hooked rugs to keep her feet warm.
“Her daughter is terminally ill,” Betsy tells Laurel. “It is truly unbelievable. She had a blood transfusion before they did any testing, and now she has AIDS.”
Laurel Smith lets that sink in. She wishes she had moved the pink silk lamp Polly liked so much so it could be included in some of her photographs.
“And the worst of it is,” Betsy says, “her son is my son’s best friend. They’ve shared lunches and God knows what else. Her kid has slept in my house half the summer. They may have shared the same bed.”
Laurel realizes all this means something to Betsy because Betsy is shaking. Laurel picks up the stink of fear.
“This is what I have to live with,” Betsy says.
“I don’t understand,” Laurel Smith says, but she’s afraid that she does.
“My son has been in contact with her son,” Betsy says, her voice breaking.
“You’re misunderstanding,” Laurel Smith says. “You can’t catch AIDS like a cold. You have to exchange blood or semen. You can’t get it from any casual contact. Even if you live with that person, even if you’re in the same family.”
“Oh, really?” Betsy says savagely. “Thank you for your medical advice. For all I know, they could have cut their skins with knives and become blood brothers.”
Betsy starts to cry then. She walks away, into the living room, and finishes packing up her equipment as she cries.
Laurel follows Betsy into the living room. “I think you’re overreacting. I really do.”
“Well, it’s not your son, is it?” Betsy says. “And it’s not your worry either.”
After Betsy leaves, Laurel Smith sits on the wicker couch in her tiny living room and looks out at the marsh. The sunlight is so bright it hurts her eyes. Laurel realizes she needs to get out, she needs fresh air. She decides to go to the small marker up the road, and Stella, the cat, follows her there. Laurel buys rye bread, a package of cheddar cheese, and three chocolate bars—Kit Kats, her favorite candy the whole time she was married and so depressed. At the last minute she asks for a box of low-tar cigarettes. She has not smoked for four years, but now, on the walk home, she takes the cellophane off the box and lights one of the cigarettes. The smell of sulfur brings tears to her eyes. She has taken the long way home, and as she passes the dirt path that leads to the pond she notices the tire tracks of a bicycle. Laurel Smith dislikes and distrusts Betsy Stafford, but she realizes that some of the stink of Betsy’s fear has rubbed off on her. That is why she had a sudden urge for a cigarette, to replace that dank odor of panic with anything, even sulfur.
“Come on,” Laurel says to Stella. “Don’t you dare go in there.”
Stella is poised near the path leading to the pond, ready to run off through the brambles and weeds so she can hunt for turtles and geese.
Laurel crouches down. She stubs out her cigarette and claps her hands, then makes the hissing sound her cat usually responds to. Stella looks over haughtily, then jumps off the bank and walks down the road, ahead of Laurel. All the way home, Laurel thinks about Polly. She thinks of Polly putting in a new roll of film and mentioning a daughter, whose name Laurel has forgotten. A dancer, she thinks she remembers Polly saying, or a gymnast.
Polly, who had never divulged anything about her personal life before, had said to Laurel, “My daughter would love your hair. She wants to grow it till it’s as long as yours.”
Laurel turns off the road into her driveway. Here, the ferns and maples give way to sea grass and sea lavender and reeds. The sight of the plastic lawn furniture set out on the deck makes Laurel’s throat grow tight with longing. She realizes that Betsy Stafford is wrong. She has not lost the knack.
She has simply grown tired of talking with the dead.
All that weekend Charlie tries to phone Sevrin. Each time he’s told that Sevrin isn’t home. Charlie
Brenda Novak
Italo Calvino
C. C. Hunter
ylugin
Mario Puzo
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
Toby Neal
Amarinda Jones
Ashley Hunter
Riley Clifford