Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,100

I wondered what it’s like to love a woman. I wondered—Is it nice, like this?

She downshifted at the entrance to the wharf, and the air began to slacken. We coasted into a spot by the fishing boats. She hit the kickstand, and I removed my helmet, reacquainting myself with the planet’s peculiar serenity. It’s humbling to travel by motorcycle, to suffer the cost of time travel, to earn the distance covered. We crossed over to the dock and began to walk.

Jane drew a vivid breath. It seemed like she might sing a song. “Will’s good enough,” she said. “Good enough.”

I shoved my hands into my jeans pockets. They were frozen.

“Are you in love, Eveline?” she asked.

I said that I was.

“Not with Ray, though.”

The ships squeaked resignedly against the wooden pier. “No, not with Ray.”

“I am in love,” she proclaimed, unperturbed by the aches and grunts of the boats. “With Martin. He lives in Devon, England.” Ma-tin, she said, without the R. The first syllable sounded maternal, almost bored. The tin was crisp and close; it barely escaped her mouth. At the end of the dock, near Gosman’s, she turned a quarter-turn to the right, eastward. “I come to look,” she said. “You understand, toward England.”

Her resilience fell away as she conjured her loss, and the loss animated her. It was a delicacy she revealed, that she’d been longing to reveal. I wondered how she had recognized me as a pitiful equal. Will’s good enough, she’d said, reminding me of the savage enormity of the world, the interminable length of life.

“And yours?” Jane asked. Her face was serene, immune to the stiff bite of the wind. “Where does he live?”

I did not think of Rourke as mine, though I supposed Martin was not Jane’s, not really. I liked that she reserved for him the best of herself—her imagination. That’s like a work of art. She slept with her husband, but, in giving her body, she gave nothing of consequence, not when secretly holding the rest in check. I wondered if Will knew but didn’t care, and if she despised him for that, or if secretly he despised himself.

“I’m not really sure where he lives.”

“Ah,” she responded, seeming to absorb in full the meaning of pretty much everything. “It’s not an easy one then, is it?”

I shook my head.

“Find out where he lives,” Jane solemnly advised, “so you’ll know which way to face when you lose him.”

We returned to the weaselly and gaunt pitch of bagpipes. The notes shot into the air, the sound at once both solitary and allegiant. Will was waiting alone by his bike. He folded Jane into his arms, and I slipped off to find Ray and Mike, with the two dogs following me.

I stopped to look down at the parade. The avenue was packed: a long stream of green bodies and floats slithered past. I came alongside a man with a child on his shoulders, and both the boy and his father had waxy kelly clovers painted on their cheeks. I wondered why I felt no will to express myself that way. Maybe it was because other than my parents, I have no known ancestors. In fact, my ancestry is just the span of my parents’ lives plus the span of mine—about fifty years.

There was a piercing whistle, and I turned to see the dogs bolt back to the van, where Ray was waiting. Directly behind me, only feet from where I stood, was Rourke.

How mysterious to see him, mysterious and gothic—with the wind and the water, the bluff and the bagpipes. The space between us was precarious, like a ropeway between two landforms. Sixteen days had passed since I’d seen him last, since I’d begun to avoid him. And yet, by his eyes I could see that nothing had changed.

There was a car behind him, cherry-red; the paint looked new. A guy appeared from the periphery, wiry with a handsome haggard face. He looked like maybe he was from Brooklyn originally. He wore a green baseball shirt that read Katie O’T—O’Toole’s, maybe. The last letters fell beneath his unzipped sweatshirt. He placed a bottle of Beck’s in Rourke’s left hand.

“Better watch out,” he warned me. “Your boyfriend’s gettin’ nervous.”

I thought he might have meant Ray. I wasn’t sure. I said, “My name’s Eveline.”

He leaned back onto the hood of the car. “Yeah, I know who you are,” he said. His accent was concentrated and compressed, and somehow familiar to me; I liked him instantly. He took