by David Payne
ELEVEN
Claire saw them from across the room—the kids in masks of chocolate Soft-Serve and Ran in his white hat and jeans with muddy knees. She rushed downfield to intercept.
“What happened? Are you all right?”
“What?” Ran said. “We’re fine.”
“Hi, Mommy!”
“Hi, Mama!”
“Hi, sweet girl! Hi, sweet boy! Come give Mama a big hug!” She knelt and took her messy kisses fearlessly. She patted them like pears in tissue, checking for bruises. She gazed deep into their eyes for signs of trauma. None were apparent, even to her X-ray vision. Ran’s expression said, See, I handled it, and was proud.
“You gave them ice cream?”
“They were hungry.”
“I’m sure they were. It’s almost suppertime.”
“What was I supposed to do—hand them each a crusty loaf and drop them in the woods? You asked us to be here, here we are, per madame’s request.” He bowed across his hat and, rising, looked at her with melting eyes Claire really couldn’t deal with then.
“You’re late.”
“I had a busy afternoon. Here, check this out.” He showed her the blue vial.
“What’s this?”
“You tell me. I found it in a pot in the backyard.”
“What pot?”
“A black one buried in the periwinkle patch.”
“You found a buried pot in our backyard?”
“It was upside down and wrapped with chains.”
“Wrapped with chains?” She leaned close and sniffed. “Have you been drinking?”
“What? I had a glass of wine,” he said with wounded innocence.
“A glass…As in a glass bottle?”
“Hey, excuse me,” he said, “if I’m not mistaken, you’re working on a wee bit of a Chardonnay flush yourself. And isn’t everybody drinking here? It’s a cocktail party—so what if I had one before I came? Relax!”
“Oh, Ran,” she said with disappointed eyes. “Goddamn it, this is my first day. You promised.”
“What!” he said. “What! I’m being good. Aren’t I being good? Don’t I have on my white hat?”
“Daddy’s being good, Mommy,” Hope explained with gravity that stopped just shy of a chastisement.
“Ice keem!” Cresting on his sugar rush, Charlie, spying more, headed off toward the desserts.
“Dute, come back!” said Ransom, laughing. “Where’s Cell? I want to see the man and shake his hand! It’s time to institute the plan and make peace in the land!”
And Claire was really worried now.
Deanna, overhearing strident whispers, made haste to interpose. “Are these your children, Claire?”
“Oh, hello, Deanna…Yes, this is Hope and…that’s Charlie over there. Hope, say hi to Professor Holmes.”
“Hi, Professor Homes.”
“Hello,” Deanna said, careful not to touch and risk infection.
Ransom smiled and raised his hand. “I’m the houseboy.”
Claire frowned. “Deanna, this is Ransom Hill, my husband.”
“I used to listen to you all the time at Smith.” Deanna, suddenly, turned girlish. “You had a kind of cult.”
“No kidding,” Ransom said. “A cult at Smith. Tell me more.”
“That’s it. It wasn’t all that big.”
“Well, no, it wouldn’t be, would it?”
Claire, from the scorers’ table, had to give the old man 10 for this.
“We were exclusive, though.” Deanna’s grin revealed that there were hot springs percolating in the permafrost and also told the world she could be sly, but Claire already knew.
Ransom laughed. “I like this girl…excuse me, woman! It’s woman, isn’t it? Sometimes I forget what decade I’m in—all that sex, you know, Deanna, all those drugs and rock and roll.”
And stern Deanna, in her severe black specs and vampire gabardines, actually laughed, and laughed quite volubly, at what seemed to Claire a tired and somewhat marginal attempt.
She watched this with the Tiresian eyes of one who, both as wife and onetime girlfriend, had seen it all before, seen the chilly, hip Deannas melt like ice cubes on the stove as the blaze came up in Ransom’s eyes, the sexual one, the power thing, little different now than it had been at twenty-five. Claire wondered if she’d been a bit of a Deannatype herself way back once upon a time, and if so, when she’d stopped liking it…or was it only when it wasn’t turned on her?
