by Cathi Bond
“Just touch it,” he groaned.
Kenneth grabbed for my hand, but I pushed him and he tumbled backwards, tripping over twisted pant legs. I jumped over the dune, back to the party.
The school bell rang. Kids pulled their coats out of their lockers and rushed for the door. Ginnie and a bunch of other kids were standing outside in a perfect circle in front of the yellow school bus, but nobody was getting on. They stood like zombies, staring at the ground. Ginnie glanced over at me with a funny mixture of shock and fascination and then she looked back into the centre of the circle. Mark’s little sister was lying face down in the dirt with her hands underneath her body. She was pumping up and down on her hands, which were tucked beneath her crotch. I didn’t know what she was doing, but it was obviously making her feel good. Everyone stood quietly and watched. Nobody laughed or teased. And then she started to moan. A teacher arrived, breaking through the circle and snatched Mark’s sister up with an angry yank.
“Disperse!”
Nobody moved. The teacher’s face was red. Mark’s sister had a strange smile. She didn’t apologize. She just turned and wandered down the road. The teacher didn’t know what to do, so he started yelling.
“Country children get on the bus! This isn’t a show! That girl needs help!”
Ginnie and I looked at one another.
“That was weird,” she said.
“No kidding.” I threw my book bag over my shoulder. Kids filed onto the bus. It was time for Ginnie to go.
“You want to come out to my place?” she asked.
I was surprised. Ginnie had been to my place for lunch and stuff, but I’d never been invited to hers before.
“You could stay for supper and my Mom could drive you home. That is, if it’s okay with your father.”
“Oh it’ll be alright. I’ll just call from your place.”
I followed her up the stairs. The bus smelled like old gum and lunches.
The Hall farm was on two hundred acres of prime land. The tilled earth, dark and loamy, stretched from the concession road to a large stand of trees that marked the end of the property. The barn was freshly painted and sparkling white, a sure sign of a prosperous farm. You can always tell a farmer’s fortunes by the state of his barn. Spic and span meant there was enough money for a frill like paint. Faded and drab sent the message that there was no money for fix ups. Holes in the roof meant the bank was getting ready to foreclose. Everything about the Hall place said good crops and healthy cattle. Both the barn and the house were white with green roofs and green trim. New shutters framed the windows and a deep green door welcomed you inside. Ginnie swung open the wide screen door. It snapped shut behind us. The kitchen smelled like Mom’s cooking. Good food. Not Rika’s chocolate sandwiches. Ginnie called out to let her mother know that she was home. This was a happy home. Ginnie asked me if I’d like anything to drink.
“Sure,” I replied, slinging my books on a chair by the door.
They’d just struck the wood when Mrs. Hall entered the room. She was an enormous woman with a jet-black beehive and pumps. Her hips were round and her calves strong and shapely. Poured into a skimpy black dress with big jangly earrings, Mrs. Hall was way too fancy to be a farmer’s wife. If my mother were still alive she would have been very polite in Mrs. Hall’s presence, but once we were in the car she’d have said, “Mrs. Hall is overdone.” It wasn’t as if she wasn’t nice to me, but there was something definitely scary about Ginnie’s mom. The moment Ginnie said she’d brought me home for dinner Mrs. Hall chucked me under the chin and said that she’d put in some extra turnip. Then she jabbed me in the stomach, saying that I could use a bit of fattening up. I flinched. I didn’t want to be fattened up. I smiled at Mrs. Hall and thanked her for the invitation.
“What time is your father expecting you home?”
“Oh jeeps! We haven’t called him yet,” Ginnie cried, pulling me towards the phone.
I knew there wouldn’t be a problem. There never was.
Ginnie and I hung out all that fall and winter and she even got me a Monkees record for my fourteenth birthday. For the first time in my life my father forgot, but my little brothers didn’t. They had Rika bake a cake and we all sang. Mom said birthdays were our own special day and important to celebrate, but Dad just forgot. Betsy and Sandy weren’t much better. They’d vanished into boyville and we only saw them in class. Kenneth still asked me out, but after a while he gave up and just mooned at me with his cow eyes. Ginnie was more fun than I first thought and it was nice spending time at her place, even though her mother made me do chores.
