SERIES: Woman 'Cross The River
PART: 3 of ??
RATING: PG (Adult thematic material, language, adult
content)
PAIRING(s): L/L
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CATEGORY: Drama
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Includes canon up to "The
Cruise" - roughly six years later.
This fic is set in 1965.
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Laverne meets an unforgiving ghost on her
summer vacation.
***
Laverne stood at a profile before her mirror, sucking in her
belly as hard as she possibly could. Her
cheeks puffed out. She turned to the
right. Her belly didn't dip over the rim of the navy-colored shorts, and she
decided that wasn't bad for a mother of two.
The sight was a relief to her - not much had changed since
the birth of Emmy. Laverne tucked her
not-as-ample-as-they-were-two-months before breasts into her bikini top, then
picked up her old rubber inner tube and dragged out outside and around to the
back of the house.
The resorts had been beautifully manicured for the summer -
brown sugar-colored sand covered the ground and crunched beneath her bare feet,
feeling soft and slithery as she clomped down to the beach. A lone weeping willow towered over the back
of the communal property, from which a tire swing had been limply hung years
ago with towing rope, and it served as a test of bravery for all teenage
guests. The closer Laverne came to the
water, the denser the crowd of people - a troop of college kids had rented the
next cabin over and were sprawled in the sun, trying to paddle up a currant in
the water, holding water polo tourneys in their little bikinis, listening to
the Beach Boys on their radio. Laverne
found her husband among them, her daughter between his knees, the both of them
cooing over a bunch of polished rocks Emmy had apparently found at the bottom
of the lake.
When she saw her mother, Emmy held out her arms for a hug,
and after their embrace immediately began showing the rocks to Laverne. "I never saw pink rocks before. Aren't
they pretty?"
Laverne said that she thought they were. "Are you gonna keep them?"
She nodded. "Forever and ever."
Laverne didn't like the sound of that. She could already imagine herself schlepping
mountains of pebbles to
Laverne sat down beside her husband on the ancient
red-and-blue striped bath towel he'd brought along for the day - at least Lenny
had remembered they weren't grunions, she mused. Laverne realized there was wisdom in letting
him get a head start on her out the door - he already had a Pepsi waiting and,
once she had her first satisfying draught from the open bottle, began to
massage suntan lotion into her bare shoulders.
They sat together, quite alone among the fifty people on
their beach, their natural companionability not making much more than body heat
a necessity. "D'you
see that one?" Lenny gestured toward a thumbnail-sized
sliver of white rock lying on top of the pile.
"Emmy says it looks like a heart."
Laverne picked it up - so slim that it barely had any weight
to it. The stone did indeed have the
curve and point of a heart-shaped figure, and Laverne was momentarily struck
with wonder.
It was pink. She'd
loathed pink for ages now. Pink had been
the color of the dress she had worn that night on the ship - the dress she and
Shirley had picked out together in a run of excitement at the basement of
Montgomery Wards. It was the dress she
was supposed to be wearing when she met the man of he dreams. She had laughed cynically then, but now she
almost wept to think of her naivety...
***
1959
Despite the crowded conditions of the stateroom, Laverne had
to admit that the party was one of the liveliest ones she had ever
attended. An interior of the most bland
tans and creams had been festooned over with blue and pink balloons and paper
streamers, taped up to the walls and winding up to a crown at the top of the ceiling,
then cascading down in a coronet of flounce.
Lined up to the immediate right was a buffet table - Laverne could
barely stand to look at it and immediately re-directed her attention to the
left wall and it's line of metal folding chairs. The entire center of the room was converted
to a dance floor and was thick with the mingling crew members, a number of
young single ladies, young honeymooning couples and a few elderly women. The raucous sound of Eddie Cochrane blasted
through the public address system, enlivening the nerves of the bright-eyed passengers. The lights were low and smoky, like an
out-of-the-way dive bar.
Lenny hovered by Laverne as they made their entrance to the
room - his presence was an irritating pressure that Laverne only wanted to rid
herself of. She doffed her cardigan and
handed it to him.
