Starcarbon

by Ellen Gilchrist

  “I’m going to Northeastern this summer,” she said. “I’m going to study Navajo. I want to find Mack Crosses and get him to speak it with me. Is he still around? Is he out at his old place?”

  “I see him around,” Mary Lily said. “But he’s mostly drunk. He’s been drunk ever since his wife died. I wouldn’t fool with him if I was you. He’s just a drunk now.”

  “I want to see him anyway. I have a funny feeling about him. I think there’s a reason I have him on my mind.” She put on her knowing look. In the Wagoner household intuitive feelings were taken seriously. The Wagoners believed the world was full of things waiting to reveal themselves. They believed the world was full of messages waiting to be delivered.

  “You should go to Flaming Rainbow,” Crow put in. “That’s where they have the languages. Mrs. Harness is teaching there. I saw her last week at the farmer’s market. She told me everything they’re teaching.”

  “I forgot about Flaming Rainbow. Maybe I will. I’ll go by there tomorrow and see what they have. It would have to transfer to North Carolina. I’m not sure Flaming Rainbow would.”

  “I will call Mrs. Harness. We’ll see what she says.” Crow disappeared into the house to make the call. As soon as she was gone, Little Sun put his hand to his mouth to mean This is a secret, and said, “She’s always talking about Flaming Rainbow. I think she wants to go herself.”

  “Then she should go,” Olivia said. “Lots of older people go to school now. Why shouldn’t she?”

  “Maybe she wants to.” Little Sun smiled. “You ask her. See if she’ll go with you.”

  “It’s just for Indians,” Mary Lily said with a sigh. “They won’t take it in North Carolina.”

  “I’ll go by there tomorrow.” Olivia got up, went over to her aunt and hugged her fiercely. Mary Lily had been her mother since the day she was born. Had been her keeper, nurse, intermediary, companion, slave. “I’m sorry I didn’t come home sooner,” she said. “It was awful of me. And I didn’t write enough or anything.”

  “Young people go to seek their lives. It’s what happens now.” Little Sun made this decree and Olivia and Mary Lily nodded and accepted it. “Let’s go in now,” he added. “Your grandmother will talk on the phone for an hour. Let’s go and listen to her.”

  “Let’s go to bed,” Olivia said. “I can’t wait to sleep in my old bed. You better not have changed it. You didn’t change it, did you?”

  “It has new sheets.” Mary Lily laughed. “It was a surprise. Sheets with animals I got at Workman and Stone at a sale. I was saving them for you.”

  They went into the house and ate the rest of the biscuits and Crow reported that Mrs. Harness said anything from Flaming Rainbow would transfer anywhere, even Harvard University. Then the lights were turned off and Little Sun and Crow went into their room and began to whisper.

  Olivia went into her room, which was exactly as she had left it, only the crepe paper from a Homecoming dance was faded now and drooped where it was strung along the frame of a photograph of Olivia with the Tahlequah Indian cheerleaders. The bed had been painted a fresh new ivory color and was made up with beautiful sheets and a cover with jungle animals in a wild design. “I love my bed,” Olivia said. “It is so beautiful. Sleep here with me, Aunt Lily. I want you to. There’s room enough for both of us. Come on, get in.”

  “No. You are too big now. I have my room. I’ll see you in the morning.” Mary Lily stood in the door. Looking very old and very young.

  “I want you to sleep with me. I want to hear you breathing in the night, so I’ll know I’m really home. Come on, get on your gown. Get in with me.”

  “Okay. If you want me to.” Mary Lily smiled, a wild bright smile that only happened once or twice a week. Then she disappeared down the hall.

  Olivia put on a gown and climbed into the new sheets. She snuggled down into her bed. I was born in this house, she thought. Mom died and I was born. All that’s left of her is in this house, in Mary Lily and Grandmother and Granddaddy and me. I am always safe here, with the ghost of Momma and Mary Lily and Little Sun and Crow. It smells so good. It smells like wildflowers. It smells like home. Can you believe she got these sheets with lions and tigers on them? I can just see her down at Workman and Stone picking them out. Oh, Jessie, I wish you could be here for a day or two and know what it’s like to be loved. I wish Dad could come sometime. I wish he wouldn’t drink so much, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m here now. I don’t have to do a thing. Oh, God, I’m so glad to be home.

