Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary

by PAMELA DEAN

  “Well, if I have time after Girl Scouts.”

  They carried the trunk up to the attic. Rosemary, having walked all around Dominic’s building materials and said, “Huh,” several times, went back downstairs and built a fire in the fireplace. Gentian had some cocoa too, and curled up on the couch with the newest copy of Sky and Telescope, which she had not yet brought upstairs. It said nothing about the spots she had seen on Saturn. She would have to look again when the weather cleared.

  Juniper came home next. She went immediately upstairs without saying anything, but she came back down in about twenty minutes in her green flannel nightgown, with her cat under her arm. When Junie came home and put her nightgown on, it meant she had had a very bad day. It was therefore less than sensible for Rosemary to tell her, before she had even had a cup of tea, that the materials for Dominic’s science project were up in the attic.

  “When did that happen?” she snapped. “And who let him in?”

  “This morning,” said Gentian. “I did.”

  “Why weren’t you in school?”

  “I was up late doing astronomy and he caught me just as I left the house.”

  “I thought you were doing the play instead.”

  “Well, so did I, but there he was.”

  “That’s really stupid, Gentian.”

  “You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”

  “You needn’t think you can elbow me out.”

  “Much luck I’d have if I tried.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Rosemary, flourishing her elbows.

  “Neither one of you has a chance in hell,” said Juniper, and she took her cat and her teacup into the television room and turned the television up very loud.

  Rosemary got up and shut the door.

  “I hope she gets bored,” she said, returning to her armchair.

  “It won’t help if she does, she’ll just make us miserable.”

  Their father got home next, with two canvas bags full of library books. He looked harassed. While he was hanging his coat up and putting the books away in his office, Gentian went into the kitchen and made him some cocoa.

  “Maybe you do have an Electra complex,” he said, when he came into the kitchen and she handed him the mug. “You want to watch that. I’d hate to find myself bringing home Cassandra.”

  “You wouldn’t, unless she was a stray dog.”

  “Well, in fact, your mother’s more likely to consider that a matter for murder than she would my bringing home a mistress.”

  “Only if it were another pregnant stray dog.”

  “I don’t think Cassandra was pregnant.”

  They wandered into the living room and sat down. Rosie put another log on the fire. “Junie’s sulking,” she said.

  “It sounds more like conducting aerial warfare to me,” said their father, eyeing the door to the sunroom.

  “Dad, does Mom even know that Yin-Yang’s here?”

  “Oh, yes, but as long as Junie’s taking care of him, she doesn’t mind.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot—Murr is hiding in the closet and hissing and growling at me. Can you come look at her?”

  “I should have been a veterinarian,” said her father, pushing himself out of his armchair. “Then I’d get paid for these visits. And I wouldn’t have to deal with publishers.”

  They went upstairs.

  “It’s freezing in here,” said her father. “It’d be enough to make me hide in the closet.”

  “I want to look at Saturn later on.”

  “As long as he’s not bathing.”

  “That was Diana. I don’t think anybody ever got punished for watching a god bathe.”

  “Very good,” said her father.

  Gentian rolled her eyes.

  Gentian sat on the bed while her father inserted his upper half into the closet, talking soothingly. After a moment he said, “She’s purring, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something wrong.” After a few more moments he said, “I can’t find a sore spot, and I don’t think she has a fever.”

  He backed out of the closet. Gentian took his place. Murr, dimly visible, puffed herself up like a nebula and hissed ferociously.

  “I think she’s mad at me, " said Gentian, removing herself hastily. “I can’t think what I did.”

  “Forgot to feed her, I assume.”

  “No, I checked that. Oh. Maybe she’s annoyed that we brought all that stuff into the attic.”

  “What stuff? Or do I want to know?”

  “It’s just the stuff for Dominic’s science project.”

  “Oh, he came through, did he? And how do you propose to work on his science project and be in a play and do astronomy and go to school?”

  “I’m not the only one working on it. We all said we’d help. And it’s his project. Let him work on it.”

  Her father contemplated her with his head on one side for a moment, rather as Murr might look at a piece of carpet fuzz to see if it was worth pouncing on.

  “Do I sense some disillusion?” he said.

  “I wasn’t illusioned to start with.”

  “I wouldn’t believe Juniper if she said that, but maybe you weren’t. What about Rosie?”

  “She thought he was a drug dealer, but he was just quoting Keats.”

  “Well, the Devil can cite Scripture to his purpose.”

  “I guess, but he wasn’t trying to sell her anything.”

  “You’re sure that science project isn’t to do with making some vile New Age extract of animal tranquilizer?”

  “I told you, it’s a physics project, not chemistry.”

  “So it won’t work, but it won’t blow up either. That’s all right, then.”

  He wandered out, leaving Gentian to wonder what a conversation between him and Dominic would sound like.

  She had to go on wondering. Dominic was in evidence quite a lot for the next few days. But he only showed up when her father was gone, and usually when everybody else was gone as well. He brought in a few more boxes and a set of tools, and then set to hammering and sawing in the attic. Gentian, who had in her time built everything from a treehouse that was still safe five years later to bookcases to a couple of replacements for the cherry steps up to her telescope, offered to help.

