The Red Garden

by Alice Hoffman

  “I will be,” Frank offered. The boys were twins, but Frank was the tenderhearted one who played by the rules. “I can’t speak for my brother.”

  Jesse was already opening the basket. He had his eyes on Tessa’s tanned legs.

  “Quit it,” she said, pushing him aside. They looked at each other after they’d touched. Then, as quickly, they looked away. Carla had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Jesse was the boy everyone in town was in love with. “Oh,” Tessa said, bringing forth a half of a cake. “It’s Gluttony Cake! Devil’s food with chocolate pudding and chocolate chips inside.”

  They cut the cake into pieces and wolfed it down—at least the Mott brothers and Tessa did. Carla took a neat bite, then tossed her portion into the woods when no one was looking. She felt sick. She was quiet that afternoon, more audience than participant, and she was glad when the day was over. When the girls left, the boys followed until they had to split up at the road and go their separate ways.

  “See you tomorrow,” the Mott brothers called.

  “Maybe,” Tessa called back. “Maybe not.”

  For a shy girl she seemed entirely comfortable with the boys’ attentions.

  “Are you madly in love with Jesse?” Carla asked once they were alone. “Be honest.”

  “Of course not!” Tessa laughed.

  “That’s good,” Carla lowered her voice. “He’s ruined a lot of girls’ reputations.”

  Tessa glanced over at her friend. “Reputations don’t mean a thing,” she said. “Jack Kerouac couldn’t care less about a person’s reputation.”

  “Well, he didn’t live in Blackwell,” Carla said emphatically. “That Jesse is bad news.” It wasn’t completely true, but it was true enough, and Carla felt satisfied that she’d warned her best friend against him.

  THE NEXT DAY was Sunday and Carla had to go visit her grandparents for lunch. On the way home, she was in the car with her parents and Johnny when they saw a station wagon pulled up at the gas pumps.

  “Someone broke down,” Carla’s dad, Bill, said.

  They were closed on Sundays, but steam was rising from beneath the station wagon’s hood. All at once Carla realized it was the Coopers’ car. Ava was standing there smoking a cigarette, a worried expression on her face. Carla slunk down in the backseat. Her face flushed, and she could feel her heart hitting against her chest.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Johnny said. He got out and went over to Ava. She laughed and curtsied as though he was a knight who had come to her rescue. Carla looked through the rear window of the car as her father drove away. She watched until they turned the corner and couldn’t see anymore.

  The next day when Carla went to the cottage, the Coopers’ car wasn’t in the driveway.

  “My mother broke down. She got a ride back here on the back of a motorcycle. The guy driving it looked so much like Jack Kerouac I couldn’t believe it.”

  Carla worried all that week that she would be found out. She was nothing in this town, just a gas station girl. As soon as Tessa knew who she was, she wouldn’t want her as a best friend anymore. Carla carried her dread around with her, knowing her happiness at being someone brand-new would soon be over. Sure enough, on Saturday Ava Cooper showed up to collect her car. “Carla,” she said, delighted when she came upon her daughter’s friend in the office. “I didn’t know you had a job!” Ava had a cake tin with her. “The gentleman who worked here was so helpful I brought a Gratitude Cake.” It was angel food with vanilla icing. “It’s even better than Gluttony Cake, although nothing is as good as an Apology Cake. That is by far my best recipe.”

  Johnny waved from the garage. “Car’s all ready,” he called to Ava.

  “Great,” Ava called back.

  “Don’t tell Tessa,” Carla said.

  “What?” Ava was distracted. She grabbed the cake tin to take out to the garage.

  “Don’t tell her I work in a gas station.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with working. You should be proud of it.”

  “Please don’t tell her,” Carla begged.

  Ava looked at Carla, her brow furrowed. “Okay. Fine. You tell her.”

