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Out in a neighboring backyard, a woman is hanging white sheets and blue jeans on a laundry line. It won't rain anymore, that's what they're saying on the radio. It will be beautiful and sunny all week long, till the end of July.
"I got what I thought I deserved," Gillian says.
It is such a deep and true statement Sally cannot believe the words have come out of Gillian's careless mouth. They both measured themselves harshly, and they still do, as if they have never been anything but those two plain little girls, waiting at the airport for someone to claim them.
"Don't worry about Jimmy," Sally tells her sister.
Gillian wants to believe this is possible, she'd pay good money to, if she had any, but she shakes her head, unconvinced.
"He's as good as gone," Sally assures her. "Wait and see."
The toad in the middle of the lawn has come closer. In all honesty, it's quite pretty, with smooth, watery skin and green eyes. It's watchful and patient, and that's more than can be said for most human beings. Today, Sally will follow the toad's example, and will use patience as her weapon and her shield. She will go about her business; she'll vacuum and change the sheets on the beds, but all the while she's doing these things she'll really be waiting for Gillian and Kylie and Antonia to go out for the day.
As soon as she's finally alone, Sally heads for the backyard. The toad is still there; it's been waiting right along with Sally. It settles more deeply into the grass when Sally goes to the garage for the hedge clippers, and it's there when she brings them over, along with the stepladder she uses whenever she wants to change light bulbs or search the top shelves of the pantry.
The clippers are rusty and old, left behind by the house's previous owners, but they'll certainly do the job. The day is already turning hot and sultry, with steam rising from the rain puddles as they evaporate. Sally expects interference. She's never had any experience with restless spirits before, but she assumes they want to hang on to the real world. She half expects Jimmy to reach up through the grass and grab her ankle; she wouldn't be surprised if she clipped off the tip of her thumb or was toppled right off the ladder. But her work goes ahead with surprising ease. A man like Jimmy, after all, never does well in this sort of weather. He prefers air-conditioning and several six-packs. He prefers to wait until night falls. If a woman wants to work in the hot sun, he'd never be the one to stop her; he'd be flat out on his back, relaxed in the shade, before she'd even have time to set up her stepladder.
Sally, however, is used to hard work, especially in the dead of winter, when she sets her alarm for five a.m. so she can wake up early enough to shovel snow and do at least one load of laundry before she and the girls head out. She considered herself lucky to get the job at the high school so she could have time with her children. Now she sees she was smart. Summers have always belonged to her, and they always will. That's why she can take her time cutting down the hedges. She can take all day, if need be, but by twilight those lilacs will be gone.
In the far section of the yard only a few stumps will be left behind, so dark and knotty they'll be good for nothing other than a toad's home. The air will be so still it will be possible to hear a single mosquito; the last call of the mockingbird will echo, then fade. When night falls, there will be armloads of branches and flowers on the street, all neatly tied with rope, ready for the trash pickup in the morning. The women who are called to the lilacs will arrive to see that the hedges have been chopped to the ground, their glorious flowers nothing but garbage strewn along the gutter and the street. That is the moment when they'll throw their arms around one another and praise simple things and, at long last, consider themselves to be free.
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO, people believed that a hot and steamy July meant a cold and miserable winter. The shadow of a groundhog was carefully studied as an indicator for bad weather. The skin of an eel was commonly used to prevent rheumatism. Cats were never allowed inside a house, since it was well known that they could suck the breath right out of an infant, killing the poor baby in his cradle. People believed that there were reasons for everything, and that they could divine these reasons easily. If they could not, then something wicked must be at work. Not only was it possible to converse with the devil, but some in their midst actually made bargains with him. Anyone who did was always found out in the end, exposed by his or her own bad fortune or the dreadful luck of those close by.
When a husband and wife were unable to have a child, the husband placed a pearl beneath his wife's pillow, and if she still failed to conceive, there'd be talk about her, and concern about the true nature of her character. If all the strawberries in every patch were eaten by earwigs, suddenly and overnight, then the old woman down the road, who was cross-eyed and drank until she was as unmovable as a stone, was brought into the town hall for questioning. Even after a woman proved herself innocent of any wrongdoing—if she managed to walk through water and not dissolve into smoke and ashes or if it was discovered that the strawberries in the entire Commonwealth had been affected—that still didn't mean she'd be welcome in town or that anyone believed she wasn't guilty of something.
These were the prevailing attitudes when Maria Owens first came to Massachusetts with only a small satchel of belongings, her baby daughter, and a packet of diamonds sewn into the hem of her dress. Maria was young and pretty, but she dressed all in black and didn't have a husband. In spite of this, she possessed enough money to hire the twelve carpenters who built the house on Magnolia Street, and she was so sure of herself and what she wanted that she went on to advise these men in such matters as what wood to use for the mantel in the dining room and how many windows were needed to present the best view of the back garden. People became suspicious, and why shouldn't they be? Maria Owens's baby girl never cried, not even when she was bitten by a spider or stung by a bee. Maria's garden was never infested with earwigs or mice. When a hurricane struck, every house on Magnolia Street was damaged, except for the one built by the twelve carpenters; not one of the shutters was blown away, and even the laundry forgotten out on the line stayed in place, not a single stocking was lost.
If Maria Owens chose to speak to you, she looked you straight in the eye, even if you were her elder or better. She was known to do as she pleased, without stopping to deliberate what the consequences might be. Men who shouldn't have fell in love with her and were convinced that she came to them in the middle of the night, igniting their carnal appetites. Women found themselves drawn to her and wanted to confess their own secrets in the shadows of her porch, where the wisteria had begun to grow and was already winding itself around the black-painted railings.
Maria Owens paid attention to no one but herself and her daughter and a man over in Newburyport who none of her neighbors even knew existed, although he was well known and quite well respected in his own town. Three times every month, Maria bundled up her sleeping baby, then she put on her long wool coat and walked across the fields, past the orchards and the ponds filled with geese. Drawn by desire, she traveled quickly, no matter what the weather might be. On some nights, people thought they saw her, her coat billowing out behind her, running so fast it seemed she was no longer touching the ground. There might be ice and snow, there might be white flowers on every apple tree; it was impossible to tell when Maria might walk through the fields. Some people never even knew she was passing right by their houses; they would simply hear something out beyond where they lived, out where the raspberries grew, where the horses were sleeping, and a wash of desire would filter over their own skins, the women in their nightgowns, the men exhausted from the hard work and boredom of their lives. Whenever they did see Maria in daylight, on the road or in a shop, they looked at her carefully, and they didn't trust what was before them—the pretty face, the cool gray eyes, the black coat, the scent of some flower no one in their town could name.
And then one day, a farmer winged a crow in his cornfield, a creature that had been stealing from him shamelessly for months. When Maria Owens appeared the very next morning with her arm in a sling and her right hand wound up in a white bandage, people felt certain they knew the reason why. They were polite enough when she came into their stores, to buy coffee or molasses or tea, but as soon as her back was turned they made the sign of the fox, raising pinky and forefinger in the air, since this motion was known to unravel a spell. They watched the night sky for anything strange; they hung horseshoes over their doors, hammered in with three strong nails, and some people kept bunches of mistletoe in their kitchens and parlors, to protect their loved ones from evil.
Every Owens woman since Maria has inherited those clear gray eyes and the knowledge that there is no real defense against evil. Maria was no crow interested in harassing farmers and their fields. It was love that had wounded her. The man who was the father of her child, whom Maria had followed to Massachusetts in the first place, had decided he'd had enough. His ardor had cooled, at least for Maria, and he'd sent her a large sum of money to keep her quiet and out of the way. Maria refused to believe he would treat her this way; still he had failed to meet her three times, and she just couldn't wait any longer. She went to his house in Newburyport, something he'd absolutely forbidden, and she'd bruised her own arm and broken a bone in her right hand by pounding on his door. The man she loved would not answer her cries; instead he shouted at her to go away, with a voice so distant anyone would have guessed they were little more than strangers. But Maria would not go away, she knocked and she knocked, and she didn't even notice that her knuckles were bloody; welts had already begun to appear on her skin.
Finally, the man Maria loved sent his wife to the door, and when Maria saw this plain woman in her flannel nightgown, she turned and ran all the way home, across the fields in the moonlight, fast as a deer, faster even, entering into people's dreams. The next morning most people in town awoke out of breath, with their legs shaking from exertion, so tired it seemed as though they hadn't slept a wink. Maria didn't even realize what she'd done to herself until she tried to move her right hand and couldn't, and she thought it only fitting that she'd been marked this way. From then on, she kept her hands to herself.
Of course, bad fortune should be avoided whenever possible, and Maria was always prudent when it came to matters of luck. She planted fruit trees in the dark of the moon, and some of the hardier perennials she tended continue to sprout among the rows in the aunts' garden; the onions are still so fiery and strong it's easy to understand why they were thought to be the best cure for dog bites and toothaches. Maria always made certain to wear something blue, even when she was an old lady and couldn't get out of bed. The shawl across her shoulders was blue as paradise, and when she sat on the porch in her rocking chair it was difficult to tell where she ended and where the sky began.
