"COMING OF AGE"
By
Bill Olson
Copyright 1987, 2001 by Bill Olson
"Alberto," she said, "I'm afraid of growing old.
He grabbed a stem of long grass and put it between his teeth. "You'll have to grow up before you grow old.
Helia looked at the pond, not seeming to hear him. "I look at grandma and I see myself in her face. She looked like me as a child. Now she's almost dead, and I'm scared I'll look like that one day.
"Grandma is sweet. She'd be hurt if she knew you said she was half dead.
Helia looked at him desperately. "I love grandma!
"You'd better; she's sweet.
"But I'm not talking about her. You never listen, never care what I feel.
He pulled the grass from his mouth. "You always get like this," he accused. "You've been dumb since the teacher gave you an "F. I think you have a crush on him.
"I do not!"
"Cry baby -- you have a crush on him and he flunked you cuz you're just a baby.
She began to cry. "You're no brother of mine!" she screamed. "You're something mother found in the outhouse.
"Little crybaby.
"Just call me one more name, and I'll tell Dad.
Alberto looked at the pond, took a deep breath, then got up and walked off.
"What am I going to do with a brother like that?" she asked herself aloud. "Dad isn't like that, thank the Virgin; perhaps there's a man in the world my age who can understand how I feel and can love me even when I'm old. Or maybe he'll kill us both while we're still young. That would be so romantic: to die in each other's arms under a full moon, with birds singing. But we should probably be in some kind of bank vault or something so the worms cant eat us when we start to rot.
She looked up to see her father watching her, his face distorted and sour.
"What are you talking about, child?" he asked, sitting beside her. For a long while she said nothing. Then she blurted out angrily
"Alberto is such a creep!" Then she began to cry.
"Big girls don't cry.
"Damn you!" she shouted, and ran off. Her father sat for a moment, dumbfounded, then rushed after her. He caught her, spun her around and slapped her face. Then, realizing what he'd done, he embraced her tightly.
"I don't want to grow old," she told him, her face against his shoulder.
"Neither do I," he confided.
"Really?"
He nodded, then ruffled her hair.
"I'm walking over to Rudolfo's; wanna come along?"
She felt great anticipation at the thought of seeing their neighbor, but she tried to act as though it were an everyday stroll. So off they went, along the dirt road. As they walked, she looked at the sheep beyond the fence. They looked so much fatter than they used to. Soon they would be sheared and Helia would help aunt Sonia make yarn and then clothes and blankets, just the way Sonia used to help grandma when she was a girl. Sonia was so fun to work with because she always laughed and made jokes.
"Aunt Sonia always laughs," Helia said. Her father only looked at her and smiled. She wondered if Sonia ever feared growing old. Her aunt was, after all, much closer to death than Helia. But Sonia never seemed to worry, and neither did her husband Luis.
Helia wondered why some people worried about growing old while others didn't. Maybe some of them were really afraid but didn't admit it. She figured Alberto was like that, covering his eyes from fate the way someone might before driving out of control over a cliff. She looked at her father.
"Alberto is a chicken," she said.
He thought for a while then said, "That's a matter of opinion.
More silently, she asserted, "Alberto is a matter of opinion. She meant only that God should hear it, but her father began to laugh, so she figured he'd heard it, too.
* * *
Rudolfo was mixing meal for his horses when they arrived.
"Hey, amigo," Helia's father called. "Let's go hunting later. But first, my tractor broke down by the river; I need your experience with International Harvester.
Rudolfo had been a good mechanic with the company in Puebla, eventually getting a management position. But then they fired him for stealing money. Since then, he's been working on his uncle's ranch near Nuevo Ixcatlαn.
Helia thought Rudolfo was so cute. She wondered why he'd never married.
Perhaps his standards were too high for most women to meet. Helia thought about that. She knew herself to be attractive. She was a good cook and very loving. So she decided she would likely fit his ideal of the perfect woman.
She stood by, leaning against an orange tree, as her father helped Rudolfo lift a heavy tub of horse meal onto the back of his pickup truck.
"He's strong as an ox," she assured herself; she liked strong men.
"I'll drop this off by the barn," Rudolfo said. "Wanna get in the back, Helia?" She really wanted to get in the cab and sit next to him, but she nodded and got in back; men didn't like demanding wives. She decided if she were married to Rudolfo, she'd have nothing to be demanding about; he'd be all she ever needed.
* * *
The tractor was fixed by mid-afternoon. Alberto operated it while their father went to Luis's house to borrow a rifle.
Rudolfo stood in the living room of Helia's house. He took her father's rifle, which he'd been given permission to use, down from the wall.
"Where does your daddy keep the shells?" he asked.
"Helia thought for a moment, then remembered they were in the dresser below where the gun had been displayed on the wall. But she said, "The bedroom.
"His?"
She nodded and followed him in there.
Once inside, he glanced about. "You don't know where, exactly, do you?"
She remembered some boxes her father kept under the bed. They were filled with ancient Mayan artifacts uncovered by the plow on the south end of the estate. She mentioned the boxes but not the artifacts. Her heard drummed as she followed Rudolfo to the bed.
Both got on their hands and knees and reached under the bed together for a box. Her hand arrived first. Then, in a moment that was so instant it seemed like it had always been so, his hand rested on top of hers.
It was warm and strong, and she liked the smoothness from the tractor grease. Then he looked at her. She felt ready to faint. Her heart was rapid and skipped beats. And each time a beat skipped, dizziness grasped her. For a moment the world disappeared, and she even failed to see his adorable eyes. She felt like she was being lifted off the Earth to a magical kingdom where she could no longer feel the cement floor hurting her knees or the numbness in her other arm as she leaned on it. She felt ready to kiss him, but then his hand was gone and she felt abandoned.
He backed away and sat on the floor. His eyes held the same look her father's had when he laughed at her comment that Alberto was a matter of opinion. Suddenly the magical kingdom became a purgatory, and she could no longer look at him.
"I'm sorry, Helia," he said, "but I'm almost as old as your daddy. One day you'll grow up and find another man. He said something else but she didn't hear it. She felt ashamed and sad.
She bolted out and shut herself in her room. She lay on the bed for a long time, crying. When she finally regained some composure, she got up and looked in the mirror.
"I'm already grown up," she said, but saw the red eyes and wet cheeks. Big girls don't cry, she remembered her father saying. He was wrong, she decided, but she dried her cheeks and raised her chin.
-- Lake Holcombe, Wisconsin
June 5, 1987
-- Revised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin,
February 6, 2001