by Allen, Dylan
3 MONTHS LATER
A week after I last spoke to her, I called Beth. Her phone went straight to voice mail. Right away, I was sure something was wrong.
Was she in trouble? Did her dad find out about us?
I slipped our satellite phone into my pack when no one was looking to use it when I couldn’t get a signal. I knew it was wrong. We’d left the charger, and once it was depleted, that was it. But, I had to call her. And I tried every day after we stopped to make camp.
She never answered. Not once in two weeks.
Was she blowing me off? Had she changed her mind?
That night we spent together was real.
The way she looked at me was real.
The way she kissed me was real.
Nadia called it wishful thinking. How well could I know her after just a couple nights? I didn’t bother to explain. She wouldn’t understand just how wrong she was. Something happened over the course of the week.
I’m not saying I fell in love, but for the first time in my life, I felt like that wasn’t some farfetched pipe dream.
I met a woman who I liked, who I felt an instant sense of connection with, and who felt the same.
The more time I spent out there with my family, the more I felt sure Beth was exactly who I needed to meet at the time. It wasn’t a coincidence and it wasn’t a figment of my imagination.
So, I didn’t worry that I couldn’t reach her. Once I got home and could talk to her any time I wanted, everything would be fine.
We were supposed to hike as much of the trail as we could in the month my father allotted for it. We started in Maine and worked our way south.
It is, by far, the most challenging part of the trail. It’s also the most beautiful and unspoiled. It felt like stepping back in time. Each day meant a grueling climb. Nights were spent in leaky, drafty shelters along the trail. If the shelters were already occupied, we set up camp out in the open. We cooked over campfires every couple of days, but otherwise lived on the dried fruit and meat we carried in abundant supply.
The hardest part was a 113-mile stretch that plays out like a topographical game of connect the dots. There are seven, 4,000-plus foot peaks and thirteen others topping 3,000 feet with significant elevation gain and loss between each.
There were days we didn’t see another living thing—save the rare moose or loon. The hike through the state was supposed to take us twenty-two days, but we took our time because about two weeks in my dad was clearly struggling to keep up.
We made it another seven days, one day before he collapsed. We were in a dead zone and thanks to me, the satellite phone was dead.
So, we had to carry him unconscious for almost four miles until we reached a town where we could have him airlifted to Mt. Sinai where he had his treatments.
His cancer had come back and was in his brain and spine. He was the only one not surprised by the news. He’d known for three months, and he hadn’t told anyone.
He died two months ago, and I’m angrier than ever at him. I have so many unanswered questions. So many things to say. And because of the promise I made to him on his deathbed, I’m halfway across the world on my fucking tour. Far away from everyone and playing music I fucking hate.
It’s my final night in Venice. And instead of taking the car service home, I decide to walk back to my hotel. I spurn the invite to dinner and maybe more from one of the singers in the opera’s chorus. Saying no wasn’t easy. Drowning my sorrows in alcohol and pussy doesn’t sound half bad. But I know where that leads and the last thing my mother needs is me getting arrested in a foreign country.
The Piazza San Marco is the beating heart of Venice’s most bustling neighborhood. As I stroll the charming, brightly lit and mostly empty square, I regret not stopping by the famous St. Marks Basilica—I would have loved to see their pipe organ. I follow my phone’s GPS directions and turn down one of the side streets leading to my hotel. I pass a jewelry store and see something that makes me stop. It’s a body chain draped on a black velvet bust of a woman’s upper body.
The gold chain is interspersed with tiny chips of agate, aquamarines, sapphires, and diamonds and it’s hanging down the mannequin’s back.
I know right away that I have to have it—no matter how much it costs.
After months of calls that went straight to her voicemail, and countless texts, I promised myself I wouldn’t try calling again. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but after my father died, it was easier to push thoughts of her away.
But, this necklace feels like a sign. As I walk out of the jewelry store with it in my grasp, I have a lightness in my step.
I force myself to wait until I’m settled in bed before I reach for my phone to call her. I want to be able to have an uninterrupted conversation.
I reach for my phone. I scroll to Beth’s contact. I hesitate. What will I say?
She met my dad. He was there for her when her brother died. She might not even know that he’s dead. She’ll want to know. My finger hovers for a second longer and then, I close my eyes and press “call.”
It goes straight to voice mail, and even though disappointment claws at me, I leave a message. “Hi Beth, it’s me. Carter... I just wanted to say… My father died. I thought you might want to know.” I sound stilted and unsure and I consider deleting it. But I don’t and hang up.
A few minutes later my phone buzzes with a text.
It’s from her.
I open the message and read her reply.
If her three-word missive could even be called a reply.
Stop calling me.
I should have been prepared for it after all these months of silence. But to think that I may have put the final nail in my dad’s coffin because I used our satellite phone to call this woman? This callous dismissal feels like a swift, hard, steel-toed kick to the very softest part of my gut.
I throw my phone so hard it comes apart when it hits the travertine tiles. And then, I promise to do my best to pretend I never met the girl who made me believe in forever.
