Geburtsville, Pennsylvania

Annie Elizabeth Kreiser

Two hands on the wheel, two eyes on the road. I observed this as carefully as if I was taking my driver’s test. Still, I couldn’t help but glance at the signs on the side of the highway. 

HEAVEN OR HELL? CALL 83-FOR-TRUTH. 

My mother had texted me, “When are you coming home?” My thoughts twisted around the word she had insisted on using for the house I hadn’t been to since leaving for college. 

SHEEPSKIN COATS. RIGHT AT EXIT 28. 

I’d driven myself to school. Boxes full of new bedding, textbooks, and old clothes crowded every inch of my car. It was late August in Pennsylvania: sunny, hot, and humid. Down and out I’d gone, barely noticing the Appalachian ridges fading away as I kept driving, driving, driving to New York. 

1 MILLION BABIES MURDERED EACH YEAR. ABORTION KILLS. 

I noticed the mountains this time. Their shape like a sleeping woman covered in trees. I felt something like guilt begin to creep up in me. I turned up the radio, pressed my foot down on the gas a little harder. Eyes on the road. 

I arrived at the creaky wooden house my parents raised me in. A pillar of smoke rose lazily into the sky from the backyard. I was greeted by the smell of cooking meat and firewood. I went around back, crunching the leaves along the way, to find my parents wrapped in flannel blankets around the fire pit. 

“Look who’s back!” My dad said. 

“Here, we’re almost done with supper,” my mom said and scooped me a bowl of cabbage, onion, apple, and pork from the pot over the fire. “Momma’s been working all day on that.” 

I had left my newfound vegetarianism behind at college, knowing it wasn’t worth the explanations and the fight. I sat down by the fire, “Do you guys have an extra blanket?”  

“Didn’t you bring a jacket?” My mom asked, handing me one anyway.  

“It’s in the car.” 

“You oughta just eat and go right to bed. Grandma Kramer’s all settled in at that home and we’re gonna visit first thing in the morning.”  

“Great.” 

My mother frowned at my lack of enthusiasm. “She’s been asking about you, Jessie. You never call her.” 

“I know, I know.” 

After dinner I climbed the stairs to my childhood bedroom and turned on the light. I stood in the doorway and surveyed the slight disarray I’d left it in. Half of my things were gone. Books had been pulled from my shelf at random places, all the good-framed pictures and my favorite stuffed animals were absent. The closet door was left ajar. The tape of my Bikini Kill poster had given out, and it lay crumpled on the floor. I pulled my flannel pajamas out of a mostly empty drawer. My parents, I knew, would not be turning the heat on until October 31st, as a point of both thrift and pride. I shut off the light to go to bed and was plunged into blackness. Had it always been so dark here? I shivered into the quilt my grandmother had made me. Before I could decide if I liked it more than my duvet, I fell asleep. 

The next morning, my mother caught me just as I reached the bottom of the stairs. “Jessie, you can’t wear those beat up shoes to visit Grandma Kramer.” 

“These are the only ones I brought with me.” 

“Well, don’t you have any others up in your closet?” 

I trudged back up the stairs and surveyed the remnants of shoes in my closet: sweat-stained flats I’d had since middle school and a pair of cowboy boots. 

My mom had gone with me to get them. “Now, your heel should come up about a quarter inch when you walk, are ya feelin’ that?” The shopkeeper said. 

I paraded around the store in them, looking at the teal embroidery. “Yeah,” I said, having no idea what a quarter inch felt like. “I wanna get these ones.” 

“Now, are you sure you like them?” My mom said from the bench, “A good pair of boots lasts longer than some people’s marriages.”

I looked at her and nodded, “Yeah, I really like these ones.” 

That shopping trip had been years ago, somewhere around the start of high school. I picked up the faded boots, realizing how long it had been since I smelled the homey scent of good leather. “Mom!” I called, “Do you have some mink oil I could borrow?” 

I sat behind my parents while they drove in silence. I studied the intricate embroidery on my freshly oiled boots until I started to feel bad for not wearing them anymore. Then, I looked out the window and tried to figure out what my grandmother would ask about college and how I was going to respond. By the time we rolled into the parking lot, I was feeling ready. We found my grandmother in a faded white rocking chair on the front porch. 