"Why don't you go mingle?"
He scanned the crowd.
"I dunno.
There's a lot of strange guys here. You sure you feel safe?"
She was about to make a comment on his selective gallantry
when an elderly woman came up to them and tapped Lenny in the middle of his
back.
"Hey, dreamboat - wanna dance?"
Lenny gave Laverne a questioning look - the woman asking was
a short, grey-haired girl with twinkling brown eyes and stooped posture. He seemed to be
reproaching Laverne for her promise of hot girls who would do anything for him,
but his "date" gave the woman an apologetic smile.
"He's all yours."
The older woman smiled fetchingly, tucking her hand in
Lenny's. "Come on, young fella - I'll show you how to do the
Lenny's eyes brightened - he always had liked elderly
people. "Oh boy! Will you teach me to do the Ashville
next?"
Laverne chuckled as the older woman enthusiastically pulled
Lenny away. Once the coast was clear,
Laverne began scanning the crowd for an unoccupied dreamboat of her own. She cursed her intermittent seasickness once
more - all of the sailors seemed to have taken up already with the few
remaining female passengers her own age.
It was like being in a high-priced candy store - everything was lovely
to look at, but she couldn't afford even a lick of the lowliest lollipop. Dejected, Laverne walked toward the
refreshment table, picking up a cup of punch and sipping it. Mercifully, her stomach settled more with
each sip.
"Hello, Laverne."
She turned around, flashing Ensign Bensen
a charming smile. "Hey!" She
peered around his strong frame.
"Where'd you put Shirl?"
"Oh, she had to powder her nose." He stuffed his
hands in his pockets. "Are you
having fun?"
She smiled politely.
"Sure."
"Really, now? I haven't seen you dance once since you got
here."
"Well, that's 'cause all the single guys are
taken."
"Why don't you try the married ones?" he
kidded.
Laverne laughed.
"Nah - I like 'em ready for
anything."
"Yes - Shirley told me something about that..."
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing. Well, we're both alone, and we're both single
for the moment - so do you want to dance?"
Laverne considered this for a moment. Shirley was the jealous sort - she never
liked Carmine's dating Lucile Lockwash. But surely an innocent dance wouldn't be a
problem. She put down her now-empty cup
of punch and took Ensign Bensen's offered hand. "Okay!"
Over the loudspeaker came the sound of the Shangri-Las,
wailing "Remember (Walking In The Sand)" at
a blistering whine. The nightmarish song
about emotional abandonment and madness seemed to fit perfectly in with the
helter-skelter mood of their style of dance.
Ensign Bensen wrapped his arm around Laverne's
waist, pressing her body disquietingly close to his and swaying her along with
the music. It was alarmingly intimate
but his touch left Laverne feeling cold and disconsolate. Ensign Bensen's
hand patted her bottom appreciatively as the song ended, as if judging the
flesh of a horse. It was then that
Laverne saw Shirley step through the ladies room door and she immediatley broke physical contact with the shipman.
Her voice cracked to be heard over the strains of Chuck
Berry's "Maybellene". "Hey, there's Shirl."
"Huh - oh, yes, there's Shirley." he parted the
crowd of bodies and met up with the eager-eyed brunette, leaving Laverne to
return to the wallflower area. For
fifteen minutes, she sat on the hard metal chair, watching Shirley dance up a
storm with the Ensign to a Pat Booone song, then watching Lenny as he held court with a group of grandmotherly
women by the punch bowl. Only Lenny
Kosnowski could become a stud to a group of elderly women.
Abruptly, a sailor cut off her vision. He was blond and grey eyed, and had a smile
that crinkled the corners of his mouth.
"Hey, are you Laverne?"
The ravishing smile returned. "Yeah."
"Wanna dance?"
She did want to dance - and from that moment on, she was
continually occupied. Sailor after
sailor came up to her, leading her through the pony, the watusi,
the monkey, the jerk. One particular
sailor, a tall midshipman named Rick, offered her cup after cup of punch, each
of which made her feel dizzier and dizzier.