“There’s something inside.” When Ransom shook the vial, it made a liquid whoosh and an illiquid tink. He took the stopper out. “Here, Dee, take a whiff and tell us what you think.”
“I’m sure Deanna doesn’t want to smell that, Ran.”
“I don’t mind, Claire, actually.”
Ransom shrugged. “Dee doesn’t mind.”
“It’s kind of musky,” said Deanna.
“Musky…Hmmm…” Ran offered it to Claire.
“No, thanks.”
“Humor me.”
She took a wuff. “Perfumy…kind of sweet.”
“Musky? Sweet?” he said. “It smells like Pap Finn’s breath on a bad drunk to me. What the hell could this stuff be?”
Before they answered—assuming either could—his eye drifted over their shoulders, up and up. “Dr. J!” Grinning, Ransom swung his hand wide for a soul shake. “Hey, nigga!”
Pod by pod, the room went still around them, starting with Deanna, in whose little starry eyes the starry little stars winked out.
“What?” said Ran. “Oh, sorry, I guess I can’t say that either. Wrong decade again!” He looked to Deanna for salvation, but her eyes had turned indifferent as the sea.
“We used to call each other that on tour. He called me nigga, too—right, Cell?”
“Ran?” said Claire.
He looked at her.
“I’d drop it now.”
“Yeah, sure, okay,” he said. “As long as everybody understands it wasn’t, you know, prejudicial…I think the roadies started it, didn’t they, Marcel? Tyrell and James?”
“I don’t remember, actually,” Marcel answered, in a level tone.
“I’m pretty sure it was Tyrell and James….”
In the first moment, Claire felt murder in her heart. The moment after homicide came pity, a deep, aching pang. Less for Marcel, though, than for Ran, who befouled himself more with the epithet than he ever could their friend.
They used to love each other, she thought. What happened? Was it the money? Claire almost wanted to believe it was, the old dispute over the chorus of “Talking in My Sleep,” the rock that RHB came smash against so long ago. But in her heart, she knew the deeper answer wasn’t money or the chorus. She faced it now: The reason is because of me.
Repeating the same action and expecting a different outcome…Her therapist’s remark played back, so why the hundredth time Ran asked had she said yes? Was it because she couldn’t bear the thought of negotiating where the children would spend Christmases, because she wished the cup to pass? Having left him for a string of valid reasons, none of which had really been addressed, was it reasonable to believe that they still had a fighting chance? As she observed Ran now with his hazed eyes and vinous breath, an answer flashed at Claire from some deep place. She had agreed to let him visit because she wished—not only wished, but needed—to come to clarity about their marriage. It was time, and way past time, for that. And taking in his large and joyous indiscretion, so familiar against the unfamiliar backdrop of Marcel, another thought broke through. With Cell, she played her mother’s role, the center of attention: his. Whereas, in her marriage, for nineteen years, she’d been the gardener, while Ransom was the rose. She’d known that going in, though, hadn’t she? Claire had chosen willingly, and did she will it still? Do you get to change, and did she want to? Further questions for a rainy day—she had compiled a good long list.
“And they called me redneck,” Ran went on, digging his grave deeper as he tried to shovel out. “And
Jethro—remember, Cell? Like, ‘Hey, Jethro, how’s your sister, I mean mama, I mean sister.’” Pushing his charm into overdrive, he did the Faye Dunaway slap slap slap routine from Chinatown. He’d tempted fate with “girl” and got away with it, but now, with “nigga,” Ran had sealed it tighter than a Pharaoh’s tomb.
“I’m bombing here, aren’t I?” he said, reading the writing on the wall the way he always did, eventually. “Sorry, guys, I don’t get out much these days. Throw me a line?”
“How are you, Ran?” said Marcel, manfully, showing who he was.
Despite the effort, Claire could see the tightness at the corners of his eyes.
“Doing pretty good, man. Thanks for asking. How about you? You put on some weight?”
“A bit.”
“Looks good on you. No kidding.”
“What have you been up to?”
“Me?” Ran said. “Oh, this and that. Today I wrote a song, took care of the kids, got started on a major house repair, cooked dinner, made a minor archaeological discovery. I was just telling Claire and Dee here…”
“Deanna.”
