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22d July 2009, somewhere outside Charlotte, North Carolina

The woman is so hard upon the woman. _________ Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Princess

Betsy Barnes sipped her ginger ale, carefully, the vibration of the airplane making her worried she would spill it, but down the cup came, elegance itself the way her mother taught her, and with a little sigh, she looked out the window, to the distance she was putting between herself and the town she was born in. Back at Yeager her daddy had been a blubbering mess, her mother patting his shoulders with an embarrassed frown, really he almost caused a scene. It was mortifying but a little adorable too - she was his only daughter and for eighteen years his whole world, his princess, his angel. But angels had wings - and it was time for her to fly. Her daddy, Dr. Bernard Barnes III, DVM, cried a lot: heart on his sleeve _was the phrase he liked to use but, really, it was just he was prone to emotional outbursts, especially with anything to do with her, his daughter, his precious thing - once when she was real little she had fallen off the porch at home and broken both legs, she barely remembered it but it had given her daddy something like PTSD so that thereafter she was never out of his sight, she could do no wrong, his heart was always bursting at everything she did: there were loud sobs at her high school graduation, her junior prom, both homecomings, the Adkins County High School production of _Bye Bye Birdie.

She frowned to herself, stirring the ice in her glass. She was loved, and she was grateful, even if he did embarrass her, it was better to have someone like him that loved her and embarrassed her than, like poor Dan Dorsey, to have no real parents at all. Betsy would watch her father in his practice as Tempest's best - only - veterinarian, where he was an amazingly different person: cautious, careful, fastidious, diplomatic, he had saved so many lives of God's little creatures no matter how or small or ugly, now she was thinking of that lizard her friend Susie's little brother had, with its unchanging face that always looked like it was pissed off at something. She'd inherited her daddy's blond hair, which fell straight to her neck and spilled neatly over one shoulder, and probably his looks, which people always commented on back in Tempest even though there were other, prettier girls - her daddy had been a handsome devil back in the day, you'd never know it looking at that handlebar moustache and chubby mug... ...just imagining it made her sad, and she sighed, pushing away her half-empty cup. Somewhere over Virginia, another hour to go. Susie, her best friend, she cried too, but only a little, they promised to stay on touch on their new Facebooks - they never brought up MySpace, they hadn't touched it in months, maybe a year, but they were still up there, best friends forever, #2 on each other's Top Eight. It hadn't always been that way, because even in their tiny tucked corner of West Virginia, MySpace was as important as it was everywhere else, and who was on your Top Eight was this whole, embarrassing thing - people didn't speak to each other because of that bullcrap, if they didn't think they were high enough, or someone they didn't like wasn't low enough, or some petty garbage like that, and it was one of those small, ambient things about being so young and stupid that kept Betsy in a small state of elation every time she thought realized she was leaving it all behind. She was leaving behind - Andrew Lightfoot. His face - handsome and humble and those eyes like big emeralds that would melt girls across the freakin room - appeared to her and she frowned, bitter at once. That son of a bitch was still her #1. From the time he had made her MySpace up until a few months ago he had deserved to be there, because she loved him, because everything about him was so complicated, so loaded, so full of nobility and hope, because for so long he was noble and hopeful - but the truth was that he was also paltry, shallow, looking past her, talking past her, something, maybe the only thing, to make her feel unimportant. He wasn't looking at her...not when Bligh Lynch was around. Not even when everyone one else was looking at her. She'd been in theatre and she knew theatricality when she heard it, and even as she thought it, she wanted it to be as melodramatic as it sounded - but no, it really happened, not just when she was doing what she loved on stage and everything was rosy with Rosie, but literally, there had been a moment where all eyes were on her, but not Andrew's, because Andrew's eyes had been on Bligh. Now she sighed, rolled her own eyes, then darted them from the window, across the aisle where a middle-aged couple had both fallen asleep at the same time, their