Valley of the Moon (20 page)

“That's no excuse,” said Lux. “We're all lonely.”

She fell to her knees and tugged on a vine.

T
hat night, around 11:00
P.M.
, I went downstairs in search of Joseph. I wanted to be back in bed by midnight so I'd be in good shape for the morning. He was on the porch as usual. Perched on the railing.

“Do you want to talk about how long it took me to get back?” I asked.

He swiveled around to face me, ignoring my question. “What have you got there?”

I handed him the Robert Frost book. “The book I told you about. Poetry. I think you'll like it.”

“
New Hampshire
. Your New Hampshire?”

“No, it's not my New Hampshire—it's Frost's. The title is just a coincidence. There's some good stuff in there.”

“When do you have to return it to the library?”

He forgot nothing.

“I don't. It was an old copy, they were giving it away. It's yours to keep.”

I was glad it was dark. He couldn't see my guilty face.

“I have a confession to make,” I said. “I didn't tell you the truth about something.”

“Oh?” he said carefully.

“I'm not a widow.”

He didn't respond and for a split second I regretted my decision to tell him about Nelson. He was from a different era, and even though he was progressive, hearing I'd had a child out of wedlock would likely be shocking for him. It might well change his opinion of me, but I had to tell him the truth. I wanted this man to know the real me, not a prettified me.

“Benno's father was in the army. He died in the war. I didn't lie about that. It's just that I'm not technically a widow, because, well, because we weren't married. I found out I was pregnant after he shipped out. His name was Nelson King. I liked him. A lot. Maybe I would have grown to love him. Maybe we would have gotten married if he hadn't been killed. I lied to you because I was ashamed. Being an unwed, single mother in my time still carries a stigma. You'd think it would be different, but it's not.”

He studied me silently.

“Say something,” I pleaded, feeling utterly vulnerable.

His face was unreadable. “This widow story. Do you tell this to other people?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“And they feel sorry for you.”

“I guess.”

“And you like that?”

“I don't like it, but it's better than the alternative.”

“Your parents? Do they know the truth?”

“Of course they do.”

“How do they feel about it?”

“My mother is fine. She was fine right from the beginning.”

“And your father?”

“He barely acknowledged Benno's existence,” I admitted.

“But he's come around now?”

“Sort of. But it's too late, the damage is done. I don't trust him.”

“Yet you sent Benno off to Newport again.”

“He wanted to go,” I snapped.

“But you didn't want him to go.”

“I wanted him not to want to go.”

“But he did.”

I gave an exasperated sigh. “I'm going to bed.”

“You're angry with me.”

“No. Yes. Damn it, I never should have told you.”

“You think I'm judging you.”

“Aren't you?”

Joseph slid down off the rail. “I am in no position to judge, Lux,” he said quietly.

October in Greengage. The nights were cold and the days were warm, the fields high with corn. The tomato vines had withered away, but the valley floor was a sea of fall greens: turnips, mustard, and something called bok choy. Behind the barn were acres of garlic, winter squash, and pumpkins.

I'd planned on this being a quick visit. Even though Benno was in Newport, I still felt a need to keep the home fires burning. My priority was him and our life in San Francisco. But he wasn't in San Francisco. And it was so busy in Greengage. There was no end to the work, and people were grateful to have another set of willing hands—so I stayed. Each day I joined a different crew. I wanted a chance to try everything out. How else would I know what I loved? What work I was truly meant to do. Back in San Francisco, I'd never have that luxury. Benno had Newport. Rhonda had Ginger. I had Greengage.

Everything was blissful, except for Joseph. After our conversation the first night, it seemed he was avoiding me. He was polite, but careful not to catch my eye. Every time I saw him, I was swamped with shame, transported right out of Greengage and into Safeway, my stomach a pit of anxiety, waiting for the cashier to tell me what I owed, knowing I did not have enough money in my wallet to pay the bill.

What would I put back? What could we do without?

That was the soundtrack of my life back home.

It turned out that I was right; Magnusson was courting Fancy.

“I told Dear One, but I'm afraid to tell Joseph,” said Fancy.

Outside, it was drizzling. We were in the barn, braiding garlic. The pungent odor mingled with the candy smell of our lunch, sweet potatoes baking in the ashpan of the woodstove.

Fancy squirmed on a bale of hay. “Next time I'm bringing a chair.”

She was dressed as usual in inappropriate work clothes. She wore a yellow silk dress and Joseph's old boots.

“Joseph already knows about you two,” I said. “I told him.”

“You told him? What did he say?” When Fancy got nervous, her eyelashes fluttered up and down like tiny fans.

“He didn't believe me.”

“Of course he didn't.” She smiled. “I'm very good with secrets.”

“I don't know why it has to be a secret. I'd think people would be happy.”

“You do?”

“Sure. The two of you make sense.”

“Really? But we're so different.”

“Well, you're not an obvious match, which makes a good match in my book.”

“I suppose you're right. Yes, the difference is precisely what makes it so exciting.” She squeezed the stem just above the garlic bulb, softening it so it would be more pliable. “So I have a question.”

My garlic braid looked terrible. Lopsided and loose.

