Bad Girl

Amanda cried in the dirt, dozed a while, and woke, her eyes stinging and her face sore. This time she’d scraped and rubbed herself so she hurt all over. Afternoon light softened the air as she brushed away dirt and dead leaves. The rented bicycle included a water bottle and she splashed some of it on her face and legs.

What was she going to do? It had to be bad. Really bad.

[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]

But not permanent. Amanda would never ride the bike straight into an oncoming car, for example. She wasn’t a fool. Having suffered periodic abandonment as a child, she’d never leave her girls motherless. She had devoted everything to them but for a few hours here or there, and she wasn’t going to toss that away, because of a temporary need, no matter how urgent, to be a terrible girl. A stupid punk girl Walter must punish.

Last September, in her backyard, her friend Farrah was smoking a cigarette and cursing every sleaze ball she’d ever loved. Which was everyone she’d ever loved. Amanda had no idea Farrah smoked. The rest, of course. But smoking?

“I’ll quit in a few months,” Farrah had said. “But right now? I need this. Actually, I need a lot more, but this is what’s readily available.”

Amanda rode the bicycle into the village and rolled the bike right into the Stewart’s convenience store, having forgotten the lock. At the counter, she bought a pack of Seneca 100s, because at $6.99, they were the least expensive. She sat on a picnic table next to the parking lot and coughed and gasped and coughed, pounding the table, through two cigarettes. She had smoked tobacco before, mixed in with pot. But straight up? The stuff was vile. Half-way through the third one, she gave up and raced back to the house, scraped, dirty, and nauseated.

Walter was reading on the back porch and Evie and DeeDee were watching a Hannah Montana DVD that Amanda remembered Walter once buying for her.

Hearing her voice, Walter bounded inside. The screen slammed behind him. She could see he had worried. But he said nothing. Just: “Did you ride through the village?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It was fun.” What was more fun, however, was backing away from him as he closed in on her, concerned and upset.

“Amanda, come with me. Let’s check out the bicycle you rode. Evie, DeeDee, we’ll be in front. After the show’s over, we’ll hike to the inlet.”   

He pulled Amanda out onto the front porch and hissed in her ear. “Did you suck down a whole pack? Because you reek.”

She stepped backward and grinned. “Aha, that’s more like it. Father and daughter wise.”

“Don’t be stupid, Amanda. I told you it’s not easy for me, either.”

“Well then what about a good, hard spanking?”

He shook his head and groaned. “That’s really not funny.”

On the ample front porch, Amanda pushed back and forth on a glider. Painted white, it was springy and stable. She hadn’t noticed it before; and now, here it was, so she could glide and giggle and stare up at Walter’s wishful, ridiculous resolve.

He was pacing in front of her. “There’s something I’ve wanted to do for years, but wasn’t sure how to bring it up. Until Olivia’s wedding, I was afraid to approach you. But this was her idea—that I legally adopt you.”

“No shit.”

“It might help,” he said. “If we simply respected the boundaries set up by law.”

“Do they let kidnappers adopt their victims, even decades afterwards?”

He scooted next to her on the gliding swing and let her push while he studied his hands, whispering, again. “Let me look into it. The case against me was serious but de facto. No one charged me with an intention to harm you sexually or otherwise. They have statutes for this.”

“Still, why get into it? Just for some papers. You’re my father; I’m your daughter. I got that, Walter. Don’t worry.”

“Years ago, I set up a bank account for you. Just like Olivia’s, which she cleans out the day the check clears. Yours, since you’ve never even know about it, has accrued over the years. All you need to do is sign a few papers.”

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