The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

by Anton Disclafani

  “I’ll just sleep tomorrow. I won’t miss anything.”

  “I guess not.”

  “I want to go away, Thea. I want to travel.” His voice was strange. I turned and looked at him. He was barefoot, sprawled in the rocking chair in his normal day clothes. His head was turned, in profile, and I saw how handsome my brother was becoming. He was going to be more handsome than I was beautiful, our features more suited to a man’s face; but I pushed the thought from my mind. I was fifteen years old; I wanted to be beautiful. I did not want anyone else to be more beautiful, even my twin—or especially my twin. “Don’t you?” he asked again, and turned to me. Mother said some twins looked less and less alike as they grew older, but that didn’t seem to be the case for me and Sam.

  “Where would you go?” I asked. My brother had never spoken to me of leaving before. Not ever.

  “I think I’d like to go somewhere on a ship,” he said, and I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

  Sam wouldn’t look at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s just the picture of you on a ship. Would you be a sailor?”

  He said nothing.

  “Sam,” I began, “I’m sorry—”

  “No you’re not. Anyway, wouldn’t you be glad if I left?” His voice was high, and I understood that Sam did not really want to go anywhere, that he wanted nothing about our lives to change.

  “Why would I be glad, Sam?” I spoke quietly. “I need you.”

  “Need me?” It was his turn to laugh. “Need me for what? You spend all day on Sasi. You don’t need anyone.”

  “That isn’t true,” I said. But, strangely, my feelings weren’t hurt. I felt they should be, I expected them to be, but they weren’t.

  “No,” Sam said, “I suppose it isn’t true. You need our cousin.”

  I lay back against the hard brick, suddenly exhausted. I could feel Sam stand behind me; I thought he would go inside now, but instead he sat down next to me. I watched his back: he was growing broader as I was growing narrower.

  “No moon tonight.” His voice was dull.

  I shook my head, even though he wasn’t looking at me.

  “Do you remember when you thought an Indian lived out there?” I asked.

  “You believed it, too.”

  He lay down next to me, and I knew the coolness of the brick was a relief to him also.

  “Thea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you ever wonder what it feels like to be dead?”

  I considered the question. Sam passed his hand lightly over my eyes. “Close them.” I did. “It feels like this,” he said.

  “No it doesn’t.”

  “Try and fall asleep. You might as well be dead, when you’re sleeping.”

  I tried to push all my thoughts away and make my mind go blank. I tried not to think about Georgie, I tried to lull my mind into stillness. I wanted to please my brother.

  “I don’t think this is working.” Sam didn’t respond, but I could tell he wasn’t sleeping, only trying. “I wonder which one of us will die first.”

  “Me,” he said, “it will be me.”

  I said nothing. To be alive without Sam—would that be any life at all, I wondered. I knew Mother and Father would die first, though I didn’t know in which order; this made sense. They had lives before me, and I would have a life after them. But Sam and I had never existed alone, and now this existence seemed as much a burden as a pleasure. Or perhaps it was neither. It was merely a fact.

  “Thea. Try again.”

  I listened to Sam. I closed my eyes. And what did I see? Mother’s old carriage blanket, weighing down her arm like a stone. I tried to think of other things, put them on top of the blanket: Sasi, Georgie, the usual things. But they all led back to the blanket. Usually I was so good at plucking from my brain what I did not want to consider.

  I almost fell asleep. The sun rose very slowly, by increments, and I kept my eyes shut against it, tried to make myself drift into oblivion. Then suddenly I could taste what it would be like to become nothing. And it was an absence so large I couldn’t quite conceive of it, except to be terrified.

  I opened my eyes and sat up, turned to Sam, who slept peacefully. My hand hovered above his shoulder. I needed to wake him, I needed to tell him I was scared. He would help me understand it. But then I let my hand drop, onto the brick. I wanted to be separate from Sam. I wanted to experience something he did not. And so I stayed on the porch for another hour, the sun turning us hotter and hotter as it rose.

