Crashing Down
MIRA Books May, 1999
ISBN # 1-55166-516-6

CHAPTER 1

Holly Beach, New Jersey, 1971

        The man was coming at her. Carrie knew what would happen next. It had happened once before, and she had tried to stay away from him since then, had tried to squeeze herself into a tiny, invisible ball every Sunday since then.

        Outside in the church courtyard there were voices, other children laughing as they arrived. Here in the dim cold basement of the church everything was silent except for the steady drip of a rusted pipe and the slow deliberate breathing of the man who was moving toward her, blocking her path to the door.

        "You came back," he said, and he smiled.

        But she hadn't come back. Not on purpose. It was a mistake. Carrie began to cry, quietly, the tears still way in the back, making her throat feel like there was something stuck there, something huge and hard.

        "I left my doll," she said, swallowing.

        "You mean this?" He held Christy, her doll, beyond her reach . . . her beloved Christy, her best friend, the only one she could talk to about the things he had done to her. He said, "I found her for you, Carrie."

        "Thank you," she whispered.

        He held the doll farther away. Laughing, he pulled Carrie toward him, a hand that smelled of shaving lotion tugging behind her head. Carrie's whole body was stiff with fright, her neck a hard, unbending column. But he was stronger, and he pulled her closer and closer. "You give me a little kiss," he said, his voice sounding funny and thick, "right here . . . and I'll let you have your doll."

        She heard Christy drop to the floor as both of his hands held her head, and he moved it back and forth so her cheeks were forced to rub against the stiff dark material of his trousers. Carrie tried again to pull away, but he held her fast. "Oh, yes," he moaned.

        Carrie cried harder, not making any sound, the tears flowing fast and wet down her cheeks. She couldn't breathe. She was shaking so much she lost her balance, and without thinking she reached out to steady herself with both hands around the man's thighs.

        His breath quickened, his hold tightened. "That's right, Carrie, that's right."

        Carrie stood like a statue, a tiny, six-year-old statue with dark blond hair and bangs, in her best Sunday dress—the only evidence of her pain the tears that streamed down her face. She heard the sound of his zipper, and then, "Good girl, Carrie, that's a good girl." He said it the way her daddy did when her piano lesson went well, and after he had finished with her he warned her not to tell her daddy, because Daddy would be mad and he wouldn't believe her. He made her rinse off her face at the drinking fountain, the one for little kids like her, the one she could reach, and then he wiped her face with a paper towel from the janitor's bathroom across the hall.

        "You'd better get upstairs now," he said, smoothing his hair and blotting spots on his suit that her tears had made. He was like another person suddenly, his face a little red, but more as if nothing had happened, like Mommy after she had spanked her for being bad. She would say, "For God's sake, Carrie, there's nothing to cry about now," as if once the spanking was over, there wasn't any reason it should hurt anymore.

        Carrie grabbed Christy from the floor and backed away, then turned and stumbled up the stairs to the Sunday School rooms. They were empty, and the bells were ringing in the steeple. She ran down the hall toward the big church, forgetting that she wasn't supposed to run, wasn't supposed to make noise when she came in late. She looked through the door from the hallway and saw her Sunday School class, everyone standing with hymnals in their hands. She saw her daddy sitting at the organ, and heard him start to play the song about daring to be a Daniel, and she didn't know who Daniel was but she wished she were like him, she wished she were brave.

        Instead, she felt dirty and sick as she looked at her friends. She didn't belong with any of them. Turning, she ran outside and down Atlantic Avenue, passing old Mrs. Baker along the way, seeing her outraged face as Carrie almost knocked her down, running as if the devil were at her heels. That's what Mrs. Baker would say to Carrie's mother, Alice, after church. She'd say it on the phone, because Carrie's mother didn't go to church, and her tone would imply that everything bad that happened to the Holder family happened because Carrie's mother didn't go to church. She'd say, "You'd better do something about that child, Mrs. Holder. Six years old, and out on the streets when she should be in Sunday School! And Mr. Holder giving all his time to the church the way he does, you'd think there would be more discipline in the home. Almost knocked me down and didn't even stop to apologize … like the devil was at her heels, don't you know."

