The Seary Line (30 page)

Whenever Marg would bend Elise's ear (which she did incessantly) about how fine a man James would be, Elise had no trouble to summon his image. So clearly, the jut of his chin, flatness of his freckled nose. His eyes reminded her of looking up through water. Down by the pond. When she lay on the slimy gravel bottom, facing upwards, and opened her eyes. Which she often did, alone, during summer afternoons.

“How can you do that?” James was standing by the edge of the water, waiting until she broke the surface.

“Do what?” she replied, catching her breath.

“Sink like that. Like you's made of stone.”

Made of stone
. She smirked, though she didn't mean it.
Made of stone
. “Maybe I is.” And she knew when she said this, she would wonder about that appraisal long after her encounter with James was over.

She was almost sixteen when she let James reach up under her skirt, touch her backside, the very edges of her underwear. She was leaning against a birch tree, he pressed against her, gaping mouth wet on her neck, and for those few moments while his hands roamed, she peeled thin strips of bark from the trunk, scarring it, rendering a portion of the old tree naked.

After that, she rarely ever looked at James. Instead, her focus shifted to oafish Chester Simms with his pinched clothes, crowded teeth and unevenly trimmed black hair. These were traits that Bee adored, claimed he looked like a lost little boy, so innocent and sweet. Not so, Elise discovered. On a blustery afternoon behind the schoolhouse, Chester was stacking wood for the stove. Elise leaned against the pile, and he smirked at her, squinted his eyes in the reflected sunlight. “Well now,” he said with a loud guffaw. “Don't want to be mistaking you for a junk.”

Elise couldn't recall what she'd said or why he'd kissed her. She couldn't remember exactly how he'd unbuttoned her red wool coat, her sweater, then slipped his mittened hands inside and clutched her chest, several painful squeezes. When she sat to the table for an early supper that night, her mother simply frowned at her. Looking down, Elise saw that the front of her good blouse was marred with daubs of sticky turpentine, flecks of sawdust, strands of wool from her own sweater. “Carting wood,” Elise managed. “For Miss Kilbride.”

Her mother never blinked, responded, “That's an awful queer thing to look so sheepish over. So guilty in your eyes.”

Elise thought about this as she watched James heap an armload of potato stalks on the fire. The dead plants writhed and curled, and in an instant, were swallowed by the flames. Her mother had been right, she did feel guilty. But, she also felt something else. When she stood alongside Marg and Bee, Elise felt absolute relief that the jealousy, like a troublesome ball of burrs, was now gone. Not that she wished unhappiness on her friends, Elise just wanted to have those secrets. Just wanted to know that Marg and Bee's rippling glee was an illusion, created in folly by a teenaged human heart. When her own heart had felt like a dried jellyfish, withered on the
rocks, Elise had taken some solace in the knowledge that the objects of their love were flawed.

Perhaps because of her own actions, Elise no longer trusted Marg and Bee. She never admitted her indifference to George Winsor, accepted their condolences when he began courting Elise's cousin, Annie Smith. Even opened her arms to their hugs, shed a tear or two. Then, when her mind became preoccupied with Lewis Hickey, she never told a soul. She reasoned it was only like a fly bite, after all, and it would soon disappear. But her preoccupation developed from fly bite to full blown rash, and took over her mind. During the long summer days, she could think of nothing and no one else. And she was very careful, guarded that knowledge fervently.

Lewis was the grandson of the late Reverend Hickey. Everyone said he would be a minister himself, if given a little time to grow up. Elise believed this. There was a natural holiness about him. When she covertly watched him move about the fire, handing cooled cooked potatoes to the children, patting their heads, she thought he looked as though he were already practicing for the position on the church steps. Yes, there was definitely something godlike about Lewis, his soft curls, like a mound of wood shavings, eyes of a placid deer. She also noticed he had extraordinarily large hands, and she thought this was a heavenly feature as well. Bigger hands for holding, healing, helping. Godly hands. That seemed like Lewis. Though she barely knew him, she was certain he was someone who would have influence. Make her a better girl. Turn her into someone her mother might manage to love.