“Deanna. I found this buried pot in our backyard. It was wrapped with chain and full of shells and candle stubs and other shit…including this. Here, take a sniff and tell us what it is.”
Marcel leaned down reluctantly. “I don’t smell much of anything. Pond water maybe?”
Ransom laughed. “Pond water, musky musk, perfume, an old drunk’s breath…I guess truth is in the nose of the beholder. Hey, Charlie?”
Picking the rosettes off the large cake on the table, their son looked up with a snoot full of buttercream.
“Sometimes less is more, big guy.”
Charlie grinned and went back down on it.
Ransom shrugged. “Yeah, well, I never believed that maxim either.”
Claire started after him, but he touched her arm. “I’ve got him, babe. Listen, Marcel, I put my foot in it just now, but the fact that I’m a horse’s ass can’t come as news to you.”
The dean did not dispute this, but he smiled.
“The main reason I stopped by,” Ran said, smiling back, “the only reason really, was to say, well, here we are, both—all—in the same town, or close enough. Time’s passed, none of us are getting any younger. We’re all grown-ups, or as close as we’re likely going to get. We really ought to get together.”
“Sure, Ran,” Marcel said. “Sure, why not.”
“How about tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“I fried some chicken.”
“Ran…,” said Claire.
“What?” He turned an innocent look on her. “I can’t say fried chicken? You like fried chicken, don’t you, Cell?”
“I like it well enough.”
“See, Claire, he likes fried chicken. You like fried chicken. I like fried chicken. The kids like fried chicken. We’ve got fried chicken. What’s complicated here? Come out to the house and eat, Marcel. Bring your djembé, you can help me lay down the rhythm track on that new song. Okay, Charlie-boy, here comes Daddy! Better run!” Ran formed his fingers into claws, like Scar, and took off toward his squealing son.
“So that’s your husband?” said Deanna.
“Behold the man,” said Claire.
“He’s charming.”
Bitch on wheels. Claire smiled, relying on telepathy to make the point. Deanna’s expression, though, as she walked off, did not conclusively suggest she’d meant it as a joke.
“I’m sorry, Cell,” Claire said. “I’m really sorry about that.”
“Forget it, Claire. It’s no big deal, and anyway, it’s not your fault.”
“It’s not?” she said. “But what if it really is?”
He didn’t ask her what she meant. They gazed into each other’s eyes and knew.
“How does he seem to you?” she asked.
“Like Ransom, only more so.”
“It’s that more so that has me worried. It always starts like this.”
“So you’re concerned….”
“I am. I really am. I don’t suppose you want to come out, do you?”
Cell did not exactly leap.
“Don’t, then. Really, Marcel, don’t,” she said.
“You want me to?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
“Would you feel better if I did?”
“Yes, but it’s okay.”
“Let me get my keys.”
“Thank you!”
TWELVE
War? What war? There will be no war!”
As they make their way into the house, Harlan and Addie are diverted by Colonel Allston of the two-l Allstons, who is in his cups and holding several ladies hostage on the porch.
“The blood shed in this war won’t amount to a gill measure,” declares the old man, his silver hair as fine as filaments of dandelion, his cheeks the color of raw meat. “It won’t fill this glass, by God—I’ll drink the blood shed in this war!”
“Have some more champagne instead, Colonel,” suggests Harlan drily, trying to lure the old gentleman away.
“Take my word, DeLay,” says Allston, as content with one victim as the next, “the moment we fix bayonets, the Yankee popinjays will run like rabbits in the woods. After all, we’re fighting for home and freedom. What are they fighting for? The nigger slave? What is your view?”
“My chief hope, Colonel, is that the Confederacy, when it succeeds, will finally free Cuba from the Spanish yoke and annex her as a new slave state.”
“By God, why shouldn’t we?” shouts Allston. “There are bonds of natural sympathy between us and the plantation men down there, Spaniards and infidels though they be. Take Gonzales, Beauregard’s new aide-de-camp. He seems a decent sort. Hell, take yourself and Percival—haven’t we always been thick as thieves?”
