All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(84)

“But it still means you’re not a virgin,” said the girl in front of me.

“God can make everything right if we trust Him. If we pray, He can take cancer away. He can bring people back to life.”

“So God could make you a virgin again?”

People laughed at the girl for asking that, but Charlotte said, “Why is that so funny? God parted the Red Sea and Jesus resurrected Lazarus. He can do anything.”

When everybody broke for snacks, I stayed in my corner reading. Sometimes Amy and Angela sat with me, but Leslie was there that night, wanting to run away from college and sneak back into her safe high school life. The three of them were at the refreshment table, when Charlotte walked over to me.

“Can we talk, Wavy?” Without waiting for an answer Charlotte sat down and scooted her chair up as close as she could, so no one else would hear. Like I would want to have a secret with her. “I want you to know that I believe what I said with all my heart. What happened to you, God can heal you of that. Because He knows that in your heart, you’re still pure.”

Charlotte’s hand swooped toward my arm, but stopped short of touching me.

“Will you let me pray with you? Ask God to heal you? To take away what was done to you and make you whole?”

“I don’t want your god to make me a virgin,” I said.





12

AMY

1986–1987

Wavy said it loud enough that everyone in the youth group lounge heard her. Then she walked over to Leslie and held out her hand.

“Car keys?”

“Wavy, she’s just trying to help,” Leslie said.

Charlotte hurried up to us and gasped, “Will you ask Wavy to come into my office to talk, Leslie?”

Wavy snapped her fingers angrily at Leslie. I could see in Wavy’s eyes that she had maybe only ten seconds of calm left. Angela saw it, too, and said, “Jeez, Les, give her the keys.”

“They’re in my purse.”

“Oh, Wavy. Please, let me help you.” Charlotte was getting ready to cry.

Wavy turned on her heel, crossed to where Leslie’s purse hung over the back of her chair. In one economical movement, she emptied Leslie’s purse on the seat and picked up the keys. Five steps to the door and she was gone.

“She doesn’t want your help,” Angela said.

“God wants to heal her, if only she would open her heart,” Charlotte said.

“She’s fine.” Only as I said it did I realize it was true. Considering everything she’d been through, Wavy was doing pretty well.

“We better go,” Leslie said.

One of those rare occasions when Leslie and I agreed. She put her stuff back in her purse and we left. Behind us, Charlotte sniffled.

When we got to the car, Wavy was curled up in the backseat. I got in beside her while Angela rode up front with Leslie.

“What a witch,” Angela said. “She’s probably not even a virgin. Not that I can imagine anyone having sex with her.”

“It’s not true.” Wavy’s voice was flat.

“Charlotte’s right. I know you don’t like her, but she’s right. What happened to you doesn’t count,” Leslie said. I didn’t know if she wanted to reassure Wavy or reassert Charlotte’s ecclesiastical authority on renewable virginity.

“I am a virgin.”

Leslie flicked on the windshield washer. She didn’t have the nerve to ask but I couldn’t stand not knowing.

“But what about—” I hesitated, because it wasn’t a name to be said lightly in our family: “Kellen?”

“He never f*cked me.”

“Wavy! Watch your mouth.” Leslie’s perfect impersonation of Mom. I ignored her.

“But the police report. Your deposition—”

“His alibi.” Wavy hugged her knees more tightly, her white skirt bunching over her black-stockinged legs. That was the first time I realized that while Leslie and I were growing up, Wavy was staying the same. Staying fourteen. Not even that. Staying thirteen. In three years she hadn’t grown at all.

“But your blood on the desk blotter.” Why was I arguing? To say, No, you can’t be a virgin? The police report said so. Kellen pled guilty.

“He broke my hymen with his fingers,” Wavy said.

“See? Really, you’re still a virgin.” Angela leaned over the backseat, trying to help.

“I wish he had f*cked me.”

“You don’t mean that,” Leslie said, half-sad, half-disapproving.

“No one could take that away.”

I didn’t blame Wavy for feeling that way. The bike and the ring, they were just things. Donal and Kellen were all she cared about, and they’d both been taken away from her.

In bed that night, I said, “What was it like?” It makes me sound like a morbid ghoul, but why else had Wavy offered that secret? She wanted to tell someone.

“Wonderful. His hands are big and rough. He slid his ring finger into me. It burned. There was blood, but I wanted to have him in me. He wouldn’t.”

“But your deposition.” I kept coming back to the Gospel. Wavy spoke in Apocrypha.

“He wouldn’t. He was scared of hurting me and he wanted to wait until we got married. Rubbing against me made him come. On the desk. Between my legs. Not in me. He never f*cked me.”