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Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. I.
  5. 1
  6. 2
  7. 3
  8. 4
  9. 5
  10. 6
  11. 7
  12. II.
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. 6
  19. 7
  20. 8
  21. 9
  22. 10
  23. III.
  24. 1
  25. 2
  26. 3
  27. 4
  28. 5
  29. 6
  30. 7
  31. 8
  32. 9
  33. IV.
  34. 1
  35. 2
  36. 3
  37. 4
  38. 5
  39. 6
  40. 7
  41. 8
  42. 9
  43. 10
  44. 11
  45. 12
  46. 13
  47. 14
  48. 15
  49. 16
  50. 17
  51. 18
  52. 19
  53. 20
  54. 21
  55. 22
  56. 23
  57. 24
  58. 25
  59. 26
  60. About the Author
  61. Also by Joyce Carol Oates
  62. About the Publisher

She lay shivering and sweating in her bed. She was unable to sleep—her head ached, her stomach cramped violently—yet suddenly it seemed she was being wakened, by a fierce wintry wind, and rain slashing against the windows. In the morning, dragging herself from her bed, she saw that most of the blossoms in her crab apple trees—four comely little trees, beautiful fleshy-pink flowers—had been blown off during the night.

They telephoned her from school, solicitous, prying.

She told them in a calm distinct voice that, at the moment, she wasn’t feeling well. But she would certainly be back the next day; she intended to meet her 8:00 class as usual. Surely, she said, she was guilty of no great criminal neglect.

Lying back, she felt Win’s heartbeat—she remembered it, suddenly, an angry pumping that communicated itself to her own body. As if his heart, at that crucial instant, were hers; in the cavity of her chest where her own heart might have been.

Monica regretted one thing: that, since coming to teach at the Glenkill Academy, she had always been too busy to explore the boxwood maze behind the headmaster’s residence.

If the garden had been between her building and her parking lot no doubt she would have strolled in it from time to time, but it was rather out of the way, she seemed always to be in a hurry, her hair flying in the wind. Now she was pleasantly surprised to find herself in the garden, alone, unobserved, able to walk where she wished, and at her own pace; while at the same time she remained lying in her damp sheets, eyes gummed shut.

The maze consisted of boxwood and English ivy and laurels with fine glossy leaves. Monica stared, Monica wandered. She was not yet lost. She had always understood that the sprayed and sculpted forms, the odorless blossoms, the narrow graveled walks of tiny pink pebbles and oyster chips were a testament to the school’s affluence and good taste, its Anglophile tradition. At the center of the maze was a small fountain where two slender stone figures—a faun and a nymph—cavorted forever in the bright sparkling water.

Monica began to walk more quickly. She was frightened, exhilarated. She could not be truly lost because this was only (wasn’t it?) the headmaster’s garden, a small contained space. And surely she was being observed after all. The Glenkill faculty, the Glenkill students. Her own students of whom she had grown very fond, in her warm inattentive way. They would not allow her to injure herself, they would not jeer at her, standing apart from her predicament. Poor Monica: poor Miss Jensen: only partly clothed, smelling of bed and sweat and vomit, wandering sobbing and lost in the boxwood maze. . . .

Leave me alone, Monica whispered. Let me die.

20

After Sheila’s opening at the Laurence James Gallery a good deal happened, and it happened quickly.