Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates

me.
And if they had not married each other, it would be that they would never miss me.
    So we were told not to upset Momma. It is a scary thing to see your mother cry. Either you run away (like Jacky) or you do something to make your mother cry more (like me). Just to show that
it’s you your mother is crying about and not something else.
    “Ann’slee—what kind of name’s that?”
    This older guy, must be in his late twenties, named Deek— what sounds like Deek—oily dark spiky haircut and scruffy whiskers and on his right forearm a tattoo of a leaping black
panther so it’s like him and me are instantly bonded cause I am wearing over my swimsuit a Cougars T-shirt (Strykersville High’s mascot is a cougar), a similar big cat leaping and
snarling. Just the look of this Deek is scary and riveting to me, him and his buddies, all of them older guys and strangers to me, hanging out at the marina pier, where I’ve drifted to
instead of heading back to the cottage, where Momma expects me.
    I’m embarrassed telling Deek that Annislee is some weird name derived from a Norwegian name—my mother’s grandmother was Norwegian, from Oslo—but Deek isn’t hearing
this, not a guy who listens to details, nor are his beer-drinking buddies with big sunburned faces and big wide grins like they’ve been partying a long time already and it isn’t even
suppertime. Deek is near-about a full head taller than me, bare-legged in swim trunks and a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, winking at me like there’s a joke between us—or am I, so much
younger than he is, the joke?—asking how’d I like to ride in his speedboat across the lake, how’d I like to play poker with him and his buddies? I tell Deek that I don’t
know how to play poker, and Deek says, “Li’l babe, we can teach you.” Tapping my wrist with his forefinger like it’s a secret code between us.
    Li’l babe. Turns out that Deek is Rick Diekenfeld, owns the flashy white ten-foot speedboat with red letters painted on the hull, Hot Li’l Babe, you see roaring around
Wolf’s Head Lake raising choppy waves in its wake to roil up individuals in slower boats, fishermen in stodgy rowboats like my uncle Tyrone yelling after Hot Li’l Babe, shaking
his fist, but Hot Li’l Babe just roars on away. There’s other girls hanging out with these guys. I am trying to determine if they are the guys’ girlfriends, but I guess
they are not. Seems like they just met at the Lake Inn Marina Café, where you have to be twenty-one to sit by the outdoor bar. These girls in two-piece swimsuits, fleshy as Momma, spilling out of
their bikini tops. And the guys in T-shirts and swim trunks or shorts, flip-flops on their big feet, and the names they call one another are harsh and staccato as cartoon names, sounding like
Heins, Jax, Croke. And there’s Deek, who seems to like me, pronouncing and mispronouncing my name, Ann’slee, running the tip of his tongue around his lips, asking again
how’d I like to come for a ride in his speedboat, quick before the storm starts, how’s about it? Deek has held out his Coors can for me to sip out of, which is daring—if we get
caught, I’m underage by eight years—but nobody’s noticing. Lukewarm beer that makes me sputter and cough, a fizzy sensation up inside my nose provoking a sneeze-giggle, which Deek
seems to find funny, and something about me he finds funny, so I’m thinking, What the hell. I’m thinking, Daddy isn’t here, I am not even sure where Daddy is. And Gracie
isn’t here. This will be something to tell Gracie.
    This guy I met. These guys. Riding on the lake, and they taught me to play poker.
    So we pile into Hot Li’l Babe, these four big guys and me. There’s lots of people around at the marina, nothing to worry about, I am thinking. Or maybe I am not thinking.
Momma says, Annislee, for God’s sake, where is your mind? Well, it looked like—I thought—these other girls were getting into the speedboat too,