Read A Private State: Stories Online

Authors: Charlotte Bacon

Tags: #Fiction, #Short Stories (Single Author), #test

A Private State: Stories (19 page)

 
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whine. He'd been nabbed at the door of the coop. His collar bit into Grace's fingers. He smelled like he'd become the something rotten he had rolled in. Grace said, "Elwood, would you mind spraying the dog?"
As she prepared for the evening, Grace asked herself if Elwood really meant to catch her full in the face. It hurt at first, the hard fingers of the water on her skin and then felt wonderful, though she'd shouted in surprise and irritation.
"Sorry, Grace," said Elwood, and Grace wondered if he remembered the time this June when they cut a piece of plywood on his table saw. She held the plane of wood steady as he guided the blade through the plank that was almost pink it was so freshly made. When one piece dropped to the floor on a heap of dust, Grace lifted her arms and felt the saw's vibrations still ringing in her wrists and elbows. She described the sensation to Elwood and he said, "Attraction. That's what attraction feels like." He hadn't looked at her as he said this but she left quickly, not daring to stay in his cool barn on the lightly traveled road.
Grace pulled on a dry and wrinkled pair of pants. She sat on the bed, one shoe on, the other mysteriously gone, when James came in and said, "Grace, we have a problem." So Stuart had told him and Grace tried to guess how caustically Jane was sketched, how rueful Stuart seemed.
"I know," she said, "Jane told me."
"How could he!" James said, his hands in fists. "Poor lane. First Barney, now Stuart." So they won't play tennis, Grace thought. Sometimes James's sense of moral boundaries was as strict as his sense of property lines. She remembered, for the first time in a long time, how he made her learn her marriage vows months early so they would sound absolutely clear in the church.
"James," she said, "do you remember the wedding? Do you remember how hot it was? How it was just like this?"
"Why are you talking about the wedding, Grace?" James
 
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started banging bureau drawers. ''I bumped into Elwood at the Agway and invited him for dinner." He picked out a pair of socks whose dye hadn't held in the farm's hard water.
"Good Lord," said Grace, still sunk in the bed. This was the second time today she'd mentioned divinity, though it was hard to say exactly why. "Have you spent a lot of time with him, James? He's not like some arrowhead that turned up in the garden. He's a strange man."
"I did it before Stuart told me. I thought it would easier tonight with one of the neighbors around."
"Our only neighbor," she said as if to emphasize to her husband, this is the man you leave me with when you're away. This is the agent of trouble to whom I expose myself all summer. She found her shoe in the closet but Amos had gnawed away the strap that held the buckle.
"Our only neighbor, then," he said, adjusting his belt. "I just hope he's nice to Jane. I don't like her any more than you do, but we've got to help her out."
Grace stared at her husband. "Wait a minute. Since when don't you like Jane?"
"She's awful for Stuart," he said. "She makes him live this fancy life when all he wants to do is have kids and a dog. I've never liked her."
Was that what Stuart wanted? She'd had no idea. She continued to look at James. Was that all I wanted? Grace wondered. Had she been waiting all summer for James to surprise her?
"And," he continued, "do you think I haven't noticed you've been up here dreaming of leaving?" James was breathing hard. "Do you think I'm that stupid, Grace?" Shirt buttoned, belt cinched, he had nothing left to tighten. "Do you?"
"No, James," she said. She was slightly dizzy. Showing he had noticed was enough, she realized. "It's all right," she wanted to say. "I don't need to go now." But be was too angry to hear that, which she understood. She would tell him tonight. She would
 
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even try to get her job back if that would make things right. It was intricate work, slow as the motion of planets, this letting yourself get changed through marriage. She rose to try to turn his collar down, but he stormed out to start the barbecue. Grace found a safety pin for her sandal and followed.
The fields still shimmered with great, steamy warmth. On the porch, Jane had arranged her legs to catch shadows thrown by the flaming hibachi, whose stack of coals James was making much of. She was wearing heels that were quite high. Heat lightning flared on the west hill. In one of the flashes, Grace saw Elwood walking toward the house. ''The girls are settled for the night, so I thought I'd come by," Elwood called up to them.
"The girls?" said Stuart. He looked pink, from sun or shame, Grace couldn't tell. A clear hard wall stood between him and Jane, and Grace imagined the list of dividable items scrolling through their minds. No, only through Jane's. James was right. Stuart didn't look like someone scheming to keep a house. He looked as desperate for truce as a dog, terribly embarrassed.
"The cows and heifers, Stuart," Jane said. "All fed and happy. Hello, Leon." She passed Elwood a tray of crudités.
"Thanks. Pretty shirt," Elwood said and settled himself next to her.
"So," said Stuart, rolling a beer bottle between his palms, "you two have met?"
"I took Jane down to the stream and we bumped into each other there," Grace said and passed the crudité to Stuart. He leaned forward to plunge a carrot stick into the dip, then sat back abruptly as if forgetting, now that the vegetable was coated, what he was supposed to do.
"We sprayed pigs together this afternoon," Jane said, "making sure they stayed cool. You look red, Stuart."
James stuck out his hand like a pitchfork and said to Elwood, "Glad you could make it."
"Hi, James," Elwood said, and absently shook James's hand,
 