  I should have woken Sam to prevent the burn that we would sport for the next week, our forearms and faces bright red, then pink, then peeling. But I did not. My face was redder on my left cheek, almost like I had painted it with rouge; it had been turned to the sun while I had watched my brother. He had wanted me to follow him there, to wherever he was, and I hadn’t. I could not. I watched him and saw very clearly that there were places I would not follow Sam, where he would not follow me.

  —

  What Sam said rang over and over—You need our cousin. We love him differently. Georgie, his thick waist, his broad chest—what Sam could see. What Sam couldn’t see: the trail of hair that split his navel, the taut surface of his stomach.

  We love him differently, but what was the difference? My mother and father loved each other, shared a bed; I loved my mother, my father loved me, they both loved Sam. Marriage meant you included someone, permanently, in your family. That kind of marriage made sense. In the Bible, Jacob married two first cousins, Rachel and Leah, and it was a joyful occasion. Occasions. I didn’t want as much as that—I only wanted a single person, a solitary being.

  But that was so long ago. At the beginning of time, everyone must have been a cousin. Cousin-marriage, then, was a modern term, applied to pairs like Charles Darwin and Emma Wedgwood, their marriage an anecdote, woven into Father’s lecture in order to entertain, trick us into caring. I’d wondered if Emma was related to the porcelain manufacturer. Neither Father nor Mother had known, and there was no way for me to find out at that time in my life, no matter how badly I wanted to.

  And so the story of Emma and Charles lodged itself somewhere in my young brain. Mr. Darwin had carefully considered both the benefits and detriments of marriage, committing himself to Miss Wedgwood for as long as they both would live. Marriage meant less money for his work, less time to catalogue all the unknown species of flora and fauna in the great beyond. Miss Emma Wedgwood was already catalogued, already known, and Mr. Darwin couldn’t have been less interested in what he already understood. In his huge, unrelenting brain, Mr. Darwin’s capacity for love had already been filled by the vast inhabitants of God’s earth.

  If Mother found out what I was doing, she might want me to marry Georgie. And I did not want to marry my cousin. I did not want to live in Gainesville. I did not—and this thought shamed me—want to be poor. But still I wanted my cousin. I wanted him very badly. I tried to separate the two things in my mind. I could not make sense of it all, how I could want one part but not the other.

  It was the longest Georgie and I had been apart. I didn’t think of it this way then, but that night in the stall must have worked on my conscience, because suddenly I saw what I was doing clearly, and I was terrified that someone would know. I was still hungry for my cousin—I wanted him to touch me, I craved his touch—but my hunger was tempered by caution. Perhaps it was as simple as this: I was older. I saw my mother unfurling her precious carriage blanket, pulling it from beneath the table, and it unlocked the possibilities in my brain. If I had allowed things to go further I would no longer be a virgin. That was the first thing, and then the second was that if anyone knew, I wouldn’t be marriageable. I could have conceived a child, we could have conceived a child. It was a possibility. I shudder to think of my life had that happened.

  My mother held up the blanket, and in Georgie’s
absence it had revealed itself to me like a flare in the night sky that had come into view suddenly and terrifyingly.

  Then Georgie was back, and we went to Gainesville for tea, just me and Mother, Sam was busy with something. His absence would have seemed like a blessing a month ago. But now I wished he was here. Georgie had tea with us, stared at me in a way that was obvious, but Mother and Aunt Carrie didn’t seem to notice. I ate a scone and it was dust in my mouth.

  I followed him upstairs later. He patted the space next to him on his unmade bed; I went reluctantly. I’d never liked his room.

  “Did you miss me?”

  “Yes.”

  “My cousins there aren’t like the ones here,” he said, and I looked at him. Georgie leaned in to kiss me, his eyes already closed, and I turned my cheek.

  “You left the blanket in the stall last time.”

  “I did?”

  “Mother found it. We could have been caught.”