  Mary Lily came to the door wearing her old gray flannel gown. “Are you sure you want me to stay in here?” she asked. “Are you sure there’s room?”

  Olivia opened the covers and smiled mysteriously. “Come into the lion’s den, come and see my shining tigers. Come on, Auntie, I’ll protect you. Nothing will harm you in this jungle bed.”

  Then Mary Lily turned off the light and lay her big heavy sweet body down beside her niece and they hugged and kissed and went to sleep.

  The next morning Olivia was up with the sun. She went out into the yard and fed oats to the mare and scared up the chickens in the pen and walked down toward the orchard to see if the apple trees were bearing. On her way back to the house she saw Little Sun come out and stand in the sun. He looked powerful and tall, standing by the well in his soft brown shirt, his chest so fine and wide, his powerful face lifting from his neck like a chieftain in a painting. He turned and listened. He was looking for her but he couldn’t see that far away. He’s getting old, Olivia decided. Real, real old. I think I got here just in time. “I’m over here,” she called out. “I’m by the barn. I’m coming. I’m on my way.”

  He waved and turned in the direction of her voice. “The moon’s still up,” he called out. “Look over your shoulder.” Olivia turned to the southeast and saw the full moon sinking below the horizon. It was very white and perfectly defined. “Copernicus went to jail for saying we are moving,” she called back. “That’s one thing I learned this year.” He laughed out loud and held out his arms and she ran to him and hugged him fiercely to her breast.

  “Crow is making pancakes,” he said. “She sent me to bring you in. And Kayo called from Baron Fork. He said to tell you to come and ride the Connemaras. New ponies they got from Ireland last week.”

  “That’s all he said? Just to come and ride? How did he know I was here? Did you tell him?”

  “He said he heard you were coming.”

  “Then Bobby told him. No one could have told him but Bobby.” She took her grandfather’s arm and they walked into the house to eat the pancakes. Mary Lily was up and dressed. She was the assistant manager of the new Bonanza Restaurant and had to be there by eight every morning. “Where did I learn to walk?” Olivia asked. “When I was in the yard I remembered you showed me a place where I learned to walk. It was right by the old garden, wasn’t it? By the oak tree?”

  “You let go of my hand and walked away,” Mary Lily said. “Three steps, a very brave walk. I ran into the house and told them to come and see, but when they came you would not do it again. Two days went by. On the third day you walked again. Since then, there is no stopping you. You go wherever you wish to go.”

  “I remember doing it,” Olivia said. It was an old game she played with Mary Lily. Mary Lily would tell her things she did when she was an infant and she would pretend to have total recall of them. “You had on a blue-and-white-checked blouse and your Nocona boots.”

  “When I come home this afternoon I will take you to see the new waterfall,” Mary Lily said. “They built a dam in the park and it made a waterfall. Everyone goes there now, to see the waterfall and watch the sun go down. Would you like to see it later?”

  “If I get back. I have to spend the day getting registered for school. If I come back in time, we will.” Olivia felt guilty. Already it was starting. If she loved them, they wanted to have her every minute. “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” she added. “It might take a long time. I have to go
to Northeastern and to Flaming Rainbow.”

  “Flaming Rainbow is the best,” Crow put in. “They write about it all the time in the paper.”

  After breakfast Olivia dressed in her best skirt and blouse and walked out to her car to leave for town. Little Sun walked with her to her car. “This is a fine car you’re driving,” he said. “I haven’t seen one like this.”

  “It’s a German car, Granddaddy. It’s my dad’s car. He just let me use it for the summer.”

  “How much does this car cost?”

  “Too much. You wouldn’t want to know.”

  “Well, drive it carefully then. You have a rich life there. He gives you this fine car to drive and plenty of money.”

