“It’s okay. I get it.”
“You do?”
“You’re afraid of my cooking. But I haven’t poisoned anyone yet …”
Her lips nearly curved into a smile. “I’m not afraid of being poisoned.”
“Then what?”
“I have … things to do.”
“What things?” he asked in a tone that was almost sweet. “Anything I can help with?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Olivia … Tell me the truth,” he said softly. “Is it that you don’t want to have dinner with me? Or just that you don’t leave the property anymore?”
Her eyes went wide.
“Whatever the truth is, I can handle it. But I’d like to know.”
She looked away from him. “Sam, things in my life are complicated. I can’t even begin to explain. And even if I could … Well … No—no, I couldn’t. I can’t.”
“Hey,” he said. He’d upset her. He reached out. He meant to squeeze her arm—in his mind he intended the gesture to be brotherly and comforting. It wasn’t as if he could feel her anyway. But everything happened so fast he couldn’t take it all in.
He touched the curve of her upper arm just beneath her shoulder, ran his palm down.
“Sam! No!” She jerked away from him. “Oh no. Oh no, Sam. Why would you do that?”
He looked down into his open hand, his tingling, open hand. He’d felt her. Hadn’t he? Her skin was smooth and warm, her muscle firm beneath. He needed to touch her again—to be sure he hadn’t imagined it. The craving for strawberries had vanished; it was her he wanted now. He looked up to find her breathing hard, one hand covering the spot on her arm that he’d touched. “What’s wrong?”
“You … you shouldn’t have done that.”
“But I did. Olivia, you’re going pale. You should sit down.”
A tendon shifted in her neck. “Don’t worry about me. You’ve got to worry about yourself.”
He took a step toward her. He wanted a reason to put his hands on her again—to brush her hair behind her ear, or draw her to him to steady her. But when he reached out—he wasn’t even sure what he meant to do—she moved away.
“Don’t,” she said.
He let his hand fall to his side. “Why don’t you want me to touch you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then, what is it?”
“You have to stay back.”
He put a few steps between them, though the last thing he wanted to do was stay away. He wanted to pull her hat from her head, touch his fingertips to her lips and see if he’d imagined the feeling of electricity passing between them, that lively, crackling shock. He wanted to run his hands along her collarbones until the straps of her overalls fell. He was sure she wanted him to do it as well; her chest and neck had flushed. And yet, she seemed afraid. “I’m missing something here. What’s going on?”
“I don’t even know how to begin telling you,” she said. Her eyes glinted with emotion, possibly even with tears. “Please. Just—listen to me. There’s not a lot of time. Go home, right away, and wash your hands.”
“I don’t understand …”
“I know you don’t,” she said, her voice taut with frustration. “But I’m asking you to just trust me, okay? Please. Go home, right now, and wash your hands with the harshest soap you’ve got. Then douse them in vinegar. Okay? You promise?”
Real worry gripped him. “Do you … are you sick?”
“No. Not exactly. But … there’s no time for that now. You have to go.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. He started walking away from her sideways, step by step, though it seemed she wanted him to run. His skin still felt the live charge of contact; he curled his hand into a fist. “I’m going. But I’ll be back. For an explanation.”
“Fine!” she called after him. “Just—go!”
He turned, trotting lightly toward the road, his head filled with the clanging of his thoughts. He couldn’t explain one thing about Olivia’s odd behavior; but he knew this—he’d felt her. He was sure of it. He’d touched her and he’d felt her. He let his trot turn into a jog, and his jog turn into a sprint, and then the ground was flying beneath him, and he wondered about how he could feel so happy when Olivia had seemed so afraid.
Consider the Lilies
After Sam had touched her, Olivia had started walking. She’d walked under the heat of a blazing afternoon sun until she was damp with sweat, until she couldn’t think. She’d walked across the features of the land that had been named long ago: Stony Field, the Trough, Chickadee Wood, and on up the steep, rocky climb of Soldier’s Hill, past humble woodland blooms of motherwort, yarrow, and enchanter’s nightshade, until she could see all the acres of her farm lying low in the belly of the valley before her, and the closed-up farmhouse sitting in the lee of the mountain by the road, and the Van Winkles’ faded blue colonial across the street, and on the hill above it, Gloria’s Tudoresque mansion. This high up, at some distance from the world below her, the breeze was refreshing on her overheated skin.
One of the side effects of having been so seldom touched during her lifetime was that when she was touched, her reaction was far bigger and more unwieldy than a normal person’s might have been. So few people had touched her in her adult lifetime that any innocent brush, bump, or graze could send her entire day into a dizzy tailspin of both guilt and exultation.
Because she could not touch other people, she’d long taken comfort in everything tactile. She did not walk through high grasses without skimming her hands over the tops, or pass lamb’s ear without bending to rub its fuzzy leaves between her forefinger and thumb. Food was not merely sustenance. It transported her, lifted her out of her body. She loved all food so much that she sometimes liked to eat alone so she could fully focus her senses on the tastes that lit up her mouth. During the winter, she inevitably put on ten pounds, spending her days experimenting with whatever foods were on hand. By the end of May, the hard work of running her farm and maze reduced her back to her usual size again.
