the ties and waving them off.
I was truly like the bird falling from the nest.
Would I fly?
Aunt Zipporah was confident I would.
Nevertheless, she did her best to cheer me up the rest
of the day, insisting that we go shop for those clothes
we had promised each other. I had a fun time helping
her find things in style to wear rather than wearing
what my stepmother Rachel called "Zipporah's rebel
uniforms." She even contemplated going to the beauty
parlor and getting a different, more up-to-date
hairstyle.
"You should," I said. Then, realizing I sounded
like I was criticizing her in Rachel's style, I added, "I
mean, it might make you feel better about yourself!" "Look at who's talking. I tell you what. If you'll
go, I'll go," she added. "We'll do the whole enchilada--nails, pedicure, facials. What do you say?" I laughed and nodded. The salon had openings immediately, so she made our appointments and we spoiled ourselves for the rest of the day. When we returned to the Cafe, Tyler was amused and even im
pressed with Aunt Zipporah's and my new looks. "I'm probably going to get new business
because of you two," he told us. "Those truck drivers
who think we're too sixties and distrust us will be
coming in for sure now."
The three of us laughed. My uncle and aunt
were truly an antidote for sadness. It was impossible
to be either unhappy or depressed around them long.
My grandmother's questions had put a little doubt in
my mind, but this was a good move for me, I told
myself.
We had a very busy Saturday night and I had
little time to think .about Duncan. I did look for him
from time to time and thought it strange not to have
seen him all day and now all night. All of us worked
until closing, and when we went home, we went right
to bed.
"Now, Alice," Tyler said on Sunday, "I want
you to take Mondays and Tuesdays off completely to
work on your art. Those are slow days for us in the
cafe, and it would be a waste of your time to have you
here standing around."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. Missy and Cassie could use the
extra money, too," he added.
"Besides," Aunt Zipporah said, "we're
depending on you coming up with a great picture for
the cafe." "I'm not that good yet."
"We'll let the patrons decide. In fact, we'll put a
price on it and see if anyone buys it," Uncle Tyler
said.
I couldn't deny that the prospect of my actually
selling something I had painted was intriguing. Later
that day, when things grew slow at the cafe, I agreed
to take Aunt Zipporah's car and drive home so I could
get started on setting up the studio.
"Don't forget to make yourself something for
dinner. I'll check the kitchen to be sure you did," she
warned.
As soon as I got there, I hurried back to the
studio.
My grandfather hadn't known how I wanted
anything set up, so he had placed everything in one
corner. I wanted to be working as close as I could to
the two windows on the east side of the building.
They looked out at the forest and tall, wild grasses. It
wasn't dissimilar from the view I had looking out of
the Doral House attic windows.
I had some cleanup to do before I could get
myself organized and actually get started. There was
still some of the granite the sculptor had used and
chips of stone all about the floor. I first had to sweep
up all that. I brought over the brooms, mop, pail, rags
and soaps, including the window cleaner. Since the
studio hadn't been used for years, there were
spiderwebs and, in some corners, tiny twigs and hay,
where field mice and the like had established their
homes. When I tried the lights, I realized some of the
bulbs were missing and most were blown out. I'd have
to tend to all that before it became too dark.
Although the kitchenette had running water and
a working gas range, much of it was rusted and grimy. I quickly realized it would take quite a while to
get the studio livable. Now I appreciated the time off
Uncle Tyler was giving to me. I got started as soon as
I could and was so into the work, I didn't hear
anything.
Suddenly, as if he'd been a ghost, I turned and
saw Duncan standing in the doorway. He had his
hands on his hips. He was wearing jeans, black boots
and a tight, dark-blue short-sleeve shirt. He appeared
taller, broader, more like a grown man than a teenage
boy. He panned the studio and nodded.
"Nice," he said.
"How long have you been there?"
"Little while, not long."
"Where have you been?"
"I had work to do on the farm," he replied
quickly. "I see you've-changed your hair. It's nice." "Thank you."
"It looks like you have a lot to do here," he said
and walked over to my art materials. My grandfather
had stacked some of my finished paintings against the
wall. Duncan looked at them. "This is all your work?" "Yes."
"It's very good," he said.
"Really?"
He smiled. "Okay. I'm no art expert, but they
look good to me. Have you shown them to your art
teacher?" he asked with a wry smile.
"Not those, but he's seen my work in school."
"Anyone else seen these?"
"No."
"They should be seen by the public. You know,
like getting poems published?"
"All right. You've made your point, big shot." He laughed and walked to the table, sorting
through the cleaning materials.