  He smoothed the sheet between us, and though he came close to touching me, he didn’t. I could hear my own heart. He kept drawing his hand in a pattern that brought it close and then away again.

  “Georgie,” I said, my voice nearly a whisper.

  “My cousins in Kansas City aren’t doing very well. Everyone’s moved into my grandmother’s house.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “It was good that she died.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “What? It’s the truth. They’re all farmers, they don’t have professions they can depend on, like our fathers. Well, like your father. People are always sick, aren’t they? But it hasn’t rained in months there. They’re desperate.”

  I stilled his hand and held it between both of mine. This was the Georgie who was mine, who no one else saw.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know how poor everyone is now? Father says it’s just starting, that it’ll be worse before it’s better. The cows in the pastures are starving. You can see their spines.”

  I shivered. “They should shoot them, put them out of their misery.”

  “They can’t. Then that would be the end of things. Think, Thea—they need their cows.”

  “It will rain again. It always does.”

  “Only God can say that.”

  “Or the ocean. The ocean decides when it rains.”

  “Tell my uncles. Tell them to ask the ocean.”

  I hadn’t meant to be flip. “I’m sure it’s awful.”

  “It is.” He rested his head on my shoulder, which he’d never done before. It was usually I who leaned against him. I stroked his forearm, watched how the fine hairs stood at my touch.

  “All I thought about was you, when I was gone. How much I wanted you to be with me.”

  “Well, here I am.”

  “I mean be with you differently.” He drew his finger across my lap. “Do you want to be with me like that?”

  I looked around the room—the ratty bedspread, flung on the floor; the uneven floorboards; the secondhand desk; the framed photograph of a man I did not recognize, someone from Aunt Carrie’s family. There was a small lockbox beneath the bed, which held his treasures: a silver dollar, a smooth stone from Ormond Beach, a postcard from Toronto.

  These were all his things in the world. And now me, he had me, too.

  “You don’t need to answer,” he said, into my neck. “Just stay here with me.”

  —

  I came to Yonahlossee in late July, the summer nearly over. In Florida this was always the worst month, the heat so vicious it claimed lives, a dozen every July. The bugs were unbearable, biting, buzzing, trying to get at you any way they could. When I undressed, I found mosquitoes in my undergarments, nestled between my thighs.

  Georgie was visiting, for the Fourth. I looked forward to seeing my cousin with a distinct combination of dread and exhilaration.

  My uncle bought fireworks from a stand in Gainesville, a boxful of them, on a whim. We’d never lit fireworks before. I saw my father’s expression as Uncle George revealed his surprise, and he was not pleased, anyone could see that.

  “A gift,” Uncle George said, “a gift,” and my father said nothing, and I pitied Uncle George, and I was so angry at Father for his meanness.

  “A fine one,” my mother said, splitting the silence, “a fine one.” But it was too late.

  Sometimes when I think of that weekend—and I have thought of it often, wound and rewound the scenes—I am not impressed. What happened seems, if not normal, inevitable, unsurprising. My family emerged a different family, but that would have happened anyway. Sam and I would have gone to college, Georgie would have married. The children would have left.

  And other times I think of that weekend and I am a young stranger, that weekend is impossible.

  —

  I did have the sense that someone was watching us. I was very careful, I diligently ignored Georgie when we were in front of anyone else, including Sam. Sam looked at me as if we had an understanding when I didn’t laugh at a joke Georgie made, when I refused to even smile; it was so simple to please him.

  We watched the fireworks late at night, when it was darkest. My uncle kept praying to the moon, in jest, to go away. Sam and Georgie carried the box to the end of the field, past the barn. Georgie did a little jump and clicked his heels in the air, gave a holler, and Sam smiled and so did I, in spite of myself, but then I went cold. The fireworks had not excited Georgie. I had, and what he imagined we were going to do later. I looked at my mother, who watched my brother and uncle and cousin disappear into darkness.