Until the day she died, Maria wore a sapphire the man she'd loved had given her, just to remind herself of what was important and what was not. For a very long time after she was gone, some people insisted they saw an icy blue figure in the fields, late at night, when the air was cold and still. They swore that she walked past the orchards, traveling north, and that if you were very quiet, if you didn't move at all, but stayed down on one knee beside the old apple trees, her dress would brush against you, and from that day forward you'd be lucky in all matters, as would your children after you, and their children as well.
In the small portrait the aunts have sent Kylie for her birthday, which arrives in a packing crate two weeks late, Maria is wearing her favorite blue dress and her dark hair is pulled back with a blue satin ribbon. This oil painting hung on the staircase in the Owens house for one hundred and ninety-two years, in the darkest corner of the landing, beside the damask drapes. Gillian and Sally passed by it a thousand times on their way up to bed, without giving it a second look. Antonia and Kylie played games of Parcheesi on the landing during their August vacations and never even noticed that there was anything on the wall, other than spiderwebs and dust.
They notice now. Maria Owens is hanging above Kylie's bed. She is so alive on the canvas, it's obvious that the painter was in love with her by the time he had finished this portrait. When the hour is late and the night very quiet, it's almost possible to see her breathing in and out. If a ghost were to consider climbing in the window, or seeping through the plaster, he might think twice about facing Maria. You can tell just by looking at her that she never backed down or valued anyone's opinion above her own. She always believed that experience was not simply the best teacher, it was the only one, which is why she insisted the painter include the bump on her right hand, where it had never quite healed.
The day the painting arrived, Gillian came home from work smelling of french fries and sugar. Since Sally had chopped down the lilacs, every day was better than the one before. The sky was bluer, the butter set out on the table was sweeter, and it was possible to sleep through the night without nightmares or fears of the dark. Gillian sang while she wiped off the counters at the Hamburger Shack; she whistled on her way to the post office or the bank. But when she went upstairs and opened the door to Kylie's room to find herself face to face with Maria, she let out a screech that frightened all the sparrows in the neighbors' yards and set the dogs howling.
"What a dreadful surprise," she said to Kylie.
Gillian' went as close to Maria Owens as she dared. She had the urge to drape a towel over the portrait, or to replace it with something cheerful and ordinary, a brightly toned painting of puppies playing tug of war, or children at a tea party setting out cakes for their teddy bears. Who needed the past right there on the wall? Who needed anything that had once been in the aunts' house, up on the gloomy landing, beside the threadbare drapes.
"This is way too creepy to have in the bedroom," Gillian informed her niece. "We're taking it down."
"Maria is not creepy," Kylie said. Kylie's hair was growing out, leaving her with a brown streak half an inch' wide in the center of her head. She should have looked odd and unfinished; instead she was growing even more beautiful. In fact, she resembled Maria; side by side, they might even appear to be twins. "I like her," Kylie told her aunt, and since it was her bedroom, that was that.
Gillian claimed she would be too nervous to sleep with Maria hanging above them, she'd have nightmares and perhaps even the shakes, but that's not the way it's turned out. She's stopped thinking about Jimmy completely and no longer worries that someone will come looking for him; if he owed money or had cut a bad deal, the men who'd been wronged would have been there by now, they would have come and taken what they wanted and already been gone. Now that the portrait of Maria is on the wall, Gillian has been sleeping even more deeply. Each morning she wakes with a smile on her face. She's not as frightened of the backyard as she used to be, although every now and then she drags Kylie to the window, just to make certain Jimmy hasn't come back. Kylie always insists she has nothing to worry about. The garden is clear and green. The lilacs have been cut so close to their roots it may be years before they sprout again. Once in a while something casts a shadow across the lawn, but it's probably the toad who has taken up residence in the roots of the lilacs. They'd know if it was Jimmy, wouldn't they? They'd feel more threatened and much more vulnerable.
"No one is out there," Kylie has promised. "He's gone." And maybe he really is, because Gillian isn't crying anymore, not even in her sleep, and those bruises he left on her arms have disappeared, and she's started to date Ben Frye.
The decision to take a chance with Ben came upon her suddenly, as she was driving home from work in Jimmy's Oldsmobile, which still had beer cans rattling around somewhere under the seat. Ben continued to call several times a day, but that couldn't go on forever, even though he had amazing patience. As a boy, he had taken eight months to teach himself to escape from a pair of iron handcuffs. Before he mastered the art of putting a match out under his tongue, he burned the roof of his mouth, again and again, so that for weeks afterward he could consume nothing but buttermilk and pudding. Illusions that lasted only seconds on a stage took months or even years to understand and execute. But love was not about practice and preparation, it was pure chance; if you took your time with it you ran the risk of having it evaporate before it had even begun. Sooner or later, Ben was bound to give up. He'd be on his way to see her, he'd have a book under his arm in order to pass the time while he waited for her on the porch, and he'd suddenly think, Nope, just like that, out of the blue. All Gillian had to do was close her eyes and she could see the expression of doubt that would spread across his face. Not today , he'd decide and he'd turn around to head for home and he probably wouldn't ever come back.
Speculating about the time when Ben finally stopped chasing after her made Gillian sick to her stomach. The world without him, without his phone calls and his faith, didn't interest her in the least. And who was she protecting him from, really? That careless girl who broke people's hearts and asked for nothing more than a good time was gone. Jimmy had seen to that. That girl was so long ago and so far away that Gillian couldn't even remember why she'd thought she'd ever been in love before, or what she'd thought she was getting from all those men, who never knew who she was in the first place.
On that evening when the sky was pale and blue and the beer cans were rolling around each time she stepped on the brake, Gillian made an illegal U turn and drove to Ben Frye's house before her nerve failed her. She told herself she was an adult and could handle an adult encounter. It wasn't necessary for her to run away, or protect someone at her own expense, or do anything more than take one baby step at a time in any direction she chose. All the same, she thought she might faint when Ben came to answer his door. She'd planned to tell him that she wasn't looking for a commitment or anything serious—she wasn't sure if she was going to kiss him, let alone get into bed with him—but she never got to say any of it, because once she stepped into the front hallway, Ben wasn't about to wait.
He'd done enough time with patience, he'd served his sentence, now he didn't intend to look past what he wanted. He started kissing Gillian before she could mention that she was still thinking it over. His kisses made her feel things she didn't want to feel, at least not yet. He got her up against the wall and slipped his hands under her blouse, and that was that. She didn't say "Stop it," she didn't say "Wait," she kissed him back until she was too far gone to think anything over. Ben was driving her crazy, and he was testing her, too—every time he got her really hot, he'd stop just to see what she would do, and how much she wanted it. If he didn't take her into the bedroom soon, she'd find herself begging him to fuck her. She'd wind up saying, Please, baby , which is what she used to say to Jimmy, although she never really meant it. Not back then. It's never possible for a woman to concentrate on making love when she's that scared. Too scared to breathe, too frightened to consider saying, Not like that. It hurts too much when you do it like that .
She talked dirty to Jimmy because she knew it helped to make him hard. If he'd been drinking all night and couldn't get it up, he'd turn on her so fast she'd be reeling. One minute everything would be fine, and the next second the air all around him would be set on fire from the fury of whatever was inside him. When this happened, either he'd start to slap her or she'd have to start telling him how much she wanted him inside her. At least he'd have something to do with his anger when Gillian told him that she wanted him to fuck her all night, she wanted him so much she'd do anything, he could make her do anything. And didn't he have a perfect right to be angry and do whatever he pleased? Wasn't she so bad she needed to be punished, and only he could do it, he could do it right?
Talk and violence always turned Jimmy on, and so Gillian always started talking right away. She was smart enough to get him hard fast, to talk nasty and suck his dick, before he started to get really mad. He'd fuck her then, but he could be mean about it, and selfish, too, and he liked it when she cried. When she cried, he knew he had won, and for some reason that was important to him. He didn't seem to know he'd won from the start, when she first saw him, when she first looked into his eyes.
As soon as they were done with sex, Jimmy would be nice to her again, and it was worth almost anything to have him when he was that way. When he was feeling all right and didn't have anything to prove, he was the man she'd fallen for so hard, he was the one who could make nearly any woman believe whatever he wanted. It's easy to forget what you do in the dark, if you need to. Gillian knew that other women thought she was lucky, and she agreed with them. She'd gotten confused, that's what had happened. She'd started to accept that love had to be like this, and in a way she was right, because with Jimmy that's the way it did have to be.
Gillian was so used to having someone get her down on her hands and knees first thing; she was so ready to be struck and then told she'd better suck hard, that she couldn't believe Ben was spending this much time kissing her. All this kissing was making her crazy; it was reminding her of what she could feel, and how it could be when you wanted someone as much as he wanted you. Ben was about as different from Jimmy as anyone could be. He wasn't interested in making anyone cry, then sweet-talking her afterward, the way Jimmy used to, and he didn't need any help the way Jimmy always did. By the time Ben pulled her panties off, Gillian was completely weak in the knees. She didn't give a damn about going into the bedroom, she wanted it there, she wanted it now. She no longer had to debate the possibility of being with Ben Frye; this relationship had already happened, she'd walked straight into it, and she wasn't about to start walking away.
