Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes Read online

  He handed one of the volumes to Julia.

  “Budgy,” Mr. Hannah called to the only boy who hadn’t joined the fray. “Get thee to the chalkboard. We need a non-­English major for our computations. Julia—­” He gave Julia a nod. “Population of the United States in 1989?”

  She cracked open the book and thumbed through the index. She found the page number, then the correct page, and read, “It was 252,153,092.”

  “Half that, Budgy. Men don’t count in this equation.”

  “It’s not half,” Budgy said. “Women are slightly less than fifty-­one percent of the population.”

  “L’chaim.” Mr. Hannah tapped his cigarette ash into a Styrofoam cup. “But half whatever you get from your fifty-­one percent, because they don’t collect data below the age of consent.”

  Julia thought she’d heard wrong. She looked down at the book in her lap and ran her finger down to the methodology. Forcible rape includes assaults or attempts to commit rape by force or threat of force; however, statutory rape (without force) and other sex offenses are excluded.

  “You should half that number a third time,” Greg said. “At least that many women have buyer’s remorse.”

  “Whoa there.” Mr. Hannah held up his hand like a referee calling a foul. “No conjecture allowed. Let’s stick to the data.” He instructed Julia, “So, in your story, you’ll say, ‘Extrapolating from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports blah-­blah-­blah,’ right?”

  Julia nodded, but this had stopped being her story a while ago.

  Mr. Hannah asked, “Number of reported assaults in 1989? Julia?”

  “Oh, sorry.” Julia looked for the correct column. “Forcible rapes: 106,593.”

  “All right. 106,593,” Mr. Hannah repeated, making sure Budgy got the number right. “That’s probably pretty consistent across the last five years, but we’ll need to verify that.”

  Julia stared at the board, boggled by the figure. The population of Athens-­Clarke County was less than one hundred thousand. The statistic was greater than every single person in town—­man, woman, and child.

  “Come on, Budgy. Work the chalk.” Mr. Hannah clapped his hands to get Budgy moving. “Round up, son. We don’t have all day.”

  Julia checked the data a second time, certain she’d seen it wrong. There it was: 106,593. She stared at the numbers until they blurred. Over one hundred thousand women. And that was just the ones who were over the age of consent. And had actually reported the crime. And had been threatened with violence. What were the other sex offenses that didn’t count? What about the women who didn’t go to the police?

  Why did the crime only make the newspapers if the girl wasn’t around to tell her story?

  “Got it.” Budgy underlined the number so many times that the chalk broke in two. “At the current levels, women in the United States have a .0434 percent chance of being assaulted. That’s around forty-­three per one hundred thousand.”

  Mr. Hannah was as familiar with the population number of Athens as Julia was. He summed up, “So, transferring that number to our own fair city, that’s roughly twenty-­two women a year, which is around one assault every two and a half weeks.”

  Julia closed the book. Were Beatrice Oliver and Mona No-­Name two victims for the list? Jenny Loudermilk made three. Setting aside that it was already March and there were probably others, that left at least nineteen more Athens women who would be raped before 1992 rolled in.

  And then the clock would reset and the countdown would start all over.

  Greg spiked his cigarette into a Coke can. “Less than half of one percent seems pretty rare to me.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’d have a better chance getting struck by lightning or winning the lottery.”

  Budgy laughed. “You sure about that, Einstein?”

  “Figure of speech.” Greg waved away the sarcasm, asking Julia, “Why did you want to do this story again? That’s like, a hundred thousand ­people out of almost three hundred million—­a drop in the bucket. Nobody cares about that. It’s not news.”

  Julia wasn’t given time to answer.

  “What about murder?” Lionel took the book from Julia. “Let’s do murder. I wanna know my chances.”

  “Pretty high if your parents find out you’re failing trig.” Budgy grabbed the chalk. “Okay, population goes back up to 252 million—­”

  “AIDS,” Julia said.

  They all turned to look at her.

  “You said it didn’t matter because it’s only a hundred thousand ­people.” She willed her voice to remain steady. “Around the same number of U.S. AIDS cases were diagnosed in 1989, but the story’s on the cover of Time, Newsweek . . . every newspaper in the country has some kind of story every day, and the president gives speeches about it, Congress does hearings, the Americans with Disabilities Act ensures—­”

  ­“People can’t lie about having AIDS,” Greg interrupted.

  Julia felt a bolt of fire pass through her body. “If you want to speculate, then speculate that the handful of liars are more than canceled out by all the women who never come forward, or the women who are underage, or the women who weren’t beaten during—­”

  “The surgeon general of the United States has called AIDS an epidemic.” Greg’s tone was infuriatingly pedantic. “And you don’t say diagnosed with AIDS, you say diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.”

  Julia mumbled a rare curse under her breath.

  Greg pretended not to hear her. “And also, ­people die from AIDS. Women don’t die from assault.”

  Lionel said, “Part of their vaginas do.”

  “Hey.” Budgy threw the eraser at his head. “Don’t be an asshole.”

  Mr. Hannah asked Julia, “What’s the lede?”

  She didn’t have to think about it this time. “Something horrible happens to at least a hundred thousand American women every single year, and no one seems to care about it.”

