“My mother used to say God was angry when it snowed, but I’ve never seen it that way.”
“What is He then, if not angry?”
Mr. Holmes laughed; a white puff. “Contemplative.” He paused. “It seems as if you’re liking Yonahlossee, Thea.”
I nodded. I was turning colder and colder, but I didn’t want to leave. I started to speak, but stopped.
“What were you going to say?” he asked.
There was a little red nick above Mr. Holmes’s lip, where he had cut it shaving. He and his family would celebrate their own Christmas, before we gathered for dinner in the Castle. I wanted to be there, with him. I wanted him to invite me. I suddenly wanted it very badly. Ask me, I thought, as he watched me expectantly. Ask me.
But of course he would not. I was not a Holmes. I wondered if this would be my last Christmas without my family, and understood in that instant it would not: I could see so many of them in my future, unfurled before me, empty. I did not know where I would be, but I knew my family would be absent.
Mr. Holmes was still watching me, curiously.
“I like it here,” I said. I paused. I didn’t trust my voice. “But I miss my home, too.”
He seemed unsurprised. “Of course you do, Thea. Of course you do.”
—
My Christmas present from home: a cashmere coat, deep burgundy, with silver-plated buttons. Merry, merry, happy, happy, the card read, the writing someone else’s, the saying Mother’s. The tag was scripted with the name of an Asheville clothing store. Held to my face, in the mirror, the coat made my hair shine against the red. I unfastened my braid and took a handful: it was getting long, growing quickly, thick. A strange portrait I made in the silvered mirror, my eyes swollen with sleep, my lips dry from the cold, the coat bold and opulent. I touched the mirror. Mother had never even seen the coat, the color. It was an extravagant gift—unlike her, and unlike me. She must have felt guilty, not bringing me home even for Christmas. She didn’t know that I wouldn’t have gone if they’d offered.
I stuffed the coat into one of my empty drawers.
—
Last Christmas we hadn’t exchanged presents. Mother had told me and Sam about it beforehand, and though I had grumbled at first, Mother had reminded me that Georgie’s family was troubled—she’d used that exact word, troubled—and we didn’t want to trouble them further. And besides, she’d added, we don’t need Christmas presents; we have all we need already, don’t we? And what was there to say but yes, though I would have liked a new bridle, a smarter pair of breeches.
A few days before Christmas we’d built a bonfire. Aunt Carrie was back from Missouri, her mother better. We stood in front of the fire for what felt like a long time. Father put his arm gently around my shoulders. Mother and Idella came out with mugs of cocoa.
“Oh, no,” Aunt Carrie said, smoothing her hand over her plump stomach.
I watched my cousin while I ate and tried very hard to pretend I wasn’t, wasn’t watching or interested in anything at all, particularly. He stayed close to Sam, deferred to him, it seemed. We never drank cocoa. It was too rich, I felt heavy as I drank and so I tipped my mug into the fire. I felt Mother watching me, so I focused on the fire, the smoke and the sizzle.
We were all quiet, that night. It’s tempting to assume we all knew we were on the cusp of something.
Georgie stayed away from me until the fire started to fizzle and the men decided not to add wood. I was over-warm, and seated a foot or two farther away from the fire than everyone else. Georgie left his mother’s side and knelt next to me, but he was silent and I was glad. I uncrossed my arms—the air had a bite to it—and rested my palms on the cool grass, and Georgie leaned back and rested his dry hand on top of mine. We were blocked from sight, it was not a brave gesture. We sat like this for ten, fifteen minutes, and what I felt in that short time, the anticipation, the pleasure, the eerie feeling of bliss—well, this was all still new to me. A week since my cousin had kissed me, and I was another person. Or perhaps not another person, but I suddenly cared about completely different things, and that seemed the same thing.
We had not kissed again, or even spoken of it. But Georgie touched me, now, all the time, held my hand in the barn like it was nothing. We had moved so easily into this; and now I wanted more.
