The Woman Who Fell From Grace

by David Handler

  “Father said it was —”

  “I said it was all right, Mave,” Richard acknowledged from next to her, soothingly. “What’s the harm?”

  Mavis whirled on him, outraged. “How dare you interfere?”

  “Interfere? Bloody hell, woman. She’s my daughter.”

  “She’s my daughter!”

  Richard whipped off his sunglasses, twitching, red-faced. “She’s our daughter!”

  “She’s mine!” cried Mavis, toe-to-toe with him, the cords in her neck standing out. “Shenandoah is mine. She is mine. Mine. And don’t you forget it!”

  “How can I forget it?” he snarled. “You never stop reminding me!”

  Mavis faced Mercy again. “Get in the car, Mercy,” she commanded, nostrils flaring.

  “I’m riding with Hoagy,” Mercy said defiantly.

  “In the car, Mercy!” Mavis insisted.

  “No!”

  Mavis turned back to Richard, her chin raised, the better to look down her nose at him. “Are you happy now?” she demanded viciously. “You’ve turned her against me. Soured her. You’ve always wanted to. Are you happy now?”

  “The only way I’d be happy, woman,” he roared, “is if this were your funeral I was driving to!”

  The slap caught him flat-footed. It was a hard, ringing blow and he took it full on the cheek. It knocked him back on his heels.

  “That was a dreadful thing to say,” Mavis whispered icily. She spun and marched back to the Mercedes.

  Richard stood there for a second, stunned. Then he stormed after her. When she got in, he seized the car door and slammed it shut behind her with all of the strength his fury could muster.

  Only Mavis wasn’t all the way in. Her right foot was still sticking out when she saw Richard’s hand on the door. She had only a split second to react. A split second to yank her foot inside the car. She just made it. Just missed having her ankle shattered by the heavy steel door. Just.

  She stared at him through the window with her mouth open. She was genuinely frightened. I doubt she often was.

  “Thought you were in, Mave,” Richard growled in apology. “Sorry.”

  But he wasn’t. She knew it and he knew she knew it. She glowered at him. He glowered back. Then he got in and they drove off.

  “I don’t understand them,” Mercy said quietly after we’d tailed the Mercedes in silence for a few minutes.

  “Don’t even try,” I said, enjoying the Jag’s eagerness, the way it hugged the narrow country road. “You can never understand what goes on between two people. It doesn’t matter whether you’re related to them or not.”

  “But they hate each other.”

  “Seem to.”

  “So why don’t they get divorced?”

  “Could be they’re happy this way,” I offered.

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Could be that facing the alternative — a life alone — is even worse than what they have now. Plenty of couples are like them. They complain. They fight. They make each other utterly miserable for forty or fifty years. I don’t know why. All I know is if your parents wanted to get a divorce, they would. If people genuinely want out of a relationship, they get out.”

  “I don’t understand you either,” she said softly.

  I glanced over at her. She was gazing at me. She looked more like an adult dressed this way. Or maybe I just wanted to think she did. Her eyes were a child’s, utterly without guile. They caught and held mine a moment. Until I remembered the road. “What about me?” I asked.

  “Why you never smile.”

  “That’s a funny thing to ask someone who’s on his way to a funeral.”

  “Why don’t you?” she pressed.

  “I smile all the time. It just doesn’t show on the outside.”

  “Are you smiling right now?”

  “Grinning my ass off.”

  “Hoagy?”

  “Yes?”

  “I like your car.”

  “So do I. Only it’s my ex-wife’s.”

  “You’re divorced?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “Because you wanted out?”

  “Because one of us did.”

  There was no church service. Just a brief graveside ceremony. Frederick and Edward met up with us at the cemetery, each of them clutching a single long-stemmed red rose. Two dozen or so townspeople were there, too, most of them aged. It was a small cemetery set on a hill overlooking green pastures and a river that sparkled in the morning sunlight. It was a nice place to be buried, if you have to be buried.

  Mavis wouldn’t stand next to Richard during the ceremony. She stayed on the other side of the grave from him. Occasionally, they shot quick, poisonous glances across Fern’s coffin at each other.

  The brothers stood close together, their faces grim masks. After the coffin had been lowered into the ground they tossed their roses onto it. They left together.

