“What are you looking at?”
She jumped aside so suddenly she almost fell into the water. “Don’t do that!”
“Do what?” It was Andrew Stefano, her second cousin Bernadette’s husband.
“You scared me.” He was very handsome, Margaret thought, dark and sleek like a seal. Like Robert.
“Margaret, you’ve been drinking.” A sudden change in Andrew’s tone.
“I am seventeen years old,” she said, “almost. And I can drink if I want to.” She blew through her lips, fluttering them derisively.
“Young lady, I’m going to feed you. I think you need it.”
One arm firmly around her waist, he urged her toward a buffet. Canopied in blue silk, guarded by a multitude of gilt cupids, a huge ice swan melted slowly in the exact center of endless dishes.
“Hey, listen,” Margaret said. A steady metallic ping. The swan was dying into a metal bucket concealed beneath the lace tablecloth. “Swan’s bleeding to death.”
“Well,” Andrew said, “the food looks very good.”
Margaret waved off a waiter. “Let’s go outside, Andrew.”
Andrew filled two plates, tucked silverware and napkins into his pocket, and they went looking for an empty garden table. There were none.
“We may have to go inside,” Andrew said.
“Just keep going, Cousin Andrew, there has to be somewhere.”
They wandered through the gardens, peering into the seated crowds at the candlelit tables. Finally they stood on the edge of the golf course. “What now?” Andrew asked.
The night was perfectly still, as summer nights always were, and the air was heavy with moisture. Beyond the thick heavy trees, across the open grass, heavy cumulus clouds were piled at the edges of the sky. Every now and then, bred by the slope of the golf course, by the warmth of the sun-baked open ground and the cool of the trees, small half-breaths of air stirred, vaguely. Like a night moth brushing past.
Margaret licked one finger and held it up in the air. “Feel it? They say it’s not a wind really. It’s the ground breathing.”
Andrew was still looking for a table in the shadows. “Can you see anything?”
Margaret swirled on her heel, tennis shoes squeaking on the brick walk. “We’ll use the grass.” She flopped down, back against a tree. “I’m starving.”
He sat beside her, gingerly. “I hope you like it, you didn’t tell me what you wanted.”
“I’m so hungry I could eat nails.”
She wolfed down her food with quick gulping swallows and pushed the plate into an azalea bush. “We’ll see if they can find that in the morning. … Cousin Andrew, where’s the wine?”
“You’ve had enough to drink, young lady.”
“Don’t use that tone with me.” She jerked upright. “I’ll go steal a bottle from somebody’s table.” She scrambled up.
She was back quickly, on silent tennis shoes. “Is this red or white?” she giggled. “They were real busy necking. … I couldn’t get any glasses, but I got this.”
He sneezed with the sharp smell of powdered sugar. “Cakes?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Give me the wine,” he said.
“You’re missing it, Andrew. These cakes are great, whatever they are.”
“Can’t you taste?”
“Nope.”
“Young lady, you are drunk.”
“I hear singing, do you?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, listen. …” All the party sounds: the band playing “Valencia”; laughing and loud talking; and closer, all around them, soft whispers in the dark.
“I don’t hear any singing.”
“Maybe it’ll start again,” Margaret said. “I think I’ll wait for it.” She threw herself back, flat on the ground. “I feel so good.” She crossed her legs; her foot very nearly hit Andrew in the face. He caught it, and held it, feeling the rubber sole, canvas, laces. “Margaret, did you wear tennis shoes to a wedding?”
“Of course not,” Margaret hiccuped. “I wore Anna’s satin slippers, and I behaved very well.”
“You were grinning coming down the aisle.”
“Glad you noticed me.”
“You are crazy.”
From the path, a waiter asked politely, “Serve you something, sir?”
Andrew jumped. There was just a white coat and a glinting silver tray. “You look like a ghost.”
“Scotch-and-soda,” Margaret said.
“Miss Margaret, your father wants to know if you’re ready to leave.”
