Lady of the Lake by Emma Hyche

Author’s Note:  I think this story had some nice moments, especially those of description or reflection. I also think the narrator has a distinct voice. Unfortunately, those might be its only good characteristics. I’m concerned that the drama of the story merges into melodrama. I also have difficulties, as someone who is primarily a poet, with my prose being too “dense” or wordy. I’m also wondering whether it’s necessary to devote more time to developing the secondary characters, besides Ruby and Augustine. Even these primary characters seem a little flat, at least to me. Lastly, I have always had difficulty making dialogue seem natural and actually conversational. This story was partially inspired by the exercise with my memory of water, and my own experiences of being markedly different from my peers in a small Southern town. 

Lady of the Lake

When I was sixteen, I fell violently in love with the Pre-Raphaelites. Not the artists themselves, but their the muses. I would hole myself up in the attic with The Pre-Raphaelite Collection and stare at the women, or not-women, the nymphs or goddesses or angels. They always had waves of flowing hair, blonde or red or black, loose and radiant or coiled in braids like snakes. It was fine and static, electrified. They were always pale, skin lit from within by perpetual moonlight. They moved in my mind’s eye with a languidness that belied their power. Though beautiful, they were not docile. They were not to be rescued or married or saved. The women of Millais, Rossetti, and Waterhouse were possessed of their own tragic ends, which were always lying just outside the frame of the artist’s view. The doom was visible only in their eyes. 

I hid these books in the box of my father’s clothes that my mother still kept in the attic as a gesture of hope. Over the years of relocation, I’d learned from experience that this was one of the only good things about new houses: the multiplicity of new hiding spots. I didn’t have to hide them–they were not Playboys or pornos. Such a nascent thing as my emerging sexuality would not have stood up to the frankness of such an exposure. The secrecy wasn’t strictly necessary, but the secrecy was power, a live wire I could pull from my pocket and examine at will without singeing my fingers. 

Late at night, I would often sit under the glare of a bare bulb in the attic, turning the pages of textbooks and tracing sketches of otherworldly women in pencil. I could never master the delicacy necessary to capture the fineness of their limbs, the expressions in their eyes. Still, I thrilled to see them taking clumsy, malformed shape under my touch. I’d listen for the sounds of my mother coming home from the hospital night shift, for the rumble of the garage door and the creaking of floorboards.         Occasionally she would start the walk up the stairs to my room, and I’d have to scramble down the steps to lie in my bed, faking sleep. The door would creak open and I would lie very still, breathing slow and deep. Eventually the stairs would groan and I’d hear the murmur of late night television through the floorboards. We had our distances, my mother and I. When I was sixteen in Verona, Mississippi, I couldn’t have said the word “lesbian” out loud without blushing. So I didn’t. My mother, with her unerring intuition, must have sensed my secret, but we circled the truth like vultures. We were two silent planets whose orbits did not overlap. 

She was Pre-Raphaelite incarnate. I saw her first in the second floor bathroom of Robinson High School. Not even a proper glance, just a flash of blue and a swishing curtain of hair in the mirror. Maybe the lingering smell of orange, but that was probably just wishful thinking. 

I saw her later in art class, leaning over a table covered in magazine scraps and newspaper clippings, holding a glue stick. Our eyes met and she smiled. I settled into a stool by my easel as the other students came in, chatting with one another as they collected supplies and began to work. Studio art was, not surprising, not a very popular class among the student body, but Ms. Diamond did not diminish her enthusiasm for the subject based on its poor attendance. Most people in the class were taking advantage of the few college prep classes the school had to offer. Some were genuinely interested in art. Some were inexplicable, like Liam, the football player who sat in the back of the class and drew clumsy pictures of his dog. The little bracelets constantly sliding up and down Ms. Diamond’s arms tinkled as she clapped her hands for our attention. 

“My cherubs! Before you begin, we have a new student joining us today. Her name is Augustine. So, tell us a little about yourself!”

Augustine stood. “Hi, I’m Augustine, like the saint but not really.” The explanation rolled off her tongue, well-practiced. She waved weakly around the room, sweeping a curtain of red brown hair behind her shoulder. “I’m fifteen and I just moved here from Topeka, Kansas. I mostly do collage. So, I guess that’s it.” She sat down, drawing the stool closer to the table so sharply the metal legs squeaked protestingly against the tile. Tucking unruly red strands behind her ears, she looked fixedly at the paper in front of her, already covered with magazine clippings thickly overlaid. 

“Well everyone, let’s make Augustine feel welcomed at Robinson. Carry on!” she said grandly. 