16
TESTED
ELISABETH
My grandmother, Eloisa Wolfe is a diminutive woman. She’s barely five feet tall and doesn’t have an ounce of spare weight on her. At seventy-five, she’s let her hair go completely white and she wears it in a stylish, impeccable bob that sways as she walks. The whimsy of it is in complete contradiction to the perpetual severity of her expression and the precision with which she does everything.
“There is no room for weakness in a young woman’s character.” That was the first thing she said when we arrived back at her house. The second was “your disobedience shows a lack of gratitude for all of the blessings that have been bestowed on you. You have a responsibility to your family, and you will keep it. While you live in this house, we will speak one language. Discipline. You will spend this next year learning how to take care of your husband and his home.”
I only nodded. I was getting what I deserved. I broke the rules, and the consequences were disastrous. My brother is dead and it’s because I wanted to go to a party. Because I wanted to be like everyone else. I was kissing Carter while he was driving through the rain to get to me.
And now, he’s gone. The least I can do, after everything, is to do what they say.
I have never spent any extended period of time with my grandmother. She sent a card with a check for $50 on my birthday and an advent calendar every year.
We came to her house for long weekends at Thanksgiving and Easter. Not because it was family time, like everyone else. Those were the weekends when she hosted her grand getaway weekends.
Two dozen people would come to stay, and but for their very modern clothing, it could have been a scene from a Regency era novel.
When we arrived, she treated us like the rest of her houseguests. She and my father exchanged pecks on the cheek and shook hands with my brothers and patted me on the head when we arrived and then sent someone to come and show us to our rooms.
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sp; The only family time we spent together was when she would gather us for a family picture on Christmas Eve.
I didn’t know what to expect living here and why my father viewed it as a punishment.
She trotted out her small army of house staff and introduced them all. I was to spend a month with each one.
“You’ll see that this is the best thing that has ever happened to you. You need to let go of the things that make you weak. When you go home, you will be a new person and you won’t miss the sin and sorrow of your former life. You need this.”
Everything in me wanted to rebel. To tell her to fuck off and run away. And then, I would remember my brother and what he said about his duty, and how it was now mine.
I cried until I fell asleep, her hand stroking my head all the while.
When I woke up, there was a pad of paper and a pack of sketch pencils on my desk. I felt the first glimmer of hope I’d felt in weeks that day.
In those first few weeks, drawing was the only thing that kept my mind quiet. My “training” was pretty mundane and benign. I was awakened at 5:00 a.m., and my grandmother took me through a series of exercises she said would keep everything where it should be. After a very spare breakfast, she would lead me in Bible study for an hour.
Her housekeeper, Hilde, took over after that. It was there, that she taught me how to cook, how to manage a butler’s pantry, inventory, meal planning, gardening, and household staffing.
My time with Hilde and the young girl, Serene, who also worked in the kitchen was my bright spot. It turns out, I’m a pretty good cook, and once a week, when we did the baking for the church, she’d make something for me. On Monday mornings, my grandmother weighed me. And one Monday afternoon, I found a note on my bed that said, “meet me in the kitchen at 9:00 p.m.”
It wasn’t signed, and I was worried it was some sort of test from my grandmother. But I was too intrigued not to go. When I got there, Serene, the young girl who works in the kitchen, cleaning, doing food prep, and carrying up meals to the household, was waiting with a cupcake.
“Mondays are your weigh-in. Monday night is the perfect time to cheat. You have all week to work it off.”
It became our tradition, and while I ate my sweet contraband, I told her all about Carter.
It was the only day I allowed myself to think about him. Because after I let myself frolic in the sweetness of my memories with him, I would fall into despair at the idea that I wouldn’t see him again. My heart, as always, felt like it’d been hit with a hammer when I thought of him. I know he must think I ghosted on him. I wish I had a way to reach him. But, I’ve been so completely removed from everything.
My father took my phone and my computer. The landline phone has one receiver and it’s in the housekeeper’s office. The only TV I see is when I’m in the kitchen with Hilde and she’s watching a rerun of Keeping Up Appearances on PBS. I wouldn’t know if there was a zombie apocalypse coming our way.
The information whiteout was the hardest part of being here at first. But then, I started to feel less anxious about life in general. It turns out that comparison really is a thief of joy.
I wasn’t spending hours staring at beautiful people on Instagram who were posting about what I could do to have hair/skin/tits/clothes/friends/men/money like them. I would always log off feeling worse about myself than when I logged on. But without the constant bombardment of what I should and could be doing, all I had to judge my life on was how one day fared when compared to the one before it.
And in the six months since I moved here, I have to say that using that as a measure, life isn’t so bad.
It was lonely at first. My grandmother socialized a lot. She was a former first lady, and she took that role seriously.
She held a lavish dinner at least once a week, and once a month, she’d host a small group of friends for the weekend.
I had strict orders to stay in my room. She said until my hair grew long enough to make it clear I was a girl, I wasn’t fit for public viewing.
