Starcarbon

by Ellen Gilchrist

  “I bought you something in Montana,” Bobby said. “But I’m afraid to give it to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m afraid you won’t like it.”

  “What is it then?”

  “I wish I hadn’t brought it up.” He held on to the steering wheel with both hands. He looked straight ahead. “Okay, look in the glove compartment. It’s in the sack in a box. See that package there?”

  “Morrell’s Jewels and Furs?”

  “Yeah. Go on. Open it. I don’t care if you don’t like it.”

  Olivia took the ring box out of the sack. Then, very, very carefully she opened it. “Oh, Bobby. Oh, God, what is this? I don’t believe it. This is for me?”

  “If you want it. It’s to ask you to marry me. Will you marry me? I want you to marry me. I’ll work for you and go to school. I’ll take care of you my whole life. It’s all I have to offer, Olivia. Just what you see. Well, what do you think?”

  “I think it’s the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen in my life. I love it.” She lifted out the ring and put it on her finger.

  “Do you want to marry me?”

  “I want to. You know I want to. But I don’t know if I can. We’re not old enough to get married. People our age can’t get married, just like that.”

  “If they love each other, they can.”

  “I’ll be engaged to you. Is that enough? Because I love you, Bobby. And I love this ring.”

  “Then keep on wearing it. Hell, it cost a month’s wages, but if I win the Futurity in Fort Worth it’ll pay for that and lots of other things. I’m going to ride this great mare of Tom’s. I trained her. She’s good enough. I promised Tom I’d meet him there in December. Hell, you can go with me and meet them. They’d love to meet you. When you get time you ought to read Tom’s books. I’ve got them all in the trailer. He gave me a whole set of them.”

  “I want to wear this ring, Bobby. And I want to be your girl. But I don’t know about getting married. It’s going to be a long time before I want to do that. Does that make you mad? Are you mad at me?”

  “No. Hell, no. Come over here. Come over close to me.” He pulled her to his side and they drove the rest of the way to Baron Fork plastered to each other’s sides. Every now and then Olivia would hold the ring up into the air and look at it, then fold her hand back down into her lap. She felt guilty for wearing it, strange and compromised and guilty. Dad would die if he knew this was going on, she was thinking. Andria’d have something cynical to say. Get out of the Romance Novel section. That’s what she says about anyone who’s in love. But I don’t care. He’s mine, he’s my boyfriend. I love him. I’m sick of being lonely. I’m sick of being alone all the time. I bet Andria’d change her mind in a heartbeat if Bland Neville asked her to go steady. She’s just waiting for someone with some money. Well, Bobby will have money someday. Money didn’t do me any good in Chapel Hill. That’s the most miserable I’ve ever been in all my life.

  They turned off at the entrance to the lake and drove down a gravel road to the high white fences of Baron Fork Ranch, a six-thousand-acre horse farm owned by an absentee landlord from New York State. The place was managed by Bobby’s uncle Kayo, and, ever since they were young teenagers, Bobby and Olivia had had the run of it. The first time they had made love was in the master bedroom of the Baron Fork river house on the Illinois River. “What’s this horse you want me to see?” Olivia asked.

  “Studley. He’s a beauty. He’s part Thoroughbred. His great-grandfather was Native Dancer. Kayo wants to show him next month in Oklahoma City, so I’ve got to start working with him. Hell, Kayo’ll have a fit when he finds out I’m going to college. He might not let me ride in the show if he thinks that would stand in my way.”

  “You’ve got enough time to do both things. If you don’t go out drinking beer at night, you’d have time to do everything you want to. You can’t drink if you want to succeed, Bobby. I got into drinking a lot the last couple of months at school. Well, I’m through with all that. All I want to do is get a future going for myself.”

  “I hope it includes me.”

  “It does. I’ve got this ring on, don’t I?”

  “I want you to meet Sherrill someday, baby. I think you’d really like each other. She won the women’s reining last year in Denver. Well, no one’s better than you when you want to be. You could have been a star if you’d stuck with horses.”