“Don’t you girls come back unless both baskets are full,” Mrs. Hall said, handing us each a wicker basket.
“Yes, Mrs. Hall,” I replied, always very careful to be polite.
Mrs. Hall was taking fresh, white sheets down from the line. Mom used to do that, and they always smelled like the wind.
The henhouse was located in a white clapboard shack corralled by a new green fence. A proud orange rooster stood on the gate and crowed. Ginnie and I walked down the path with baskets over our arms. It was late April and the weather was unseasonably warm.
“Watch your head,” Ginnie said, ducking as she entered the coop.
Ginnie began gathering eggs. It looked easy enough. I reached towards the chicken, but the second I touched the feathers the bird’s beak came down on my hand with a vicious peck, drawing a tiny bead of blood.
“Hey!” I yelled.
The hens started clucking. I backed up towards the door, but Ginnie told me to follow her and watch closely. When the chickens settled down she told me to try it again.
My hand still stung. “I don’t think so.”
“Chicken?” she asked, tickling me.
“No. I just don’t want to get pecked to death.”
She tickled me again, making me wriggle and laugh.
“I’ll protect you. Don’t you trust me?”
“I don’t know. You’ve got killer chickens.”
“Give me your hand.”
Ginnie grabbed my hand and stepped close behind me. She smelled like sunshine and grass. My body went warm and my head was swimmy.
“Let me guide it.”
A red hen looked up from her nest.
“You have to be really quick. If they don’t know what’s happening, they don’t miss the egg. Ready?”
“Okay.”
Together our hands thrust forward, under the feathers, and then the warm egg rested in my hand.
“Don’t break it,” Ginnie whispered in my ear.
The white egg nestled in the palm of my hand.
In a half-hour we’d filled both baskets and were walking back up the lane towards the house.
“That was fun,” I said.
The sky glowed red with the embers of day.
“I’d like to do it again.”
“This Saturday Dad’s going to burn the brush on the back forty and I’ve got to help. Do you want to come out in the morning and stay over?”
Mrs. Hall emerged from the front door, her big breasts leveled like missiles.
“Get in the car, Maddy. It’s late.”
Ginnie and I ran towards the shiny new white Buick.
“Is it okay if Maddy stays over next weekend?”
Mrs. Hall paused. “Your father’s going to need you.”
Oh no.
“That’s why Maddy’s going to come out. She’ll come in the morning and help for the rest of the day.” Ginnie turned to me and smiled. “Right? You’ll do the eggs.”
“If it’s okay with you,” I added, smiling my warmest, most polite Gillespie smile at Mrs. Hall. Her lip curled as she considered it, assessing me as she did her home and her makeup. Was there a flaw?
“As long as she pulls her weight,” Mrs. Hall said, settling into the driver’s side. “Now do as I say and get in the car.”
I ran to the passenger door and didn’t even realize I’d left my schoolbooks in the kitchen until Ginnie cal
led me later that night. Her place wasn’t long distance and when we weren’t hanging out together we yakked on the phone. I didn’t care about the schoolbooks.
“How are you going to study for the math final?”
I told her not to worry. I didn’t care about math. Lying in bed, gazing at the stars, I had a terrible urge to go up into the attic and look out of my telescope to see if I could see Ginnie’s farm but I stopped myself. That was a baby thing to do.
Saturday morning I galloped in and jumped on the bed. Dad was still asleep.
“Wake up!”
He pulled the covers up and over his face. “The Halls won’t mind if you’re there after lunch.”
I hit him with the pillow. “Come on. Get up!”
Dad got dressed, prepared a cup of instant coffee and we got in the car, heading out the back concession road. I was so excited. Dad took a sip from the mug and looked over at me.
“How are things at school?”
Since when did he ask about school?
“How are your friends?”
Like he cared. “Fine.”
