The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

by Anton Disclafani

  —

  Aunt Carrie was a marvelous cook, the compliment my father routinely gave her. My mother was not; she didn’t care enough about eating her food—picked at her meals, ate half of her plate—to care about preparing it. Her thinness was part of her beauty; her sharp angles carved a space for her wherever she went—my mother was a woman you were required to look at. Mother’s beauty was delicate, fragile: a swan’s neck, abrupt cheekbones, eyes that could never decide between hazel and green.

  Aunt Carrie was plain. In her youth, I imagined, she looked sturdy in that Midwestern way: straw-blond hair, dark blue eyes, a capable figure. When I knew her, Aunt Carrie was what Mother referred to as stocky, in a constant battle with her figure, and I wondered what happened to her figure after the trouble, whether or not she abstained from food in grief or turned to it for comfort. So when I thought of her at Yonahlossee, I saw her in two ways: as slender and pinched, her full cheeks replaced by dull hollows; or obese and slovenly, her neck folded, her arms ringed with fat. That she would look the same as when I last saw her was impossible.

  I woke early the day after Thanksgiving, my sense of time disrupted as it is in illness. I felt completely well. I slept in the bed, Georgie and Sam on the floor; I sat up and saw Georgie was gone. My brother was a lump beneath an old blue quilt.

  Aunt Carrie had little flair when it came to decorating. The guest room would have been better plain, in simple solids instead of competing florals. I fingered the duvet cover; burgundy cotton embroidered with gold medallions. Stiff and ugly, the whole room was a study in burgundy—the curtains, the chairs, the Oriental rug. The brooding, mahogany bedroom set. Mother had been acquiring more and more art deco furniture, which was all clean lines and simple geometry. Aunt Carrie’s house looked like it was out of the last century.

  Still, the house held a certain charm, my family lived there.

  The door opened, and a chink of light shone through the curtains and cast a shadow over my cousin’s face. I had wished him here and he had come; I felt nervous, suddenly, as I watched him enter the room, watched him shut the door a little too firmly, a thick thud and surely Mother would come see how I was. But no one came.

  Georgie was losing his baby fat, developing an athletic posture, suddenly broad instead of awkward. I was still skin and bones.

  “Are you up?” he asked.

  “Almost.”

  I lifted the covers and he got into bed beside me.

  “I ate some pie for breakfast.”

  “You couldn’t wait for brunch?”

  “I’ll eat again,” Georgie said, “don’t worry.”

  He shifted onto his side, and I could feel him staring. I closed my eyes. The cover rustled, and Georgie put his finger on the bridge of my nose, and traced it to its tip.

  “Such a pretty nose,” he said, half seriously.

  I giggled, and pulled the top sheet up over my face. Georgie’s hand was trapped, he moved it to my throat and my breath quickened, but it was not unusual for Georgie and me to find ourselves in intimate postures. We had always had an easy affection with each other, the consequence of being children together. But this felt, I knew even then, in that moment, different. I couldn’t see Georgie, his hand rested warmly on my throat. His fingers moved, slightly, and I shivered. I rolled onto my side and faced him, pulled the sheet over both of us. His hand was beneath my cheek, now, his eyes were closed. We were so near I could feel his breath on my face, moist and peppery. I could hear perfectly each intake of breath. I put my hand on Georgie’s shoulder; he didn’t move. I shifted and felt that my nipples had hardened beneath my nightgown. I arched my back, to be closer to him, and in that instant there was a knock at the door, and Mother entered.

  “Rise and shine,” she said, and I sat up, flushed, revealing Georgie as well, who had curled into a ball and was feigning sleep.

  Mother paused at the foot of the bed, her eyes traveled over me, then Georgie, and I crossed my arms over my chest, though I knew she could see nothing.

  “Feeling better, Thea?” Her face was calm and unreadable.

  Georgie and I had slept in the same bed just last month. We had done nothing wrong.

