by T. Greenwood
Because I was already in too deep, I reached for her tiny little foot. Maggie closed her eyes as I worked at the knots in her feet. I pressed my thumb into her arch, watched her back stiffen.
“There wasn’t anybody waiting for you in Canada,” I said. “Your ticket only went as far as Two Rivers.” I let go of her foot and swallowed hard. “And I want to know what it is that you want from me.”
Maggie didn’t say anything. She leaned her head back, eyes closed, rolling her neck like she was just trying to get a crick out.
I held onto her foot, aware of every small bone.
After a while, when the silence was almost excruciating, she opened her eyes, looked square at me and said, “I got raped.”
I let go of her foot as if I’d been burned.
“Nobody knows. They all think I went and got myself knocked up the usual way. And so now nobody wants nothin’ to do with me anymore. Not my auntie, not even my daddy. I ain’t got nobody in the world except for a big brother I never met. I came here looking for him.”
1968: Fall
T his is the way a body falls. It is not the slow, gentle collapse you’d expect. No quiet yielding. No gentle acquiescence.
The man resists. After the first strike, his limbs flail madly and he stumbles about as if he were only drunk. He lunges toward Brooder, who raises the weapon over his head again and strikes a second time.
Harper feels the sour taste of whatever it was he last managed to eat rising into his throat. Burning. He stares at his hands, which are gripping the dashboard of Ray’s car.
“Jesus Christ,” Ray says. “What the fuck?”
Harper squeezes his eyes shut, pretending that he is watching a movie. That what he sees through the windshield is only a projection, only vivid pictures on a screen. The drive-in movie theater. A Technicolor nightmare.
Ray rolls down the window and leans his head out. “Hey, man, that’s enough!”
And then Brooder is staring back at them, as if he has completely forgotten they are there. He is both looking at them and past them. Entirely lucid but, at the same time, completely absent.
Harper’s back tenses as Brooder raises his arm one more time, and the man circles him, swaying dumbly.
With this strike, the man goes down. The descent is both fast and loud. The body yields, but the ground beneath him does not. Harper presses his hands against his ears, anticipating the moans of the very earth as it catches him.
F OUR
Inside the House of Me
W ithout Betsy, I became a sleepwalker: my feet moving me from one place to the next while my mind was always elsewhere. ( Back in Two Rivers. Back inside that barn, lightning illuminating her in erratic and beautiful flashes.) For the first month at Middlebury, I wandered the green expanse of campus, somnambulant. Oblivious. I had enrolled in five classes that fall: Ancient Philosophy, English Literature, Calculus, European History and French. In my “free” time, I audited an Art History seminar and a Poetry writing class. I figured that I might be able to fill my brain so that there wasn’t any room left for Betsy Parker. But no matter how hard I tried, she occupied every corner, every crevice. I was dreaming her still, even when I was wide awake.
My roommate at Middlebury chain-smoked Chesterfield cigarettes and spoke fluent Latin. His name was Alfred (“Freddy”) Van Horn III; he came from a long line of Van Horns who had made their money in the publishing industry. Magazines . His grandfather, Freddy the First, was the publisher of a certain gentleman’s magazine that I recognized as the ones Betsy had introduced me to all those years ago. “Titties,” Freddy explained over our first pint of beer at a pub on the outskirts of campus. “Titties and ass. Ad nauseum .” Freddy knew that I was only biding my time at college, that despite my apparent academic zeal, school was really just a distraction from the real obsession of my life. He’d seen the photos I kept tucked into the corners of my mirror, between the pages of my books, and in most of my drawers. Betsy Parker was everywhere. Freddy’s attempts at diversion were tireless and admirable. He knew a lot of girls, and he was always bringing them by in the hopes that one of them might cause me to relinquish my devotion to Betsy Parker. There were short girls, tall girls, happy girls and melancholy girls. Good girls and bad girls. But the one thing they all shared was a fascination with Freddy Van Horn. He was like Brooder with a private school education. He had the charisma of a politician without any of the political aspirations. But he was also an academic savant, managing always to get good grades despite his lax study habits. There was something easy about Freddy Van Horn. Something I suppose that came with affluence and good fortune. He never had to work very hard for anything, and so he never perceived the world to be a difficult place. While I felt tortured by it, he saw the world at Middlebury as something created to serve him and his desires.
“What are her stats?” Freddy asked, peering over my shoulder at a photo of Betsy’s face, which was marking my place in Othello . I could barely concentrate. It was almost Homecoming weekend, and Betsy was coming to stay for three whole days.
“Stats?”
“Hips, waist. Bust?” He outlined the shape of a woman with his hands, and in the invisible trail his gestures made, I imagined Betsy’s body.
“Go away,” I said.
“When does she get here?”
