The Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls Part 11

Father closed his book, signaling our lesson was over.

"All right," he said, "you may go attend to your other, more pressing matters, like helping your mother." He smiled. Sam and I stood; I went to my father and kissed him on the forehead before I left the room, flattening my dress against my chest with my palm as I leaned over him. Half girl, half woman.

- Later I helped Mother wind Christmas greenery through the banister on the front porch's staircase, then above the windows. The sun shone directly overhead, mean today; I was hot, my skin felt thin, my underarms and forehead were beaded with sweat. Mother worked hard, and fast. Father said she was more efficient than any man. More and more, Mother liked me to help her with house ch.o.r.es. When I complained, she told me that I had to learn, that keeping house was an art. And, of course, my complaint was oblique: we never challenged Mother or Father, especially Mother.

When we were done, we stood in front of the house and admired it. Mother always liked this part-after she set her table for a holiday she would gaze at it for a few minutes, taken by its beauty, admiring her delicate china and starched linens.

"They look like eyebrows," I said of the greenery above the windows. "Thick eyebrows. Like the house is watching you."

I wasn't happy, out here doing this tedious work while Sam was doing whatever he pleased.

I waited for my mother to finish gazing. She started to say something, but seemed to hesitate, which was unusual: my mother never hesitated.

"Georgie is coming to stay with us for a bit," she said, finally.

I said nothing. Georgie often stayed with us. Yet I could feel her unease. I thought she was going to bring up the money. I didn't care about the money. "d.a.m.ned foolish," my father had said to Mother, when they thought we weren't listening. But we had been, me and Sam. It was easy to eavesdrop-they'd never seemed to notice that the door to their bedroom blocked no sound-but usually there was no need, their nighttime conversations were of no interest to us.

"Aunt Carrie's mother is ill. She's going there to be with her."

"There" meant somewhere in Missouri, the tiny Midwestern town that had always sounded awful: small, flat, plain.

"Georgie's going to be here for a few weeks, then," Mother continued, "and he'll sleep in Sam's room this time. With Sam."

"Why can't he stay at his own home? With Uncle George?" Though I did, in fact, want to see Georgie, I was angry-what did she mean, that Georgie and Sam would sleep separately from me? We had always slept in the same room. Don't cut off your nose to spite your face, I told myself.

Mother didn't scold me for my tone, which was cross; she looked pensive instead.

But then her face resolved itself into seriousness, and I looked down at my shoes.

"Uncle George has to be in Miami."

That was enough. I understood-she could stop. But she would not.

"To meet with his bank. So Georgie will be coming here, because a sixteen-year-old boy cannot stay alone for a week. He'll bring his schoolwork with him."

I raised my head and was met by Mother's firm gaze, her stern face. This was how she looked at you when she wanted acquiescence; if Sam were here, he would have kicked a puff of dirt, or shrugged, disguised as putting his hands in his pockets. But I only ever knew how to meet Mother's gaze.

I s.h.i.+fted my eyes and looked beyond her: such a view my home provided. Stands of giant oaks, broken occasionally by orderly groves of orange trees. Miles of thick green growth. Nothing seemed far away, there was so little opportunity for perspective in all the flatness. This lack of distance had always been comforting to me, since I was a child, everything so close even when it wasn't.

"Why can't I sleep in the same room?" I asked. I felt near tears.

She pulled me close before I had a chance to react. "Don't cry," she said. She smoothed my hair, which she knew I loved. I relented.

"Thea," she murmured, "you're getting older."

"I'm not."

"It's natural. It's the way things happen. Do you understand?" She cupped my chin in her hand and tilted my face up.

"I feel the same."

"But you're not the same. You'll still be close, you and your brother and Georgie. But there are certain things you can't do anymore. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

"Say it, please." Her voice was kind but firm.

"Yes."

"Oh, Thea." She patted my cheek. "Everything will be fine. It's just sleeping."

I slipped from her grasp and trotted away.

"Be good," she called from behind me, a phrase uttered so often it meant nothing.

- I was mean to Sasi that day. He was sluggish over the cross rails, warming up, and I pointed my toes out and jabbed his flank with my spurs. This was a problem we'd been having for the past few weeks, this clumsiness over the cross rails; there was always a problem, a difficulty, when one rode: that was the whole point of the endeavor, the constant striving. And this reaching depended both on me and my mount, and, more generally, on our natures. I was obsessed, as Father said; at the very least I was a perfectionist. And a horse was a dumb animal, clearly he could not want the same things that I wanted, but he could want to please me, and today I felt no eagerness from him.

