Before She Was Helen by Caroline B. Cooney

Author:Caroline B. Cooney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2020-01-23T16:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Barbara Farmer loved her little apartment. All her life, she had yearned to live on her own, a status not acceptable in her circle. Her parents having refused to let her rent an apartment unless she had a roommate, Barbara did not tell them that her roommate had quit college to become an airline stewardess. Clemmie Lakefield moving in was wonderful because Barbara hated lying to her parents. Clemmie was also very domestic and, like Barbara, loved to cook and clean and decorate. Having their own tiny kitchen made them both so happy. Amazingly, they even were the same size, although Barbara was not nearly as generously endowed, so they could swap many of their dresses and skirts, thus doubling their wardrobes.

The girls enjoyed the same books and movies, and they both loved the New England Club, not because they missed Connecticut, but because it was good to be in a small group on a huge campus. Barbara was treasurer, and Clemmie was secretary.

A classmate named Flossy, whose parents insisted she must major in home economics, had been forced to take advanced sewing classes. More than anything, Flossy hated tailoring. The same week Flossy dropped her nickname and required her friends to call her Florence, she dropped out of tailoring and said that next, she’d drop the sewing machine out the window.

“No, no!” cried Barbara. “May I have it?”

Flossy suddenly remembered that the sewing machine had monetary value, so she and Barbara struck a deal, and Barbara went home with a fine Singer machine. She had just finished a sweet deep ruffle on a gingham kitchen curtain when the doorbell rang. In those days, you opened the door. You smiled. Of course, you invited Clemmie’s dear friend Rudyard inside and suggested that he wait until Clemmie got home, which would be probably an hour from now. No, probably not earlier, you explained, because this professor always ran over, and Clemmie never skipped class.

* * *

When Clemmie got back to the apartment, Barbara was lying on her twin bed, wrapped in a blanket, sobbing. She could not use the word rape out loud, but she managed to blurt out enough for Clemmie to understand.

Clemmie collapsed, sobbing even harder than Barbara. She lay down next to her, and they clung to each other, and neither could stop weeping.

The girls never considered going to the police. They didn’t even consider going to a doctor. Barbara had invited a complete stranger into her apartment. What had she expected? the police would say. The police—and very possibly her own parents—might add, What had she wanted?

But how did Rudyard Creek find me? Clemmie thought. The apartment is in Barbara’s name. My parents do know my address, but surely even they would not give out their nineteen-year-old daughter’s private address to a thirty-year-old married man.

I can never use my actual address again, she thought. I’ll have to use post office boxes.

Clemmie was responsible for this catastrophe. This cruel, wicked violence. She had to tell Barbara the whole sordid history, and Barbara would rightly require her to move out.

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