I set to work slowly, each motion calculated with the reserve hardly concealing desperation. Desperation to be noticed, to be admired. Sensations of shyness were largely new to me; normally I strode the halls of Robinson High School with little regard for the opinions of others. My clothing was largely covered in spots of paint. I wore big clunky boots from Goodwill and my mother’s clothing from her childhood in the 70s. It was the way I imagined a student at the Rhode Island School of Design might dress. I had no evidence for this belief other than my certainty that RISD students were wrapped up so firmly in their art they couldn’t devote much mental energy to trivial matters of appearance. 

I painted more quickly than I usually did, slapping down streaks of red and blue so thick the canvas was crusted with paint. At every opportunity I stole glances at Augustine, working steadily to the quiet snick of scissors and rustle of paper. In my peripheral I could have sworn she glanced at me too. When I couldn’t bear the tension any longer, I set the brush down and approached her table. 

“Hi, I’m Ruby. It’s Augustine, right?”

She answered like she’d expected me, smiling a little. “My mom usually calls me that, but August is fine, if you’d like.”

I held my hand out for a handshake and felt immediately stupid. This was high school, not a business meeting. She took the gesture in kind, giggling a little. It was a laugh of appreciation rather than mockery, and I felt my confidence grow in its warmth. 

“What was Kansas like?” I asked. 

She sighed. “It was very flat,” she said, “ and the people weren’t very used to anybody different than them.”

“Well, then I’m sorry to say you’ll hate Mississippi.”

She laughed. “Everyone seems nice so far. You do, at least.”

Joy bloomed in me. I had never felt this kind of magnetism with another girl before. As wary as I was to open myself to the possibility of rejection or ridicule, the need to make her laugh again was stronger. The energy between us was too volatile for assumptions of heteronormativity. 

I took a a deep breath and spoke quickly, before the rush of courage faded. “Would you like to go out sometime? There’s not much to do, but I could show you around the town. We could go to dinner. Or something.”

She looked around quickly, as if worried our classmates could hear us. Satisfied we were not overheard, she finally said, “Um. I haven’t really gone out with…it’s all new to me, but sure. Yes. I’d like that.” We both smiled in the heat of the silence and she tucked her hair behind her ears in another nervous gesture. 

I returned to my seat and painted with even greater vigor than before. At the end of class my canvas was a complete mess, a maelstrom of color and shapes. I walked to the window to set the canvas in the light of the Mississippi sun beating through the window to dry. August was sweeping the trash of her clippings from the table and into a trash can. When I returned to my stool, she was waiting for me. Taking my hand in hers, she scribbled a series of numbers onto my palm with a marker. 

“So you have it,” she said. 

I smiled. “Thanks.”

She turned to go, but before she did, she wiped a fleck of paint from my cheek with her finger. She laughed, and walked out of the classroom. I left school playing the sound of her laughter back and forth in my head like a tape recorder, thrilling at the sound. 

Over the next few weeks grew to be inseparable. We drove around Verona late at night, parking the car by the train tracks and watching the trains pass in glowing red lights, listening to David Bowie. I showed her my room, embarrassed at the admissions brochures from RISD that I’d tacked to the door. In class we worked side by side. I was oblivious to the whispers of the other students, the way the rumors spread and football players snickered at me in the hall. My mother watched us curiously, but she did not inquire. At that point, I couldn’t have explained it either. That period in my memory is only blurs of nervous happiness, of the indefinite edge between platonic and intimate. 

She came to knew most everything about me, but her home life was a mystery to me. After a few weeks, however, she invited me to spend the evening at her house. When I arrived, I was surprised by how small it was. August answered the door, her voice higher than usual and her movements flighty with nerves. Mrs. Montclair was washing dishes when we came into the kitchen. She shook my hand with soapy water running down my arms and looked at me with an unusual intensity. 

I reached for August’s hand when her mother turned to dry her hands, but she pressed it to my side, shaking her head in a tiny motion. 

“So, Ruby, do you know any nice young men that Augustine could meet?”

I didn’t understand. Her mother looked at me expectantly over her shoulder, smiling. 

“I don’t think so. That’s not really my specialty, I guess.”

Mrs. Miller looked at me with a quizzical frown. August cut in sharply, “There aren’t really any boys I’m interested in at school, Mom. I’ve told you.”

“Watch your mouth.”

Understanding dawned on me in pieces, as if reluctant to admit itself. 

“Good families are important. Strong principles, too. What does your father do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s not around.”

There was an awkward silence, punctuated by the soft dripping of the rain on the kitchen window. August pulled me towards her room, muttering to her mother that we had homework to do. 

When we were inside, I asked, “What did your mom mean? Haven’t you come out to her yet?”

As I spoke, she hurried around the room, stuffing socks into dresser drawers and and placing the books scattered across her bed on the bookshelf. Her gestures were nervous and I thrilled at the power in her fear. 

