The Year of the Gadfly (19 page)

Justin tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You know how little kids play house? Well, my friends are playing popular. Finally they have somebody to exclude.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “Come on. The underworld's getting on my nerves.”

***

Lily wasn't certain about Jonah and the others, but she suspected Hazel was no child innocently donning adult clothing. The girl was complicated and capricious. And her intentions were far from clear. She was like an ominous storm head hovering in the distance, but whether the threat was real was impossible to know.

 

Lily had never been close to Hazel, but for a short time they'd been friends—of a kind. The particular moment of their entanglement lasted less than a day, and it should have been one of those painful childhood memories that eventually come to feel so dreamlike you question whether it happened at all. But for Lily—and quite possibly for Hazel—the memory was a living, feeding thing. A memory made flesh.

Until she turned thirteen, Lily spent her summers at the expensive day camp popular with Mariana parents. It was called Camp Sunshine, and Lily hated it. She wasn't allowed to play outside. (Lily's doctor said she could spend time in the sun with the proper precautions, but her mother distrusted doctors as much as she did sunlight.) And perhaps as a result of her indoor confinement, she had no camp friends.

Hazel Greenburg, a roly-poly girl one year ahead of Lily at Mariana, had no friends either. She designated herself Lily's partner in all camp activities, and stuck to her like a barnacle. As far as Lily was concerned, the only thing the girls had in common was their status as biosafety hazards. Coarse hair sprouted like a fungus between Hazel's eyebrows, and freckles swarmed over her arms and legs like a bad case of chicken pox. Lily reeked of sunblock, and her coloring resembled that of the undead. People kept their distance.

The year Lily turned eleven, the camp announced a special field trip to Water World, and the Morgans granted their daughter permission to attend, as long as she promised to remain in the park's indoor complex. On the morning of the trip, Lily stood before her mother in a metallic purple bathing suit and rainbow flip-flops.

“Turn around,” Maureen ordered, and Lily turned. “Hair,” she said, and Lily held up her ponytail. The lotion made sucking sounds between her mother's palms and was cold and slimy on her skin. “Pull your suit down so I can get your back,” Maureen said, closing the cap on one bottle and opening another.

“Can't you just rub it around the edges?”

“The sun goes right for the tan line. Pull it down.”

“Can't I do it myself?”

“If you want to go on the trip, you're going to do it my way.”

Slowly, Lily pulled the spandex straps off her shoulders as though she were peeling them from a bad burn. Maureen yanked the back of the bathing suit down. “Hold still.” She braced her daughter's shoulder with one hand and rubbed with the other. “Turn.”

“Mom!”

“I'm just doing your neck and sides. I'm not
looking
at anything. And anyway, it's not like there's anything to see.”

Finally Maureen snapped the bottle shut. “Now get your things.” She sent Lily out with a slap on the butt.

 

Not long after that, Lily sat on the Camp Sunshine bus, slick and smelly from her mother's morning rubdown, reading
The Scarlet Letter.
Her father had given her a set of The Classics for Christmas. The phrase conjured a hoary man droning in a large auditorium, and it wasn't long before Lily grew bored with
The Mill on the Floss
and
Bleak House.
But
The Scarlet Letter
was different. Lily envied Hester Prynne's dark, glossy hair and eyes, but more than this, she was in awe of Hester, who wore her stigma with so much pride. She loved escaping into Hester's embattled, heroic life, and she did so now as the bus rumbled down the highway. Hazel sat beside her bubbling with excitement. “It's going to be the best day ever!” Hazel exclaimed, and Lily shifted toward the window.

 

An hour later Lily was jolted from her book by Hazel's finger jabbing her shoulder. Beyond the haze of the interstate, monolithic towers rose against the blue sky, their metal structures gleaming in the sun. Tubes of intricate slides encircled these structures, winding hypnotically toward the earth. It was a fantastical new world, a realm of unforeseen possibility, a place where anything could happen. The bus turned in to the massive parking lot, and with a hacking cough, stopped outside the ticket booth. The kids streamed out. Lily followed Hazel into the women's changing room, carrying her towel, knapsack, and special prescription sunglasses. Her flip-flops slapped against the tiled floors.

