Then the apparition spoke:

“Carpet munchers.”

“Just ignore him,” the Object said.

“Carrrrpet muncherrrrs,” Jerome repeated. It came out in a croak.

“Shut up!”

Jerome remained still and ghoul-like on the rail. His hair wasn’t slicked back but fell limp on either side of his face. He was very controlled and intent about what he was doing, as if following a time-honored procedure. “Carpet muncher,” he said again. “Carpet muncher, carpet muncher.” Singular now. This was between him and his sister.

“I said quit it, Jerome.” The Object now tried to rise. She swung her legs off my lap and started to roll out of the swing. But Jerome moved first. He spread his jacket like wings and jumped off the railing. He swooped down on the Object. Still his face was completely impassive. No muscles moved except those of his mouth. Into the Object’s face, into her ears he kept hissing and croaking. “Carpet muncher, carpet muncher, carpet muncher, carpet muncher.”

“Stop it!”

She tried to hit him but he caught her arms. He held both of her wrists in one hand. With his other hand Jerome made a V with his fingers. He pressed this V to his mouth and between this suggestive triangle flicked his tongue back and forth. At the crudity of this gesture the Object’s calm began to crack. A sob rose in her. Jerome sensed its arrival. He had reduced his sister to tears for over a decade; he knew how to do it; he was like a kid burning an ant with a magnifying glass, focusing the beam in hotter and hotter.

“Carpet muncher, carpet muncher, carpet muncher . . .”

And then it happened. The Object broke down. She began to bawl like a little girl. Her face turned red and she swung her fists wildly before finally running away into the house.

At that point Jerome’s fierce activity ceased. He adjusted his jacket. He smoothed his hair and, leaning against the porch rail, stared peacefully out at the water.

“Don’t worry,” he said to me. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Tell anyone what?”

“You’re lucky I’m such a liberal and freethinking type of guy,” he continued. “Most guys wouldn’t be so happy to find out that they’d been two-timed by a lesbian with their own sister. It’s sort of embarrassing, don’t you think? But I’m such a freethinker that I’m willing to overlook your proclivities.”

“Why don’t you shut up, Jerome?”

“I’ll shut up when I want to,” he said. Then he turned his head and looked at me. “You know where you are now? Splitsville, Stephanides. Get out of here and don’t come back. And keep your hands off my sister.”

I was already jumping up. My blood rocketed. It shot up my spine and rang a bell in my head, and I charged Jerome in a blaze of fury. He was bigger than me but unprepared. I hit him in the face. He tried to move away but I crashed into him, my momentum knocking him to the floor. I climbed on his chest, pinning his arms with my legs. Finally Jerome stopped resisting. He lay on his back and tried to look amused.

“Any time you’re finished,” he said.

It was an exhilarating feeling to be on top of him. Chapter Eleven had pinned me all my life. This was the first time I’d done it to somebody else, especially a boy older than me. My long hair was falling into Jerome’s face. I swept it back and forth, tormenting him. Then I remembered something else my brother used to do.

“No,” Jerome cried. “Come on. Don’t!”

I let it fall. Like a raindrop. Like a tear. But neither of those things. The spit plopped right between Jerome’s eyes. And then the earth opened up beneath us. With a roar Jerome rose up, sending me backward. My supremacy had been brief. Now it was time to run.

I took off across the porch. I jumped down the steps and tore across the back lawn, barefoot. Jerome came after me in his Dracula getup. He stopped to fling off the coat and I increased the distance between us. Through the backyards of the neighboring houses I ran, ducking under pine branches. I dodged bushes and barbecues. The pine needles gave good traction under my feet. Finally I reached the open field beyond and fled into it. When I looked back Jerome was gaining on me.

Through the high, yellow grass along the bayshore we flew. I jumped over the historical marker, grazing my foot, then hopped in pain and continued on. Jerome cleared it without a hitch. On the other side of the field was the road that led back to the house. If I could get over the rise, I could double back without Jerome seeing me. The Object and I could barricade ourselves in our room. I reached the hill and started up. Jerome came after me, scowling, still gaining.

