And the sexy black lace gloves. A real turn-on, she knew from past experience.
Sliding into Reigel’s 1996 Ford Cutlass. Perfumy, breathy. Long silky dancer’s legs and tiny velveteen skirt, the curly strawberry-blond wig and makeup so professional it masked completely her washed-out skin. And glossy crimson lips pursed for kissing.
He’d whistled Jez-us! Do I know you?
Maybe not yet “Starr Bright” murmured giving the guy a peck-kiss but you will, Stan-ley.
His breath smelled already of whiskey. Good sign.
Stan Reigel she hadn’t seen in twenty years. Thickset, balding, forty years old with a boy’s pug face. (Would she have recognized him? Was this actually him? Good question.) He was asking nervously how’s about a drink at the Eight-Ball or Artie’s and she laughed, laying a black-lace-gloved hand on his wrist Hell, no, Stan, I have a better idea, let’s get a bottle and we can park somewhere private and secluded and get reacquainted—how’d you like that?
Stan liked that just fine.
Stan blinked dazed not believing his good luck.
Stan read Playboy probably. Back in high school, he’d groaned with the other guys over the luscious centerfold girl-bunnies.
And so in the Buffalo & Chautauqua Railroad yard where twenty-two years ago in the back of Mack Dwyer’s camper guys had fucked Sharon Donner. Taking turns, drunk and giggling. She’d been drunk, too, and giggling feebly warding off their hands or trying to. Maybe she’d said no, maybe she hadn’t.
When he began to fight her it was too late. She’d slashed as deep and unerring as “Starr Bright’s” strength would take her.
Once they’d climbed laughing together into the backseat of the Ford Cutlass and eagerly he’d removed his coat, his shirt-sleeves rolled up and trousers loosened. Now d’you remember me, Stan?
He’d been too surprised to scream. At first.
D’you remember me—now?
Now?
NOW?
She’d used a straight razor. She’d practiced the technique.
It was all “Starr Bright”—as when the lights came up blinding and she swiveled into her routine.
They would discover a tissue-papery page neatly torn from a Bible, the Book of St. John, 8. In red ink shaky block letters a self-hating drunk like S.R. might laboriously print SORRY FORGIVE ME. S. There was an urgent, loopy circle in red ink around verse 34: Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you. Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
Tucked into the blood-soaked shirt against a dead man’s heart.
“Alleged suicide”—she’d laugh over that, later.
Thinking how, in the Southwest and California, where “Starr Bright” had achieved renown, local cops wouldn’t have come to such a conclusion.
At midnight telephoning Reigel’s home number from a pay phone outside a gas station. Only two blocks from the darkened car where the pig was only just bleeding to death. But “Starr Bright” was flying high, “Starr Bright” was one to take risks. Wild! Dialing the pig’s number and when a woman answered on the first ring she begged in a stricken little-girl voice C’n I speak to Stan?—oh please! and the woman asked Who is this? What’s wrong? and the little-girl voice was wailing Please please let me speak to Stan, I know he’s there and the woman demanded to know who this was and the little-girl voice interrupted Mrs. Reigel he doesn’t love you he loves me he’s told me hundreds of times he can’t stand you it’s me he loves please tell him I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I was wrong, I want to see him again, it’s O.K. about what happened I forgive him—and she’s crying, sobbing as if her heart’s broken, just a drunk hysterical young girl maybe fifteen years old young enough to be the pig-bastard’s daughter.
4
The Happy Family
I am not what I appear to be in your eyes.
In all the world only one person knows my heart: my twin.
“That’s quite nice, Janet—only just a little more on this side—yes, perfect.”
“Becky, terrific! Didn’t I tell you, last week?”
“Now don’t be impatient, Anita: it’s coming along nicely. It is.”
Smiling, though she was rather tired this Thursday evening, Lily moved among her students in her pottery class at Yewville Community College. It happened that all her students this semester were women, eleven women ranging in age from twenty-six-year-old Becky, who was eight months pregnant, to seventy-nine-year-old Madeleine, who’d been a widow, as she’d briskly informed them on the first day of class, for a quarter-century; ranging in ability from Laurie, who’d taken art courses at the college for years, moving from instructor to instructor like clockwork, yet reluctant, as she grimly said, to “set out on her own,” to poor Anita, who was no more than Lily’s age but behaved like a woman of sixty, melancholy, long-faced, always breaking things, whose frequent unconscious sighs of Oh! my goodness! made them all laugh good-naturedly.