  AT THE END of the day Carla ran all the way to the river. She and Tessa always wore their bathing suits, but they never went swimming. There were the eels in the water, and if that wasn’t enough to keep a person out of the river, there were fast eddies and little whirlpools even in the summertime. Carla had warned Tessa that the Eel River was dangerous. But on that Saturday, Tessa and Jesse Mott were in the water. Carla could hear them whooping as they encountered the shock of the cold currents. She stopped at the edge of the pine forest. The sunlight was blinding. There they were, swimming around, laughing. Then Jesse moved in close, as if he was going to tell Tessa a secret. Tessa laughed and swam away to the bank. She pulled herself out. She stood there in her slip, now see-through in the sunlight, water dripping from her arms and from her long pale hair. She looked like a nymph. She had an unreadable expression, but she broke into a grin when she spied Carla standing in the woods.

  “Hey, you!” Tessa waved. She looked like herself again.

  Carla could hear Jesse mutter “Shit” under his breath as he dragged himself onto the riverbank. He certainly wasn’t pleased to see her. Carla walked toward them with a sour look.

  “There are eels in there,” she said of the water. “Where’s Frank?” she asked Jesse. Just the two of them meant something. She felt as if she had stepped into a pool of treachery even though Tessa seemed glad to see her.

  “He’s going to meet us tonight,” Tessa said.

  “Tonight?” Carla said.

  “We’re going to have a party,” Jesse remarked. “Unless you can’t come,” he said pointedly to Carla.

  They were to meet at midnight on the steps of the museum. Carla and Tessa walked home together, slowly, for the day was still brutally hot. “What if it’s haunted like people say?” Carla wanted to know of their planned nighttime foray. “What if we see the sister who ran away?”

  “Then we’ll prove there are ghosts, and I can write to Jack Kerouac and he can come here and rescue me.”

  Carla was surprised to hear that Tessa of all people thought she needed rescuing.

  “I thought you liked Blackwell,” she said reproachfully.

  “Not from Blackwell.” Tessa made a face. “From myself.”

  When she stopped, Carla did, too.

  “You promise you won’t tell?” Tessa said.

  Carla crossed her heart, which was pounding against her chest. Tessa lifted up the sleeves of her red shirt. There were marks on both wrists.

  “Is that from the eels in the river?” Carla said, confused. “Were you bitten? That stupid Jesse, he should have never taken you swimming.”

  Tessa smiled, then shook her head sadly. “It’s from before we moved here.”

  Suddenly Carla realized these were the marks of a razor blade.

  “Why would you cut yourself?” she asked.

  Tessa shrugged. “After my father left, I didn’t see the point of things. I wanted to burn bright. To feel something deeply.”

  “Tiger, tiger,” Carla murmured softly.

  “Exactly.” Tessa glowed. “You understand me, Carly. But it was a mistake. My father never even showed up at the hospital. And they made me leave school. That’s the real reason we moved here.”

  “Sometimes I feel like leaving school,” Carla admitted. “People make fun of me because I work in my father’s gas station.”

  There. It was out in the open. Carla looked sideways at her friend.

  “They’re probably just jealous because you have a job,” Tessa said. “You’re more mature and responsible.”

  Carla didn’t think that was the reason, but she was pleased to hear that Tessa did.

  “Hey, you two,” Ava said when they approached the cottage. She signaled them into the kitchen, where she’d been baking all day. The owner of the Hightop Inn had been interested when Ava wen
t up there with a sampling of cakes. He said he might be willing to take six cakes per week. “Try this,” Ava said, cutting them slices of yellow coconut cake. “Envy Cake. Everyone wants the recipe.”

  “It’s unbelievable,” Tessa said. “I’m going to send one of these to Jack Kerouac.”

  “You don’t know where he lives,” Carla reminded her.

  “I’ll send it via his publisher. I’ll write a note that will make him burn with desire. I envy your life on the road. Take me with you!”

  THEY SNEAKED OUT at the midnight hour. It was the Fourth of July, so no one would notice. Everyone would be out in Band’s Meadow watching the fireworks or they’d be at the annual Independence Day party at the Jack Straw Bar and Grill. Carla had come through the woods alone. She was nervous in the dark. She was nervous about meeting the Motts. She wondered what it felt like to cut yourself, to be so daring, to be asked to leave school, to not care about your reputation.