  “Very learned women are to be found,” said Dominic, “in the same manner as female warriors, but they are seldom or never inventors.”

  It would be a terrific pain to drag all that stuff out of the attic again. Gentian took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can work on this project if you’re going to go on talking like that, Dominic.”

  “Talk is cheap.”

  “Well, good, because I sure wouldn’t pay you for it.” Dominic seemed to make an effort, and finally said, “I must do the preliminary work myself; no man may aid me either.”

  “Well, all right. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  Maria Mitchell came stretching through the open door, ostentatiously ignored Gentian, and brushed her variegated tail against Dominic’s leg. He looked down at her, but made no move to pet her. “A harmless necessary cat,” he said. He sounded hopeful.

  “She’s one of your female warriors,” said Gentian.

  When he left, Murr climbed into her lap, but did not purr.

  He did not, naturally, show up on Christmas, though Gentian was secretly entertained by the thought of his doing so. Her family seemed pleased with their presents, even though this had not been an inspired year for her. She felt she fared better than they did: they had given her not only the color filters she asked for, but a talking clock intended for blind people. She could press a bar on it, without looking away from the telescope, and in an abrupt computerized voice it would tell her the time. She had not yet done any systematic record-keeping, let alone timed anything’s transits, but now she had the wherewithal. They had also given her Carl Sagan’s Comet and both the Astronomical Calendar and the Observer’s Handbook for 1994. The latter was particularly valuable, being produced by C
anadians who knew there were latitudes north of the fortieth.

  They had a large and varied dinner, at which Junie only snapped at Rosemary once and Gentian was nobly amiable to everybody; they read aloud from “A Christmas Carol” and then, for contrast, from A Child’s Christmas in Wales. They trimmed the tree, telling stories about all the ornaments. Gentian had found a telescope ornament in her stocking: as it turned out, Steph had called her mother and told her about it. Juniper got one of the little papier-mache books, and Rosemary a sailing ship.

  They sat around the fire afterwards, drinking cider and eating cookies. Pounce sat on Gentian’s father’s lap, and Yin-Yang perched precariously on Juniper’s knee and made the occasional threatening noise. Gentian had brought Maria Mitchell down when she came to breakfast, but Murr was as usual hiding under the sofa. She would probably come out when things were quieter.

  “So is Dominic ever going to start his project?” said Rosemary.

  “Probably after New Year’s,” said Gentian.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “That’s probably a good attitude.”

  Rosemary looked vaguely thwarted, but did not pursue the point.

  Gentian was so full of food that she went to bed at ten and didn’t waken until eight the next morning. It was nine below zero, and sunny. That boded well for astronomy, if not for the astronomer. She went sledding in Memorial Park with the Giant Ants, and brought Becky home with her afterwards to bestow another blessing on the telescope.

  “I thought it had been working fine,” said Becky.

  “It has, but I don’t want to take any chances. It was about time for you to come over anyway.”

  “It’s about time for me to stop coming over until spring, actually.”

  “You can sit on the electric blanket with Maria Mitchell.”

  “Somehow, it’s still cold when I do that.”

  “Just let me look at Saturn a bit and then a couple of large obvious stars, and I’ll quit and turn the heat on.”

  “If you’ll show me something especially fine, all right.” Gentian found Saturn. The seeing was, for no reason, spectacularly good: Saturn was rock-steady, like a photograph, a fine creamy yellow with dark rusty stripes, still broken up into spots and blotches in the north. She touched her clock, which told her she had been looking for about twenty minutes, and reluctantly set about thinking of something especially fine to show Becky. Sirius was impressive, but perhaps not sufficient. After a moment she decided to show her Castor and Pollux.

  She found Castor first; it was an aggressive and definite white against the edge of the Milky Way. She followed it until she could split it into Castor A and B. There was a third star, a dim red dwarf, also associated with them, but she had never actually found it, though other people with six-inch telescopes had. They hadn’t lived in the middle of a modern city.

  “Hey, Becky, come look at Castor, and then I’ll find Pollux.”

  “Oh, the Heavenly Twins.”

  “It’s more than that. Castor is three visible stars, if you’re lucky, and each one of them is a spectroscopic binary, so where we see one star with the naked eye, there are actually six altogether.”

  “What am I going to see?”

  “Just Castor A and B, probably, unless you get to see C, that’s the red dwarf. I wish you would.”

  “I just see the one—oh, all right. That’s white, isn’t it, very assertive.”

  Gentian reclaimed the telescope after a while and found Pollux. It was brighter than Castor, a fine pale gold, and was itself only, with no elusive companions splitting and splitting again. She showed Becky.

  “What’s all that behind them both?”

  “The edge of the Milky Way.”

  “You know, nothing you’ve shown me has really had a black, dark sky behind it.”

  “Well, there are a lot of stars. It’s the same with just binoculars: you point them at something bright that looks all alone, and a whole bunch of little stars jump out all around it.”

  Becky was silent for a while, looking. Finally she spoke. “They aren’t really much like twins, are they, either in color or in number?”

