and let her take his hand. They had to sidle carefully past Helen single file to fit on the narrow path. Thickets of poison ivy on both sides prevented any of them from stepping off the trail. The protruding inner tubes grazed first Billyâs chest, then Bethâs breasts.
Helen ran to the river. Kicking off her moccasins and dropping one tube to the ground, she stumbled into the water with the other tube. She hadnât stopped to take off her shorts. Holding the tube out in front of her, she beat her legs in the water to propel herself out into the river. Twice, to keep down sobs threatening to erupt, she ducked her head underwater and held her breath as long as she could. She worked her legs until they ached, and worked them some more, then climbed into the tube and used her arms to row herself downstream. In a few minutes, she was around a shoal and out of sight of the mud flat where she was to have met Rosie. Let her friend think what she liked, she couldnât face her or anyone just now.
The exertion of kicking and paddling was both an outlet and a container for her churned emotions. She would keep going until she felt calmer, until the sky and the woods and the bridge upstream no longer looked like scenery flats but became three-dimensional and regular again. In this suspended piece of time, only her feelings seemed real, and in this suspended piece of time, being real was thorns and gouges and stinging nettles. She didnât think about where she was going. She wasnât thinking at
all, only moving. Pushing through the water. Getting away. Off the too-solid ground, out of the enshrouding woodlands, beyond people and clumsy talk.
Finally, she was too exhausted to go on. She laid her head back on the tube and drifted with the current. Her skin dried quickly in the hot sun, and her face and shoulders and knees soon achieved an agreeable sensation of baking. When they began to smart, she splashed water over herself, and the lovely process of drying and baking resumed. She knew she was getting a sunburn that would cause her misery tonight, but she didnât care. It was blessedly quiet on the river. She was far enough out that sounds from shore were muffled, and there were few of them, in any case.
âBilly,â she whispered, trying out the name to see how it would feel, waiting for the tailspin.
No tailspin happened. Only a terrible tug at her heart and a tiny flash of anger.
âBilly,â she repeated more loudly. âBilly!â she shouted, safe from all hearing.
A motor boat sped by the far shore, and a minute later, the inner tube was rocked gently by its wake. Helen picked one ripple and tried to track its progress all the way to shore.
What should she do when she saw Billy again? She was sure he would be as reluctant as she to mention the meeting in the woods. But it would be there between them all the same.
Unless. Unless she could convince him that it neednât be and wasnât. She would behave toward him exactly as if there were no secret, no embarrassment, no rotten Beth. And he would see that she could be counted on, that she wasnât silly or small-minded. After a while, maybe it would feel that things were the same. Maybe even better.
She noticed she was opposite a familiar sandy spit and started paddling toward it with long, smooth sweeps of her cupped
hands. She wanted to go home. She wanted to rinse the river out of her hair and put lotion on her shoulders. And she wanted to throw away her contemptible bathing suit.
CHAPTER 14
OCTOBER 1938
It was the end of October, and high school had come to seem to Helen not only a congenial environment, but a mildly intoxicating one. She liked having different teachers for different subjects, and she liked sharing complaints about them with her friends. She liked hugging a pile of heavy books to her chest, and writing with her grandfatherâs thick fountain pen, which Walter had ceremoniously given her on the first
Helen ran to the river. Kicking off her moccasins and dropping one tube to the ground, she stumbled into the water with the other tube. She hadnât stopped to take off her shorts. Holding the tube out in front of her, she beat her legs in the water to propel herself out into the river. Twice, to keep down sobs threatening to erupt, she ducked her head underwater and held her breath as long as she could. She worked her legs until they ached, and worked them some more, then climbed into the tube and used her arms to row herself downstream. In a few minutes, she was around a shoal and out of sight of the mud flat where she was to have met Rosie. Let her friend think what she liked, she couldnât face her or anyone just now.
The exertion of kicking and paddling was both an outlet and a container for her churned emotions. She would keep going until she felt calmer, until the sky and the woods and the bridge upstream no longer looked like scenery flats but became three-dimensional and regular again. In this suspended piece of time, only her feelings seemed real, and in this suspended piece of time, being real was thorns and gouges and stinging nettles. She didnât think about where she was going. She wasnât thinking at
all, only moving. Pushing through the water. Getting away. Off the too-solid ground, out of the enshrouding woodlands, beyond people and clumsy talk.
Finally, she was too exhausted to go on. She laid her head back on the tube and drifted with the current. Her skin dried quickly in the hot sun, and her face and shoulders and knees soon achieved an agreeable sensation of baking. When they began to smart, she splashed water over herself, and the lovely process of drying and baking resumed. She knew she was getting a sunburn that would cause her misery tonight, but she didnât care. It was blessedly quiet on the river. She was far enough out that sounds from shore were muffled, and there were few of them, in any case.
âBilly,â she whispered, trying out the name to see how it would feel, waiting for the tailspin.
No tailspin happened. Only a terrible tug at her heart and a tiny flash of anger.
âBilly,â she repeated more loudly. âBilly!â she shouted, safe from all hearing.
A motor boat sped by the far shore, and a minute later, the inner tube was rocked gently by its wake. Helen picked one ripple and tried to track its progress all the way to shore.
What should she do when she saw Billy again? She was sure he would be as reluctant as she to mention the meeting in the woods. But it would be there between them all the same.
Unless. Unless she could convince him that it neednât be and wasnât. She would behave toward him exactly as if there were no secret, no embarrassment, no rotten Beth. And he would see that she could be counted on, that she wasnât silly or small-minded. After a while, maybe it would feel that things were the same. Maybe even better.
She noticed she was opposite a familiar sandy spit and started paddling toward it with long, smooth sweeps of her cupped
hands. She wanted to go home. She wanted to rinse the river out of her hair and put lotion on her shoulders. And she wanted to throw away her contemptible bathing suit.
CHAPTER 14
OCTOBER 1938
It was the end of October, and high school had come to seem to Helen not only a congenial environment, but a mildly intoxicating one. She liked having different teachers for different subjects, and she liked sharing complaints about them with her friends. She liked hugging a pile of heavy books to her chest, and writing with her grandfatherâs thick fountain pen, which Walter had ceremoniously given her on the first
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