“People out here can be a bit backward…”
I looked at the clock on the dash. It was already a few minutes after nine and Mrs. Hall might not let me stay if I didn’t pull my weight.
“Can you please hurry Dad? I don’t want to be late.”
The car picked up speed. He took another sip of coffee.
“I’m going to stay in the city this weekend. There’s a dance in Toronto.”
“What kind of dance?”
“A doctors’ dance,” he replied, a smile spreading across his face.
The Olds pulled into the drive. Mr. Hall’s field truck was out by the barn. They hadn’t left yet, which meant I could still burn something. I set my suitcase on the front porch and ran down the lane.
Ginnie and I sat on the humming wheel wells in the rear of Mr. Hall’s cherry red pickup. The truck roared across the field so fast I thought we might flip. Mr. Hall was a tall, quiet man with short grey hair, neatly shorn about the ears. He always wore clean overalls and a snappy blue fedora, but the devil got a hold of him when he drove. Mr. Hall struck a hole. I bounced off the wheel well. Ginnie grabbed me by the waist and pulled me down beside her, holding me tight.
The pickup up squealed to a stop. Mr. Hall told us to gather all the loose brush from the edge of the bush and collect the branches that had drifted over the fields. It was crucial to get everything off the ground because a loose stick could damage a harrow or a plough, so farmers took special care of their fields. Ginnie and I threw armload after armload of brush into the flames, watching the embers fire up into the bright blue sky and then float back down to earth. It was a red hot day and pure hell by the fire. Sweat rolled down my back and I thought I was going to pass out. I’d never worked so hard, but Ginnie was barely winded. She just moved ahead of me, sweeping the branches up into her arms and tossing them back into the fire. She was whistling and teasing me about being a city slicker.
“What?” I yelled over the fire. “My grandfather is one of the biggest cattlemen in this country.”
She poked me in the stomach. “You’re soft.”
I laughed, pushing back, “We’ll see who’s soft.”
I started to tickle her and we dropped our branches and began to wrestle. Ginnie fell down, pulling me with her. We were rolling around in the earth when her Dad picked us both up by the belt loops, telling us to stop horsing around.
It was a little after one when we’d finished burning the brush and gathering eggs, and I was starving.
“Do you girls want to go for a picnic?” Mrs. Hall asked. “You could take Maddy down by the pond. It’s a nice afternoon.”
The Hall cow pond was at the far end of the property. A herd of Holsteins grazed under a stand of maples to avoid the midday sun. Ginnie and I finished eating and started tossing rocks into the water, trying to sink a lily pad.
“You want to go for a swim?” she asked.
“It’s too cold.”
Ginnie stripped down to her underwear. Her bra and panties were both white with tiny pink flowers.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in?”
“No.”
“The cows don’t use it other than to drink. It’s too deep,” Ginnie said, stepping in. “Are you afraid?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” I replied, rolling over on my side, pushing my hair off my face.
I paused, looking deep into the green, searching for a four-leaf clover. There was a splash and then nothing. When I looked up Ginnie had disappeared. Her body glided beneath the surface. When she came up her blond hair was dark and slick. She smiled as I stripped off my clothes.
“Where’s your underwear?”
“I don’t wear any.”
Later we were lying on the blanket looking up at the clouds talking about boys.
“Are you going to get back with Kenneth?”
She ran her fingers through her hair. I leaned over to pull out a tangle.
“He really likes you,” she said.
“He likes sex. That’s why he likes me.”
She sat up.
“You haven’t –”
“I would never do that. Not until I was married. And besides I don’t think I’m going to get married. I plan on having adventures.”
“I bet you will,” Ginnie replied quietly, falling back down, looking up at the sky.
I sat up. I had a great idea. “You could come with me. We could go to Australia.”
She smiled. “I couldn’t leave the farm.”
I fell back down. It was true. Every bit of Ginnie was tied to this place. She was like Granddad. They’d take her away from Wellington County in a box one day.
“I’m going to have a life before I die,” I remarked to myself and to Ginnie.
