Most of the time thereafter, when I was leading my school life, writing another play with my friend Jay and acting in Mr. Dronzek’s masterpieces, all that time doing my extracurriculars and studying, enjoying the company of Coral and a few other theater enthusiasts, keeping my options open; even so there was the other real life beneath all of that surface activity, the real life rife with terror—an apt word although if I’d said it out loud I would have been chastised. But terror for anyone’s information was not reserved for religious zealots blowing up themselves and others in marketplaces. Terror also existed in a black night and an early morning. It could exist at lunchtime in a crowded cafeteria stinking of fish sticks. No escape from that crush. With no warning it beat in you when you opened your locker to the jumble of notebooks, torn assignments, gym clothes, petticoats not yet returned to the costume closet. It could come upon you walking up the hill in the back field, out of the blue feeling as if you were standing on the lip of the world, alone. Also, it, the terror, could occur right before a school dance.
In the fall of my junior year I saw May Hill for the first time in months when Coral and I were posing for homecoming pictures by the apple barn, the two of us in our steampunk finery, our garters and relatively tasteful purple bustiers, bodysuits underneath, little flouncy skirts, our lace-up boots, our thick black eyeliner and long curly black wigs. Jay, Gayjay he’d dubbed himself, was taking the pictures. Coral and I were going together for the sole purpose of wearing our costumes in public, as if the dance were a Halloween party. I was still flat-chested so that my wearing a bustier was Kleenex-filled hilarity. We laughed until we fell over, Coral and I, at her bust size and my bust size, the Mutt and Jeff of bosoms. My mother said periodically that any day now I would require the pads that had been in my closet for at least two years. She said so as if she were a cheerleader, as if she were rah-rahing for my eggs. In her mind I was apparently not just a slow bloomer but a stunted, stalled girl—which did sometimes worry me, the possibility of a medical condition. For the most part, though, I was perfectly happy without that particular monthly nuisance.
As far as the egg situation went, a week before the dance Mrs. Lombard had come into the exam room with me for my checkup. In my presence she’d asked Dr. O’Connor if I should be put on birth control pills or if I should have a battery of tests to see what was happening with my ovaries. The state of my reproductive equipment was something I had no interest in discussing in a nearly public forum. And even if Dr. O’Connor had thought I had cancer or had injured myself or—truly hideous—didn’t have a large enough opening, I would not have the tests, and most certainly I was not going to take birth control pills. It was to my great satisfaction that he told my mother I was not abnormal, and that in the fullness of time I would menstruate.
“You’re saying I am not a freak,” I said to him.
He laughed. “I assure you, Mary Frances, you are not a freak.”
“Okay then,” I said, looking at my mother. “Thank you.”
At any rate, I saw May Hill before the homecoming dance when I was dressed as a Victorian call girl, bust size 32A. I’m not sure she as much as glanced my way, walking quickly past Coral and me, her head down. Amanda, who had become willowy and beautiful, her dark hair in a French twist, had already left with her date. William was going to the dance, too, with Charlotte Meuweesen, a sweetly bland girl he couldn’t possibly like in any significant way.
While we were doing the photographing William had driven into Volta, to the apple barn, in order to get a gallon of cider for Charlotte to take home after the event. He was wearing a sport coat and, to distinguish himself, a bow tie. May Hill walked past him, too, but she may, in spite of herself, have noticed Charlotte sticking her long leg from the car, noticed the black gown that to May Hill would have looked like a slip rather than a formal garment. May Hill stopped walking. She appeared to be thinking. She glanced at the leg once more, she looked at the gravel, she then walked on. All my pleasure in my getup and hair and stockings just like that was gone, the Shadow of May Hill not simply casting a pall over the evening, but destroying it. She disappeared into the basement. That was the extent of the May Hill episode. And yet a great buzz suddenly was in my ears. I couldn’t hear. It was difficult to breathe.
To complete the feeling Philip happened by, Philip coming up the path from the sheep shed. I believed he shouted, “You look fantastic, you guys! You are so meta! Homecoming with an attitude. Homecoming from beyond the past and beyond the future.” He may also have said, “Have an awesome time.”
“That’s enough pictures,” I was able to say to Jay.
Coral giggled, instantly becoming idiotic, thanking Philip and simpering. I got in the car and slammed the door.
In theory, and in theory only, it had by then occurred to me to consider marrying my cousin. If I had to. I was not serious on the one hand, but also on the other, it was a real idea. All the way to the school, to the gym for the dance, I couldn’t stop shivering. May Hill walking across the driveway was the Queen of Darkness. Philip was her minion. The notion of my marrying him made me ill, the old man and the maiden, plus the crone keeping watch, and additionally we were related and would have the moronic children. Working alongside my husband would be like playing Rosalind to that dope of an actor at camp, not for a mere four performances, but for literally eternity. We’d be buried next to each other in the family plot.
“What’s the matter?” Coral said to me.