heads together - how cute. She had wanted that for her and Andrew, one day, but now it'd never happen... ...well, really, it probably never would have happened. Everywhere she and Andrew used to go it was Bligh-this, Bligh­-that, something that Bligh said always was somehow, somehow topical to at least one thing they'd talk about - and then, when she would complain, she'd hear oh but he's the quarterback, oh but he almost took us to State, oh but my God who the Hell cares. And she endured it, she felt maybe Andrew was bisexual and there was nothing really wrong with that, as long as he loved her she didn't care what he was. But then it seemed like - he really did love Bligh more than her...and that meant it was time to see all the eyes on her right then, rather than looking for just Andrew's, never on her to begin with. She remembered - it was only back in May but she could play it back like it was one of those videos her daddy took of her every time she did...anything, actually, wow. Senior Prom, there she'd been - alone. Where was Andrew, where was her date, why was she up there all by herself? He was at home with his brother, Stevie, because his dog had died - poor thing had cancer, her daddy said, and there was nothing they could do for him - so Stevie, who the whole town knew was attached to that dog as just about his better half, was having some kind of massive breakdown about it. Betsy had tried to be patient with the situation but this was their Senior Prom, they wouldn't have another chance at this, and more than once that night she felt like a total bitch for crying out of frustration for how awful her night was turning out but, really, who could blame her? She'd really tried to make the best of it, dancing with her girlfriends and making herself laugh, even when she didn't want to. Just when she thought she could smile and things would be okay even if the situation was less than ideal, toward the middle of the night, right before the court positions were announced, she heard it on good authority - first from Dan, then from Susie, that Bligh Lynch's truck was over at the Lightfoot place. It was one thing to ditch her for his brother, sure - but for Bligh? That weird kid from up the mountain? Who was basically third one in the damn relationship since they started dating three years ago?! Oh Hell no. She fled to the bathroom and locked herself in one of the stalls, in that beautiful dress her mother had lent her that she'd gotten from Hecht's all those years ago that would have elegance itself had her damn date bothered to show up - some other girls came and tried to say nice things to her but she shooed them away, saying she was sorry, but this was bad, this was so, so bad. She only let Susie in eventually, Susie with her perfect curls who tried to soothe her, dab her eyes so her makeup wouldn't run. But then - but then - she heard her name called, Principal Price's voice booming over the loudspeaker. _ She'd made Court_. Princess, not Queen, she didn't get Queen but that was okay because it turned out Cheyenne Gadd got it and that was okay, really, Cheyenne deserved it, she was so nice to everyone, geek or jock or whomever - labels that wouldn't matter now they were all out of high school - she loved Cheyenne, good for her. And sometimes her daddy would warn her, when she was a little too headstrong about what she wanted or where she was going: always ahead of yourself, Betsy-Girl. Like right then: she didn't think that it would look odd that she would be alone without a date in the Court picture, or even up on stage - she didn't think that she'd owe anyone an explanation where the Hell she'd been for a half-hour or if any one of Andrew's acquaintances knew about the torrent of furious texts she'd sent him to dump his ass. All she knew was that she made Court. _ Always ahead of yourself, ­Betsy-Girl._ She jerked her head up and SWAT-teamed the bathroom stall door with her heel, she shoved Susie out of the way, yelling out an apology over her shoulder as she dashed back into the gym. The doors were thrown open - wham - and every junior and senior at Adkins County High School was looking dead at her, staring. She could, right then, have broken down, and she could have been defeated, that could have been it - but she remembered her Rosie Alvarez, she remembered all the devotion her daddy had poured into her, all the times she'd been called smart and pretty and you better believe she remembered that acceptance letter from UNC. She struck a pose, by herself, she swung her head into a gently self-effacing smile, and she marched up to the stage, the streaks of her tears fresh on her face but even then - she sparkled. She could have been pathetic and she could have been a figure of pity but no, Hell no, she swallowed back her murderous jealousy, her dismay, her feelings that