That summer, I picked up a part time job at a small bookstore. I was the only employee, other than the owner, and I worked nights which required me to lock up the store around midnight. The bookstore shared a parking lot with a bar called Gunshots and most nights I had to endure catcalls and whistling from the intoxicated bikers who were lingering outside. I hated it and kept my fists balled all the way to the car, in case I had to hit someone.
I had been working there for three weeks when Caleb dropped by to see me. His face was red and tense when he walked through the doors.
“What’s wrong?” I said coming around the counter to hug him. I peered over his shoulder, wondering if one of the bar rats had said something to make him angry. Often they made rude comments to the customers as they were coming or going.
“You’re alone here?”
“Well, there are a few customers.” I said glancing around the aisles.
“When you leave at night, do you walk to your car alone?” His voice was impatient and I wondered where exactly he was going with this.
“Yes.”
“You’re not working here anymore,” he said, with finality.
“What?” my jaw dropped. He had never spoken to me that way before.
He pointed outside to the bar. “It’s dangerous. You’re a woman. You are alone and it doesn’t help that you look the way you do.”
“You’re telling me that I have to quit my job because of the way I look?” I raised an eyebrow and walked back behind the register. He was pissing me off.
“I’m telling you that it is not safe for you to be here alone and then walk to your car by yourself.”
“I can take care of myself.” I began stacking books that needed to be shelved onto a trolley.
“You’re a hundred pounds soaking wet, and those are very drunk men.”
I shrugged.
Caleb looked like a ball of hot energy and he was making me nervous.
“I’m not quitting,” I said putting my hands on my hips. “I have to work. Not all of us have rich parents and trust funds to see us through life.”
His face became white. He hated for anyone to mention the fact that he was loaded, least of all me. He walked out of the store without a goodbye. I threw a pen at the door, wishing he was still there so it could hit him on the head.
Later that night, when I was locking up, I saw his car in the lot.
I walked up to the driver’s side window and tapped on the glass with my keys.“What are you doing here?” I said when he rolled down the window.
He shrugged.
Annoyed, I walked away without asking him anything else.
From then on, anytime I worked, Caleb’s car was parked in the lot when I left. We never acknowledged each other in the parking lot, and we never spoke about it during our regular relationship hours. But at midnight, he was always there, making sure I was safe. I liked it.
It took me a while to get used to Caleb’s vast popularity. Maybe five people on campus knew my name, but his was a name that was engraved on brass plaques in the school’s gymnasium.
“I feel like I’m dating a celebrity,” I said, when we were out to dinner one night and a couple of girls waved to him from the next table. He rolled his eyes and played it off like I was being dramatic. But, my jealousy weaseled its way into my mind every time some bimbo paid him homage.
Those girls had no regard for the fact that he was my boyfriend. They were waiting for the chance to pounce on him—just like I had.
And then there was the sex issue. We hadn’t gone that far. Cammie quizzed me nightly on just how far our make-out sessions went.
“We just kiss,” I told her for the umpteenth time. We were both in our beds, with the lights out and Cammie was sucking on a lollipop, making wet, slurping noises.
“You need to brush your teeth when you’re done with that.”
“And he never tries to do more?” she asked ignoring me.
“I don’t want him to.”
“Olivia, just looking at that man makes me want to have sex and I’m sure ninety nine percent of the female student body agrees with me. What’s your issue? Wait! Were you molested?”
She pronounced it “mo-lested.” I rolled my eyes.
“No, shut up. I just don’t want to. Why do I have to be a product of sexual assault because I’m not jumping into bed with him?”
“Hellooo, Caleb is a man. He wants to have sex and if you’re not giving it to him, he’ll find it somewhere else.”
I rolled over and refused to say anything more. What did Camadora know anyway? Weren’t freshman infamous for being stupid and slutty? Wasn’t my father famous for ‘finding it somewhere else’?
No. I wasn’t going to use my father as an excuse to lose Caleb again. Caleb was faithful, attentive, and he had never pushed me to do more than kiss, because he respected me. I remembered the last time we kissed. It had been in his room, lying on his bed. His whole body had felt tense, like he was wound up and ready to spring loose. What if he was using every ounce of self-control when he was with me? The word ‘cock tease’ sprung to mind and I crept further under my covers in shame.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think about having sex with him. I thought about it all the time. But, thinking and doing were two different things. I wasn’t ready and I didn’t know why.
Laura Hilberson was found the same week Caleb and I messed around for the first time. The police found her wandering the Miami airport, barefoot, and her eyelids hanging low over milky eyes. Laura's story was that a man had abducted her while she was jogging on a trail at a park not two miles from the school. Calling for help, he claimed to have sprained an ankle, and begged for her assistance. He asked to be helped to his car, which was just yonder, over the rise. Reluctantly, Laura agreed. She shouldered his weight and walked the short distance to his white van. The van was an old Astro van with rust eating away the metal like cancer. Hindsight told Laura that the darkly tinted windows and slightly cracked rear door was a flashing warning sign. As she helped him into the driver’s seat, he let his keys slip from his fingers and fall into the grass at Laura’s feet. When she bent to retrieve them, the man lifted a crowbar from the passenger seat and connected it with one powerful motion to Laura’s pretty temple. He then shoved her into the back and drove her to what the papers were calling “The Rapist’s Den.”