Published by Futures Magazine

BEDROOM DOORS

by

Stephanie Dray

The porch lights were off when David dropped me off at my house. This was good because it meant that my parents had already gone to bed, and we wouldn't have to worry about their prying eyes. David walked me to the door and pressed me back against it for a moment before he said, "I'll pick you up after work then."

I nodded and wrapped my arms around him, resting my head on his chest. "Hey, and look, if you change your mind, that's ok. I'll make sure it's a special night one way or another. No pressure," he added, holding his hands out to the side as if in surrender. I smiled.

We lingered for longer than we might have otherwise, and when I finally went inside, the house was quiet and dark. Good. If there was anything I was sure of, it was that I didn't want to face my parents tonight. Using to my advantage every bit of knowledge I'd gained of the squeaks in the floor, I was determined to be stealthy. With any luck at all, my parents would be asleep and I could sneak up the stairs unnoticed.

"Molly? Are you home? Come say goodnight," I heard my mother call from the bedroom. Busted! And I'd only made it as far as the hallway. Obviously they were waiting up for me. The dark porch was just a ruse! Ok, ok. Maybe I was getting paranoid.

"I will. Give me a second," I shouted back. What if I went in to kiss them goodnight and they looked at me, looked into me, and knew everything. When I was a kid my mother could always tell when I was lying. She says that guilt shows on my face. What if that happened now?

I flipped on the kitchen lights and, thinking fast under pressure, I took an apple out of the fridge in the hope that I could use it to disguise my face. Eating does wonders for keeping your facial expressions neutral.

I walked over to my parents' door, but I didn't open it right away. I just stood there staring at their doorknob without making any attempt to open it. My heart was pounding so loud I was sure they'd be able to hear it. I've got to stay calm, I told myself. I bit into the apple and opened my parents' door at the same time.

When I walked in the room it didn't look like they were waiting to ambush me, but you can never be too careful. My dad was sitting up in his undershirt reading the paper. My mom was working on a needlepoint design. "Hi honey. Are you all packed?" she asked.

I nodded my head and looked down in order to avert meeting her eyes. Inadvertently, my eyes fell upon the Bible sitting by my parents' bed. My mom's rosary beads were hanging from the bedpost like always. I wondered how they could ever -- do anything -- in that bed with the rosary right there.

Maybe they put them in the drawer first. I decided to stop thinking about my parents and their bed before I added nausea to the myriad psychosomatic illnesses I was suddenly developing.

"So do you have plans to see what's-his-name again tomorrow?" dad asked me suddenly. The apple went down hard, like a bowling ball through a straw. So they did know; they were laying in wait. They were just letting me twist in the wind in the hopes that I would break down and confess the whole thing.

"What's-his-name" was my boyfriend David. Dad never called him by his real name. And I most certainly did have plans to see what's-his-name tomorrow. Plans that included seeing more of what's-his-name than my mother and father would ever approve of. But then, must have known all that, or they wouldn't be mercilessly interrogating me like this.

I knew that any minute my mom would start crying and would call our priest, Father Hedges. Then my dad would get the shotgun down from the closet and go over to David's house and shoot him for even thinking about having sex with his little girl. I could picture the whole upcoming tragedy with complete clarity.

David would be watching television with his sunny smile when my homicidal father would break the door down and blow him to pieces. After David's funeral things would be even worse. Then dad would be in prison, and we'd be destitute. Mom would never forgive me and I'd have to live with grandma Edith in the house on Glide street that always smells like mothballs.

I decided to tell them nothing. They'd have to pry it out of me. I shrugged and tried to appear casual. Sure, I'd play their game. "Probably," I said softly.

"Did you two have a fight?" my mother asked, putting her needlepoint down.

"No," I replied, taking another bite of the apple for cover.

"He's not trying to talk you out of going to college is he? Just because he's not worried about his future doesn't mean you should throw yours away!" my dad exclaimed suspiciously, narrowing his eyes.

"No, it's nothing like that," I said with genuine exasperation. It was bad enough that they already didn't like him. They had said that he was too old for me, and too laid back. David always approaches every day like a new morning with no worries about the past or the future. It was something I loved about him, but that kind of thing makes my dad nervous. He likes guys to be all panicky and reverent around him and he likes to grill them before he'll allow me to go out on dates.

