Chapter 5

Hours later, Sara sat in her father’s darkened office, nursing a cold cup of coffee. It was well past midnight but her father had insisted that she stay up while he “made preparations.” He had been on the phone for over an hour making dozens of calls -- about what, she couldn’t be quite sure. She had only been in the room for a few minutes and he was just wrapping up a call.

After the ruckus at the restaurant, emergency vehicles of all types had swarmed the premises. Based on Sara and Chiu’s state of undress they were herded immediately to the nearest ambulance. They were asked all sorts of uncomfortable questions and pretty soon the paramedics started wanting to poke and prod them in ways that Sara was just not ready to deal with. She put up a fight, but pretty soon they had her strapped down (“for her own good”) as she screamed at them.

Thank her lucky stars it didn’t last long. Without warning everything stopped and the paramedics all exited the ambulance, just leaving her tied down, staring at the bright lights in the ceiling. With all the commotion outside she couldn’t hear what was being said, but moments later her mother was struggling to loosen the restraints and wrapping her in a poofy bathrobe.

“I came from work as soon as you could, you poor dear.”

This only made her cry more, but out of relief. After a big hug they made their way undisturbed through the maze of trucks to her father’s car. He walked over to them soon after, offering her a hot cup of coffee. On the Dale Myers scale of intimacy, this was epic. Sara said thanks, he said nothing, and he drove them home.

During the ride her father asked, quietly but persistently, about what happened. Sara knew better than to lie about what happened. The only thing worse than the crime is the cover-up, Daddy always said. Given that she’d been found naked in a destroyed restaurant, any lie would have been as ridiculous as the truth. So she told the truth while her father stared straight ahead at the road. She felt lame when she found herself tiptoeing over the sexual escapades with the phrase “had his way with me,” and at this she saw her father’s knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. But he said nothing more.

As they pulled into the driveway her father finally turned around and looked at her.

“What you’ve told me is mighty fantastic, but you’re my daughter and you’re old enough now to know not to lie to your father.”

“Yes sir,” she said quietly.

“I need to know right now,” he said, voice tense, “if what you’ve told me is the truth. Because I’m about to go into my office and call in every favor anyone ever owed me, and if I find out you’re spinning yarns...”

He didn’t need to finish. She wiped a tear from her eye and nodded.

“I’m not angry with you punkin’, I love you with all my heart. It’s not your fault. You know that. But I need to know that I’m doing the right thing.” He smiled and it almost looked compassionate.

“It’s all true,” she said.

He nodded, grimacing, and went inside.

Sara’s mom drew her took a hot bubble bath surrounded by scented candles and Sara took a good long soak while her father disappeared into his office to make his phone calls. The bath helped her relax and it also gave her the chance to make sure she was still in one piece. She felt sore and a little raw, but nothing hurt and as far as she could tell there was no bruising or anything. After the bath her mom wrapped her in an even poofier robe and informed Sara that her father wanted to speak with her in his office.

If getting a cup of coffee had been a surprise, this came as a shock. Dad’s office was Off Limits, so much so that Sara didn’t know what it even looked like inside. He disappeared into the office regularly, usually after watching the game. Sara would hear him on the phone, but the one time she dared to listen through the door all she could hear was muffled noise.

Sara picked up the coffee from the stand by the tub and made her way to the office door. She stared at it without knocking, almost thinking it was a trick to get her to break the rules and disturb Daddy. The smell of cigar smoke leaked from the door as it often did. This was the only room in the house that Dale Myers was allowed to smoke -- the only rule he had ever let his wife impose on him.

Sara finally knocked and her father told her to come in. He was still on the phone and motioned for her to sit in the chair, a short cigar stub in his mouth. Two more were in the ashtray. She sat and realized her coffee was cold.

She nursed the coffee anyway and looked around the room. It was a plain home office, with a set of shelves on one wall filled with binders, a stack of filing cabinets, and a bulletin board with some house and building information sheets neatly pinned on it. Propped up in the corner on one of the cabinets was the family’s old TV which Sara hadn’t seen since she was eight. She had assumed they’d thrown it out long ago. Seeing it in the corner, the bright purple spot in the upper right, brought back memories. Her dad’s desk was in the middle of the room facing the folding chair Sara was now seated in. It was spotless, with a computer off to one side, a phone, and the ashtray. It was all so normal, Sara wondered what the big deal had been about not coming in.

Dale wrapped up his phone conversation and hung up. He puffed on his cigar. He looked at her squarely.

“I’ve taken care of everything. By this time next week, it will be as if none of this ever happened.” He was speaking in clipped sentences, like he was addressing his men back in the day or something.

“Uh, daddy...” Sara started, looking down at the coffee cup.

“Don’t interrupt,” he snapped. “You underestimate your old man. You’ll be out of school the rest of the week with a bad late-season flu. I’ll have a doctor’s note by 0700 tomorrow.”