Her sense of touch, too, was blazingly accurate, hypersensitized in the extreme. She supposed this was a side effect of being so untouchable; she felt everything. When she guessed the temperature she was never off by more than a single degree. When the cicadas rattled in the trees during high summer, she felt the soft breath of wind fanning from many distant wings. She never ironed her sheets—not only because she didn’t have much use for fastidiousness, but because she liked the sensation of the bends and creases in the fabric running over her skin. She’d even embraced pain, to an extent. Once, in the bleak of winter, she’d held her hand so long over a candle that it blistered—but it had felt like heaven to rush outside and bury her burning skin in the snow. For all her untouchability, she was intensely keyed into, focused on, and obsessed with physical sensations of every kind.
So while she could have beaten herself up over her unnecessarily intense reaction to Sam’s touch, she decided instead to go easy. To breathe deep. To focus on the red hawk that was lazily riding a thermal over Soldier’s Hill, to think only about the burn of her legs from her climb. She would not think too hard about how she was still trembling, even now, in a deep and nonspecific way. Nor would she think about how when the snow began to fall and she inevitably began dreaming about the heat of summer, she would remember the feeling of Sam’s skin on hers, the slight stickiness and salt between them, the pressure of his fingers, such a small moment, blown out of proportion by denial and memory.
The people of Green Valley and the Penny Loafers believed Olivia was strong because she was evenhanded and independent, because she didn’t blather and prattle and make idle chatter, because she wasn’t frivolous or wasteful but tried to be generous to those in need. I wish I was more like you, one of the Penny Loafers had said as she was leaving to return to her husband. You don’t need anybody.
But only Olivia knew that none of the superficial claddings of her personality could make up for the har
d truth: that deep down, she was afraid to be alone. She was so constantly in danger of self-pity or loneliness or despair over her lot in life that she needed to hold herself in a perfect posture of unshakable strength. She compensated for her desires by setting hard rules for herself: She would not regret, she would not be greedy for a life she would never have, she would not tolerate fear of being alone.
But the way Sam had smiled at her as she’d walked toward him from the beehives, smiled as if she were a bride behind her veil and he a groom ready to attend, gave her an unexpected and unsought glimpse into a kind of happiness that she would never normally have allowed herself to acknowledge. And the touch of his hand had literally made her tremble with a thing that felt, she had to admit, like her every hope and fear had been ignited into a wild burn.
She had thought, for a moment today when the sun had been so golden on her fields, that perhaps, just maybe, she might just find a real friend in Sam. She enjoyed his company, his conversation, and she felt a deep sense of curiosity to know more about him. Was he still so cerebral, as he’d been when they were children? Always analytical and impatient? Did he still strive for perfection and get irritated when it was out of reach—or did his new slouch, his tired eyes, and his banged-up shoes indicate that he no longer cared about looking neat and tidy? And if so, why the change?
She looked down at her watch and was surprised to see it was so late in the day. She’d thought they’d been talking for fifteen minutes; it had actually been an hour, which was an excessively long break for her to take. While she’d sat with him under the tree, she’d been unable to withstand the great swell of hope and optimism that his aggressive friendliness made her feel. Maybe, she’d thought, this will work. Maybe I’ll have a friend.
But then, he’d touched her. The feeling of his hand on her skin was still a distinct impression, like ice that holds the shape of a leaf long after the leaf has crumbled away. And two things changed: First, she knew she still wanted him in that same old way, on a level that was elemental and animal and chemical and utterly miserable and thrilling and miserable again. Second, in a matter of hours, depending on how quickly his skin reacted to her, he would know her for what she was. And in all likelihood, he would run away.
She stayed on the top of the hill, looking down on the valley, until she was breathing evenly again. Soon the sun would sink, the bats would begin to wake, the moon would appear over the edge of the horizon. She had just enough light to make her way down to Solomon’s Ravine to quickly check in with her father and return to her silo. By the time she climbed down the mountain and into the ravine, she was feeling no better—though she should have been.
“Dad.” She found Arthur bent over a beat-up silver pot set on the rock he referred to as his kitchen. The goat bleated at her loudly, dancing on its hooves, as she approached.
“Olivia! Care to join me for a bite?”
She said she would. She wanted to be distracted; her mind was a whirlwind that she needed to slow down. She sat on a cut tree stump while Arthur went to fetch a second bowl and the goat nuzzled against her. The dish Arthur had made was nothing fancy: just blanched peppers and corn, tossed with black beans, cilantro, garlic, and oil. It was cool food for a hot day, and she was glad. They ate together in silence for a time, which was not unusual. The goat settled onto the ground. Arthur did not bring up moving out of the ravine, and neither did she. All the while, the imprint of Sam’s hand burned on her skin, and the urge to tell her father about what had happened was enormous. Arthur was the only person who knew of her condition—for the moment. But there was a chance that by morning, Sam would understand as well. And that terrified her.
When they were finished she cleared her throat and said, “Sam was here today.”
“Of course he was,” Arthur said, and he smiled his crooked smile behind his beard. “And did you send him away or did you let him enjoy your company for a while?”