        Carrie would get spanked for that when she got home. For upsetting Mrs. Baker and embarrassing her mother, mostly, and for not being in Sunday School. "It's the second time you've pulled that, young lady, and it had better be the last."

        But she didn't know that now. Now she was running, running toward home, running to where she thought her mommy would hold her, where she thought she'd be safe, stopping only once at the big old house on the corner of 19th Street to use the hose under their high front porch to wash her mouth out, over and over and over, even though it didn't do any good, didn't wash any of it away. She wished the water were a wave, that a wave would come up from the beach and wash right over her, wipe her out, drown her, so this would never happen again.

        But the wave never came and Carrie didn't drown, and it did happen again. And again. And again. So that by the time she was ten and he would find her, no matter how hard she tried to hide, when he would come up behind her and press himself against her, a hand slipping into her summer halter to squeeze her tiny beginning breast, she felt nothing so much as numb.

        She thought that this was simply the way life was. And it never occurred to her to wonder, until much, much later, why that should be so.

CHAPTER 2

        This is crazy, the grownup, thirty-four-year-old Carrie thought. I'm crazy.

        She was sitting in a makeup chair at WPPH-TV, in Philadelphia, allowing herself to be pouffed and powdered, sprayed and arrayed. She felt bogus, an illusion. No sooner had the makeup artist hidden the fine lines around her eyes than he'd added more, circling the upper and lower lids with thick, black, greasy strokes. "You have absolutely gorgeous green eyes," Randy, the hair stylist, argued. "You don't want them disappearing on camera, dear. And that blonde hair? My goodness, what I wouldn't give for that."

        Carrie smiled. She had written a book titled Winter's End, and when it miraculously hit the best-seller list the third week out, her publisher had sent her on tour. Starting in her home town of San Francisco she flew east from city to city, sometimes signing books in two and three cities in one day. This was the last stop, an in-depth interview, twenty minutes, all hers.

        Which was great. The more exposure for the book, the better. And if she sometimes felt weary and longed to be at home in her familiar robe and slippers, in front of the old PC, there was an almost overwhelming excitement to all this at times. She had worked hard to get to this point, and the success of Winter's End was a personal win, as well as a professional one. In truth, she was flying high.

        Sharon Smith, the bright, perky assistant to Teddi Marx, the host of "Today in Philadelphia," had stuck her head in the door a few minutes ago. "Everything going all right? Good. By the way, I've read your book. It's wonderful."

        Another miracle, Carrie thought. They almost never read your book. I am blessed.

        Sharon had handled the pre-interview with her when she first arrived. Then she'd brought her here to makeup.

        "You're not nervous, are you?" she had asked. When Carrie confessed she could hardly think straight at the moment, swinging between weariness to pumped-up exhilaration, Sharon had patted her shoulder. "You'll do fine. Teddi loves you. I swear, she's read every article you've written since 1988. She particularly loved that humor piece you did on dating a few years ago."

        Carrie remembered the article. By the time she was twenty-six, she had stumbled through several uneasy relationships. Finally she chained herself to her Royal portable and swore off men, swore to stick to something she knew. Which, in an age of failed relationships, with eighty percent of the male population married and the rest seemingly gay, was to tell women how best to live without a man. The article Sharon most likely had referred to was Someday My Prince Will Come . . . And With My Luck He'll Be a Queen. It was published in Ms. magazine and led to her being dubbed the "new Fran Lebowitz." The piece was cutting and witty and fun to do, but Carrie didn't want to be a new anyone. She moved on to more serious works, writing about almost every women's issue: welfare . . . daycare . . . AIDS . . . the utter futility of one-night stands.

        The only indication that her past hadn't entirely healed was that (1) she had changed her last name from Holder to Holt, in an attempt to distance herself from her childhood, and (2) she had carefully skirted the issue of child abuse. If she thought about what had happened to her at all, she thought, Well, it wasn't all that bad. Not like what happens to some kids. There had been terrible stories in the papers lately, stories of babies being raped, left in dumpsters, and worse. Carrie thought about them, and agonized for them. She had just never felt, until recently, that she could write about them.