  I drove back to Shenandoah alone and changed into my work clothes. I always wear the same chamois shirt, jeans, and tattered pair of mukluks when I write. I do this because I wore them when I was writing the first novel. Ballplayers have their superstitions. So do writers. We’re no more in control of our awe-inspiring gifts than they are.

  I made a fresh pot of coffee and sat down before my Olympia with a cup. Alma’s diary, my copy of Oh, Shenandoah, my sharpened pencils, and my blank sheets of paper were arrayed before me. I was all ready to go. Except for Lulu. She always dozes under my chair with her head on my foot when I work. This morning she wouldn’t budge from her chair. She was acting shy and insecure now, as if she needed some kind of reassurance from me. Why hadn’t we gotten a male? I asked myself. I went over to her and sat with her there in my lap for a while. I said a few things I won’t bother to go into here. Then I went back to the typewriter. A few minutes later she ambled over and plopped down under me and rubbed my mukluk with her head. Then she went to sleep, still my girl.

  He was a kind and decent man. Everyone spoke of his wisdom and his uncommon good sense. Truly, John Raymond was a man to admire. He was not, however, a man to love. And this was a sad thing, Evangeline reflected as she gazed across the dining table at him. For she had given this man her body and the past ten years of her life. And now she was miserable.

  The work went quickly. Whenever I got stuck for a period detail such as an article of clothing or an eating utensil, I jotted it down on a list for Mercy. Occasionally, I found myself glancing up when I heard a noise outside, thinking it might be Sadie. Not that I wanted it to be Sadie. I just thought it might be, that’s all.

  I knocked off at lunchtime and went inside. Gordie was in the kitchen chewing on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, his baseball and mitt next to him on the table. Charlotte, still dressed for the funeral, was pouring him a glass of milk.

  “Hey, Hoagy,” he said brightly. “Wanna play catch?”

  “Maybe later, Gordie,” I said.

  “When?” he wondered.

  “Gordie, why don’t you go finish your lunch in your room,” Charlotte broke in. “Hoagy is very busy.”

  The lower lip started to come out.

  “Before dinner, Gordie,” I promised hastily. “Okay?”

  “Okay!” He snatched up his mitt and darted for the back door.

  “Hey, Gordie,” I called after him. “Take it slow.”

  He grinned, then slammed the door behind him.

  Charlotte was puzzled.

  “That’s what McQueen said to people in Bullitt instead of good-bye,” I explained.

  She nodded, still puzzled. She obviously thought less of me now. It happens. I joined her at the counter and made myself a sandwich. The jelly was Fern’s. Black plum.

  “He sure does like you,” she observed.

  “Go ahead, rub it in.”

  “Hasn’t said but five words to me,” she confessed. “ ‘I-want-a-Big-Mac.’ ”

  Couldn’t blame the little guy. I wanted one myself after I’d tasted her meat
loaf. “So take him out for one.”

  “And if Mavis needs me while I’m gone?”

  “Wouldn’t she understand, under the circumstances?”

  She stared at me.

  “Of course not,” I said. “How silly of me.”

  “I don’t suppose I could talk you into taking him out.”

  “Sorry. Midget human life-forms are not my specialty.”

  “He’s lonely. He needs a man.”

  “There’s always Richard.”

  “He needs a man?”

  “You may be selling Richard short. I know you’re selling me long.” I poured myself some milk. “So, how are you at handwriting analysis?”

  She frowned at me. “Handwriting analysis?”

  I dropped Fern’s bundle of love letters down on the counter. “I understand your father and Fern were romantically involved before he married your mother.”

  “It’s true, they were.” Curious, she picked up the letters and leafed through them, chewing on her lower lip. “If you’re asking me would I recognize my father’s handwriting … the answer is yes. And this isn’t it.” She handed them back to me.

  “They’re from a long time ago,” I pointed out. “People’s handwriting changes over the years. You might not recognize it at first glance.”

  “I do recognize it.”

  “You do?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, whose is it?”

  She showed me her pointy little teeth. “You help me, I’ll help you.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll take the midget to McDonalds.”

  “Thanks, I knew I could count on you,” she said, a triumphant glint in her eyes.

