by Amy Reed
The air feels strange today. Heavy. Wet. Full of electricity. It was hotter than it should have been when I woke for my early shift at the barn, the air already soupy and oppressive even though the sun wouldn’t rise for another hour. The animals were acting strange, skittish, more vocal than usual. In the rest of the world, they might call this earthquake weather. But the earth never moves here.
At breakfast, Sadie asks where I was this morning. I try to explain how I work early, how Doff and I trade mornings to wake up before dawn to collect eggs and let the animals out. She looks at me like I’m speaking a different language.
“I’ve been up for almost three hours already,” I tell her. She blinks and takes a bite of toast.
“So, are you going to move back in or what?” she says.
“Oh,” I mumble. “Uh.” I hadn’t even considered it.
“Just spit it out.”
“I don’t think so,” I say. My chest tightens.
“That’s what I thought you were going to say,” Sadie says, looking down.
“I kind of like having my own space. It’s like my own apartment or something, you know?”
“And the location isn’t bad,” she mumbles into her coffee.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know.”
“What? Living next to Dylan? I’m done with him, Sadie. Really. You walked in on the very last kiss I’m ever going to give him.”
She flinches a little, as if the thought of me kissing him disgusts her. “Why?” she says.
“I started to realize that the more I got to know him, the less I liked him. Believe me, he was much more attractive when he was just pretty and mysterious.” This makes her laugh a little. “It was much easier to objectify him.”
“Yeah,” she says, smiling sadly. “It sucks when they become, like, real people.”
“Totally.”
She takes another bite of toast and a sip of coffee. It’s so unlike her to be silent, to sit there not talking when I know she has something to say. Finally, she looks up and says, “So you don’t want to move back in with me?”
I could just say yes. I could do what Sadie wants. I could avoid the conflict altogether.
But maybe I can’t do that anymore.
“I’m on such a different schedule than you,” I say. “You don’t want me waking you up at 4:30 every other morning, do you? You don’t want me telling you to be quiet because I go to bed so early. You’d hate living with me right now, trust me.”
Sadie’s eyes fill with tears. “I just miss you, Max,” she says.
“I miss you too.” I get up and walk around the table to sit next to her. I put my arms around her, feel her familiar shape so perfect against me, as if we used to be connected like this in some former life.
“What about Skyler?” I say. “I thought she was your new best buddy.”
“Very funny,” Sadie sniffles. I squeeze her and let go. She looks at me with a slight grin, a trace of warmth returning to her face. “Have you noticed she’s started talking like me?”
“I tend to not listen when she speaks,” I say.
“Yeah, me neither.”
“That poor girl.” We laugh a little, and it feels good even if it is a little mean.
“Can we hang out tonight?” Sadie says, resting her head on my shoulder.
“Just us?” I say. “No mini-me?”
“I’ll tell Skyler to scram.”
“She’ll be heartbroken.”
“She’s young. She’ll get over it.”
Sadie wraps her arms around me and squeezes surprisingly hard for someone so hung over.
“I love you, Max.”
“I love you too.” In this moment, I feel all our thirteen years of friendship all at once, and it is so much bigger than the last few weeks.
• • •
The animals are weird all day, and the air never loses its heavy feel, but I feel lighter, even happy. I’m excited to hang out with Sadie tonight. I’m excited to have my best friend back. Doff says a storm is coming, so we make sure to secure everything in case of strong winds.
“You’re humming,” Doff says as I’m tying up some rope.
“I am?”
“Yep. You’re even smiling.”
“Uh oh, I better stop.”
He chuckles softly, but it’s enough to rouse Che and Biafra from their naps on the floor. They lift their heads and wag their tails, looking at Doff expectantly, as if hoping for more laughter. “You and Sadie must have made up,” Doff says.
“How’d you know we were fighting?”
He smiles and shrugs. He goes back to stacking tools.
I work fast so I get done with my chores early. I’m looking forward to showering, then meeting Sadie by the lake so I can work on getting rid of this farmer’s tan.
But right as I am thinking this, I see him, just past some bushes, on a trail that leads to a part of the farm I never go. He is talking with Old Glen, far enough away that I can’t hear what they’re saying. I have the immediate impression that they don’t want to be seen, so I hide behind a tree and watch.
Old Glen’s face is twisted in anger, his shoulders leaning forward, like those of an animal getting ready to fight. I can’t make out the words, but I can hear enough to know he’s yelling, his voice like violent jabs in the air. Dylan throws his hands up in surrender, his eyebrows arched in apology. I can read the words on his lips: “Sorry, man,” over and over, while Old Glen lays into him. Then Old Glen shoves him, pushing Dylan into the spikes of a blackberry bush. Dylan doesn’t fight back, just hides his face with his hands, suddenly a little kid, waiting for it to be over.
Old Glen steps back, drops his hands, lets out a big sigh, and shakes his head. He’s talking softly now, trying a new tactic of persuasion. Dylan looks up sheepishly, nods a few times, then Old Glen smiles and slaps him on the back like they’re old pals, like nothing happened.