“He … he grabbed my arm.”
Arthur’s gaze shot up. “He hurt you?”
“No. He would never. But I might have hurt him.”
“Ah. I see.” Arthur’s gaze returned to his bowl.
“He was so extremely allergic to everything,” Olivia said. “I’m sure he’s going to have a reaction. Everyone does—but, Sam especially.”
“So you’ll have to tell him. Is that what you’re worried about?”
She nodded.
“My love, you are what you are. Sam will understand.”
Olivia shook her head, but said nothing. Perhaps Sam might understand. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind or care. He would tolerate her, be polite to her, treat her no differently. But she didn’t want him knowing. She liked it better when she could be distant and perfect, as opposed to intimate and imperfect. She didn’t want him to look at her and feel sorry for her, or feel afraid of her, or think What a shame.
But there was no way around it now.
“Think of this,” her father said. “Once he knows, he’ll know. And then you won’t have to worry about him finding out anymore.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she said. She knew he was right. And she should have felt some relief. But she’d liked being able to look into Sam’s eyes and know that when he was looking back, what he was seeing was not a monster, not a freak, just a woman.
She felt her father looking at her, trying to puzzle out the things she couldn’t say. At last, he stood up. The goat too got to his hooves, ready to follow. She thought he would say good night, but instead he said, “Just a minute.”
She watched the brief argument between them as Arthur told the goat to stay put and the goat resolutely followed him inside the shack. When they emerged Arthur was holding a pink bottle of sunscreen she’d given him the year before. His face was somber as he put it in her hand. The goat sniffed to investigate, looking for food, but she tugged the bottle away.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“I’ve been working on it. It’s for you.”
“Sunscreen?”
“Oh no. That’s just the bottle I had on hand. This is something much more special. I’ve been working on it since Sam got back.”
Olivia twisted the lid and brought the bottle to her nose. It smelled bitter and metallic beneath a heavy dose of menthol. Her father was always making one concoction or another—his own brand of animal scent for hunting, his own ointment to keep the winter cold off his cheeks, his own form of antacid tablets. She peered down into the bottle’s neck but could not see what was inside. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense any longer. What is it?”
“It’s a protective serum, made with a linseed oil base. It forms a barrier between one person’s skin and another. Or at least, it’s supposed to.”
“Wait. Say that again.”
“It forms a barrier, Olivia. A nearly imperceptible one. Between your skin and someone else’s. In theory. But I haven’t tried an actual test.”
“I thought you stopped doing this years ago. Trying to … to find a solution, I mean.”
Arthur glanced up sheepishly. “Do you not want it?”
Olivia looked at the bottle. All of Arthur’s cures and experiments had failed in the past; she could not imagine this one would be any different. But still, the fact that he’d continued working on her behalf when she’d thought he’d given up touched her deeply. “I don’t know what to say.”
Arthur shrugged. “It might not work. We don’t know precisely how your condition has come about, if one kind of allergen or another is more prevalent in your skin, or if it’s a cocktail of allergens, or what. I did what I could to cover our bases. But there’s no telling.”
“Still,” she said. Her heart was beginning to pound. The implication of the serum working was enormous—if it worked. Her breath came fast.
Maybe she could hug her father.
Maybe she could kiss someone hello.
Maybe she could high-five a child.
And … Sam …
“Oh now,” Arthur said. “No cause for
waterworks.”
“Sorry,” she said. She composed herself quickly while her father busied himself with picking up dirty pots and bowls, the goat puttering behind him. He’d never quite known what to do with himself when Olivia accidentally displayed a bit too much emotion. She took quiet breaths and gathered her wits. She ran a thumb over the plastic bottle. Even if it could work, who might she ask to try it with her? Her father was no longer a suitable test subject because he was old and didn’t heal the way he used to; even if he’d volunteered to let her try it with him, she would have refused. He needed his strength.
But surely her father didn’t mean for her to try it with Sam? He was far too sensitive to take that kind of risk. Plus, there was every chance that Sam would avoid her, and rightly so, from here on. Probably he would take a conciliatory approach: He would not mention his irritated skin, would continue to flash a neighborly wave now and again, would stop to talk with her politely about the weather, would perhaps throw her newspaper on the porch if he saw it in the road. But he would never touch her again.
She felt a familiar tightness in her chest, and she ignored it. “I’ve got to get going,” she said, more because she was afraid of betraying the oceans of her feelings than because she had work to do. She tested the weight of the bottle in her hand; it felt about half full.
“Well, thanks for this.”
“It’s nothing,” Arthur said. “Nothing at all.”
She patted the goat and then headed up the hard slant of the ravine, thinking she might go into her poison garden for a while. She felt shaky and off, unfamiliar to herself in some way. When she first truly understood the life that had been put before her, she’d mourned for a year that began with her twentieth birthday, indulging in self-pity of every kind. She gained weight, she grew mean-spirited, she sulked. Then, on a winter day when the snow fell and she realized she had not spoken to any other human being besides her father in three days, she understood that her despair had been nothing but a prolonged temper tan-tram, a protest like throwing herself at the feet of the Almighty if there was one and saying Make it stop!
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