They All Fall Down

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  I said, “Okay,” then turned to Desi, who was now dumping spoonfuls of sugar into her iced tea. I pointed at the blue gems in her ears. “Did Larry give you those?”

  She touched her left earlobe, then shook her head. “Nuh-uh. My boyfriend Hoyt did. When he went over to Irahland, he picked them up. I know what you’re thinking, and stop it right now. Me and Hoyt met during a church camp meeting and it was strictly platonic at first because I was still married.”

  “I thought you and Larry were deeply in love,” I asked, squinting at her.

  “We were, but like every relationship, we had our rough spots.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Two years. Anyway: me and Hoyt, see, we have so many things in common and he thought I was just about the smartest woman in West Virginia, and that made me feel so good, and I needed that at the moment, but anyway. Hoyt and me, we’d text and we’d email each other all day, you know, sending jokes and news stories back and forth, stuff like that.

  “He’d take me to real nice lunches—he’s wealthy. His family owns one of the last coal mines right outside of town. And they’re turning it into a clean coal mine, so that’s exciting. Well, finally, after all that, courting you could say, he asked me to go away with him one weekend. I just about lost my mind when he asked me.”

  I hid a yawn behind my hand. “Uh-huh.”

  “And he didn’t wanna take me just anywhere. He wanted to take me to Newport News. So I said yes, and ohmygosh, lemme tell you—” She dropped her voice and leaned in close to me. “I have never been touched like that in all my life. And he touched me like that all weekend, and when he wasn’t touching me, he was feeding me lobster and pouring me champagne.”

  Desi’s eyes became dewy as her face flushed with Hoyt memories. “For a country girl, it was mind-blowing, but the weekend ended as weekends do, and we had to go back to our lives, and Larry didn’t suspect a thing, not that me and Hoyt made love, cuz we didn’t that weekend, that was later, cuz I still loved Larry with all my heart, but…” She tapped her earlobe again. “Hoyt sent me these the next week after our getaway with a note that said, ‘Your eyes are more beautiful than these sapphires.’”

  “Sapphires?” I laughed, shook my head, then laughed louder.

  Desi’s smile faltered. “I know—it’s a little corny but it was sweet.”

  I caught my breath, then touched her wrist. “I hate to break this to you, girlie, but those rocks in your ears? They aren’t sapphires. They’re not even rocks. I can see all the lines and bubbles from here.”

  Her smile brightened, just as stars brighten when they’re about to explode. “You’re just joshin’ with me.”

  I feigned a smile. “If that’s what you wanna believe.”

  She wiggled her nose and rolled her eyes. But her hand brushed her earlobe again, then twisted the earring there, paused, twisted again, then that hand dropped back into her lap.

  Fakes. She knew. A woman always knew.

  The world beyond the windows flashed white again, and the chandelier’s lights flickered. I counted to three before an earsplitting clap of thunder took my breath away.

  Desi found a smile and tapped my hand, now clenched around a knife. She whispered, “Relax, girlie. This ain’t hardly bad. I’ve seen worse, believe me.”

  Raindrops hit like BBs against the windowpane. First the moths came, then rogue electricity, and now rain. Would the glass hold?

  Javier carried two bottles of white wine into the dining room. “I am pleased to share with you…” He filled Wallace’s glass first. “A 2014 Chateau de Tracy Sauvignon.” He sounded so professional, so responsible. Not high. Not drunk.

  I leaned over to Evelyn and whispered, “I hope he cooked something edible for dinner. I don’t know what the hell kind of appetizers were crawling in those bowls at the reception.”

  Wallace lifted his Wallace wineglass, swirled it, sniffed it, sniffed it again, peered closely at the pale golden liquid. Then he sipped, closed his eyes, smiled, nodded. “Reminds me of Central Park, summer of ’83, Diana Ross in the rain. With Phillip. Our first concert together. We fell in love—”

  “Hold up.” Eddie blinked as his face reddened. “You and Phil … Phil was gay?”

  I squinted at him. “Where the hell have you been?”

  Wallace shook his head in awe. “What gave it away, Edward? Diana Ross? Or my impeccable table manners that require that I not ask my guests who they prefer to love?”