“After I get out of Calculus. I’ve got to get into town by three o’clock. Can I borrow the Vespa?” Underclassmen weren’t allowed to have cars on campus, but Freddy had an Italian scooter that he had shipped from Italy the last time he was in Rome and upon the back of which I had ridden several times during his kidnapping attempts.
“But of course. Don’t go crashing it into a tree now though.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Is she staying at Battell?”
“Yeh,” I said. “She’s bunking with another girl coming in from Dartmouth.”
“Wonderful! I know a way to smuggle her out pretty easily.”
I rolled my eyes and picked up my books.
I drove the Vespa cautiously into town. I had hoped that some of Freddy’s worldliness might rub off on me—that arriving to pick her up on a scooter instead of in the old DeSoto might prove to her that I had something exciting to offer now that I was a college man. I also imagined how it would feel to have her pressed against my back as we rode through the corridors of autumn foliage back to campus. But the Vespa wasn’t as easy to drive as it was to ride, and when I arrived at the bus station, I slipped getting off and felt the terrible sensation of a burning hot exhaust pipe touching the exposed part of my ankle. I stifled a scream, grabbed my leg and pitched face forward toward the ground. I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could, picked up the scooter, and glanced quickly around to see who, if anyone, had witnessed this ridiculous display. I limped into the bus station, my ankle stinging something fierce, and went straight to the men’s room, where I splashed cold water over the welt. Back at the station, I nursed my wound the best I could, sitting on a hard bench near the restroom
s, pressing a handful of shredded ice I’d grabbed from the café against my blistered skin.
“Holy crap,” her voice said. I looked up and saw a pair of knees. Then two peachy-colored thighs. As I lifted my head, I didn’t recognize the legs (thinner than I remembered) or the dress, a gray wool thing that would have been dowdy had it not been for its length, which barely reached the top of those glorious thighs. Betsy was also wearing makeup: lots of black mascara and a thin coat of white lipstick. Her hair was in two low pigtails on either side of her head. She had cut it, probably about a foot from what I could tell. I felt my heart sink.
“You cut your hair,” I said.
“What happened ?”
I glanced quickly down at my leg. The burn was bad. Purplish black. Oozing. Betsy squatted down next to me, and the skirt rose higher up her legs. She touched the skin near the wound, and even the slightest touch of her fingertips against my skin stung.
“Oh God, I can smell it,” she said, covering her nose and mouth with the back of her arm. She stood up, and so did I.
“I’m fine,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“How did you do that?”
“Jesus, what happened to hello ?” I stepped back as if I were studying a painting or a sculpture. Betsy smiled broadly and then blushed, clearly aware that she didn’t look at all like the girl I’d known only a month before. She leaned into my arms, suddenly shy, and hugged me. At least she still smelled like Betsy. Soapy. Lustre-Creme shampoo and lilacs.
When I showed her the Vespa, she shook her head.
“It’s safe. Just don’t touch the exhaust pipe. That’s how I got burned. Here,” I said, offering her help getting on.
“My skirt,” she said.
We stood looking hopelessly at the Vespa. I kept thinking about her legs. “Take my sweater,” I said. “You can tie it around your waist.” I pulled the sweater I was wearing over my head, the air crackling with static. I patted down my hair, hoping it wasn’t standing straight up on end. It had gotten much longer without my father’s monthly cut.
“You need a haircut,” Betsy said.
I got on the scooter and Betsy got on carefully behind me. I could feel her legs pressing against my legs as I pulled away. And then we were rushing through the autumn afternoon, and I realized I hadn’t felt so alive since I’d left Two Rivers. The crush of leaves, the impossible scent of fall, and Betsy’s chest pressed against my back with only her dress and a thin cotton Oxford between us.
“Is this it?” Betsy asked. Her breath was hot in my ear.
I nodded and leaned the Vespa into the curve, suddenly an expert driver. When we pulled up in front of my dormitory, I felt cool. And when Betsy Parker in her minidress and pigtails got off behind me, I hoped that Freddy was watching out the window. We walked across campus together to get Betsy checked into the girls’ dorm where she would be staying. Betsy reached for my hand about halfway there and held onto it. I never realized how very small her hands were. When we got to Battell, I opened up my hand slowly, as if I were holding a bird or butterfly on the verge of escape inside. And suddenly overwhelmed by the architecture of her small bones, the incredible complexity and beauty of each digit, I lifted her hand up to my face, pressing it into my cheek. And then, embarrassed, I kissed her hand as if that’s what I intended to do all along.
That night I had planned to take Betsy into town again for dinner and a movie.
Freddy feigned snoring. “Bo-o-oring.”
It was, indeed, a mundane sort of thing to do with a girl I’d loved my entire life.