“I…no, I haven’t. She’s…she wouldn’t take that well.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Neither of them would. My dad is the minister at the Baptist church on Palmetto. I love them but I can’t talk to them, you know?”

I knew, but I wished the knowledge away. For the first time in my life I wanted my feelings validated in small-town-high-school way: I had nourished myself on visions of us holding hands in the hallway, posing together at the prom. I thought at that moment that she would eventually come around. 

As we talked about other things the atmosphere softened. I looked through the enormous piles of collage materials she collected under her bed: magazines, old books, brochures, pamphlets, and newspapers. We shared tiny sips of a bottle of whiskey she’d hidden under her bed, each pretending to enjoy the taste. We kissed and pretended we were less eager for each other than we were. When you’re sixteen and in love with someone you think about the strangest things: The freckle on the edge of her bottom lip. The crisscrossing pattern of lavender veins on her eyelids. The incomprehensibility of hipbones.  

September in Mississippi is exasperating. The air was so sticky and syrupy my lungs wheezed with every inhale. Augustine and I hiked up the hills into the forest of trees overlooking the lake. The grassless path was bordered in teenage detritus: glass Coke bottles, cigarettes, a vodka bottle in which a swollen mother spider had spun a thicket of webs. I wanted to hold her hand so badly my fingers twitched, but I was afraid she would be disgusted by the sheen of sweat building on my palms, the pulse throbbing in my fingertips. As we climbed, our fingers brushed and I felt an electric tingle travel up my spine. 

We reached the top, and followed the slope down to where it dropped off, a sharp descent covered with vines and crumbling rock to the green waters of Waxahatchee Lake. Local kids used to jump from this cliff when the water was high, despite the signs posted in the parking lot warning against it. For a moment we just stood there, panting. August bent over, turning her head to grin at me. Patterns of shadows and light moved like water over her face. All around us were the tiny sounds of animals, of leaves rubbing against each other, of creaking limbs. 

“God, I’m so out of shape,” she said. 

“Me too,” I said. 

She smiled, twisting her hair into a shining cord, which she bound up with an elastic and a faded paisley headband. “No you’re not, you’re not even breathing that hard. Me on the other hand…” 

“You’re not too bad,” I say. 

She laughed and it was like light on water. “Yeah, sure. You’re just being nice.”

We looked out over the lake, forty feet below us. Bugs skimmed along the surface. Fish surfaced then dived back to the muddy bottom. They’d found a body in here once, with a baby inside her stomach. I took her hand, and she laced her fingers through mine. The current between us was incandescent. She leaned her head against my shoulder. We sat on the edge of the cliff, dangling our legs over the edge. She smoothed the hair from my forehead and kissed me, the excitement heightened by elevation and apparent solitude. 

We didn’t notice them until the boy spoke. 

“Well, well, what do we have here?” August and I spun to see a group of boys standing at the top of the slope. They were older than us; I recognized the speaker from school. He was one of the football players who whispered slurs at me as I passed in the hallway. The name on the back of his Robinson Football jersey read “Carter.”

“I always knew there was something wrong with you,” he said. August was very still beside me.        There were four of them. In the back of the group, I saw Liam. 

“Why don’t you just leave us along?” I asked them.

Carter laughed. “Isn’t your dad the preacher at church?” he said, looking at August. She didn’t answer. “He probably wouldn’t be very happy to find out his daughter was a dyke. That’s just not the way things are done here.”

The other boys, except Liam, laughed. He looked at the ground, discomfort on his face. Without thinking I stood and walked towards him, despite August clutching at my arm. 

“What did you just say?” I snarled.

He looked me in the eyes and his voice was soft and dangerous. “You heard me.” 

August tugged at me. “C’mon Ruby, let’s go.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” I said to her. I stood eye to eye with Carter. “You’re just a stupid low-life with no future who’s going to live your entire life and die in this town. You’re nothing.”

Augustine groaned and begged, “Please, Ruby, stop. It’s not worth it.”

Carter did not look away from me. “You should listen to your girlfriend. You know what you need?”

Liam muttered, “Dude, stop.” 

“Shut up,” Carter yelled at him. 

Several things happened at once. Carter reached for Augustine. Liam shouted something I did not understand. August threw herself against me and I fell over the edge of the cliff. My limbs flailed like a rag doll in the air as visions of green spun. Just before my body hit the water, I heard Augustine scream. 

I spent September on my back. The doctor said I was lucky more bones had not broken with the impact of my body on the limbs of the tree submerged in the murk. When I was in the hospital, delirious with pain medicine, my mother held my hand. Liam and Augustine had driven to the hospital with my body in the back of his pickup truck, she told me. August did not stay. I didn’t want to consider why, what had been done to her, the violence I had incited. I tried to call her from my hospital bed, and later my bed at home, with no success. I was growing frantic, but my back and ankle were still too fragile to attempt to drive anywhere. 

