That afternoon in August, the summer David Pinney died, I watched him walk across the lawn to the barn, the dry grass flattened under his feet, and I pulled myself out of the pool and followed him. I had often gone into the barn to be alone. It had been three years since my grandfather died, and my sisters were afraid of the place, but to me the barn, with its strips of sunlight and its stone floor, was reassuring and cool. I would sit in the little area where I once saw Sister Martha Mary, near my grandfather’s workshop that smelled of milled copper. There was stacked hay for the sheep he’d raised once, the few cows that would get loose on the golf course, old Bonnie, the mare with her large head and frightening whinny. I’d sit on the bale of hay, draw my legs to my chest. The hay was rough and stuck to my bare skin.
Usually, I sat in the barn and waited for something. I expected to see my grandfather, busy at his bench once again, the sparks from the mill flying out onto the stone floor, his pants loose on his bony hips. I sat on the bale of hay waiting, much as Sister had once waited for me. Now I entered, looking for David Pinney. Up in the barn’s rafters, swallows flitted. I didn’t see him at first, and then he stepped out of the shadows. I felt a small misgiving, but I ignored it.
I showed him the old lightning rods, the coiled cable shining like a new penny. I told him how the rods worked, how the cable, buried in the ground, drew the strike away from the highest points of a church, or a barn, or a peak in a roof. The sun came in and out, blinking through the old barn’s slats.
“People were afraid of lightning,” I told him. “Once, they thought it was sent by the Prince of the Power of the Air.”
“And who would that be?” he said.
“Satan, you know.” I picked up one of the rods. “They called this the ‘heretical rod.’ They didn’t think it was right to try to control something that came from God.”
He took the rod from my hand, hefted it, and then set it down. “These must be an easy sell.”
“People aren’t really afraid anymore,” I said.
“They don’t believe in the devil so much?” he said.
Water from his damp hair ran down his shoulder.
“Playing to people’s fears, that’s sort of like that church you go to,” he said.
“I don’t go to that church,” I said.
He looked at the ceiling and the scattering birds, and he laughed. He moved closer to me, and his wet shorts dripped onto my feet. I felt the closeness of his bare skin.
“But you believe in all of that,” he said. “Ghosts and messages.”
I wanted to correct him, but I knew I would only give him more reason to make fun of me. He made a low, wailing sound.
“Don’t be so serious,” he said, and I smiled, though my mouth felt stiff.
He stood in front of me with his narrow chest, his green eyes. He placed his hands on my shoulders. I watched him do it with a strange detachment. Then he leaned in to press his mouth to mine. His lips were dry. His skin smelled of chlorine. I wore Sarah’s orange bikini. She had let me borrow it, soft-piled fabric with beads threaded onto the ties. His hand slid to my breast, pushed aside my suit, and I felt a rush of surprise. I knew I should pull away from him, but I liked his hand there, his mouth on mine. He sighed, and moaned, drew ragged breaths. He clung to me, holding me tight to him, his mouth covering mine, his tongue pushing in past my lips. He stepped with me back into one of the unused stalls, the floor covered with moldy hay, and I felt his hands sliding over me, sliding down my bathing suit bottom, his fingers slipping between my legs. I kicked, and pushed him off of me. I stood, unsteadily, covering myself, pulling up my suit. He reached out to grab me again, but I backed away, and he stared at me, his expression hard to read. Then he laughed at me.
“Are you just a little girl?” he said.
Outside the barn, I felt the heat of the sun hit me, felt the places his hands had touched me. My mouth felt sore and bruised. Later, I worried over what had happened. I kept feeling his mouth on mine, his dry lips. The way I’d felt when his hands slid over my breast, between my legs. I worried I should have admitted to wanting it, and not pushed him away. But I knew I would see him again, and I both longed for and feared that moment.
The next day it was Del and David Pinney, taking turns on the diving board, talking in the deep end, and that night she told me he was her boyfriend.
“You don’t want him for your boyfriend,” I said.
“Why not?” she said.
I told her he had kissed me, and she stared at me from her twin bed, her head propped in her hand. I wanted to describe the other things he’d done, but I couldn’t find the words to do it.