—
The next day I sat alone on the front porch steps, watching our quiet yard. Georgie had replaced Sasi in my daydreams. I thought about him more than I had imagined it was possible to think about something, which was to say, always.
The front door whined. I turned, and Georgie stood in the door frame. This all seemed like magic. I had been hoping he would find me, and he had; there was something so delicious about the way he courted me in my home, the way he seemed to always find me. When I saw him now, when I was close to him, my groin throbbed and then there was a slickness between my legs, which seemed to come almost immediately. He smiled back, but his head was inclined and I couldn’t tell if he was shy or smug.
He sat down next to me and put his hand over mine.
“We shouldn’t,” I whispered.
“Everyone’s out back.” He kissed my forehead, and I drew back, stunned, and I couldn’t sort out why: that he would be so bold, kissing me where anyone could see, but also the pleasure of his lips on my forehead.
“Georgie.”
“Can’t I kiss my cousin on the forehead?” he asked. He challenged. He seemed so large next to me; if I had seen him as a stranger in town I would have thought he was a young man.
I touched his cheek. I liked how small my hand was next to his face.
“Did you shave this morning?” It felt thrilling, to have the right to ask this question.
“I did.” He stopped my hand and pressed it to his cheek, then kissed the base of my thumb. I wondered where he had learned to do all this. This Georgie was a stranger to me.
I drew my thumb across his lips; he bit it, gently, and my breath caught. I turned my head because this all, suddenly, seemed too much, too good, and I felt dizzy with the pleasure of it. The large bed of ivy in front of my house was blurry, but then a clear spot at the very edge, which gradually came into focus: my brother. I wiped my hand on my skirt and stood; Georgie jumped up next to me, and I waved at Sam, who had walked around the side of the house without me noticing. He nodded in our direction, his hands in his pockets. Take one out, I thought, take a hand out and let me know you saw nothing.
I put my hand over my mouth and turned to Georgie.
“Don’t worry,” Georgie said, “he didn’t see anything.” But it was all a guess, whether or not Sam had seen.
—
On Christmas Eve I sat between Georgie and Sam at the dining-room table.
I wore a gold silk dress that Mother said brought out the red in my hair. It was the last time I would wear it—the bodice had become uncomfortably tight, and by the time I had another occasion to wear a dress so clearly meant for a party, glimmering and unserious, I would be too broad and tall. But I wanted to wear it once more, and ignored Mother’s suggestion to choose another dress.
I wore Mother’s mink stole also. She lent it to me as if I were playing dress-up, which I was, but now the stole felt more mine than hers. Last Christmas I had been fourteen and all the same people had been here.
Father said grace. Georgie caught my hand under the table and held it, briefly. In my quick inventory of the table, everyone’s head was still bowed. The last part of Father’s prayer was for the orange groves. This was not unusual. Mother exhaled audibly.
“Amen,” Uncle George added, “let us all praise citrus.”
My father looked at his wineglass. I knew he was considering how to respond, that the glass simply bought him time. It seemed my father was always buying himself time, had a thousand little tricks he used to think before he spoke.
“Do
you jest?” he asked. The word was so formal, like we were reading Shakespeare, and I felt so intensely uncomfortable.
Georgie watched the adults, carefully; I wanted him to pay attention to me, not them. I touched his hand, underneath the table.
“A man can pray for whatever he wants, can’t he, Felix?” Uncle George asked.
My uncle was tense tonight, as everyone was. You could cut it with a knife—the phrase lingered in my head.
Then Georgie’s hand was in my lap, on my knee. It was hot, even through my dress.
“Please,” Mother said.
“It’s true,” Father said. “I suppose.”
Then Georgie was moving his fingers up and down my knee so gently, so rhythmically, that I wanted to moan. He did it for so long—three minutes, four—that I lost track of where he was. He was higher on my thigh, no, he was lower; he was too high, he was not high enough.