“Ah!” She said upon seeing me, “I almost didn’t even recognize you Jessie, you cut your hair so short.” 

“Hi, Grandma,” I said as she hugged me. 

She’d decorated her apartment with a signed Dale Earnhardt Sr. picture and all-denim family portraits from when they first put in the Walmart. We all sat down in front of her TV where she was watching a NASCAR race. “How's Jeff Gordon doing?” My dad said. 

“Not good,” she answered stiffly. “D’yous want somethin’ to drink?” She offered, “Jessie, go in the kitchen; I have some diet Pepsi in the ‘frigerator.” 

I grimaced. “Do you have any bottles of water?” 

“Jessie,” My mom said as a warning. 

“We don’t need anything to drink,” my dad said.  

“Y’sure?” My grandmother asked. 

“No, we’re good,” My dad replied. 

I was perched awkwardly on my chair, not sure whether I was supposed to get up or not. 

“What’re ya doin’ in school, Jessie?” My grandmother asked. 

“Oh, not much. I’m just doing my classes and working on the lit mag,” I recited.  

“The lit mag.” She repeated, “What’s that?” 

“It’s kind of like the school newspaper,” I said, “but with creative writing in it.”

“Oh.” She said, “Now, what’re you majoring in again?’ 

By this point, my parents’ eyes had become glued to the television, though I knew they had no interest in watching the race. 

I sighed, expecting this to go over exactly the way it did before I left. “History with a concentration in gender studies.” 

“Oh, dear lord.” She said, “What’re ya gonna do with that degree?”  

“Well, I could—” 

“That,” my dad said, cutting me off, “Is the sixty-thousand-dollar question.” 

I fell silent. My mom said nothing to defend me, even though she was the only other person in the room who’d gone to college. Well, community college, anyway, on some kind of government grant that had since run out. The cars went around the track again and again and again. 

“Did your mom tell you the church is having some kind of shindig tonight?” My grandmother said after an eternity. 

“Oh, is that tonight?” My mom said, finally breaking her silence. 

“Yeah, Carol was telling me.” 

“What is it?” I asked. 

“Oh some kind of music-dance thing to fundraise for the meal deliveries. You oughta go, a lotta you kids are back for the long weekend.” 

It was an excuse to get out of the house, and so I went in left behind flare jeans. A group of guys was up on the stage providing live music for the sea of belt buckles and cowboy boots that filled the social hall. “Alright y’all, we got a good one for ya comin’ up next,” the lead singer said. We’d gone to high school together, he a couple grades below me. His name was Brandon, I remembered, Brendan, something like that. Two of the guys behind him had their fiddles poised to go and burst out into “The Devil Went Down to Georgia". I slid away from the lines of dancers that were beginning to take shape. Brandon began to chant, “The devil went down to Georgia he was lookin’ for a soul to steal…”  

I felt a hand grab my wrist, “Jess!” 

I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of my high school best friend, “Penny!” I screamed. She pulled me into her arms and I discovered that she didn’t smell like air-dried laundry anymore; she smelled like greasy food. Still as coppery as her name, her hair had grown a few inches, and she’d let it down tonight. “I missed you so much,” I said, still holding on to her.  

“Me too,” she said, and we finally let go. “I can’t believe you’re here! You didn’t tell me you were coming!” She yelled over the music.  

“It was a last-minute thing,” I said. 

She pulled me into one of the lines, “You have to dance; you know this one!” 

Before I could protest, she was nearly grape-vining into me. I let myself be swept away, hitting every step and turn the way we’d done since elementary gym. I was surprised how much of it my feet seemed to remember, guiding me along. “You still got it!” Penny yelled above the music. 

We turned so she was in front of me. 

“It hasn’t been that long!” I said. 

She twisted her head back to yell, “Long enough!” 

We pivoted and I was in front. I wondered if she was watching me. Another pivot and she was beside me again. Her hair bounced with her when she danced. She was laughing for the sake of doing it, her feet snapping along as effortlessly as my own. I let myself get carried away with her the way I used to, smiling just because she was. Before I was ready, the dance ended, and she was fanning herself with her hands while people clapped.  

“Whew, now it’s hot in here,” she said, “Let’s get some water.”  

I followed her over to a table with Redner’s spring water bottles. 

“So,” she said, handing one to me, “How’s college?”  

I wasn’t sure how to answer that.  