To avoid hurting his feelings, after the third glass she started dumping
them out of portholes while no one was looking - he watched her like a hawk,
but never seemed to notice her clandestine activity.
As the night wore on, as her feet began to ache, the crowd
thinned out. Eventually, Lenny tapped
her on the shoulder and let her know that he was going to play shuffleboard
with Missus Caramucci, the woman he'd Charlestoned with earlier in the night. Laverne promised to unlock the cabin door for
him and whirled off to her next beaux.
At four in the morning, all that remained was a half-eaten
pile of cocktail sandwiches, Shirley and the Ensign, and Laverne, who had rid
herself of her final sailor at
"Hey, Shirl - I'm goin' back to our room.
I'll leave the door unlocked, okay?"
"Mmm?"
Shirley pulled her head up from Ensign Bensen's
shoulder, a sublime expression of joy on her face. The look momentarily slipped on sight of her
friend. "Oh, all right."
Laverne watched them for a moment, stricken by how happy
Shirley looked. Her relationship with
Carmine had not been a particularly happy one in the last few months, and
Shirley, who wanted nothing more than to be treated like a princess, had
existed in a state of lonely panic for weeks.
Laverne felt joy for her best friend - this cruise had been a learning
experience for Shirley. Maybe she would
want to play the field when they got home from
It didn't matter to Laverne at the moment - extra thought
felt ridiculously strenuous to her fogged mind.
She felt relief at her settled stomach as she walked over the deck and
to her cabin. The breeze off of
She remembered to close the door before collapsing on her
bed in a dreamless sleep.
***
The room was pitch dark.
Laverne's eyes flew open.
She couldn't see anything. How
long had she slept? Her eyes scanned for
a clock but found nothing, so instead she lay still. Her head ached abominably.
And the door creaked open.
"Shirl?" She
called out.
The door shut. And
locked itself.
"Hey, I said I'd leave it open for Lenny...Shirl? Is
that..."
A fist collided with her jaw. Laverne saw stars, her head colliding with
the bed frame. In a moment, a heavy hand
wrapped itself around her throat, dragging her backwards and onto the bed. The palm struck her twice more - the bright
taste of blood filled her mouth.
"Shut up and you live," the voice hissed. It was so poorly disguised that she
recognized in an awful rush that her attacker was midshipman Rick.
Laverne gasped for air as the pressure on her neck
released. "My money's in the
dresser - you can have anything you want.
Just please don't -"
Appaled, she
realized why the room had gone silent.
She heard the rasp of a zipper being lowered, then felt the pressure of
an uncaring and cruel erection pressing her belly. The moonlight pouring through the tiny
porthole of the cabin illuminated his white uniform.
"I SAID SHUT UP!" The hand collided with her cheek
again. Sickening fear filled
Laverne. Two choices presented
themselves: she could lie still and allow the assault to happen - a choice
impossible for her to live with. Her
mind fixated immediately on the second option, an option that could result in
her death.
"Why are you doing this, Rick?" He winced visibly
in the moonlight, knowing that she recognized him. "You could have any girl on this ship if
you want..."
He laughed cruelly.
"Why should I go after any other girl when you're down here, givin' it away for free?"
"What?"
"Suddenly you're shy?
There ain't nothin' wrong with me..." he
shifted over her, oppressing her shoulders with his knees - dangling his member
in her face. "It's a cock. And everyone on this barge knows how much
Laverne DeFazio loves cock..."
The opportunity Laverne had longed for presented
itself. With the swiftness of a rabbit,
she reached up, grabbed his penis in one hand and his testes in the other, and
then yanked them both in opposing directions, twisting them for everything she
was worth.
Rick's painful howls filled the ship. He tried to punch her, but his pursuit of
oral pleasure had made him completely, stupidly vulnerable, and Laverne would
not release him.
"Get off of me, you piece of shit," Laverne
snarled, twisting as hard as she could.
He whined.