the one most special moment in her life so far had been totally ruined, she put on that smile even if it had to be by herself - and she sparkled. Now - on the plane to Chapel Hill - she finished her ginger ale, leaving only a cup of ice that sparkled, too, faintly, in the sun from the window. For weeks, until they graduated, little else was talked about, but it was the end of the school year - it was the end of school - and she didn't care anymore, if people wanted to say what she did was awesome or if people wanted to call her bitch, well, fine either way, she was moving and with any luck she'd never see any of them ever again. Is it true about Betsy?! I just knew it somehow! I must call her right up-- I can't talk to you now! She'd gotten accepted at that university in Tampa with Andrew but now she could follow her mother's urging and go to UNC instead - all the while Betsy's daddy had tried his best to be judicious, tried to get she and Andrew to reconcile, but Pa Lightfoot, with his obvious favoritism for Stevie which Betsy uncomfortably picked up on years ago, didn't really seem to care one way or another what Andrew did. In the end, that Monday - a teacher work day, they didn't have school - Andrew came over to Betsy's house, bringing her flowers, roses from IGA, and he'd tried to explain, he seemed actually really apologetic and she could tell, three years of them dating, them sharing their virginity together, ten years of them being friends, that he meant it... ...but she just didn't want to hear it, any of it, not one word. It wasn't just Saturday night, Andrew Nicholas, oh no, it was that time they saw The Dark Knight in Lewisburg and he'd ruined the scene where they revealed Harvey Dent as Two-Face because Bligh wanted to text him about that ginger-haired cousin of his, Ricky Jack, who by the damn way is in jail, about that monster bass he caught. And it was the time they were dancing at Cotillion, the foxtrot, with her having to lead, and he wouldn't shut up because Bligh's dog was under her daddy's care for gastroenteritis, like, what, she didn't trust her daddy to take care of Duke? And it was definitely, oh, definitely the time she got stood up at the Greenbrier Valley Mall because Bligh invited him fishing and he forgot. Because that? Happened twice. Would he, Andrew Nicholas, like some more examples? Because there were plenty - how much time did he have? Well she didn't have any - not for him, not anymore! And then - because, again, she knew theatricality when she saw it, she knew she was a damn good actress and nobody needed to tell her so even though everyone_told her so, that was half the reason she wanted to go into politics because she knew she'd be great at it, and because she was at this point red in the face, screaming - she snatched one of the roses he'd brought, stuck the flower in her mouth, bit if off, chewed it up, spat it out, and then hollered so loud she was sure the whole damn county would hear: "Ya want Bligh Lynch s'damn bad? There's his house up the way there - _ya go knock on his door, Lightfoot! Cuz y'ain't ever walkin through mine again!" She slammed that same door, right in his face - pretty sure she'd gotten the point across. Goin steady and steady for good! Yeah, right. Susie told her that Bligh was going to work for the mine because he wanted to stay close to his grandfather, but Betsy also knew he was kind of dumb and had blown a key play when their high school went to state - like a hugely embarrassing situation, there were people at the Gazette-Mail totally baffled - so no college for him, which also meant no Andrew for him, because Andrew was just as desperate to leave Tempest as she was...Bligh would be all alone, oh boohoo, what a load of shit. Whatever. She didn't need Andrew - she didn't need any man. Just her daddy, and then, just herself. She didn't even really need her brother, Bartimaeus, Bart, sixteen years older than her and more her mother's child - nothing like the really obvious dysfunction with Andrew and his_dad, but still...last she heard from him, telling her _don't tell mom, he was out in the Saguaro Desert, doing peyote and sleeping under the stars. And that was great, she guessed, but she wanted to fly, she wanted to be among those stars, up, up, far away... Actually it was her mom who'd warned her that both the Lynches, and especially_the Lightfoots were, like their own family, very old - but also, she kept saying, in her own dry and cryptic way, _weird. She warned her but Betsy did not listen even though she pretty much knew, with the way her dad's brother Bertram, who had never been exactly normal when him and her dad were kids, would babble on about haunted or ghostly or unnatural stuff he'd seen or heard - there were things in their town that had big, uncomfortable question marks on the end of them. Betsy and