After several minutes of quiet brushing, Polly gave a long yawn. “I suppose it’s time for bed.” The trundle shifted as she slid off to stand and switched off the light.
Helen slid down under her covers into the space warmed by where they had been sitting. “Good night.”
“Good night, my dear.”
Helen gazed upward at the woman’s standing figure, slatted with silver streaks of moonlight sifting through the window. Polly stretched her arms upward and—to Helen’s amazement—lifted her slip and held it overhead like she was using it as a kite awaiting a breeze. She dropped it to the foot of the bed and stooped to shimmy out of her underpants, then straightened—stark naked. Helen watched, mesmerized, as the woman crawled onto the bed and disappeared under the bedspread.
Helen’s face burned as if on fire. She never had been so grateful for the cover of darkness.
How much time passed? Later, when she tried to recall exactly what happened next, she could never be sure. All she could remember was that she startled at the touch of fingers grazing her forearms as they crept along her skin to her shoulders. Helen cracked her eyes open to find Polly leaning over her, a tender expression playing across the woman’s face.
Helen inhaled sharply and pushed herself up onto her elbow to be closer, to see how Polly’s skin glowed luminous in the moonlight. “You’re beautiful,” Helen murmured.
It was at that point Polly leaned in and brought her lips to Helen’s. Astonished, Helen squeezed her eyes closed and concentrated on the gentle pressure coming from the woman’s soft lips, the flicker of her tongue. Helen leaned in to deepen the kiss. This was nothing like what had happened with Jimmy years before in the school’s outbuilding. This was tender and soft. Every part of her tingled. Her eyes shot open. How can people close their eyes during this? She wanted to see exactly what was happening, to make sense of what was happening.
This felt both entirely unexpected, yet also somehow exactly like what she had been waiting for. At first she didn’t know what to do, and she watched how Polly’s face transformed into delight, so she settled into feeling what was happening instead of thinking about it.
The two became breathless as they merged into a tangle, hands everywhere, sighs of delight. An urgency overcame Helen and she pressed her body harder against Polly’s. It felt as if her insides were reconfiguring into a million sparks. And then an explosion blossomed deep inside Helen—at some point her eyes had closed, but now they popped open in both shock and thrilled excitement. She tried to catch her breath. How had she gotten carried away and let all caution evaporate?
Gently, Polly began to extract herself from the bed and Helen’s heart stalled, but when she pushed her hair from her face to get a better look at Polly, a sated smile stretched across the other woman’s face. Helen exhaled. Polly had seen Helen stripped of all pretending and not only was she not disgusted—she looked pleased.
Tears came to Helen’s eyes, and she felt weak with relief. Under the sheets, she stretched, enjoying a languorous sensation of fulfillment, drifting off to sleep. She was no longer alone.
HELEN AWOKE THE next morning feeling as though she was trying to cling to the outline of a memory that was just out of reach. The harder she tried to remember it, the further it retreated. She blinked from the heaviness of sleep and turned toward the whisper of her bedroom door closing in time to see the disappearing figure of Miss Albright. Helen’s breath caught in her throat.
Miss Albright. Or Polly?
In the glowing light of morning, Helen flinched. Visions of the two of them tangled together swept through her. Was it a dream? Surely what had happened—if it had happened—couldn’t have been right. Miss Albright had to be older, but how much older? Helen’s mind spun. Whatever might have happened last night—that was not what girls were supposed to do with each other.
She pried herself from the bed. The hands on the clock were already nearing seven o’clock. She washed and dressed in work clothes and descended the stairs.
Helen entered the kitchen and avoided looking at Ma and Miss Albright, focusing her attention on Bobbie Lee instead. His damp blond hair still revealed the tines of the comb that Ma must have dragged through it before starting breakfast. As she took her seat, Miss Albright said, “Good morning. Your hair still looks shiny and smooth.” She then turned to Ma and said, “Helen let me brush her hair last night and look at how marvelous she looks.”
Ma approached Helen with a freshly topped-off tureen of oatmeal that she placed in the middle of the table. “I can’t even remember the last time Helen let me near her with a hairbrush.”
Pa entered the kitchen from the yard and reached for an empty coffee cup from a cupboard, appraising his daughter. “Just like a horse, she looks better with a little grooming.”
Miss Albright’s jaw appeared to tighten. “Good morning, Mr. Stephens.”
“Don’t mind me,” he said, his voice gruff as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Just here for a refill before I head to the back fourth of the fields.”
Helen reached for the coffeepot.
Ma, not missing a thing, put her hands on her hips. “So now that you’re living in town, you’re drinking coffee? Better put milk in there. You’re only fourteen. Too much of that stuff at your age will stunt your growth.”
Pa chuckled. “Maybe stunting her growth wouldn’t be the worst thing. Make her look a little more like a girl.”
Helen pretended she hadn’t heard and instead turned to look at Miss Albright, but