They made love for as long as they could, right there in the hallway, and then they went to Ben's bed and slept for hours, as though they'd been drugged. As they were falling asleep, Gillian could have sworn she heard Ben say Fate— as if they were meant to be together from the start and every single thing they'd ever done in their lives had been leading to this moment. If you thought that way, you could fall asleep without regret. You could put your whole life in place, with all the sadness and the sorrow, and still feel that at last you had everything you'd ever wanted. In spite of the lousy odds and all the wrong turns, you might actually discover that you were the one who'd won.
When Gillian woke, it was evening and the room was dark, except for something that appeared to be a white cloud poised at the foot of the bed. Gillian wondered if she was dreaming, if perhaps she'd risen out of her body to float above herself and the bed she'd been sharing with Ben Frye. But when she pinched herself, it hurt. This was still her, all right. She ran her hand along Ben's back, just to make certain he was real too. In fact, he was real enough to startle her; his muscles and his skin and the heat from his sleeping body made her want him all over again, and she felt foolish, like a schoolgirl who doesn't stop to consider any consequences.
Gillian sat up, the white sheet pulled around her, and found that the cloud at the foot of the bed was nothing more than Ben's pet rabbit, Buddy, who hopped into her lap. Only a few weeks ago, Gillian had been out in the Sonoran desert, her hands over her ears, as Jimmy and two of his friends shot prairie dogs. They killed thirteen of them, and Gillian had thought it was terrible luck. She'd gotten shaky and pale, too upset to hide it. Luckily, Jimmy was in a great mood, since he'd bagged more prairie dogs than his pals had, shooting eight, if you included the two babies. He came over and put his arms around Gillian. When he looked at her in this way, she understood why she'd been so drawn to him, and why she was still. He could make it seem as though you were the only person in the universe; a bomb could fall, lightning could strike, he simply would not take his eyes off you.
"The only good rodent is a dead rodent," Jimmy had told her. He smelted of cigarettes and heat and was just about as alive as a human being could be. "Trust me on this. When you see one, shoot to kill."
Jimmy would have gotten a good laugh catching her in bed with a rodent. Gillian pushed the rabbit away, then got up and found her way to the kitchen for a glass of water. She was disoriented and confused. She didn't know what she was doing in Ben's house, although it was surprisingly comfortable, with nice old pine furniture and shelves filled with books. Most of the men Gillian had been involved with had avoided the kitchen, some hadn't even seemed to be aware that their own houses had such rooms, complete with stoves and sinks, but here the kitchen was well used—a weathered pine table was piled high with science textbooks and menus from Chinese restaurants, and, when she looked, Gillian discovered that there was actually food in the refrigerator: several casserole pans of lasagna and broccoli-with-cheese soufflй, a carton of milk, cold cuts, bottled water, bunches of carrots. Right before they had to leave Tucson in such a hurry, there was nothing in their refrigerator but six-packs of Budweiser and Diet Coke. One package of frozen burritos was wedged way in the back near the ice trays, but anything left in their freezer always defrosted, then refroze, and was better left alone.
Gillian got herself a bottle of fancy water, and when she turned she saw that the rabbit had followed her.
"Go away," she told him, but he wouldn't.
Buddy had taken to Gillian in a major way. He thumped his leg, the way rabbits in love always do. He paid no attention to her frown, or the fact that she waved her hands at him, as if he were a cat to be shooed away. He trailed behind her into the living room. When Gillian stopped, Buddy sat down on the rug and looked up at her.
"You quit this right now," Gillian said.
She wagged her finger and glared at him, but Buddy stayed where he was. He had big brown eyes that were rimmed with pink. He looked serious and dignified, even when he washed his paws with his tongue.
"You're just a rodent," Gillian told him. "That's all you are."
Gillian felt like crying, and why shouldn't she? She could never live up to Ben's version of her; she had a whole secret, horrible past to hide. She used to fuck men in parked cars just to prove she didn't give a damn; she used to count her conquests and laugh. She sat on the couch that Ben had ordered from a catalogue when his old one became threadbare. It was a really nice couch, made out of some plum-colored corduroy fabric. Just the kind of couch Gillian would have spotted in a magazine and wanted for herself, if she had a house, or money, or even a permanent address to which she could have catalogues and magazines mailed. She wasn't even certain that she could be in a normal relationship. What if she got tired of someone's being nice to her? What if she couldn't make him happy? What if Jimmy had been right and she'd asked to be hit—maybe not out loud, but in some nameless way she wasn't aware of. What if he'd fixed it so she actually needed it now?
The rabbit hopped over and sat at her feet.
"I'm fucked up," Gillian told him.
She curled up on the couch and wept, but even that didn't scare the rabbit away. Buddy had spent a great deal of time at the children's ward at the hospital over on the Turnpike. Every Saturday, during Ben's magic act, he was pulled out of a hat that was old and smelled of alfalfa and sweat. Buddy was used to bright lights and people crying, and he was always well behaved. He had never once bitten a child, not even when he'd been poked or teased. Now, he rose onto his back legs and balanced carefully, just as he'd been taught.
"Don't try to cheer me up," Gillian said, but all the same he did. By the tune Ben came out of the bedroom,
Gillian was sitting on the floor with Buddy, feeding him some seedless grapes.
"This is one smart character," Gillian said. The sheet she'd taken from the bed was wrapped around her carelessly and her hair was sticking out like a halo. She felt calmer now, and lighter than she had for quite a while. "Why, he can put on the floor lamp by jumping on the switch. He can hold this bottle of water between his paws and drink some without spilling a drop. No one who hadn't seen it would believe it. Next thing I know, you'll tell me he's litter-trained like a cat."
"He is."
Ben was standing by the window, and in the pale new light he looked as if he'd slept the deep sleep of angels; no one would guess how he had panicked when he awoke to find Gillian gone from his bed. He'd been ready to run down the street, to call the police and demand a search party. In those moments when he'd climbed from his bed he'd guessed he had somehow managed to lose her, as he'd lost everything else in his life, but here she was, wrapped up in the sheet from his bed. If he was honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he had a real fear of people disappearing on him, which is why he turned to magic in the first place. In Ben Frye's act, what vanished always reappeared, whether it was a ring or a quarter or Buddy himself. In spite of all this, Ben had gone and fallen in love with the most unpredictable woman he'd ever met. And he couldn't fight it; he didn't even want to try. He wished he could tie her up in his room, with ropes made of silk; he wished he never had to let her go. He crouched down beside Gillian with the full knowledge that he was the one tied in knots. He wanted to ask her to marry him, to never leave him; instead he reached beneath the couch pillow, then waved his arm around and pulled a carrot out of thin air. For the first time ever, Buddy ignored food; he edged closer to Gillian.
"I see I have a rival," Ben said. "I may have to cook him."
Gillian scooped the rabbit into her arms. All the while Ben had been sleeping, she'd been dissecting her past. Now, she was through with it. She was not going to let that little girl sitting on the dusty back steps of the aunts' kitchen control her. She was not going to let that idiot who'd gotten herself entangled with Jimmy rule her life. "Buddy is probably the most intelligent bunny in the entire country. He's so smart that he'll probably ask me over for dinner tomorrow night."
It was clear to Ben that he owed the rabbit a debt of gratitude. If not for Buddy, perhaps Gillian would have left without saying good-bye; instead she stayed, and wept, and reconsidered. And so, in honor of Buddy, Ben fixed carrot soup the next evening, a salad of leaf lettuce, and a pot of Welsh rabbit, which Gillian was extremely relieved to hear was nothing more than melted cheese served with bread. A plate of salad and a small bowl of soup had been placed on the floor for Buddy. The rabbit was petted and thanked, but after dinner he was taken to his carrying crate for the night. They didn't want him scratching at the bedroom door; they didn't want to be disturbed, not by Buddy or anyone else.
Since then, they have been together every night. Just about the time when Gillian gets off from work, Buddy heads for the front door, and he paces, agitated, until Gillian arrives, smelling of french fries and herbal soap. The teenage boys from the Hamburger Shack follow her halfway down the Turnpike, but they stop when she turns onto Ben's street. In the fall, these boys will sign up for Ben Frye's biology course, even the lazy and stupid ones who have always failed science before. They figure that Mr. Frye knows something, and that they'd better learn whatever it is, and learn fast. But these boys can study all semester, they can be on time for every single lab, they still won't learn what Ben knows until they fall head over heels in love. When they don't care if they make fools of themselves, when taking a risk seems the safest thing to do, and walking a tightrope or throwing themselves into white-water rapids feels like child's play compared with a single kiss, then they'll understand.
But for now, these boys don't know the first thing about love, and they sure don't know women. They would never have imagined that the reason Gillian has been dropping steaming cups of hot coffee while she's waiting on people at the Hamburger Shack is that she can't stop thinking about the things Ben does to her when they're in his bed. She gets lost driving home whenever she thinks about the way he whispers to her; she's as hot and confused as a teenager.
