JOY WILLIAMS
247
She kisses Jenny and shows her the big, colorful watch. A tiny girl sits
on a swing within the watch's face . When Jenny winds it, the girl
starts swinging, the clock starts to run .
Jenny sits in the back. The car moves out into the street. She
hears a mother somewhere crying. Some mother, calling.
" Oh come back and let me rock you on your little swing! "
Jenny says nothing . She is propelled by sidereal energies . They
buckle and surge in her acquiescent , gnostic self. Loving, for her, will
not be a free choosing of her destiny .
It
WIll be the discovery of the
most fateful part of herself. She is with a
~an .
When he kisses her, he
covers her throat with his hand . He rubs his fingers lightly down the
tendons of her neck. He holds her neck in his big hand as he kisses
her over and over again.
"Raisin-Bran or Cheerios?" Jenny's mother asks. "Cheddar or
Swiss? ' ,
Jenny is just a little girl. She worries that there will not be
enough jam, not enough cookies . When she walks with her mother
through the supermarket, she nervously pats her mother's arm.
Now, at home, Jenny reads . She is precocious in this . When she
first discovered that she could read , she did not tell anyone about it.
The words took on the depths of patient, dangerous animals, and
Jenny cautiously lived alone with them for awhile. Now, however,
everyone realizes that she can read , and they are very proud of her.
Jenny reads in the newspaper that that day in San Luis Obispo ,
California, a seventeen-year-old girl came out of a clothing store,
looked around horrified , screamed, and died . The newspaper said
that several years previous
to
this , the girl's sister had woken early,
given a piercing scream, and died. The newspaper said that the
parents now fear for the welfare of their other two daughters .
Women suffer from the loss of a secret once known . Jenny will
realize this someday. Now, however , she merely thinks, "What is the
dread that women have?' ,
Jenny gets up and goes to her room. A stuffed bear is propped
on her bureau. She takes it
to
the kitchen and gives it some orange
juice . Then she takes it to the bathroom and puts it on the toilet seat
for a moment. Then she puts it to bed.
Jenny wakes crying in the night and rushes into her parents'
room. She is not sure of the time; she is not sure
if
they will be there .