        All that had happened to her long ago, however. And in four days she would be back in Holly Beach, to speak at the Children's Festival of the Arts there. The invitation had come six months ago, and Carrie had hesitated at first. Last year she had begun making frequent trips to the Pines Convalescent Home in Holly Beach to visit her grandmother. The Pines was at the far tip of the island, and Carrie had traveled quickly from airport to cab to the Pines, never connecting in any way with the town itself. Holly Beach was a place with too many bad memories, and becoming familiar with either its past or current inhabitants was the last thing she needed or wanted.

        Therefore, when the invitation came to speak at the festival, she didn't know what to say. The Children's Festival of the Arts was being held at Anglesea, the old church where so many painful things had happened. Could she do that?

        She wasn't sure. But she would give it her best. It helped that the church was a conference center, now. It also helped that it had been twenty-two years since she'd even been near it. It was unlikely old ghosts would still inhabit its walls.

        Besides, as her agent, Molly, had pointed out, it would be great PR for the book. "This is a big deal, Carrie. It was put together at the request of the president, as a positive step toward building children's self-esteem. There will be major stars there, CEO's, politicians. The media will single you out for interviews because it's a small town, and you're a local-girl-makes-good. You've got to do this, Carrie."

        It hadn't taken much to talk her into it. She rather liked the idea of returning to her old hometown a success for a change, someone who had risen above a difficult childhood to not only make it good, but very good.

        If only my mother were alive to see how things have turned out, she thought now, shifting in the makeup chair and smoothing the silky green skirt of her suit. Alice would have been proud. As it was, only her grandmother was left. And Elizabeth would not be well enough to attend.

        An AD poked her head into the room, holding up both hands, fingers splayed. "Ten minutes! She should be in the Green Room by now."

        Carrie's stomach twisted. The first moments before a camera were always hard. But if there was one thing she'd learned over the years, it was to "act as if." Whistle in the dark. Though she'd started out being terrified to speak in public, she could now hold her own at a podium, and shake hands afterward as well as any Amway salesman.

        She smiled into the makeup mirror. Hey, I'm good, she told herself, sticking out her chin.

        No—I'm great!

        If the face looking back seemed to say, "You are one impossible nut," oh what the hell.

        "Five minutes," Randy called out to the AD, gesturing widely with a spray bottle that gave Carrie's hair, the mirror, and everything else within a three-foot area a final silica sheen. "I need five more minutes!"

        Carrie grinned. It must be tough making me look good.

************

        "You look fab," Randy said.

        He had removed the plastic cape and was smoothing a few stray wisps of hair.

        "You think so?" Carrie peered into the mirror, which was lined with pictures of men in various Adonis poses, signed to Randy, with love.

        I guess I look okay, she thought. Sea-green eyes that were somewhat wary, and even white teeth. Her hair fell in heavy sun-streaked waves to her shoulders, not a frizz or a strand out of place.

        She gave a shrug and smiled. "You've done a good job."

        Randy leaned toward the mirror, so close his breath left a moist spot like a silver dollar on its surface. He examined his own dark face, all sharp planes full of worry that balanced off the full, rather pouty mouth. "I wish I could do as well for myself, dear. Every day, a new wrinkle."

************

        "Your book, Winter's End, has been receiving excellent early reviews," Teddi Marx said, referring to her notes. "I hear it hit the best seller list this week—number five, and climbing."

        "That's right," Carrie answered, leaning forward in the chair, in a manner she had been told would make her seem more engaged. The image consultant in San Francisco, who gave lessons to authors and others appearing in public, had also told her to keep her face mobile. Smile, laugh, raise eyebrows, grin. She hoped she didn't look like Carol Channing.

        "You must be thrilled." Teddi Marx's smile was tremulous. She was young, new to being host of a morning show, Molly had told her in advance. Nervous about meeting her first "real live author." The crew was nervous, too. Worried about whether she might screw up, no doubt, making their own jobs more difficult. The entire studio felt tight, as if filled with so many tensions there was no empty corner, no room left to move or breathe.

        "I'm just happy that Winter's End is reaching people," Carrie said. "It's a book that's meant a lot to me."

