Tourists off the Tour (eBook)

Barbara ASHe

Young Barbara was a smart, athletic, talented girl. In the last years of elementary school, Barbara was on the Baltimore Country Club swim team and competed in meets from D.C. to Philadelphia. She was an avid reader and won the class spelling bee three years in a row.

She didn’t know why her parents were always arguing, always mad at each other. Before her two brothers were born, when they argued Barbara liked to go into the backyard, on the slate patio, and spin. She would spin and her long hair would fly around her head, her skirt would float up and down, she would smile and laugh and spin until she was dizzy, then dizzier and fall down. After her brothers came along, she gathered them up and took them to her room to play dolls until the yelling stopped.

She was ten when President Kennedy was assassinated. The school called all the mothers to pick up their children. Barbara’s mother didn’t answer the phone. Mrs. Williams, her next-door neighbor, gave Barbara a ride home. Her house was locked and there was no sign of her mother or brothers. She went into the back yard and climbed in the downstairs bathroom window. At the foot of the steps, she heard her mother upstairs making odd sounds, half laughs, half cries, wild animal sounds. Barbara froze. Something odd was going on. The animal sounds were getting faster and faster and then her mother screamed. There was a man’s voice. Barbara went back to the bathroom, climbed out, went to the front door, and rang the bell. Several minutes later, Barbara was sobbing when her mother answered the door.

“Oh dear, why are you so upset, dear Barbara,” her mother said.

“The president was shot,” Barbara sobbed. “He was shot. He might be dead.”

Her mother escorted her into the living room, without closing the front door, where they turned on the radio. Barbara saw a tall, thin man slip out the front and heard the door close quietly. They turned on the TV just as her aunt was dropping off her brothers.

In sixth grade Barbara discovered she had power over boys. Her mother enrolled her in dance camp the summer after fifth grade. Barbara, like her mother at the same age, was tall, skinny, with long curly black hair, light complexion and beautiful, dark eyes. Barbara loved to dance and was one of the best. In the sixth-grade talent show, she performed a solo routine to a recording from Singing in the Rain. The next week at school, all the bold boys were following her around, carrying her books, wanting to take her to the counter at the drugstore.

In Junior High, she grew breasts and hips beyond what she had hoped. At 5 foot 10 she was taller than all the girls and most of the boys. She loved the attention and did not understand it. The cheerleading squad asked her to join, and she was thrilled. Cheer practice was more fun than dance. Older boys started to ask her out. She liked telling the other cheerleaders but never went on any dates, as her mother would not let her. When not at school or at cheer practice or swim practice, she studied in her room and read mysteries and romance novels.

When she turned 15, she wanted to join the Junior Lifeguard program, but they did not accept girls. She had a faster freestyle and butterfly time than most of the boys who were accepted. Her father, a prominent attorney, and a member of the Club board of directors, told her to let it go.

“Dad, you better be on my side, or else?” she told him.

“It’s just not right for girls,” he responded.

She took his hand and put it on her breast. “Get me in, Dad, or I tell Mom.”

The summer after freshman year of high school, she became the first female lifeguard at the Baltimore Country Club pool. College boys, home for the summer, started asking her out. Her mother said no. She and the other lifeguards swam laps after the pool closed. Curtis Martin, a graduated senior lifeguard, walked her home. They began kissing in the alley behind the clubhouse. They went to the movies, hung out at the soda shop with all the kids from her school. He was tall, good looking, going to Yale. He was an impressive conquest, and she knew it.

Towards the end of the summer, she let him fondle her breasts. She felt heat rise in her whole body, heat she knew was wrong, and wonderful. Curtis wanted her to marry him and move to New Haven with him when he was to start college. She broke it off. She liked him. She liked what the other cheerleaders said about him. Mostly she just wanted to try out what it was like to have a boyfriend.

Curtis had to have her. He said he would get a job, stay in town, if she would marry him, have kids with him. He would find a way to avoid the draft to be with her. Everywhere she went, he showed up. She didn’t want to tell her dad. He might have hired a private investigator to beat him up. Her father had P.I.’s who did dirty work for him. Reluctantly, she told her mother about the situation. Her mother talked to Curtis’ mother. Curtis went off to Yale.

Sophomore year of high school, the captain of the basketball team, a senior, pursued her. Terry worked in a warehouse after basketball practice. He hoped for a basketball scholarship at a Big Ten school, preferably Indiana, a basketball power. He gave half his wages to his mother and saved the rest for college. Barbara liked him, he was funny and tall. She decided to try him out.

Most school nights, after swim team or cheerleader practice, Barbara studied until midnight. Friday nights she cheered at football games or basketball games. In the fall, she watched the Michigan-Ohio State game on TV at the club. Her parents went to Michigan, where they met.

Barbara invited Terry to the club to watch the game. He came in blue jeans and an old T-shirt. Barbara was in a white, V neck sweater over a mid-length black and white striped skirt. She noticed the club members, including her parents, looking at Terry warily. As the game got underway, he was cheering with the Ohio State crowd. Barbara knew she was supposed to cheer for Michigan. Her father even asked her to lead one of her cheerleader routines for Michigan.

“That’s weird, dad. No.”

As Ohio State pulled further and further ahead, Terry got louder in his cheers. Her parents were looking at him. Barbara thought he was funny and bold.

The next weekend, she let Terry take her to the drive-in. She ordered a hamburger, onion rings and a large Coke. He didn’t order anything for himself, realizing he didn’t have enough money in his wallet. She ate a few bites of the hamburger, a couple of onion rings, a sip of the Coke and left the rest on the tray. She could see Terry was hungry and wanted to eat what she hadn’t. When the waitress took the tray away, she smiled. He had passed the test. She leaned over and kissed him.

During the school year, he bought her many meals and many trinkets including a cultured pearl necklace and a silver pendant. After a while, she let him fondle her breasts and touch her underpants between her legs. When he got his scholarship to Indiana, she broke it off with him. “You are going to run away to Bloomington, so why should I drag myself through the muck with you.”

He asked her if he could have the pearl necklace back.

“I earned it,” she said.

Junior and senior years she determined not to have a boyfriend. She wanted to win state in the 50-yard freestyle and graduate in the top 10 in her class. Boys came after her. She never let it go beyond a third date. She loved the feel of them rubbing her breasts and vagina, one time, then cut it off quickly.

Marsden Stanley and his parents were at their house for Easter dinner. She had known Marsden since elementary school. His father was a partner at her father’s law firm. At the end of dinner, her mother told Marsden to take Barbara for a walk.

Barbara stared at her mother.

Marsden took her hand, and they went outside.

“You were great in the state swim meet,” he said to her. She forgot he was also on the team. He had done well in all the strokes and won the individual medley.

“Thanks,” she said. “Where are we going?”

“Let’s walk down to the harbor.”

“It’s too far,” she said. “I have homework.”

“Can I kiss you?”

She looked at him. He was a handsome, tall guy. He was like her father. She had started to hate her father.

“No,” she said and turned back to the house.

She tried to avoid Marsden at school and swim practice. He asked her out many times and she said no, abruptly. Her mother told her Marsden would be a good choice for her, someone who was going to make something of himself.

After swim practice, just before the state meet senior year, Barbara was the last to leave the girls locker room. Butch, the coach, offered her a ride home. She had a car, didn’t need a ride home. As she started for her car, he stepped in front of her.

“You have a girlfriend,” she said.

“We broke up.”

Barbara was pretty sure that was a lie.

“Why?”

“Because I told her I had a...