  Tessa climbed out her window while Carla waited in the yard. She shinnied down the drainpipe, then jumped down from the porch roof. There were red roses growing there and the thorns had torn into Tessa’s skin, but she didn’t seem to mind. She and Carla looped their arms around each other and went toward the museum.

  “Who do you like better? Frank or Jesse?” Carla asked.

  “They’re just boys,” Tessa said dismissively. “I need a man like Mr. Jack K. Someone with experience. Frank and Jesse have probably never been outside of Blackwell.”

  That was true of Carla as well, but she agreed with Tessa. “They’re mere babies,” she remarked, even though she herself would have run off with Jesse in the blink of an eye.

  The Mott brothers were waiting behind the museum. Their mother volunteered in the gift shop, and Jesse had swiped the key to the back door. They stumbled inside, laughing, giddy, then stopped so their eyes could adjust to the dark. There was the wagon wheel that had been on the first settlers’ carriage. There was the wolf someone had shot up in the mountains when there were still wolves slinking through the woods in Massachusetts. They stood in front of the bats in the big glass case. When Jesse made a whoo whoo noise, the others all jumped in a fit of fear, then exploded into laughter.

  “Come over here,” Jesse said, grabbing Tessa by the arm. “I want to show you something.”

  When he led her into the rocks and minerals exhibit, Frank and Carla stood there uncomfortably. They knew what Jesse was initiating—a kiss, maybe more. Still, they had nothing to say to each other and were somewhat grateful when Tessa shrieked. They both ran into the room where there were fossils and samples of the local mica.

  “I saw the ghost,” Tessa cried. “The runaway sister. She was right outside the window, with her horse.”

  Jesse rolled his eyes; he had one thing on his mind, but Frank said they should go out to investigate. Carla and Tessa held hands. “What did she look like?” Carla asked.

  “She was about our age. Long hair. She looked sad.”

  “There’s nothing here,” Jesse said, disgusted.

  Frank was kneeling on the ground. “Look,” he said.

  They all crouched down. There were the marks of something that might have been a horse’s hooves. Tessa sat down in the ivy. She declared that she thought she might faint, and in fact her creamy skin had paled dramatically.

  “Come on, Tessa,” Jesse urged. “It was probably some kind of joke.”

  But Tessa was so upset it was decided she would go home with Carla since Ava was out at the Independence Day party. The boys walked them through the woods, then regretfully said good-bye. Although Carla was pleased to have Tessa to herself, she worried about having her worlds collide. When she took Tessa in to meet her parents, the Kellys were wary but polite. The girls went into the living room and looked through a copy of The History of Blackwell. They found a reference to the two sisters who were said to be ghosts, both from the Starr family. They had lived in the museum when it was still a house. One was a little girl who had drowned, the other was her older sister who had run off with a horse trader. There was a hazy photograph of the elder one, whose name was Mary.

  “That’s her!” Tessa said. “I’m not kidding. She’s the one I saw tonight.” She took Carla’s hand and whispered. “It means someone will be leaving Blackwell to go on a journey. Probably me.”

  “Don’t say that!” Carla cried.

  Because it was so late Mrs. Kelly asked Johnny to drop Tessa at home on his way out to the Jack Straw Bar and Grill. She didn’t want her daughter’s friend to be wandering through the woods all alone.

  Tessa was absolutely thrilled when she saw Johnny’s motorcycle. He was in the driveway wearing boots, torn jeans, a white T-shirt. She remembered him from the time the car broke down. “Let’s go to California!” she said. “We won’t stop till we get to City Lights bookstore.”

  The idea of Johnny in a bookstore made Carla laugh out loud.

  “Who’s paying for the gas?” Johnny said in a jokey way. He was especially nice to Tessa, flattered by how thrilled she was over the prospect of getting on his motorcycle. He had never once taken Carla for a ride. “Hop on,” he said grandly.

  Tessa hugged her friend good-bye, then got on. She put her arms around Johnny when he told her to, to make sure she wouldn’t fall off once they began to soar down the bumpy road. Carla stood watching them. When her brother gunned the engine, dust rose up. Carla had grit in her eyes. He came so close when he took off he almost hit her and she’d had to jump back, heart pounding.

