Back home, Kyla settled in to work for the rest of the weekend, finishing statistical homework and the paper due the following week. She worked in her damp room, mainly, but since it was in the basement and had only one window, she’d sometimes take her ruffle-edged papers out to her desk.
Cornered in the common space where skis and poles leaned against the walls, her desk had one photograph on it that Jenna had placed there to welcome her. In the picture, Jenna and Hull stood back-to-back, hillside, with a green view behind them. She’d penned in “Hey, Kyla! Welcome home!” in the clear expanse of sky behind them and left the picture for Kyla to find the hot summer weekend she moved in when the others had been away at Jenna’s brother’s farm in Vermont.
Sometimes Kyla thought it was the order of Hull’s and Jenna’s arrivals that had decided the connections. In the university housing bulletin, Jenna had described herself as outdoor-oriented and kind, and without looking anywhere else, Kyla’d called her the winter before and arranged to move in when her other roommate moved out. Maybe if Jenna’d been baking miniature tarte tatins or cutting back the hydrangeas when Kyla arrived, they would have sat with sweating iced teas on the porch until something boiled up in the kitchen and they went inside to eat.
Instead, Hull had come back earlier, leaving Jenna in Vermont while he and Kyla stayed up late drinking sugar-rimmed vodka tonics with crushed lime. For two days, they’d walked around town, hiked up the hill behind the house, and lain in snow angel position near Grant’s Pond. Unseen from the dirt road that tracked up to the water, Hull hummed a tune Kyla knew from years before while the long grass swayed above them. Hull’s attentiveness was subtle, pulling Kyla in though she hadn’t been attracted to him right away. After he’d called her out to look at a luna moth, its wings large as palms and iridescent, she tallied up the small gestures he made toward her and then pictured his hands on her breasts, her ass, his physical being somehow incredibly important to her.
Even after those thoughts, rather than wishing that Jenna would never return, Kyla found herself filled with grade school anticipation. When Jenna had come back, carrying loaves of double wheat in a canvas sack slung over her shoulder, she’d smiled and hugged Kyla. They’d never met, just spoken on the phone, and Jenna was prettier than Kyla had pictured, with hair the color of undissolved instant coffee and green eyes.
“I’m so glad you’re here!” she’d said. That night, they’d had peach curry chicken salad on the bread she’d brought home, and after the dishes were done, the three of them took a flashlight and walked up to Marsh Field, where a local band played for free. Stoned teenagers sat, one leaning onto the next, sweatshirted and dew-damp, while a few young families packed up picnic items and headed for their cars with their sleep-drugged children. Hull and Jenna held hands, and Jenna rubbed Kyla’s arm to ask if she was warm enough. Bug swatting and hazy from curry, Kyla wiped the sweat from her upper lip and nodded. She watched the way Hull thumbed the back of Jenna’s neck and knew that he was performing for her somehow, showing her how he could touch and where and how well.
One side of the common room was taken up by Hull’s kayak, and the sawhorses he’d set up to hold it. Various hiking boots lined the doorway wall, as well as muddied running shoes and plastic clogs called Plogs that some surgical intern from the hospital had left there after a dinner party. They all wore the Plogs now—they were perfect for a quick trip to the compost heap out back, or when someone came home from the co-op and needed help unpacking the groceries. Often, the shoes were in a jumble, as if they’d broken from the order imposed on them in the bimonthly cleanups and were socializing. It made Kyla think of dancing school in seventh grade, how the girls were told to take off one shoe and put it in the middle of the floor, and when they’d done that, each boy reached into the heap and danced with whichever girl went with the chosen leather pump or flat.
The first time Hull had appeared in her doorway was after he and Kyla had said good night upstairs as if Jenna had been there to witness and gone to their separate rooms. Later, after waiting what Kyla considered to be a respectable amount of time, he’d come down to the basement, switched the dehumidifier on, and stood looking into her room as Kyla tucked a pillow into its new case. She held the bulk of it under her chin until Hull came in and finished the job for her. In one swift motion that pillow and the next were cased, and soon they were on them, lying unseen the way they had in the reeds, only this time their arms touched and then legs until he rolled her onto him and she turned out the light.