Gillian has always considered herself an outsider, so it's been a big relief to discover that Ben is not as normal as she originally thought. He can easily spend three hours at the Owl Cafй on a Sunday morning, ordering plates of pancakes and eggs; most of the waitresses there have dated him and they get all dreamy when he comes in for breakfast, bringing him free coffee and ignoring whoever his companion might be. He keeps late hours; he is amazingly quick because of all his practice with cards and scarves, and can catch a sparrow or a chickadee in midflight just by reaching into the air.
The unexpected facets of Ben's personality have truly surprised Gillian, who never would have imagined that a high school biology teacher would be such a fanatic about knots, and that he would want to tie her to the bed or that after her previous experience, she would consider, then agree, and finally find herself begging for it. Whenever Gillian sees a package of shoelaces or a ball of string in the hardware store, she gets totally excited. She has to run home to Sally's so she can scoop some ice cubes out of the freezer and run them along her arms and inside her thighs just to chill her desire.
After she found several pairs of handcuffs in Ben's closet—which he often uses in his magic act—ice cubes weren't enough. Gillian had to go into the yard, turn on the hose, and run a shower of water over her head. She was burning up at the thought of what Ben could do with those handcuffs. She wishes she could have seen his smile when he walked into the room to discover that she'd left them out on his bureau, but he took the hint. That night he made certain the key was far enough away so that neither of them could reach it from the bed. He made love to her for so long that she ached, and still she'd wouldn't have thought of asking him to stop.
She wants him never to stop, that's the thing, that's what's making her nervous, since it was always the other way around. Even with Jimmy—it was the man who wanted her, and that's the way she liked it. When you want someone you're in his power. Feeling the way she does, Gillian has actually gone over to the high school, where Ben has been setting up his classroom for the fall, to ask him to make love to her. She can't wait for him to come home, she can't wait for night to fall, for bedrooms and closed doors. She comes to put her arms around him and then she tells him she wants it right now. It's not like Jimmy; she really means it. She means it so much that she can't even remember saying these same words to anyone else. As far as she's concerned, she never did.
Everyone in the school district knows about Ben and Gillian; the news has gone through the neighborhood like a grass fire. Even the janitor has congratulated Ben on his good fortune. They're the couple watched by neighbors and discussed at the hardware store and at the bar of Bruno's Tavern. Dogs follow them when they go out for a walk; cats congregate in Ben's backyard at midnight. Each time Gillian sits on a rock at the reservoir with a stopwatch to time Ben as he runs, the toads climb out of the mud to sing their deep, bloodless song, and by the time Ben has finished with his run he has to step over a mass of damp gray-green bodies in order to help Gillian down from her rock.
If they're out together and Ben accidentally meets one of his students, he gets serious and starts to talk about last year's final exam or the new equipment he'll be setting up in the lab or the countywide science fair in October. The girls who have been in his classes become wide-eyed and mute in his presence; the boys are so busy staring at Gillian they don't pay attention to a word he says. But Gillian listens to him. She loves to hear Ben talk about science. It makes her stomach flip over with desire when he starts to discuss cells. If he mentions the pancreas or the liver, it's all she can do to keep her hands off him. He's so smart, but that's not the only thing that gets to Gillian—he acts like she is, too. He assumes she can understand what the hell he's talking about, and just like a miracle, she does. For the first time she grasps the difference between a vein and an artery. She knows all the major organs, and what's more, she can actually recite the function of each, not to mention its placement in the human body.
One day, Gillian completely surprises herself by driving to the community college and signing up for two classes that start in the fall. She doesn't even know whether she'll be here in September, but if she should happen to stay on, she'll be studying earth science and biology. At night, when she comes home from being with Ben, Gillian goes to Antonia's room and borrows her Biology I textbook. She reads about blood and bones. She traces the digestive system with the tip of her finger. When she gets to the chapter on genetics she stays up all night. The notion that there is a progression and a sequence of possibilities when dealing with who a human can and will be is thrilling. The portrait of Maria Owens above Kylie's bed now seems as certain and as clear as a mathematical equation; on some nights Gillian finds herself staring at it and she has the feeling she's looking into a mirror. Of course , she always thinks then. Math plus desire equals who you are. For the first time she has begun to appreciate her own gray eyes.
Now when she sees Kylie, who looks enough like her that strangers assume they're mother and daughter, Gillian senses the connection in her blood. What she feels for Kylie is equal parts science and affection; she would do anything for her niece. She'd step in front of a truck and trade away several years of her life to ensure Kylie's happiness. And yet Gillian is so busy with Ben Frye, she doesn't notice that Kylie is barely speaking to her in spite of all this affection. She'd never guess that Kylie has been feeling used and cast aside ever since Ben entered the picture, which is especially painful for her, since she took her aunt's side against her mother in the birthday debacle. Even though Gillian took her side, too, and is the only one on earth to treat Kylie like a grownup rather than a baby, Kylie has felt betrayed.
Secretly, Kylie has done mean things, nasty tricks worthy of Antonia's malice. She put ashes in Gillian's shoes, so her aunt's toes would be dirty and smudged, and even added some glue for good measure. She poured a can of tunafish down the bathtub drain, and Gillian wound up bathing in oily water that had such a strong scent four stray cats jumped in through the open window.
"Is something wrong?" Gillian asked one day when she turned to see Kylie glaring at her.
"Wrong?" Kylie blinked. She knew how innocent she could seem if she wanted to. She could be an extremely good girl, just the way she used to be. "What would make you ask that?"
The very same night Kylie had five anchovy pizzas delivered to Ben Frye's house. Being resentful was an awful feeling; she wanted to be happy for Gillian, really she did, but she just couldn't seem to manage it until one day she happened to see Gillian and Ben walking together by the high school. Kylie was on her way to the town pool, with a towel draped over her shoulder, but she stopped where she was, on the sidewalk outside Mrs. Jerouche's house, even though Mrs. Jerouche was known to come after you with a hose if you walked across her lawn, and she had an evil cocker spaniel, a prize bitch named Mary Ann, who ate sparrows and drooled and bit little boys on the ankles and knees.
A circle of pale yellow light seemed to hover around Ben and Gillian; the light rose higher, then fanned out, across the street and above the rooftops. The air itself had turned lemony, and when Kylie closed her eyes she felt she was in the aunts' garden. If you sat there in the shade during the heat of August, and rubbed the lemon thyme between your fingers, the air turned so yellow you'd swear a swarm of bees had gathered above you, even on days when it had done nothing but rain. In that garden, on hot, still days, it was easy to think about possibilities that had never crossed your mind before. It was as if hope had appeared out of nowhere, to settle beside you, and it wasn't going anywhere, it wasn't going to desert you now.
On the afternoon when Kylie stood in front of Mrs. Jerouche's house, she wasn't the only one to sense something unusual in the air. A group of boys playing kickball all stopped, stunned by the sweet scent wafting down from the rooftops, and they rubbed at their noses. The youngest turned and ran home and begged his mother for lemon pound cake, heated, and spread with honey. Women came to their windows, leaned their elbows on the sills, and breathed more deeply than they had in years. They didn't even believe in hope anymore, but here it was, in the treetops and the chimneys. When these women looked down at the street and saw Gillian and Ben, arms looped around each other, something inside them started to ache, and their throats got so dry only lemonade could quench their thirst, and even after a whole pitcherful, they still wanted more.
It was hard to be angry with Gillian after that, it was impossible to resent her or even feel slighted. Gillian was so intense when it came to Ben Frye that the butter in Sally's house kept melting, the way it does whenever love is under a roof. Even the sticks of butter in the refrigerator would melt, and anyone who wanted some would have to pour it on a piece of toast or measure it out with a tablespoon.
On nights when Gillian lies in bed and reads biology, Kylie stretches out on her own bed and leafs through magazines, but really she's watching Gillian. She's feeling lucky to be learning about love from someone like her aunt. She's heard people talking; even the ones who feel the need to point out that Gillian is trash seem envious of her somehow. Gillian may be a waitress at the Hamburger Shack, she may have little lines around her eyes and mouth from all that Arizona sun, but she's the one Ben Frye's in love with. She's the one who has that smile on her face, night and day.
"Guess what the largest organ in the human body is," Gillian asks Kylie one evening when they're both in bed reading.
"Skin," Kylie says.
"Wise guy," Gillian tells her. "Know-it-all."
"Everybody's jealous that you got Mr. Frye," Kylie says.
Gillian goes on reading her Bio I book, but that doesn't mean she isn't listening. She has the ability to talk about one thing and concentrate on another. She learned it from all that time she spent with Jimmy.
"That makes him sound like he was something I picked up in a store. Like he was a grapefruit, or something on sale, and I got him half-price." Gillian wrinkles her nose. "Anyway, it wasn't luck."
Kylie rolls onto her stomach so she can study her aunt's dreamy face. "Then what was it?"
