Kathy Dobie - The Only Girl in the Car

PRAISE FOR
THE ONLY GIRL IN THE CAR

This undercover report from the all-American girlhood of a cherished daughter is a true horror story, and an exercise in suspense at once blithe and terrifying.

Nuala OFaolain, author of Are You Somebody? and My Dream of You

Evoking the stark power of Mary Karrs landmark memoirs The Liars Club and Cherry, Dobie charts her discovery of boys and subsequent entanglements with them in an unapologetic voice that is surprisingly sympathetic. But just as the reader begins to understand her desire to act like one of the guys, the book savagely reminds us of the dangers of adolescent recklessness.

Vogue

In the wake of publication, once again people couldnt stop talking about Kathy Dobie. It was almost scandalousthe clarity of her writing and the depths of suburban darkness she chronicled. She took the words used to shame her and made meaning out of them, she took the night she was told to forget and remembered it with relentless clarity. She got away.

Newsday

Kathy Dobie writes of herself as a girl out of control. That girl who looked so frantically for love has been rewarded, at last, by the woman who writes a prose so fine that she leaves the reader breathless with pleasure.

Richard Rodriguez, author of Hunger of Memory

Dobie writes of her sexually precocious adolescence with a keen, unsparing eye and avoids depicting herself as a victim, a temptation few could resist.

The Washington Post Book World

[Dobies] lyrical, harrowing memoir transcends the genre; it delivers the complex satisfactions of a well-realized novel.

The New York Observer

With fresh, lively prose and a thoughtful delivery, Dobie capture[s] the eagerness and childlike trust that led her into danger, and the mental toughness and fortitude that helped her recover. Eloquent and sharp, The Only Girl in the Car is a lyrically rendered, candid book about teenage sexuality, and one girl with enough courage to strike out on her ownand keep going.

BookPage

A singular story an authentic picture of the emotional fog and urgent needs that sometimes lead teenagers to self-destruct.

Kirkus Reviews

Marvelously evocative.

O Magazine

A lyrical writer who uses delay and flashback as skillfully as Hitchcock.

The Nashville Scene

This is a cautionary tale, a dizzying mixture of sunshine and shadows, lyrical and tough-minded. Her memoir explains the sexual education of Kathy D. in a way that earns the utmost respect, the very thing she lost that night in that car full of boys.

The Hartford Courant

THE ONLY GIRL IN THE CAR
A Delta Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Dial Press hardcover edition published March 2003
Delta trade paperback edition / March 2004

Published by Bantam Dell
A division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York

All rights reserved.
Copyright 2003 by Kathy Dobie

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002029928

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Delta is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.,
and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-307-76582-6

v3.1

To James, who from the moment he heard this story
said that one day I must write it down

All the names have been changed,
except for Roscoe, Craig, Linda, Leslie, Mrs. Colasanto,
Chris, and the members of the DeAngelis family and my own.

IN THE SPRING OF MY FOURTEENTH YEAR, THE EARTH BLOSSOMED with men and boys, staggered under the weight and richness of their profusion. They were everywhere. Driving cranes alongside the highway, bagging groceries in the supermarket, mowing lawns, filling up our station wagon with gas, taking my fathers money, giving him directions. They wore bandannas and their chests shone with sweat; they wore suits and their thighs were thick under the soft, hot cloth.

In the supermarket, my eye found the restless son; at the picnic grounds, the sullen brother hanging back, slouching in all that sunshine. From the backseat of my fathers car, I scanned I-95. Under the signs that said New York and New Haven, an endless river of men in trucks and cars. Men at the wheel. A man with his face in shadow, revealing only an arm and a slice of downy T-shirt. The arm was tanned with a strand of leather tied around the wrist. The hand beat out a tune on the van door. The cigarette was thrown sharp and hard, like a spear, down into the speeding pavement. Sparks flew. Every boy was an orphan; every man, unfulfilled.

One Saturday that following September, I put on my candy-striped halter top, bell-bottom jeans, and platform shoes, went out the front door of my parents house, and sat myself down in the middle of the green, green lawn. Id made a decision. I was going to lose my virginity.

Our front lawn faced the intersection of Treadwell and Clifford. There was a traffic light by then and enough cars to make things interesting. The grass looked silky, but it was sharp and sticky against my skin. Our dog was at my side, clumsy, faithful Sebastian, named after the butler in the TV show Family Affair. He was a miniature Shetland sheepdog with a round, friendly-looking rump and an orange and white coat, like a Creamsicle. His feathery tail swished back and forth across the grass. I stroked and knotted his fur, and waited.

Cars sped by, honking. Boys hissed, whistled, blew kisses, yelled. If they had to wait at a red light, they grew shy, though one boy wagged his tongue at me like a pendulum and then ran it, slowly, up the window.

It was a full-grown man who finally stopped. He did a U-turn, parked in front of the house, and got out. He made his way over to me, long hair swinging. He had a pockmarked face and eyes that pretended friendliness.

Brian was thirty-three. I remember that, because it impressed me that he was the same age as Jesus was when he died on the cross. It seemed right that there should be something so significant about him. It didnt matter that I wasnt attracted to him. He was what other girls would call sleazy, a loser. He still lived with his mother; he had bad skin; he was picking up fourteen-year-olds. But to see that mans form, tight-jeaned, T-shirted, gliding through the grass, intent on me, and already mine in ways I didnt yet fully understand

He smiled cagily, nodded at the house. You live here? And then, Are your parents home? He crouched down in the grass and picked at a blade. Uh so youre just hanging out with your dog? He circled me with questions, patronizing, nervous as a thief. A jewel out in the openwas there really no one looking? No cop behind a tree, no string attached?

So, uh, whats your dogs name?

Slowly, carefully, he reeled me inor so he thought. He was so sure that was the way it went, hed missed the obvious: A minute ago hed been sailing down Treadwell Street, as free as you please, and yet here he was, flung up on the lawn. I hadnt moved an inch.

So you want to go to the movies sometime?