Water for Elephants

Chapter One

I'm twenty-three and sitting beside Dani Hale; or rather; she's sitting beside me, because she came into the lecture hall after I did, sliding nonchalantly across the bench until out thighs were touching and then shrinking away with blush as though the contact were accidental.

Dani is one of the only four women (including myself) in the class of '31 and her cruelty knows no bounds. I've lost track of all times I've thought Oh God, oh God, she's finally going to let me, only to be hit in the face with Dear God, she wants me to stop NOW?

I am, as far as I can tell, the oldest virgin on the face of the earth. Certainly no one else my age is willing to admit it. Even my bother Sam has claimed victory, although I'm inclined to believe the closest he's ever come to a naked woman was between the covers of his eight-pagers. Not too long ago some the guys on the football team paid a woman a quarter apiece to let them do it, one after other, in the cattle barn. As much as I had hoped to leave my virginity behind at Cornell, I couldn't bring myself to take part. I simply couldn't do it.

And so in ten days, after six long years of dissections, castrations, foalings, and shoving my arm up a cow's rear and more times I than care to remember. I, and my faithful shadow, virginity, will leave Ithaca and join my father's veterinary practice in Norwich.

"And here you can see evidence of thickening of the distal small intestine," says Professor Willard McGovern, his voice devoid of inflection. Using a pointer, he pokes languidly at the twisted intestines of a dead salt-and-pepper milk goat. "This along with enlarged mesenteric lymph nodes indicates a clear pattern of-"

The door squeaks open and McGovern turns, his pointer still buried in the doe's belly. Dean Wilkins walks briskly into the room and mounts the stairs to the podium. The two men confer, standing so close their foreheads nearly touch. McGovern listens to Wilkins' urgent whispers and then turns to scan the rows of students with worried eyes. All around me, students fidget.

Dani sees me looking and slides one knee over the other, smoothing her skirt with languorous fingers. I swallow hard and look away.

"Quinn Fabray?"

In my shock, I drop my pencil. It rolls under Dani's feet. I clear my throat and rise quickly. Fifty-some pairs of eyes turn to look at me. "Yes sir?"

"Can we have a word, please?"

I close my note book and set it on the bench. Dani retrieves my pencil and lets her fingers linger on mine as she hands it to me. I make my way to the aisle, bumping knees and stepping on toes. Whispers follow me to the front of the room.

Dean Wilkins stares at me. "Come with us," he says.

I've done something, that much is clear. I follow him into the hallway. McGovern walks out behind me and closes the door. For a moment the two of them stand silently, arms crossed, faces stern.

My mind races, dissecting to my every recent move. Did they find my roommates' liquor? Dear Lord-if I get expelled now, my father will kill me. No question about it. Never mind what it will do to my mother. Okay, so maybe I drank a little whiskey, but it's not like I had anything to do with the fiasco in the cattle-

Dean Wilkins takes a deep breath, raises his eyes to mine, and claps a hand on my shoulder. "Kid, there's been an accident." A slight pause. "An automobile accident." Another pause, longer this time. "Your parents were involved."

I stared at him, willing him to continue.

"Are they…? Will they…?"

"I'm so sorry. It was instant. There was nothing anyone could do."

I stared at his face, trying to maintain eye contact, but it's difficult because he's zooming away from, receding to the end of a long black tunnel. Stars explode in my peripheral vision.

"You okay, kid?"

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

Suddenly he's right in front of me again. I blink, wondering what he means. How the hell can I be okay? Then I realize he's asking whether I'm going to cry.

He clears his throat and continues. "You'll have to go back today. To make a positive identification. I'll drive you to the station."

XXX

TWO DAYS LATER I bury my parents, I am summoned to the offices of Edmund Hyde, Esquire, to hear the details of their estate. I sit in my hard leather chair across from the man himself as it gradually sinks in that there is nothing to discuss. At first I think he's mocking me. Apparently my father had been taking payment in the form of beans and eggs for nearly two years.

"Beans and eggs?" My voice cracks in disbelief. "Beans and eggs?"

"And chickens. And other goods."

"I don't understand."

"It's what people have, kid. The community's been hit right hard, and your father was trying to help out. He couldn't stand by and watch animals suffer."

"But… I don't understand. Even if he took payment in, uh, whatever, how does that make everything belong to the bank?"

"They fell behind on their mortgage."