"Destiny." Gillian closes her biology textbook. She has the best smile in the world, Kylie will certainly grant her that. "Fate."
"I got what I thought I deserved," Gillian says.
It is such a deep and true statement Sally cannot believe the words have come out of Gillian's careless mouth. They both measured themselves harshly, and they still do, as if they have never been anything but those two plain little girls, waiting at the airport for someone to claim them.
"Don't worry about Jimmy," Sally tells her sister.
Gillian wants to believe this is possible, she'd pay good money to, if she had any, but she shakes her head, unconvinced.
"He's as good as gone," Sally assures her. "Wait and see."
The toad in the middle of the lawn has come closer. In all honesty, it's quite pretty, with smooth, watery skin and green eyes. It's watchful and patient, and that's more than can be said for most human beings. Today, Sally will follow the toad's example, and will use patience as her weapon and her shield. She will go about her business; she'll vacuum and change the sheets on the beds, but all the while she's doing these things she'll really be waiting for Gillian and Kylie and Antonia to go out for the day.
As soon as she's finally alone, Sally heads for the backyard. The toad is still there; it's been waiting right along with Sally. It settles more deeply into the grass when Sally goes to the garage for the hedge clippers, and it's there when she brings them over, along with the stepladder she uses whenever she wants to change light bulbs or search the top shelves of the pantry.
The clippers are rusty and old, left behind by the house's previous owners, but they'll certainly do the job. The day is already turning hot and sultry, with steam rising from the rain puddles as they evaporate. Sally expects interference. She's never had any experience with restless spirits before, but she assumes they want to hang on to the real world. She half expects Jimmy to reach up through the grass and grab her ankle; she wouldn't be surprised if she clipped off the tip of her thumb or was toppled right off the ladder. But her work goes ahead with surprising ease. A man like Jimmy, after all, never does well in this sort of weather. He prefers air-conditioning and several six-packs. He prefers to wait until night falls. If a woman wants to work in the hot sun, he'd never be the one to stop her; he'd be flat out on his back, relaxed in the shade, before she'd even have time to set up her stepladder.
Sally, however, is used to hard work, especially in the dead of winter, when she sets her alarm for five a.m. so she can wake up early enough to shovel snow and do at least one load of laundry before she and the girls head out. She considered herself lucky to get the job at the high school so she could have time with her children. Now she sees she was smart. Summers have always belonged to her, and they always will. That's why she can take her time cutting down the hedges. She can take all day, if need be, but by twilight those lilacs will be gone.
In the far section of the yard only a few stumps will be left behind, so dark and knotty they'll be good for nothing other than a toad's home. The air will be so still it will be possible to hear a single mosquito; the last call of the mockingbird will echo, then fade. When night falls, there will be armloads of branches and flowers on the street, all neatly tied with rope, ready for the trash pickup in the morning. The women who are called to the lilacs will arrive to see that the hedges have been chopped to the ground, their glorious flowers nothing but garbage strewn along the gutter and the street. That is the moment when they'll throw their arms around one another and praise simple things and, at long last, consider themselves to be free.
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO, people believed that a hot and steamy July meant a cold and miserable winter. The shadow of a groundhog was carefully studied as an indicator for bad weather. The skin of an eel was commonly used to prevent rheumatism. Cats were never allowed inside a house, since it was well known that they could suck the breath right out of an infant, killing the poor baby in his cradle. People believed that there were reasons for everything, and that they could divine these reasons easily. If they could not, then something wicked must be at work. Not only was it possible to converse with the devil, but some in their midst actually made bargains with him. Anyone who did was always found out in the end, exposed by his or her own bad fortune or the dreadful luck of those close by.
When a husband and wife were unable to have a child, the husband placed a pearl beneath his wife's pillow, and if she still failed to conceive, there'd be talk about her, and concern about the true nature of her character. If all the strawberries in every patch were eaten by earwigs, suddenly and overnight, then the old woman down the road, who was cross-eyed and drank until she was as unmovable as a stone, was brought into the town hall for questioning. Even after a woman proved herself innocent of any wrongdoing—if she managed to walk through water and not dissolve into smoke and ashes or if it was discovered that the strawberries in the entire Commonwealth had been affected—that still didn't mean she'd be welcome in town or that anyone believed she wasn't guilty of something.
These were the prevailing attitudes when Maria Owens first came to Massachusetts with only a small satchel of belongings, her baby daughter, and a packet of diamonds sewn into the hem of her dress. Maria was young and pretty, but she dressed all in black and didn't have a husband. In spite of this, she possessed enough money to hire the twelve carpenters who built the house on Magnolia Street, and she was so sure of herself and what she wanted that she went on to advise these men in such matters as what wood to use for the mantel in the dining room and how many windows were needed to present the best view of the back garden. People became suspicious, and why shouldn't they be? Maria Owens's baby girl never cried, not even when she was bitten by a spider or stung by a bee. Maria's garden was never infested with earwigs or mice. When a hurricane struck, every house on Magnolia Street was damaged, except for the one built by the twelve carpenters; not one of the shutters was blown away, and even the laundry forgotten out on the line stayed in place, not a single stocking was lost.
If Maria Owens chose to speak to you, she looked you straight in the eye, even if you were her elder or better. She was known to do as she pleased, without stopping to deliberate what the consequences might be. Men who shouldn't have fell in love with her and were convinced that she came to them in the middle of the night, igniting their carnal appetites. Women found themselves drawn to her and wanted to confess their own secrets in the shadows of her porch, where the wisteria had begun to grow and was already winding itself around the black-painted railings.
Maria Owens paid attention to no one but herself and her daughter and a man over in Newburyport who none of her neighbors even knew existed, although he was well known and quite well respected in his own town. Three times every month, Maria bundled up her sleeping baby, then she put on her long wool coat and walked across the fields, past the orchards and the ponds filled with geese. Drawn by desire, she traveled quickly, no matter what the weather might be. On some nights, people thought they saw her, her coat billowing out behind her, running so fast it seemed she was no longer touching the ground. There might be ice and snow, there might be white flowers on every apple tree; it was impossible to tell when Maria might walk through the fields. Some people never even knew she was passing right by their houses; they would simply hear something out beyond where they lived, out where the raspberries grew, where the horses were sleeping, and a wash of desire would filter over their own skins, the women in their nightgowns, the men exhausted from the hard work and boredom of their lives. Whenever they did see Maria in daylight, on the road or in a shop, they looked at her carefully, and they didn't trust what was before them—the pretty face, the cool gray eyes, the black coat, the scent of some flower no one in their town could name.
And then one day, a farmer winged a crow in his cornfield, a creature that had been stealing from him shamelessly for months. When Maria Owens appeared the very next morning with her arm in a sling and her right hand wound up in a white bandage, people felt certain they knew the reason why. They were polite enough when she came into their stores, to buy coffee or molasses or tea, but as soon as her back was turned they made the sign of the fox, raising pinky and forefinger in the air, since this motion was known to unravel a spell. They watched the night sky for anything strange; they hung horseshoes over their doors, hammered in with three strong nails, and some people kept bunches of mistletoe in their kitchens and parlors, to protect their loved ones from evil.
Every Owens woman since Maria has inherited those clear gray eyes and the knowledge that there is no real defense against evil. Maria was no crow interested in harassing farmers and their fields. It was love that had wounded her. The man who was the father of her child, whom Maria had followed to Massachusetts in the first place, had decided he'd had enough. His ardor had cooled, at least for Maria, and he'd sent her a large sum of money to keep her quiet and out of the way. Maria refused to believe he would treat her this way; still he had failed to meet her three times, and she just couldn't wait any longer. She went to his house in Newburyport, something he'd absolutely forbidden, and she'd bruised her own arm and broken a bone in her right hand by pounding on his door. The man she loved would not answer her cries; instead he shouted at her to go away, with a voice so distant anyone would have guessed they were little more than strangers. But Maria would not go away, she knocked and she knocked, and she didn't even notice that her knuckles were bloody; welts had already begun to appear on her skin.
Finally, the man Maria loved sent his wife to the door, and when Maria saw this plain woman in her flannel nightgown, she turned and ran all the way home, across the fields in the moonlight, fast as a deer, faster even, entering into people's dreams. The next morning most people in town awoke out of breath, with their legs shaking from exertion, so tired it seemed as though they hadn't slept a wink. Maria didn't even realize what she'd done to herself until she tried to move her right hand and couldn't, and she thought it only fitting that she'd been marked this way. From then on, she kept her hands to herself.
Of course, bad fortune should be avoided whenever possible, and Maria was always prudent when it came to matters of luck. She planted fruit trees in the dark of the moon, and some of the hardier perennials she tended continue to sprout among the rows in the aunts' garden; the onions are still so fiery and strong it's easy to understand why they were thought to be the best cure for dog bites and toothaches. Maria always made certain to wear something blue, even when she was an old lady and couldn't get out of bed. The shawl across her shoulders was blue as paradise, and when she sat on the porch in her rocking chair it was difficult to tell where she ended and where the sky began.
