When I wake up the next morning the walls of the tent are covered with condensation, threatening me with a clammy canvas touch. I don’t shy away or move a muscle, because in the night Emily flung an arm across my bare chest. It was the first thing I was aware of when I opened my eyes, the weight of that arm just below my nipples. I stare at that arm, a girl’s arm touching any part of my skin. It seems like a miracle. I lie there, staring at the arm and the back of Emily’s head, which is twisted away from me, until I think my bladder might explode. I sadly lift the arm, which flops almost lifelessly on its owner, and sit up.
“Gotta pee,” I say. Emily murmurs something incomprehensible, which I take for agreement that yes, it would be best if I didn’t pee right here in the tent.
The sky is an early morning gray, the kind that could turn deep blue by midmorning. The grass is still soaking wet and cold against my feet. I take a minute to roll up the bottom of my pants so they don’t get soaked before finding an agreeable tree to water. Leaning against a peeling birch, I realize that my head is pounding. Every step I take sends a thud through my sinuses. After rummaging around in the van for a sweatshirt, I head into the farmhouse to see if anyone else is awake. Skye is up and making coffee. She hands me a steaming mug without a word and before I can protest that I’m not really a coffee drinker. “Will this help my head?” I ask.
She smiles. “Jeremiah’s mead is strong stuff. Especially if you’re not used to it. Coffee will take the edge off.”
I sit down at the table and interlock my fingers around the heavy earthen mug. It’s got a blue-green glaze on it that reminds me of the color of the ocean. “Are you the only one up?” I ask.
Skye shakes her head. “Jeremiah’s still sleeping, but I think I heard Lindsay get into the shower a little while ago. We’re trying to conserve the water in the rain barrels for eating and washing dishes, but try telling a teenager she can’t shower every day and you’ve practically got a revolution on your hands.” She rolls her eyes.
I shrug and smile. I know we both know that I’m a teenager too. But it’s nice that for right now, I’m some other kind of teenager, the kind you can tell your problems to. I’m staring at my mug, feeling pleased with myself. The coffee is hot and bitter, but I force myself to drink it without grimacing and without asking for sugar. I look up to ask Skye about the plan for the day, but she’s left the room.
I turn around when I hear footsteps, but this time it’s Lindsay, wearing ripped jeans and a faded gray T-shirt advertising some kind of agricultural fair. Her dirty blonde hair is wet, and she’s running a big plastic comb through it, sending splatters of water on to the floor. There are still traces of last night’s purple eyeliner around her eyes. She pours herself a cup of coffee and dumps three heaping spoonfuls of sugar in it. She slurps when she sips. “I could show you the hayloft now if you still want to,” she offers.
“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”
She shoves her sockless feet into a pair of knee-high rubber boots that are sitting by the door and hands a similar pair to me. “Here, wear Jeremiah’s.”
“Do you always call your parents by their first names?”
“I don’t know, sometimes.”
The boots are caked with mud on the outside but surprisingly warm and comfortable to slip on. I follow Lindsay into the barn, where she climbs the narrow spiral stairs to the hayloft without spilling a drop of her coffee. Once we’re up there, she sits down on a bale of hay and I choose one opposite her. “So this is it,” she says.
“It’s nice.” There’s a skylight above us, and the sun is high enough to send in a shaft of buttery light flecked with dust and chaff from the hay. Lindsay takes another slurp of her coffee and sets the mug down beside her. She leans forward, elbows on her knees, and looks at me.
“You can have sex with me if you want.” Blood rushes to my face and pounds in my ears. When I don’t immediately respond she continues. “I mean, I won’t tell your girlfriend if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Well, whatever she is, she’s definitely the jealous type.”
I’m wondering if I have to answer the original question or if Lindsay will just let it go and assume I’m not interested. I’m more interested in the way she said it than anything else. Kind of the same way she offered me a pair of her father’s boots.
“So do you want to?” she asks.
“We probably shouldn’t,” I say. There’s a lot of daylight right now, is what I’m thinking. I’m picturing the two of us fumbling around in this hayloft, and it just seems awkward and uncomfortable and maybe a little bit awful. “I mean, I’m staying with your parents,” I say as if to align myself with the other adults.
Lindsay rolls her eyes. “Not like they’d care. They’re the ones who gave me the condoms anyway.”
“Yeah,” I say, although this idea is a little shocking to me. I try to imagine the headmistress giving me condoms. “But they probably didn’t mean for you to use them with someone you just met.”
Lindsay sighs like I’m totally missing the point. “There’s nothing wrong with having sex.”
“Is that what Skye and Jeremiah say?” I smile like I’m making a joke here. Like the conversation isn’t that serious. Like she hasn’t just seriously offered to have sex with me.
“Basically, and that it’s like an act of divine love and deep emotional intimacy or some bullshit like that,” she adds.
“Yeah, see that’s the part I don’t think we’d really be getting.”
“Whatever,” Lindsay shrugs. “They were like two years older than I am now when they had me. You can’t tell me they were out for divine love and deep emotional intimacy when they were sixteen. Besides, I just want to see what all the fuss is about. But if you don’t want to, that’s cool.” She looks down at the hay beside her and starts pulling individual strands out from beneath the twine.
Then I say something that I mean to be snarky. At least I think I do. “I think I’ll hold out for deep emotional intimacy. You know, just in case it’s worth it.”
“Do you love her?” Lindsay asks.
“Who?”
“Emily, duh.”
“Oh,” I pause. “I don’t know.” What would I have said last night in the tent?
“Do you want a blow job?”
YES! I think. “Um, now?” Idiot, idiot, of course she means now. “I probably shouldn’t um, wouldn’t be a good, to do that I mean.” I stammer out some poorly assembled words of rejection. Idiot. How can I say no? What the hell is wrong with me? Maybe Annaliese Gerber isn’t the curse. Maybe I’ve been the curse all along and I just didn’t know it.
Lindsay sighs again. “All right, well, I told Skye I’d collect the eggs for breakfast so I should probably go do that.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Yeah, it is okay.” She looks annoyed. “Can you take my mug back to the kitchen?”
Finally, a simple question to which I can give a simple answer. I nod and take the empty coffee mug from her hand. I follow her down the metal stairs, the adrenaline shaking my hands, wondering with each step if I’ve made a huge mistake. But I don’t think so.