I can’t watch any more. It seems like everywhere I turn, there is some new revelation that leaves me disgusted. With Dylan, with this place, with myself. I want to take a shower. I want to be clean and lie on a blanket with my best friend and talk about meaningless crap. Is that too much to ask?
I try to avoid people on my way to the shower. I go around the back of the house instead of through it or by the patio. But I run into Lark, and she tells me my dad called and wants me to call him back. Of course everyone I don’t want to talk to suddenly wants to talk to me.
There is nothing better than getting clean after you’ve been covered in sweat and dirt and shit for eight hours. My shower is miraculous. I feel the day wash off me, and I start feeling hopeful again. Sadie said she’d go to town today and pick up some magazines and nail polish for our afternoon by the lake, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than paint my toenails and make fun of celebrities.
But when I step out of the shower, there he is. I did not hear him come in, but here is Dylan, standing in front of me with his shirt off. The bruise on his face has lightened and turned yellow around the edges. His forearms are scratched and bleeding from his fall into the blackberry bushes. His hair is a mess, and he hasn’t shaven in days. Seeing him like this, it’s hard to remember what I found so sexy about him.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.” I am wearing only a towel. The room is too hot, too humid. “I was just leaving.”
“Stay,” he says.
I pretend not to hear him. “I saw you and Old Glen fighting.”
“So,” he says, coming closer.
“Is that who you got the black eye from?”
“That old fart? Are you kidding me?”
“Then from who?”
“You mean ‘whom’?”
“Fuck you,” I say.
He grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me to him. “If you insist,” he says.
I taste the beer on his breath. I feel his hands, hot and forceful. I feel the air heavy around us, pushing us closer. A familiar fe
eling returns, the dizzying combination of anger and desire, and I realize there is only a very fine line between caressing and scratching, between kissing and biting.
His hand finds its way under my towel, between my legs. Our breathing sounds like animals panting. I could just let go. I could let him do whatever he wants with me. It’s not like I wouldn’t enjoy it. Is that what really matters in the end? Is pleasure the ultimate goal? Do things like love and respect and whether or not you even like someone just get in the way?
No. I refuse to believe that. My body cannot make my decisions. My body does not consider how I’d feel afterward, how I’d feel during, how I’d feel knowing the person touching it doesn’t care about anything besides my skin, that I don’t care about anything besides his.
“Stop,” I say.
I feel the smile in his kiss. He thinks I am kidding. He pushes me against the steamy wall. I feel the slime of mildew on my back. He kisses me harder. He thinks my resistance is a game.
“I mean it,” I say. I push him away. He looks at me, unbelieving.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No,” I say. “I’m serious.”
He laughs. He laughs like I am the biggest fool he’s ever seen. “You fucking coward,” he says. “You little bitch.”
His words shatter me. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
“You think you’re so good you’re worth saving?” he snarls. “No one’s that good.” He stumbles out, shirtless, leaving me shivering, cold for the first time in weeks.
I focus on my breath. I breathe until I stop shaking. My mind is blank but my whole body feels like lead, like my veins are full of it, like I weigh a million pounds. I dress in slow motion, feeling every millimeter of movement. The only thought I’ll allow into my head is the promise to Sadie that I’d go swimming with her this afternoon. We made a date, and I can’t break it. When I am dressed, I take a deep breath. I do my best to relax my face, to erase the fear and hurt Dylan stamped on it. I walk into the sunlight. I see thick gray clouds far off in the distance. The bugs are buzzing louder than usual.
As soon as I meet Sadie on her side of the lake, she notices something wrong. I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want to complicate our fragile peace. “Let’s get in the water,” I say before she has a chance to say anything. I can tell I am on the verge of tears. But if I cry, the lake will hide it.
I swim hard and long, until all I can feel is the burning in my lungs and arms and legs. I feel pleasantly exhausted as we float on our backs, and I think this may be the end of the pain for a while. Maybe if I keep myself as physically busy as possible, I won’t have the energy to feel anything else.
But Sadie’s not that easily tricked. As soon as we get comfortable on the blanket, she says, “Something’s up with you. I can tell.”
I have to tell her something, so I tell her about seeing Dylan and Old Glen fighting. I pretend it shook me up. I think it is something safe to talk about, something that has absolutely nothing to do with me.
“Oh, that’s all?” She laughs. “Max, you’re so cute.”
Fuck you too, Sadie.
“They’re growing weed, you know,” she says. “They were probably fighting about that.”
“What?” I say. She announces this all so coolly, as if it’s not even news.
“That’s what they’re doing all the time, where Dylan goes off to. That’s what his job is here. He’s the salesman.”
“How do you know this?”
“He told me.”
“When?”
“I don’t know,” Sadie says. “Sometime the other day?”
I am numb. I have no more room for feelings.
“So that’s how he got his black eye?” I say slowly. “In some drug deal?”
“Probably,” Sadie says, flipping through a magazine. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me about that.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Why not? Have you taken a good look at these people?”
“I thought they just grew vegetables.” As soon as I say it, I know how stupid I sound.
“You really think they could support three dozen people with a few acres of vegetables?”
“Where do they grow it?”