Until the day she died, Maria wore a sapphire the man she'd loved had given her, just to remind herself of what was important and what was not. For a very long time after she was gone, some people insisted they saw an icy blue figure in the fields, late at night, when the air was cold and still. They swore that she walked past the orchards, traveling north, and that if you were very quiet, if you didn't move at all, but stayed down on one knee beside the old apple trees, her dress would brush against you, and from that day forward you'd be lucky in all matters, as would your children after you, and their children as well.
In the small portrait the aunts have sent Kylie for her birthday, which arrives in a packing crate two weeks late, Maria is wearing her favorite blue dress and her dark hair is pulled back with a blue satin ribbon. This oil painting hung on the staircase in the Owens house for one hundred and ninety-two years, in the darkest corner of the landing, beside the damask drapes. Gillian and Sally passed by it a thousand times on their way up to bed, without giving it a second look. Antonia and Kylie played games of Parcheesi on the landing during their August vacations and never even noticed that there was anything on the wall, other than spiderwebs and dust.
They notice now. Maria Owens is hanging above Kylie's bed. She is so alive on the canvas, it's obvious that the painter was in love with her by the time he had finished this portrait. When the hour is late and the night very quiet, it's almost possible to see her breathing in and out. If a ghost were to consider climbing in the window, or seeping through the plaster, he might think twice about facing Maria. You can tell just by looking at her that she never backed down or valued anyone's opinion above her own. She always believed that experience was not simply the best teacher, it was the only one, which is why she insisted the painter include the bump on her right hand, where it had never quite healed.
The day the painting arrived, Gillian came home from work smelling of french fries and sugar. Since Sally had chopped down the lilacs, every day was better than the one before. The sky was bluer, the butter set out on the table was sweeter, and it was possible to sleep through the night without nightmares or fears of the dark. Gillian sang while she wiped off the counters at the Hamburger Shack; she whistled on her way to the post office or the bank. But when she went upstairs and opened the door to Kylie's room to find herself face to face with Maria, she let out a screech that frightened all the sparrows in the neighbors' yards and set the dogs howling.
"What a dreadful surprise," she said to Kylie.
Gillian' went as close to Maria Owens as she dared. She had the urge to drape a towel over the portrait, or to replace it with something cheerful and ordinary, a brightly toned painting of puppies playing tug of war, or children at a tea party setting out cakes for their teddy bears. Who needed the past right there on the wall? Who needed anything that had once been in the aunts' house, up on the gloomy landing, beside the threadbare drapes.
"This is way too creepy to have in the bedroom," Gillian informed her niece. "We're taking it down."
"Maria is not creepy," Kylie said. Kylie's hair was growing out, leaving her with a brown streak half an inch' wide in the center of her head. She should have looked odd and unfinished; instead she was growing even more beautiful. In fact, she resembled Maria; side by side, they might even appear to be twins. "I like her," Kylie told her aunt, and since it was her bedroom, that was that.
Gillian claimed she would be too nervous to sleep with Maria hanging above them, she'd have nightmares and perhaps even the shakes, but that's not the way it's turned out. She's stopped thinking about Jimmy completely and no longer worries that someone will come looking for him; if he owed money or had cut a bad deal, the men who'd been wronged would have been there by now, they would have come and taken what they wanted and already been gone. Now that the portrait of Maria is on the wall, Gillian has been sleeping even more deeply. Each morning she wakes with a smile on her face. She's not as frightened of the backyard as she used to be, although every now and then she drags Kylie to the window, just to make certain Jimmy hasn't come back. Kylie always insists she has nothing to worry about. The garden is clear and green. The lilacs have been cut so close to their roots it may be years before they sprout again. Once in a while something casts a shadow across the lawn, but it's probably the toad who has taken up residence in the roots of the lilacs. They'd know if it was Jimmy, wouldn't they? They'd feel more threatened and much more vulnerable.
"No one is out there," Kylie has promised. "He's gone." And maybe he really is, because Gillian isn't crying anymore, not even in her sleep, and those bruises he left on her arms have disappeared, and she's started to date Ben Frye.
The decision to take a chance with Ben came upon her suddenly, as she was driving home from work in Jimmy's Oldsmobile, which still had beer cans rattling around somewhere under the seat. Ben continued to call several times a day, but that couldn't go on forever, even though he had amazing patience. As a boy, he had taken eight months to teach himself to escape from a pair of iron handcuffs. Before he mastered the art of putting a match out under his tongue, he burned the roof of his mouth, again and again, so that for weeks afterward he could consume nothing but buttermilk and pudding. Illusions that lasted only seconds on a stage took months or even years to understand and execute. But love was not about practice and preparation, it was pure chance; if you took your time with it you ran the risk of having it evaporate before it had even begun. Sooner or later, Ben was bound to give up. He'd be on his way to see her, he'd have a book under his arm in order to pass the time while he waited for her on the porch, and he'd suddenly think, Nope, just like that, out of the blue. All Gillian had to do was close her eyes and she could see the expression of doubt that would spread across his face. Not today , he'd decide and he'd turn around to head for home and he probably wouldn't ever come back.
Speculating about the time when Ben finally stopped chasing after her made Gillian sick to her stomach. The world without him, without his phone calls and his faith, didn't interest her in the least. And who was she protecting him from, really? That careless girl who broke people's hearts and asked for nothing more than a good time was gone. Jimmy had seen to that. That girl was so long ago and so far away that Gillian couldn't even remember why she'd thought she'd ever been in love before, or what she'd thought she was getting from all those men, who never knew who she was in the first place.
On that evening when the sky was pale and blue and the beer cans were rolling around each time she stepped on the brake, Gillian made an illegal U turn and drove to Ben Frye's house before her nerve failed her. She told herself she was an adult and could handle an adult encounter. It wasn't necessary for her to run away, or protect someone at her own expense, or do anything more than take one baby step at a time in any direction she chose. All the same, she thought she might faint when Ben came to answer his door. She'd planned to tell him that she wasn't looking for a commitment or anything serious—she wasn't sure if she was going to kiss him, let alone get into bed with him—but she never got to say any of it, because once she stepped into the front hallway, Ben wasn't about to wait.
He'd done enough time with patience, he'd served his sentence, now he didn't intend to look past what he wanted. He started kissing Gillian before she could mention that she was still thinking it over. His kisses made her feel things she didn't want to feel, at least not yet. He got her up against the wall and slipped his hands under her blouse, and that was that. She didn't say "Stop it," she didn't say "Wait," she kissed him back until she was too far gone to think anything over. Ben was driving her crazy, and he was testing her, too—every time he got her really hot, he'd stop just to see what she would do, and how much she wanted it. If he didn't take her into the bedroom soon, she'd find herself begging him to fuck her. She'd wind up saying, Please, baby , which is what she used to say to Jimmy, although she never really meant it. Not back then. It's never possible for a woman to concentrate on making love when she's that scared. Too scared to breathe, too frightened to consider saying, Not like that. It hurts too much when you do it like that .
She talked dirty to Jimmy because she knew it helped to make him hard. If he'd been drinking all night and couldn't get it up, he'd turn on her so fast she'd be reeling. One minute everything would be fine, and the next second the air all around him would be set on fire from the fury of whatever was inside him. When this happened, either he'd start to slap her or she'd have to start telling him how much she wanted him inside her. At least he'd have something to do with his anger when Gillian told him that she wanted him to fuck her all night, she wanted him so much she'd do anything, he could make her do anything. And didn't he have a perfect right to be angry and do whatever he pleased? Wasn't she so bad she needed to be punished, and only he could do it, he could do it right?
Talk and violence always turned Jimmy on, and so Gillian always started talking right away. She was smart enough to get him hard fast, to talk nasty and suck his dick, before he started to get really mad. He'd fuck her then, but he could be mean about it, and selfish, too, and he liked it when she cried. When she cried, he knew he had won, and for some reason that was important to him. He didn't seem to know he'd won from the start, when she first saw him, when she first looked into his eyes.
As soon as they were done with sex, Jimmy would be nice to her again, and it was worth almost anything to have him when he was that way. When he was feeling all right and didn't have anything to prove, he was the man she'd fallen for so hard, he was the one who could make nearly any woman believe whatever he wanted. It's easy to forget what you do in the dark, if you need to. Gillian knew that other women thought she was lucky, and she agreed with them. She'd gotten confused, that's what had happened. She'd started to accept that love had to be like this, and in a way she was right, because with Jimmy that's the way it did have to be.
Gillian was so used to having someone get her down on her hands and knees first thing; she was so ready to be struck and then told she'd better suck hard, that she couldn't believe Ben was spending this much time kissing her. All this kissing was making her crazy; it was reminding her of what she could feel, and how it could be when you wanted someone as much as he wanted you. Ben was about as different from Jimmy as anyone could be. He wasn't interested in making anyone cry, then sweet-talking her afterward, the way Jimmy used to, and he didn't need any help the way Jimmy always did. By the time Ben pulled her panties off, Gillian was completely weak in the knees. She didn't give a damn about going into the bedroom, she wanted it there, she wanted it now. She no longer had to debate the possibility of being with Ben Frye; this relationship had already happened, she'd walked straight into it, and she wasn't about to start walking away.