        She went on to tell that Winter's End was the true account of a woman who had escaped slavery in Virginia via the Underground Railroad, to become one of the most powerful and wealthy landowners in Pennsylvania. Carrie had worked furiously on the book, nearly every night for five years, while supporting herself with magazine articles written days. She had been driven, living in the emotions and on the strength of Hannah, her protagonist, rather than her own. Hannah, abused by her owner as a child and then by several men as a young woman, had fought her way free.

        "That was the important thing about her story, as I saw it," Carrie said, "not her eventual fame or wealth."

        The host of "Today In Philadelphia" nodded, smiled, said, "That's wonderful," and wet her lips again. With a hand that visibly shook, she glanced down at her list of prepared questions. Valiantly, she continued, asking the same questions that were asked on nearly every interview show. When did you start writing, how did you know you wanted to write, how long did it take to get published . . .

        Carrie answered each query brightly, doing the best she could to soothe the woman's nerves. But she could see that wasn't helping. Well, she hadn't expected it would. That's why she'd come prepared. There would be one question—one that was always asked; it never failed.

        In the next moment, it came. "Writing, I hear, is lonely work," Teddi Marx said. "What do you do to relieve stress?"

        Carrie smiled. Reaching down beside and a little behind her chair, she brought forth a Bloomie's shopping bag she had asked an assistant to put there earlier. As Teddi Marx watched, curious, she pulled out a large red plastic ball bat, the kind one finds in drugstores for kids. Then she pulled out a large white plastic softball.

        "I do this," Carrie said, standing. She held out the hollow ball and whacked it hard, with the bat.

        The bat made a loud cracking sound. The ball sailed well over the shocked heads of the crew and bystanders, who nevertheless ducked as one, their eyes widening and mouths falling open. The white plastic missile smacked up against a wall at the far end of the studio, where it fell with a soft thud to the carpeted floor.

        Carrie turned to Teddi Marx, whose jaw had dropped along with everyone else's. "Try it," she said, handing her the bat. "Can somebody get that ball?" she yelled, cupping her mouth with her hands.

        The astonishment of both host and crew lasted a long moment before anyone moved at all. When they did, it was as if every tension in the studio moved out in one fell swoop. Teddi broke up, her laughter loud and relieved. Everyone else in the studio followed suit.

        "I've never had a guest like you," Teddi said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes with the tips of her pearl-pink fingernails. She held up a hand that no longer shook. "Look at me. I'm not even nervous anymore."

        Carrie grinned. She had used this same icebreaker on a cable interview show in California, and that show had won an award as the best of the year. It was the only one where people were laughing and having a good time, instead of simply sitting around like talking heads, pondering impossible-to-answer questions like Where do you get your ideas?

        "When I was in high school here in Philly," she explained, "we played a lot of softball."

        Teddi passed on batting practice, but the surprise interlude had worked its charm. It took only a few moments to get back to the interview, and by then, both Carrie and the host were relaxed and enjoying themselves.

        "I did see from your bio," Marx said, "that you once lived in Philadelphia. Was that right here in the city?"

        Carrie nodded. "Just a few blocks from here."

        She began to tell about moving up here from the Jersey shore when she was twelve, about loving the docks where the ships came in, and the first thrill at seeing the Liberty Bell. But then Teddi asked, "You lived here with your mother and father?" and Carrie answered, "No, just my mother . . . "

        As she continued to talk, she could feel her mind running in two directions—part of it remaining in the present, the other part lost in the past.

        "The apartment in Philly doesn't have any frills," she remembered her mother warning as they packed hurriedly for the move. They had to be gone, Alice said, before Carrie's father got home.

        Forget frills! Carrie had thought with her first stab at the humor that would sustain her over the next difficult years. The first summer was a monumental blister. There was no air conditioning, and the temperatures often ran into the hundreds, with the humidity nearly as high. There were no more cool ocean breezes as in Holly Beach, no swimming in the ocean or long lazy days on the sand. Alice Holder was working now, and there were chores to do. Carrie would stand in the kitchen feeding clothes through the old wringer washer with one hand, a book in the other, her hair rolled up in orange juice cans for a bouffant look—sweat streaming down her face.