I put my hand on his and stopped him. It was madness, to touch each other in front of everyone, especially my brother. My thighs were trembling. The adults were talking about the Gainesville Christmas pageant, which my mother had read an article about in the newspaper; something lighthearted, chosen to counter the doom that had settled on the table, and though it wasn’t working, though Aunt Carrie still looked like she might burst into tears, I thanked God that something had their attention. Thank God for Christmas pageants, I murmured, and Georgie laughed, quietly, but Sam looked at me strangely.
—
I’d never put much stock in dreams. Sam used to wake from nightmares, choked and panting, and all he could tell me as I held his hand was that he was falling from a great cliff, that a second before he met the ground he woke.
I never quite believed him, because I couldn’t imagine such an insubstantial feeling, rootless, all in my brother’s head. After the bonfire I fell asleep quickly and dreamed of Georgie, touching me. He felt through my underwear, gently, then harder, and then he put one finger inside of me. Then two. I woke not knowing where I was, the pleasure so intense I thought I must still be dreaming. I was on the cusp; I put my fingers where Georgie had, was surprised at how firm I felt against the pressure of my fingertips, the pressure that was felt more deeply here. Then I touched outside my panties, as Georgie had. I was wet, soaked through. Bright sparks flashed against my eyelashes. More, and more, then nothing but the tight, quick pulse in my groin. I rubbed my forehead with my wrist, my hands needed to be washed.
This sort of pleasure wasn’t yet a secret, like it would become later. No, it was a thing that had never existed, so there was no attendant shame.
—
Sam woke me Christmas morning, tapped my shoulder gently. At first I thought it was Georgie.
“If you want to ride,” he said, “you’d better do it now.”
“All right,” I mumbled.
“Merry Christmas,” he added, as an afterthought.
“Merry Christmas,” I said. He watched me as I sat up in bed, rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I smiled, and he smiled back, but his smile was off, somehow. For an instant Sam was inside my head, knew about Georgie.
Sam tilted his head and I felt a great surge of relief: he did not know.
I shook my head at him, and smiled again, to let him know everything was fine, and though Sam nodded, I knew he did not believe me.
I wanted to try a new jump that I’d built out back. In the ring commands were nearly invisible, it was supposed to seem as if you and your horse were in complete and silent agreement. But out here, the ring behind us, Sasi would only listen if I jerked and threw my weight, slammed my legs against his sides, shouted. It was ugly riding, but it felt truer.
I’d left my spurs in the barn. When I squeezed my legs against his sides, normally a command he half ignored, Sasi exploded into an elaborate trot, neck arched, ears forward, paying attention to everything but me.
I’d come out here for exactly that reason: I needed power, I needed him to clear the highest jump he ever had, not for me but because the jump was pointed into that great and mysterious beyond.
I realized as soon as I turned that I’d given us too much space—too long a straight line, too much time and reason for him to run away, for me to lose control. But I felt him gather his legs beneath him, in clear anticipation of the jump. “Yes, yes, yes,” I murmured, in rhythm to his canter. My braid thumped on my back, my vision narrowed, and I was only aware of the particular way Sasi’s hooves hit the ground—the hard sound that made—and the closing distance between us and the jump. It was all instinct now, there was nothing anyone could teach you about this instant before leaving the ground. “Now,” I said, and we flew. I wished Georgie were here, watching. Then Sasi’s left shoulder dropped and I was off, on the damp grass, but I still had the rein, I hadn’t let go. “It’s fine,” I soothed, “it’s fine.” He half pulled, half dragged me away, rearing backward, scared, but also aware of the opportunity: if he could get rid of me, he could run away, listen to his brain, the deep part that told him to go, at any cost.
But I held on. I loved this pony; I would not let him go for anything. After he calmed down, I remounted. I pointed him toward the jump a second time, and we cleared it without incident, as I knew we would. This was how my mind worked, this was why I was brave in situations where others would not have remounted. The fates wouldn’t align to throw Sasi off balance again, not twice in one day. You fell once in a while because that was your due, you rode a horse and expected him to do things he would not have done in nature. You fell once for every hundred clean jumps.