Lily loved teaching. She surprised herself by liking her students more or less equally, talented or otherwise. A class was like a family, really. If someone was lagging behind, you helped her (or him: sometimes, Lily had male students) catch up; if someone was in a bad mood, you teased her out of it. Lily had been teaching for only five years, and not each semester, but already she’d accumulated in the Yewville area dozens of former students who kept in contact with her; sent her snapshots of their new work, plus pictures of children and grandchildren. A network of women. Sisters. Wes was happy that Lily was happy with her teaching, as he often said; but he disapproved that she was willing to teach for such a relatively low salary compared to other, male teachers at the college. It was an old issue between them.
You undervalue yourself, Lily. Consistently!
Well, at least I am consistent.
Lily didn’t want to think about it. Already the spring term was half over, and she hadn’t heard from the department head whether she would even be hired for the following fall semester, though contracts had gone out to other part-time teachers weeks ago.
Moving from student to student this evening, overseeing their diligent if frequently erratic work, the fashioning of generic pots, vases, bowls, “decorative objects for the home”—Lily felt strangely disoriented. As if she were in the wrong place, as in a dream. As if she should be elsewhere—but where? (At home?) She recalled her sister’s tactless words: But my teaching will be different from yours. The Pasadena School of Dance is a professional school. Sharon had been rudely dismissive of Lily’s work; but as so often with Sharon, accurate. Lily’s students were not professionally committed to the art—or even the craft—of pottery, any more than Lily herself was. Most of them were middle-class housewives looking for something to do. Only one of them had the imagination of an artist—but she was fatally lacking the courage and self-confidence; a part of her wanted only to remain an amateur forever, basking in the praise of community college instructors. These were women, very nice women, who yearned to “express” themselves—to a degree. Like Lily herself. They were fond of Lily as an instructor and as a person and wrote admiring letters to her and about her, to the college administration. A network of women, former students of Lily Merrick. They are your sisters, too. Can’t you draw happiness from them?
No, Lily thought sadly. I have only one sister.
Lily heard someone laugh. Startled, she woke from her reverie at the front of the room to discover the entire class smiling at her. “Must be contagious,” Anita said wryly, “you’re sighing, too, Lily!”
Lily was troubled about Sharon.
Obsessed with Sharon.
Wondering Is she in danger, really? Who is after her?
Has she brought my family into danger, too?
It was April 11. The length of the evenings and the intermittent warmth of sun-filled days seemed abrupt, disorienting. Some days—like this very day—were intoxicating with smells of moist earth, newly revived vegetation. In other years Lily couldn’t wait for spring, this year she’d told Wes half seriously sh
e wasn’t quite ready for it.
Already, Sharon had been staying with the Merricks for two weeks and Lily had yet to suggest to Wes that Sharon was in some sort of danger, or believed she was. She couldn’t violate her sister’s confidence! And when she brought up the subject to Sharon, Sharon became flurried, agitated—“Oh, Lily! I can’t deal with that now. I’m fighting a migraine, please don’t spoil this entire day for me.”
So that, if Lily pursued the issue, she would be persecuting and harassing her sister, too.
The two-week period had been, for Lily, both dizzyingly fast and mysteriously slow; as if Sharon had been with them, in the downstairs guest room, for six months. The household was wholly altered by her presence. (And her absence: if Sharon was out on one of her lengthy walks, the question was when would she return? Rarely did she tell anyone she was slipping away from the house, still less where she was going, and for how long. Deedee reported having sighted Aunt Sharon in All Saints cemetery “as if she’s praying or something”; Wes, driving on Hawley Street, was certain he’d seen her walking briskly along the back alley, in Lily’s old trench coat and boots.) She’d changed remarkably since her arrival, when she’d been so exhausted and ill; now, her old vitality was returning, as if with spring, and her old restlessness, that air of stopped-up electric energy that had always made her attractive even to those others (girls, primarily) who’d disliked and feared her. Can’t resist me, don’t even try! she seemed to proclaim, baring her teeth in a beautiful gloating smile.
