Free Stiltsville: A Novel by Susanna Daniel Page B

between us. I wanted to say to her: I know what a crush is. And I know how difficult it is to look into your future and see nothing real, and how easy it is to conjure excitement out of thin air, just to have something to keep you going. I said, “I behaved badly, I know.” This was something it had taken me a while to admit to myself, though of course I didn’t regret what I’d done. I said, “I was hoping you’d forgiven me.”
    There was a streak of mud across her forehead and another on her shorts. She wiped her brow with her forearm and pulled another beer from the cooler. She handed it to me. “I forgave you a long time ago.” She sat down beside me. After a moment she said, “Maybe we’ll do it again next year. But after that I’ll be living in the south of France with my rich husband, and you two will be having babies and all that nonsense—”
    Bette, returning from the trees, caught the tail end of Marse’s sentence. “Not me,” she said. “No babies.”
    “You don’t think you’ll have them?” said Marse, and Bette said, “No way.”
    Bette rummaged through her bag and Marse and I stood up to finish cleaning the campsite. After I’d filled a trash bag, I turned to say something to Bette—I don’t recall what—and I noticed that she had a pair of silver scissors in one hand, and a good-sized chunk of her blond hair in the other hand. “What are you doing?” I said. She smiled, then closed the scissors. Marse and I gaped at her.
    “You’re crazy,” said Marse. “Benjamin is going to kill you.”
    “Benny doesn’t care about my hair.”
    “Your mother is going to kill you,” I said.
    “I don’t care about my mother.”
    “Why are you doing this?” Marse said.
    “Why not?” said Bette. “Do you have a mirror? I want to make sure it’s even.”
    “I have one,” I said. I went to my tent and fished a compact from my bag. When I returned, Marse caught my eye and shook her head. I handed the compact to Bette. “Much obliged,” she said. She opened the compact and looked at the part of her head where the hair was gone, then tried to resume cutting while holding the mirror in one hand.
    For a moment, Marse and I watched her snip awkwardly behind one ear. Then I sat down on the bench next to her. “Here,” I said, taking the mirror. I held it up, but I couldn’t get the angle right and she kept having to adjust it to keep sight of herself. I said, “Give me the scissors.” She hesitated. “I know what I’m doing,” I said. I’d cut my mother’s hair twice a year for more than a decade. I handed her the mirror and she handed me the scissors. I sat behind her, facing her back.
    “Holy Moses,” said Marse.
    My hands shook a little. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
    “Let’s not get sentimental,” said Bette. “It’s just a bit of hair .”
    The scissors were sharp and cut easily. Her hair fell to the ground in feathery blond bits. I spent a long time making sure all the pieces were even before I stopped. Her new do was less than an inch in length, as short as a boy’s. She looked in the mirror. “Much better,” she said. She stood up and walked a few feet away, then turned around to pose like a model in a catalog, touching her head with both hands. “It’s adorable, isn’t it?”
    “It is kind of adorable,” I said.
    “Hell of a job,” said Marse to me.
    “Let’s go for a ride,” said Bette.
    We launched the last canoe and climbed in. Bette sat in front and Marse sat in back, which left me cross-legged in the well between them. As we made our way down the shadowy creek, I leaned against the yoke of the canoe and looked up at the cypress canopy, at the river of sky that flowed between the trees. It was like paddling down the nave of a cathedral. I closed my eyes. After a few minutes, I was jarred by a wild splashing and the tipping of the canoe to port and back to starboard, and when I opened my eyes Bette was standing at the bow, legs wide,