And then it was over, quickly, as my fights with him usually were: we fought deeply and briefly.

As I was turned in the saddle, examining the welts my whip had made on Sasi's flanks, I saw Sam perched on the fence, one leg hiked up, his chin resting on it. I wondered how long he'd been there; I wondered if he'd seen me turn the whip over in my hand so that I could wield it more powerfully. Would he have even known that was wrong? Mother would have. She would have made me stop, immediately, no, no, no, her voice an incline.

I nudged Sasi forward. His head hung low. I had exhausted him. He would forget; he might have already forgotten. But he wouldn't forget the fear, and the memory of pain would be replaced by an instinct of mistrust. That was the problem with horses; they were too dumb to remember properly, but there was still a memory to contend with, a memory that could not be reasoned away.

"Georgie's coming tomorrow."

"I know," I said. I tried to smile, but the effort felt too great. I watched Sam sitting there with his leg hiked up. I could never hike my leg up like that; even in breeches, the posture would be terrible manners, unladylike. I knew that other twins, the twins I read about in books, were identical; I wondered how it would be if Sam had been a girl, like me. It was the first time I had ever wondered that. We would both have to sleep separately from Georgie, then. We would both have started menstruating.

Sam tilted his head, trying to read my thoughts, and I smiled. Sam as a girl was impossible. I was our only girl.

"I have to sleep separately from you and Georgie," I said, pulling Sasi to a halt. He stopped willingly.

Sam nodded. "I know. Mother told me." He paused. "All we're doing is sleeping, Thea."

I nudged Sasi into a walk again so Sam would not see my red face. I was furious Mother had told Sam. We were not the same person, after all.

"Thea?" Sam called, but I ignored him.

Sasi stood still and tired in the cross ties as I sponged warm water over his tense muscles. I traced the cross-st.i.tch of raised lines the whip had left on his haunches. I felt ashamed. I put my arms around Sasi's damp neck and he hung his head low. He loved me. I could feel his enormous heart, pumping in his plump pony's chest. Drawings of his pretty face were in all my notebooks. Sorry, I wanted to say, so sorry, but knew it was useless.

I felt sorry over Sam, too.

Usually I was calm and fair while riding, even when I was frustrated. I promised myself that I would not allow it to happen again. That I would not be so easily undone. I told myself I would be different next time, but what good were those promises, made as they were in the calm of the aftermath.

- Go," Georgie said, and folded laced fingers over his eyes. Sam and I ran in opposite directions, quietly, the air crisp and cool, the sun bright, one of Florida's perfect winter days.

I tiptoed into the barn, so that my heels would not clap against the cement floor. We'd been playing for hours, and I was tired, ready for dinner, but I would not be the one to suggest finis.h.i.+ng.

"h.e.l.lo," I whispered to Sasi, who stood at his hay, munching impa.s.sively. This was a lazy hiding spot, one I'd used before; I was hoping Georgie had forgotten. Or would come into the barn last, like he usually did. I was losing this game. Our rank was figured according to a complicated system. The more dangerous the spot, the more valuable. The rules never changed, but we were always adding new ones, so that the point of the game had unofficially become, over the years, that you were never safe.

We were too old to be doing this, Georgie nearly seventeen, Sam and I newly fifteen. But Georgie had suggested playing, and Sam's eyes had lighted up.

I crouched in the front corner of the stall, underneath the feed trough. This was not a hiding spot worth much, Sam was probably at the top of our oak tree. I watched Sasi's slender, k.n.o.bby legs; each time he swallowed, his entire throat leapt like a wave.

Georgie appeared in the stall window. He'd crept around the side of the barn so quietly I hadn't suspected. I pressed my spine into the cold corner and prayed Sasi wouldn't move.

"Hey there," Georgie said, and made an uncertain kissing noise with his mouth. Sasi swung his head around.

Georgie waited for an instant more and then he was off. I slunk out of the stall, tiptoed out the same way I had come. When I reached the end of the barn, I peered around the edge instead of making a run for it straightaway, and this was my tactical error.

Georgie, creeping along the barn's outside wall, saw me and smiled.

"I knew you'd be in here," he said.

I took a step backward, out of his sight.

"Don't even try," he called. "I don't want to run."

I ran anyway, toward the other end of the barn, but even though we were matched in speed (I was fast, for a girl), Georgie had the advantage, had me trapped, as long as I was inside and he was not.