  No one spoke as Wallace’s eyes beat down Eddie’s. “And once again, I question Phillip’s loyalty to his clients.”

  Javier poured wine into the cop’s glass, then Frank’s.

  I leaned over to Desi and whispered, “And the men get wine before us because why again?”

  Javier trundled down to our side of the table. “Miriam?”

  I nodded. “Yes, please.”

  Desi accepted wine, but Evelyn covered her glass with a hand and said, “I don’t drink.” Then she grabbed her Evelyn wineglass and pushed away from the table. “Maybe there’s juice in the fridge.”

  No one responded. No one cared.

  “I was just shocked, is all, Wallace,” Eddie explained. “Some of my best friends—”

  “Are gay?” Wallace asked in a bored voice.

  “Hell, no,” Eddie said. “Not in my neighborhood. They jack up gays where I’m from. They’re cops now and their beats are in the South End, where all the gays hang out. You been there?”

  Wallace squinted at the cop. “You are something else, Edward. Truly.”

  The rain was now falling steadily, and every time the world flashed white, I glimpsed trees bending and swaying, weak as dandelions against the gusts of wind.

  I sipped from my Miriam glass—and like Wallace, I closed my eyes as the wine filled my mouth and slipped down my throat. It was the best I’d ever tasted. Apricots and pistachio and autumn, not summer. Not Diana Ross. No. Michael Jackson. Bad. 1987.

  “Where can I purchase a few cases of this?” Frank asked. “I don’t care about the price.”

  “Later, Franklin.” Wallace lifted his glass. “First, let’s toast to the man who has, for some strange reason, brought us all together—”

  Glass shattered in the kitchen. A woman screamed.

  Eddie jumped up from his seat and left the dining room table before anyone else could even stand.

  Another scream.

  Frank raced out of the room.

  Desi darted from the table.

  Was Escorpion here?

  I, too, scurried to the kitchen to see Evelyn crouched on a barstool next to the breakfast counter now crammed with plates holding our first course. The tendons in her neck pushed against her skin. Her wild eyes and crazy hair reminded me of—

  “Snake!” Evelyn screamed, pointing at the floor.

  A tan snake with brown and gray splotches lay coiled beside a discarded Chiquita box near the freezer door. Shards of Evelyn’s broken wineglass had landed on the creature’s skin, making it sparkle.

  What happened next happened quickly. A cleaver, a WHAM!, a chopped-off head, Eddie’s hand, blood spatter, dead snake.

  “Dude,” Javier barked at Eddie, “you take that from my chopping block?”

  Evelyn’s knees buckled and she crumpled on the stool.

  Frank caught her before she fell to the floor. “Somebody help me,” he said, his face strained.

  Eddie dropped the bloody cleaver onto the counter, then raced to catch Evelyn.

  “Where should we take her?” Frank asked.

  “Back to the dining room.”

  As Frank and Eddie carried the fainting nurse away, Javier glared at the snake corpse left on the tiled floor.

  The storm sounded louder in here, with all the tile and stainless steel. Sheets of rainwater washed down the windows. Another flash of white caused the lighting to flicker.

  I whispered, “No, no, please stay on,” to the dimming lights.

  “Ohmygosh,” Desi sa
id, fanning her face. “How did a snake even get in here?”

  “Maybe it was in the banana box,” I said. “Maybe it was hiding and then came out once the house got quiet again.”

  “Poor snake,” Desi said. “It didn’t hurt anybody.”

  “You need help cleaning?” I asked Javier.

  “Nope. I’ve cleaned up worse.” He smiled at me. “Don’t be surprised, though, if you see this fucker in your friseé salad tomorrow night.”

  “Ha.” I tried to grin, but part of me knew that he was serious.

  He waved us off. “Go. Sit. It’ll take me a minute to clean up the glass and the freakin’ dead animal, but I’ll have the first course out as soon as possible.”

  Desi let out a long sigh. “I think I need that wine right about now.”

  I gave her a lopsided grin. “Between the snake and the storm, I need all of the wine.”

  Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. The kitchen went black—but only for a second—and then the lights popped back.

  “Everybody okay?” Eddie called out.

  I stood there, frozen and tense.