Two days after I was transported home, I woke up from a nap to find her standing in the doorway of my room. 

“Hi,” she said softly. 

The questions I wanted to ask dried up in her tone. 

“Hi.” 

She walked to me and sat on the end of my bed. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay at the hospital,” she said. 

“It’s okay. I just wish you had called me. I’ve been worrying so much.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She wouldn’t look at me. 

“Are you…okay? Did they hurt you?”

She looked at me, her eyes blank and bottomless. “Liam stopped them before they got too far.”

I did not want to consider the implications of her words. 

“Liam?”

She nodded. “He’s been coming around a lot, trying to make things better. My mom really likes him.”

Nausea. “I’m sure she does,” I said, my voice more biting than I intended. 

Augustine looked at me, and I saw tears pool in her eyes. 

“What did you want me to do? I can’t be as free as you can,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word. “They said they would tell my parents. They’d kick me out. I can’t.”  

“But you can’t seriously expect to live a lie for the rest of your life, August, you can’t.”

She did not speak for a while. “I can’t think that far ahead. I don’t have that luxury.”

“But you don’t have to spend time with Liam to please your mom. That’s messed up,” I said, frustrated.

“He’s trying to make up for it, what they did that…he couldn’t stop,” she said. “He’s kind to me. He doesn’t ask anything of me.”

I couldn’t speak. We sat in silence as the sun crawled across the floor of my bedroom. She held my hand until I fell asleep, and when I woke up, she was gone. 

I took to waiting outside her father’s church on Sundays, sitting in my car in the parking lot and watching the people enter and spill out and hearing the organ music. I never got the timing right–I never saw her. Once a woman invited me inside and tried to tell me about Jesus. I stopped going to the Verona Baptist church. 

I saw Augustine for the last time before I left for Rhode Island. It was at our graduation. She walked across the stage stiffly, her back straight and eyes forward. Her hair was gone. All those auburn waves, the braids coiled like lavender-scented snakes along her skull. All gone, chopped so roughly it seemed to tuft in several different directions at once from under that awkward graduation cap. I could picture her in the act, at the bathroom mirror, grabbing hanks and working at them with child’s scissors until the strands piled at her feet like snow. As she reached to shake hands with Mr. Fagan’s hand to shake it, the cap began to slide from her head. She grabbed it and steadied it, smiling tight-lipped as he handed her the paper. 

The air conditioner whirred, and women fanned themselves with folded programs in the stifling heat of Mississippi summer. I walked across the stage three dozen names later, the wedge of my heels thudding hollowly on the metal steps. My mother had insisted I wear the shoes for the occasion, though I’d warned her of the safety hazards involved. As the superintendent called my name, I walked towards Mr. Fagan’s grim smile. My ankle wobbled with a twinge of pain, and I stumbled, only just managing to keep from falling. I heard gasps from the audience, and felt the collective heat of snickers stifled under hands. Unthinkingly I looked out at the theatre, and saw Augustine staring at me. She gave me a small smile, and inclined her head at the stage. 

As I shook Principal Fagan’s hand, he said stiffly, “Best of luck to you, Ms. Cirillo.” There was a river system of wrinkles flowing from the corners of his eyes. I thanked him and wobbled my way down the ramp. I kept a smile on to pretend I wasn’t embarrassed. I felt the eyes of my classmates rake over my face and fixed my eyes on the back wall as I walked to my seat. 

In the parking lot, I saw August with her family and Liam. They posed together for a picture, arms hung loosely around each other. When the camera clicked, their hands fell to their sides again to smooth shirts and dresses down. Liam was sweating in the May heat, and he tugged at his collar with one hand and wiped away the drops sliding down his forehead with the other. Mrs. Montclair gestured Liam and August together. They stood side by side and she took photo after photo. They smiled uncomfortably with their arms hanging by their sides. Liam said something that made August smile. It is a small smile, and she didn’t turn to look at him, but it’s there. The orange sun soaked into her hair, lighting it rich and dark. 

In my dreams of her now, years later, she is happy and her joy is palpable, beautiful. The sunlight is falling in her face as she swims in the green waters of Waxahatchee Lake and she’s squinting into it, looking in my direction, but not seeing me. The future is foreseeable in her eyes only; it holds her to no expectations. There is no fear in her eyes and no secrets to keep. Her skin is honey and silk. I think of her often, especially when I see the Pre-Raphaelite Collection on my shelf. 

My mother started the car. The air conditioning whined and blew the hair from my face. We pulled out of the parking lot and away from August and Liam, still standing beside each other. I didn’t look back to see if she watched us go or if she even saw me at all. In my mouth I felt all the things I want to say to her, all the things I can’t. And still can’t. They are hard and unyielding, like pebbles from the bottom of the lake.