  And then she told me who Fern’s Sweet Prince was.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A HERD OF TOUR buses was grazing outside the souvenir building. Hundreds of Oh, Shenandoah faithfuls sat at the picnic tables intently stuffing their faces on box lunches while they waited their turn to tour the old house. A number of them looked up hopefully at me as I eased the Jag past them down toward the front gate. I didn’t cut a terrible figure. I had my navy blazer of soft flannel on over a turtleneck of yellow cashmere and pleated, gray houndstooth trousers. My plaid touring cap from Bates was on my head, Lulu’s beret on hers. Still, it was Mavis Glaze they were hoping to catch a glimpse of, not the first major new literary voice of the eighties, and friend. Disappointed, they went back to cramming with both hands.

  Edward Glaze had his law office in Barristers’ Row, a choice little colony of 150-year-old carriage houses nestled across a courtyard from the domed Augusta County Courthouse in downtown Staunton. His reception area was small and neat, his secretary black, crisply dressed, efficient. He came right out to greet me when she buzzed him.

  “Hoagy, I was so pleased you called,” he said warmly, shaking my hand. “Lovely ceremony this morning, wasn’t it?” It was.

  “I’ve asked my cook to prepare us lunch at my house. We can walk. “That be all right?”

  “More than all right.”

  Edward strode briskly. He was in good shape for a man his age. Lulu trailed a few feet behind us, large black nose to the sidewalk. The town was hopping. Workers were stringing banners across Beverley Street. Shopkeepers were hanging colonial-style carriage lamps and hand-lettered wooden signs outside their stores. An ABC News crew was shooting background footage for the Barbara Walters special. The townspeople all seemed to know Edward and like him. They smiled and waved. He did the same.

  “Hell, you ought to run for mayor,” I teased.

  He laughed softly. “Oh, no, that’s much more Fred’s style. I’m afraid I’m not particularly adept socially. It takes me a while to get comfortable around people.”

  “You’re doing fine.”

  “Thank you,” he said, coloring slightly. “I’ve been wanting to get to know you better, actually. Ask you about your work. Writers are such fascinating people, it’s been my experience.”

  “I guess we’ve had different experiences.” I tugged at my ear. “But feel free to ask.”

  The business district ended at Coalter Street. We turned there and started up a steep hill.

  “They call this Gospel Hill,” he informed me as we climbed, “due to the religious meetings held here in the late 1790s at Samson Eagon’s blacksmith shop.”

  Soon we were among gracious Victorian and Greek Revival mansions set well back from the road behind blossoming magnolias and sourwoods.

  “Not a terrible town,” I observed. “Gorgeous, in fact.”

  “We try. We recently got the business district named to the National Historic Register. Quite an effort, but well worth it, I think.”

  Edward lived down the block from Woodrow Wilsons birthplace in a turn-of-the-century Georgian-style home of red brick. Fluted columns supported the ornate white frontispiece. An ornate fanlight topped the front door. It was a handsome place, though not unique. There was another next door exactly like it.

  The entry hall was dark and cool and smelled of lemon oil. There was an ornate oak hatstand with a beveled mirror inside the door. I left my hat on it. Lulu held on to hers. Double doors led into a masculine front parlor lined with bookcases and furnished with matching leather wing-back chairs and a chesterfield sofa.

  Edward went over to a butler’s table next to the fireplace. “Sherry?”

  “As long as it isn’t the same brand Mavis serves.”

  He filled two glasses, smiling. “It isn’t.”

  We carried them into the octagon-shaped dining room. It was sunny and airy. The French doors were opened to the garden, which was fragrant and ablaze with perennials. The dining table was a twin-pedestaled mahogany George the Third, set for two. A vase of tulips sat in its center.

  “Lovely home,” I observed.

  “Thank you. It’s somewhat large for one person, but I bought it a number of years ago for a good price and I’ve never regretted it. The garden, in fact, keeps me sane.” He gazed out at it lovingly. “I spend most of my free time digging around back there.”

  “Where does your brother live?”

  “Fred has a home of his own.”

  “The one next door?”

  “Why, yes. How did you know?”

  “Wild guess.”

  A uniformed black woman brought us our lunch. Veal marsala, boiled new potatoes, string beans. It was excellent. Sancerre wasn’t terrible either.

  I pulled Fern’s love letters out of my pocket while we ate, placed them on the table before him.

  Edward frowned, dabbed at his mouth with his napkin, and reached for them. It took him a moment to recognize them. He turned bright red when he did. “Lord, these are dreadful. I was all of eighteen at the time — the last of the great romantics.” He laughed to himself sadly. Then his eyes began to fill with tears. “I can’t believe Fernie saved them all these years. Dear, dear Fernie.”

