Authors: Robin MacArthur

Half Wild (18 page)

Jesse arrives, his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his jeans. Kristy pours him a glass, and my mother pats the seat next to her on the glider. “What I want,” she says, smiling up at him, “is for you to sit next to me.”

Jesse smiles. “Okay,” he says, and sits in her chosen spot. He's shaved and brushed his hair back from his face with water and is wearing a button-down shirt made of soft cotton. My mother leans against his shoulder. She puts her nose against his arm and breathes in. “Ah,” she says. “Goodness.”

I think I can see his cheeks redden, but he stays there, kindly. Kristy tells us about her day at the Stonewall: ketchup on white shirts, Calvin McLean asleep on the bar, the details of her boss, Rita's, sex life. My mother giggles, laughs, coos. “Too much!” she calls out every few minutes. We get more drinks and listen to the crickets and the refrigerator buzzing and the distant growl of jake brakes on the highway. Annie's eyes settle on the field and stay there.

“Jesse,” my mother says, “Hannah tells me you've heard the catamount.”

“Yes, I think so. I've heard it. Seen tracks in the mud near the pond.” My mother squeezes his arm, laughs. “Pour him another drink,” she calls out, and I do.

Jesse takes a sip of his drink and turns to my mother. “You know, when I was a kid, I used to think you were some kind of witch.”

My mother smiles, her body a carcass of blazing light. “Oh but I am. Reckless. Powerful. All-knowing.” Her body curves and twines in the seat; she is back to her old dazzling ways.

But she's tired. She sets her drink down and closes her eyes. Annie finishes her drink, then excuses herself and steps off the porch into the dark. She's beautiful still, like Kristy, under those shadows where she lingers. She climbs back into her truck, and Kristy watches her body turning, those headlights.

I go into the living room and put on Emmylou Harris's
Pieces of the Sky.
We sit there facing the field listening to Emmylou's voice and pedal steel spilling out over the hillside, twining around the trees. A candle flickers, burns out. My mother falls asleep on Jesse's shoulder. Her body shudders. “You okay there?” I ask him.

He nods. “Fine.”

“I haven't heard Joan's music in fifteen years,” Kristy whispers. “Brings me back.”

“Me too,” I say. Bats flit in and out of the rafters, clouds lift, stars explode.

Jesse finishes his drink. “I should go,” he says.

I prop a few pillows under my mother's head and help him slip out from under her. I walk with him to the door
of his truck. He pauses for a moment and I touch his arm. “Thank you.”

Jesse smiles. “Hillside of catamounts and beautiful women. Can't complain.”

“No,” I say, smiling. “Can't complain.”

Later my mother rolls over and opens her eyes. “Girls,” she says. “What time does Jesse drive down the hill from his place to the farm?”

“Four thirty.”

“What time is it now?”

Kristy looks at her phone. “Midnight.”

“Wake me at four fifteen?”

Kristy and I look at each other. “Yes.”

We crouch in the weeds by the edge of the road. Kristy giggles; my mother burps. We are still part drunk; our knees and feet are soaked with dew. We hear a low rumble and see headlights streak across the trees and come down the road toward us.

“Now!” my mother calls out. We leap out of the ditch and start twirling in the road, our arms spinning above our heads.

“Hooo-hooo-hooo-hooo!” Kristy calls.

“Aaayeee!” my mother screeches. “Hee hee hee hee!”

“Creeaaww!” I say.

We are a cacophony of movement and wild sounds: cat,
owl, coyote, crow. The truck rolls to a stop in front of us, its headlights ablaze across our twirling hair and spinning limbs. We throw our arms and thrust our hips; we shake our legs and toss our heads. My mother is laughing so hard she can no longer call out; her howls transform into sobs; Kristy's have turned to hiccups. We are ridiculous, without music, dancing to our own desperate, uncensored rhythm. Then my mother straightens and slips her dress down off her shoulders. It falls to her waist and she bares her small breasts there in those headlights. Tears stream down her face, her neck, her chin.

I can just barely make out Jesse's face through the glass of the windshield: eyebrows raised, mouth half open: grief, astonishment, wonder.

“Now go!” my mother calls. We leap across the ditch and stumble out into the field. My mother collapses into the grass. Jesse flips his lights off, honks once, then rolls the truck down the road toward the farm.

“Joan,” I say, turning her over onto my lap. I wipe her face with the sleeve of my dress. “Joan.”

“Oh my God,” she says, opening her eyes and spreading her arms. She looks up into our searching eyes. “Oh my good God,” she says, smiling.

We lay my mother on her cot and sit facing the field. Kristy reaches over and squeezes my hand, and I squeeze hers back. The field turns blue with mist, and I think of that catamount, panther, mountain lion at the edge of the
field and want, more than anything right now, to see it streak across the grass, to feel its defiant energy and impossibility and light, but the woods are quiet except for the buzz of crickets and the snapping of the electric fence where it touches grass.

“Wild,” I say.

Kristy glances toward me. “Damn right,” she says, grinning and closing her eyes.

The women where I'm from, that is. I'm telling Matthew in my mind. They're wild. Ridiculous. Alone in these houses. A cool breeze blows under the calico of my dress, licking my thighs. And me: in which house or field do I belong? The crickets are loud and everywhere. That same old, same old, same old love song.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ROBIN M
AC
ARTHUR
earned her B.A. from Brown University and an M.F.A. in fiction writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in
Hunger Mountain,
Orion, Shenandoah,
and
Alaska Quarterly Review
as well as on NPR. MacArthur is also the editor of
Contemporary Vermont Fiction: An Anthology
and is one-half of the indie folk duo Red Heart the Ticker, which has been featured on
A Prairie Home Companion
and NPR's
Morning Edition
. She lives on the hillside where she was born in Marlboro, Vermont.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

CREDITS

Cover design and hand lettering by Sara Wood

Cover photographs Â© Shutterstock

Title page photograph by PlusONE/Shutterstock, Inc.

COPYRIGHT

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

HALF WILD
. Copyright Â© 2016 by Robin MacArthur. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-244439-4

EPub Edition AUGUST 2016 ISBN 9780062444417

16Â Â 17Â Â 18Â Â 19Â Â 20Â Â Â Â
OV
/
RRD
Â Â Â Â 10Â Â 9Â Â 8Â Â 7Â Â 6Â Â 5Â Â 4Â Â 3Â Â 2Â Â 1

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Canada