  “I hope he’ll be careful,” my mother said, and I wasn’t sure whom she was referring to. If only she knew; then she could tell me to be careful, she could stop things before they went any further. We couldn’t see them anymore but I heard Georgie yell something to Sam, probably some instruction, and his voice ricocheting off my brain thrilled me, amplified some desire I hadn’t known I’d had.

  “I haven’t seen fireworks in years,” Father said quietly. I put my hand on top of his. He turned it over and held mine. He was very easy to love.

  “Did you have them when you were little?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  I thought that odd—whether or not you’d seen fireworks in your childhood seemed like a thing you’d remember—but I sat quietly because I sensed that Father wanted to sit quietly. I would remember this night, I thought, but perhaps one day all of this would have faded into a vague, barely recalled memory; that seemed unbearable, that all of it could simply disappear.

  We heard a whoop and Mother stood, terrified, and then we heard the bang of a firework, and the rays of color spread across the sky.

  “It’s fine, Elizabeth,” my father said, and my mother sat back down.

  “Do you like them, Thea?” my mother asked.

  I looked at the sky. “Yes.”

  Aunt Carrie was quiet. I looked at her and wanted to scream. You should know, you should have stopped your son from falling into all of this.

  I left before the men came back, went to check on Sasi, who was, as I’d anticipated, frantic. I stayed with him for a while, but he wouldn’t be soothed. I walked him around the ring, let him graze, but he wasn’t interested in grass. The air smelled scorched, and there was no way to explain to him that it had all been for fun, that there was no real threat.

  Back inside, Mother told me she was putting the house to bed—a phrase I’d never heard her use before. She must have read it in a book. I found her in the living room, drawing the curtains, and told her I would be outside for a while, tending to Sasi. She told me not to stay up too late, and I promised I wouldn’t, though I planned to sleep outside if Sasi wouldn’t calm down. Perhaps Georgie was in the next room—in the kitchen or the hallway—and heard, or he went to find me in my bed and guessed, correctly, that I was in the barn. That was where we had
met before. It was not inconceivable that I would wait there again.

  I was dozing—not fully asleep, but nowhere near awake, either—when I heard him. I watched my cousin while he looked for me. Sasi was exhausted from working himself up, stood very still, his head in the corner over me. I loved him. The feeling rose in my throat.

  Georgie walked by the stall. His face was sweaty. A moment later he walked by again and stopped at the stall, propped his elbows on the door, and smiled.

  “Found you.”

  Sasi started, jerked his head up and walked over to the door; Georgie backed away.

  “I wasn’t hiding.” I stood by Sasi and stroked his neck, ran my fingers through his knotted mane. I hadn’t been taking good care of him lately.

  “Thea?”

  I turned my head and looked at my cousin, and he was so eager. He motioned for me to come, and I went, it was what was expected of me, after all we had done together. I followed willingly, and as soon as I was outside the stall he pushed me against the cold brick wall, which felt good through my dress. He smelled of sweat, and he bit my lip. I turned my face and he began to gather my dress around my hips. He pressed his erection against my bare leg, and I turned back and saw that he was watching himself, that he was aroused by the sight of his erection pressing into my leg.

  “Georgie,” I said, “wait.”

  “Why?” He took my hand and led me into our empty stall. His voice sounded deeper than it had a moment before. I smoothed the hair away from his forehead and smiled at him.

  “All right.”

  “You,” he said, “you are so good.”

  I would have done anything, then. I turned away from him and unbuttoned the front of my dress, and he was behind me, sliding the dress from my shoulders. He kissed my neck, and felt my breasts, and then he turned me around.

  He put his finger beneath my chin and lifted it. “Are you all right?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll make you better.” But I wanted him to ask why I wasn’t all right; I wanted him to feel this risk half as much as I seemed to. He appeared so careless, Georgie, so careless about all of this. He didn’t take his eyes away. Ask, I screamed, inside my head; ask, ask, ask. Instead he put his hand between my legs while he watched me, and he was gentle. He stopped, a little half smile on his face, and I knew he was goading me. It worked.