  Desi smiled and shouted, “We’re just fine!” She tugged my arm. “C’mon, girlie. Let’s get you all the wine in the world.”

  Together, we returned to the dining room table.

  Evelyn, flushed and flustered, was already seated in her place. Frank and Eddie, both sweating now, stood at the windows. Wallace hadn’t moved from his seat and was now pouring more wine into his glass.

  “I don’t like snakes,” Evelyn mumbled. “They scare me. They can kill you. They move so quickly. I was so scared. And I broke my glass. I was so scared.”

  She was stuck, poor thing, and I felt sorry for her. So I went over to the buffet and opened a bottle of bourbon. I filled a short tumbler with the brown stuff and thrust the glass at the terrified woman. “It’ll help.”

  As she gulped, her skin reddened and the muttering about snakes and the trembling of her hands stopped.

  “Is that better?” Desi asked.

  Evelyn nodded—her goat eyes were clear. She patted her frizzy hair, then said, “I just wanted juice. I didn’t mean to cause a commotion.”

  I waved my hand. “Whatever. I’m ready to eat.”

  Settled into our seats, we waited for the first course in between cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning. For the first time, Artemis was too warm and too stuffy for me, even with its high ceilings and windows. For the first time since stepping across the house’s threshold, sweat pricked at my skin.

  “Everybody okay?” Eddie asked again, breaking the quiet.

  “Yes.”

  “Not really.” (That was me.)

  “Crazy night.”

  “Did you still wanna toast?” Desi asked. “In honor of Phillip?”

  Wallace, hand covering his mouth, gave a curt shake of his head. “Later. This dinner party makes me want to take up smoking Parliament Lights again.”

  “Maybe you and Phillip should’ve chosen a less … rural location,” I said.

  “Says the woman who owns how many pieces of property?” Wallace asked. “Oh. Wait. None. And not that I owe you any explanation, but we do own homes in less rural areas. Artemis is just Phillip’s favorite. This was his last trip abroad—he and our friend Seth spent days putting on the final touches.”

  “And you stayed home?” Frank asked.

  Wallace nodded. “I was in the middle of treatment—I could barely travel to the bathroom without needing to vomit.”

  Desi giggled. “You let your man come to a romantic island with somebody else?”

  Wallace sipped from his wineglass. “I admit that I was a little jealous at first. But I also knew Phillip—he didn’t want to deal with my temper, first of all. And second, he wouldn’t have had this beautiful estate without me.”

  “In other words,” Desi said, “he knew which side his bread was buttered on?”

  Wallace gave her a thumbs-up.

  “But you kicked off the people who used to live here,” I said.

  Wallace rolled his eyes. “Again with that? It’s how the rich stay rich, my dear. The mall that you enjoy on the first and fifteenth of every month? Someone used to live there. People like me gave you that Dress Barn and Payless shoe store. You’re welcome.”

  Something flared in me, and I was moments away from blasting like a volcano and busting every window in that mansion. My mouth opened, but Javier bustled into the dining room. The fire in me died some, but I still felt its burn deep in my gut.

  “Here we go!” He carried a tray arranged with the six small multicolored plates that had been sitting on the counter. “Our first course,” he said, sitting a plate before each of us. “Fugu sashimi with a citrus sauce.”

  Like the wineglasses, each plate had been personalized with our first name’s initial scripted in gold across the surface. Our entire names had been printed in a smaller font alongside the date. They were plates you’d give as a wedding present to the happy couple or make for your child’s first birthday party. And now, I guess, plates you’d purchase to commemorate a fancy dinner party on a private Mexican island. My M plate was sea foam green, and if I hadn’t known, today was July 10. Adorable.

  So. Fugu sashimi. The near-translucent fish flesh had been arranged into tissue-thin flower petals. A dollop of orange sauce sat in the middle of the arrangement and was surrounded by pink orchids.

  “Javi,” I barked, “what is this?”

  The chef rubbed his hands together. “This, Miss Miriam, is the spotted sharpnose pufferfish. While it’s not from Japan, this fish is the same as the Japanese puffer but caught out there.” He pointed to the windows and the ocean beyond. “Mar de Cortés.”

  Frank plucked his orchids from his yellow F plate and sat them on the linen napkin. “Is this the fish that can kill you if the chef doesn’t prepare it properly?”