The changing room was a maze of blue lockers, its air sharp with chlorine and filled with the noise of clanging metal and screeching children. Lily crept around the tepid puddles and wormy strings of hair. She'd never seen so many naked bodies in one place. Lily's body was bony with nipples the size of small buttons, and she gaped at grown women with dark beards between their legs and eggplant breasts. Some of the women had fatty thighs. Hazel's thighs touched, and her bathing suit was so tight that it cut into her plump buttocks. She wondered if Hazel would one day resemble the locker room women or, worse, if she herself might. Lily hoped not.

 

Lily stood in the shade underneath an overhanging roof as her counselor, Jenny, told the group to choose buddies. Hazel grabbed Lily's hand and thrust it in the air.

“That's nice of you,” Jenny cooed. “Staying indoors with your friend.” Lily pulled her hand free. Jenny bent over and rested her hands on her knees. Lily removed her thick black glasses and stared at Jenny's white-toothed smile and ribbon-tied pigtails.

“Now Lily, it's very important that you stay inside,” Jenny said. “Do you understand?”

Lily nodded. Over Jenny's shoulder, she saw the popular girls run off into Water World's white glare. When Jenny was gone, Lily walked to the edge of the roof's shadow. A line ran down the pavement. On one side was cool shade; on the other side, bright sun. A concrete ocean stretched before her. She lifted a foot into the light and gingerly tested the pavement. Heat sank into the padding of her big toe and sent a flash of warmth into her foot. Wonderful.

“Let's go into the park!”

Lily recoiled from Hazel's mouth so close to her ear. She turned to find the girl smiling brightly and wondered how Hazel could be so oblivious to what other people thought of her.

“I'll look out for you, Lily,” Hazel said. “I'll tell you if you're getting burned.”

Lily stared out at Water World.
All right,
she thought, and plunged into the light. The heat burned like a scalding bath. Then the sharpness broke and sunlight washed over her. A light breeze raised the hair on her arms. This wasn't so bad. And besides, her mother had slathered her with so much sunblock, she might as well have been wearing armor.

Hazel coaxed Lily into trying some of the slides. They started with the tubular intestines and gradually sought out the straight tongues that shot you into the water like spitballs. They tried slides that made Lily's stomach fly into her throat and her heart sink to her feet. Slides that left her feeling simultaneously terrified and invincible. Afterward, the girls stumbled on gelatinous legs toward a bench. They sat there catching their breath.

“You're a little pink,” Hazel said.

Lily took off her dark glasses and examined her arms and legs. It wasn't so bad. Her skin didn't hurt.

“Let's go swimming,” Hazel said. “Your skin'll be more protected under water.”

Lily slipped her glasses back on and followed Hazel to a pool in a corner of the park. She felt dizzy from the slides and heat, but the water was an instant relief.

The girls pushed across the pool on their backs: Hazel's pudgy, speckled body beside Lily's skinny white one, drifting like flotsam. They didn't speak. They moved only to keep afloat. Sometimes they collided, but they let it happen and didn't laugh. They allowed the water to lap over them. Lying on her back under the blue sky, darkened just enough by her glasses, Lily felt an unfamiliar sense of calm. She wondered if this was how Hazel moved through the world, her green eyes protected from other people's judgment as though by special glasses. Did it matter how other people saw you if you weren't aware of them looking?

Lily opened her eyes to find herself alone. Most of the families had cleared out for lunch. Her throat felt parched, too dry to cough. She started to speak Hazel's name, but Hazel was no longer beside her. Lily spun around. At the deep end of the pool, an old man swam laps; at the shallow end, a mother bounced her water-winged baby. Then, in a corner, Lily spotted Hazel's magenta bathing suit. She called out, but Hazel didn't answer, so she swam over. As she neared, she could see Hazel struggling at the pool wall. Her wet hair hung in a heavy knot down her back and swayed with the motion of her undulating body.

“Hazel?” Lily was only a couple of feet away now, treading water. Hazel's hands gripped the edge of the pool. Her body arched, bent inward, arched again. She looked like she was having trouble holding on. “Hazel!”