I sneaked upstairs after I had cooled out Sasi and fed him his morning oats. I stood at my brother’s door and opened it a sliver.
Sam had returned to his bed, Georgie slept on a pallet on the floor. I was surprised that they slept apart—Sam’s bed was large, there was room enough for two.
Sam’s arms and legs stuck out at awkward angles, and his hair was matted down to his cheeks by sweat. His brown quilt had fallen to the floor, and his sheet was tangled between his legs.
I looked at him first, almost without seeing him. I looked because he was there. And then Georgie, Sam’s comforter draped over his torso. He wasn’t sweating. Perhaps it was cooler on the floor. He slept almost primly, his arms beside him in straight lines, his bare feet aligned, toes upward.
Georgie shifted, and I saw a brown flash as he threw off the comforter. He murmured, almost a groan, and then I saw his penis, erect through the opening in his pajamas. It was darker than the rest of his skin, had a purplish tint. I’d never seen a man naked, nor talked to anyone about male anatomy, but somehow I knew that my cousin’s penis was erect.
I turned away and closed the door behind me. I felt ashamed, but complicatedly: he should not have shown me that, I should not have had to see, but he had been sleeping, he had not meant to.
Then I felt the opposite of ashamed: I felt a little powerful, like I knew a secret, a moment all my own.
{11}
Boone is coming tonight,” Sissy whispered. “Will you help?”
“Of course.” The stakes were lower now that Mrs. Holmes was gone; everyone knew she was the one who disciplined us. She had left last Sunday, after worship, and would be gone for six weeks. When she returned it would be spring, which seemed impossible: everything was dead now, except the evergreens.
Through the window, night was black. We had just entered what Sissy called the doldrums: February. The sun set by five o’clock; we walked to dinner in total darkness now. Sissy said this was the most boring part of the year, when nothing happened. But I liked the calm.
I was riding again. I’d had to gain eight pounds before Mrs. Holmes would let me back in the saddle; I might have protested more if I hadn’t been riding in secret already.
I still taught the Holmes girls, by my own request, at least for a little while, until they joined Mrs. Holmes at her mother’s house in New Orle
ans. Mr. Holmes told us to write our mothers and encourage them to attend their Junior League or Garden Club meetings, where his wife would make appearances. It went without saying that all our mothers were members, yet my mother was not. She belonged to Emathla’s Camellia Society, but for the flowers.
I watched Mr. Holmes and decided that he did not seem any worse for the wear, given his wife’s absence.
Mr. Holmes came to our lessons once or twice a week, I never knew when he would appear, a specter perched on the side of the ring. Without realizing it, I began to anticipate his presence.
I lay awake that night until I heard Boone’s rocks. He threw softly but precisely: from the sound it made, it seemed like Boone hit the same exact spot every time.
At the third rock, I rose.
“Sissy,” I whispered. I shook her thin shoulder. “Sissy,” I said again, and squeezed her forearm. She was sleeping in her clothes.
Her eyes opened slowly, and when she saw me she started.
“It’s only me,” I put a finger over my lips. Her warm, vinegary night breath rose. You would think that such a delicate girl in such a delicate situation would be a light sleeper, or would not have fallen asleep at all. She rose and left.
We love each other, she had told me when explaining the gravity of the situation: we can’t go too long without seeing each other. I smiled—she even kept the love of her life waiting. That girl was not on time for anyone.
“Sissy?”
I quickly slipped into Sissy’s bed: there was no moonlight tonight.
“What are you doing?” Mary Abbott’s voice was sleepy. I listened until I was sure she was asleep again. Out of all the girls, she would tell. Not out of spite, but because she was odd, had an odd conception of men, boys, the other sex. Whatever one wanted to call them.
They were no mystery to me. I fell asleep thinking, half dreaming, I was Sissy. They’d only kissed so far. But they would do more, they wouldn’t be able to help themselves. Of course Boone would want it, and this was understood: he was a boy, he had urges, he could not be helped.
The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls Page 16