be very careful from now on. Clearly, there were bad people everywhere, and good ones too. No matter what the circumstances, drunk or sober, Jake would never have done anything like it. But some men did. It made her wish she were invisible again. She’d had an easy time in high school, where boys paid no attention to her. She hadn’t even had a date for her senior prom, and hadn’t gone. She felt like a total loser, but it was easier. Now men paid more attention to her. She looked older and her beauty was more evident. She was still small and delicate, but she looked like a woman now and not a child, which attracted bad guys like Jeff, as well as good ones. Being “invisible” had been simpler. She’d never felt beautiful before, and she didn’t now. Her mother had always told her she wasn’t, even as a child, and her father never complimented her, but she was a woman, and for some men that was enough to treat her as easy prey.



* * *



—

    Jake admitted to her that he’d dated a girl while he was working at the Fairmont. She was a beautiful Mexican girl, one of the maids, and a student at Berkeley. She was smart and wanted to go to law school. They’d had fun, but it ended when he left, and they both knew nothing would come of it. He was going back to New York, and there was a senior she liked at Berkeley. It was just a summer fling, and neither of them had tried to make it more, which seemed sensible to Antonia.



* * *



—

Sophomore year was harder than their freshman year had been. Antonia signed up for more classes, hard ones. She was taking a lot of writing classes, and had endless assignments. Jake was working harder too, and they were both struggling for good grades and had less time to play than the year before. More was expected of them sophomore year.

She never went home for the weekend, as it was too complicated staying at the apartment now, with all the junk in her room. Lara said that every time she made order of it, her father brought home more. She could still sleep there, if she was willing to climb over all the boxes, and she couldn’t bring anything home. She felt like she’d been evicted, and in a way, she had.

    She turned down the few offers of dates she had. Jeff had put her off from dating, for a while anyway, and she said she had too many assignments and didn’t have time.