Lewis was within a few feet of her now, tossing raw potatoes into the ashes, covering them. He leaned in, nudged some stalks with his stick, and there was a sudden pop, then a yowl, and Lewis dropped to his knees, clawing his
face. Several girls rushed, but Elise reached him first. He yanked at her skirt, drawing her closer, used the fabric to wipe away the clumps of steaming potato that clung to his cheeks, forehead and left eyelid.

Everyone stared as Elise put her arm around his waist, helped him to his feet. “Let's get you home,” she said with an authority that surprised her. “Get that all fixed up.”

But as they left the bonfire, he never led her in the right direction. Holding her hand firmly in his, he walked towards a boarded up farmhouse a good distance from the fire. In the shadows, they picked their way across the abandoned property towards the well, and while Lewis propped himself against the stone surrounding, Elise lifted the wooden cover, lowered the bucket. Good shake of the rope, bucket sinking, and she drew up cool water. He splashed his face several times, then ran his damp hands over his hair.

“How do I look?” he asked, cocking his head, smirking. “Is I burnt beyond?”

Elise heard a giggle burst from her lips, even though she hadn't given it permission to escape. “Not too bad,” she replied, gazing down at her hands. The brazenness she had felt with James and Chester no longer existed, and when she stole glances at Lewis, shyness altered her heartbeat, making her dizzy. “Does it hurt?”

“Nah. 'Twas only a small one. Good thing I weren't that close.” He stood up, walked towards the house. Touching the weathered boards, he jammed his nails under cracks in the paint, and Elise watched as it flaked away, dropping, disappearing into darkness.

“Good thing,” she breathed.

He turned towards her. “You knows who lived here?”

“Uh-huh.” Elise stood beside him, but not too close. “Mrs. May and that feller.”

“Lard, she was an old one. Face on her like a cabbage left in the field all winter.”

Elise giggled again. “I wonders why she lived so long.”

“Grandmother told me once 'twas cause she had a cold heart. But don't tell no one I said that.”

“I won't,” Elise promised. She took his request seriously, sealed his words inside. “People'll think 'tis poor taste to speak ill of the dead.”

As though testing the stability of the house, Lewis banged the walls with his fists. The sound echoed through the hollow home, and Elise thought she also heard desire mixed amongst the reverberation. A desire to be lived in. To be useful. She sighed.

“Do you think they was boyfriend and girlfriend?”

“Who?” Elise asked.

“Widow May and that queer old feller that was living there.”

“Oh. Eldred Wood.”

“That's he. Wood.”

“I doubts it. I think he just stayed with her. Helped her out a bit. I believes he was a bit soft in the head.”

Lewis plunked himself down on the cold ground between two dogberry bushes, dried leaves still clinging to the reddened twigs. Elise did the same, sitting a few feet away, legs bent, skirt tucked underneath her knees.

“Did you know,” Lewis said, looking up at the sky, “that when my mother was young, folks used to come out here, listen to that feller play his piano? This was quite the spot for courting.”

“A bit of entertainment, I suppose.”

“He played and played, I heard, to get over a girl. She stole his heart right out of his chest, then took off with it.”

Elise resisted the urge to bite away a hangnail she could
feel on her thumb. “I always had dreams about him.”

“About who?”

“That feller. Eldred Wood.”

Lewis puffed up his chest, grinned. “Now, is you trying to make me green-eyed, maid?”

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head, hands clasped around her knees. “Terrible dreams, I means. I always hated the way he stared at me. Like he knowed me.” She paused. “Like he owned some part of me.”

Sliding closer, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Well, he don't own no part of you, maid. That's for darn sure. You don't got to have no more of those old thoughts.”

“I never told no one about that before, Lewis.” She turned her face towards him, then crinkled her brow. “Do you want more water? Your eyes is a bit weepy.”

He smiled. “That's cause I's right heartbroken.”

Jolt of anger stabbed her stomach. “Over what? Over who?”

A quiet, “You, maid.”

Heat in her cheeks that would ease a wrinkled shirt. “Me?”

“I seen you looking at me.”

She was silent.

“But you don't never talk to me. And Lord knows, there's no chance of stealing a kiss off you.”