  “No, not at all, but to the naked eye that’s how they’ve looked. Every civilization that named them called them twins— well, every one I know about, anyway.”

  “There’s something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.” Becky relinquished the telescope to Gentian, looking, in the red light, vaguely glazed.

  “Weren’t you going to write a poem about Betelgeuse?”

  “Yes, I’ve been working on it. The actual description is all right, I guess, but I can’t make it mean more than that.”

  “So you don’t know when I can see it.”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Maybe if you put Castor and Pollux in, it will all come together?”

  “Maybe.”

  Becky climbed back under the electric blanket. Gentian decided, as long as the telescope was aimed in that direction, to take a look at M35. She found the orange star near its center, and looked with approval at the curves of bright uniform stars, like lights seen from an airplane at night, winding out on a background of fainter stars. She looked long enough to see the orange and yellow giants amongst the bright white stars, and then with great reluctance put the telescope to bed, shut the windows, turned on the heat, and turned on the plain white lights.

  Becky blinked at her. Maria Mitchell came out of the closet and jumped onto the bed. Gentian joined them, feeling a little out of focus. “Are you going to entertain me splendidly now?” she said.

  “Well, I wanted to talk to you; I’m not sure if it’s entertaining,” said Becky, giving a scornful twist to the last word.

  “What, what?”

  “I think I’m in love.”

  Gentian forgot the telescope. She felt as if somebody had slammed her solidly in the chest, as Alma had once tackled her playing touch football. She sat trying to get her breath. “Micky?”

  “No, I’ve met somebody new and not told you.”

  “You sound like Erin.”

  “Well, really, who else would it be?”

  “I was just trying to adjust. Tell me everything.”

  “I hate to. It’s so stupid and embarrassing. I have no idea how he feels, but I’m obsessed. I think about him all the time. He keeps popping up in my poems whether he belongs there or not. I fantasize about arguments we might have and about his calling me and about all sorts of things I don’t even think I’m old enough to do.”

  “But what do you do about it?”

  “Writing and fantasizing is doing, don’t you tell me it’s not.”

  “Yes, all right, sorry, but, well—”

  “I thought you might feel the same way about Dominic.”

  “No,” said Gentian, slowly, “I don’t think so. I think about him, and I plot ways to see him, but he’s so unpredictable he’s exhausting, and we never really get anywhere. There isn’t any— what’s that theatrical term Mrs. Morgan is always going on about? —there isn’t any continuity. It’s like starting over at the beginning every time. It’s exciting, but I really can’t get up an obsession. Besides, he’s a sexist.”

  “So’s Micky. He thinks he isn’t, but he is.”

  “But he’ll argue with you, he takes your opinions seriously— doesn’t he?”

  “Sure. He’s—he’s kind of a historical sexist. He thinks I’m okay, but he doesn’t really think women have ever done anything worth making a fuss over in the entire history of the world.”

  “You know,” said Gentian, thinking it over, “that’s disgusting, but it’s kind of romantic too, if he makes you an exception.”

  “It’s very alluring,” said Becky, almost growling, “but it’s awful just the same.”

  “So what things don’t you think you’re old enough to do?”

  “Never mind,” said Becky, turning pink. “If you haven’t thought of them too, never mind.”

&n
bsp; Gentian wasn’t at all sure she wanted to hear, but she was hurt that Becky wouldn’t tell her.

  “Let’s play Scrabble,” said Becky.

  “All right, but wait a minute. Does he call you?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Maybe he feels the same way but he has no idea how you feel.”

  “Oh, probably, but who wants to risk looking like an idiot?”

  “It’d make a good poem.”

  “Maybe if I run out of other subjects. Let’s play Scrabble.”

  Dominic continued not to appear for the whole of Christmas vacation, and the telescope continued to work. Gentian went on looking at Saturn, and was finally driven by its continual exhibition of unusual spots to make drawings of them. All the handbooks recommended soft pencils and charcoal, and she worked over the drawings for hours and ended up very smudgy, while Maria Mitchell, who could not be dissuaded from supervising her, took on the appearance of a calico cat with gray feet and chin.

  She also made a thorough study of the whole constellation of Gemini, returning often to Castor, splitting it as far as she could and thinking of how much further it split. She went back to Orion and looked again at the Trapezium, because closer study of her books had shown her that it was another set of stars of the same kind. It looked like one star to the naked eye, surrounded by a fuzziness that was the Orion Nebula. In a small telescope it was four large stars in a trapezius with two smaller ones, one a little above and to the right of the trapezius, the other just outside it on the left. Two of the trapezium stars, in their turn, were eclipsing binaries. Gentian had her suspicions of all the others as well. The revelation of multiplicity in unity interested her deeply, although when she tried to write down why, the result sounded so trite she tore up her efforts and burned them in the family’s nightly fire.

  The Giant Ants always had a New Year’s Eve party. It was at Alma’s house this year. Becky called Gentian three days before, sounding panicked.

  “I want to ask Alma if I can invite Micky,” she said.

  Since all Alma’s siblings would be there, Gentian felt less strongly about this than she might have.

  “I know it isn’t fair,” said Becky, “since Alma doesn’t like Dominic.”