Before I had to, Caleb appeared. “Hey, long time no, see.” 

“Not long enough,” I mumbled. 

“What was that?” He yelled, “I can’t hear you over the music.”  

I looked at Penny and rolled my eyes. 

“You lost your chance, Caleb,” she said. “She’s not interested.” 

“Was I talking to you?” Caleb turned back to me. “Look, Jess, why don’t you and I go for a drive, huh? Just to catch up.” 

“No, thanks, Caleb,” I said, pulling Penny away with me. 

“Some other time, then!” he shouted after us. 

“Jesus, he’s a piece of work,” Penny said. 

I scoffed, “You’re telling me. I should have broken up with him way sooner.” 

“You never had good taste in guys,” Penny said, giving me a knowing look. She had this sort of conspiratorial charisma about her, a way of talking that made you feel like she was letting you in on some kind of special secret, just between the two of you. This particular kind of charm combined with her beauty had earned her the reputation of a flirt in high school, though it only endeared her more to me. 

“Do you know what he’s doing now?” I asked, unable to resist the temptation to gossip. 

“He was working at some kind of garage or other, but I heard he quit that. I don’t think he’s doing much of anything right now.” 

“Why would he quit?” I asked. A job as a mechanic was reliable livable income, which wasn’t always easy to find around here. 

“Who knows,” Penny shrugged. “He was always a bum anyway.” 

“Maybe he’s dedicating his time to becoming a professional four-wheeler,” I said, recalling the job he always seemed so sure of securing in high school. 

Penny burst out laughing, “Stop! I almost forgot about that!” and laid her head on my shoulder.  

I looked around at all the people dancing, some of whom I recognized from high school. It was stuffy and loud. “Wanna get out of here?” I asked.  

Penny smiled, “Sure. You can stay the night at my place if ya want.” 

We climbed out her window onto the roof. She took out a repurposed pill bottle and her bowl and began to pack it. The moon was full, bright enough for me to just barely make out the label: Penny L. Reid, sertraline. She lit the bowl and took a hit before passing it to me. I watched the little cloud of smoke I exhaled rise slowly up to the sky and dissipate. We passed the bowl back and forth a couple more times. She lit it for me when it was time. “So what’s college like?” she asked. 

I knew to expect this question. I had devised and rehearsed my answers to family members but for Penny, I didn’t know what to say. To give her an answer that was anything other than authentic felt like a betrayal, another strain on our relationship. I wanted to tell her about the time I went to Joe-Nuts, a kitschy local coffee chain in town with lurid orange and pink decorations. I saw two women in the booth across from me, sitting oddly close. One laid her head on the other’s shoulder and I couldn’t help but stare. One of them scowled at me; they left holding hands. I felt guilty for staring. I wanted to follow them and say, “No, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it like that. I’m one of you.” But the door jangled shut behind them and that was it. But I didn’t tell her this.

Instead, I shrugged. “I like it. It’s definitely different. My classes are interesting, so that’s good.” 

“Happy to be away from here?” 

“Yeah,” I said, without hesitation.  

She almost imperceptibly stiffened. I sensed that I’d said something wrong. The carefree happiness from the dance had rubbed off, leaving the complications of my absence painfully clear. “What about you? How’s it been back here?”  

“Pretty good,” she said as she exhaled, “Workin’ full time at the diner. I’m not a dishwasher anymore; I’m waitressing now, which is good. Makes a lot more money. I met my boyfriend there.” 

I coughed on the smoke, “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.” 

“Well, yeah, you haven’t been here.” There was a pause that was a little too long. “He’s a cook; his name’s Austin.” 

“What are you planning on doing, like, as a career?” 

“I dunno yet. I’m just taking my time,” she said, packing another bowl. 

We passed it back and forth again and my thoughts got fuzzier, as if someone turned the volume on my thinking down. I watched Penny staring up at the sky. I could see all the perfect contours of her profile illuminated by the moonlight. Her face was oily and seemed to glow. I ran my fingers over her hair like it was tall grass. She turned to look at me. “I missed you, Jess.” 

