Sansouci

The first time she lets a boy touch her is in December, just before her 18th birthday. The day the rain starts. It usually doesn’t begin until January or February, but this year the rain comes early. Buckets and buckets of water dump down against the cement, against the strip malls, against the freshly painted stucco homes. In Southern California, the further you get from the ocean, the less interesting it becomes. The beach boardwalks and bronze-colored beauties from the TV shows are replaced with high-desert heat, dust storms, and barren foothills. The annual precipitation is laughable, but for two weeks each year, the skies cloud over, and it rains with vengeance. The sandy soil can’t absorb the water fast enough, so the streets become rivers, hill sides become hill slides, and then, as quickly as it comes, it goes away.

For a moment, Sara considers just staying home, but she hasn’t missed a day of school in two years so a rainstorm doesn’t seem like much of an excuse. Reluctantly, she zips up her parka, tucks her chin to her chest, and plunges out from under the house’s front awning. With every step, her hair gets wetter and wetter. She died it Simply Red a week ago, and when she catches sight of her reflection in the side mirror of a parked car her hair looks as dark as blood against her skin.

She walks as fast as she can and, at first, the parka does a decent job. She gets as far as Costa Brava, one of the main streets through her housing development, and then the sky starts to rattle. A minute later, raindrops start bouncing up into the air after they hit the pavement. She turns and looks back behind her hoping to find a ride, but all the Hondas and Toyotas that come in waves of ten or twelve at a time are heading the other way toward the Los Angeles Freeway. If not for Barbara’s phone call, she could have left ten minutes earlier and easily caught the bus. Even when she’s not around, her mom always makes a mess of things.

Jogging now, the rain starts leaking through the collar of her parka and dripping down her back. The raindrops feel like marbles landing on her skull, but it’s too late to turn around. So she starts running faster. The weather is wild now, and the sound of her feet hitting the wet concrete gets lost in the patter of the rain – but she’s nearly there. She rounds the last corner at a dead sprint, sweating underneath her layers now. Her school is just a quarter-mile in the distance when she hears her name.

Sara! Sara! she hears. She stops and turns. Right behind her is an oversized golf umbrella with two legs, and before she has time to react, an arm reaches out and pulls her under the canopy. She wipes the rain from her eyes and is face-to-face with an average-looking boy she’s never seen before.

You Sara? he asks.

My mom calls me that, she says. The rain hitting the umbrella sounds like popcorn popping all around them.

I live on Aveneda Del Sol. My mom met your mom the other day, he says. My name is Brian. Lightning makes the umbrella glow red, white, and blue. Stylish counts five one thousands, and then there’s thunder.

I just moved here from Malibu about a month ago, Brian says. Your mom brought over vitamins the other day. Sara stares down at the stream of water flowing on the sidewalk between her sneakers and his slip-ons.

I’m going to be late, she says. It’s only her second tardy for the term so she won’t get detention if she hurries.

Took me an hour to find this umbrella, Brian says, still smiling as big as when he first said her name.

I’m going, she says, and then steps out from under the umbrella.

Wait! he says, but it’s difficult to hear, so Sara pretends that she didn’t. She clutches her arms across her chest and starts running again. The first bell has rung by now and Mr. Carlson’s aid is probably taking roll.

Sara, wait! Brian yells. Over her shoulder, she sees him quickly gaining on her with his umbrella in tow.

You’ll get soaked, he yells, and then he catches up. His t-shirt is sopping wet, and she can see his nipples poking out on either side of the skateboard decal printed in middle of his chest. She slows to a walk.

Come under here, he says, lifting the umbrella up over her head. If you want to walk fast, I can walk fast too, he says. He waves his hand, motioning for her to keep going, and then they hurry down the street together. When they reach the school gates, Brian gives her the umbrella. He says he’s wet already, and anyway, he likes the rain.

I’m not going to class, he says.

What are you going to do? she asks. His jeans look like they’re painted on.

Maybe I’ll take the bus to the mall. Watch a movie or something, he says. Anyway, nothing will happen at school today, he says, looking back in the direction of their homes. She’s about to ask him what he means, but then she remembers the last time it rained. Ocean Hills High School has nearly two thousand students and was built in the record time of twenty-nine days. The school consists of five long rows of prefabricated classrooms with a double-wide mobile home in the middle that serves as the principal’s office. Heavy rain means the pathways flood. The classrooms get muddy and humid, the roofs leak, and lunch hour becomes utter chaos because everyone piles into the gymnasium, the only brick and mortar structure on the entire campus. In the next district over, they refer to Ocean Hills High School kids as trailer trash.

Want to come? Brian finally asks when he sees Sara hesitating. We can call in sick, he says. I did it once last week. I put a rag over the phone to make my voice sound like my dad’s. I can call for you too.

My dad left four years ago, Sara says. My mom cheated on him and got pregnant.

They don’t know that, Brian says pointing toward the school. They just know your ID number. They punch your number in the computer system to access your name, your classes, and your grades.

How would you know? Sara asks. You just moved here.