Kicking through the leaves out back once, in a halfhearted attempt at cleaning the yard before the snow came, Kyla thought about how little she’d struggled with the decision to start up with Hull. She leaned on the rake until the rusted metal tines of it buckled and tried to conjure up a feeling of guilt, but couldn’t.
When she figured Jenna and Hull were due back, Kyla went upstairs for something to eat. Near White River Junction there was a dented can shop where students went before their loan checks came through. On display in cheerleader pyramids were cans of creamed corn, salty green beans, and fiddleheads—each tin with a torn label or pushed-in side. By the checkout large barrels of cans without any labels were marked five cents a piece. They’d buy six for a quarter and take them home for times they felt like a culinary surprise or if they came in late from night skiing or a party. Today, the can opener revealed a tin of baked beans and ham that she slumped into a pot and stirred with a wooden spoon. Something, a raccoon or a neighboring dog, was trying for a dig in the compost outside, and Kyla could hear the scratch of paws on the sheet of wood they kept on top.
She took the beans and a hunk of bread for dipping into the living room. Since she’d lived in the house, Kyla had never been the one to light the fire. Usually, Jenna woke up first and did it, or Hull, who was home all afternoon, brought in wood and folded newspapers as one of his unspoken chores. By the fireplace a copper bucket was filled with starter sticks and various kindling, including old shingles Jenna had found in a crate behind the bakery. She said they made the best kindling ever, since the shingles were easily split and very dry. Each thin plank was half-weathered gray with a more pristine top, from where another piece had been layered on. Kyla broke a couple lengthwise and Lincoln Log stacked them on some newspaper knots, put a match to them, and a few minutes later, added a small log. She sat watching the fire take, picking out one bean at a time from her mug with her fingers as her face grew warm and she waited to see the swing of headlights turning onto the drive. Alone in front of the fire, Kyla wondered if Justin was in his cottage, maybe lighting the stove or drinking mint-flavored coffee, or if he was with someone else, too. For a second, she imagined him with Jenna, what a good couple they’d make in the wilderness, and then shook off the image and threw a cube of ham into the fire, where it burned and made the room smell like bacon.
Justin wasn’t in class the next week, and Kyla missed the week after that. Then it was winter break, and they had a house party with cookie decorating and naughty magnetic poetry and mistletoe kisses that left Kyla with a rim of eggnog around her mouth and the buzz-drunk she’d felt at tenth-grade parties, thrilled but slightly sick.
When the phone rang in early January, Kyla pushed Hull off of her and was still laughing at the weight of him as Justin’s voice came through the receiver.
“Hey,” he said, and when she said the same back he continued with “Did I dream those couple of days back in the fall, or do you really exist?”
“Oh, I’m for real,” she said, suddenly aware and blushing as she flirted in front of Hull, who lay on the bed in long underwear bottoms, hands folded on his belly.
“Well, good. How about being real right now and driving over to my place?”
She could hear the television in the background and thought of his dog, Polly, in a snail coil by the stove. Justin shifted the phone and said, “Hang on, I’m just stepping outside to the porch.” She could hear him inhale.
“I didn’t know y
ou smoked,” she said. Kyla gave Hull a one-minute sign, and he shrugged.
“Once in a while,” Justin said.
Suddenly, Kyla wanted nothing more than to be barefooted and freezing in the coming snow, smoking with Justin on his porch. He’d probably make her coffee in the morning and add whatever flavor creamer he had going, and maybe then they’d watch a matinee in town.
“So, can I see you?” he asked.
“I’m not imaginary, if that’s what you mean,” she said and laughed louder than the comment warranted so that Hull would know the conversation was good. Was it vampires or ghosts that didn’t show on film? Or maybe neither showed up in a mirror.
“Well, I’ll keep the front light on for another couple of hours. Or, if you’re coming and want me to meet you in the commuter lot, just let me know. The roads are pretty icy over here—I’d be happy to drive you.”
“Thanks,” she said and then, “Maybe I’ll see you.”