  “I still like horses. You just wait. I didn’t lose anything. You get me a horse to ride and we’ll see. Is Straw Girl still out here?”

  “She sure is. I bet she’ll go crazy when she smells you. You two always did get along.”

  They had come to a voice-activated gate that led to the barns and Bobby called out a code and the gate opened and they drove through. Spread out before them were the pastures and hills and white fences and barns of a small empire. They parked the truck by the first barn and went inside to find Kayo.

  Half an hour later they were in an indoor ring with four steers and a radio playing country music. Olivia was sitting on the fence, her boots tucked under a rail, and Bobby was on the stallion, Studley, teaching him to work the cows. Uncle Kayo was astride a mare, backed into a corner to be out of the way.

  “Watch him, Bobby,” Kayo was saying. “See how he keeps trying to get on top of the cow. Don’t let him do that. Ride him hard. He can take it. That’s a boy.”

  “Give me a turn,” Olivia said. “I want to ride.”

  Kayo walked the mare over to the fence and dismounted and adjusted the stirrups and gave her a leg up. Then Olivia pulled herself up into the saddle and began to laugh. “Goddamn,” she said. “I haven’t been on a real horse in two years. You ought to see what they ride at my dad’s.” She pulled herself up out of her waist and dug in with her knees. Then Bobby moved to the side of the corral and Olivia began to work a cow.

  “That’s cuttin’,” Kayo said. “Goddamn, I’d forgotten how that girl can ride. Shit, Bobby, let’s let her ride Studley in Oklahoma City.”

  “Stop buttering me up,” Olivia giggled, and backed the mare into a little pirouette. Then made her kneel.

  “Try reining,” Kayo called out. “Let’s see if you still know how to rein.”

  Olivia went through a reining technique, then rode over to Bobby. “It’s too pretty to stay in here all day. Let’s ride down to the river. Can we take them on a trail ride, Kayo?”

  “You can take the mare, but leave Studley here. If he got hurt it’d be hell to pay. His great-grandfather was Native Dancer.”

  Bobby saddled a gelding and they left the corrals and rode back into the fields behind the barns. As soon as they were out of sight of Kayo they began to gallop toward the river. Olivia forgot everything now, now it was only horse and wind and sky, blue flowers in the fields, crystals, starcarbon, oxygen, and flying. A thousand times she and Bobby had ridden these fields together. Down the pastures to the woods and through the paths to the river.

  When they got to the main river house, they tied the horses to a post and went up onto the porch and lay down on two of the dusty recliners. “How did I go and leave you?” she said. “If I did it once, I might do it again. Aren’t you afraid of that, Bobby? Aren’t you afraid I’ll break your heart?”

  “No guts, no glory. Well, maybe you will. At least I have today.”

  “How did I use to keep from getting pregnant. I shudder when I think about the things we did.”

  “You used to make me take off the rubbers. You always made me take them off.”

  “I had that stupid cream I got at the drugstore. Who knows, maybe I’m one of those people who can’t get pregnant.”

  “Don’t say that. I want us to have some babies. Someday we’ll want some babies.”

  “Well, it won’t be until I’m thirty years old, I can tell you that. At least thirty. I’ll go to Planned Parenthood tomorrow and get some pills. It’s easy to get on the pill. I should have gone today.” She sat up. The sun was getting low in th
e sky. They needed to be starting back.

  “You know what I was thinking about,” Bobby said. “I was thinking about this story Tom told me about this guy named Aeneas. He was this hero who wants to find this golden bough so he can go down to the underworld and come back safely. Well, he goes through all this stuff to find the golden bough and when he gets it, you know what he wants it for?”

  “No. What?”

  “He wants to go down there and get a girl and bring her back with him. All this stuff he was doing was just for a girl. This golden bough is so special that the only one that can pick it has to be a hero, like a great quarterback or a pitcher.”

