Chapter 12
Harvard wait-listed Emily. Gen was going to Ohio State on a full athletic scholarship.
Emily told her every place that had accepted or rejected her, but Gen said nothing more about other schools she might have applied to, only that she had made her decision.
While Gen’s reticence suggested that her decision hadn’t been entirely without conflict, that she might have been tempted in some way or let down in another, Emily didn’t ask for details, just tied her sneaker’s lace and tied it again, better this time, remembering how this act had once felt like an accomplishment, one that she had believed she must master before going to kindergarten or they wouldn’t let her through the doors.
She remembered how, as a child, she had fumbled with the laces.
Emily wondered whether she would ever again feel that same high pride at an ordinary thing—a double bow, the lace sliding through—or if, each new year of her life, she would confront some version of how she had felt when she had opened Harvard’s letter, and what she felt now: a sunburn of disappointment, stinging all over, the heat of having wanted something huge yet seemingly possible—had it ever been possible?
—and discovering that it wasn’t. So no, she wouldn’t ask Gen, because she didn’t want to risk making Gen feel the same way. “That’s amazing,” Emily said.
“Gran can’t believe it.”
“Free! You always wanted free.”
“I hadn’t planned on leaving home.”
“You don’t want to go?”
“It’s just confusing. It seemed like a simple thing to want to graduate this spring.”
“Not that simple.”
“Okay, but it seemed that way. But I decided, and then that decision meant other decisions. I didn’t expect to go to college. I didn’t expect this.” She flipped a hand, palm up, toward Emily, then closed it. “I will miss home. I will miss Gran. I will miss you.”
Emily looked down the long road. Farmers were out in the fields on each side, putting seed into the ground under a fresh April sun.
A friend could miss a friend. That was normal.
She thought that people always talked about hope like it was a good thing and no one warned that it could hurt. “I will miss you, too.”
“They didn’t say no.”
Emily didn’t want to think about the wait-list. She didn’t want to think about Gen. She didn’t want to think about anything. “I thought we were going to run. Do you want to run?”
Gen said, “I always want to run,” so they did.
The acceptance letter arrived in late May, when the redbud outside Nella’s farmhouse was in bloom, a fevered pink.
Gen picked Emily up and swung her until they fell on top of each other and the dogs climbed over them, thwacking them with their tails.
Nella poured 7UP into champagne glasses.
As Emily drank, she felt the memory of Gen’s weight on her.
“Well,” said Emily’s mother when she came home, “don’t you look like the cat that caught the canary.”
Emily and Gen decided that they should say goodbye to their favorite places in town, so they visited the bronze duck in the park; the hardware store that surreally housed, next to rotary saws, a bakery, its shelves lined with red and white gingham-checked paper; the tracks where freight trains went by, the latched-together railcars so different, with different purposes: gondolas, covered hoppers for grain, center beams for lumber, flatcars, boxcars shut up tight.
They went to town hall to see the old-fashioned phone booth with its penny-tiled floor and walnut trim.
The black telephone was plastic, its surface softened by use.
It had the texture of soapstone. Emily was amazed that plastic could feel nice.
High school ended. The days grew warm enough that when they saw Legends of the Fall, which was showing even though it had come out two years before, they stayed in the movie theater to watch it again, for the air-conditioning.
End of June was unusually steamy, so that even Gen, who didn’t like sweets, craved ice cream.
They went to Culver’s for sundaes and as soon as they stepped outside into the heat, they went back inside for lemonade to go, with extra ice.
The distant sky was thick with thunderclouds. Gen drove to the farmhouse and into a fallow field so that they could sit in the back of the pickup truck and watch the storm come in. There was no wind.
Gen rattled the ice in her cup, then pressed the cup against her flushed cheek before setting it down on the truck’s hot bed. They heard far-off thunder. “I can’t believe it. I actually graduated.”
“Why did you want to? You didn’t have to finish high school in three years.”
Slowly, Gen said, “I’m not sure I should tell you.”
“Gen!”
“I mean it.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I don’t want to make you tell me.”
“I was kind of hoping you’d make me.”
“You’re impossible.”
Gen laughed but it was a nervous laugh. The storm had rolled across the horizon, but the rain hadn’t reached them yet. The wind lifted and it felt good. The truck’s metal bed baked Emily’s thighs beneath her cutoffs. Gen said, “I worry you won’t actually want to know.”
Gen’s nervousness made Emily nervous. “I do.”
“Well, to be honest, I didn’t care about graduation at first. I just wanted an excuse to talk to you.”
“Why?”
The wind blew Gen’s hair across her face. She pushed it back. Tentatively, she reached for one of the frayed threads on Emily’s shorts. She was careful not to touch Emily’s skin but Emily felt as though she had. Gen pulled the thread taut, then tugged on it. She said, “I really like you, Emily.”
Emily kissed her. Gen’s mouth, fresh and tangy, opened beneath hers.
Emily had never kissed anyone, but this was easy, maybe because she had imagined it so many times.
Gen’s hands went into Emily’s hair. The cup of ice spilled, slushing across the flatbed, down their legs, the shock of it a pleasure.
Gen said, “Not here,” but kept kissing her.
Maybe not here meant the coming rain or the open field or that the truck sat in view of the house, but Gen didn’t say it again.