Hull only raised his eyebrows at her as she sat on the side of her bed and debated putting her clothes on and heading out. With both hands, he pulled her to him so close their lips touched as he talked.
“Wherever you’re thinking about going, don’t.”
He ran a finger from her ear down to her arm, then bent her head to the side so he could put his face into the curve of her neck.
The next morning, as Hull and Jenna cross-country-skied in the front of the house, Kyla found a simple line of words waiting for her in the shower: “pantless boy whispers pink spring.” She carried the sentence with her around campus all day, and when she went to class and saw Justin, who gave a small smile but didn’t come over, she wrote the words in very small letters on her notebook.
The Wednesday before St. Patrick’s Day, Jenna brought home green focaccia. The emerald-tinted bagels had sold particularly well already, but no one seemed to want the onion-specked flat dough, so they made it into pizza and sat in the living room eating. Jenna leaned back onto the middle of the couch and tilted her head so she looked up and backward at Hull, who sat to her left. He had eaten the center of his piece and nibbled the crust into an arch, and he held it over his mouth like a smiley face. When he leaned down to kiss Jenna, he kept the bread there and she bit it.
As they twitched and giggled, Kyla felt hot and itchy in her wool sweater. Hull had said he liked it once when she first moved in, and she’d gotten in the habit of wearing it on nights Jenna was going to work. Jenna’s cousin had been to Iceland to hike glaciers, and along with the sheets Jenna’d inherited, the cousin had handed down the sweater. She’d pointed to the weave of yarn and the silver buttons and explained the traditions of Icelandic knitting, how unpeopled the landscape had been on her trip, and how her friend had chosen this particular gift instead of healing bath salts because she hoped the sweater would last and be handed down to a child someday. Bursts of deep red, blue ridges, and black trails made a near-mountain pattern across the front of the sweater, and the sleeves, neck, and waistline were hemmed in white. Sometimes Kyla would watch herself walk past the large windows of the bookstore in the town center and feel as if she wore a map, the veins of stitching and rise of her breasts their own topography.
The fire logs were damp from the rain that had made its way down the chimney, and they smoked as Hull tried to light them. In the kitchen Jenna scrubbed the cookie sheet clean of oil and cheese strands while Kyla wrapped the leftovers in a recycled grocery bag and knotted the handles before freezing the whole package. Kyla looked at her watch and thought about the way Hull massaged her calves after the sweat had dried and they told stories from high school or crushes they’d had on people who worked at the photocopy place in town or the Bagel Basement. As she lay on her stomach, Hull on his back would press his heel into the back of her calf and drag the length of it over and over. Sometimes Kyla fell asleep and woke to hear Hull midsentence, and other times he’d doze in the middle of her calf—he’d stop talking before his heel halted, like an insect leg that moves after being severed.
Jenna looked at Kyla as she wiped the counter. It occurred to Kyla that, while she did not feel guilt about Hull, she felt the same anxiety about being discovered that she had as a child, taking five dollars from her grandmother’s wallet, then as a teenager, showing up stoned to her ill cousin’s Bat Mitzvah, aware that her actions were grossly out of place, the betrayal sickeningly sour.
Kyla continued to clean the counter. The sponge was in the shape of a fish, and Kyla held her hand over the tail, letting the pointed head do all the scrubbing.
“I don’t have to work tonight,” Jenna said. She’d been putting in extra hours as the bakery owner planned on opening a second shop twenty minutes away. Imagining that Jenna would end up running that place, Kyla thought of Jenna’s extra commuting time and how that would factor into the plans Hull and she could make in the damp mornings come spring.
Hull came in and looked for something in the fridge while Jenna rubbed the soles of her feet free from crumbs. Kyla put the sponge on the sink ledge and sat down in one of the kitchen chairs they rarely used except as perches for lacing or undoing boots or when Jenna had sprained her ankle and Kyla’d had her sit there as she wrapped the injury in tape before the daily run. At the time, Jenna had started to say something but then was interrupted by the fire alarm, which panicked every so often because of a low battery no one bothered to change.