  “Or a Junior Cutting Champion. Like you, Bobby. Someone like you.”

  “I don’t know about all that, but I knew that story was right on. This guy Virgil that wrote it lived about three thousand years ago, maybe more. But it was the same way then. The way I feel about you.”

  “You are the most romantic person I’ve ever known. You know that.”

  “Romance me this then,” he said and lay down on top of her and pinned her to the chair. “Romance me those pants off.”

  “Let’s go inside then. I’m too old to make love on the porch. Let’s go in the bedroom if you want to get serious about romance. It means Roman, by the way, did you know that? It’s about being Romanesque. It doesn’t have a thing to do with fucking.”

  It was late when she got home that night. Mary Lily was sitting in a chaise reading a Harlequin Romance called Possessed by Love.

  “We went on and ate,” she said. “I didn’t know where you were and some woman’s been calling you from the school. I wrote the name down on the pad. A Mrs. Jones, she’s going to be one of your teachers. They changed the place where they’re going to have the class.”

  “Bobby asked me to marry him.”

  “What did you say?” Mary Lily put the book down on the table and heaved herself up into a standing position.

  “Well, you want to see the ring?”

  “He gave you an engagement ring?”

  “Here it is. Look at it.” Olivia held out her hand and Mary Lily took it and looked a long time at the diamond. “It’s pretty,” she said. “But it’s sort of plain, isn’t it?”

  “I might marry him some day, but, don’t worry, it will be a long time. Anyway, I’m going to wear the ring and he’s going to college with me. I want to be happy, Auntie Lily. I haven’t been happy in a long time. I’ve been so lonely. I’ve been very, very lonely and sad. I had a horrible time up there, to tell the truth. I can’t believe I stayed.” She turned a long thoughtful face to her aunt, the hand with the ring still outstretched before her.

  “Oh, honey, don’t tell me that. We missed you so much. We suffered to have you gone but I did it because I thought it was the best for you.”

  “We don’t know what we’re doing half the time, do we? I think most of the time we just knock around and don’t know what the hell we’re doing. You want to sleep with me again? Come and sleep with me. I’m tired of being alone. I want someone to be in bed with me.”

  “If you want me to. Go on in. I’ll be right behind you.” Then they turned off the lights and put the animals outside and climbed into the jungle sheets and went to sleep.

  The earth held its orbit. Gravity and electromagnetism and the weak and strong forces and the vastness of dreams held Tahlequah in its place and the night passed.

  Chapter 20

  BOSTON, Massachusetts. Helen had found a story that morning in a box of letters and receipts for repairs Anna had had done on her house in the mountains the year she left New York. The year she got sick, Helen thought, brushing her finger across the date on the story. The endocrine and the immune system are the same. That’s what Doctor Jains told us at that party. Anna knew all about medicine and science but she didn’t know about herself. Why didn’t she marry Philip? Why didn’t she go on and be happy? Because happiness can’t be based on someone else’s misery, but it can. I’m happy and I’m making Spencer unhappy by being here. No, I’m not. He’s happy as he can be down there in Charlotte hating me and being a martyr and having everyone on his side.

  “What are you reading?” Mike had come in without her hearing him. He threw his coat over a chair and leaned down and kissed her. “What’d you find?”

  “This story. It was in a box of things for the income tax. You want to read it?”

  “No. Finish it. I want to take a shower before dinner.” He kissed her again and disappeared down the hall to the bedroom. Helen settled back down against the soft pillows and kept on reading. Ever since she was in the first grade she had been reading things that Anna wrote. Everyone had thought it was a joke when Anna made her the executor, but Anna had known what she was doing. Helen was her oldest fan, the one who knew where the dreams came from.

  She began in the middle of a paragraph.