“Ummm.” She hesitated. “I wouldn't go saying that.”

Her head throbbed when he leaned towards her, his eyes closing, tears glistening on his cheeks. Elise quickly shut her eyes as well, and in that instant while she waited, she remembered the potato, how its position had been just so, Lewis's face right where it needed to be. As though an authority from beyond had brought them together. Then, the courage in her own legs, how she marched up to him,
forgot her promise to remain reserved, not entertain her heart. How she led him away. Gave him water to help his pain. And now, their first kiss was about to happen, and it would be over in an instant. If only she could control time, harness the stars, slow their drift. She would make these moments between her and Lewis last forever.

A moth striking her lips. That was how it felt. His mouth against hers. But before she could lean back, appreciate the fluttering sensation, he kissed her again, forcefully, hurting her. She resisted shoving him. After all, Lewis was the one she loved, and she would do her best to be obliging. “Ah, Elise,” he murmured, pulling his face back several inches. She could feel his breath on her face, could smell the smoke on their skin, their hair. “You and me,” he continued. “Can you imagine it? This worn house would suit us fine. We could fix it up.”

These magic words registered in Elise's neck, and her head thrust forward, she kissing him this time, her hands in his hair. He clambered onto her, pressing her down into the overgrown grass, her head scraping against the clapboard of the house where they might one day live. “Lewis?” she said, and tried to shift out from underneath him. She wanted to hear him speak again, make certain the night air was witness to their future plans. But Lewis blocked her movement, pinned her with the weight of his chest, then reached one hand, one godly big hand up underneath her woolen skirt. The same style skirt worn by Marg and Bee. Cut on the bias.

“Lewis?”

He grunted, and her body stiffened as that hand pushed up the band of her skirt, gripped the top of her underwear.

“Lewis!” She tried to shift sideways, but he was a fallen tree, pinning her.

“Shhhh.”

His mouth covering hers now, face pressed sideways, the flesh of his smoky cheek blocking her nostrils, smothering her. She turned her head, inhaled sharply, spit. “Don't you ever shush me, Lewis Hickey,” she screeched into his ear. “Let's get that straight right from the start.”

Meaty forearm over her mouth now, burnt tasting fabric touching her tongue, her teeth cutting into her own lips. A deep growl. “Shut your trap up, you good for nothing whore. Shut. Your. Trap. Up.”

And she did. Shut her trap up. She lay still, never made a sound, even as he fumbled with her clothes, his clothes, kept the weight of his chest on hers, his eager feet slipping on the damp, dead grass, parts of her burning, parts of her freezing, salt water gliding out of her eyes, her right knee bloodied from scraping against the sharp edge of a rotting board over and over again. “Elise, Elise, Eeeleeeesssssssse.” She stared at the sky as he hissed her name. She had gotten her wish. The million stars, glistening now, had stopped moving.

After what seemed like forever, he sprung away from her, jumped up and fixed his trousers, cleared his throat hard. Exposed, she sensed the night air on places that should have been covered, and hauled up some fabrics, yanked down others.

“Well, well,” he said, hand cupped over his mouth, lighting a cigarette. “Talk about surprises.”

Elise managed to mew, “I thought we would wait.”

He took a long drag, then spit. “Wait? What's you talking about?”

“You knows.” She stood, skirt scrambled at the back. Placing both hands on the wood of the house behind her, she considered that however unpleasant it had been, maybe this event between her and Lewis was only part of a bigger
picture. Her palms searched for some assurance from the old house, but they discovered only coldness.

Lewis pitched his cigarette and started laughing, a throaty, happy chortle. Then he came up to her, held her face in his two grimy hands, kissed her full on the lips. “Oh, I loves it. You are such a card. Heard that, I did. Heard you was a good time.”

Something burst within her, spread like infected heat throughout her core, traveled down her shaking limbs. Buzzing in her ears then, rising and falling, as though someone was holding two enormous conch shells there. Offering a dry ocean for her head. Just like that, in the moment it might take a burdened branch to snap, she had become a fool. And this ocean lolling about inside her head only taunted her, no opportunity for drowning.