“You know that big gray shed out past the east pasture? The one that’s almost as big as the barn, with all the solar panels on top? In there.”
“Inside? Like with grow lights?”
“Yeah.”
For some reason, this bothers me more than the fact that they’re growing drugs—that they’re doing it unnaturally, with artificial lights. “But this is a farm,” I say.
“Max, you don’t really expect them to grow several thousands of dollars’ worth of pot plants outside, do you?”
“I thought that was a tool shed.”
“A tool shed with an electric fence and barbed wire?” Sadie laughs. “You’re so naive, it’s adorable.”
“Stop saying that.” I am angry. I am fuming.
“What?”
“That I’m adorable. That I’m cute.”
“But you are. It’s a compliment.” She’s confused. She doesn’t understand why I’d find this offensive. I look at her sitting there, cross-legged in her bikini, her tiny belly squished into unflattering folds. She is relaxed and temporarily unconcerned with her bad posture and ugly sun hat. In this moment, she is mine. Maybe she can’t read my mind. Maybe she doesn’t know me perfectly. But Sadie loves me, and right now, that is the only thing I have.
So I distract myself with magazines. We find out what fashions women are supposed to be wearing this season, what stupid things beautiful people are saying, what new diet is going to make us lose ten pounds in three days, what’s happening in Hollywood. Somewhere between here and there is the real world, the place we used to live, but I am quickly forgetting what it looks like.
Παυδώρα
PANDORA
Prometheus was punished for being too kind. He did not steal fire from the gods; he simply retrieved it. He was the celestial Robin Hood, returning something useful to the poor people who needed it. But Zeus had no tolerance for the destitute, no tolerance for handouts. So he created women to punish mankind for their hero’s socialist leanings.
And so she was born, the first woman, molded out of water and earth. Beauty was her lure, and evil was her dowry. Such was the legacy of women.
And just like Eve, she was curious, not a becoming trait for a woman. What hubris it was to think for herself, to wonder, to do contrary to what she was told; what a crime to want to know what was in that famous box. In a moment of defiance, she opened it, releasing all the evil into the world. It spilled over the land like storm clouds; it darkened the sky black. The acrid smoke seeped into every pore of every soul, infecting mankind with a filth that could never be washed off.
This is what made her famous: her illicit box; that dirty, forbidden thing.
But no one ever talks about what was at the bottom of the box, hidden under layers upon layers of future suffering. With the storm clouds thrashing in the sky grabbing all the attention, no one noticed the tiny pearl of light that remained at the bottom, the little crumb of hope like a lonely afterthought.
But shame is stronger than hope, and of course the first woman invented that, too.
“They’re saying it’s going to be a tornado,” Old Glen announces calmly at dinner, which we’re eating inside the cramped living room because the wind is blowing so hard outside. The room starts chattering. Adults comfort worried children.
“Ooh, a tornado!” Sadie says excitedly, as if he just announced her favorite band was coming to town.
Old Glen goes over the instructions for what everyone needs to do to prepare: take down the solar panels; tie down everything you can; come back to the main house as soon as possible; and whatever you do, don’t stay in the yurts, trailers, and cabins, because they’ll be the first thing a twister picks up. The adults nod knowingly. Doff and I make eye co
ntact, and I know he will stay with the animals through the storm. His smile tells me not to worry.
Lark flits by and puts her arms around us. “Don’t worry, girls,” she says. “Everything’s going to be fine. This is totally normal. Happens a couple times every summer.” Somehow I’m not convinced.
As everyone leaves to get ready, Lark squeezes my shoulder. “Your dad called again,” she says. “He says it’s important. You might want to call him before the phone lines go down.”
“You go check on the trailer while I call my dad,” I tell Sadie. “Make sure everything’s secure.” This is what I’m good at—telling her what to do in an emergency. She nods and slumps out the door with all the others who are running to outsmart a tornado.
The house is empty and silent, but I can see everyone running around outside, like a movie with the sound turned off. I sit in the corner where the phone is and call my house. I hold my breath, praying no one will pick up. I’m more scared of this phone call than I am of the tornado.
Dad answers on the first ring. “Hello?” he says. His voice sounds desperate. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling he’s been sitting by the phone in the kitchen all day, staring at it, waiting for it to ring.
“Dad?” I say. “It’s me.”
“Oh, Max,” he says, sounding relieved. “I’m so glad it’s you.”
“Who else would it be?”
“Oh,” he says. “Well.”
“Dad, what is it? What’s so important?” I decide not to tell him about the tornado. I don’t want to make this conversation any longer than it has to be.
He doesn’t say anything for a while. I can hear the phone line crackling, like the wind of the storm is blowing through the wires.
“Dad?” The wind is picking up, blowing bigger things around outside. A plastic chair clatters across the deck. Small waves lap at the shore of the lake.
“Your mom,” he says, and everything stops for a moment. The wind stops blowing, people freeze midstride, birds float still in the air. I suddenly have no legs. I can’t feel anything past my rib cage. The bottom half of me has been sucked into the earth, and I can feel it falling even though the rest of me is sitting right here.