Bligh had a connection that disquieted her and, if she thought about it too much, made her a little sick, but which her daddy thought was just the neatest thing and would tell people when he would have colleagues from Charleston and Lewisburg and wherever-the-Hell else over for dinner: When Susan Anne, Bligh's mother, had gone into labor, it came up a cloud and stormed terribly - their town was prone to these kinds of summer squalls by some quirk of geology and geography Betsy had learned from her grandmother but forgotten, anyway there was a really big and scary one in the 1800s and that was why the town was named_Tempest_. So, the night that Susan Anne was due to give birth, the storm was too great to drive in, so going to the hospital in Lewisburg was out of the question. It was a problem birth and Susan Anne was in immense pain, so her father-in-law, Bligh's grandfather, Pappy - the man everyone called Pappy, Betsy remembered Andrew's Pa introducing him with a sneer to someone he knew by his real name, Gustavus - called on Dr. Barnes, the veterinarian and only medical doctor of any kind in town, to help however he could. He opened his office specifically for Bligh's parents, and, despite rising waters downstream and the relentless storm, set to work. When they arrived, Betsy's father had Pappy put the axe he used for firewood underneath the operating table - both the Lynches and the Barnes kept this tradition, no matter how much a man of medical science Bernard Barnes III really was, that an axe, present underneath the birthing-bed would serve to cut the labor pains of a birthmother, as surely as it'd cut wood. Whether the axe helped, or not, later that night, in the early morning hours of West Virginia Day, little Bligh Allen Lynch came into this world - en caul, which back in the old days, her daddy said, meant he was destined to be a psychic or to be a king, well whatever, he ended up being a creepy boyfriend-stealer. But the point was, he was born in the same room and with the same instruments that Dr. Barnes had managed to deliver the puppies of their Aunt Pearl's Rottweiler, Dorothy - one of whom, a big ugly thing named Brutus, went missing for three days several years back while she was visiting and then reappeared just as mysteriously, but then again it was like, a thing that all the dogs in Tempest were weird. Figures - Bligh, born at a vet, a big stupid dog, weird as Hell. At any rate, a few months later when Susan Anne recovered, Junior, Bligh's father, immensely grateful, gave the Barnes family a share of the fortune he made on gas stations, enough to make his practice even bigger. And it was just the neatest thing her daddy seemed to think but oh, God, it made Betsy sick to her stomach, that weirdo who never seemed to shower was born in a vet's office like he was a dog, which pretty much meant that the boy - man, even at eighteen Bligh looked gross and overdeveloped - who took what Betsy thought was the love of her life was already an animal: Andrew was stolen away by some kind of forest creature, like this was a fairytale, one of those strange stories she used to her the old folks talk about when she was a little girl. But then again, she scoffed to herself, how could it possibly go wrong,isn't everyone's first boyfriend supposed to be their husband? She didn't know if Bligh was aware of the story or not, and she didn't care, he was creepy and he was weird and she didn't give a good Goddam if he was the quarterback, he was still more or less responsible for her and Andrew falling apart. It won't last-- Not at all-- He's too thin-- She's too tall! The whole thing could, she guessed, have made her homophobic, but luckily, she also guessed, even though she knew it was a strange and uncomfortable way of thinking about it, her cousin Janie was a lesbian, and Janie had been her first real friend, for all their lives they had been close, it was Betsy that Janie had told first when they were both twelve - #2 on both of their Top Eights. But in her heart of hearts - she tried to keep as few as secrets as possible, successful people share and do not hoard, but still, she kept this one guarded - but in her heart of hearts Betsy knew that her and Andrew were not meant to be, that he and Bligh shared something that she could not fathom, that it wasn't her fault, even though it still felt like it. Her father could try and work out something on her behalf and Pa Lightfoot could make Andrew come over to her house and apologize all they liked, it did not matter, there is no florid way to say people are stupid and betrayal and stupidity are too often the same damn things. Andrew was too stupid to know he was Bligh's - and for too long she was too ashamed to acknowledge it, tried to keep things together for way, way too long. She stiffened in her seat, trying to hide her introspective