It was as if she had never said it, had never even thought it, when Emily slid a hand up Gen’s shirt.
Here became the hayloft, hidden behind the green curtain, fully dressed and sticky in the heat, not daring to take anything off.
Emily licked Gen’s nipple through Gen’s thin T-shirt and the white fabric grew wet and dark.
Gen’s hands twisted in Emily’s hair. She pulled Emily onto her lap, then pushed her thigh up between Emily’s legs, denim against denim.
The tight contact and grind of Gen’s thigh almost hurt, yet felt good, too, though not quite good enough.
Emily wanted more. She curled her fingers down into the waistband of Gen’s jeans and Gen opened her eyes, the pupils blown so wide that the irises looked black.
“Touch me.” Gen’s words were phrased like an order yet shakily said.
“Are you sure?” Emily said. Gen nodded. Emily undid the button on Gen’s shorts.
A call came from the yard. It was Nella, calling them to dinner.
The dogs barked. Emily yanked her hand away, face flushed.
She ached between her legs. The rain came down suddenly; fat, fast drops splatted against the barn.
They drummed the roof as the barking got louder.
Emily and Gen broke apart, then clattered down the hayloft’s ladder and flung themselves out into the rain.
Gen’s T-shirt was quickly soaked to the skin, flattened against her small breasts and hard, tight nipples.
They didn’t talk much during dinner. Emily felt a constant thrum of desire.
She crossed her legs beneath the table, but the ache wouldn’t go away.
It deepened. She barely listened to what Nella said.
Later, she couldn’t remember what had been served.
Gen asked if Emily could sleep over, and Nella said yes.
The hallway to Gen’s room seemed longer than usual—higher, wider.
Emily’s pace slowed—not because she didn’t want to be alone with Gen but because she wanted it too much, and knew that what happened next would change her.
She set a hand against the worn wood of the doorframe.
Maybe tomorrow she’d find the same burl in the wood’s grain, but it would be different, because she would be different.
Gen locked the bedroom door behind them. She kissed Emily hard, driving her toward one of the twin beds, but she still seemed shy. They stood, Emily’s calves pressed against the mattress’s side. Gen said, “Do you want to stop?”
“Do you?”
Gen shook her head.
“Tell me what to do.”
The words erased Gen’s hesitation. Emily, though she had imagined this moment before, hadn’t guessed the effect of seeing Gen filled with eager purpose, how that would expand Emily’s own need, fed by the idea that anything could happen.
Gen could do anything to her, require anything of her.
Emily sank into a greedy state of anticipation.
“Take these off.” Gen pushed down at the top of Emily’s shorts.
Emily helped her, shoving them down, but when she began to do the same with her underwear, Gen stopped her hands.
“Not yet. Get on the bed.” Gen knelt on the floor.
“Will you let me?” When Emily nodded, Gen said, “Lie down.”
The bed was so narrow that Emily couldn’t lie back fully, but set her shoulder blades against the wall, half reclined…
and she did not in fact want to lie back, she wanted to see Gen brush her cheek against her knee, to see Gen’s mouth as it trailed a wet path up her inner thigh.
Gen touched Emily through her underwear, stroking her through the thin fabric.
Gen brought Emily’s fingers down to feel the damp cotton and then, just when Emily had begun to touch herself the way she had done before, alone in her bedroom, Gen thrust Emily’s hand away.
Gen pulled the underwear to one side. Emily felt more exposed than if she were fully naked.
She felt Gen’s breath first, a hot fog. Gen’s tongue fluttered against her.
Emily pressed a palm over her mouth to mute the sounds she was making.
The seams of Emily’s underwear dug into her flesh.
She vaguely heard Gen telling her to tell her what felt good, but Emily couldn’t answer.
She came so hard that her body jolted away from Gen’s tongue.
“Was it okay?” Gen asked.
Emily hauled Gen up onto the bed and kissed her. Stretched out limply along the mattress’s length, Emily laughed, breathy and astonished, then was quick to explain how good it had been. “That wasn’t what I meant when I asked you to tell me what to do.”
Gen flushed. “Maybe you don’t want to.”
“I want to make you feel how you made me feel.”
Gen straddled Emily’s hips and unzipped her shorts.
She pushed Emily’s hand down past the waistband so that her fingers skidded into the fluid heat between Gen’s legs.
“Touch me here.” Emily obeyed, finding the pressure Gen liked best until her fingers were working quickly and Gen bumped against them in an irregular rhythm.
Emily rose up onto her own knees for better purchase.
Gen had one hand in Emily’s hair and one clamped hard over Emily’s wrist when she shuddered.
She pushed Emily’s fingers inside her. Emily slid in and out as Gen came.
Emily didn’t know how late it was when they finally stopped and got under the quilt, Gen’s breasts soft against Emily’s back as Gen held her, their bodies knit together.
Somewhere outside, an owl hooted, its tones rich and hollow.
Hunting, maybe. Mice scrambled under the corn.
Emily closed her eyes. Gen drew her closer.
Emily learned, as everyone does, that happiness is often colored by worry or set-aside grief, even in the moment of happiness. It is rarely pure. But what Emily felt that summer, until the end of it, came close. It was the kind of happiness whose only worry is the loss of that happiness.