"You fuckin' cunt!" he responded, refusing to move. Laverne's replied by releasing his balls and
socking him in the stomach until he rolled off of her. Her fist was like iron around his cock, and
she pitched him over onto his back with a move that would make her WAC trainer
proud, hitting him in the face with her free hand until she heard bones crack -
the ones in her fist or the ones in his nose, she couldn't be sure, but she had
to keep punching him until he lay still.
She knew that she had to render him unconscious to make a getaway, and
without the aid of a heavy object she would have to do it on her own power.
Suddenly, the room was flooded with light. "Laverne, are you -" Lenny was
standing over the bloody pile of limbs on the floor in a second, yanking the
sailor out from underneath her and up by his bloody collar. "You sunnuva-"
"No more!" Rick whimpered, his blood staining his
white uniform and Lenny's shirt - his nose spraying with every breath. "Please, no more!"
Laverne stood - Lenny had the sailor on his knees, both huge
hands wrapped around the man's throat, squeezing for all he was worth. How
does that feel, you motherfucker?, she thought,
but said out loud, "Get out of here, and don't come back! And you tell your buddies that Laverne
DeFazio ain't no easy lay!"
Rick gagged - his lips began to turn blue.
"Len, let him go."
The wild look in Lenny's eyes was primal, frightening to
Laverne. She had never seen him this
way, had never attributed such violence to him.
"He ain't worth it," she whispered. "Not if you end up in prison. Please,
Lenny..."
His palms gradually relaxed as he stepped away from the
gasping Rick, his blue eyes becoming docile once more. She leaned against Lenny's shoulder, and they
both watched as Rick composed himself.
He was smart enough to stagger his way to the opposite end of the cabin
to brace himself in the doorway, but not bright enough to resist tossing out a
few more threats.
"It's my word against yours," he wheezed. "So you don't tell no
one about this."
Laverne sneered at him.
"I'll tell who I please. Including your superior!"
Rick snorted.
"Everyone knows you've been fuckin' your
way through
"Get out," Lenny said, his voice raising goosebumps on Laverne's skin.
"You're a nice guy, Lenny. You're too nice to get involved with a piece
of party trash like Lav-"
"GET OUT NOW." That tone of voice, that flash of
blue eyes and bearing of sharp white teeth, told Rick that it was indeed high
time to split. The door clicked behind
him, and Lenny's shoulders slumped visibly.
He immediately began examining her.
"How bad did he hurt you? Did he...he didn't...he didn't..." Lenny
couldn't bring himself to suggest she'd been raped.
Laverne shook his head.
"He tried to, but I grabbed him.
If you hadn't come in, I woulda killed
him," her body began shivering - she knew the result could have been quite
the opposite. Lenny sat her down on the
bed. It was a long minute before she
spoke again. "I thought he was gonna do it - and he'd get away with it. He seemed so much stronger than me..."
"Don't think about it no more," he gathered her in
his arms - to his surprise, she didn't resist his embrace. After what seemed like hours she weakly
pushed him away and he didn't resist her rejection.
"I gotta think about
it," she said. "He ain't gonna
get away with this. He thinks he's got
all the rights in the world? Well, I got
some rights of my own!"
"You're gonna report him to Ensign Bensen?"
She nodded, then felt her swelling
jaw - she knew it was already turning black and blue. She could feel a jagged hole within her mouth
where she'd bitten through her cheek on one of Rick's blows. Her face must have been an awful mess. Her sandy tongue lashed out over her swollen
lip - that, too, was bleeding. "I
can't go out looking like this," she wailed. "How'm I gonna
eat?"
Lenny half-smiled. "Why can't you go out? You're beautiful."
Her glare was withering.
"You must be crazy."
"You're beautiful to me," he said, simply and
honestly.
"Lenny," she warned.
"I don't mean nothin'
by it," he said defensively.
"But you are," he stood up.
"You okay with me leavin' you alone? I'll get you dinner from the
"Where is Shirl?"
Lenny grinned.
"Let's just say she and Ensign Bensen are
gettin' better acquainted."
