Miss Jane (11 page)

Grace walked away and into the clearing and stood there as if she had turned into some kind of picture of herself, and it would have or could have become just that if not for the birds that began to move again, inside the bush and from tree limb to tree limb, fluttering and alighting, hopping to the ground to peck and then flying up again to a branch in the bush or a tree. Jane could see through a little seam in the thickly leaved shrub. She knew it was a dewberry because of her mother's teaching, and knew the root was good for an upset stomach. The berries made a good jelly, too. A couple of squirrels played a game of chase around a big pine tree nearby, their claws scrabbling on the soft bark, and chittering. It was hard for Jane not to laugh out loud at them. But she stayed still and quiet. She became part of the bush, her feet and bottom rooted down with its roots. Her hair its leaves, her eyes its berries. Then she saw something and the boy came into the clearing and she went still in her mind as well. Grace didn't move as the boy came up to her. He was a tall boy with coal-black hair, and skin browned from the sun, and bright brown eyes. The two of them stood there like that for a little bit, looking at each other. She could see them breathing hard, their chests moving out and in, up and down. Then they took off their clothes, Grace just lifting her dress above her head and dropping it to one side and unhooking her bra and dropping that, too. She wasn't wearing any underpants. She
didn't take off her walking shoes. The boy took off his shirt, which was just a dirty T-shirt, the same way Grace had taken off her dress, and his overalls fell to his feet. He
was
like a stinkhorn there. They grabbed each other and kissed for a minute, the longest kiss Jane had ever seen, as if they'd fallen asleep kissing except they were moving their hands over each other like they were looking for something in different places on their bodies. Then Grace's hand stopped and Jane saw she had ahold of him and she thought,
Don't break it off
. It didn't break off. They knelt down to the ground and he got on top of her. She helped him put it
in
her and they started pushing against each other. It was a little more like the dogs than the pigs but face-to-face, and she realized, later, that she hadn't thought people would do it differently. The boy's black-haired head was buried into Grace's shoulder and she saw Grace look over and make eye contact with her. She soiled her diaper, it took her so by surprise, Grace looking at her with this look on her face, her mouth just barely open, like to say,
Y
ou see and you keep quiet
. And then the boy raised his head and she thought he was going to look at her but he was just arching his head back and closing his eyes, and he pushed harder at Grace, who seemed to be looking over at her again but now it was like her eyes weren't focused, and she heard the boy kind of grunt-­groaning and then heard him heave a sigh. They lay there like that, him on top of her, for a little while, Grace stroking the boy's back with her hands. Then they got up, him shiny and floppy now. They put on their clothes without saying anything. The boy looked at Grace for a second, then nodded like he was embarrassed, and trotted away from where he'd come. Grace had put her bra back on and slipped into her dress and was adjusting and smoothing it. She took a rag from her pocket and raised her dress and stood there a minute with it pressed to herself where she peed from, then rubbed with it vigorously, took the rag
over to the opposite edge of the clearing, and tossed it into the woods there. She went over and picked up her satchel where she'd set it down. Then she looked back at Jane, and crooked her head as if to say,
Come on
, and Jane got up and went to her and together they headed back home, hurrying, Jane struggling to keep up, until they got to the bend in their driveway, where they stopped to catch their breath. Grace wiped perspiration from her face with the hem of her dress, checked herself down there for something, crooked out her thighs in a funny way like she was monkey-walking, felt of the insides of her legs, and, seeming satisfied, said, “Come on,” and together they walked up to the house. Grace tossed her satchel onto the porch and Jane followed her through the pecan grove to the barn, where Grace pulled a loose brick from a foundation post, came out with a packet of cigarettes, shook one, kind of flattened and crooked, into her hand, lit it with a match she took from a box in her dress pocket, and leaned back against the barn wall, smoking it like she was finally able to take an easy breath. She pushed her thick blond hair away from her forehead and blew out a big plume of blue smoke. “You all right now, little sister?” she said. Jane nodded. Grace kind of laughed and looked away, shook her head. “What a body will do just to get a little something she wants,” she said. She looked at Jane again. “We just went to the schoolhouse and got my books, you remember now?” Jane nodded. “But don't you forget what you saw.” Jane nodded again. It was the most curious arrangement. But also it was simple enough. Grace smoked, in silence, and Jane watched her as if there might be some significance in that, too, somehow.

“Why were you doing that with him?” she said then.

“You'll find out,” Grace said. “Maybe.”

She whispered, “Were you trying to make a
baby
with him?”

Grace gave her a sharp look, then ground out the cigarette with
the sole of her shoe. She picked up the butt and stripped the paper from it, tossing the tobacco into the grass and rolling the paper into a little ball she flicked farther away.

“Maybe so. Maybe not.”

“
Isn't
that what makes babies?”

Grace narrowed her eyes. “Now, how would you know that?”

Jane felt herself blush. She looked away, shrugged. Grace laughed then.

“I guess we do live on a farm, don't we?” She laughed again, louder, even slapped her knee.

“What?” Peeved at being laughed at.

Grace stopped laughing, wiped her eyes. “Oh, sister. Whether I make a baby with that boy or not, I figure I'll get what I want from him. And what he'll want from me: gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Away.”

“But
why
? And why would you want to make a baby with that boy?”

“I don't, dummy.”

Jane stomped her foot. “I don't
understand
.”