Now Sharon had more energy, ironically she hadn’t nearly as much time for housecleaning of the fanatic, fastidious sort she’d done earlier. Carelessly, she tossed still-damp towels into the laundry chute, and required fresh towels daily; she changed the sheets on her bed several times a week, adding considerably to the volume of laundry Lily had to do. (Which most of the time Sharon was quite content to allow Lily to do, unassisted.) After dinner she drifted away as if oblivious of Lily and Deedee cleaning up in the kitchen, or, more frequently, she lingered over coffee with Wes, smoking a cigarette and querying him about his business, or the economy, or politics; to Lily’s annoyance, Wes seemed suddenly to have all the time in the world for idle conversation, where once he’d rushed his meals, needing to return to work, if he’d come home to eat at all. But Sharon remained diligent about helping Lily prepare dinner, for it was a time when the sisters could be together, engaged in a practical, pleasant task. Also, as Sharon nervously joked one day, “You know, Lily, I like to see exactly what I’m eating. What it actually is. I’ve been poisoned by bad food too many times.”
“Seriously? Poisoned?” Lily smiled quizzically.
But Sharon shrugged mysteriously. For me to know she’d tease when they were girls and for you to find out.
Though Sharon still declined to watch TV in the evening with whoever might be watching in the recreation room (“I just don’t want to be upset by something I might see—a news bulletin maybe”), Lily had the idea that she turned on the set in her room occasionally. (Not that Lily was eavesdropping on her sister. But she heard faint voices in the room now and then when she passed by in the hall.) And Sharon was using the telephone, Lily knew. Who are you calling? Lily inquired, thinking Sharon would say the names of girlhood friends or relatives, but Sharon replied vaguely, airily, “Oh, no one special—just business, Lily. My professional life is damned complicated.”
Once she said rather sharply, “No, Lily. I am not calling any old boyfriends. I am not calling Mack Dwyer, trust me.”
Another time, when Lily brought up the subject of their parents’ graves in the Shaheen cemetery, asking if Sharon would like to visit them, Sharon said quickly, “I just can’t be morbid-minded, Lily. Not at this time. I’m fighting for my life, fighting to breathe—can’t you sympathize?”
Sharon began to leave the house more frequently on long restless walks, but she never invited Lily to accompany her. She was still fearful, she said, of being recognized.
“We’d look like sisters, side by side. In the open air.”
Lily wanted to protest: Sharon so disguised herself in smoke-tinted glasses, her hair in a tight, thick twist entirely hidden by a scarf, her mouth a slash of crimson in a chalky face, how could anyone have identified her as Lily’s sister?
She doesn’t want me with her, Lily thought, hurt. She’s bored in my company already.
It happened then that Sharon began to borrow Lily’s car. Just for brief drives, she promised. Just to “get some air.” Lily must have looked doubtful or reluctant at first, for Sharon said, with sisterly defensiveness, “Look, Lily, I have a valid driver’s license from California, for God’s sake.” Lily murmured, “Yes, of course. I mean—I suppose.” “Oh, you! Ridiculous!” Sharon snorted, and marched off to her room to locate the license, which was hidden away somewhere amid her things; Lily trailed after her guiltily assuring her there was no problem, no need to show her the license, of course she could borrow Lily’s car.
Sharon said, huffily, “I’ll bring it back in exactly the condition it’s in, Lily. I promise.”
Watching Sharon drive her car, a no-frills economy Toyota, out of the drive and onto Washington Street and away, with a sudden spurt of speed, Lily thought how, as girls, Sharon had learned to drive long before she had. At first, Sharon had stealthily practiced on their father’s old Nash, on a nearby country lane; in time, as a precocious twelve- and thirteen-year-old, she’d been instructed by older neighbor boys who were pleased to oblige her. (Lily watched, from the sidelines.) As soon as she turned sixteen, Sharon acquired her driver’s license; at that age Lily was only just starting driver’s education at the high school, one of the shyer, less confident students. Lily hadn’t applied for her license until she was nineteen, by which time her sister was the high-fashion model “Sherrill” long departed from Shaheen and Yewville, living in Manhattan and boasting of driving a Mercedes coupe—“A gift from an admirer.”