“I missed you too.” I shifted closer to her, and she put her arm around me. I could feel the warmth of her breath in the cool air. She looked at me and I felt transported back to her truck bed after prom night. I loved the way she had of looking at me, like I was special, like we were each other’s sole conspirators in these mountains where there was no one quite like us. I leaned in to kiss her and leaves rustled somewhere in the darkness. Her lips moved along my jaw to my neck, making my breath catch in my throat. She pulled me back into her bedroom through the window and we fell onto her bed. My hands felt for the hem of her shirt as she blew out the candle at her bedside. 

I dreamt about the time in high school Penny and I had snuck into Hanky Panky, the local sex store for some thrilling rite of passage. We passed through the aisles of penis and boob shaped gummies, condoms in boxes of every color of the rainbow.  

“Look at this,” I whispered to Penny, “Bubble gum flavored lube.”  

She grinned at me and licked her lips, “Tasty.”  

I put my hand over my mouth to stifle my giggle, both of us worried that our girlhood would be made too obvious, and we would be thrown out at any minute. The porn section was a collection of VHS tapes, with more “teen” videos than I’d been expecting. Thin white girls in plaid skirts or sorority t-shirts were draped across the covers, breasts nearly tumbling out of their shirts. I wondered if this was what it was like to be a few years older. I spent the most time looking at the lingerie section. Fishnets and corsets in hot pink, red, black, and purple dazzled me. I traced my hand down fringe on a corset, feeling the cheap silky fabric. I knew it was trashy, and I loved it all the same.  

“They’re kinda pretty,” Penny said, reading my mind. “Yeah, if I had anyone to wear it for.” 

“What about Caleb?” Penny asked. 

I laughed, “No way,” and saw her blush. 

“Come on,” she said, “We better go before we run into someone.”  

We got back into Penny’s car, still shaking from the adrenaline of worrying the sales clerk would throw us out. I saw two men in the car beside us and nearly screamed, “Oh my god, that’s Mr. Jenowski.”  

Penny whipped her head around to see our math teacher in the car with a man we’d never seen before. And then the other man shifted in the seat a little and Mr. Jenowski bent down over him, and Penny jammed her key in the ignition and peeled out from the parking lot while I was still fumbling with my seatbelt. My heart was pounding, and I felt a sinking feeling in my chest, that I’d seen something I shouldn’t have, that this was my consequence for being somewhere I shouldn’t have been. I spent the rest of geometry trying to forget that night. 

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes in the morning was a pile of clothes at the foot of the bed. I didn’t realize where I was until I heard Penny say, “Good morning.”  

I remembered what happened last night in a detached sort of way, as if it was a dream. Something like that happened once or twice while we were in high school, and both our silences on it were so profound I found myself doubting they really happened.  

“Do you wanna go to the boulders today?” she asked. 

“Sure. I can drive.” 

Penny slid into the passenger seat beside me and waved her hand out the window like a dolphin while I drove us to the field of boulders on a hillside that people graffitied and climbed and smoked on. The first time Penny held my hand was when she was helping me make the jump from one boulder to the next. 

“I wish Austin could’ve come,” Penny said, resting her head on the side of the car.  

I grit my teeth, “Does he have work or something?” 

“No, not till later, he just doesn’t like waking up so early.”  

It was 11 o’clock. “Right.” 

“I really think he’s the one,” she said, waving her fingers through the breeze. “We’re moving in together come spring.” 

“What are you moving in with him for?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. 

She shrugged, “I love him.” 

The leftover summer sun was still managing to break through the cracks between the trees. We were rolling over the hills and everything felt too precious, too fleeting to ruin with a fight. So, I gave her a grin and turned up the radio. I followed the double yellow lines, tried not to feel my chest splintering. It was such a nice day out. When we got to the boulders, she led the way and we scrambled up them, stopping occasionally to look at whatever new graffiti had been added. 

“Do you have anything like this near your college?” she asked. 

“Not that I know of. I mean, we have a rock that the senior class paints every year but that’s not really the same.” 

We climbed over a boulder that read, “JASON WAS HERE.”  

“What’s it like up there?” 

“It’s nice. Almost all the buildings are stone; they’re really pretty. You should come up and visit some time.” 

“Yeah,” she said noncommittally. 

We were almost to the top of the pile. “I really miss you,” I said. 

“I miss you too.” 

“Do you think you’ll ever go to college?” 

“It’s not my thing.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I’m just not a school person, you know that.” 

“Yeah, but college is different.” 

“It must be.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

She shook her head. “Nothing.” 