“You’re not going anywhere soon, are you?” she asked, her fingers reaching up to tuck a tumble of damp hair behind my ear.
“This is what you call an ensuite,” Mrs. Hall said, giving me a tour of the master bedroom. “It’s French for bathroom.”
Mom had put one in years ago, but never gave hers a name.
“It’s lovely.”
We passed a guest room, a playroom and a small office where Mrs. Hall did the farm books. Ginnie’s and her sister Victoria’s rooms were on the third floor. It reminded me of climbing the stairs in Granddad’s house. Ginnie’s room had a four-poster spindle bed, thick blue carpeting and matching drapes. There was a dresser and not room for much more. I slipped out of my clothes, into my nightgown and under the sheets, moving next to Ginnie. I wanted to feel her next to me. I didn’t know why, but I thought I’d go crazy if I didn’t.
“You girls get to sleep!” Mrs. Hall called up the stairway.
“Okay, Mom!” Ginnie called back, turning off her bedside lamp. “Are you tired?”
“Not really.”
I stared at the ceiling, thinking about how Ginnie would go to sleep and the night would end. There had to be a way to make it last.
“You want to play a game?” I asked.
“Like what?”
“Why don’t we try sleeping with our heads at the foot of the bed? We can see how it feels.”
“Okay.”
We swung our bodies around and tried out the new angle.
“What do you think of the ceiling from down here?”
“It’s pretty good, but the light will be in my eyes when I wake up,” Ginnie replied. “Let’s lie across the bed.”
Our legs hung over the edge of the bed and we both laughed. Victoria yelled for us to be quiet. Ginnie got out of bed and padded over and quietly shut the door. When she got back in I had another idea.
“Why don’t we roll up and down the bed?”
“Who’s going to go first?”
“No, we’ll roll together. Like we’re one person. Want to try?”
There was a pause in the dark and then Ginnie said, “Okay.”
I put my arm out and she rolled into me. I could feel her whole weight pressing down on me, the sweetness of her hair and the smell of fire on her skin. I gasped for a second and then we started to slowly roll. Fourteen-year-old legs and arms and nightgowns wrapped around. Two bodies rolling as slowly as they could because when it ended it would be time to go to sleep. When it stopped I was lying on top of her, looking down. I could see her eyes wide open in the near blackness. I knew it wasn’t right, I knew it was supposed to be with a boy, but I couldn’t help myself. I kissed Ginnie before she could say no and then she kissed me back. We didn’t take our clothes off. We didn’t need to.
I was addicted to Ginnie Hall, and for one incredible summer I think she was hooked on me too. We never talked about what we did, but the moment the lights went off, we were in one another’s arms, rocking our bodies until they exploded. Then we’d fall asleep in a happy rumpled heap and wake up staring at each other. I would have been happy if I died then. It was like swimming in a cloud or floating in the softest grass. It felt like nothing I could compare it to, and I couldn’t get enough.
That Labour Day weekend Ginnie and I drove into Toronto with her parents to see the CNE. Mr. Hall was showing cattle in the Coliseum and Mrs. Hall was off to the Better Living Centre. Ginnie and I were on the Alpine Way Sky Ride, a series of tiny primary-coloured two-seater cars that ran along suspension wires criss-crossing the entire fair. Our car was canary yellow with matching plastic seats. People lined up beneath us to play a giant wheel.
I stood up and pointed. “There’s the Crown and Anchor! When we get down, let’s spin it.” The movement made the car rock.
“Mom says they’re rigged and that I’m not to waste my money.”
Ginnie was likely right but it still might be fun. The only games I’d ever been allowed to play were Fish and Bobbing for Apples. A little boy ran up the midway holding a gigantic blue bear while somebody dressed like Sir John A. Macdonald tottered by on a pair of stilts. The line-up for the Flyer stretched all the way around to the back of the rollercoaster. Cars slowly rattled their way to the top and then screams rang out as the riders plummeted down the steep vertical slope, brakes squealing as the cars ricocheted around the terrifying turns and began to climb again. Ginnie squeezed my hand.