She looked at him pleadingly. She’d just been violated by a giant monster and he thought she’d be back at school in a week like nothing happened?

“I see you’re worried about what your little oriental friend. Well her family has been very cooperative and they’ve agreed to aid us in our cover story. At this juncture, all you need to know is that a wild animal, probably a cougar, got into the restaurant and scared everyone away. It got up on the roof somehow and fell through the ceiling onto your table.”

This was wrong, all wrong. Her father had probably paid off Chiu and her father, probably threatened them too. Her one possible ally in working through this and in figuring out exactly what happened probably hated her now. Her hands trembled and she had to put the coffee on the floor.

“Yes, I know, the problem of your clothing. That troubled me as well. However, I’ve worked with Captain Jenkins -- he was in charge at the scene of course -- and he’s going to help the personnel at the scene remember that, in fact, you were merely one of many restaurant-goers who fled the scene. That little detail will never see the light of day.” He grinned at the plan he’d set in motion. He stabbed out the cigar.

Just how many people had he threatened? Sara knew her father had powerful friends in the military, but he was talking about silencing a dozen emergency personnel. Sara started shaking, scared and angry at the same time.

“Then of course there’s the matter of Mr. Barnes. With regard to him you’re on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know. But, I will say that you won’t have to worry about him again, ever.”

Sara couldn’t keep it in anymore. “What are you going to do, have him killed??! Are you insane or something?” she spluttered.

“Insane?! Insane!!?” he roared. “You’ve been violated by this boy, you said so yourself! I’d tear him limb from limb personally if I had the chance! Instead, I’m doing the smart thing and taking care of this quietly, leaving your dignity and reputation intact!”

“Reputation?! People are gonna notice, OK, if I hooked up with Cameron and then he never shows up again. People are gonna find out. And if he turns up dead somewhere, they’re gonna find out it was you! My reputation is gonna be the girl whose dad calls out hits on her boyfriends!”

“BOYFRIEND??!” he roared again, standing up from the chair, knocking it over behind him. Then her father forced himself to relax, slowly, and lowered his eyes. He sat back in the chair. “I can see that you’re in shock and that you don’t realize what has happened to you.” He tried smiling, and looked at her like she was five again. “Why don’t you go to bed, punkin’, and see how you feel about it tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll realize I’m doing the right thing.”

Sara left the office with a headache. It was after 1 a.m. and exhaustion was catching up with her. Her father did have a point. Why wasn’t she more angry at Cameron? He had kinda raped her, hadn’t he? Well, not really, she thought, she certainly didn’t resist or say “no” or anything. But there’s no way she had been in control, nobody acts like that. Sure she could be a tease and she liked attention, but she would never do that. And yet, she knew that a part of her enjoyed it. Even now, the thought of Cameron throwing the dishes to the floor and taking her made her tingle. And after he transformed the creature he became was almost stunning in its masculinity, like a stallion. Too bad Chiu had had that fun ... but what was she thinking? Daddy was right, Sara needed rest.

Sara let the robe fall to the floor of her bedroom and crawled under the covers. She fell asleep almost instantly.

When Sara’s eyes drifted open the next morning the sun was already pouring in the windows. She felt refreshed and sat up to grin at the sun. In the haze of waking she wondered why she was waking up without an alarm on a school day, but then the memories of the previous night started to surge back to the top of her mind. Sara groaned, clamping them down, refusing to think about the last night.

Sara’s mom must have been monitoring her sleep because she came bustling in with a breakfast-in-bed tray loaded with French toast and eggs.

“Now you just stay in bed, there, and enjoy your breakfast.”

“Mommmm,” said Sara, pulling the cover over her head, “You know I don’t eat breakfast, and eggs with yolks? Ugh! You want me to be fat? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“Don’t you worry about that. I got the day off of course. Come now, dear, you’ve been through a lot, you could use some comfort food.”

Sara sighed dramatically. It looked like Mom wasn’t going to be swayed. “Fine, but leave me alone, I’m tired,” she lied.

“Yes, yes, OK dear, I love you!” and she shuffled out the door.

Sara stuck her tongue out at the breakfast, ate one bite of everything just to say she had eaten, and scraped the rest in the trash.

She sat in bed, not sure what to do with the day. Most of all she needed to think about anything other than what happened the night before. She needed a distraction. She saw her laptop charging on the bed-stand and opened it up to Facebook like she did most mornings.

Sara had just about everyone in her class added as a friend whether she knew them or not. This made the site kind of hard to browse, but with 462 friends and counting she was solidly in the top-ten friended people at school. This let her keep up on all the gossip at school as relationships were announced, broken, and repaired, often in the same day. Her classmates’ status updates were exactly what she needed, mundane and boring. Rachel Somebody got an A on a test. Jessica had had a tough lacrosse practice yesterday, etc.