        "For God's sake, Carrie, don't catch your fingers in that wringer!" The panicky words would tumble out, her mother standing with both hands against her cheeks, her mouth a horrified "O" as Carrie forgot for a moment what she was doing, lost in a world of words: Mistress of Malloby . . . The Darkening Moors . . . mostly gothic romances, they were all the rage, but she liked the old detective pulps her mother read, too. Blondes Don't Cry ran a close second to No Bed Of Her Own as favorites.

        Reading was a whole new plane without pain.

        "Life isn't like those books, and it's time you found that out, Missy," her mother would say—time and time again.

        And indeed, Carrie never could seem to get a handle on the chores. Often, she would scorch the clothes, and once she plugged the frayed cord of the iron in and fire shot from it in a stream, scaring her half to death. There were outlets screwed into the ceiling lights that occasionally did the same, and a water heater that you lit with a match, then had to be sure and turn off before it got too hot and exploded.

        It seemed that life in Philadelphia was fraught with a whole new different set of fears: Don't go out at night alone. Don't hang out on the corner. Don't swim in the public pool, you'll get germs. And for God's sake, don't talk to strange men.

        A bit late in the day for that one, Carrie thought.

        Still, there was no longer a man in the house to worry about. No one who stayed around.

        Now and then her mother would come home from Tony's Bar and Grill on the corner a little tipsy, with a man. Carrie would hear Alice giggling as they came up the wooden apartment house stairs, and moments later Carrie's bedroom door would open and the ceiling light flick on. Hot with embarrassment, she would quickly pull her worn Army Surplus blanket up to her chin, while her mother said, "This is my little girl, Carrie. Carrie, say hello to Tom." (Bob . . . Charlie . . . whoever.)

        If Carrie complained about these nocturnal introductions, her mother would say, "It's the only way I can get rid of them, honey. You know, they buy you a drink and then they want you to pay up. Once they find I've got a kid to support, they lose interest, but you gotta show them—you know?"

        Carrie was thirteen at the time this began. Old enough to understand that although her mother didn't want men staying overnight, there was something wrong with saying "no." It confirmed everything she had learned up to that time.

        This was the same year her mother started making her use a tint from a capsule to lighten her darkening hair. "It's an Italian neighborhood, honey, and Italian men love blondes."

        It was a mixed message she constantly received. On the one hand: Make yourself as attractive to men as possible. Be all the things men admire in a woman. Make them like you and want you. But don't, for God's sake, let them touch you.

        At times it would seem her mother was playing the part of Victorian pimp to Carrie's virgin prostitute.

        Still, every now and then her mother would be the other person—the one who laughed and sang old songs around the house, who told Carrie stories about the past, and her dreams for the future. "We'll have a big white house with blue shutters, and an English rose garden. A pool. A horse."

        As a child, and even a teenager, Carrie had few dreams of her own. She never saw herself as growing into the kind of woman who had a fascinating career, or even having the kind of intelligence it took to become a professional. Other people did those things; they were way beyond her reach. It wasn't till Berkeley and her stint on the college paper . . .

        Carrie came back just as Teddi Marx was thanking her. She had a smile on her face, and looked pleased as she shook Carrie's hand warmly.

        "Thanks so much," Teddi said. "You were great."

        I've done all right, then. Whew. It's over.

*************

        Randy stood beside her in the makeup room, his mouth a disappointed, thin, line. "I simply don't understand why you want to ruin all my hard work."

        "It's not that I don't like what you did," Carrie soothed as she brushed the spray from her hair. "I just like it a bit looser for everyday."

        He clucked with his tongue and turned away, flipping the channels on a small TV on the corner of the dressing table. Carrie finished with her hair and took a bite of the turkey sandwich Sharon, the assistant, had brought her. "Early lunch," she had said, smiling. "I, uh . . . your story touched me. And it was great, what you did for Teddi. I just wanted to do something for you."

        Carrie wondered what in the world she had said to touch this woman so. She could barely remember. "Thank you," she said, grateful for the woman's kindness.