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then turned back to the carrots. He stuck the tip of his pinkie in the dip and licked it. Even Jane frowned a little at that.
"What can I get you?" James asked. Elwood requested a big glass of Chardonnay.
"Like some Brie?" Stuart said, leaning forward to look Elwood in the eye.
Elwood popped a slab into his mouth. "So what do you do in the city? Amass a little filthy lucre?" The pyramid of coals in the barbecue crumbled, flamed, sent up a plume of ash. James clattered away with tongs at the grill.
Jane said, "Stuart's with Chemical."
"And Jane writes ads," James said.
Elwood pointed at Jane with a spear of celery and said, "Ads. Any I might know?"
James said, "Did you see the Kleenex spots on
TV
last winter? Those were Jane's."
"Let it blow, let it blow?" Elwood quoted. "No shit." Jane dipped her head modestly. ''One of the worst ever,'' said Elwood. "But I remember it. Anyone like a cigarette?" and he patted the pocket of his shirt.
"I'll have one," Jane said and let Elwood light it for her. She inhaled shakily.
James said, "I think it's time to put the shish kebobs on. Actually, Grace, I think I need a little lighter fluid." Grace decided now was not the time to tell him it was a bad idea to use lighter fluid on a fire that was already burning and passed James the can. In the orange light that flamed, Grace looked at the faces on the porch, Jane wire-bright with tension, Stuart soggy with remorse. Elwood hummed, tapping his fingers on the rim of his wine glass. He smiled at her. Everyone was sweating.
The evening was spilling like quicksilver from a broken thermometer. There wasn't much you could do when that happened, but Grace realized it was up to her to make sure at least it didn't contaminate more than it had to. James deserved better. "Leon,
 
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do you know what planet that is?" asked Grace and pointed at the pink glow low in the sky.
"Mercury, the planet of the trickster God," said Elwood and swallowed the rest of his wine. "God of merchants, travelers, bankers, charlatans of all sorts. The planet of sudden change."
James dropped the platter of meat. Amos scrambled toward the raw chunks. Jane knocked the vegetables into the peonies. "God-dammit, dog, get out of here!" James yelled. He salvaged four skewers, but Amos raced into the garden with the rest.
Elwood said, "Let's get those shish kebobs from Amos, Jane. I'll just bring along another spot of wine." Jane, her cigarette a red stub, rose from the bench.
The bowl had fallen to the cushion of the peonies and sat there in the glossy leaves, unbroken. Grace laid her hand on Stuart's shoulder and was leaning over to retrieve the vegetables when she saw Jane stumble in her heels and the slow and falling arc of her cigarette. Grace tried to shout, but all she could do was watch Elwood's hand as he tried to keep the tiny brand from landing in the creaking hay.
James wheeled around. Together, he and Grace saw the instant column of flame. The butt hadn't gone far, but then it didn't need to. Grace couldn't move, but James was a dark streak of decision. He stretched the hose to the edge of the field and a broad fan of water hit the fire. It was only then, after smelling wet, charred hay, that Grace was able to stir.
Jane stood at the edge of the field, and Grace couldn't tell if her teeth or her bangles were clattering. "I'm cold," she kept saying, wrapping her arms to her body. James must have sprayed her, too. Elwood, swallowed to the waist by steaming grass said "Shit, you dopes are lucky. Goddamn." He stooped to see if the fire was still alive somewhere and they lost sight of him altogether. Amos barked maniacally.
Then Elwood shouted, "Goddamn llamas!" Grace looked down the meadow and saw that the animals, unhinged by shouts
 
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and smoke, had gathered energy to leap their wall. Their foreign bleats filled the air. Elwood crashed toward them, stumbling down the hill in the dark. Stuart left the porch, bringing a blanket for Jane, who let him tuck her in the rough wool and lead her back to the house.
James had sprayed himself as thoroughly as he'd sprayed the patch of burning hay and Jane. His shirt stuck to his chest. His hair was sleek against his skull. "Grace?" he asked. She pried his fingers from the hose. They stood quite close, hips nearly touching, thighs brushed by the wet and smoking grass. Tomorrow, she would teach him how to mow the field to stubble, avoiding the boulders as they did. She'd be patient with him, making sure he knew what could burn him on the tractor. She wouldn't scold him when he jammed the gears, as she knew he would. She had plenty of time. Labor Day had just begun.
 
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Monsoon
As anna opens the door to the changing room, the chlorine tingles her nose the way sharp mustard does. Locker doors slam with a hollow crash. She remembers dashing in here after seminars, nearly thin enough to fit inside one of these red cabinets. Almost undressed, one sock still dangling from her foot, she looks at her belly and feels ripe and bulky, a honeydew gone huge. Anna's mother instantly lost the thirty pounds she'd gained with each of her two children, snapping back into shape as fast as a rubber band, but that was back when people smoked and metabolisms ran fast. Anna pats her belly to let the baby know she's fine about the melon feeling, she's glad for it. The baby curls. A woman in a flowered suit waves to her and says, "I didn't expect to see
you
here this morning." She has what Anna's mother would call kimono arms, the skin flapping loose around the bone. Anna waves back.
Afternoons, the water froths with undergraduates, professors, and staff, racing back and forth across the pool in efficient loops of crawl and butterfly. But late mornings seem reserved for those with less pressing schedules: older men and women, retired or between errands, and Anna, in the watery, limbo state of writing a dissertation. Anna feels these worlds are sympathetic, parallel, even though she's not old and pleated like the kind, state ladies of the pool who have touched her belly with hands as speckled as

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