“Tell my father that Cousin Andrew will drive me home.”
The tray rose, floated away, leaving behind a smell of whiskey and the crisp odor of starch.
“And that’s why they call them darkies,” Margaret giggled. “Can’t see ’em at all. Cheers and Happy New Year and all that sort of thing.”
“Take it easy,” Andrew said.
“You know,” Margaret said, “before today I only sneaked drinks, when nobody was home, or nobody was looking.”
“I don’t mind driving you home, but I don’t want to have to carry you up those stairs.”
“You know what I want to be? An old lady with white hair who tells dirty jokes to young boys.”
Andrew took a final sip from his glass. “You’re going home right now.”
When she didn’t move, he pulled her to her feet, and held her steady. She leaned against him for a minute, then tossed her glass away into the dark. “Okay, cousin.” She could still feel his fingers at her waist.
Andrew’s car was a Packard, almost new. “Nice car,” Margaret said. “Business must be better than I thought.”
He backed carefully, inching his way out of the parking lot. “Still plenty of people here,” he said. “Looks like an all-night party.”
She leaned her head back.
“You sick?” he asked immediately. “I don’t want any mess in the car.”
She said, “I’m thinking.” And then: “Don’t you ever go faster than this?”
“I’m not the soberest person in the world, and I don’t want an accident.”
The street lights sailed slowly overhead. They were winking at her, she winked back. “Let’s go for a drive in the park,” she said.
“You go straight home.”
“I want to go to the park, by Magazine Street, that pool with the naked ladies.”
“Really, now …”
“You are so damn handsome to be so damned dull.”
“Just for a minute.”
Almost before he stopped the car, she opened the door, flashed through the beams of his headlights, and disappeared.
“Where are you going?” he yelled.
She raced through the dark, sure-footed in her tennis shoes.
She stood at the pool, hugging the naked body of one of the three bronze nymphs whose urns poured water endlessly into the marble basin. The cold metal felt green to her hands—and she knew it was. As a child, she’d often come here on sunny afternoons with her nurse. There was always a crowd of white children wading in the pool, and lines of black nurses sitting on the surrounding benches. Once a little boy pulled down his pants and peed on the starched skirt of her dress.
Andrew found her. “So this is your pool.”
“Cousin Andrew, you are right.”
Picking up her bridesmaid’s dress, she stepped down into the knee-deep water. The folds of pink billowed over her arms as she waded back and forth, splashing water into the dark. Andrew sat on a bronze lap, waiting.
She tired of the game. Her tennis shoes squishing water at each step, she walked toward Andrew. Sitting down, he was exactly her height. His features were so blurred she hardly recognized him. It could be anybody, she thought. It could be just any man at all.
“The water’s nice,” she said. She did not see his hands reach out for her shoulders, but the world gave a spin, the tops of the trees shifted, left to right and back again. “I’m drunk.”<
br />
“You are.” He held her shoulders firmly. “And you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Yes, I do,” she giggled and the trees lurched again. “That’s what Anna said: I do.” And she lifted her mouth to be kissed.
Funny, she thought, my first kiss with a boy, years ago, was wet and slimy and cold, and I didn’t like it. I still don’t like it. I’d rather he’d kiss my breast than my mouth.
She squeezed her shoulders together so that her breasts were more prominent. Maybe that would do it. He followed the movement and his lips ran down her neck.
That’s all there is to it. That and something else, a burning and a twitching. The tips of the trees jittered and she winked at them.
“JESUS CHRIST,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me?”
“What?” The trees had stopped moving. Too bad.
“The seat, god damn it, the seat.”
She squinted, then scrubbed at it with her skirt. “It is kind of messy. I didn’t know there’d be so much blood, Andrew, I always heard it was a symbolic drop and you hung the sheet over the balcony and everybody in the street cheered. In Sicily.”
“How the hell am I going to explain that seat to Bernadette?”
“You could pull it out and say you lost it.”
“Very funny,” he said.
