in her fist, more passion in her heart
than a thousand rosaries could have summoned. “Please don’t ever leave me.”
Chapter 2
NEW YORK CITY, 1963
Rachel frowned at her plate, at the fried egg centered between two neat triangles of toast.
Round as a daisy, and not a single bubble. Bridget, she knew, fried them inside a cookie cutter to
keep the edges smooth. So they would be as perfect as everything in this house. The fork in her
hand, Mama’s Carder silver, was polished to mirror brightness. She caught a distorted glimpse of
her reflection in it now, round blue eyes, a scatter of light brown hair.
“I’m not going,” Rachel said, quietly answering her mother’s question.
How could she? After last night with Gil? Get dressed up, flirt, pretend nothing was wrong.
God, what a joke that would be.
Gil’s words came back now, pricking her, “Why don’t you just admit it, Rachel? You’re not so
goddamn moral. That’s not why you won’t go all the way with me. It’s because you really don’t
like sex. You’re frigid. Or maybe it’s a girl you want. ...”
Rachel brought the tines of her fork down hard into the yolk, watching it burst, ooze across the
fine Blue Willow plate, obscuring the weeping willow and the three tiny figures crossing the
bridge.
She was furious at Gil—of all the pompous asses at Haverford, he took the prize!—but
underneath the thought itched at her, God, what if it’s true?
Face it, she told herself, it’s not just Gil who leaves you cold. Something’s been missing with
every guy so far.
Twenty, and still a virgin. Not, as Gil had pointed out, because she was so moral. No. Worse.
The truth was, she just hadn’t felt like it so far.
Rachel stared down at the ruined egg yolk, feeling slightly nauseated. Only this sickness had
nothing to do with the mess on her plate, she knew, or the beers she’d drunk last night.
[65] It all boiled down to sex, she thought. Everything. Fashions. Perfume. Magazine covers.
Even those television ads for toothpaste. It seemed as if everyone in the whole world was either
thinking about it, talking about it, or doing it.
So what’s wrong with me?
Was it like learning to swim? Either you were good at it, or you sank like a rock?
Or maybe she’d been born this way. Normal on the outside. Pretty even. Rachel remembered
when she was a child, Great-aunt Willie in her mink smothering her in a furry, perfumed
embrace, then grabbing a handful of cheek in each gloved hand, crowing, “Just like a little baby
doll! So dainty! And those blue eyes, Sylvie, she must have gotten them from Gerald! But where
did that pretty little doll’s face come from? Not from you or your mama. I wonder who?”
“The Girl with the Watering Can,” Rachel had replied solemnly.
That was what Mama always said, anyway, that Rachel reminded her of the Renoir painting.
She had showed Rachel the picture in a book, a little girl with waves of red-gold hair and bright
Wedgwood-blue eyes that matched her dress, standing stiffly posed in a garden, holding a
watering can.
Rachel had hated that picture, and once in a black mood had scribbled over it with a crayon.
Why were people always telling her she was dainty and cute and precious? She’d longed to run
through the echoing rooms of their big house, instead of walking softly as Mama always
admonished, to shout at the top of her lungs, and turn cartwheels on the patterned rugs. Not be
like some doll or a girl holding a stupid watering can, but like a bird or a wild creature, doing as
she pleased, not caring what people thought of her.
Now she wondered if she had been worrying all that time about the wrong thing. Wishing she
were tall and fierce like the Amazon women she’d read about, when all along there was
something wrong with her on the inside. Some awful undetected deformity. Missing hormones, or
a paralyzed sex drive. Or even, God forbid, something actually wrong with her down
than a thousand rosaries could have summoned. “Please don’t ever leave me.”
Chapter 2
NEW YORK CITY, 1963
Rachel frowned at her plate, at the fried egg centered between two neat triangles of toast.
Round as a daisy, and not a single bubble. Bridget, she knew, fried them inside a cookie cutter to
keep the edges smooth. So they would be as perfect as everything in this house. The fork in her
hand, Mama’s Carder silver, was polished to mirror brightness. She caught a distorted glimpse of
her reflection in it now, round blue eyes, a scatter of light brown hair.
“I’m not going,” Rachel said, quietly answering her mother’s question.
How could she? After last night with Gil? Get dressed up, flirt, pretend nothing was wrong.
God, what a joke that would be.
Gil’s words came back now, pricking her, “Why don’t you just admit it, Rachel? You’re not so
goddamn moral. That’s not why you won’t go all the way with me. It’s because you really don’t
like sex. You’re frigid. Or maybe it’s a girl you want. ...”
Rachel brought the tines of her fork down hard into the yolk, watching it burst, ooze across the
fine Blue Willow plate, obscuring the weeping willow and the three tiny figures crossing the
bridge.
She was furious at Gil—of all the pompous asses at Haverford, he took the prize!—but
underneath the thought itched at her, God, what if it’s true?
Face it, she told herself, it’s not just Gil who leaves you cold. Something’s been missing with
every guy so far.
Twenty, and still a virgin. Not, as Gil had pointed out, because she was so moral. No. Worse.
The truth was, she just hadn’t felt like it so far.
Rachel stared down at the ruined egg yolk, feeling slightly nauseated. Only this sickness had
nothing to do with the mess on her plate, she knew, or the beers she’d drunk last night.
[65] It all boiled down to sex, she thought. Everything. Fashions. Perfume. Magazine covers.
Even those television ads for toothpaste. It seemed as if everyone in the whole world was either
thinking about it, talking about it, or doing it.
So what’s wrong with me?
Was it like learning to swim? Either you were good at it, or you sank like a rock?
Or maybe she’d been born this way. Normal on the outside. Pretty even. Rachel remembered
when she was a child, Great-aunt Willie in her mink smothering her in a furry, perfumed
embrace, then grabbing a handful of cheek in each gloved hand, crowing, “Just like a little baby
doll! So dainty! And those blue eyes, Sylvie, she must have gotten them from Gerald! But where
did that pretty little doll’s face come from? Not from you or your mama. I wonder who?”
“The Girl with the Watering Can,” Rachel had replied solemnly.
That was what Mama always said, anyway, that Rachel reminded her of the Renoir painting.
She had showed Rachel the picture in a book, a little girl with waves of red-gold hair and bright
Wedgwood-blue eyes that matched her dress, standing stiffly posed in a garden, holding a
watering can.
Rachel had hated that picture, and once in a black mood had scribbled over it with a crayon.
Why were people always telling her she was dainty and cute and precious? She’d longed to run
through the echoing rooms of their big house, instead of walking softly as Mama always
admonished, to shout at the top of her lungs, and turn cartwheels on the patterned rugs. Not be
like some doll or a girl holding a stupid watering can, but like a bird or a wild creature, doing as
she pleased, not caring what people thought of her.
Now she wondered if she had been worrying all that time about the wrong thing. Wishing she
were tall and fierce like the Amazon women she’d read about, when all along there was
something wrong with her on the inside. Some awful undetected deformity. Missing hormones, or
a paralyzed sex drive. Or even, God forbid, something actually wrong with her down
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