I Cannot Get You Close Enough (18 page)

Along the boulevards and neighborhoods near the school, the Bradford pear trees were in bloom. Even the most corrupted mind among the children was not immune to that much beauty on a bright spring day. Five weeks to go, they were thinking. Five more weeks and summer's here.

Jessie and Olivia were among the envied ones. They threw their book satchels into the back of an Oldsmobile convertible and Jessie got behind the wheel. The convertible was old but it was in good repair and had been painted the year before. A convertible of any kind was better than a sedan or a family car. A convertible was right up there with a Jeep. Not that Jessie and Olivia were thinking they were lucky or envied. Olivia was thinking about her forged grades and Jessie was thinking about how sick she was of having Olivia live with her. I don't care, Jessie told herself. It's too much. Every day there she is, asking me questions. I don't know what she wants with me. I can't even go off with my friends unless I take her along and she keeps asking about King. I don't believe Dad did this to me. It's Aunt Anna's fault. If she hadn't died none of this would have happened and we'd be like we used to be.

“You ready to go?” Jessie said. “You got everything?”

“Yeah. Go on. How'd you do on the English test? Did you do all right?”

“I don't know. I didn't have time to finish all the questions. She never gives us time.” Jessie drove out of the parking lot. “I talked to Dad at noon. He said to come straight home because Aunt Helen was coming over to talk to us.”

“What about? What do they want to talk about?”

“Oh, nothing. He always gets her to talk to me if he's worried about anything. Maybe he wants her to take us shopping.”

“I don't need anyone to pick out my clothes. I can pick out my own stuff.” Olivia sat back. Maybe it was nothing.

“Well, anyway, we have to go straight home.” Jessie speeded up, moved onto a boulevard of blooming pear trees and potted flowers. There had been a Flower Festival the week before and the street department had planted thousands of forced blooms along the streets, tulips and lilies and daffodils.

Jessie drove the convertible down the boulevard of flowers. Olivia slumped down in the seat beside her. “I have a lot of homework to do,” she said. “How long is this going to take with Aunt Helen?”

“How do I know? All I know is he called and said he wanted us to come straight home. He got me out of a study period. Why were you crying yesterday?” Jessie stopped for a stoplight.

“I don't know. It just seems hard somehow. I don't know what to do to make him like me.”

“He's Dad. That's how he is. He doesn't make over people.”

“Does your mom make over you?”

“No. She doesn't either.” Jessie shifted into low gear and took off, going as fast as she dared. She went down a ramp and out onto a freeway. “I might get a letter from King today. That's all I care about. I don't want my parents to make over me. I want to get married and have a life of my own.”

“You got a letter a few days ago.”

“He's trying to fix it so we can be together this summer. We can't live on phone calls and letters.”

“Maybe I need a boyfriend.”

“You've got that great-looking boy in Oklahoma. He was the best-looking boy I saw out there. But I guess you want someone in Charlotte, don't you?”

“I don't know what I want. I'm really not thinking about boys right now.”

“Coleman Toon's got a crush on you. Dad would like it if you went out with him. You ought to go out with someone, Olivia. You can't just study all the time. I go out, even if I'm in love with King.”

“I have to study. This school's a lot harder than the one I went to. I don't know if I can even pass some of this stuff.”

“Well, I can't help you with that. Look, Olivia, I'm sorry we've been so mean to each other lately. I don't know what's going wrong. It makes the house so cold. Let's try to be nicer to each other, okay?” She turned her head. She smiled. She was determined to try, or to pretend to try. She didn't know why she felt such confused feelings toward Olivia, or why she kept having such bad dreams at night, dreams in which Olivia pushed her off of cliffs or wouldn't help her from the water.

“We ought to do something together,” Olivia said. “Let's go out to the farm and ride tomorrow. Let's go spend the whole day. You want to do that?”

“I don't know. I don't like to mess around with Dad's horses unless he's there. They don't get ridden enough. You can't tell what they'll do.”

“You don't like to ride, do you?”