You coming or not? Brian asks. With her GPA, her attendance, and her job as a teacher’s aide, Sara should have her choice of colleges – that’s what her student advisor told her anyway. But then again, her student advisor has a G.E.D. and an associate’s degree from a correspondence college in Phoenix, so what does she know? From where Sara is standing, she can see the rain smashing onto the plastic picnic tables in the courtyard, onto the football team’s faded banner hung between two palm trees, and onto the roofs of the outdated fleet of busses lined up along the curb. She wants to think that what she’s looking at is a stepping stone, her ticket out, but today her school just looks like some kind of dilapidated daycare center that accepts any and all the teenagers that live in the district.

It’s up to you, Brian says, and she hurries over to his side. Lightning illuminates the nylon umbrella three times on their way back home, and their shoes get so wet that they squeak with each step.

My parents are at work until late, Brian says when they reach their housing tract. He invites her to come over, and they enter through the garage so they don’t get the house all wet. Brian hands Sara a towel to dry off, and she squats down and rubs her hair fast and rough the way she does every morning after she showers. She clears her throat, sniffles hard, and then tosses her shoes onto the garage floor next to Brian’s. When she looks up, Brian is staring. He’s a little taller than she is, but he has the body of a boy. His hair is big waves of brown and his hands are like mitts.

What? she asks, but Brian shrugs and looks away. She plops down on the floor and rubs her feet with the towel.

What do your parents do? she asks, but Brian won’t let up. He’s staring again.

Why are you looking at me like that? she asks, but Brian just shakes his head. Maybe it’s because she’s never been alone in a house with a boy her own age before or maybe it’s because of the way he’s smiling, but right then, she becomes aware of herself, of her mannerisms. The way she moves, the way she talks and throws things around, it’s not very feminine. She’s never worried about being ladylike before, but suddenly, she feels like an emasculated, middle-aged spinster. She feels like her mother. Conscious now of what she’s doing, Sara slowly pulls her wet sweater up and over her head.

What do your parents do? she asks again. Her t-shirt is damp, but it’ll dry soon enough on its own.

My Dad works at a bank and my mother works in the Triple Town Hospital, Brian says. Mom’s not a doctor or anything. Just office-type stuff. Brian’s face is soft and full. She likes the way his forehead squares off on the sides.

What about your parents? I mean, your mom, he says, and Sara tells him about her mother’s job, about the phone call this morning, and about the nationwide tour. They make cocoa in the kitchen and watch the rain through the window. Brian puts on a Beastie Boys album, but the power goes out before his favorite song comes on. Sara finds candles in the cupboard above the stove, and then Brian asks if she wants to see his room. Upstairs, the candles don’t give off much light, but there’s not much to see anyway: a wooden-framed bed, a stereo, a TV, a disassembled skateboard. The only thing that interests her is a small bookshelf above his desk.

So what do you want to do? he asks, and Sara accidentally drops the hardcover copy of The Sun Also Rises that she was holding. She picks the book up from where it fell and pretends to read the inside cover.

After you finish high school, I mean, Brian says. What do you want to do? Sara’s face cools off, and she sits down on the edge of the bed next to him.

Make money, she says. And after I make money, I’ll read.

My parents have loads of money, Brian says. And they hate each other. I want to help people, he says, and Sara laughs. Brian laughs too because it sounds corny, but maybe he means it.

I’d like to be a missionary or something, he says, lying back on the bed. Without even thinking, Sara lies down too. With their heads side-by-side on separate pillows now, Sara can feel Brian’s eyes examining the side of her face – but it doesn’t feel weird or perverted or anything like that. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees his hand reaching out towards her. His warm fingers touch her stomach first, and when he lifts up her shirt, she closes her eyes.

There are only three kinds of houses in the neighborhood: the duplexes, the two bedrooms, and the three bedrooms. She and Brian both live in the ones with three bedrooms and except for a slight tonal difference in the exterior paint, their houses are identical. The silverware is kept in the same drawer, their dining room table is in the exact same place, and they even have the same couch and love seat combo that both their mother’s bought on sale at a warehouse home furnishing store ten miles west on the freeway. Brian’s room is her room: same carpet, same doorknobs, same closet. His bed isn’t as soft as hers, but still, she feels like she’s at home.

By noon, the power comes back on, but the candles are already lit so they don’t bother with the lights. In bed, it’s as though they’ve both done this before. They talk and take off their clothes slowly, kissing and laughing the whole time. Brian tells her stories about his old school and the rainstorms in Malibu where he used to live. Sara tells him that the only time she ever gets to leave the valley is when she tags along on her mom’s Herbs4Life trips to Orange County where Barbara is convinced the big bucks are waiting.

At some point, Brian gets the idea to play steam roller and Sara can’t stop laughing. He rolls over her and then she rolls over him – and then he rolls over her again. Somewhere in the middle of all that, they stop playing and start kissing. The kissing now is different, and then without much production, he goes inside her.

For years, Sara has been taught that sex is about condoms and diseases, pain and blood. Boys are crazy, girls are delicate. But what she’d heard about, been taught and warned about, is nothing like this. This is warm and slow and whispered. Brian’s house suddenly seems like their house; as though they’d both taken the day off work just to be together; as though the kids were at school and no one could bother them. The candle wax drips slowly down onto the nightstand making cream-colored stalactite formations. The white sheets are cool against her skin, and the rain knocks politely against the clay-tiled roof the whole time. Afterwards, there’s that stillness that always follows a storm.