  “He doesn’t want me to get hurt in a wreck. I have a nephew, Granddaddy. Did I tell you that? My half sister had a baby.”

  “You have a rich life there.”

  “I have a rich life here. I’m rich in riches. But they don’t hug and kiss like you do. Their whole family is that way. Like they’re afraid of each other.”

  “Maybe they are busy.”

  “They are. They lead a pretty hectic life.”

  “They are your people if they are busy. You are never still.”

  “I hope I don’t forget how to love people. Well, I have to go. I really have to leave.” She got into the car, and drove off with him watching her. But I have forgotten, she decided. All I do all the time is be jealous of everyone and everything. All I do is think bad things about people and be glad if they make bad grades or break up with their boyfriends. I don’t want King and Jessie to be happy. I like to think they’re stuck and can’t get out. Well, I’ll do better now that I’m home. I’ll learn Navajo and maybe Spanish or German or French. Olivia stuck a CD of Madonna singing the score of the Blond Ambition tour into the CD player. She threw back her head and sang along as she cruised into town in the Mercedes.

  It was nine-thirty when Olivia got to town, and the registrar’s office at the college didn’t open until ten, so she decided to go by The Shak and see what was going on. She parked the car a few doors from the restaurant and got out and stood on the sidewalk searching in her purse for some change for the parking meter. As she lifted her head to put the dime into the meter, she saw Bobby. He was walking toward her with his hands in the pockets of his chinos. He was wearing a blue shirt and he was smiling at her as if no time had passed since the cold November afternoon when they had sat in his car by Lake Wedington and she had broken his heart. Ruthless, and cold as ice, she had sat beside him and told him she was leaving. Now he was walking toward her as if the sadness and disappointment of that afternoon had never happened. As if he loved her. (Of course I would love to hurt him, she would know later. Of course I have to pay back anyone I love for my mother’s death, wound them because she wounded me. Eye for eye, wound for wound, karma for karma. So if I take off my clothes and lie down beside a man and he makes me love him, then I must hate him for that love, despise him for making me need him, want to kill him because it would be easier to kill or die than to put up with being deserted. I CANNOT BEAR TO BE LEFT ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE, the baby Olivia was wailing, I CANNOT STAND TO BE ALONE, TO BE LEFT HERE TO DIE, TO BE DISSOLVED, TO GO BACK INTO NOTHINGNESS. WHERE ARE YOU? MOTHER, MOTHER, HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME?)

  “The piled grief scrambling like guilt to leave us,” Olivia said to herself again as she saw Bobby. It was part of a poem her English teacher had given them the year before. It had struck her like an arrow to read that poem. She had read it over and over again. Had memorized it without trying.

  Then he was there beside her, so close she could hear him breathing.

  “How’s it going?” he asked. “You look great, baby. You really look fine.”

  “I thought you were in Montana.”

  “I was, I came here because I heard you were coming. Listen, baby, I tried to call you back in March. I tried three or four times, but your machine said you were in Florida and I got pissed off and didn’t leave a message. I figured you were with some guy. Anyway, I want you to know that.”

  “Okay. How was it in Montana? What did you do up there?”

  “I told you when I talked to you. This guy Macalpin and his wife practically adopted me. We’ve been training cutting horses. He’s got a big spread.”

  “Aren’t you a little old to be adopted?”

  “Not me, baby. I need all the help I can get. Hey, you want to eat breakfast with me? I’m starving. Come on, let’s go eat.” He reached down and took her elbow. He looked down into her eyes and the old stuff started happening. Right there, on the sidewalk in front of The Shak, with everyone who walked by watching, and the June heat falling all around them. In a moment, in the time it takes a nineteen-year-old heart to beat, Olivia was not alone anymore. She had been sixteen when she left Tahlequah. Now she was almost twenty and Bobby was twenty-two and nothing had changed between them. When he touched her arm it was hot hot light all along her arms and up and down her legs and in her pussy and in her breasts. It was all the moments they had spent alone on beds or in Bobby’s car or in a tent beside the river or upon a blanket on the summer’s grass. Am I awake or sleeping? Olivia wondered. Is this waking up or going back to sleep?