  Greg snorted. “I’m sure Cosmo is all over it.”

  Mr. Hannah made a swipe of his hand to shut him up. He told Julia, “Keep boiling it down.”

  “In news reporting, when something bad happens predominantly to males, it’s an epidemic worth national attention, but when something bad happens to women—­”

  “Oh, come on,” Greg groaned. “Why does it always have to come down to how shitty men are?”

  “It’s not—­”

  “We get it,” Greg said. “You’re a feminist.”

  “I didn’t—­”

  “You hate us because we have dicks.”

  “Stop interrupting me!” The sound of Julia’s fist slamming against the desk echoed like a gunshot. “I don’t hate you because you have a dick. I hate you because you are a dick.”

  The room went utterly and completely silent.

  Julia took a stuttered breath, as if she’d just poked her head up above the water.

  “Oh, burn!” Lionel punched Greg in the arm. “Score one for the ice queen!”

  “She didn’t—­” Greg said. “It’s not—­”

  Julia spun on her heel and headed toward the door. Her hands were shaking. She felt trembly and annoyed and, underneath, slightly proud of herself because what a fantastic parting shot.

  “Hey.” Mr. Hannah caught up with her in the hallway.

  Julia turned around. “I’m sorry I—­”

  “Good reporters never apologize.”

  “Oh,” she said, because nothing more cogent came to mind.

  “I want the draft of that story on my desk by ten Friday morning.”

  Julia’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. She had stopped breathing again. She needed to breathe.

  “That do-­able?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I also have—­I mean—­I can—­”

  “Put it in your article. Twelve hundre
d words.”

  “Twelve hundred is the—­”

  “Front page.” He winked at her. “You got this, kid.”

  She watched him cut through the thick smoke as he returned to the bullpen.

  The front page.

  Panic set in the moment she started walking down the hallway. Julia put her fingers to her neck. Her pulse was ticking like a bomb. Her vision tunneled to the light coming through the glass doors thirty yards away.

  Mr. Hannah said that she had it, but what exactly did she have? Beatrice Oliver’s story wasn’t tied up in this new one. Not really. Beatrice was gone. She had probably been abducted (the detective had said as much) but anything past that was speculation. Ditto for the printouts in Julia’s purse about the twenty-­eight missing women. They had vanished. That’s all anyone could say about them. They were young, they were beautiful, they were striking, and they were gone.

  How was that news?

  “Jesus,” she mumbled. It wasn’t news. At least not enough news.

  This was what Julia got for running her mouth without thinking. She had been so flustered, and so angry, and so tired of being talked over and dismissed, and Greg had taken a stray comment and goat-­roped her into a loaded political commentary when all Julia was really saying was that it was a story when something—­anything—­happened to one hundred thousand ­people every single year.

  But why in the hell had she said that AIDS only affected men when Delilah was a perfect contradiction?

  She hadn’t said it only affected men. She’d said it predominantly affected men, and she hadn’t said rape was worse than AIDS, she’d said that it was awful on its own without any other comparisons and that no one wanted to write about it. No one even wanted to call it what it really was. Assaulted. Attacked. Threatened. No wonder Jenny Loudermilk had left town. How could any woman talk about something horrible that had happened to her if she wasn’t even allowed to call it by its real name?

  That was the story. A crime without a name. Victims without a voice.

  Julia pulled a notepad and pen out of her book bag. She needed to write some of this down before she forgot it.

  “What’s poppin’, soda?”

  She almost dropped her pen. Robin was leaning against the wall. His hands were in his pockets. He was wearing a flannel shirt and acid-­washed jeans and his hair was a mess.

  Julia felt a silly grin break across her face. “I thought you were camping this week.”

  “My little sister forgot her asthma inhaler.” He grinned back. “She’s got enough to last until tonight.”

  “That’s nice. I mean, nice that you got it for her.”

  “I haven’t been by the house yet.” He leaned down, letting his forehead touch hers. “I was hoping I would run into you.”

  Her heart flopped in her chest. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I asked around.”

  “Oh.”

  “You look pretty.”

  She should’ve combed her hair. And brushed her teeth. And worn something nicer. And lost five pounds (damn her stupid grandmother).

  “Look.” Robin held her hand like he was admiring a piece of china. “I don’t know if this is the right thing or wrong thing to say, but my entire family is out in the woods right now and the house is empty, and they don’t expect me back for at least another two hours, and I’d really like to spend some time alone with you.”

  She nodded, and then her heart flopped again when she realized why it mattered that his parents’ house was empty and he had two hours to fill.

  He touched his nose to hers. “Does that sound like a good idea?”

  Julia was speechless again for all the wrong reasons. This morning, she’d been so certain that she was ready for this, but now, she felt the early tremors of an anxiety attack. Could she really do this? Should she really do this? Would Robin still want to be with her if she gave in to him? And could she call it giving in to him if it was something she wanted, too?

  Because she wanted it. Even underneath her panic, she knew that she wanted it.

  So did that mean she was a bad girl, or a liberated woman, or a prick tease, or a slut? This was so much more than sex. It was about whether she did too much or didn’t do enough, or knew how things worked or didn’t know what went where.