We were like runners in a frieze. In profile, with pumping thighs and knifing arms, we cut through the shin-whipping grass. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill Jerome seemed to be slowing down. He was waving his hand in defeat. He was waving it and shouting something I couldn’t hear . . .

The tractor had just made a turn onto the road. High in his seat, the farmer didn’t see me. I was looking back to check on Jerome. When I finally turned forward it was too late. Right in front of me was the tractor tire. I hit it dead on. In the terracotta dust I was spun upward into the air. At the apex of my arc I saw the raised plow blades behind, the corkscrewing metal covered with mud, and then the race was over.

I awoke later, in the backseat of a strange automobile. A rattletrap, with blankets covering the seats. A decal of a hooked, flapping trout was pasted to the rear window. The driver wore a red cap. The little space above the cap’s adjustable headband showed the buzzed hairline of his seamed neck.

My head felt soft, as if covered in gauze. I was wrapped in an old blanket, stiff and spoked with hay. I turned my head and looked up and saw a beautiful sight. I saw the Object’s face from below. My head was in her lap. My right cheek was flush against the warm upholstery of her tummy. She was still in her bikini top and cutoffs. Her knees were spread and her red hair fell over me, darkening things. I gazed up through this maroon or oxblood space and saw what I could of her, the dark band of her swimsuit top, her clavicles set forward. She was chewing one cuticle. It was going to bleed if she kept it up. “Hurry,” she was saying, from the other side of the falling hair. “Hurry up, Mr. Burt.”

It was the farmer who was driving. The farmer whose tractor I’d run into. I hoped he wasn’t listening. I didn’t want him to hurry. I wanted this ride to go on for as long as possible. The Object was stroking my head. She’d never done this in daylight before.

“I beat up your brother,” I said out of the blue.

With one hand the Object swept her hair away. The light knifed in.

“Callie! Are you okay?”

I smiled up at her. “I got him good.”

“Oh God,” she said. “I was so scared. I thought you were dead. You were just ly—ly”—her voice broke—“lying there in the road!”

The tears came on, tears of gratitude now, not anger like before. The Object sobbed. With awe I beheld the storm of emotion racking her. She dipped her head. She pressed her snuffling, wet face against mine and, for the first and last time, we kissed. We were hidden by the backseat, by the wall of hair, and who was the farmer to tell anyway? The Object’s anguished lips met mine, and there was a sweet taste and a taste of salt.

“I’m all snotty,” she said, lifting her face up again. She managed to laugh.

But already the car was stopping. The farmer was jumping out, shouting things. He swung open the back door. Two orderlies appeared and lifted me onto a stretcher. They wheeled me across the sidewalk into the hospital doors. The Object remained at my side. She took my hand. For a moment she seemed to register her near nakedness. She looked down at herself when her bare feet hit the cold linoleum. But she shrugged this off. All the way down the hall, until the orderlies told her to stop, she held on to my hand. As though it were a string of Piraeus yarn. “You can’t come in, miss,” the orderlies said. “You have to wait here.” And so she did. But still she didn’t let go of my hand. Not for a while longer yet. The stretcher was wheeled down the corridor and my arm stretched out toward the Object. I had already left on my voyage. I was sailing across the sea to another country. Now my arm was twenty feet long, thirty, forty, fifty. I lifted my head from the stretcher to gaze at the Object. To gaze at the Obscure Object. For once more she was becoming a mystery to me. What ever happened to her? Where is she now? She stood at the end of the hall, holding my unraveling arm. She looked cold, skinny, out of place, lost. It was almost as if she knew we would never see each other again. The stretcher was picking up speed. My arm was only a thin ribbon now, curling through the air. Finally the inevitable moment came. The Object let go. My hand flew up, free, empty.