True to her promise, Sharon didn’t cause injury to Lily’s car. But she upset Lily, and Wes, by turning up unexpectedly at the high school to whisk Deedee off shopping at the North Yewville Mall, only just opened. There, Aunt Sharon and her adoring niece whom she pointedly called “Deirdre” visited only the most stylish stores, buying clothes, shoes, makeup for the girl. In all, Sharon must have spent $300, and paid in cash. Gap jacket and pants, Benetton sweaters, Polo jeans and bleached shirts, lace-up shoe-boots so clunky and ugly in Lily’s eyes she had to know they were teenage high fashion. Deedee was euphoric of course, the happiest Lily had seen her daughter in years, but Lily was discomforted. “But Sharon, can you really afford all these things?” Lily asked, as if the mere outlay of cash were the issue. “What a question!” Sharon retorted, as if her very honor were at stake. “I’m not a housewife on a budget, Lily, dear—I’m a career woman with my own income.” Wes too was uneasy when Deedee, startlingly made-up in bright lipstick, eye shadow and eyeliner, modeled her “spring outfit” for him—snug pants, loose-fitting shirt and safari jacket; he told Deedee curtly that she looked “like something on MTV”—the channel of all channels Wes hated. In private, he warned Lily that he didn’t want the shopping excursion repeated. “She’s your sister. You make it clear.”
One of the items of clothing Sharon bought for Deedee was a Gipsy Horse minidress of crushed purple velvet—size 8. Deedee’s size was 12. “Deirdre and I decided she needs some incentive,” Sharon said. Lily asked, “‘Incentive’ for what?” and Sharon said, “To lose a few pounds, Lily. Obviously.” Deedee, who was listening in, said, “Oh, God, more than a few!” sighing and pinching at her waistline, and her young, shapely breasts. “I’m gross.”
Lily realized her daughter had already begun to cut back on food—no rich desserts, smaller second helpings at meals.
That evening Lily came to speak with Deedee in her room, gently scolding her for saying such things about herself. “Deedee, you’re a lovely girl. Don’t you know that?”
Deedee, sprawled across he
r bed, applying Revlon purple-plum fingernail polish to her nails, another gift of Sharon’s, snorted and rolled her eyes. “Oh, Mom. You don’t need to lie to make me feel good.”
“Lie?” Lily was hurt.
Deedee said, sighing, as if it fell upon her shoulders to utter the most obvious, banal insight, one known to everyone except her dense mother, “Well, Mom, you never exactly tell the truth—do you? Not like Aunt Sharon. She just looked at me, and smiled, and said, ‘Deirdre, you’re fat.’ I respect her for that.”
I am not what I seem to be in your eyes.
When you learn, will you forgive me!
Lily’s pottery class began more or less at 7 P.M. and was supposed to end at 10 P.M.; but her students lingered, of course. As usual, it was past 10:30 P.M. when Lily arrived home.
She was thinking about her sister Sharon, and she was thinking about her daughter Deedee.
I am not what I seem. Forgive me!
Someday, perhaps soon, she would have to tell Deedee that she was adopted; it was all the fashion now, such painful disclosures. But Lily’s parents had believed that a child was far better off not knowing; and in Lily’s case, when Sharon so adamantly insisted upon giving her baby to Lily, only under the condition that no one outside the family ever know the truth—what choice had Lily? Fifteen years later, it seemed to her that her promise, made as much to her mother and father as to Sharon, still held; she could not see, morally, that a vow of such a kind would not be binding through life.
Lily wondered: would it be enough to tell Deedee that she was adopted, and not to tell who her mother was? (Lily hadn’t any idea who Deedee’s father was, and had been given to believe by remarks of Sharon’s that Sharon didn’t precisely know, either.) Deedee would want to see adoption papers; and there were none.
But to tell Deedee who her mother was, and to incur Sharon’s wrath—that was impossible.
Starr Bright Will Be With You Soon Page 18
