“Hold up, Tammy!” Ozzie called ahead to Tammy as she walked furiously beside the stream away from Angelica’s secret garden. He raced ahead to get in front of her, his wounds finally healed enough to allow him to run freely. Ozzie turned and stopped, staring at Tammy.
“What’s wrong?” Ozzie asked.
“Nothing. Just leave me alone. I wanna go back to Hal’s.” She moved to her right and lunged forward to pass Ozzie. Ozzie moved left and leaned into Tammy, blocking her momentum with great force. The impact angered Tammy.
“Get out of my way, runt!”
The hair on the back of Ozzie’s neck stood up. “Who are you calling a runt?” Ozzie demanded. “What is wrong with you?”
Tammy lunged, this time right into Ozzie rather than around him. She wanted him to see her maturity, her determination. “I go where I want, when I want,” she exclaimed. “I’m free and I’m sure not gonna have you telling me where I can and can’t go!” She lunged into Ozzie with more force than before and hit him squarely in the chest, but despite being the one in motion, the impact knocked Tammy to the side. Ozzie barely budged. Instead he looked at her, puzzled, trying to figure out why his friend was so incensed. Tammy stepped back for a moment. She turned right and walked away from the stream, into the woods. The understory was thick, mostly a leafy patch of purple ferns and wild anise, but she liked the cool cover it provided. Ozzie followed her in and walked behind her for a few minutes with neither speaking.
“Tammy, what’s wrong?” Ozzie was as much concerned as he was curious.
Tammy stopped and sat down, crushing the leaves of the sweet anise plant. “I don’t know. Just something about that woman I didn’t like, that’s all.” Tammy said.
“She seemed pretty friendly to me,” Ozzie replied. “I like the way she sings.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Couldn’t keep your eyes off her!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ozzie asked.
Tammy didn’t know why she was so upset. She knew she had no reason to be. But she was flushed; her face was on fire. “I just don’t trust people in this neck of the woods,” she said.
“What about Hal?”
Tammy thought for a moment. “He’s all right,” Tammy said. “I guess. But I don’t need anyone else.”
Ozzie said nothing, just stood and listened. Tammy lay on the ground looking up at Ozzie, at the trees swaying gently and freely above him, their leaves painted in October red, orange and gold. At the beautiful, impossibly blue sky. The movement of the trees inspired Tammy to move. She rose, allowing her body to rock back and forth to the motion of the treetops as she inhaled the intoxicating aroma of licorice from the crushed anise leaves. She looked at Ozzie and walked slowly in front of him. Tammy moved whisper-close to share the anise fragrance with him and nuzzle his neck.
Ozzie watched Tammy and tried to stand quietly, but his heart began to pound loudly. A warm flush overcame him as she brushed close to him, his body tingling and burning from deep within, so much that it scared him. It was a burning sensation he had never felt before. He wanted to run, to move, to somehow get rid of that feeling, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Tammy moved around him, leaning against Ozzie’s back as she did, her warm breath falling softly on his neck. She walked right before him, stood there and presented herself to him. Ozzie felt the strongest need to move, as if an earthquake would erupt from within if he didn’t. He stared at Tammy’s body, her eyes drawing him closer in an inevitable embrace. Ozzie stepped forward and dropped his head on her shoulder, his lips on Tammy’s neck. Tammy uttered a deep moan as they closed their eyes at the same time, surrendering themselves to nature’s will.
***
Rose slipped the DVD into the player in Angelica’s living room and pressed play. Within seconds, Ariel entranced the girls as The Little Mermaid sealed them in an isolation bubble that was impenetrable to the kitchen conversation. Angelica poured coffee into Rose’s cup and poured herself a glass of lemongrass tea, into which she stirred some honey and two droppers of echinacea tincture. She sat next to Rose at the kitchen bar.
“So, are you all packed?” Angelica asked.
“Oh yeah,” Rose answered. “Even packed a bikini if I can get up the nerve to put it on. Maybe at night.” Rose laughed.
“Now Rose, stop it. You have a great body and you know it,” Angelica placed her hand on Rose’s forearm to offer reassurance, although she couldn’t imagine why Rose would need any. She needn’t worry. Indeed, Rose was beautiful as well as smart. The sheen of her black hair matched Angelica’s, though Rose kept hers shorter, never letting it drape over her shoulders. Like Angelica, Rose had inherited her mother’s green eyes and they seemed to be able to see inside you, what you were thinking, what you were feeling. They gripped and held their prey until truth was revealed, and only then softened their grip.
“Hey, you wanna take some of my sunscreen with you?” Angelica offered.
Rose laughed. “I’ve got my sunscreen already packed, silly. But don’t worry, it’s SPF 50.”
Angelica frowned at Rose. “Please tell me that you don’t put those chemicals on your skin. Do you even know what’s in it?”
“Now who’s being silly?” Rose asked. “It’s FDA approved, sis. You think they’d approve it to use on children if it wasn’t tested? Safe?”
Rose cast her green eyes at her country bumpkin sister in both a loving and condescending way, as if to say, “Poor Angelica. Didn’t want to go to college and learn about scientific progress. Instead just kept her feet stuck in the mud back in the hills, going backwards in time instead of forward, clinging to Grandma’s Cherokee traditions.”
Rose had fond memories of the mountains, but going to Athens and meeting so many new and enlightened people and professors at UGA had liberated her from the parochial views on religion, family, and science that had clouded her thinking as a child. Once she stepped out of that circle and opened her eyes, she found she couldn’t move back, even when her parents were killed shortly after her graduation and she was so worried about Angelica. Instead, she had hoped to lure Angelica away, even offered her a place to stay in Athens. But Angelica was as stubborn as her Cherokee ancestors had been two centuries before, Rose reasoned, staying entrenched on her land, handcuffed by ancient religious beliefs, and refusing to surrender herself to progress.
“Are you taking the echinacea tincture that I gave you to boost your immune system?” Angelica asked. Rose reached into her purse and pulled out the small bottle. “Every day,” she said.
“Good. Because wasn’t that peanut butter sold in the stores FDA approved? You know, the stuff with the salmonella?” Angelica asked, without looking at Rose.
“Now wait a–” Rose began before Angelica interrupted.
“And wasn’t that spinach approved...the bags coated in e.coli?” Angelica turned and looked Rose squarely in the eye. Angelica despised confrontation and almost never raised her voice, the only exception being if one of her dearest beliefs was challenged. She knew there was much of the modern scientific world she didn’t know and didn’t care to know. But she also knew what she did know, and that was the natural world and the Bible.
“Come on!” Rose said, glancing over her shoulder to see if the girls had been disturbed. They stayed under Ariel’s hypnotic spell, so Rose continued. “Those are rare exceptions, Angelica. Accidents do happen, you know. The world isn’t perfect!” Rose didn’t like having to defend herself and preferred to squash questions as they arose so that she could then control the progression and content of the discussion.
“Nature is,” Angelica said.
“Is what?”
“Is perfect. There’s no waste. Everything is in God’s landscape for a reason.”