"I told you I didn't want to run," he said, as he met me at the other end; I turned the other way, but it was too late. He grabbed my dress and I tripped to a stop. I expected him to let me go immediately and continue for Sam, but he held my dress and tugged me to the wall.

"What did I tell you?"

I looked at him. This was not the way we played.

"Go get Sam," I said.

"I told you not to try," he said.

He put both hands on my shoulders, suddenly, and pressed me to the wall. I could hear Sasi rhythmically chomping hay.

I relaxed under Georgie's grip; his face was so close to mine I could see the faint, scattered stubble of his shaved moustache. I hadn't known he'd started shaving.

"Very bad, Thea," he said, and smiled, and I smiled, too, and then he was gone, to get Sam.

- I was restless, restless. I went to bed at the same time as Sam and Georgie and listened to them talk through our closed doors and then there was silence, and I was still awake. I felt the curve of my breast beneath my nightgown, the swollen tip, the smooth, smooth skin.

Usually I stayed in bed until sleep came, but tonight I wanted out. I stood outside the boys' door and listened for snoring, signs of sleep.

The French doors that closed the living room from the lower landing were fragile, all gla.s.s panes and bra.s.s fittings, but I knew how to open them quietly. The Christmas tree rose to the ceiling and we'd had to trim the top in order to fit the angel: faceless, hairless, dressed in a luminescent gold gown. Idella's cousin delivered our tree every year. I wrapped my blanket tighter around my shoulders, s.h.i.+vered.

Whenever I see a Christmas tree now, adorned with a mismatched collection of ornaments, I'm embarra.s.sed for it. Mother's tree was beautiful: purple and red gla.s.s...o...b.., handblown, because of this slightly irregular-you could see the place on each where the blower had folded over the hot gla.s.s, closing the globe. The ornaments were so thin they seemed almost liquid when the tree was lit.

Mother used candles to light the tree, dozens of them, held by special gla.s.s holders. It was dangerous but beautiful. The rage then was to use electric, colored lights, red and blue and orange and green-but Mother hated all that color, thought it vulgar.

Someone was on the landing, then walking down the stairs, then the seventh step groaned and I knew it was Georgie; we all knew to skip that step.

"Shh," I said, as he came through, but he caught the sharp tongue of the lock with his hip. I drew in a quick breath: the door rattled, a hollow, familiar sound that was likely to wake Mother. If she found us, I knew she would think I had not been good. And my explanation-that I had done nothing, that Georgie had followed me downstairs-well, she would not believe me. I saw all this clearly as I watched Georgie walk past me, toward the front door, and I was chilled, then furious at my cousin.

"Stop," I hissed, but Georgie was already half outside; he looked back at me and beckoned. I ran to the door, needing to reach it before Georgie closed it roughly.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, as I pulled the door almost closed behind me.

"I'm watching the moon," he answered, in his normal tone.

"Watch it from inside."

He shrugged, and turned to me: "No." His voice was sluggish, sleepy. When he looked at me, his eyes were off center, distracted.

So I watched the moon, too, full and fat.

"How long are you going to stand here?" I asked.

"Why?"

"I'm cold."

"You woke me," he said. He seemed moody, this visit, spent more time in Sam's room, alone. He said he was reading, but Georgie never read.

"How did I wake you?" I had been so quiet.

"I always know where you are, Thea," he said.

"Only G.o.d always knows where I am," I replied softly.

"Is He watching now?" Georgie asked, also softly. He took a step closer. Another one. And then he was an inch or two from my face, his breath milky and thick.

"Of course," I said, but I had lost track of what we were talking about.

He touched my hair, and then let his hand fall to my neck.

We examined each other: my blanket had fallen from my shoulders, I was naked and cold underneath my white nightdress. My eyes were large from exhaustion. Georgie's face was swollen with sleep, his features babyish. Sweet-he looked sweet. His hair had gotten even longer in Aunt Carrie's absence, fallen forward over his eyes and lent him an air that was equal parts raffish and shy.

He put his face closer to mine and kissed me on the lips. Then he touched my cheek, and kissed me again, and parted my lips with his.

I knew that we were kissing, but I had never seen anyone kiss like this. Father kissed Mother on her cheek in our presence. People in my books kissed, but this had never been described, how warm Georgie's tongue was in my mouth, how strange and lovely it felt, in equal measures, as if the strangeness made it lovely.

I was not raised in a house where pleasure meant guilt. And this-Georgie's tongue in my mouth, like a live thing, the face that I had known since birth so close now, closer than ever before: this was bliss.

{10}.