"I'll start with the windows, inside and out," he
said. "Okay?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Let's get going," he said and started to work. We were both so into it that we barely spoke.
Every once in a while, I glanced over at him and saw
how intently he went at everything and with such
confidence. After doing the windows, he found my
uncle Tyler's tools in the toolshed, and he took the
stove apart and cleaned it carefully. He replaced the
dead bulbs, checked out all the electricity and opened
and cleaned a drain in the sink. He had to readjust the
inside of the toilet, because when the water valve was
turned to on, it wouldn't stop running. He corrected a
leak in the sink faucet as well.
"You're a plumber, an electrician and a
carpenter built into one person," I said. "Have you
done this kind of work for someone?"
"I told you. I take care of our property. I had to
learn how to do all these things because my father left
us. Some of it I did learn from plumbers and
electricians who came around before I could handle
things myself, and some of it I learned from manuals.
Our property is one of the older ones in this area, so a
lot breaks down."
"I was told it was once a chicken farm?" "Not chickens, eggs," he said. "The coops are
still standing, but we don't use th
em for anything. It's
a big property on Dunn Road as soon as you make the
turn off Stark. We just keep up the house."
"Well, that shouldn't be so much work." He smiled. "Sometimes I think my mother
breaks things deliberately so have to stay around to fix
them:'
"Really? Why is she like that?"
"Maybe she's just lonely," he said.
"She has no friends of her own?"
"Just people involved with the church, but they
aren't friends the way you and I would think of
friends."
"She never met anyone else? Any other man?" I
asked. I recalled what Aunt Zipporah had suggested
about his mother and the pastor.
He shook his head. If it was true, he didn't want
to admit to it, I thought.
"Maybe she will," I suggested.
"I doubt it. She should have been a nun. She
lives like one anyway."
I wanted to say I was sorry, but I didn't know if that was right to say. When he talked about her, he didn't sound angry, just resigned. This was his mother; this was his life. There was nothing more to do about
it.
I looked at the time and saw we had been
working for hours and hours.
"I have to make something for dinner or my
aunt will be angry. Can you stay for dinner?" He looked at me with an expression of
confusion, as if such a possibility not only never
occurred to him but also didn't exist in the real world.
He revealed why.
"I never ate in anyone else's home but my
own."
"Never?"
"Well, no one else's except our pastor's, but
when and if we're there, Mother does most of the
cooking anyway. She doesn't like going to the homes
of the other church people," he said. "My mother isn't
comfortable eating at someone else's table, and she
always complains about the way some of the other
women cook and bake for the church."
"Well, do you want to have dinner with me?" "Yes," he said. "Yes," he repeated more firmly,
as if he had been arguing about it with himself. I had
to laugh. "What?" he asked.
"You didn't even ask what we'll have to eat."
"Oh. What will we have to eat?"
"I don't know. Let's go look in the kitchen," I
said, and we headed out and to the house.
We entered through the rear and I took him
down the hallway, past my bedroom. The door was
opened, so I paused.
"That's where I sleep," I said, nodding at the
doorway.
He approached it and looked in, but he didn't go
in. He leaned over to peer into it.
"It's a nice-size room."
"We added some things since I came and will
be spending the next school year here. My aunt wants
me to think about doing something with the walls,
paint, wallpaper, making it brighter, happier." He nodded. "Be easy to paint it."
"Would you help me do that?"
His eyes widened. "Paint your bedroom?" "You just said it would be easy to do it, didn't
you?"
"Yeah, but . . . it's your bedroom."
"So? I can't have anyone else work on it? That's
stupid."
He looked in again, still keeping himself out of
the room, even leaning more awkwardly to look to the
right or left.
"You can go in if you want to and look around."
"Now, I've seen enough," he said. He looked a little
frightened.
"You think going into a girl's bedroom will
somehow corrupt you?"
He spun on me as if I had slapped him. "You
making fun of me?"
"No, but you're acting so--"
"Weird?" he said. "Right, I'm weird. I forgot."
He started back toward the rear door.
"Duncan, stop it. I didn't say you were weird." "It's all right. It doesn't matter. I just realized I
can't stay for dinner anyway. My mother made a roast.
See you," he said, and before I could say another
word, he was out the door.
Nevertheless, I charged out after him. He
practically ran to his scooter parked in front. "Duncan," I called as he turned it around to
head down and out the driveway. He kept going.
"Thanks for helping me in the studio," I shouted. He just lifted his hand to acknowledge and sped
up.
