“You piece of shit,” she said. “Get upstairs right now. Go to our room and wait for me there.”
He kept staring at her dumbly. She wasn’t usually so take-charge. He’d expected her to be angry, but then he’d expected her to dissolve into tears like she always did when he did something to upset or offend her.
But she didn’t.
Instead, when he made no move to go upstairs, she pointed toward the steps and screeched, “Now!” startling the hell out of him.
As he ambled toward the steps, pulling his shorts up, he heard her tell Elise in a much calmer, nicer voice, “Oh sweetie, don’t worry. Everyone bleeds the first time. It’s perfectly normal. Why don’t you go to the bathroom and clean yourself up. I’ll meet you in your bedroom.”
Cash sat on Francine’s bed, his crotch itching, waiting for her to come. He wondered what she was doing. Later, he realized she was cleaning the couch cushion, although he would never figure out how she got the blood out of it. He heard the shower come on in the bathroom down the hall. He listened for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he heard Francine’s footsteps. He stood when she walked in. “Fran,” he began. “I am so sorry. It’s not what you think. I mean—I—”
Her voice was low but hostile. She poked his chest. “Shut up,” she hissed. “Just shut the fuck up. You’re disgusting. You are a weak, disgusting, sorry excuse for a man. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
He stared at her, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. This was not his fiancée. This angry woman who used the F-word was not the woman he’d known the last six years. Her eyes were ablaze with rage and hatred. She seemed to grow taller with each exhortation. “It is three days before our wedding, and you rape my niece in my parents’ house?”
Cash put his hands out, palms up. “No, no, no. I didn’t rape her, Fran. I swear to God, I didn’t rape her. She was flirting with me. All week she’s been coming on to me. Today we were alone and it just—things just happened. I swear, Fran, you’ve seen the way she dresses.”
She slapped him again, harder this time. He tasted blood on the inside of his mouth.
“She’s fucking crying, Cash. When you fuck a girl and she cries, that’s not a good sign. You fucking idiot. That girl is fourteen years old.”
“Fran, I swear to God, I didn’t hurt her. She was into it.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Stop talking before I rip your fucking balls off and stuff them down your throat. Do you understand that you’ve just ruined our lives? Our entire life! Elise is going to tell my brother that you raped her. If you’re lucky, he’ll beat you to death. If you’re not, he’ll call the police. You’re going to go to prison for being a child rapist. Let’s not even talk about the fact that you fucking cheated on me.”
She came at him, striking with a flurry of closed-fist punches. He put his arms up to shield his face from the blows. She was surprisingly strong. “I’m sorry,” he cried. “I’m sorry, Fran.”
“Three fucking days,” she panted once she exhausted herself. “You just had to hold out for three fucking days. Then I would have gotten my inheritance from my grandmother’s estate. We were supposed to buy a house with it, remember? I don’t get it unless I get married, remember, you piece of shit? You think I want to stay in this house after you go to prison for raping a fourteen-year-old girl?”
“What?” Cash said.
She stared at him, looking maniacal, fists still clenched at her sides. “You ruined everything.”
“You’re thinking about your inheritance right now?”
She moved closer to him, her face inches from his. “It’s not my inheritance anymore, is it, you fucking rapist? Now it’s your defense fund.”
“My defense fund? We’re still getting married?”
“Fucking right, we are.” She pointed at the door. “I’m going to fix this. When I tell you, you’re going to apologize to Elise. Then you’re going to go get a hotel room and stay in it till the wedding. While you’re there, you’re going to keep your fucking dick in your pants—that means no raping anyone. You think you can restrain yourself for three days?”
“I didn’t rape her.”
She slapped him again. His cheek was on fire. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. “You don’t fucking talk anymore. In three days, you’re going to marry me. I’m going to get my money, and hopefully by then, Elise will be back in California recovering from her ordeal. You just better pray that she doesn’t get knocked up.”
He flinched even as he opened his mouth to speak, expecting another slap. “What makes you think she won’t tell even after she’s back in California?”
Francine rolled her eyes at him. “I said I’d fix it, didn’t I?”
Chapter 36
1996
Francine spun on her heel and stalked off, out the door and down the hall. He peeked around the doorway in time to see her and Elise emerging from the bathroom, Elise cloaked in a towel and Francine’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. He watched them cross the hall to one of the guest bedrooms where Elise had been sleeping.
Cash crept down the hall, pressing his back against the wall until he could make out their voices. He heard sniffling. Then shushing. Then a voice he knew to be his future wife’s but was so radically different in tone from the woman who’d just slapped him around that he questioned his very sanity.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Don’t cry. Really, it will be okay. Shhh,” Francine soothed.
Elise’s voice was more tortured, high-pitched, and thick with tears. “Oh my God, Aunt Fran, I didn’t mean for that to happen. He just wouldn’t stop.”
Cash heard a loud sob, then more shushing. Then Francine’s voice, consoling and oh-so-reasonable, “Well, as upsetting and disappointing as this is, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
Another sniffle. “You’re not?”
“Oh Elise, I’ve seen the way you and Cash flirt—”
“Oh, but I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Shhh, it’s okay. You’re a stunning young woman. You’ve got gorgeous hair and beautiful, glowing skin, a perfect body that’s firm in all the right places still . . . and the way you dress, well, I’ve always said flaunt it if you’ve got it but sometimes . . .”
There was silence as Francine drifted off. Then Elise’s voice, “What? What is it?”
Cash heard some rustling, like one or both of them shifting their weight on the bed. “Oh honey,” Francine said. “You’re already so upset. I don’t want to make it worse.”
“Just tell me.”
“Well, sometimes the way you dress leaves very little to the imagination, Elise. A man like Cash, well, really. What do you expect?”
Two creaks, the bedframe and the floor. Cash guessed Elise had stood. “What?” she gasped. “How can you say that? My mom says women should be able to dress however they want, and that men need to learn to control themselves.”
Francine sighed. “But that’s not the world we live in, is it?”
Silence.
“Is it?” Francine repeated.
Three more creaks. Likely Francine standing and advancing on Elise. Cash could picture the girl, arms crossed under her perky little breasts, chin thrust forward, lower lip puffed out, sulky and stubborn. He’d watched her do it to her parents and grandparents at least a dozen times. It always worked.