Patrick slipped his hands under her shirt. He unsnapped her bra and cupped her breasts in his hands. Electricity shot through her.
Hmmmm, the voices said.
“You’re lovely,” Patrick said.
Elizabeth took off her shirt and bra. In the mirror, she saw her pink-nippled breasts, her long hair and round face, Patrick sitting next to her with his long legs dangling. Her stomach grew cold.
“Are you still okay with this?” he said.
“Yes,” Elizabeth whispered.
“What about...?”
Reaching under the pillow, she pulled out the rubber she’d stolen from her father.
Patrick took off his shirt and she ran her hand through his chest hair. His nipples were brown, his chest lightly freckled. He had a scar on his abdomen.
“Appendicitis,” he said when she touched it. “I was ten.”
You will always regret it, said the voices in her head.
She put her hand on his stomach. His finger teased her nipple until it was hard.
“What are you smiling about?” he said, pulling her down on his chest. Their skin warmed together.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
There was the awkwardness of Patrick turning away from her, struggling with the condom.
He stroked Elizabeth’s back, pulled her to him, and mounted her, and the aunts and mothers in her head resumed that odd, Hmmm.
Then Elizabeth split in two: the Elizabeth on the bed who felt the lushness of Patrick entering her, slowly, the slight pain, then the warmth of him filling her; and the Elizabeth who hovered above herself, watching, listening to her murmurs in counterpoint to the rattle of the bed.
They woke up in a tangle of covers, sheets, and clothes. The window was still dark.
“Oh my God,” Patrick said, “are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She wasn’t. She was shaky and upset. She wanted to be alone.
She got up to wash the blood from between her legs. As she crossed the room, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and stopped to see if she looked different. She didn’t, but she felt different, like one of those pod people who hatched into perfect but emotionless replicas of themselves.
It was the new version of her that slipped on Patrick’s shirt, buttoning it halfway. She opened the door, stepped out into the hall, and came face to face with Lillian.
The old woman was returning from the bathroom with her bent aluminum pie pan dripping with water, trembling in her unsteady hands. Her eyes registered the man’s shirt and glanced through the doorway before Elizabeth could pull it shut.
“You scared me,” said Elizabeth. “Are you feeding your cat?”
“I have no cat,” Lillian nearly spit. In her worn-thin nightgown, Lillian appeared even older, her back humped, her hair hanging in white wisps about her shoulders. Looking into her dark, empty eyes, Elizabeth wondered if she was demented.
“I guess we both have secrets,” Elizabeth said.
The woman’s mouth cracked open but no sound came out — a thin line of spittle stretched from one lip to the next. She pressed her lips back together and hurried down the hall, her footsteps scratching like paws.
Shit, thought Elizabeth.
She used the bathroom and returned to bed, trying to concentrate on Patrick’s smooth skin, the brush of his hair across her face, his smell of sweat and soap. The words fouled this earth flashed across her brain and then she was lost, remembering the warmth of him entering her. She wanted to stay inside herself, on this bed, in this room, but she rose up and out of herself. Hearing the voices and their deep, guttural Hmmmmm, she imagined the mouths of mothers and grandmothers opening and closing like fish out of water until they lost the ability to breathe. Elizabeth imagined the sound of a clear, single note that seemed to arrive from a distant galaxy.
Blood dripped into a pad between Elizabeth’s legs as she sat with the other pages at the front of the room. Patrick was just three seats away from her, his hair brushing his collar.
The delegates were discussing wording for a clean and healthful environment, which had come up for a third and final vote. It was late in the day, late in the convention. Everyone was rushed and frenzied by the sense that this moment in history was winding down. The air was thick with cigarette smoke.
A Missoula delegate with sideburns stood to read his revision of the amendment: “The state of Montana and each person must maintain and enhance a clean and healthful environment in the state for the enjoyment and protection of present and future generations.”
“Oh Lord,” another delegate sighed. “Haven’t we been through this?”
A buzzer buzzed. Elizabeth got up to answer it.
“Coffee,” Peg said. “We’re gonna be here awhile. You all right? You look tired.”
“Just that time of the month,” Elizabeth lied, her stomach knotting.
Peg patted her hand. “Oh, hon, I’m so sorry.”
The click of Elizabeth’s shoes on black-and-white tiles hammered into her brain as she walked to the coffee stand. Through an opened window in the rotunda, she saw wet snow falling and smelled the sweetness of budding cottonwoods. It surprised her that outside the riot of her body and the chaos in the rotunda, there were still seasons.
She delivered the coffee and returned to her black mahogany chair.
After hours of wrangling, a young delegate rose, cleared his throat, and said to the assembly: “When you go home, and a voter asks you what you did for the environment, what are you going to say? That we’re all for clean and healthful, but we don’t want to use the words in our constitution?”
The amendment passed, 68 to 26.
The next day was Saturday, her day to ride home with Peg. When Elizabeth walked downstairs to go to breakfast, Mrs. Neal and Lillian were waiting at the desk like clerks at a hotel. Lillian had taken some care with her appearance and was wearing a blue polka-dotted dress.
“Why, you are just the person we’re looking for,” said Mrs. Neal in a saccharine voice.
Elizabeth went numb.
“Why don’t you sit down?”
It wasn’t a question. She lowered herself on the doily- covered chair in the front room.
A door opened and Peg walked in. She nodded curtly at the two older women, two small red circles burning in her cheeks.
Elizabeth began to shake.
“Let’s leave these Missoula people alone, Lillian,” Mrs. Neal said.
The woman in the polka-dotted dress seemed reluctant to leave. She opened her mouth and Elizabeth pictured the thin strand of saliva that had spanned her lips that night in the hall.
Lillian said: “Some people seem to just think they’re above the rules. Awful high and mighty.”
Mrs. Neal shut the door behind them before Elizabeth could respond.
Peg turned on her. “I’m so mad I could spit. How could you do this to yourself? To your parents? To me?”
Elizabeth stared at her hands. She tested the nubby brown brocade fabric of the chair. She would forever think of shame as having exactly this texture.
“Why would you, a good girl, a straight-A student with everything to lose, risk it all for a night in the sack?”
Elizabeth lifted her head and stared at Peg. Over the noise in her head — chippie, slut, whore — and despite the way her face seemed frozen, she forced the words out: “Because I chose to.”