“I got hurt a couple of years ago. An Appaloosa threw me. I can't stand to even think about it.”

“Why'd he throw you?”

“I don't know. Maybe I lost attention. Dad almost beat him to death. It was the worst thing. One of his girlfriends was there. The one who's a model. She ran after him and dragged him away to make him stop beating the horse. Well, I guess I shouldn't tell you that.”

“Where I'm from everything happens. I've seen men beat up other men on the street. Well, I guess you don't want to go riding then, do you?”

“I'll go. If we take Spook to saddle the horses.”

“I'll saddle them and I'll ride yours until he settles down. We can go back to that lake and have a picnic or something. That lake's so beautiful. It's got a mystery to it.”

“Aunt Anna loved the lake. She used to swim there in March when she was young. She had to be the first person to swim every spring. Aunt Helen said she'd disappear and they would always know that's where she'd gone. We have to be friends, Olivia. She wanted it so much. Remember what she wrote to us.” She reached over and touched her sister's hand. She raised her eyes and met her sister's serious, hopeful smile.

“I'll take care of the horses,” Olivia said. “I won't let you get thrown again. You have to see how they're feeling. They have moods, like people, like the weather.”

When they got home, their aunt Helen was waiting in the library, dressed up in a Chanel suit with matching jewelry, planning on catching a plane at seven to fly to Boston. The last thing she wanted to do was come over to Daniel's and sit around trying to counsel his crazy daughters. Still, the Hands came when they were called. No matter what they were doing they had to help out if one of their siblings called.

“You look nice,” Jessie said, coming into the library, throwing her book satchel on a leather sofa. “Why are you so dressed up?”

“I'm on my way to Boston to work on Anna's papers. Hi, Olivia, how are you doing? How are things at school?”

Olivia stayed several feet away, still wearing her book bag on her shoulder.

“I'm doing okay. I need to study though. I've got hours of work to do. Do you mind if I go upstairs and do it?” She was backing into the hall.

“Well, your father asked me to stop by and see if there is anything either of you need. Do you need anything? Do you have everything you need?”

“I'm fine. I haven't worn all the clothes we got last month. I need to write a history paper though, so if you'll excuse me.” She had made it to the archway leading to the stairs. “It's nice to see you though,” she added. “Have a good time in Boston.”

“Oh, it will all be work,” Helen began, but Olivia was gone up the stairs. “Well,” she said to Jessie. “Is she always that nervous?”

“I don't think she likes it here,” Jessie said. “I think it was a mistake of Daddy to bring her here. She had a good life at her own home. She can't even get a boyfriend here.”

“Why is that?”

“I don't know. She doesn't know how to act. She acts too smart-alecky around boys. She does around girls too. My friends don't like to come over if she's here.”

“Oh, my. I'm so sorry to hear all that. Is there anything I can do? Have you told your father?”

“No. And don't you. She's my sister, Aunt Helen. I have to learn to love her. There are two hands on every person. That's what Aunt Anna said. She said — well, never mind about that. I'll find a way to get along with her. I have to, don't I?”

“Anna didn't always get things right, Jessie. She had a lot of romantic ideas about things.” Helen hung her head. Even from the grave Anna's power over her was great. Anna had been the oldest and the most controlled. Anna didn't get mad the way that Helen did. Didn't get jealous and feel sorry for herself. She was perfect, Helen thought despairingly. She would never have said bad things about me. “Oh, God,” Helen added, out loud. “I didn't mean to say that, Jessie. But Anna's gone and we're left with all of this. So what is it Olivia does that irritates you?”

“I don't know. She's just so changeable. She'll be real sweet for a few days and drive me crazy following me around and trying to get me to play the piano or something. Then she'll change and I think she's mad at me. I don't know how to act around her.”

“You're an only child. You never had to put up with it. Well, I think it's good to be an only child. Camilla is an only child, my best friend I play tennis with, and she's a doll. Maybe I can have Olivia over to stay with us some weekend and give you a break.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don't know. It depends on how long it takes to sort the papers. Do you have any idea why she was crying yesterday? At the farm?”