"My parents didn't have mortgage."

He looks uncomfortable. Holds his steepled fingers in front of him. "Well, yes, actually, they did."

"No, they didn't," I argue. "They've lived here for nearly thirty years, my father put away every cent he ever made."

"The bank failed."

I narrow my eyes. "I thought you just said it all goes to the bank."

He sighs deeply. "It's a different bank. The one that gave them the mortgage when the other closed," he says. I can't tell if he's trying to give the appearance of patience and failing miserably or is blatantly trying to make me leave.

I pause, weighing my options.

"What about the things in the house? In the practice?" I say finally.

"It all goes to the bank."

"What if I want to fight it?"

"How?"

"What if I come back and take over the practice and try to make the payments?"

"It doesn't work like that. It's not yours to take over."

I stare at Edmund Hyde, in his expensive suit, behind his expensive desk, in front of his leather-bound books. Behind him, the sun streaks through lead-paned windows. I am filled with sudden loathing-I'll bet he's never taken payment in the form of beans and eggs in his life.

I lean forward and make eye contact. I want this to be his problem too. "What I'm I suppose to do?" I ask slowly.

"I don't know, kid. I wish I did. The country's fallen on hard times and that's a fact." He leans back in his chair, his fingers still steepled. He cocks his head, as though an idea has just occurred to him.

"I suppose you could go west," he muses.

It dawns on me that if I don't get out of this office right now, I'm going to slug him. I rise, giving him one last look and leave.

When I reach the sidewalk something else dawns on me. I can think of only one reason my parents would need mortgage: to pay my Ivy League tuition.

The pain from this sudden realization is so intense I double over, clutching my stomach.

XXX

I had tried going to school but I couldn't. I ended up just leaving class during an exam, ignoring the teacher's request to come back. I couldn't stay after every. I had to leave.

I walk until the edge of town and then veer off to follow the train tracks. I walk until after dark and the moon is high, and then for several hours after. I walk until my legs hurt and feet blister. And then I stop because I am tired and hungry and have no idea where I am. It's as though I've been sleepwalking and suddenly woken to find myself here.

From somewhere nearby I hear water trickling, and I pick my way toward it, guided by the moonlight.

The stream is a couple of feet wide at most. It runs along the tree line at the far side of the clearing and then cuts off into the woods. I peel off my shoes and socks and sit at its edge. I lie back on the back, resting my head on a flat stone while my feet dipped in the water, soothing my sores.

A coyote howls in the distance, a sound both lonely and familiar, and I sigh, allowing my eyes to close. When it is answered by a yipping only a few dozen yards to my left, I sit forward abruptly.

The faraway coyote howls again and this time is answered by a train whistle. I pull on my socks and shoes and rise, staring at the edge of the clearing.

The train is closer now, rattling and thumping toward me: CHUNK-a-chunk-a-chunk-a-chunk-a-chunk…

I wipe my hands on my thighs and walk toward the track, stopping a few yards short. The acrid stink of oil fills my nose. The whistle shrieks again-

TWE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-

A massive engine explodes around the bend and barrels part, so huge and so close I'm hit by a wall of wind. It churns out rolling clouds of billowing smoke, a fat black rope that coils over the cars behind it. The sight, the sound, the stink are too much. I watch, stunned, as half a dozen flat cars whoosh by, loaded with what looks like wagons, although I can't quite make them out because the moon had gone behind a cloud.

I snap out of my stupor. There are people on that train. It matters not a whit where it's going because wherever it is, it's away from coyotes and toward civilization, food, possible employment maybe even a ticket back to Ithaca, although I haven't a cent to my name and no reason to think they'd take me back.

And what if they will? There is no home to return to, no practice to join.

More flat cars pass, loaded with looks like telephone poles. I look behind them, straining to see what follows. The moon slips out for a second, shining its bluish light on what might be freight cars.

I start running, moving the same direction as the train. My feet slip in the sloping gravel it's like running in sand, and I overcompensate by pitching forward. I stumble, flailing and trying to regain my balance before any part of me comes between the huge steel wheels and the track. I recover and pick up speed, scanning each car for something to grab on to. Three flash by, locked up tight. They're followed by stock cars. Their doors are open but filled by the exposed tail ends of horses.

This is odd I take note, even though I'm running beside a moving train in the middle of nowhere.

TO BE CONTUINED….