The strangest thing is that now that she’s really, truly in love with someone, they haven’t had sex. They kiss, they touch each other, but it’s not the right time to do anything more, they both feel that. This is a backward universe she’s in; all that she wouldn’t have understood before makes sense to her now. She doesn’t want her mother in on this, it’s too private, too perfect, and she’s certainly not going to sit and politely sip a cup of tea in the parlor while her mother interrogates Hank about what his favorite subject is at school, or whatever question parents think most reveals a boy’s character.
It is, after all, Gwen’s last day of freedom; she’s scheduled to attend classes at the high school starting tomorrow. And so this afternoon she has trekked over to the library, where Mrs. Miller teaches her how to use the microfilm so she can look Tarot up in old newspapers. The library in Jenkintown is a wonderful place built out of local brownstone. There are two reading rooms, furnished with old leather couches and well-worn chairs. It may not be the Boston Public Library, or the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library that her father takes her to, but so far Gwen has discovered six books about horse racing and Tarot is in two of them. Back then, his full name was Blue Moon’s Tarot’s Deck of Fortune, called after the Blue Moon farm in Virginia, where he was sired. There is his photograph as he heads for the finish at Belmont. There he is in the colors of Guardian Farm-blue and white-in the winners’ circle at Saratoga.
“You like racehorses?” some old man asks Gwen as she pages through the books. It’s Jimmy Parrish, who ran the stable at Guardian and worked at Pimlico when he was a boy.
“I guess I do,” Gwen admits.
Jimmy Parrish sits down across from her and begins to talk about his good old days. He’s so excited Gwen smiles and lets him ramble on as she looks at photographs from great races of the past. She’s not really listening until he starts to talk about Guardian Farm. If he remembers correctly, the families of the two men who were killed filed suit against Mr. Cooper, which pretty much finished the stable and wiped out the family financially. One of the men had been a jockey, the other a trainer from Louisiana, both men who knew their horses. Accidents happen, of course, but with Tarot situations always seemed premeditated. People thought the entire family was crazy when a few months after the out-of-court settlements they saw Belinda Cooper, God rest her soul, riding that racehorse as if he were nothing more dangerous than a Shetland pony.
That is when Gwen closes her book. Dust rises up from between the pages in a little gray cloud. “That’s my name too,” she tells Jimmy. “Cooper.”
When he realizes this girl is Richard Cooper’s daughter, Jimmy throws his arms around her as if she were a long-lost granddaughter. “I can’t believe it’s you,” he cries. He actually becomes so loud and teary that the librarian, Enid Miller, comes over and informs him if he doesn’t quiet down he’ll have to leave, which is what Gwen and Jimmy Parrish decide to do.
“So who was Belinda to me?” Gwen asks when she and Jimmy are leaving the library. Gwen has her arms filled with books she’s checked out. As they go down the stone steps of the library, she keeps her elbow out, in case Jimmy Parrish should slip on the wet leaves and need something to hold on to.
“She was your aunt. Your father’s older sister. Dead nearly twelve years. And her son, who she named Cooper, has been gone for at least five. Your grandparents-the mother and father of Belinda and your dad-died in a terrible accident at the devil’s comer. That’s the turn where Route 22 meets up with Guardian Farm.”
“Kind of a dying family,” Gwen says.
“You’re the last of them,” Jimmy Parrish says. “No more Coopers but you.”
“Yikes,” Gwen says. “Does that make me unlucky?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Jimmy Parrish is kind enough to tell her. “And then, of course, there’s your mother’s side of the family.”
They have reached the Bluebird Coffee Shop. Gwen holds the door open for Jimmy, who is completely thrilled to have found a live one who is not only listening to him but actually appears interested.
“There’s your mother’s brother, Alan.”
“I’ve heard about him.” Gwen remembers the Judge mentioning an Alan.
“He just went to pot after his wife died.”
“She died too?”
They sit down at the counter and Jimmy takes a look at the specials board, even though the specials are always the same at the Bluebird: crab cakes with mustard sauce, BLT on rye, corn chowder.
“I’ll have a cup of your chowder,” he informs their waitress, Alison Hartwig, whose mother will serve Gwen lunch tomorrow in the school cafeteria.
“So what’s with Alan?” Gwen asks after she orders a vanilla Diet Coke.
“He’s a wreck, plain and simple. No one ever sees him, and his boy, Hank, is being raised over at the Farm. I think I’ll have a coffee too,” Jimmy calls to Alison Hartwig. “Black.”
Gwen rolls all this information around in her mind. Why has no one told her this before? This means that Hank is not simply some relative. He’s her first cousin; an embarrassing, odd fact. Is it a crime to fall in love with him? Will people look at them and whisper?
“I hope you know more about racehorses than you do about your family,” Jimmy Parrish says as he spoons sugar into the coffee he’s been served.
“I don’t,” Gwen says.
She has a queasy feeling in her stomach. It sounds as if she and Hank come from the worst possible gene pool. She wishes they weren’t related, that they were perfect strangers who were old enough to make their own plans, without interference from anyone.
“I’ve been riding that horse over at Guardian Farm. The one you were talking about. Tarot.”
Jimmy Parrish has been served his chowder, but now he puts down his spoon. He looks at Gwen, hard, and shakes his head.
“You’re lucky that horse isn’t in his prime, or you’d already be dead.”
“I don’t think so,” Gwen says. She puts a dollar on the counter to pay for her Coke, then grabs all her books. “I’m the one in my family who’s going to live.”
She walks home through the cold late-afternoon sunlight. When she gets to the dirt road, Hank is waiting for her, sitting on a stone fence.
“You didn’t come to tea,” he says, when Gwen perches beside him. “I had to eat all the cookies your mother put out, to be polite. She’s nice.”
“No, she’s not.” Gwen stacks her pile of books between them; her posture is stiff.
“Okay.” Hank realizes he has to be careful here. She’s upset about something, and he has no idea what it might be. “I was only in the house for about half an hour. She seemed nice for that amount of time.”
“We’re first cousins,” Gwen says. “Did you know that?”
Hank leafs through the pages of one of the library books. There is a crow somewhere close by and it starts its insufferable calling.
“Did you know?” Gwen asks.
The grass in the fields is yellow now, and the squirrels are frantically collecting the last of the acorns. She can tell by looking at him: He knew. Gwen shakes her head. “You should have told me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hank tells her. “That’s why I didn’t say anything. The way we feel is what matters.”
Gwen stares straight ahead, at the maples and the oaks, then reaches to put her hand in his. Maybe some people would disapprove, but Gwen doesn’t care. When Hank closes his hand around hers, that’s it. They’ve made their bargain; they’ve sealed their fate. What she ever did to deserve him, Gwen will never understand. Maybe she’s a better person than she thought she was; maybe there’s a reason why she would be lucky enough to find someone like Hank. They walk across the hill together, and they keep going, past the fences and the old trees, until they can see almost all of Guardian Farm, a sea of gold and green. Beyond the split-rail fence that lines the driveway, there is the piece of road that leads into Route 22.