“Colonel,” says Harlan stiffly, “I can’t speak to my father’s beliefs or those of Don Ambrosio José, but I can tell you, sir, I am, and have always been, an Episcopalian, South Carolina born and bred.”
“Damnation, boy, don’t get your back up. All I mean to say is that you’ll bring your sugar into Charleston without tariff. We’ll send our rice and wheat to feed your slaves and pay no duty to the monarchy in Spain.”
“On that point, we agree. And, God willing, after Cuba, Mexico.”
“Mexico, too?” says Addie, to whom Harlan’s viewpoint comes as news.
“Depend upon it, Mrs. DeLay,” asseverates the Colonel, “one day a Southern slaveholding empire will stretch from Maryland to the Yucatán.”
“And our king?” she says. “Do you think Jeff Davis’s head has swelled sufficiently to support a crown?”
Harlan frowns.
“Damn Jeff Davis, madam!” the Colonel shouts. “Our king will be Maximilian, archduke of Austria and emperor of Mexico! You there, William!” he shouts toward the butler, who’s appeared on the piazza with a tray. “Where are you off to? Fill this glass!”
As he weaves away unsteadily, Louisa Elliott, like an animal that’s been held at bay, takes the opportunity to bolt.
“Excuse me, if you please,” she says. “Harlan, if it would not be too great an imposition, have someone call my groom.”
“Certainly, Louisa, I’ll go myself,” he says. “But won’t you stay to cut the cake with us? We’re having fireworks later.”
“I’ve had sufficient fireworks for one afternoon, thank you.”
A mortified blush spreads from Harlan’s collar to his crown. “Two seconds, then. Allow me to take Addie in to Father.”
“Very well.” Louisa’s eyes lock on Addie’s now. “I wish you great joy in your new situation, Mrs. DeLay,” she says, pursing her lips as tightly upon “situation” as her black taffeta bonnet is cinched around her face.
“Thank you, Mrs. Elliott,” Addie answers, with a mildness no less pointed, and she can feel Harlan’s fury as they enter and start down the hall.
Forty feet away, before the closed doors of the library,
two women are in urgent conference, and Addie, at a single glance, knows who they are. Between them, they’re holding a white plate, each prizing with a hand, as though disputing its possession. There’s something on it—food for the invalid, Addie thinks. Paloma is tall, with shoulders like a man’s, but lean in a way men rarely are past adolescence, with a litheness like a deer’s, and this lends her physique an angularity and creates hollows under her high cheekbones that make her face look gaunt, severe, and sculptural. Her skin is not as Addie has imagined—not amber, cinnamon, gold, or any shade of brown—but a rare and striking black, like melted Jew’s-pitch in a Charleston roadbed on a day as hot as this. Her complexion is unlined, so wholly fresh she might be forty, even thirty-five, but her hair is grizzled, and there’s thirty years’ too much experience in her face to pass for that. She’s wearing a black silk dress, good but plain, with gathered skirts and waist attached, and on her feet, which are narrow, large, and flat as planks, a pair of silver satin slippers.
Clarisse—whose back is turned—is, like her mother, tall, but more delicate and willowy of frame, and her dress, though also black, is of a different order from Paloma’s, the brocade like heavy web on brightblack satin silk. It’s as chic and elegant as Addie’s own, but in a different way, not that of a Charlestonian, but of a habanera. She is holding a closed fan, and her hair—which is lustrous and wavy, as black as a crow’s wing—is pinned up in the manner of the day, à la giraffe, held in place by an ornate tortoiseshell-and-sterling comb. A few wisps, as fine as eider, have broken free and curl against her neck, which is the color of parchment or old bone.
“Ahí están,” Paloma says, her eyes fixed on Addie’s in deep, lugubrious appraisal that is without enmity of any sort.
“Anjá!” Clarisse wheels toward them now, her fan pressed dramatically between her breasts. “You startled me. But, Harlan, is this she? ¡Guapa muchacha! ¡Sí, guapa, muy guapa! You are here at last!”
