“Anyway, there was this guy I kind of liked but he never really spoke to me, even when I tried to talk to him. The others hadn’t been gone for more than ten minutes when he crawls into the tent where I’m lying in my freaking purple sleeping bag…and he starts to kiss me.”
“Wait, he didn’t ask? He just starts to…kiss you?” The delighted look had left Ursa’s face, and she was staring at Mac in horror. Mac nodded.
“But then he starts feeling me up, too, and I’m still so shocked by the kissing that I’m letting it all happen.”
“Whoa, whoa!” Braithe said, cutting her off. “How old were you?”
The room had taken on a new feel. Everyone had stopped drinking and eating and fidgeting and they were all focused on Mac. She looked exceptionally small and fragile as she sat on her knees on the hotel floor, wearing her Britney Spears T-shirt. She probably hadn’t looked that much different when she was a teenager. Rainy blinked hard, trying to clear her vision.
“Fifteen,” she said. They all flinched. It was an age where people stopped thinking of you as a child, even though you still were one. Grown men made sexual remarks to fifteen-year-old girls all the time. Rainy knew that on an all-too-personal level. She shivered as she stared at Mac, not wanting the story to go where it seemed to be headed.
“We—he had sex with me. It all happened really fast and I genuinely feel so stupid for not saying anything, or screaming, or anything like that. I just laid there, honest to God, and waited for it to be over. I never told anyone.” She folded her lips in after the last sentence and stared fixedly at the blank TV screen.
“Mac, holy shit,” Ursa said. “Does Bryan know?”
Mac shook her head. Bryan Biggs was a really nice guy, there was no other way to describe him. He reminded Rainy of what she was supposed to be: kind, patient and outgoing.
“Omigod,” Mac said in one breath. “I can’t believe I just told you all of that.” She covered her face with her hands, and Ursa went to sit by her. Mac started to cry.
“No, Mac, please don’t. We’re your friends.” Braithe reached across the table between them and placed her hand over Mac’s protectively while Ursa nodded. Rainy felt torn between comforting her and staying the observer. She noticed that Tara was watching everyone’s reactions carefully from where she still sat perched in her chair.
“What happened to that guy?” Rainy asked.
“Who the fuck cares,” Ursa said, rubbing little circles on Mac’s back. “I hope he died a thousand deaths.”
“Nothing. He never really spoke to me after that.”
Tara said, “What?”
At the same time, Braithe said, “Hell, no!”
Mac shrugged. “He never spoke to me before then. He just kept coming to youth group and I pretended not to know him and then finally we moved and…”
“This is messed up,” Tara said.
“Someone take a turn and change the subject fast,” Mac laughed through her tears. She shoved the ice bucket toward Tara, who wordlessly stuck her hand in and pulled out a slip.
She didn’t bother to read it first like Mac had, wanting to digest the question before she shared it. Tara cleared her throat. “Why haven’t you had any kids?”
Tara’s smooth white throat spasmed as she laughed. Her face was tilted all the way up to the ceiling like she was conversing with God. “Who asked this?” she said between tears. The tension in the room deflated under her cackling and Rainy started to laugh along with the others. The question, though very valid, could have been posed to any of them; they were all childless. As the author of the question, Mac raised a hand, which for some reason made Tara laugh harder.
“Okay…okay…sorry,” she said, spreading a palm over her chest. “I don’t know why that tickled me so much. Matt and I tried for about four years, then we talked about adoption, but we never actually made a move toward those first steps. That’s really it. I don’t think we wanted it enough. And we’re pretty happy just the two of us. You’re going to be a great mom, though,” she said, pointing a finger at Mac, “when you’re ready. You and Viola are the graduating class.” No one said anything for another minute and Rainy considered that they were all wondering about everyone else’s reasons.
“What about you, Braithe?” Mac asked. So that’s who her question had really been directed to. Rainy was more interested in her answer than she’d like to admit. Stephen and Braithe had a box at the Seattle ballet, they vacationed to places like Greece and Italy and had a wine cellar in their house with bottles that cost anywhere from three hundred dollars to three thousand. Rainy had assumed they were too busy to have children; she’d never considered that maybe they couldn’t have them.