A Thousand Acres_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [139]
“Why?”
“Because I want to tell you the truth.”
“Then just tell me.” I said it, but I knew I didn’t want to hear it.
She said, “I realize that having lovers is not something that women around here do, though I suspect it goes on more than we think. I know you disapprove, but it’s important to me that you understand. He’s the first one I trust.”
“The first one?” I was only parroting her. I didn’t really have the sense that I knew what I was saying, but she seemed satisfied that my responses were adequately conversational.
“Okay, yes.” She rocked back on her heels. “I was promiscuous in college, and maybe a little in high school, too, but since Pete, there’s only been one before Jess. I always thought one of them would have to supersede Daddy eventually. That was what I thought at the beginning. Later I thought if there were enough of them it would sort of put him in context, or diminish him somehow.” She looked at me again. “You know what Pete always said? That I had what he called frenzied dislike of sex. Anyway, I didn’t tell him about Daddy for a long time.”
“Who was the one since Pete?” I expected her, frankly, to say Ty.
“It was Bob Stanley, but it was nothing. It lasted a summer.”
Then she said, “This is love.”
I said, “What does that mean?” I’m sure I sounded hostile, but she chose to take this as a real question. I was staring right at her. The look on her face evolved from challenging to doubtful to speculative to careful.
She said, “Well, of course it’s exciting. But I know that will go away. It’s only been about three weeks that we’ve been sleeping together, and it’s hard to find the privacy, as you can imagine.”
She paused, then went on. “He seems to have this sense about my body—” She eyed me, went gingerly on, “He just looks at it a lot, you know, touches it as if he appreciates it. He says, you know, that my shoulders are a nice shape, or that he likes my backbone. He sees me differently than other men have.”
I remembered what he said about the fiancée, her eyes and teeth. He’d admired my ankles. I remembered how I had carefully protected and revisited that compliment for reassurance that Jess had seen and valued the real me.
“I know that stops. I know all that physical appreciation of the other person stops, but it’s nice. I mean, yes I know it stops, but I can’t get enough of it as long as it lasts. But it’s not really the important thing.”
“When that stops, doesn’t everything stop? I mean, isn’t that what affairs are all about?”
“Well, this is going on. This is it.”
I summoned a note of sympathy into my voice. We had walked a couple of hundred yards, so I turned back. I didn’t think Pammy should be left entirely alone, but I also yearned to be in sight of Jess Clark’s windows. “Rose,” I said, low and easy-sounding, “Jess’s a restless person. He’s never settled down. This stuff with Harold isn’t going to help him settle down, either. He’s had plenty of women, too. I would bet on that. Unless he positively commits himself—”
“But he has! I’ve been much more standoffish than he has. He’s always pushing me to just—”
“Just what?” I sounded so idle.
“Well, that’s what we can’t decide. Where. What. The girls. I mean, I even felt some loyalty to Pete after all the years and all the shit. Ginny, you’re white as a sheet.”
“Just keep walking. Did you tell Pete about Jess?”
“Yes.”
“That last day?”
“Weeks ago. Well, a week ago.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he was going to kill Daddy.”
“What?”
“I kid you not. His response to the news that I was going to leave him for Jess Clark was that he was going to kill Daddy, and if Harold got in the way, he would kill him, too.”
I pondered this.
“He emptied the water tank on Harold’s fertilizer tank.”
“Who told you that?”
“Pete did.”
Now this was shocking, something else I had not suspected at all. I said, “Jesus. What in God’s name was he thinking of?”
“He was thinking Daddy might be doing