“Snipped or unsnipped?” asked Fancy. “I myself prefer snipped. It makes for a neat package, and oh, that lovely little mushroom cap. But I suppose there's nothing wrong with a cock in its natural state as God intended, either.”

I hooted with laughter.

“Are you scandalized that I've had sexual relations before marriage?” asked Fancy.

“Of course not.”

Her face fell. “Oh. Does everybody do that now? Is that the fashion?”

“Not everybody,” I said. “But lots of young people experiment.”

“How many men have you been with?” she asked.

“How many men have you been with?” I shot right back.

“Two,” she said. “You?”

I didn't want to tell any more lies here in Greengage; either they'd accept me or they wouldn't. “Ten. No, eleven.”

She smiled broadly. “One short of a dozen. Well, good for you, Luxie!”

I was stunned. I'd expected a reaction like Joseph's when I'd told him about Nelson, quietly judgmental. I did not anticipate outright enthusiasm.

Fancy leaned her head on my shoulder. “You are my role model.”

“I'm nobody's role model,” I said, my cheeks hot.
Role model?
Those were two words I never thought I'd hear spoken about me, especially in the context of how many sexual partners I'd had. Fancy was far more accepting than people in the supposedly open society of the 1970s were.

“Well, you're not Dear One's role model,” Fancy said.

“That's obvious. Hand me that bulb.”

Fancy plunked a head of garlic into my lap and I clumsily wove it into my braid.

“It's just that she's in such a sour mood all the time these days,” said Fancy. “I much prefer being with you.”

I sighed, feeling empathy for Dear One. “It can't be easy for her. You being with Magnusson.”

Fancy huffed. “She's my best friend. She should be happy for me.”

“She should be, but I'm sure it's tough feeling she's been replaced. The same thing's just happened with my roommate. She's in love.” I made a face. “With a man named Ginger.”

“Ginger!”

“I know, what kind of a grown man is named Ginger?”

“Ridiculous,” she snorted on my behalf.

“Right, but here's the thing. He's not ridiculous. He's lovely. And he adores her. And I'm really happy for her, I am, but I also kind of hate him for taking her away from me.” I laid the garlic braid on my lap. “I imagine that's a little bit of how Dear One is feeling. And there's me. I'm taking you away from her, too. It's a double whammy.”

Fancy's eyes grew wide. “How can I have been so self-absorbed? I've been a terrible friend,” she moaned. “Poor, poor Dear One. She's my first true love. My dearest.”

“I know. Go find her,” I said. “I'll finish your braid.”

“I have no idea where she is.”

“You know perfectly well where she is—in the sweet potato fields.”

Fancy grimaced.

“Yes, you'll get dirty and wet, and yes, it will be worth it. You'll make her day. Go.”

Fancy handed me her braid. It was perfect, a work of art. “Don't try and pass that off as your own,” she said, smiling.

After lunch Martha pulled me aside. “I need your help in the herb garden.”

Nobody ever dared to ask if they could join her. Martha always worked alone.

“Are you serious?”

“Don't make me regret asking,” she said.

She gave me a quick tour of the garden, pointing at plants and reciting names—bear grass, blue flax, brass buttons, cat's ear, skullcap, periwinkle, vetch, pennyroyal—then she set me to work weeding.

“You're not staying?” I asked as she walked off toward the garden gate.

“You're crushing my foxglove,” she said.

She picked up a wooden carryall full of tools, tucked a spade under her arm, and walked to the middle of the lawn, where for the next hour she did nothing but stare at the grass. At least to me it looked like she was doing nothing, but clearly that wasn't the case, because suddenly she sank to her knees with a trowel and began to dig.

“Do you need any help?” I called out, curious.

She waved her hand at me, not even bothering to look up.

At first I felt insulted that she was ignoring me, but after a while I grew to appreciate the silence. With my hands in the dirt, the sun beating down on my shoulders, a now-familiar expansiveness bloomed inside of me. An internal settling. An openness through which the world poured in. I used to get that feeling at Lapis Lake. If there were a drug that made you feel this way, I'd have become an addict.

“It's called a Horologium Florae,” Martha explained later that afternoon. She'd dug a large circle in the grass. The circle was sectioned off into twelve wedges.

“A flower clock. It was first hypothesized by a Swedish botanist in the 1700s. You plant a dozen flowers, each of them programmed to open and close at a specific hour. At the one o'clock section you plant a flower whose blooms open at one. At the two o'clock section you plant a flower whose blooms open at two. The blooms tell you what time it is. Like a sundial, only with flowers. Of course, I'll have to wait until summer to plant, but I wanted to mark out the space before the first frost.”

She pointed at each section in turn: “Goatsbeard there, then morning glory, then hawkweed, then purple poppy mallow. Then, I'm sorry to say, I'll have to use lettuce—there's nothing else that will bloom at that hour. On to swamp rose mallow and marsh sowthistle. Then fameflower and hawkbit. I'm still working out the rest.”

I was surprised to hear her talking this way. Martha wasn't the kind of gardener who forced things. She kept her herb garden neatly weeded, but she encouraged the mingling of species. She abhorred fussy plants and hothouses.