At home, I never minded missing out on nights like that. I was always happier by myself. But I found that not having a choice about it made alone time a lot less appealing.
I started drawing incessantly. Right away, some of the darker thoughts in my head quieted. All the things I couldn’t say, that I couldn’t find words for, I could draw. It was also reassuring to see that my soul could still imagine beautiful things. It made me want to be defiant. They could keep my body captive, but my mind was free.
I used that pad of paper to create a version of my life that made me smile. If I could draw my brothers, then they weren’t really gone. Some of the hopelessness dissipated.
First, I drew one with James and me facing each other, our palms touching. I gave us wings. His were the beautiful sleek feathers of an angel. Mine were tremendous and scaled like a dragon. I drew my father’s face onto the body of a wolf whose neck was caught in between the jaws of a dragon and impaled by the razor-sharp teeth.
But nothing satisfies me more than when I get to draw my memories of Carter.
In these drawings, I’m not a dragon.
I’m just a woman.
And Carter is just a man.
Today, I draw us as we were that night… me on counter in his bathroom. Carter’s head is buried between my bare thighs and his muscled and lightly veined arms are wrapped around them, holding me open while he gives me a lesson in pleasure that left me hungry for more.
While I draw, I’m so immersed in it that I can feel the rough scrape of his tongue and the sharp nip of his teeth…he smells of fresh air and tastes of salt and mint. I run my fingers through his silky, thick hair and then hold his head to me.
I slip my hand into my damp panties. It only takes a few minutes before I’m shuddering my release and gasping to try and stifle the moans that it pulls out of me. In the aftermath, I stare out of the window and find myself grateful for this view. The sky is clear blue today and stretches farther than my eye can see. This sky connects me to Carter. I know that he’s somewhere underneath that sky, too.
Footsteps outside my door jolt me out of my reverie. I run to my closet and shove the file folder I keep these pictures in into the back of my closet. I turn around just as the door swings open.
It’s my grandmother. My heart, already thumping hard from my orgasm, is now beating frantically.
“Good morning, Grandmother. You’re early.”
Her sharp, shrewd gaze is on the closet door for a beat before coming back to me.
She smiles as if pleasantly surprised.
“You’re looking robust this morning. It’s good to see some color in your cheeks. I’m glad you’re finally making peace with things,” she says with arch superiority and triumph.
I almost laugh when I imagine telling her what the color in my cheeks is really from, but I don’t dare let her think I’m mocking her.
She cocks her head and gives me a quick head to toe.
“Your hair is finally long enough to do something with. You’re going to the salon. And then we’ll go shopping. Time to get you ready to go back into the world feeling and looking like a Wolfe woman.”
“Okay, sure.”
“Your father has been trying to find someone who would be willing to overlook your lack of accomplishment and traditional beauty. It’s difficult. Powerful men want flawless wives. Thank goodness for your pedigree and your money.” She casts a critical eye over me and I squirm.
You would think that after a lifetime of this kind of scrutiny and criticism, it wouldn’t hurt so much to know that the people who should love me, think that I’m nothing without the fortune my grandfather left me.
When the stylist turns me to face the mirror I hardly recognize myself. I’m blonde, with hair that hangs past my shoulders thanks to the extensions she added to my hair. My makeup is impeccable, and as I gaze at the woman in the mirror, I’m hard pressed to find anything objectionable.
All the things that distinguished me are gone
. I don’t know who the woman in the mirror is, but I find out, very quickly, that the rest of the world likes her a lot better than they like the other me.
My grandmother smiles at me as I make my way toward the reception area where she’s waiting.
“You look perfect. Your father will be pleased.”
It’s only eight words.
I didn’t think I cared if I ever heard them.
But, now, as my heart expands, an ache that I’d lived with for so long that I didn’t even notice it anymore is suddenly gone.
Finally. My father will be pleased. With me.
We head to the mall, and as soon as we step inside the huge department store where my grandmother’s personal shopper is based, two men rush to pull the doors open for us and one of them winks at me when we make eye contact. It feels nice to be looked at like that. To not have their eyes rest on my birthmark before they look away.
The clothes we buy are all picked out by my grandmother. I try them all on, and even though no one asks my opinion, I can’t help but sigh over the sumptuous fabrics that they’re all made from.
Is this what I’ve been missing by refusing to dress the way they want? Why did I think that wearing these clothes would be torture? I admire myself in the mirror, and when we’re done, I ask to wear one of my new dresses home.
As I walk through the mall with my hair done, my makeup flawless and my body showcased in a blue dress that fits me like a second skin, I can see the looks of appreciation on people’s faces.
I look like the women that everyone finds attractive.
Not an acquired taste.
Not unique.
I know that this isn’t the real me. But, as men trip over their feet to get a second look, I think the old me and my refusal to conform might have been misguided.
This isn’t the night I wore that pink dress and concealed my stain. Everyone there knew me. They knew what was underneath the polish I put on. I can see now the difference between their smiles and the ones I’m getting today.
These men don’t know who my father is. They only see the woman I’m dressed as.