        The sandwich had come with a pot of tea. Carrie poured a small amount of the fragrant Earl Grey into a cup and asked Randy if he had something she could remove the heavy makeup with.

        He rolled his eyes and pointed to a large jar of cream. "Help yourself."

        "Thanks." She tried not to smile. If she hadn't done all right with the interview, she might have been slinking away, afraid to make waves. As it was, she felt wired and high, the way she usually did after a good appearance. She took a bite of the sandwich. The food, she knew, would have a sedative effect . It would help to bring her down to where she felt more like a writer than a fighter pilot.

        Wiping the almond-scented lotion into her face, she watched the television screen idly. A public service commercial was running, something with two little girls talking about being kind to each other and all living things. Carrie, who seldom had time to watch TV, sipped at her tea and took another bite of sandwich as the words, "The Christopher Show," came onto the screen.

        Randy made a sound like a snort. "Not that guy again." He clicked the remote, changing the channel.

        "No, wait," Carrie said.

        He paused, then went back.

        There was a song playing over the opening credits, one Carrie remembered vaguely from childhood. The song wasn't why she watched, however. She watched because there was something oddly familiar about the man who stood at the center of the stage, a man surrounded by children who looked up at him with glowing faces. The man seemed perhaps thirty-five. His blond hair was casual and ruffled, his face boyishly handsome. Clever lighting created a halo, giving him the look of an angelic Peter Pan.

        Then the music began a crescendo and the camera zoomed in for a close-up. Carrie saw that the man was older than she'd thought. There were deep grooves around the eyes, and the blond hair, graying at the temples, had been styled to make it seem to recede less than it actually did. The man whispered to a little girl who knelt leaning against his knee. Carrie saw the child, about seven, with golden curls, respond with a look of adoration as the man reached behind her head with one hand, smiling affectionately and tugging the child's head closer. A voice-over announced, "And now, 'The Christopher Hour,' with Christopher Jamison Breen."

        Carrie paled. Bits of turkey sandwich stuck in her throat. She choked and forced herself to swallow hard, grabbing for the tea. Her hands shook as she washed the sandwich down. Her cup rattled back to its saucer as she stared at the screen.

        Randy was saying sarcastically, "He's got the fastest-growing show on the east coast, bigger than 'Sesame Street' when that began. What a joke."

        Carrie looked at him blankly.

        "He'll be at that Festival in Holly Beach this weekend, that one you're going to? Their keynote speaker. Like I said, the man's a joke. He's got ‘em all bamboozled."

        Then the music was down and the man named Christopher Breen was speaking in a soft, melodic voice that could—Carrie remembered all too well—charm birds off trees. "Remember, my friends, a little child shall lead them . . . " He gathered the children closer, lightly touching each one fondly on the head, a shoulder, a cheek. "In an age when adult greed for power and material wealth has led us to war and confusion, it is the children who offer hope. Join with me . . . "

        Carrie heard no more. There was a roaring in her ears, and though he was older now, yes, and without the steel-rimmed glasses, yes, she was seeing him as he had been twenty-odd years before, and hearing, "Oh yes, Carrie, yes, good girl, Carrie, good girl," and, "You'd best go upstairs now," straightening his clothes before he himself, a teaching assistant then in her parent's church, went up to join the others at the early service, smiling as if nothing had happened at all. And the hand behind the little girl's head now had been on her own head then, affectionately at first, just in Sunday School, all innocence in front of her teacher, who was beaming nearby at her assistant's "wonderful way with children," the adult validation making Carrie trust him, making her feel that whatever he told her to do was right, even when something inside her tummy kept screaming it was wrong . . . it was wrong.

        And all the anger and pain she had been wrestling with her entire life became fresh new horror now, all happening again, over and over as she stared at the screen—all the indignities, the humiliations, the sick, sad feelings wrenching her apart, doubling her over with unbearable pain.

        And she wanted to SMASH HIM

        and SMASH HIM

        and SMASH

CHAPTER 3

From the Random House dictionary:

To smash:

1. to break violently into pieces.

2. to hit or strike with a shattering force.

3. to destroy . . . or be destroyed completely.

End excerpt

Back to Books Page