Lily kicked over to the wall and grabbed the edge with one hand. Hazel's cheeks were flushed, her eyes clenched. She gasped, the sound so quiet Lily wouldn't have heard it had she not been inches away. It was a sound unlike any she'd ever heard, at once feathery and full. Suddenly Hazel pushed herself away from the pool wall, dunking her head beneath the surface.

“What were you doing?” Lily demanded the moment she reappeared. “Are you okay?”

Hazel squinted the water from her eyes. She looked at Lily, and her face went pale. “Am
I
okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm fine.” Hazel shut her eyes, opened them again, as though she was expecting to see something different from before. “Lily?” she said, but Lily interrupted.

“What were you just doing?”

Hazel was quiet for a moment. The color rose in her cheeks. “I'll tell you something,” she said tentatively, “but you have to promise not to tell anyone. You have to swear.”

Lily nodded uncertainly. The water-winged baby and the old man were gone. Hazel leaned forward and whispered in Lily's ear.

Lily glanced over Hazel's shoulder and saw the water jet. Small bubbles rose to the surface and popped. She shook her head.

“You've never tried it in the bath?”

Of course Lily was curious. At night in her room, when darkness hid her from herself, her fingers wandered to the edge of her underwear. Once or twice she'd slid her fingers down the white slope between her thighs,
over
the underwear. Because this—the M-word—was the most embarrassing thing a person could do.

Mariana's guidance counselor had told a room full of uncomfortable sixth graders that it was “natural.” But the lesson had upset some parents, who believed that sexual education shouldn't deviate from strict lessons of anatomy and reproductive function. Shortly thereafter, Lily overheard her father on the phone.

“Well, I insist the, ah, the term should be taught, though perhaps we could include its derivation. The likely etymology is
manstuprare,
which comes from
tubare,
to stir up.
Manus
is Latin for ‘hand,' and
stuprum
means defilement or dishonor. That would send an implicit message, and no harm in getting a little Latin into the lesson.”

This was so typical of her father, whose lifelong mission was to “get a little Latin in”—to any conversation, whether it belonged there or not. Still, Lily wanted to know what it was like. Once, riding a bicycle, she'd felt a tingle inside her body. In the darkness of her room this feeling glowed like light around her. If only she could reach out and catch it, harness its energy. And Hazel was offering her this. Without taking off her clothes or using her hands. Was it the M-word if her hands were above the water, innocent bystanders? Not according to the Latin.

“I'll be the lookout,” Hazel assured her. “And you can always push away from the wall into a backstroke. They'll never know.”

“How will I know it's working?”

Hazel only grinned and swam into the center of the pool.

Lily positioned herself in front of the jet. The water beat against her stomach. She opened her knees wider, then narrowed them. She tried raising her hips, lowering them, easing them forward, tilting them back. The whole process felt oddly scientific, as though she were conducting an experiment on herself. Then bursting water hit her between the legs. She looked over her shoulder to check on Hazel. Hazel smiled and nodded, then turned away. Lily closed her eyes and felt the sun beat down on her face. Suddenly she felt an unexpected hiccup. She moved again, and the feeling disappeared. With shaking arms—the truth of Hazel's confession making itself suddenly apparent—she moved until she found the hiccup again. She leaned back slightly and the sensation grew. Like small bubbles ballooning and bursting against some invisible apex of her body. And beneath these bubbles, a growing pressure, a warmth, like light, beginning to spread out from that invisible point. The sun warmed her face. Her head reeled in the darkness behind her eyes. She pushed herself into the pressure; the heat on her face fused with the heat between her legs as the largest bubble of all began to bloom. Larger and larger it grew, threatening to burst, to split her body apart. She gripped the concrete. A wave rushed upon her, thrusting her body into the bubble . . .

“Lily!”

“What is she
doing?
”

“Wait, no! Wait!”

Lily snapped her eyes open. Panic doused the heat in her body, and she pushed back from the edge, but it was too late. Jenny stood by the side of the pool, her face stricken. Campers gathered at her side, giggling.