  Bobby took her arm and led her into the café.

  “So how are your rich relatives in Carolina?” he asked later. The waitress had brought them waffles and bacon and syrup. Fresh-squeezed orange juice and thick black coffee. Olivia poured syrup over her waffle and watched it soak in. “They’re crazy,” she said. “They all drink too much. My sister Jessie had a baby. She keeps breaking up and making up with this guy she married. He’s our third cousin. She never should have married him. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just spoiled to death. They had this real cute little baby. They call him K.T. I just saw him. I went there before I came here. They were getting along okay this week. To tell the truth, it made me jealous. You look great, Bobby. You really do. You really look good.”

  “I’m doing great. This guy, Macalpin, and his wife were really good to me. I told them all about you. They knew your aunt, the one that killed herself. She and Macalpin used to teach together. They used to go someplace to teach in the summers. Some writer’s camp.” Bobby stopped, took a bite of his waffle. Then very very politely he lay his knife and fork across his plate and reached for Olivia’s hand. “I miss you, baby. I been missing you every minute of every day. It’s like missing you was part of my life.”

  “Don’t tell me that. You’ve had fifty girls since me.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I want to lie down with you.”

  “So do I. What time is it? Don’t you want your waffle?”

  “It’s ten-fifteen. You want to go?”

  “Okay. I’ve already eaten breakfast anyway. I just got this to keep you company. Where can we go?”

  “We can go to my place. Dad moved into a house. He’s living with this lady that runs the tourist bureau. Sharrene Barrett. You might know her son, Jimmy. He was in your class.”

  “He was a linebacker.”

  “That’s the one. Olivia.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin, then folded it and put it beside his plate. Everyone in The Shak was watching them but they didn’t know or care.

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Okay.” They stood up and Bobby put a ten-dollar bill on the table underneath the salt shaker and turned and spoke to the owner, who was standing beside the cash register. “We’re going, Bill. I left some money on the table.”

  “Nice to see you,” the owner said. “Glad you’re back in town.”

  They walked out onto the sidewalk. The sun was blinding now, pouring down hydrogen and helium upon the earth, filling every corner with its bounty. Olivia and Bobby got into her car and the seat belts clamped down upon them and they began to drive down the sundrenched streets, sunlight pouring down upon them and old sun burning in the engine of the
car. “The old trailer’s out in the yard beside the house,” Bobby said. “I cleaned it up. I’ve been sleeping out there most of the time to stay out of Dad and Sharrene’s way. You want to go out there? There isn’t any air conditioning, but I’ve got a fan.”

  “That’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Anywhere you want to go. Tell me where to turn. Where are we going?”

  “It’s over behind the high school on Plum Street, over where Cindy Witt used to live. Go down Hill.”

  “I can’t believe you’re here. God, I was so glad to see you. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you on the sidewalk.”

  “So what have you been doing in North Carolina?”

  “Well, I haven’t been fucking anybody, if that’s what you mean. Have you got a rubber?”

  “Yeah, I do.” He reached over and put his hand on her thigh and he kept it there while she drove down Hill Street past the high school to Plum Street. “Hey, baby,” Bobby said. “Remember that night we broke into the school and fixed that stuff on the computer? That was a night.”

  “I don’t want to think about that, Bobby. That’s behind me. This psychiatrist I went to told me not to worry about it. I was just doing what I had to do. I don’t do anything like that anymore. I live intelligently now.”

  “That’s it, baby. That white house with the truck in the driveway. See the old trailer. It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?” Olivia parked the car behind the truck and turned off the ignition. Bobby got out and came around and opened the door for her and helped her out of the car and took her arm and they walked to the trailer and he opened the door and held it open for her. “Your pleasure, madam,” he said. “What can we do to please you?”

  In the back room of the trailer there was a mattress on the floor covered with quilts and piles of clothes and a suitcase and a saddle and a pair of boots with spurs. “I’m sorry about this mess,” he said. “I was going to clean it up later.”