Read Online Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman - Free Book Online

wife and daughters, Michelle and Monique. These cousins of hers—Stephanie is worried about their minds. She herself is a feminist and successfully accused her math teacher of intimidation and harassment over his use of sexist jokes in the classroom.
    “You got him fired?” Renée is amazed.
    “Yup,” says Stephanie. “Tape recorder in my desk. Turn right here on Mohican. They’re a bunch of racists in there, you know.” She waves her hand at the gatehouse off Mohican Road. A private road arcs upward into the leafy hillside. “The owners have a secret covenant.”
    Renée doesn’t know what a covenant is, but she doesn’t ask.
    “I’d love to infiltrate them,” says Stephanie. “If I don’t work with large animals, I want to expose social injustice. I think I’m going to become an activist. What do you want to do?”
    “I don’t know,” says Renée, feeling eclipsed by the decisive and far-reaching plans of Stephanie.
    Renée’s ideas seem unimportant next to Stephanie’s agenda. Stephanie talks about the news and the election, inflation, abortion, and nuclear proliferation. “I mean, one girl in my class asked me: ‘What’s the Cold War?’” she tells Renée. “This was a girl at a selective private school, for God’s sake! I just wanted to find a place where I could quietly commit suicide, you know?”
    “Yeah,” says Renée, and she plans to find out what the Cold War is as soon as she can get her father alone.
    Where the road flattens again, the houses are year-round places, ranches fixed up with American flags in front and white wagonwheels. There are flower beds planted with petunias and vegetable patches sprouting tomato plants and giant pumpkin vines. At the turnoff onto the farm road, they find a vegetable stand with peaches, lettuce, watermelons, and barrels piled with fresh ears of corn.
    The Lacy Farm visitors’ path leads up through pastures to a great red barn and two towering aluminum silos. Dressed in overalls and serious boots, the official Lacy Farm visitors’ guide is Bebe Lacy, an in-law of the family. Mrs. Lacy leads Renée and Stephanie into the cow barn thundering with the sound of hundreds of cows chewing, snorting, swatting flies, placidly rubbing flanks against the partitions between them. The girls watch the milk machines from the wooden walkway between the double rows of stalls. Above each cow hangs a white plaque painted with her name, weight, and pounds of milk output per day. “When you leave, you girls’ll have to sign our guest book,” Mrs. Lacy says. “We always have guests sign the register because we run out of names for the cows. This is Stephanie.” Mrs. Lacy pats the rump of a huge red cow. “She’s a good one. Good milker.” Stephanie the girl looks up, as if uncertain whether this is offensive. The cow swats off a fly.
    “And what did you say your name was?” Mrs. Lacy asks Renée. She lights up when Renée tells her. “Terrific. We haven’t got a Renée. How do you spell that?”
    “Do you feel honored?” Stephanie asks Renée as they bike home.
    “What?” Renée breathes hard as she pedals to keep up with Stephanie.
    “They’re planning to name a cow after you. Don’t you feel honored?”
    Renée laughs. She feels hot and sweaty, and happy. It probably wasn’t a big deal for Stephanie, but it was an adventure for Renée to bike all the way out to the farm. She’s certainly done something not allowed. “I can think of lots of good names for the cows,” she says.
    “Yeah, but they already have most girls’ names you can imagine,” says Stephanie.
    “How about Esther?” Renée starts to giggle. “Or Eva, or Beyla?” Then she remembers the Shulman girls, “How about Chani, Malki, Sorah, Ruchel, and Brocha?”
    “What is that—one name?” asks Stephanie.
    “Five,” says Renée.
    “You said them all together. Anyway, they’re too hard to pronounce. Do you want to go swimming?”
    Renée thinks for a minute. “I should