She could see him quite clearly—she must be getting used to the dark. He looked terrible; he had dark circles and bags under his half-shut eyes.
“Look,” she said. “How about my problem? I’ve got to get in the house without anybody seeing me. And that is pretty difficult in my house.”
“Tell them you were kicked by a horse. In Sicily.”
She reached up and flicked the end of his nose. He jumped back as if she had slapped him, banging his arm on the car door, doubling with pain.
“Dogs don’t like to have their noses tapped either.” She got out the back seat and climbed in the front, carefully.
“Watch it,” he said, still holding his arm, “watch it, for God’s sake.”
“I am. Let’s go.”
He drove silently, and very fast. “I’ve got a great idea,” she said, as they stopped at her house. “It just came to me.”
“Spare me.”
“Put some gas on the seat and set it afire. No evidence.”
“No car either.” He leaned across her, opening the door.
Holding her dress carefully and precisely, wet shoes squeaking, she got out. He left at once. “Have fun,” she said to the two red dots of taillights. They promptly disappeared.
The back door was locked. She considered ringing the bell, decided against it. She would manage by herself.
On the porch post there was a large hook that had once held an awning. With a toe on that hook she could grab the roof and hoist herself over the gutter. From the sloping roof, a couple of steps along a trellis, flip up the screen, and tumble into her room. Home free.
Her dress was in the way. She tucked it under her waist, where it was so bulky that it made breathing difficult. Forget it, kid, she told herself shortly.
She had no trouble getting to the roof. Now the small back yard was below her: neat flower beds, spots of color—roses or something like that—and by the back fence, the tall fan-like shadows of paper plants. Beyond that, the blind windows of the house next door, curtains drawn, properly sleeping.
Margaret stood up slowly. One more, old girl. She put her toe into the trellis, giggling at the tiny squash of wet shoe. She shifted her weight, moved again, hung on the wall, lifted the screen. As her shoe slipped. She heard it even before she felt the change of balance. She swung her left arm wildly, hooked the sill, then almost lost it in the sudden pain of impact. She kicked wildly, propelling herself forward. If I stop, I’ll be too tired to start again. … Push. The upper part of her body was across the sill. Now only the dress wrapped around her waist was in the way. Feels like I’m climbing a mountain. Anna and her flowing dresses.
She rolled slightly to one side, ribs grating on the wood, shifting her weight crosswise. And tumbled inside.
Her breath scratched through her throat, fast and dry. She sat on the rug, legs doubled under her, and panted. I’m a puppy dog, with a long red coat and a shiny black nose.
There was also a very funny feeling behind her eyes. Like wires crossed. … She bent forward until her head rested on her knees. Collapsed. Like a puppet with tangled strings.
She stripped off her dress—her fingers seemed swollen and stiff—put on a robe, and padded down the hall toward the kitchen. Every light was on, but the house was empty. She found a Coke and drank it standing by the open refrigerator. It was the only cool place on a summer night. There seemed to be a party downstairs. Because her father liked to play, the entire first floor, a single large room, held three pool tables and endless racks of cues and balls. Nicest place in the house, she thought, with its leather chairs and faint wood smell from the paneled walls. Who’d be down there now? Was it still part of the wedding party? Her bare feet felt a regular beat: music. She opened another Coke. I couldn’t care less.
Downstairs, a muffled shout, then breaking glass and more shouts. A fight. You had to admit, she thought, that when her father gave a party, he gave a good one.
On the hall table there was a mass of white flowers in a tall brass vase. She thought: I’ll get married without flowers, and I’ll never have a single cut flower in my house. Only things in pots, slowly strangling to death.
She herself seemed to carry a musty odor. Of course. She’d been wading. … Water must be full of algae and caterpillars and God knows what.
She held out her arm and studied it. The dark hairs seemed to twitch. Microbes pushing them around. Pretty soon they’ll turn green. Dull green like the bronze ladies at the pool. And what would it be like to sit season after season watching generations of children pass in front of your eyes? Eat the little monsters, serve them for breakfast, catch one here after midnight and we’ll have him for sure, eat a child and release the bronze curse, we’ll be free, free, free, free.
