by Chris Wiltz
The party was for Thea, to welcome her back to town. She was flattered, but besides being nervous and uncomfortable, she was also surprised. The old friends coming to the party were not her old friends: the only one she could remember from their high- school class was Mona Dupre, Sandy's old friend. For that matter, her own friendship with Sandy couldn't qualify as an old friendship, hardly as any friendship at all. Lyle and Sandy and Bobby and Thea had made a foursome back in high school, but that was because Lyle and Bobby were best friends and so they double-dated nearly every weekend. Sandy had been very nice to Thea on those weekends, even making a confidante of her sometimes, but around school she remained aloof, as if a friendship with Thea might lower her social status. Which Thea thought it probably would, so she didn't hold too large a grudge against Sandy.
Sandy opened the door and held her hands out to Thea, then embraced her warmly. Thea was relieved—her clothes were okay. In fact, she and Sandy were dressed so much alike, both in basic black and pearls, that it was nearly distasteful. Lyle came up behind Sandy, echoing her words of welcome—it had been way too long; glad they were neighbors again—as if he could think of nothing to say himself, leaning forward, his head large and bullet-shaped with his hair a closely cropped flattop, to kiss Thea.
They both still had their Waspy, sun-streaked blond good looks. The image of them driving around town in Lyle's father's baby-blue Cadillac convertible was imprinted on Thea's brain forever: Sandy's hair flying, bright and shimmering, she and Lyle waving, the king and queen on parade, important, flamboyant, their smiles a quick gleam shrinking to self-satisfaction.
But now there was something off-key about them, something strange about their eyes, the way Lyle looked at Thea directly when he kissed her yet seemed to be looking inward, the way he wouldn't look at Sandy at all, yet her eyes searched constantly when they were on him.
The eyes. Always she was aware of eyes, a habit left over from long ago when everyone would look at her and say such nice, warm, sympathetic things, but their eyes would not be warm. They would be curious, watchful, keeping their distance all the while the were saying the right things, being so very nice. People were only nice like that if something was wrong with you, if you were crippled or deformed. If your parents had been shot down in their grocery store. Then they became curious: what had it done to you, where were you crippled, how were you deformed?
She looked for their watchful curious eyes. Maybe they would want to know how rich she was and what the money had done to her, was she less crippled, less deformed? Actually, she wondered herself, but she hadn't had it long enough to know.
But their eyes reserved those kinds of looks for something else now, something that was wrong with their own lives, something they looked for deep down in themselves and each other, looking hard for it but not seeing it.
Two small light-haired children, a boy and a girl, came speeding down the stairs, their baby-sitter, an older black woman, running hard after them. They were introduced to Thea and sent off to bed. Then, while Bobby went off to make drinks, Lyle and Sandy showed Thea around as they waited for the other dinner guests to arrive.
The house was a mix of Old South splendor and contemporary showcase—the kind of place magazines call “fabulous"—and it gave them obvious pleasure to exhibit it to Thea. They pointed out the arched leaded windows from a church that had been demolished, the paneled wainscoting—doors, actually, from the old rectory—everything softly glowing under the recessed lighting in the ceilings or spectacularly lit by glass halogen fixtures on the walls. Thea's mother would have called them “house proud,” as she had called Aunt Althea, but labels like that don't get attached to confident and beautiful wealthy people who live in magnificently, artistically, redone showplaces.
Thea thought about the way Lyle and Sandy had been in high school, a couple ever since she had known them, but not a couple she had perceived as being in love, or romantic, or caught up in any sort of passion. Instead they were more of a romantic ideal, something quite different from flesh and blood that heated up and pulsated and desired. They didn't touch each other affectionately, not even the way she and Bobby touched each other, friendly, familiar; instead, they huddled together whispering, their eyes darting. Conspirators.
As they gave her their well-practiced tour, Thea realized that their romance had been based on the recognition of their mutual ambition; their passion had been for acquisition, for social power. Lyle's position with the Cotton National Bank was a symbol of their standing in the community, as were the dinner guests they expected, all of whom regularly lit the society columns. And their house was the symbol of their ambition, a true reflection of their old southern family backgrounds and their modern acquisitional ways.