I reached for her hand, “I just want you to be happy.” 

“What makes you think I’m not?” 

I turned away from her and looked out at all the boulders below us. “I didn’t say you weren’t.” 

She squeezed my hand and I turned back to her. “You seem so much more… confident now.” 

I smiled, “Thanks.” 

She trailed her fingers across the back of my hand, up my arm, around the back of my neck. A few drops of sweat glittered on her forehead. “I don’t want us to stop talking like that again.” 

“Me either.” 

She kissed me and I felt my shoulders relax into her. I believed that we would keep in touch, that things would work out. We laid back on our boulder which was covered in blue swirls. I had never kissed her in the daylight before. Thoughts of what this might mean began to creep up on me and I only kissed her harder to push them away. 

We stayed out until the sun started to set. Penny was quiet on the way back, absorbed in her thoughts. We rounded a corner and came out of the woods. The hills and trees lay before us like a quilt as far as I could see. Until recently, it was as far as I’d ever been. The sky was all pinks and lavenders. The leaves had rusted on their branches.  

“It’s so beautiful here,” I said.  

“Yeah,” Penny said, “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” 

Her comment poked into my chest and twisted. We got back to her house, but Penny made no move to leave the car. I didn’t want her to. “You’re going back tomorrow?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” I said, “I have to leave early to beat traffic.”

“When are you coming back?”  

“I don’t know.” 

We lapsed into silence. With every second I felt myself getting more and more anxious that she would leave. She would get out of my car and go back into her parents’ house and move in with Austin and have kids and get stuck and never want anything more for herself than a diner, a man, and a trailer. She wouldn’t ever look at me like she did last night. “You’re not really moving in with Austin, right?” 

“What do you mean?"

“You can’t be serious. I know you. Don’t you want something more for yourself than this?” 

“What’s ‘this’?”

I gestured around, “This place, Penny. Don’t you want out?” 

“You want out, Jess. There’s nothing wrong with here. You think you’re too good for this place now? You’re from here just like I am.” 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

“Then what did you mean?” 

“Oh, Penny, come on. You can’t tell me all you want for your life is to just be a waitress and live with some—” 

“Is that what you think of me now? I’m just a waitress?” 

“Stop that! You know what I’m trying to say; you’re misunderstanding me on purpose.”  

“No, I’m not.” 

“You can’t be happy with him.” 

“How would you know what makes me happy?”  

“You’re not kissing me on accident.” She fell silent. “You can’t keep pretending forever,” I said softly. 

“Neither can you,” she said, much harsher than I expected, “And I don’t see you telling anyone.” 

“But not everywhere is like this, Penny. We could go somewhere—” 

“We?” She cut me of. “Stop acting like this is about anyone but you.”  

She got out of my car. 

“Penny, wait-” 

“No.” She said, “Stop. Don’t follow me. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Just go fuck off back to New York.” 

She slammed the door and disappeared into her house. I drove home in a trance. 

Follow the lines, follow the lines, keep your eyes on the road. I didn’t cry until I was parked in my parents’ driveway. The next morning, I woke before dawn to pack my things back into my car. I kept the wild hope that Penny would turn up somehow, that we would make up, though I wasn’t too sure what that would look like. 

“Are you sure you don’t wanna stay another day?” My mom asked. 

“No, I’ve gotta get back.” 

“Is everything okay?” 

“Yeah, just tired.”  

I got into my car again, watched the town and then the trees and then the mountains fade behind me in the rearview mirror. When I had left the first time, I thought that was the way they looked most beautiful. I hadn’t eaten and within minutes I was nauseous. I didn’t want to stop until I got back to the big stone buildings and manicured quad of my college. I pushed the speed limit the whole way; the same billboards flitted past me. 

1 MILLION BABIES MURDERED EACH YEAR. ABORTION KILLS. 

SHEEPSKIN COATS. RIGHT AT EXIT 28. 

HEAVEN OR HELL? CALL 83-FOR-TRUTH. 

Keep your eyes on the road. 

Annie Elizabeth Kreiser (’23) is a double major in English and secondary education who dreams of moving someplace warmer. On campus, she serves as a writing consultant and the junior editor of Pitch, Cedar Crest College’s journal of art and literature. After graduation, she plans to attend graduate school before returning to the classroom to teach secondary English.