“No. She might be homesick. Maybe she wants to go back home. We're okay, Aunt Helen. It was nice of you to come over, but it's fine. We're going riding Saturday and try to be better friends. I'll really try. I really will.”

“All right then. I'll go on so I won't miss my plane. Tell your father I was here.” Helen took Jessie's face in her hands and gave her a kiss. “Take care of yourself first of all, honey. Don't let this disrupt your life. And call me if you need me. You're the important one to us. Not this girl.”

“She stays home every night and studies and Dad gets mad if I want to go out. That's the main thing I'm mad about.”

“Tell him.”

“I already did.”

“Okay. Well, I'm leaving.” Helen was almost to the door. She stopped in the hallway and hugged Jessie again. “I love you, darling. You're our darling, darling girl.”

“Thanks for coming by,” Jessie said. “It was really nice of you.”

Helen went down the flagstone path to her car and got into it and drove off waving. Jessie watched until she was out of sight. Upstairs a window slammed shut. There she goes, Jessie thought. Locking herself up to study. When he comes home she'll be up there working like a dog and he'll think I ought to too. Well, I'm not studying in the afternoon. I've been in school all day. Okay, I'll look at them. I'll just look at the history, nothing else. She marched back into the library and spread her books out on a table. Then she turned on the television to watch the Oprah Winfrey show.

It was a show about homosexuals trying different ways to get babies. There were people in the audience on their feet screaming at each other. On the stage were three homosexual couples who had found ways to adopt babies or have them. The homosexual men had adopted two orphaned street children. The women had used artificial insemination. At least they wanted to have a baby, Jessie thought. At least they love their little kids. I'll be like that. If I ever have a kid I'll love it to death. I'll take care of it myself, not some maid. “We want to raise her to love herself and love the world,” one of the women was saying. “She is our flower. We try to teach her to respect all living things.”

“What's going to happen when she goes to school?” an irate woman in the audience screamed out. “What's she going to tell her friends?”

13

Saturday morning was beautiful and cool. Outside the windows of Daniel's house the sun moved up the sky through a bank of clouds, robins sang, the sky was very blue. When he had been a rich man Daniel had commissioned a great architect to build him a house in which to raise his child. Make it peaceful, he told the man, so when she wakes up she'll be glad she is alive. Then Daniel went off to Europe for the summer and left the architect with two acres of land in the middle of the best residential area in Charlotte. When he returned the house was almost done. A long rectangle of stone and glass with a staircase leading to bedrooms that looked out upon a line of apple trees. Daniel had paid the bill and moved in and started letting his girlfriends fill the place with furniture. It was eclectic, to say the least, but it was peaceful. Jessie felt the peace around her now, waking in the peach-colored sheets girlfriend number twenty-seven had bought for her one year. She moved her legs onto the floor and went over to the window and thought about Olivia. I will love her no matter what she does, Jessie thought. I will stop thinking she is in my way.

Across the hall Olivia woke up thinking about the country, of catching a horse and saddling it, swinging up into a saddle, riding like the wind to find a river. Only here it is a lake, she remembered, and all I'm going to have between my legs is an English saddle. She giggled and got back into bed and made herself come with her fingers. Oh, baby, she was saying, oh, baby, you make me feel so good.

“You can't go out there alone,” Daniel said at breakfast. He was poaching eggs, cooking bacon in the microwave, making a terrible mess. “Eat this, Olivia. Both of you are thin as a rail. Go on, sit down and eat some breakfast if you're going to the farm.”

“I can catch the horses,” Olivia said. “I'll take the Jeep.”

“No, you're not going alone. I'll round up Spook and send him with you. I'd go myself but the goddamn Japs are in town and I have to talk to them.”

“We don't need Spook.” Olivia nibbled at the eggs.

“Well, you're going to have him. He's been wanting to get out there anyway. He was raised out there.” Spook was the handyman at Daniel's tractor company. Daniel had moved him into town when his wife died and he resented it. He wanted to go back out and live on the land.