“Take her to Burlington,” Freddy said. “Get drunk. Go skinny-dipping in the creek. Jesus. Dinner and a movie. Who are you, goddamned Archie Andrews?”
Freddy insisted on coming along with me to pick her up. I resisted at first, not wanting to share even a moment of this night, but finally his incessant pleading got the better of me, and I told him he could come along if he promised to leave us alone afterward. Plus his excitement at meeting the object of my affection was infectious, and I wanted to show her off.
Freddy and I waited for her in the lobby of the girls’ dorm. The housemother rang her, and within minutes she materialized at the top of the stairs. The sight of her brought a lump to my throat.
“Rare avis,” Freddy whispered, as she descended the stairs. “What a rare little birdie.”
She had changed from her woolen shift into a black pencil skirt and soft white sweater. She had also loosened her hair from the pigtails. I’d almost forgotten how dark her hair was, the blue-black stillness of it. Like water at night.
“You must be Freddy,” she said, thrusting her hand toward him. It seemed to catch him off-guard, rendering him (for the first time since I’d met him) speechless.
“Enchantée,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it dramatically.
Betsy smiled. “Moi aussi,” she said, curtsying. And then to me, “I’m taking French at school. My roommate and I might study abroad junior year. Paris.”
The lump in my throat felt like a hard candy. Stuck and suffocating. “Well then, our reservation’s for seven,” I said.
He kept staring at her.
“Bye, Freddy. See you later.”
“Sure thing, old fellow,” he said. “See you back at the room. Let me know if you need assistance. ”
At the restaurant, Betsy said, “Your friend Freddy’s nice.”
“Hmph,” I said. I was thinking about France.
“How’s your leg?”
“Fine. I’ll go to the infirmary on Tuesday.” The truth was that each step sent pain shooting out from the wound in all directions. “So you’re going to Paris?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m doing really well in French though. My professor says my pronunciation is good for a first-year student.”
“Hmph,” I said again.
The waiter brought us a basket of bread and a silver bowl of ice with little pads of butter on top.
“This place is fancy , Harper,” Betsy whispered.
“I suppose,” I said.
But despite the restaurant and its fresh flowers and linen tablecloths, its extensive array of flatware and silver candelabras, something felt spoiled about the night. All I could think of was Betsy going to Paris. About how on earth I would survive a whole year without her. Hell, I’d barely made it through the past month.
“I’m not very hungry,” I said as I studied the menu.
“Oh, I am,” Betsy said. “I’ve only had a cup of coffee and a bag of peanuts today.”
“No wonder you’re so skinny,” I said.
Betsy blinked hard. She was wearing false eyelashes and thick black eyeliner, which framed her eyes in a way that made them both startling and pretty.
The waiter came with two menus, the size of newspapers, and I hid behind mine.
“Why are you being so mean to me?” she asked softly.
“I’m not,” I said, feeling terrible. I lowered the menu but couldn’t look her in the eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s just, I’m just…”
“What?”
“You’re so different,” I said. “Wearing perfume. Makeup. It’s just weird.”
“I’m a girl ,” she said. Her voice was trembling. “And I thought this was a date. ”
I felt like a total shit. “I’m sorry,” I said, desperate to backpedal. To rewind. To start over.
She looked toward our waiter, who was busy with another table, and said, “Can we leave ?”
“Now?” I asked.
She nodded, reaching across the table and grabbing my hands. She leaned toward me and whispered, “I want to be alone with you.”
I nodded and stood up, almost knocking my chair over backward. “Let’s go.”
Freddy had extended the loan on his Vespa, and as soon as we got on and headed into the night, I’d realized he’d been right about the dinner and movie idea. Betsy was no Betty. Hell, she wasn’t even a Veronica. I drove us across the stone bridge that traversed Otter Creek and stopped. We both got off the scooter. Below us were the Otter Creek falls, an eighteen-foot cascade of crashing water.
“Wow,” she said, peering over the bridge at the rushing falls below. When she climbed up onto the edge of the bridge to get a better look, I resisted the urge to pull her back to safety. She motioned for me, and I climbed up onto the ledge next to her. We sat there, our legs dangling over the rushing water. I couldn’t even bear to look at her.
And maybe because I wasn’t looking at her, the kiss startled me. But there she was, her eyes closed, her lips thick and soft and wet against mine. The water crashed below us, violent and loud. When I closed my own eyes, we could have been at home, at the river. She reached quickly, pushing her hand under my shirt. It was cold, and my stomach flinched involuntarily as she touched me. But by the time she started fiddling with the button of my khakis, her skin was warm. Her fingers were hot as they wriggled downward and touched me. I gasped, suddenly vertiginous, reeling with both desire and fear. Unbearable happiness and an intense need to get down off this ledge.