discomfort from everyone else on the plane, even the woman next to her, nose deep in that book about the 2008 election: Game Change, Betsy spied the title, and immediately she was back watching in awe as Hillary Clinton campaigned on television, a woman, doing what no woman ever had - even Sarah Palin, crazy and out of her depth like she was, that was exciting too, and thinking about it made a thrill of ambition stir her heart... ...that Chapel Hill, and North Carolina, they were just the first steps, not just being a lawyer like she wanted to be, she could be a congresswoman - no, congress_man_, because she had no time for such petty bullshit as surely as she had no time for gendered language - she could be a powerbroker, all high-heels and daggers, always ahead of yourself Betsy-Girl, oh but not this time, no, she would prove her father amazingly right, she could come back and crush Andrew's daddy at his own political game, waffling back and forth between acceptance and vengeance now she wanted vengeance, to smash Andrew, his father, his family... ...as if he - if Andrew - even still thought of her, would ever think of her again. Back she came again: Always ahead of yourself, Betsy-Girl. Was that what this whole thing was all about? One bad relationship that she couldn't live down in a place where everybody knew everybody and she bailed and left? Or maybe it was that at least if she failed somewhere else like she had failed in Tempest, she'd tried, more than most people in that town ever dared to, so her wings weren't feathers, they were wax, like the story of Icarus she had to analyze in a post-modern context for her AP English class... Even if it wasn't strictly her fault, even if it was probably fate - men get destiny, women get the struggle - but there would be no more failure, there would be no more Andrews, and she would fly, fly, fly. She came down from this, all of this, these dizzying fantasies too close to the Sun, determined - and scared. Always ahead of yourself, Betsy-Girl. The flight attendant was approaching her seat, slowly - too slowly, despite her accent Betsy was no redneck and didn't crunch ice, she remembered her Cotillion - she breathed out her anxiety, she tried to relax, but she clutched her armrests like her seat was a throne she would arise to rule from. That all the world would be like the cup that held the melting ice - something to clutch, something to drink from. She would not have that back in Tempest but it was Tempest that taught her this, it was her father who made her understand her talents and her intelligence and it was Andrew who made her understand beauty and here heart...but it was all of them, a town of just over a thousand, who made her understand she only could get so far with them by asking nicely. But she was flying now - she was stretching her wings and she was flying, she would soar, and she would not stop until, as her daddy had hoped, as her daddy had promised, she would get exactly what she wanted. It would start fast: two nights from now she would meet her roommate Latasha, and her brother Demetrius, who she saw from the pictures was really cute - new guys, new friends, new plans, new city, new life... She was way ahead of herself, as usual. But there were so many new things - new people, new experiences, new places - it was all so cliché, she felt like she had heard it a million times from teachers and guidance counselors and the ditzy town librarian Old Miss Pack, Oh, the Places You'll Go!_but...wasn't it true? Wasn't it true, that's why she was going to Chapel Hill, that's why she was moving away, from Tempest and West Virginia and settling for_good-enough, because her daddy had always believed she was far above all of that, above the mountains, in the clouds, like she was right now, on an airplane, angel wings outstretched. The flight attendant collected her cup and she smiled her best smile at him - he seemed charmed at her and glanced away only distractedly. Still got it. Now Betsy looked out the window, to see North Carolina, the sparsely-forested rolling hills flattening to patchworks of farmland and then houses, roads, more houses, more roads - all coming into focus, all becoming real. She had always read about someone's heart jumping into their throat but now she felt it - for the first time in her life she felt so yearningly vulnerable, like a butterfly freshly hatched from the chrysalis. Metaphors aside she really knew, in that very moment, everything her daddy had felt as she left that day, she felt the pulling-back to Tempest, to her house, her parents, because it was too scary out there and she might fail, worse than Andrew, she might fail for real and there was no going back from this. She pushed it down. There was no time for that. The plane was going to land soon - but Betsy Barnes had only just begun to soar.