  Okay, that was crazy. Of course she knew the basics—­the what goes where—­but there were other things to do, to use, to touch or put in your mouth or to lick or bite (or was her sister lying about that? Because it sounded painful) and the fact was that Julia was nineteen years old and she had no idea what she was doing. For the love of God, she hid her birth control pills inside a shoe at the back of her closet because she didn’t want Nancy Griggs to tell everyone that she was loose.

  Robin asked, “You okay?”

  Julia pressed his hand over her heart, which was pounding out a nagging drumbeat of terror because even on the Pill, she could get pregnant, and even with a condom, she might catch something horrible, and her life would be over and she would never see her name under the Atlanta Journal masthead or be able to report on camera from a devastating tornado, so why the hell would she take such an extraordinarily idiotic risk in the first place?

  “It’s okay.” Robin gave her a crooked half smile. “Seriously, if you don’t want to—­”

  “Yes,” she said. “I want to.”

  4:20 p.m.—­Outside the Tate Student Center, University of Georgia, Athens

  Julia’s fingers were still trembling when she dropped a quarter into the pay phone. Her mouth felt bruised from Robin’s kisses. Her breasts tingled. She could still feel him inside of her. She felt like there was a big neon sign over her head that read JULIA CARROLL: LOVED.

  She wanted to sing. She wanted to dance. She wanted to stand in the middle of the quad and toss her hat high into the air.

  Pepper answered the phone on the second ring. “Carroll residence.”

  “Hey, it’s me.”

  “Oh, God, I’m so glad you called.” Pepper’s voice became muffled. “Can you still hear me?”

  Julia glanced around as if someone might be listening. “What is it?”

  “The Brat got detention.”

  Julia momentarily forgot about Robin. “Are you lying?”

  “No. She’s fine, but Angie Wexler tried to jump her in the hall after school.”

  Julia put her hand to her mouth. Poor Sweetpea.

  “Don’t feel sorry for her,” Pepper said. “Mom and Dad aren’t even going to punish her.”

  Julia felt her sympathy drain away.

  “She told them it was because she wouldn’t let Angie cheat off her chemistry lab, but what really happened is that Angie caught the Brat making out with her brother. Who is seventeen years old and has a car.”

  Julia was so glad that she finally had more experience with boys than her stupid baby sister. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s acting all sad so that Mom and Dad will feel sorry for her. They’re still going to Harry Bissett’s tonight.”

  “I thought Mom said the waiters were too ironic?”

  “It’s Athens. Everybody’s too ironic. Why did you call?”

  Julia picked at a strip of peeling paint on the pay phone. There was a lump in her throat. She blinked away the sudden tears that had come into her eyes. Why was she crying?

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of course.” Julia wiped her eyes. “Tell me about your day.”

  Pepper launched into a litany of complaints—­about their parents, their sister, her teachers at school.

  Julia stared up at the cloudless blue sky. She had called to tell Pepper about Robin, but now she wasn’t sure that she was ready to share. What had happened between them was special, and romantic, and beautiful, and pleasurable (she was pretty sure she’d orgasmed), but gossiping about it seemed wr
ong, especially on a pay phone. She would tell Pepper next month, after it had happened more than once (and when she was sure she’d orgasmed). She would mention it casually, like, “Oh, that. Of course we’ve done that.”

  “Anyway,” Pepper said. “That freaky girl with the googly eyes is coming over to study with the Brat. I’ll probably go practice with the band.”

  “I’ll probably be at the Manhattan,” Julia said, because Robin had told her that he might be able to sneak off tonight after his parents went to sleep. There was a pay phone near the ranger station. He would page Julia with three ones if he could make it and three twos if he couldn’t. The thought of waiting around her dorm room for her pager to beep was excruciating.

  “Hey, space cadet, you there?” Pepper sounded exasperated. “I asked if you borrowed my bangles.”

  Julia lifted her wrist. The silver and black bangles slid down her arm. “Check the Brat’s room.”

  “I’ll do it later. She’s really upset.” Pepper lowered her voice again. “And you better believe I’m going to swing by Angie Wexler’s house tonight and scare the shit out of that little snot-­nosed bitch. And her stupid pedophile brother.”

  “Good.” Julia leaned her head against the wall. Pepper was so much better at intimidating ­people. Julia much preferred to stay in the background and offer silent encouragement. “Hey, do you ever wonder what’s gonna happen to us when we’re old?”

  Pepper barked a surprised laugh. “Where did that come from?”

  Julia knew where it had come from. Being held by Robin, seeing the way he looked at her, listening to him talk about how he liked working at the bakery, and maybe if his art career didn’t take off, he could see himself working with his dad, maybe one day teaching his own son the business.

  His own son.

  Julia could give him that. She wanted to give him that. When they were ready.

  She told Pepper, “Like, twenty years from now, what’re our lives going to be like?”

  “Talking about hemorrhoids and trading tips on how to keep our dentures clean.”

  “Do the math, dipshit. We’ll be Mom’s age.”

  “Mom wears orthopedic shoes.”

  Julia groaned. She was right, but they were too cool to get old like that.