She tucked a single peony behind her ear, and went to take a shower, singing over and over again: “Goodbye, algae; goodbye, bugs, goodbye, goodbye. …” She tried to sing it to “Good Night, Irene,” but kept losing the tune.
She went to bed. And thought.
About Anna, white gown and floating veil, properly married in her perfect little house. About bronze ladies sitting with naked breasts and discreetly folded legs. About moons that skipped around in the sky, about trees that tipped and swayed.
And that perfume, so much like the patchouli that her aunts used, who had worn it? Cousin Andrew. Yes, indeed.
As she relaxed, her fingers began twitching by themselves, and a muscle on the outside of her thigh squirmed.
She scowled into the dark. She’d expected so much; she got nothing. Maybe that was the wages of sin, maybe Anna had done better with her first man. …
Disappointment like a nasty little worm crawled across her, leaving slimy spoiling trails. …
She cried a few hot tears that hurt to shed and burned the flesh of her cheeks as they fell.
IT WAS the afternoon of the following day before she felt herself again.
“You want to hear the news?” her father asked. “It seems to have been quite a party. Philip Wilson drove into Bayou St. John on his way home, missed the bridge by thirty feet. Sally Mitchell had a fight with her husband and left him that same night, so he called Tess Christina and she moved in half an hour later. Andrew Stephano’s car caught on fire. Robert Lemoine’s son went over to Norma’s and got in a fight at the bar instead of going straight for the girls, so his ear’s almost bit off. Tootsie’s father-in-law said he had a heart attack and he did. What else—I can’t remember now.”
Margaret heard only one thing: “What happened to Cousin Andrew?”
“He dropped a cigarette or something. The whole back seat was afire when the milkman saw it.”
Margaret gig
gled; she drew up her knees, put her head down on them and giggled. How funny, funny, funny.
“What’s the joke?”
“He’s such a stuffy ass, and he was mad for that car.”
“Was he?”
She stopped giggling. He might suspect, but he would never ask. “It was a great wedding, Papa, did you hear them downstairs last night?”
“I wasn’t home,” her father said. “Margaret, no more big affairs. You elope. Go across the river to Gretna and get a justice of the peace.”
“Papa, if you weren’t home last night, where were you?”
He did not look up from his restless twitching of the newspaper. “That, little lady, is none of your business.”
Oliver
HER NAME WAS HELEN Augustine Ware, and she was a widow. Her husband had been an accountant with Southern Railway, a hard-working man who’d been promoted to vice-president six months before he died.
Helen Ware was short, and slender, and very proper. She was terrified that her married son would discover her affair with Oliver.
“What can he object to?” Oliver asked reasonably. “You’re a widow, I’m a widower, why can’t I take you to dinner? Or pay a call?”
“Not so often, don’t you see? People are suspicious and I couldn’t stand to have any gossip about us.”
“Who notices,” Oliver said, “who cares?”
Helen Ware shook her head, “My dear, you are so naïve. People do watch. So we have to be careful.”
They played a hide-and-seek game. To visit her, he had first to wait for her call, then take a taxi and get off two blocks from her house. “You must never get the same driver,” she said, “and you must get off at a different spot every time.”
“Sure,” he lied. And then took the same cab every time and had him wait just around the corner. He liked having the same driver. He liked getting used to faces and seeing them over and over again.
Maybe, he thought, part of Helen Ware’s charm was the games he played to see her.
When she came to his house, her arrangements were even more elaborate. She drove her car to a different spot each time—she favored crowded streets near hospitals: “I can always say I’m visiting if somebody recognizes my car.” “How can anybody tell your car from all the others?” “Well, they might.” He drove himself; she would not have his chauffeur see her. He had to find her, stop close by, while she waited for the proper moment to dart into his car, and huddle far down in her seat
The Condor Passes Page 17