It was all as Thea would have expected, with one exception: on the way over to their house that night Bobby had told Thea that Lyle was banker by day, crimestopper by night, a reserve policeman taking an action-packed Saturday night off to entertain her. Bobby said that Lyle patrolled the neighborhood and had a regular beat as well, answering calls—murders, rapes, robberies—the way any cop would.
And was that, Thea wondered as she stood in the backyard, the final stop on the tour, gazing down into the black-tiled swimming pool, a black lagoon against a backdrop of spotlighted tropical foliage and a gurgling fountain, was that a symbol of whatever was off-key with these two people?
The long dining table was draped with a bone-white linen cloth. Tall, tapered yellow candles, two feet long at least, burned on either side of a large bowl spilling over with yellow daisies and black-eyed susans. The twelve plates, edged with navy blue and gold filigree, held tiny glazed quails from one of Lyle's hunts, wild rice, and a mix of colorful vegetables. Over drinks before dinner Thea had been the center of attention, everyone wanting to know about her life in Massachusetts, and she had surprised herself by saying that living in Amherst had been an interesting interruption. Now, during this reprieve at the dinner table, listening to their scattered conversations about people she didn't know, Thea wondered what exactly she'd meant by that. During the last few months in Amherst she had thought about going to school, getting a degree, though she didn't know in what—something that could eventually release her from her boring, dead-end job—and that thought had followed her to New Orleans. It wouldn't have to be anything practical now; perhaps she could become an expert on the works of Camus and the existentialists, study the meaning of being, or go straight to the cutting edge and study essentialism, write a dissertation on the meaning of meaning, become Dr. Tam-borella. She drifted back to reality: the fact that her education had been broken off, although perhaps part of what she meant by an interesting interruption, was not all of it. It would take some reflection.
She found she was staring into the reflection in the dining room's wall of uncurtained French doors. It prevented her from seeing into the yard. She could see only back into the room, the candlelight and the people at the table, the darkness outside turning the glass into a smoky mirror. The effect was eerie, momentarily unsettling, as if they all had become ghosts, even with their voices ringing off the hardwood floors, the high curved ceiling, the wall of glass doors. It seemed that the moment she decided to tune in to the echoey din, someone's name reverberating, it stopped. Now a thick silence pressed against her eardrums, a large silence, everything larger than life in a room like this.
They were all looking at her. Thea swallowed a half-chewed piece of quail breast and felt it stick mid-esophagus.
“He was killed,” Lyle said to her, “about three months ago, coming home from work. They shot him point-blank in the back of the head, execution-style. He was the second one in a month they killed like that.”
Was this someone she had known? She didn't think so; the name had not triggered any memory. She looked across the table at Bobby, but he offered no help, fairly well plastered, his eyes glowing redly at her, a slight smile parting his lips. The silver fork seemed awfully heavy in her hand.
&nbs
p; Lyle's eyes were on Thea, holding her. She was dimly thinking they were so small, their brown reminding her of old dull varnish. He had always been on the serious side, but in the candlelight Thea saw seriousness permanently etched in the flesh around his mouth, across his forehead, a deep cut between the eyebrows, down to the bridge of his nose.
“Most of us are carrying guns now,” he said. “Women too.”
Mona Dupre said, “I've got mine,” her voice sounding oddly chirpy, only adding to the weight in the room. “Lyle taught me how to shoot.”
Thea looked at Mona, glad for the release from Lyle, her eyes automatically riveting to Mona's hands, a large opal circled by diamonds on the right hand, a huge emerald-cut diamond flanked by sapphire ring guards on the left. A gun in those hands . . . guns in the midst of all their culture and high society and proper behavior. Imagine those uptown ladies shooting to kill, their legs spread as far as their fashionable clothes would allow, in a policeman's crouch as taught by Lyle, their jewel-bedecked hands clutching their guns . . .