Laverne's jaw dropped at Lenny's suggestive tone. Shirley Feeney? Little,
virginal Shirley Feeney? She
couldn't possibly be doing what Lenny was suggesting with Ensign Bensen. The
thousands of thoughts raging through her mind at this thought burst forth in a
surprised. "No!"
"She's been with him all day - and they went into his
cabin after dinner at six."
Laverne didn't know what to say to that. She didn't want to think, so she began to do,
mopping away the blood on her lip self-consciously. She walked to a mirror hung up in the middle
of the room.
"How'm I gonna fix this? I'm such a mess..." Suddenly, Lenny was beside her - cleaning her
with that red bandanna of his. He had a tendency
to mash his hand in her face, even when attempting to comfort her, so his
tender touch proved a surprise.
She stood still beneath his hand for a while. Then the intimate spell of the moment was
forcibly broken. "I'm gonna go give
myself a sponge bath," Laverne said, turning toward the half bath she
shared with Shirley.
"What you want from the buffet?"
"A little chicken...some ham...one of those marshmallow
things, and some mashed potatoes..."
"You worked up an appetite!" He regretted the
bright tone of his voice when she seemed stricken. "I'll get what you like," he said
gently.
"Len?"
"Mm?"
"Can you unzip me?"
She turned around and presented him with her back. He was still for a moment, and then she felt
the zipper rasp open. She smiled her gratefulness
and began to ready herself for the shower.
It took her a minute to realize that Lenny was still in the room,
watching her by the doorway. Instead of
his customary glazed look of lust, he watched her with something akin to
admiration.
"Laverne?"
"Yeah?"
"You know how I think you're the prettiest, sexiest,
classiest girl I know?"
"You say that, yeah."
"You know something else?"
"Mmm?"
"You're also the strongest."
Laverne couldn't stop the tremulous smile from coming to her
face as she watched him leave. Only
twenty-four hours prior to this she would have considered his departure a
relief. Now, she couldn't wait for his
return as she filled the sink with warm water.
She didn't want to think about what that meant. What mattered was preservation of
evidence. The bloodstains on her pretty
pink party dress. The
swelling on her jaw. The cut,
jagged on her lip. She needed to look as
beaten-up as possible the next time she saw Ensign Bensen. It meant her reputation. It could mean the fight of her life.
***
The present world came roaring back to her as a beach ball came sailing over her head.
Lenny felt the change in tension in her form and rested his head on her
shoulder.
"You're thinking about the cruise." He knew the memory haunted her on stressful
days.
"Yeah," she admitted.
"I'm sorry. You
want me to -"
She caressed his thigh.
"That was a long time ago.
He can't hurt me anymore - not that he wanted to, after what we did to
him," she rested against his chest.
"Team Kosnowski was strong even back then." She closed her
eyes, drifting for a moment in the comfort.
Suddenly, Emmy appeared, dripping water on her mother's dry
toes. "Mommy, I want a hot
dog."
Laverne and Lenny shared a look. "Another one? Didn't Uncle Squiggy get you one for
breakfast?" Lenny asked.
"Yeah, but it's lunch time - and the hot-dog cart guy's
commin' this way."
Laverne stood up.
"Okay, but you need to have a pickle with it. SOMETHING that's like a vegetable..."
"Aww," Emmy pouted.
"Listen to your Mom," Lenny said, watching
Dominick wake up from his morning nap, stirring and whining, the sand with his
cubby fists. His father picked him up
and tucked him against the bare expanse of his chest.
Laverne followed her daughter to the hot dog cart, moving
through the masses of tanned bodies and blankets clumsily. She made her apologies for crushed
sandcastles and bruised toes, and was relieved to find the cart and its short
line. While she waited, Laverne watched
the peaceful water, aware of the warm presence of her daughter beside her. Wasn't it merciful that she never developed a
true fear for bodies of water after her assault? Wasn't it a mercy that she loved sailing
ships, even now? She had been one of the
lucky ones. Statistics in the paper
jumped out at her - women rarely avoided rape.
They often died in the assault.
It was odd, how she thought of Rick's childish actions nowadays - they
had given her a building block for a stronger womanhood.