“I don't expect you to.” Grace looked at her, lips pressed together in irritation. “Look,” she said then, “I want that boy to give me some money so I can move to town.” She got close to Jane's face, serious. “He doesn't want a baby, he just likes doing that to me. If I tell him we made a baby, he'll give me money to go away.” She stood up straight again. “I know his family has money.”

“But I don't want you to move to town.”

“Grow up a little. I can't do everything in my life just for you. This is for me.”

Jane had been about to cry, but she held herself together. Then she said, “I don't think I'd ever want a boy to do that to me.”

Grace looked at her a long moment.

“I don't think you'll ever have to, hon.”

“Why not?”

“You don't have the right ‘equipment.' You know that, don't you? I don't have to tell you that.”

Jane didn't say anything to that, though she blushed and blinked her eyes.

“You know who that boy was?” Grace said.

Jane shook her head.

“His name is Arlo Barnett. You remember that. Just remember that, and you remember what it was we were doing. Could you describe it if someone was to ask you?”

Jane nodded. Then she buried her face in her hands in mortified embarrassment.

Grace said, “You just hold on to that, in case I need it.”

Jane nodded again, face still buried in her hands, burning with self-consciousness.

“So, anyway, you can see there's not really a whole lot to it,” Grace said. “No different from some animal, in the end. Probably do you good to remember that about it, anyway.” She shook another cigarette from the pack, lit it, blew the smoke from the corner of her mouth. “You ought to go clean yourself,” she said to Jane then. Jane got up and ran toward the creek.

Always she would be haunted by the memory of seeing the boy on top of Grace, his white butt cheeks going at her like the big churning wheel on their hay baler. And never forget Grace's face while he was doing it, eyes locked on her own, looking straight to where she was hiding beside and just behind the dewberry bush, right through the leaves that seemed to quiver in the stillness, as if they were about to burst into white-hot flame.

Sensual Matters

Dear Ellis,

I've decided—I suppose the impetus is the girl's decision not to attend school—to arrange for an examination, if for no other reason than to find out if there is the possibility of sphincter construction or repair, which would at least allow her to be in social situations without embarrassment. There is no reliable urologist around here. I will be speaking with her, and of course with her parents, in the coming days. I understand it is a slim chance of good news. And will make sure they understand that.

It's not that I think a life with romantic love—full-on or chaste—is necessarily something anyone and everyone should pursue, and in my opinion many I've known would've been better off following their solitary natures. But it seems wrong not to have the option. Her family trusts me and knows I have consulted with you on this a number of times, but I worry, still. I don't want to have been mistaken and would very much like to be corroborated by such an examination by a specialist—I hear the men in Memphis are good, among the best.

I wish we could travel to Baltimore, but that's quite an undertaking for a seven-year-old child, without her parents. It would be
good to see you again. It would be a shame not to see one another again before we are old. You should consider a visit down here, in any case. Get out of the city for a while, have a little country vacation. We could go fishing or even quail hunting if I could rustle up someone's dog. Let's think on it together, though we are what seems almost a world apart.

Yrs,

Ed

A LITTLE LOST
in the here and there, birdsong in the trees of the warm afternoon, invisible but for one silent flicker in its undulating flight from one line of trees to another, the air beginning to take on weight it would carry hard into the summer. When Jane awoke from this and stepped through the screen door of the house, she saw the doctor's Ford coming around the bend in the drive. She went down off the porch to greet him and they stood there talking for a few minutes before he surprised her by asking if her sister was at home.

She said, “Grace?”

“You have another sister?” He grinned at her.

She went into the house but no sooner had the screen door shut behind her than she saw Grace looking like she'd just tugged on her nice yellow dress, it being a bit askew on her frame, a small brown valise in one hand and a blue umbrella in the other.

“Where're you going?”

“To town,” Grace said. “I'm done here.”

She brushed past Jane.

“Your friend the doctor's going to give me a ride.”

She walked out, nodded to the doctor, went around to the passenger side. She plumped herself down in the passenger seat and
upended the valise to stand between her knees, the blue umbrella cocked onto her shoulder like a rifle.

The doctor looked at her, raised his eyebrows, then nodded to Jane.

“You want to go live in town now, too?”

“No,” Jane said, before she realized it was a joke.

“I'll speak to your mother and father before we leave,” the doctor said.

“I don't have all day,” Grace called from the car seat.

“Be just a minute,” the doctor said.

Jane and the doctor walked out to where her father and mother were weeding the cotton field with hoes. They stopped and came over.

“Ma'am,” the doctor said, touching the brim of his Stetson. “Where am I to drop the girl off?”

“Search me,” her mother said. “Said she's got herself a job working at a dry cleaner's. Somebody she knows of somehow.”

“Well, I guess she knows how to get there, then,” the doctor said.

Jane's mother turned and went back to weeding.

“Well,” her father said. “We knew she was going, and told her to wait till the weekend, I'd take her on in myself, if she was so set on it. I reckon she couldn't even wait that long to get away.”

He took his hat off and wiped his brow and face with a handkerchief, looked at the gritty sweat that came off onto it, shook it out, folded it back into his shirt pocket. Then he said, “I thank you for taking her. I suppose she's going to do what she wants, no matter.”

They shook hands, then her father walked back into the cotton rows and set in to chopping weeds again like nothing had happened.

On the way back to the house, Dr. Thompson rested a hand
on Jane's shoulder and said, “Your sister can take care of herself, I have no doubt.”