  Carla’s mother stepped onto the porch. There were still fireworks going off and sprays of red, white, and blue filled up the sky. Carla thought about the disappearing sisters who had once lived in the history museum. The motorcycle tore off down the street.

  “Pretty girl,” Mrs. Kelly said.

  Carla looked over at her mother, who was gazing at the fireworks display.

  “She’s the kind who will always go far.”

  CARLA WOKE UP in the middle of the night. At first she thought she heard thunder, then she realized there were still fireworks being set off, homegrown ones, cherry bombs and sparklers, the kind that always sent someone racing to the emergency room of the Blackwell Community Hospital. Carla got out of bed and got dressed. She felt restless and spooked, trapped in her little bedroom. She climbed out her window and went through the woods. Because the moon had risen, the path wasn’t as scary as usual. When she reached the edge of the woods, however, she stopped. She thought she saw the ghost weaving past the museum. She went forward, straining to see. A girl with blond hair was in the yard. Johnny’s motorcycle was up against an old oak tree.

  Carla could feel her pulse pounding. The girl disappeared into the woods, so Carla went on, following, toward the river. She felt reckless, the new her, a girl who refused to be frightened by imaginary creatures. There were still splashes of fireworks up above, and the sky was ashy and bright at the same time. She heard voices, so she slowed down a bit. When she looked over at the river, she felt her heart jolt. There was something blue on the riverbank. She thought it was the Apparition, the ghostly little sister in the blue dress, perhaps going to meet her older sister Mary. But when Carla crept closer, she saw it was only a pair of jeans. They’d been tossed onto a tangled pile of clothing. White T-shirt, boots, a black belt, a red shirt.

  Carla leaned against a tree and listened to them as they dove into the water. There was the rise and fall of their muffled, watery voices. She heard their laughter and their desire. She felt dizzy in the dark, consumed with hatred. She saw them in a still deep pool, arms around each other, kissing. The girl’s cascade of blond hair looked green in the dark. Carla’s brother looked like a stranger. They were naked in the water, wrapped around each other. He was running his hands over her breasts and she was letting him. Carla crouched down and watched the stranger who was her brother. She realized that he was fucking the blond girl. The girl arched her back, her neck. He put one hand on her throat and brought her close to him. He
kissed her until it seemed they might drown. And she kissed him back. She kissed him like crazy.

  Carla turned and ran back through the woods. It was a long way, and she was out of breath when she got home. She was shivering even though the night was hot. In the morning, she reported the incident to the other girls in town, Jennifer Starr and Madeline Hall and all the rest. She told the Mott brothers, who looked dumbfounded. Jesse said, “She wouldn’t even let me kiss her.” Once she started telling she couldn’t stop. Right before supper she told her mother, who slapped her face, then called her father home from work.

  From her bedroom Carla could hear her parents arguing with Johnny when he came home, and Johnny shouting back, then her father’s angry voice telling him to get the hell out. Johnny slammed the door and left, and they could hear his motorcycle roar away. Carla stayed in her room all the next day. That week she didn’t go to the Coopers’. She didn’t go the whole rest of the summer. She started to spend afternoons with Madeline Hall when Jennifer went to Maine with her family. Her brother gave her murderous looks, and once he said, “How does it feel to be such a bitch?” but after that he stayed clear of her, which frankly was a relief. He drank too much, and at the end of the summer he moved into a room in a house full of college students from the community college even though he didn’t know a single one. He continued to show up for work. Carla, on the other hand, had been allowed to give up her job. It would have been too uncomfortable for her to be there, considering the animosity between brother and sister.

  Once, Ava Cooper came to the Kellys’ house, carrying a cake tin. She was wearing the red blouse Tessa had been wearing on the day they moved in, the one Carla had spied on the riverbank the night she’d stumbled upon the lovers. Mrs. Kelly went out to meet Mrs. Cooper in the driveway. Carla watched through the window for a while, then she got into bed. She had a sinking, sick feeling. It was the red blouse. She hadn’t known they shared clothes. She started to feel confused about what she had seen that night. Her mother knocked on her door, then opened it.