"Are you two going out someplace special for your last night in town or do you want to just hang around here and we can get some movies?" my mother asked cheerfully, apparently trying to throw me off guard.

"We're going out," I said, and put one hand on my hip defiantly.

"Well, your father and I want to make you a nice dinner tomorrow night before you go. What do you want to eat?" my mother asked me. Again with the cheerfulness. What kind of game were they playing, anyway?

I took another bite of my apple. "I don't know," I said not looking at her. Who could think of food at a time like this?

"There isn't anything special you want? How about your dad's shrimp recipe?"

I nodded my head even though I had told her months ago that I don't eat meat any more. Knowing my mom, she probably didn't think of shrimp as meat.

"I know you don't eat meat anymore, but shrimp is a shellfish," my mother said, proving that she could, indeed, still read my thoughts. I shrugged noncommittally waiting for the ax to fall, wishing I could disappear into the floor.

And then the whole interrogation thing evaporated as suddenly as it began. "Well, you get a good night's sleep, kiddo," my dad told me lifting his chin for a kiss on the cheek. I kissed him, suspiciously, and then my mom, and slowly made my way to the door. Now I stared at the doorknob from the other side. I turned and looked back at my mother. Wasn't she going to say anything? They were just going to let me walk out this door? Just like that?

My mother finally looked up from her needlepoint. "What's wrong, honey?"

I wanted to shake her. Wasn't she going to stop me?

"She's just tired. She's been packing all day," my father answered. They weren't even going to stop me! But maybe that wasn't part of the plan. Maybe they were going to wait until they caught me in a more compromising position.

* * * *

They aren't going to stop me. Maybe they don't even care! That's what I was thinking as I made my way to my bedroom. My pink Holly Hobby sheets were still wrinkled on the side of the bed where David and I had been that afternoon. What the hell was I doing with pink sheets on my bed anyhow? I should’ve just ripped them off the bed and thrown them on the floor. But instead, I shut off my lamp, curled up in the folds of the linen, and imagined that they were still warm from David’s skin. Right in those very sheets a boy had been sleeping with no clothes on. I wondered what my mother would think of that. No, I knew exactly what my mother would think of that.

I stretched out flat on my back, like I had done that afternoon, and remembered his kisses on my neck. Who knew a neck could feel like that? When he'd kissed me there, I remembered watching the sunlight spread over the side of the bed, and watching the little pieces of dust dance in the beams. That’s when we’d had The Moment.

I'd been lying there watching the sun, feeling skin on skin, and then we looked at each other. David's eyes were a clean blue, like the water in a swimming pool. When I looked into them, I felt blind like when the sun shines off the water and makes you see spots and in The Moment, I realized what David was almost doing and I'd rolled away from him angrily. I may have even hit him, but I couldn't remember if I did.

"I'm sorry," he'd said. "I thought you wanted . . . I just felt . . . " he'd stammered, running his hands through his hair.

"We can't do that!" I'd told him, wrapping warm sheets around me.

"Not ever?" David had asked me. I hadn't answered him. "Okay, okay. I don't want to do anything that scares you."

If he'd asked me right then, I would have said yes. Impossibly, it seemed like his understanding made me want him even more. But he didn't ask. He just looked down at his naked self and asked, "How come women always get the sheets when they’re mad?"

Then I'd definitely smacked him. Thwack. Right in the chest. "And you've learned this from all your conquests? Maybe you're more experienced than I thought!"

He'd blushed and shook his head, and then laughed lightly. "I’ve told you everything about my past . . . I just meant --"

I cut him off by putting my fingertips to his lips. "Just don't even go there," I'd told him and then we'd both grinned and found an odd peace.

But now I was alone and my mind was racing. If I had sex with David, would it be a sin? Especially knowing that I was leaving for college and everything might change for us? I tried to remember what Father Hedges had said exactly in his sermon about what we want and what we should want? I hadn't listened at the time.

In fact, usually when he is giving his sermons, instead of listening, I mentally debate his motivations for being a priest. It could be that he doesn't like women, or maybe it's that he was afraid no woman would ever like him. I reasoned that I was probably going straight to hell for even wondering those things, and what with being damned already, maybe it didn't matter what else I did wrong in life.

I supposed Father Hedges wouldn't see too much difference between 'going all the way' and 'going most of the way.' I didn't know if I did either. Was sex just one more little step in the long, carnal, progression, or was it a cliff with devastating significance? In any case, David and I would have to use birth control too. Great. That would be a whole new sin.