  So I got on the Concorde and flew to New York that morning and went to a hotel and waited for him. I had all the luggage from Greece and the box with cowbells and the rocks from Delphi and all the notebooks. I put on the orange dress I bought in Athens and when he came we ordered wine and made love and were sad. What else is there to say about love? It makes you sad. It isn’t like friendship or knowledge or fun. It isn’t fun, even when it pretends to be. It’s about conquest and being conquered, about pregnancy and the death of the self. The Procrustean bed. Nothing is forever and relationships don’t work. That’s how cynical I have become. And none of this will change a thing. I found my true love and I cannot have him. It’s as simple as that, and Sappho knew it and Millay knew it and Emily in her tower knew it and when that happens, it’s over. There may be a personality type that longs to inhabit a tragedy. So be it.

  So it was over, but I got on the Concorde and flew to New York and fucked him anyway.

  “This is unhappiness she is describing.” Helen had followed Mike into the bathroom and was sitting on the side of the bathtub watching him shave. “Nothing but unhappiness. I used to think Anna’s life was so exotic. I used to think she was living in some perfect world and that I had been left in Charlotte to do the work. Well, it was work, being married to Spencer. It was work trying to cheer him up. Listen to this.” She looked down at the papers she was holding.

  I had plans to hear the London Philharmonic that night. They were playing the ninth. Robert was going with me, I think, or maybe Mick. Anyway, I said, maybe I’ll come by New York on my way home. I’m thinking about it. And he said, Come here, Anna. Please come here. So I got on the Concorde and went to meet him. As soon as I got on the plane, I began to drink champagne. I was drunk by the time I got to JFK and took the free helicopter ride into the city. What a stupid thing to do. It was crowded and uncomfortable and I ended up standing out on the street for thirty minutes trying to catch a taxi.

  What else? It was a gorgeous day. A fine fall day. I can’t think when the city looked so beautiful to me, although, now, the whole city was only him. He was every inch of pavement. Every molecule, animate and inanimate, was my love for him, his love for me, our tragic affection and scattered dream.

  He came to the hotel and we lay down on the bed and I gave him one of the bells. One small bell from a chain of them. The rest of them are hanging in the apple trees in the mountains. Somewhere, if the leather hasn’t shredded yet, those bells are ringing, Greece and those lovely weeks in the Peloponnese and coming home and touching him.

  “She could wield the language.” Mike put up the razor and stepped into the shower and turned on the water. “Get in. Come in with me.”

  “No. I’ll get my hair wet. Well, I’ll go put this up.” Helen walked into the breakfast room. She stopped for a minute to inspect a vase of lilies that were losing petals. They might do another day. She leaned into the center of one, the vibrant red of the stamen. If you get it on you, you are stained for life; she had read that somewhere in Anna’s papers. What am I doing here? Helen thought. How dare I be so happy? Living in Boston, Massachusetts, with
an Irish poet, as though it were a perfectly normal thing to do, as though I have a right to do it.

  The phone was ringing. Helen let it ring four times, then picked it up. It was her son, Lynley, calling from Charlotte, wanting to know where she had put his fencing foils. “I think they’re in the attic,” she said. “I put all that stuff up there because you said you weren’t going to use it anymore. Ask your daddy. He helped me carry all that stuff up to the attic. The ornate swords are in the umbrella stand. You said I could leave them there for the little children. You know, the ones with pretty handles. Where are you, Lynley? How are things? I’ve been missing you.”

  “I need the foils for a play they’re doing at the Little Theater. Molly Harrison called and asked to borrow them.”

  “Are you going out with her again?”

  “No, she just wants to borrow the foils. Well, I better run.”

  “I miss you, Lynley. I’ve been hoping you’d call.”

  “I’m fine. See you later then.” He hung up the phone without giving her time to reply. Helen bit her lip, then picked up Anna’s story and carried it into the crowded bedroom that was her office and put a paper clip on it and dropped it into a box marked “Unpublished, Don’t Know What to Do With.” Then she went back into her bedroom and took off her clothes and climbed into the gray silk sheets of her adulterous bed and waited for her lover to come to her from his bath.