They made love for as long as they could, right there in the hallway, and then they went to Ben's bed and slept for hours, as though they'd been drugged. As they were falling asleep, Gillian could have sworn she heard Ben say Fate— as if they were meant to be together from the start and every single thing they'd ever done in their lives had been leading to this moment. If you thought that way, you could fall asleep without regret. You could put your whole life in place, with all the sadness and the sorrow, and still feel that at last you had everything you'd ever wanted. In spite of the lousy odds and all the wrong turns, you might actually discover that you were the one who'd won.
When Gillian woke, it was evening and the room was dark, except for something that appeared to be a white cloud poised at the foot of the bed. Gillian wondered if she was dreaming, if perhaps she'd risen out of her body to float above herself and the bed she'd been sharing with Ben Frye. But when she pinched herself, it hurt. This was still her, all right. She ran her hand along Ben's back, just to make certain he was real too. In fact, he was real enough to startle her; his muscles and his skin and the heat from his sleeping body made her want him all over again, and she felt foolish, like a schoolgirl who doesn't stop to consider any consequences.
Gillian sat up, the white sheet pulled around her, and found that the cloud at the foot of the bed was nothing more than Ben's pet rabbit, Buddy, who hopped into her lap. Only a few weeks ago, Gillian had been out in the Sonoran desert, her hands over her ears, as Jimmy and two of his friends shot prairie dogs. They killed thirteen of them, and Gillian had thought it was terrible luck. She'd gotten shaky and pale, too upset to hide it. Luckily, Jimmy was in a great mood, since he'd bagged more prairie dogs than his pals had, shooting eight, if you included the two babies. He came over and put his arms around Gillian. When he looked at her in this way, she understood why she'd been so drawn to him, and why she was still. He could make it seem as though you were the only person in the universe; a bomb could fall, lightning could strike, he simply would not take his eyes off you.
"The only good rodent is a dead rodent," Jimmy had told her. He smelted of cigarettes and heat and was just about as alive as a human being could be. "Trust me on this. When you see one, shoot to kill."
Jimmy would have gotten a good laugh catching her in bed with a rodent. Gillian pushed the rabbit away, then got up and found her way to the kitchen for a glass of water. She was disoriented and confused. She didn't know what she was doing in Ben's house, although it was surprisingly comfortable, with nice old pine furniture and shelves filled with books. Most of the men Gillian had been involved with had avoided the kitchen, some hadn't even seemed to be aware that their own houses had such rooms, complete with stoves and sinks, but here the kitchen was well used—a weathered pine table was piled high with science textbooks and menus from Chinese restaurants, and, when she looked, Gillian discovered that there was actually food in the refrigerator: several casserole pans of lasagna and broccoli-with-cheese soufflй, a carton of milk, cold cuts, bottled water, bunches of carrots. Right before they had to leave Tucson in such a hurry, there was nothing in their refrigerator but six-packs of Budweiser and Diet Coke. One package of frozen burritos was wedged way in the back near the ice trays, but anything left in their freezer always defrosted, then refroze, and was better left alone.
Gillian got herself a bottle of fancy water, and when she turned she saw that the rabbit had followed her.
"Go away," she told him, but he wouldn't.
Buddy had taken to Gillian in a major way. He thumped his leg, the way rabbits in love always do. He paid no attention to her frown, or the fact that she waved her hands at him, as if he were a cat to be shooed away. He trailed behind her into the living room. When Gillian stopped, Buddy sat down on the rug and looked up at her.
"You quit this right now," Gillian said.
She wagged her finger and glared at him, but Buddy stayed where he was. He had big brown eyes that were rimmed with pink. He looked serious and dignified, even when he washed his paws with his tongue.
"You're just a rodent," Gillian told him. "That's all you are."
Gillian felt like crying, and why shouldn't she? She could never live up to Ben's version of her; she had a whole secret, horrible past to hide. She used to fuck men in parked cars just to prove she didn't give a damn; she used to count her conquests and laugh. She sat on the couch that Ben had ordered from a catalogue when his old one became threadbare. It was a really nice couch, made out of some plum-colored corduroy fabric. Just the kind of couch Gillian would have spotted in a magazine and wanted for herself, if she had a house, or money, or even a permanent address to which she could have catalogues and magazines mailed. She wasn't even certain that she could be in a normal relationship. What if she got tired of someone's being nice to her? What if she couldn't make him happy? What if Jimmy had been right and she'd asked to be hit—maybe not out loud, but in some nameless way she wasn't aware of. What if he'd fixed it so she actually needed it now?
The rabbit hopped over and sat at her feet.
"I'm fucked up," Gillian told him.
She curled up on the couch and wept, but even that didn't scare the rabbit away. Buddy had spent a great deal of time at the children's ward at the hospital over on the Turnpike. Every Saturday, during Ben's magic act, he was pulled out of a hat that was old and smelled of alfalfa and sweat. Buddy was used to bright lights and people crying, and he was always well behaved. He had never once bitten a child, not even when he'd been poked or teased. Now, he rose onto his back legs and balanced carefully, just as he'd been taught.
"Don't try to cheer me up," Gillian said, but all the same he did. By the tune Ben came out of the bedroom,
Gillian was sitting on the floor with Buddy, feeding him some seedless grapes.
"This is one smart character," Gillian said. The sheet she'd taken from the bed was wrapped around her carelessly and her hair was sticking out like a halo. She felt calmer now, and lighter than she had for quite a while. "Why, he can put on the floor lamp by jumping on the switch. He can hold this bottle of water between his paws and drink some without spilling a drop. No one who hadn't seen it would believe it. Next thing I know, you'll tell me he's litter-trained like a cat."
"He is."
Ben was standing by the window, and in the pale new light he looked as if he'd slept the deep sleep of angels; no one would guess how he had panicked when he awoke to find Gillian gone from his bed. He'd been ready to run down the street, to call the police and demand a search party. In those moments when he'd climbed from his bed he'd guessed he had somehow managed to lose her, as he'd lost everything else in his life, but here she was, wrapped up in the sheet from his bed. If he was honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he had a real fear of people disappearing on him, which is why he turned to magic in the first place. In Ben Frye's act, what vanished always reappeared, whether it was a ring or a quarter or Buddy himself. In spite of all this, Ben had gone and fallen in love with the most unpredictable woman he'd ever met. And he couldn't fight it; he didn't even want to try. He wished he could tie her up in his room, with ropes made of silk; he wished he never had to let her go. He crouched down beside Gillian with the full knowledge that he was the one tied in knots. He wanted to ask her to marry him, to never leave him; instead he reached beneath the couch pillow, then waved his arm around and pulled a carrot out of thin air. For the first time ever, Buddy ignored food; he edged closer to Gillian.
"I see I have a rival," Ben said. "I may have to cook him."
Gillian scooped the rabbit into her arms. All the while Ben had been sleeping, she'd been dissecting her past. Now, she was through with it. She was not going to let that little girl sitting on the dusty back steps of the aunts' kitchen control her. She was not going to let that idiot who'd gotten herself entangled with Jimmy rule her life. "Buddy is probably the most intelligent bunny in the entire country. He's so smart that he'll probably ask me over for dinner tomorrow night."
It was clear to Ben that he owed the rabbit a debt of gratitude. If not for Buddy, perhaps Gillian would have left without saying good-bye; instead she stayed, and wept, and reconsidered. And so, in honor of Buddy, Ben fixed carrot soup the next evening, a salad of leaf lettuce, and a pot of Welsh rabbit, which Gillian was extremely relieved to hear was nothing more than melted cheese served with bread. A plate of salad and a small bowl of soup had been placed on the floor for Buddy. The rabbit was petted and thanked, but after dinner he was taken to his carrying crate for the night. They didn't want him scratching at the bedroom door; they didn't want to be disturbed, not by Buddy or anyone else.
Since then, they have been together every night. Just about the time when Gillian gets off from work, Buddy heads for the front door, and he paces, agitated, until Gillian arrives, smelling of french fries and herbal soap. The teenage boys from the Hamburger Shack follow her halfway down the Turnpike, but they stop when she turns onto Ben's street. In the fall, these boys will sign up for Ben Frye's biology course, even the lazy and stupid ones who have always failed science before. They figure that Mr. Frye knows something, and that they'd better learn whatever it is, and learn fast. But these boys can study all semester, they can be on time for every single lab, they still won't learn what Ben knows until they fall head over heels in love. When they don't care if they make fools of themselves, when taking a risk seems the safest thing to do, and walking a tightrope or throwing themselves into white-water rapids feels like child's play compared with a single kiss, then they'll understand.
But for now, these boys don't know the first thing about love, and they sure don't know women. They would never have imagined that the reason Gillian has been dropping steaming cups of hot coffee while she's waiting on people at the Hamburger Shack is that she can't stop thinking about the things Ben does to her when they're in his bed. She gets lost driving home whenever she thinks about the way he whispers to her; she's as hot and confused as a teenager.