Of course, we could just forego it. I imagined myself at the gates of heaven. "Well Saint Peter," I'd say, "I did have that encounter with that guy with the shiny eyes and big gentle hands, but at least we didn't practice safe sex!"

And then, with my luck, Saint Peter would probably answer, "What are you, stupid?" That is what all my friends would say.

I turned the light back on and got out of bed. I sat on the floor and stared at the bed. I guessed I wouldn't be able to wear a white wedding dress. Now there would be a family scandal for you. Maybe I'd wear scarlet and give Aunt Lily enough gossip to last a few Christmases. I started to laugh at the thought! What was wrong with me? Why was I making such a big deal about this?

But what if it hurt? And what if something happened and he changed like people do and never spoke to me again? And what if I went to college and I was the only person who had done it (was that even likely?), and what if my parents found out and mom started to cry, and what if when I got married my husband was mad that I hadn't waited, and what if God is just like Father Hedges said he is, and what if it made me love David even more and I didn't want to leave for college at all, and what if everyone thought that I was a slut, or worse, what if I thought that I was?

I was panicking. Oh sure, what a rebel! Going far away to college, dating someone my parents didn't like, and doing things with him that they wouldn't approve of. So if I was so damned rebellious, why was I sitting there at two in the morning needing my parents to either stop me or tell me that being with David was the right thing to do. Fat chance of that.

I wished that I could talk to David right then. But of course, that was out of the question. I closed my eyes and I could still feel his hands on me. My cheek seemed to remember the exact outline of his fingers. Was I losing my mind or did my arms and my legs really feel warm in his huge hand prints here and there. I remembered how we’d fallen asleep, and how David was staring at me when I woke up. I'd opened my eyes and squinted into the bright light from the window behind him. "What are you looking at?" I'd asked him.

His hand was in my hair. "Us," he'd said.

* * * *

"Molly?" a deep whisper came from outside my door.

I jumped to my feet. "I'm going to bed, dad," I said with a trembling voice.

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah," I said and scurried into bed. I stared at the doorknob and watched it turn. So now it was coming. Maybe dad wouldn't actually kill David, but he’d be angry. Very angry. Like the time Stevie Hanson and I got a hold of his older brother’s pellet gun and shot holes into my bedroom ceiling. Only worse. Dad came in and sat down on the foot of my bed. I looked around quickly to make sure David hadn't left anything behind.

"What are you thinking about? Is something bothering you?" he asked.

I pulled the blanket up higher around me. "I don't know. Just decisions, I guess."

My father answered, "Well, you know, if you don't like going that far away for school, you can always transfer. Nothing is set in stone."

Well, this was ironic. "Some decisions are final," I said and then wanted to slap myself silly. What, was I trying to make him suspicious?

"That may be true, but I want you to know that no decision is the wrong decision. Choices are what you make of them. You decide how you are going to look at your decision. You determine the attitude you have about the outcome," he said.

I stared at him for a long time in disbelief. Then I thought about what he'd said. "What if you have regrets?"

"Even if you make a mistake, you can learn from it. You can learn what not to do next time. You can pick a college that is different . . . you'll learn what makes you unhappy about a school."

I pressed on, "What if I am too young to handle it? What if I don't have the maturity?"

"Molly, you’ve been a good student, you've held down a job, you are one of the most mature young ladies I know. You can handle whatever comes up. You have to have faith in yourself. In a way, you’ve had a protracted childhood. You’re almost eighteen now. You have to remember that there are a lot of people out there your age or younger who have children or are married."

He didn't know. The realization slammed into me, leaving me with a frightened hollow feeling. The choice was mine. No one was going to tell me what to do.

"Molly, you shouldn't worry so much about your decisions. You only live once . . . have some fun. You are just too responsible sometimes. You can handle anything. I trust your judgment. You should trust your own. Do what makes you happy in your heart."

I started to laugh. I absolutely couldn't help it. I made a mental note that some day, when he was seventy or something, I was going to tell him what he'd talked me into. Maybe I'd have to wait till we were actually in a hospital, just in case it gave him a heart attack.

"And you don't have to be scared of growing up. You'll always be our baby!" He added and then hugged me hard. I almost felt sorry for him for believing that, but I hugged him back, and watched as he left, turning both the doorknob of my door and a new chapter in my life.