  “Mind telling me about it?”

  “Not at all — there really isn’t that much to tell, Hoagy. We read poetry together in the tall grass and dreamt of running off to Greenwich Village and becoming great, starving writers. It was all so … romantic. And terribly tragic.”

  “Why so tragic?”

  “Mother didn’t approve of Fern,” he replied. “Thought she was too common for her young college man. After all, Fern’s father worked on our car. So Fernie and I overdramatized it, as we did everything. It was playacting. Kid stuff.” He smiled faintly and sipped his wine. “Besides, Fern already had a serious beau, Frankie Neene. Frankie was a blustering, cocky kid then, a football player. Used to take her for rides in his car and make love to her. She told me all the lurid details. Told me he promised to marry her, too. He never intended to, though. He married a proper Mary Baldwin girl. Broke Fern’s heart.”

  “I understand he committed suicide.”

  Edward’s face darkened. “Yes. He was a broken man. Terrible business.” He shook his head. “When I was your age, Hoagy, I wanted to lead three or four lives. Now
that I’ve been around nearly seventy years, and seen what life does to people, I’ve come to realize that once is plenty.”

  “In her diary, your mother mentions that you got to be somewhat friendly with Sterling Sloan during the filming.”

  “As much as anyone could,” he acknowledged. “Sterling was a strange, lost soul, a man who lived only for truth and beauty — the two things in shortest supply in this world. He was the saddest man I’ve ever known, and one of the most fascinating. Please stop me if I start to bore you. … ”

  “You won’t.”

  “It rained the night before they were all due to arrive from Hollywood,” he recalled. “The convoy of trucks, the specially chartered train, the hundreds and hundreds of production people — an invasion. In the middle of the night the doorbell woke me. Someone at the door. I heard our caretaker answering it. Heard voices. Then the doorbell started ringing again. I got up and went downstairs to see what was going on. No one else stirred — I was the light sleeper of the family. The caretaker said it was someone who claimed to be with the movie. He’d told the fellow to come back in the morning with everyone else, but he refused to go. I opened the door to find this thoroughly bedraggled-looking vagabond in a moth-eaten black cape seated out there in the rain on top of an ancient steamer trunk. He was soaking wet and unshaven and smelled more than a little of cow manure. He apologized for the late hour, explained as how he’d hitchhiked his way on a farmer’s truck to be with the movie, and alas, had nowhere to stay and no money. He was unusually polite and well-spoken. ‘What do you do?’ I asked him. ‘I drink,’ he replied. ‘I mean,’ I said, ‘who are you?’ ‘Oh, I am not any sort of person at all,’ he replied. ‘I am an actor.’ A down-and-out one hoping for a bit role, I supposed. Still, he was shivering from the wet and had nowhere to go, so I let him in. It wasn’t until he’d removed his hat and cape that I realized who he was. ‘Why, you’re Sterling Sloan!’ I exclaimed. ‘Someone has to be,’ he replied in that cryptic, disembodied way he had. ‘Unfortunately, I am that one.’ I told him the cast would be staying at the Hotel Woodrow Wilson in town, and that I’d be happy to drive him there. But he was so pale and chilled I offered him a brandy first. His hand shook so badly half of it dribbled right down his chin. He hadn’t eaten for days. I made him a sandwich, and he devoured it and drank several more brandies. He began to get some color in his cheeks. He told me I was a rare and kind young soul. Then he stretched out on the sofa in the parlor and fell instantly asleep. From then on, he attached himself to me. He seemed to like being around me. I have no idea why. Naturally, I was thrilled and pestered him for advice about acting. He told me to get proper classical training in Britain, learn to carry a spear, and play toothless old men and blushing young girls. He was quite generous — he even offered to write me letters of introduction to several theater companies over there. He was very offhanded about his fame. Had no use for the trappings of stardom, no star presence at all off camera, not like Miss Barrett or Flynn. You knew they were stars. Not Sterling. He came to life only when he was in front of the camera. The rest of the time, he almost wasn’t there. He was so very quiet and remote. He spent long hours just stretched out on the daybed in his trailer, reading. And sometimes he really wasn’t there. By that I mean he seemed disoriented, not totally sure where he was or what role he was playing. … He and his wife weren’t at all close. He’d arrived from London, she from Hollywood. I felt he was a deeply lonely man. And then those headaches of his kept him in great pain for hours at a time.”