“I carry two,” Lyle said. He was talking to her again, forcing her eyes back. But everyone was watching him as he reached behind him, underneath his jacket, and placed a gun on the white tablecloth next to the bowl of yellow flowers, at the base of a silver candlestick. The candlelight reflected faintly, as if it were dying, in the gun's oily blue-black surface. His eyes never wavering from Thea's face, Lyle leaned down and pulled a second, smaller gun from an ankle holster. He let it sit in the palm of his hand, showing her how it fitted, how it could be hidden, before he placed it next to the larger weapon.
Thea felt trapped by his stare. She forced her eyes down, to the quail, their pitiful little legs sticking up into the air, no longer delicacies, just dead.
“I don't think there's anyone sitting at this table who doesn't know someone, more than one person, who's been held up at gunpoint, if not killed.” Thea raised her head. Lyle nodded at the guns. “We have to protect ourselves, what we own. You might want to think about getting a gun too, Thea.”
Lyle's eyes had become brighter, and Thea thought she could see rage smoldering behind them, giving them the only light they contained; she thought she knew what he was trying to tell her about the anger they all felt, and about the fear, the hate, and the helplessness. He was saying to her, It's been done to us too, now we understand, now we know what it's like to be a victim, to be connected to death by violence.
But there was something they did not understand, something they had not experienced directly, something that had come after she was worn out with anger, fear, hate, and helplessness. It was the sense of confusion that lingered. First there had been the confusion of coming home and finding the grocery store full of police, of not being allowed inside. Then the confusion of displacement, a new home, a new school, people behaving strangely toward her, and later the confusion of her feelings for her aunt. But there was this other confusion, dense and full of questions that refused to make themselves clear, a confusion from which there had been no release, not now, perhaps not ever.
Lyle went on, “They're all armed, so we have to be armed too.”
“They've declared war on us,” Mona said belligerently.
Thea was beginning to understand that what they mostly empathized with was hate. But she did not hate anymore. As for fear, her fear had never been the same as theirs was now. Her fear had been about the loss of her parents, their love and their guidance, their special concern for her, unselfish concern, not at all like Aunt Althea's kind of concern; her fear was not fear of all black people. And her helplessness and anger were not their helplessness and anger: she had been helpless in having no one to turn to for other needs besides food, shelter, clothing—the need to talk to someone, to ask questions of someone trustworthy, of someone who knew the answers, of someone who could tell her what had gone wrong; she had been angry at her aunt for not being that someone.
Instead, that someone had been Delzora. She hadn't had all the answers, but she told Thea it was all right to be angry. She couldn't tell her what had gone wrong, but she helped her see it was wrong to hate.
Thea met Lyle's relentless eyes. “You know, my father wanted to protect his family and what he owned too. You may not remember, but the gun he kept in the store was gone afterwards, and the police believed he and my mother were shot with it.” It was the first time she'd spoken of the murder with any of them other than Bobby. But everyone at the table, even Bobby, seemed frozen with some kind of prurient anticipation.
Lyle said, as if trying to convince her, “They could have held a gun on your mother and gotten it away from him.”
“Yes,” she said, “they could have, it could have happened any number of ways. If you'd known my father and his Italian temper, you might think he'd have gotten them first.” There were many questions and she'd asked all the ones she knew how to ask, but it was the answers to the ones she didn't know how to ask that she wanted, not Lyle's answers.
Sandy slid gracefully into the tension at the table. “Oh, I don't think we should talk about all this now. Thea will think she should go back to Massachusetts, and we want her to stay.”
The other women guided the conversation into safer waters and Lyle slipped the guns back out of sight into the holsters hidden on his body.
Later, when Thea went to the kitchen to help Sandy serve dessert, Sandy said, “Listen, I'm really sorry about all that—Lyle ...” She hesitated as if she were at a loss for words, a first in Thea's recollection.
“It's okay,” Thea said.
But Sandy shook her head, rather violently, the golden hair flying away from her neck. “No, no, it's not okay.” Her eyes were too bright. She lifted a hand, her mouth opening then closing, her hand falling. She blinked rapidly three or four times and said, “He's gone mad on law and order.”
After the party Lyle walked Thea and Bobby to the car with his big oily blue gun drawn and ready. He clapped Bobby on the back and held the door for Thea, his eyes roaming continuously.