"Damn you!" I screamed after him. "You took
me to the river. You kissed me. If I thought you were
that weird, why would I let you do that? Why are you
running away now?"
Of course, he couldn't hear me. He was too far
away, but I needed to shout it after him. I stood there
long after he was gone, my head spinning because of
his radical mood swings. After another moment, I
went back into the house and paused at my bedroom
door. What could possibly have frightened him about
this room so much? I wondered and then saw a pair of
my panties on the back of a chair and a bra dangling
beside it. I had forgotten to put them into the laundry
hamper. Aside from the dainty curtains, there was
nothing else that really stamped this room a girl's
room. I couldn't imagine why the sight of a pair of
panties and a bra would put the shudders into a boy as
old as Duncan anyway.
Suddenly, I realized how tired and grimy I felt
from hours and hours of cleaning the studio. I needed
a good shower, perhaps not so much because of all the
work as because of the frustration I was feeling. There
was something about warm water pounding down
over my head and shoulders that was reviving.
Afterward, I wrapped a towel around myself, then scrubbed my hair dry with another towel. I know I was muttering to myself aloud the whole time. Anyone who heard me would surely think I had gone mad. When I stepped out of the bathroom and walked
back to my bedroom, I nearly jumped out of my skin There he was, sitting at my small desk, leaning
over and staring down at the floor.
"Damn!" I screamed. "You frightened me, Duncan.
"I'm sorry," he said and slowly raised his head.
The sight of me wrapped only in a big bath towel
seized his full attention, but I didn't think about it. 1
was more angry now than anything.
"Why did you run out of here like a lunatic?" I
said. He didn't respond. "It wasn't very nice to act like
that. You're like a firecracker sometimes. I'm afraid to
walk too fast around you, much less say anything.
Well? Why did you run off?"
"I was afraid to stay any longer," he said,
looking out the window.
"Why?"
"I was just afraid."
"You're not making any sense, Duncan. What
were you afraid of? Me?"
"Not you so much as myself."
I stared at him a moment. What was he telling
me? Was he capable of harming someone? Had he? I
didn't recall anything in his poetry that suggested it. "Can you explain that, please?"
"I told her I kissed you," he said, still looking
out the window and not at me.
"What? You told who you kissed me? Your
mother?"
He nodded, and I grimaced as if I had just swallowed sour milk.
"Why w
ould you tell her that?"
"I've always told her what I do. Ever since . . ."
He turned back to me, his face different, harder, more
like the granite in the studio. "Sin doesn't just happen,
you know. It has to fester inside you, grow, take hold.
You've got to stop it when it's just starting, when it's a
seedling inside your heart. The way to do that is to
reveal it, confess it, expose it," he recited. "Once you
do that, it loses its power, its hold over you." He sounded like some hell and brimstone
preacher.
"What are you saying? You think it was a sin to
kiss me?"
"It could lead to a sin," he said.
"That's ridiculous. Looking at someone, hen
could lead to a sin."
"It can," he said, nodding.
"Duncan, get real. All we did is kiss, and if two
people feel something for each other, it's not a sin or
even the start of one."
He stared at me. I tightened the towel around
Me. "I wanted to do more than just kiss you," he said.
"I still do. That's why I ran off."
"So? Big deal. If you didn't, I'd think you
weren't interested in me, and if I didn't want you to,
I'd let you know anyway. And fast," I added. His eyes widened.
"Where are you getting these wacky ideas?"
"They're not wacky," he shot back.
"If you ask me," I continued, "your mother is
driving you crazy. You already told me she
deliberately finds ways to keep you at home. Wait a
minute," I said, realizing something, "is that why I
hadn't seen you for days? Because you told her you
kissed me?"
He looked away quickly.
"That's sick, Duncan. You're old enough to
know what you should and shouldn't do, and so am I.
We're not children anymore. She shouldn't treat you
like one."
"She doesn't treat me like a child."
"Really?"
"She doesn't mean to be mean to me. She's
afraid."
"Why? I just don't understand it. Why is she so
afraid for you? Have you done something terrible?" I
asked.
"No. Not yet."
"Not yet?" I nearly laughed aloud. "Why do
you say that? Do you think you definitely will?" "What, Duncan? What are you?"
"I'm a child of sin," he said.
He looked down quickly. I stood there a
moment, and then I walked to my bed and sat. "A child of sin?"
"Yes. It's why you were drawn to me and why I
was drawn to you and still am," he continued, as if he
had made an incredible discovery. "We're the same.