Gillian has always considered herself an outsider, so it's been a big relief to discover that Ben is not as normal as she originally thought. He can easily spend three hours at the Owl Cafй on a Sunday morning, ordering plates of pancakes and eggs; most of the waitresses there have dated him and they get all dreamy when he comes in for breakfast, bringing him free coffee and ignoring whoever his companion might be. He keeps late hours; he is amazingly quick because of all his practice with cards and scarves, and can catch a sparrow or a chickadee in midflight just by reaching into the air.
The unexpected facets of Ben's personality have truly surprised Gillian, who never would have imagined that a high school biology teacher would be such a fanatic about knots, and that he would want to tie her to the bed or that after her previous experience, she would consider, then agree, and finally find herself begging for it. Whenever Gillian sees a package of shoelaces or a ball of string in the hardware store, she gets totally excited. She has to run home to Sally's so she can scoop some ice cubes out of the freezer and run them along her arms and inside her thighs just to chill her desire.
After she found several pairs of handcuffs in Ben's closet—which he often uses in his magic act—ice cubes weren't enough. Gillian had to go into the yard, turn on the hose, and run a shower of water over her head. She was burning up at the thought of what Ben could do with those handcuffs. She wishes she could have seen his smile when he walked into the room to discover that she'd left them out on his bureau, but he took the hint. That night he made certain the key was far enough away so that neither of them could reach it from the bed. He made love to her for so long that she ached, and still she'd wouldn't have thought of asking him to stop.
She wants him never to stop, that's the thing, that's what's making her nervous, since it was always the other way around. Even with Jimmy—it was the man who wanted her, and that's the way she liked it. When you want someone you're in his power. Feeling the way she does, Gillian has actually gone over to the high school, where Ben has been setting up his classroom for the fall, to ask him to make love to her. She can't wait for him to come home, she can't wait for night to fall, for bedrooms and closed doors. She comes to put her arms around him and then she tells him she wants it right now. It's not like Jimmy; she really means it. She means it so much that she can't even remember saying these same words to anyone else. As far as she's concerned, she never did.
Everyone in the school district knows about Ben and Gillian; the news has gone through the neighborhood like a grass fire. Even the janitor has congratulated Ben on his good fortune. They're the couple watched by neighbors and discussed at the hardware store and at the bar of Bruno's Tavern. Dogs follow them when they go out for a walk; cats congregate in Ben's backyard at midnight. Each time Gillian sits on a rock at the reservoir with a stopwatch to time Ben as he runs, the toads climb out of the mud to sing their deep, bloodless song, and by the time Ben has finished with his run he has to step over a mass of damp gray-green bodies in order to help Gillian down from her rock.
If they're out together and Ben accidentally meets one of his students, he gets serious and starts to talk about last year's final exam or the new equipment he'll be setting up in the lab or the countywide science fair in October. The girls who have been in his classes become wide-eyed and mute in his presence; the boys are so busy staring at Gillian they don't pay attention to a word he says. But Gillian listens to him. She loves to hear Ben talk about science. It makes her stomach flip over with desire when he starts to discuss cells. If he mentions the pancreas or the liver, it's all she can do to keep her hands off him. He's so smart, but that's not the only thing that gets to Gillian—he acts like she is, too. He assumes she can understand what the hell he's talking about, and just like a miracle, she does. For the first time she grasps the difference between a vein and an artery. She knows all the major organs, and what's more, she can actually recite the function of each, not to mention its placement in the human body.
One day, Gillian completely surprises herself by driving to the community college and signing up for two classes that start in the fall. She doesn't even know whether she'll be here in September, but if she should happen to stay on, she'll be studying earth science and biology. At night, when she comes home from being with Ben, Gillian goes to Antonia's room and borrows her Biology I textbook. She reads about blood and bones. She traces the digestive system with the tip of her finger. When she gets to the chapter on genetics she stays up all night. The notion that there is a progression and a sequence of possibilities when dealing with who a human can and will be is thrilling. The portrait of Maria Owens above Kylie's bed now seems as certain and as clear as a mathematical equation; on some nights Gillian finds herself staring at it and she has the feeling she's looking into a mirror. Of course , she always thinks then. Math plus desire equals who you are. For the first time she has begun to appreciate her own gray eyes.
Now when she sees Kylie, who looks enough like her that strangers assume they're mother and daughter, Gillian senses the connection in her blood. What she feels for Kylie is equal parts science and affection; she would do anything for her niece. She'd step in front of a truck and trade away several years of her life to ensure Kylie's happiness. And yet Gillian is so busy with Ben Frye, she doesn't notice that Kylie is barely speaking to her in spite of all this affection. She'd never guess that Kylie has been feeling used and cast aside ever since Ben entered the picture, which is especially painful for her, since she took her aunt's side against her mother in the birthday debacle. Even though Gillian took her side, too, and is the only one on earth to treat Kylie like a grownup rather than a baby, Kylie has felt betrayed.
Secretly, Kylie has done mean things, nasty tricks worthy of Antonia's malice. She put ashes in Gillian's shoes, so her aunt's toes would be dirty and smudged, and even added some glue for good measure. She poured a can of tunafish down the bathtub drain, and Gillian wound up bathing in oily water that had such a strong scent four stray cats jumped in through the open window.
"Is something wrong?" Gillian asked one day when she turned to see Kylie glaring at her.
"Wrong?" Kylie blinked. She knew how innocent she could seem if she wanted to. She could be an extremely good girl, just the way she used to be. "What would make you ask that?"
The very same night Kylie had five anchovy pizzas delivered to Ben Frye's house. Being resentful was an awful feeling; she wanted to be happy for Gillian, really she did, but she just couldn't seem to manage it until one day she happened to see Gillian and Ben walking together by the high school. Kylie was on her way to the town pool, with a towel draped over her shoulder, but she stopped where she was, on the sidewalk outside Mrs. Jerouche's house, even though Mrs. Jerouche was known to come after you with a hose if you walked across her lawn, and she had an evil cocker spaniel, a prize bitch named Mary Ann, who ate sparrows and drooled and bit little boys on the ankles and knees.
A circle of pale yellow light seemed to hover around Ben and Gillian; the light rose higher, then fanned out, across the street and above the rooftops. The air itself had turned lemony, and when Kylie closed her eyes she felt she was in the aunts' garden. If you sat there in the shade during the heat of August, and rubbed the lemon thyme between your fingers, the air turned so yellow you'd swear a swarm of bees had gathered above you, even on days when it had done nothing but rain. In that garden, on hot, still days, it was easy to think about possibilities that had never crossed your mind before. It was as if hope had appeared out of nowhere, to settle beside you, and it wasn't going anywhere, it wasn't going to desert you now.
On the afternoon when Kylie stood in front of Mrs. Jerouche's house, she wasn't the only one to sense something unusual in the air. A group of boys playing kickball all stopped, stunned by the sweet scent wafting down from the rooftops, and they rubbed at their noses. The youngest turned and ran home and begged his mother for lemon pound cake, heated, and spread with honey. Women came to their windows, leaned their elbows on the sills, and breathed more deeply than they had in years. They didn't even believe in hope anymore, but here it was, in the treetops and the chimneys. When these women looked down at the street and saw Gillian and Ben, arms looped around each other, something inside them started to ache, and their throats got so dry only lemonade could quench their thirst, and even after a whole pitcherful, they still wanted more.
It was hard to be angry with Gillian after that, it was impossible to resent her or even feel slighted. Gillian was so intense when it came to Ben Frye that the butter in Sally's house kept melting, the way it does whenever love is under a roof. Even the sticks of butter in the refrigerator would melt, and anyone who wanted some would have to pour it on a piece of toast or measure it out with a tablespoon.
On nights when Gillian lies in bed and reads biology, Kylie stretches out on her own bed and leafs through magazines, but really she's watching Gillian. She's feeling lucky to be learning about love from someone like her aunt. She's heard people talking; even the ones who feel the need to point out that Gillian is trash seem envious of her somehow. Gillian may be a waitress at the Hamburger Shack, she may have little lines around her eyes and mouth from all that Arizona sun, but she's the one Ben Frye's in love with. She's the one who has that smile on her face, night and day.
"Guess what the largest organ in the human body is," Gillian asks Kylie one evening when they're both in bed reading.
"Skin," Kylie says.
"Wise guy," Gillian tells her. "Know-it-all."
"Everybody's jealous that you got Mr. Frye," Kylie says.
Gillian goes on reading her Bio I book, but that doesn't mean she isn't listening. She has the ability to talk about one thing and concentrate on another. She learned it from all that time she spent with Jimmy.
"That makes him sound like he was something I picked up in a store. Like he was a grapefruit, or something on sale, and I got him half-price." Gillian wrinkles her nose. "Anyway, it wasn't luck."
Kylie rolls onto her stomach so she can study her aunt's dreamy face. "Then what was it?"
"Destiny." Gillian closes her biology textbook. She has the best smile in the world, Kylie will certainly grant her that. "Fate."