Thea stood at the side of the car. She laughed nervously. “This seems awfully dramatic, Lyle.”
His eyes came to rest on her. “It's sad, isn't it, that this is what it's come to. I don't mean to scare you, but the truth is we just can't be too careful anymore.” He kissed her cheek and she got into the car. “Well, this was fun,” he said jovially, his roving eyes continuing their search beyond the car. “We'll do it again soon.” He punched the lock down with his free hand and closed the door.
12
After the Hindermanns’ dinner party, Thea asked Bobby to take her straight home. Bobby, even in his inebriated state, could see she was upset.
“Don't pay any attention to Lyle,” he said as they stood just inside her front door. “He thinks he's Supercop disguised as a mild-mannered banker.” His speech was slower than usual and a bit slurred.
Thea smiled faintly. Encouraged, Bobby bent toward her. He almost lost his balance and took a short step forward as he encircled her in his arms, pulling her in. Thea put her arms in between them, her hands against his chest. “I know he means well,” she said, “but it bothers me when someone thinks he has all the answers, that's all.”
“He's pretty arrogant about it.” Bobby held her more tightly, forcing her arms around him, his lips in her hair, now grazing her face as he said, “I only have questions, like are you going to ask me to come in for a while?”
The smell of bourbon on his breath spread in the air, and Thea turned her head away. She put her arms in between them again and with a slight pressure on his chest pushed him from her. His arms fell away. “I'm tired, Bobby. This wasn't easy for me tonight—parties like that have never been very easy for me, you know that.”
“We don't have to go to any more if you don't want to.”
She frowned. That wasn't the point. Bobby was too drunk to understand anything except what he wanted. Suddenly all she wanted was to be alone. “I need to go,” she said.
Bobby understood that he
had not pleased her. He kissed her cheek. “Sleep well,” he said. With his hand on the door knob, he paused, looking at her, but she was already turning toward the stairs. He let himself out.
She went straight up to the shower. She let the water beat first on her face then on her back. She slicked a fragrant bath oil over her arms, her legs, over and around her breasts, up her neck, sliding across her shoulders. But she was still anxious—jittery, she now realized. Spooked. She wrapped herself up in a big terry-cloth robe and left wet footprints down the hallway to her room.
It was the same room Aunt Althea had given her when she came to live there, a large room furnished with the same heavy, dark mahogany furniture, a high four-poster bed, a dresser and dressing table. Over the dressing table was a large mirror. Thea sat in front of it and began to comb out her hair. Behind her, reflected in the mirror, was a large round curio cabinet displaying a collection of porcelain and bisque dolls.
Thea had never liked the dolls. The collection was Aunt Althea's idea; she thought all young girls should have a collection of some kind. Thea had said she wanted to collect books, but Aunt Althea said, no, she meant a real collection, and decided upon the dolls. It was obviously a collection she herself had always wanted.
For a while, with annoying regularity, Aunt Althea had given Thea a doll, the Daughter of the American Revolution doll, the Pierrot doll, the Scarlett O'Hara doll, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. And there was the Rapunzel doll with her hair to its tiny white-shoed feet.
Thea did not like any of the dolls very much. They weren't dolls she could play with; their cold hard faces were too fragile, their complicated clothes were made for show, not for dressing and undressing. She was not attracted to any of them, but she had no idea why the Rapunzel doll in particular was so creepy to her.
When she came to live with Aunt Althea she took the Rapunzel doll off the mantelpiece in the room designated as hers and hid it in a dresser drawer, covered by soft, powder-puff sweaters with pearl buttons and other sweet schoolgirl clothes she never would have picked for herself, clothes picked for her by her aunt. Aunt Althea found the doll within days, and that's when Thea realized she would have no privacy in the house whatsoever. Yet she didn't protest her lack of privacy, just as she didn't protest when the round curio cabinet was filled with the dolls and placed next to her bed. To have protested would have let her in for one of Aunt Althea's freezes: no direct communication, no direct looks, an intense and thorough displeasure, disapproval, and disliking.