  Javier clapped his hands. “Yes! Because of the tetrodotoxin in the liver and ovaries. So you’re familiar with it?”

  “I’ve traveled to Japan countless times,” Frank said. “I’m close friends with bankers over in Tokyo who order it incessantly. Not for the faint of heart or the wallet, about $150 for an ounce.” To the rest of us, Frank said, “To even cut fugu requires special knowledge and unique certification. I hope Mr. Cardoza here continues in this tradition of excellence in preparation, or this may be all of our last meals.”

  Frank, Wallace, and Javier laughed. Desi wanted to laugh, too, and her mouth lifted and fell, lifted and fell again because she didn’t understand the joke. Finally, she simply smiled and twirled one of the orchids from her navy blue D plate beneath her nose.

  I got the joke—not funny—and I folded my arms. “I’m not eating it.”

  “She doesn’t put strange meat in her mouth,” Wallace said. “Anymore.”

  “Ha, that’s funny,” Desi said, cackling.

  “C’mon, Miriam,” Javier said, smiling. “I’ve done this a million times. There’s nothing to fear.”

  “Oh, no?” Wallace asked, lifting his wineglass. “Is that what you told Mr. Humphries right before he died in your restaurant?”

  Javier’s face darkened. “He didn’t eat any fugu.”

  “Dead, dead, dead,” Wallace said. “But what did you tell the world after he’d died, Javier? ‘I didn’t make him order it’?” The old man sipped from his glass, squinted at the chef, then said, “What? Did I say something … offensive again? Did I misquote you?” Wallace faked horror. “Oh, dear. Was I supposed to keep that secret? That Mr. Humphries died in your restaurant after eating something you prepared?”

  With fake cheer, Javier said, “Fuck you very much, sir. Now, drop dead.” He smiled at me. “Miriam, it’s all good. Trust me. It’s … Here, look.”

  Javier grabbed my fork, then jabbed a slice of fish from my plate. “In Japan,” he said, “the chef is supposed to taste the fish to make sure it’s safe for diners to eat. As a show of confidence, you know?” He dipped the fish in th
e citrus sauce and popped it in his mouth. “It’s delicious. Oh, man. It’s like heaven. Ooh … here it comes, the best part. The numbing effect. It’s—” His face flushed, and his grin widened.

  “It’s what?” I asked.

  “Is it normal,” Desi asked, “that you’re turning the color of strawberries?”

  Javier nodded. “Mm-hm.”

  “Your face…” I said.

  Javier’s face tightened. Then the muscles in his face twitched. Tight. Twitch. Tight. Twitch. Uncertainty in his eyes—what’s going on, am I okay, is this normal, why?—bloomed like a drop of blood in water.

  Eddie said, “He doesn’t look…”

  Javier dropped the fork and slapped at his mouth. “My lip … tingle…” He lurched forward and an orange sea of vomit splattered on glasses and plates.

  I hopped out of my seat and shouted, “No!”

  Desi shrieked.

  Javier slumped into my chair, and that twitching and stiffening in his pallid face moved down to his arms and his hands. His lips were puckering like a fish out of water, and he grabbed at his chest and clutched at his throat.

  “Somebody do something,” Desi squawked.

  Lightning flashed. The chandelier lights dimmed—and this time, they didn’t brighten again. Thunder boomed and all that energy razzed across my cheeks.

  Javier’s eyes glittered even as they rolled to the top of his head. Then his eyes crossed, squeezed shut, then repeated that cycle again and again.

  My mind raced—do something, save him, call the police, help him, Jesus, help him, is this happening, is he dying, help him—but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak, even though there was so much to say. But my throat had closed and tightened and I couldn’t …

  Frank had also pushed away from the dining room table. “Is he…? You okay, Javi?”

  Javier didn’t respond. His lips and throat kept making that suctioning pop-pop-pop sound as he gasped for air. His eyes kept glittering and rolling and squeezing shut.

  The lights above us dimmed more, like the light found in romantic restaurants. But this was not romantic. Not with Javier’s lips popping like that. Not with his breath pitching higher and higher and higher until …

  Until there were no more high breaths and no more popping lips.