She selected hot dogs for her family, cold cups of Pepsi
with ice and French fries. When she
looked to ask her daughter what she liked, her stomach crashed to her
toes. The child was gone.
She left the hot dog cart, throwing a ten-dollar bill at
him. She examined every face on the
crowded beach, her panic increasing with every step. She ran to find a policeman, but instead
heard a familiar voice coming from behind a pylon on a fishing peer erected
several feet down the beach.
"Okay, now you give me a number!" Emmy ordered.
"Gee - okay, two!" Piped a
soft-sounding feminine voice.
"One, two. Now give me a color!"
"Green."
"Green...will Serena meet a cute boy on vacation?...probably no!"
"Aww, gee!"
Laverne winced as her voice bellowed forth in the most
motherly shriek. "EMILIA GENE
KOSNOWSKI!"
The little girl turned around, her wide blue eyes a perfect
mask of innocence. "Hi,
Mom..."
"Don't run away like that! You scared me out of my mind!"
"I'm sorry, Mom!"
She gestured toward the little brown-haired girl cowering against the
pylon opposite hers. "This is
Serena. I met her in the lake."
The was
something familiar in the retiring expression of the dark-eyed little
girl. Laverne knelt in the wet
sand. "Hello, Serena. I'm sorry if I scared you."
"It's okay," she wrinkled her nose. "That smells good. What is it?"
Laverne had forgotten about the greasy sack she held in her
hand. "Lunch. I mean, hot
dogs."
"Did you get me a pickle?"
Laverne realized she had forgotten. "You can have mine. Are you hungry, Serena?"
"Not for hot dogs, ma'am. My mommy says that hot dogs are made from the
parts of the pig no one else wants."
That sounded eerily familiar, too. "Serena, did your mommy ever live in
The little girl looked suspicious. "I'm not supposed to tell strangers
where I live."
She had taught Emmy the same, but curiosity burned in her
mind. "Did she go to Filmore High?"
"Ma'am..."
"Serena!" The high, sweet voice cut through
Laverne as no sword ever could. She
whipped around to see a birdlike woman with dark hair and a red caftan,
standing ankle-deep in the water.
"Where in the world have you been?
I told you not to come over to this side of the lake..."
"But Mommy, I met a nice girl, and I wanted to
play..."
Shirley no longer seemed to hear her daughter. "Laverne?" She reached out to touch
her, but her friend winced away.
"Don't you dare," Laverne snapped.
Shirley shrunk back.
"You still hold what happened against me?"
"Gee, Shirl, I don't think
anyone would blame me!" She laughed
bitterly.
"Laverne!
Please! Not in front of my
daughter."
She eyed the little girl, and then said gutturally, "are you there for her, Shirl?"
"Yes!"
"Really? You listen to her?"
"Please don't..."
Laverne shook her head.
"No. No, I won't. You ain't changed, Shirley Feeney..."
"Shirley Bensen," she
said quietly. "Missus
Shirley Bensen. It's been six years for God's sake!"
"And in all that time, you ain't changed," she
motioned for Emmy to come over, and then handed her the sack of hot dogs. "Come on. We need to take these back to daddy."
"Laverne!" Shirley called. "We've got to talk to each other! Please!
Before it's too late..."
But her old friend's voice was lost in the scream of the
seagulls, and then replaced by the complaint of her daughter. Laverne knelt next to the little girl.
"I don't want you playing with Serena Bensen."
Tears came to the little girl's eyes. "Mommy, no!"
"I mean it!" she snapped. "Her mother did something to me...I'll
never forgive her for it."
"So what does that got to do with me?"
This was Emmy's first ever show of defiance, and it took
Laverne by surprise. "Would you
like to be friends with someone who's mean?"
"No."
"Serena's mom is mean.
And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," she squeezed her
daughter's shoulder. "Let's
go. We'll eat and make sand
castles. You like that idea?"
Emmy nodded slowly, and then took her mother's hand. They were a happy mother and daughter again
by the time they reached Lenny, Dominick and Squiggy on the blanket.