  “Yes, thank you. Ready for brunch.”

  “All right,” she said. “Georgie, why don’t you wake up and come downstairs with me? I think your mother wants you.”

  My mother had always been a bad liar. Her voice became thin, turned up at the ends of her words.

  I sat in bed after they had gone, a little stunned.

  “Morning, sunshine,” Sam said, and I jumped. I had forgotten he was here. He lay on his pallet, his head propped up by his bent elbow.

  “You’re up?”

  “Evidently.” His voice was strange, and he would not meet my eyes, stared at some spot near the door. He had a perfect view of the bed. I wondered how long he’d been awake. The tone of his voice—sullen, brooding—made me feel as if I’d been caught a second time.

  We ate brunch, and I watched, relieved, as Sam’s sour mood lifted, as he and Georgie competed over who could eat the most crepes. “Sam,” Aunt Carrie said, “it’s time for you to grow.”

  Mother had cast her glance sideways at Aunt Carrie at that comment, but that had been the only note of tension I’d noticed. Nobody had uttered the word Miami, for which I was grateful. It had been a place I only knew about, because of our orange groves there, but never visited; now it was where Uncle George had been imprudent.

  Father made me take a sip of his champagne to settle my stomach. I waved good-bye to Georgie from the back window of the car, stopping only when Sam tugged at my sleeve, pulling me down next to him. I sat down willingly. I felt guilty, though I didn’t know why; like I had done something wrong, though I couldn’t have said what.

  —

  The day after Thanksgiving, Mother and Idella disappeared into the basement and emerged with our Christmas decorations: glass ornaments so fragile we weren’t allowed to touch them; four hand-carved wooden reindeer purchased from a catalogue; a long, slender Santa whittled from a single piece of wood. A silver nativity set passed down for generations through my father’s family, Spanish names engraved on the underside of each figurine: José, María, Jesús.

  The next week, as we sat in the sunroom with Father for our lessons, we heard thumping and pounding as my mother and Idella put everything in its proper position.

  “Do you think they need help?” Sam asked, his finger planted somewhere on his book so he would not lose his place.

  Father ignored him, and I kept reading: we were in the middle of mythology, which I loved. So expansive and lovely, those gods and their heavens. We were supposed to keep quiet while we read. Father was strict about this rule, at least as strict as he ever was.

  I raised my eyes and met Sam’s gaze; he watched me impassively. I lowered my eyes and returned to the tale of Narcissus.

  I wore an old dress of Mother’s, a cotton shift with a square neckline. The dress hung on my frame. I was of average height for a girl my age, but almost too thin. Because I only rarely saw other girls my own age, only had Mother to truly compare myself to, I didn’t realize that girls were not immediately women once they reached a certain age, that there was an awkward dividing period. I was too comfortable in my own skin, perhaps. I wore Mother’s old casual dresses because they made me feel more adult.

  Father closed his book, signaling our lesson was over.

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

  —

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Aunt Carrie’s mother is ill. She’s going there to be with her.”

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

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

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

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

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

  “Uncle George has to be in Miami.”

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

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

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

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

  “Why can’t I sleep in the same room?” I asked. I felt near tears.

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

  “Thea,” she murmured, “you’re getting older.”

  “I’m not.”

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

  “I feel the same.”

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

  I nodded.

  “Say it, please.” Her voice was kind but firm.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Thea.” She patted my cheek. “Everything will be fine. It’s just sleeping.”

  I slipped from her grasp and trotted away.

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

  —

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

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

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

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

  “Georgie’s coming tomorrow.”

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

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

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

  Sam nodded. “I know. Mother told me.” He paused. “All we’re doing is sleeping, Thea.”

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

  “Thea?” Sam called, but I ignored him.

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

  I felt sorry over Sam, too.

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

  —

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “I knew you’d be in here,” he said.

  I took a step backward, out of his sight.

  “Don’t even try,” he called. “I don’t want to run.”

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

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