“What are you guys going to do then? With your bonus night here, I mean?” Kyla asked.
Hull rummaged in the drawer they used to store the fresh herbs from the garden before hanging them on the drying rack. He stuck his fingers in and then put them to his nose.
“That’s the basil from this morning,” Jenna said to him and put her hand on Hull’s face to show Kyla the new ring on her wedding finger. Kyla opened her mouth to say something about it, but Jenna spoke first. Hull kept his fingers by his nose, sniffing at the remains of his foraging. Jenna turned to her and said, her voice steady and detached, as though she were reading from an instructional manual, “Well, what are you going to do, Kyla?”
Just from the way Jenna said it, and how she held her head at an angle like that dog on the record label, Kyla knew she knew.
Hull looked at Kyla and said, “Jenna has to work tomorrow, you know, so it’s not really a bonus night. Anyway, I’m going to try to do some kayak repair.” He kissed Jenna’s palm and added, “If that’s okay with you, of course.”
“Of course it’s okay,” Jenna said.
“Well, congratulations, anyway,” Kyla said. She felt the dips in the webbing between her fingers where Hull liked to put his tongue and stood up. Watching Jenna, she tried to picture her in high school, how she would have dressed or if she ever threw up drunk, or if she’d been head of the church society or speech team, if she’d always been the kind of girl other girls wanted to befriend. Kyla couldn’t tell. She wondered how Jenna had found out, if Hull had come clean, or if she’d suspected all along and confronted him. Shamed to the point where the room seemed fun-house tilted, Kyla suddenly saw herself alone and unringed, without even a dog to call her own.
On the table near where Jenna and Hull stood was the scratch pad on which Kyla had written Justin’s number. She dialed it, and fifty minutes later they were having sex for the first time in a tent he’d pitched lakeside a quarter of a mile down from his house.
Justin shooed Polly away and finally collar-dragged her back to the cabin, where Matt, some drinking buddy of his, lay sweating bourbon and smoking Winstons while the stove churned out damp heat and a M*A*S*H rerun flickered in the darkened room.
After they made love, they sipped water from a metal canteen and shared cubes of mango Justin had brought before smoking a couple of cigarettes each and unzipping the front flap to let in the breeze. Through the netted side window, Kyla could see something flying and landing. Justin breathed deeply and reached back to touch her face before he stood up and went into the woods to pee.
Kyla thought of Polly stretc
hed out in front of the cast-iron stove, of the winter that had passed in hers and in Justin’s rented houses, and of honeyed bread. She thought about Hull and wondered if he’d actually patch his boat. Kyla held her hands together as if Justin’s were in there, too, and she could somehow replace the digit he had lost to water. Kyla was sorry and ashamed that she’d never kissed his hands. She saw Justin looking out at the lake and tried to average out how many logs his wood-burning stove used up in the cold months, how many times he must have gotten up during the one night she’d spent with him just to stoke the thing. Then Kyla imagined him coming back to his bed that night to watch her, waiting to see if she would wake up.
when to plant, weed, and harvest
The Justin and Matt Show
They were trolling tube and worm combos, hooking blues one after the other when Matt told Justin he’d almost kissed some girl the night before as they’d had a couple beers on the dock at Jetter-man’s Pier. Justin had played pool with the other off-seasoners while Matt held post at the outdoor bar with some early summer people.
“Hey, Justin. What about those parachute jigs—you know, the wire line outfits?” Matt asked, as if he’d been quiet until then.
“Yeah—those work well, too,” Justin answered and curled his toes over the stern edge for balance. “But why would you do that? Kiss someone else, I mean.”
“Cheat on Lucy, that’s what you mean?” he asked. “It was an almost.”
Justin nodded. Matt had met Lucy only when Justin had invited her down to Block Island a couple years back. They’d hooked up that first night, and Matt had proposed maybe five months later. Justin had only met Lucy twice himself before that, but he liked her soft voice and the way her green eyes always looked watery, as if she’d been crying recently or thought of something sad and was trying to push the idea away.
The Girls' Almanac Page 18