The Loved Ones

by Mary-Beth Hughes

  She woke up so lonely this morning. And without even thinking dismissed the idea that this loneliness had to do with Clyde. This old ache had persisted for decades, coming and going. This morning it was sharp. She unbuttoned the bottom of her cardigan; she’d take all the pictures of her and Clyde and put them away. There weren’t that many, but without them the house would revert to her childhood home, except for the new light-colored drapes, the same lemony-white linen sheers in every room, cheerful ghosts, that let in the river light and the air. Her mother preferred dark velvet. Maybe Lily would, too, when her time came, when the house was hers. She could already see her beloved girl painting the walls bright blue. How she would miss Lily. She’d go look at her this very minute, but not to wake her. The whole house wrapped around her sleeping, dreaming girl, safe now. What could be better?

  Yes, she’d put away the photographs, just as she had all the television sets, nearly first thing. After the whole week of family and friends, the services and receptions, Clyde’s funeral in the same church where they were blessed, but not married, he was blessed again but not buried in consecrated ground because he never did become a Catholic as he’d promised her so long ago. Though Jean’s mother had apparently been devout and until recently, Jean in her way was, too.

  Jean had come in through the back pantry and saw the television sets stacked, wires wrapped around the tube fronts and nearly cried. The whole neighborhood had piled into their house to see the first television and then the first color television. Clyde was a marvel and a magician to bring such things home. And only dead ten minutes, his ashes, ashes! not yet scattered and his legacy was being shoved out the door, handed off to Negroes. What was Doris thinking; she had finally lost her mind completely. Jean packed as many televisions as she could fit into the Valiant—three—and drove off to put them up in her attic for safekeeping.

  Oh, our Jean misses her daddy something fierce, said Ruby. She doesn’t know how the world will work without him.

  Doris looked at Ruby pushing the remaining small sets closer together on the pantry bench, rewrapping the cords. Yes, Ruby, she said. She doesn’t know; you’re right. It’s a terrible thing. I’m making tea. And she let out a big sigh and so did Ruby. And then they left each other alone for a while. Something it seemed Doris and Jean would never learn to do.

  Now she gripped the wide banister and made a slow aching climb up the wide front staircase. Her left hip wouldn’t leave her alone, and she felt she’d adopted a wide straddle to compensate, like a sailor’s roll, she would laugh, maybe with Teddy, who remembered her twirling on her toes. Amazing, amazing what happened to our bodies. But not to Teddy, and now she’d reached the top landing, and crossed down the long light corridor to the room where Lily slept and pushed open the door. Lily’s hair, tangled streaky sunlit, her round cheek smashed deep into the blue embroidered pillowcase Doris always kept on this bed for her. A big book, pages crumpled under her deep hand. What was she reading? The room smelled like Lily’s breath, something milky and ever so slightly sour with the warm lavender of the sheets heated by her body, and through the open window the river breeze, soft and saturated. Ruby was soaking the strange flannel dress in salt downstairs. Nothing else would work, she said.

  No one thought about drowning. No one ever thought about drowning and that was a wonder. They were surrounded by water. The little spit of land made a natural point and then curved in at the last moment, and a tender hook of waving cattails and driftwood as though the house was protected from danger naturally. The tiny birds that flocked into the garden said the same; racket of chirps and trills, they said we’re safe here to Doris. And she wondered about that, watching Lily turn on her back and throw a soft arm up over her head, draped across the blue pillowcase, her hand a half fist, a seashell curl of a hand so unmarked. When Lily held Doris’s hand she’d play with the loose sun-marked skin and stroke down the wrinkles as if they could be wiped away like loneliness. She couldn’t imagine how lonely she would be when Lily was gone; her helpless love for her eldest, now only, grandchild always made sense to her. She understood herself, though bristled at others who pretended to. Poor Doris doesn’t know what to do with herself, she heard them all say in her head. She heard them now as if they were all chiming in, saying so much nonsense about her. She shook her head, and when she did felt her eyes were full of tears. Oh, she caught up a ragged breath, and tiptoed to the door. She wouldn’t let Lily catch her old Momo sad.

  Sunlight a rectangle shimmer on the honey-colored floorboards of the upper hall. Ruby didn’t much fuss with them, put her attention elsewhere. On her thieving boyfriend, said Jean, imploring Doris to fire Ruby once and for all, but hadn’t she got Clyde’s credit card back right away, left in the mailbox in a pink envelope that stank of violet candy. It could have been anyone. The dust made a soft gray frost on the high trim painted glossy white twice a decade, now overdue. She felt a stab of anger toward Jean so fierce it made her queasy. Who was Jean to be telling her Ruby must go? Who was Jean? And this she felt was the crux of all their problems and she felt dizzy with helplessness. Because what could she do. What could she do. I should have married Ruby instead of your father, she’d said to Jean recently, eating Ruby’s soft-shell crabs, laughing, lifting yet another small light battered claw off the chipped blue platter. She’d ignored all the catering, all the neighbors and their casseroles but Ruby’s crabs tasted like all she’d ever need. Then I’d never worry about being too thin.

  The outrage! What had she done to make her stepdaughter so angry. Not enough, said Jean. Not nearly enough. But really, thought Doris, shouldn’t this old fight have ended long ago? Darling heart, she’d said, putting down the crab shell, gently setting it aside, because she didn’t want to hurt Ruby either, who was always in earshot; she was used to that, and thankful really. But Jean hissed at her, You’re impossible. And all she could think of to calm them both down was to laugh, and tell a funny story about Teddy. Teddy nineteen, always in trouble, like our Lily, and Kay Sheehan plays a part. And she watched Jean’s cheeks go pink and her jaw let go, curious just like a little girl, but she wasn’t a little girl, and Doris needed to be careful; sometimes solace could do more harm.

  Teddy climbing out of the low waves early September just before the war, no one knew a thing but how beautiful it was all the way out to the horizon, which was as much our own we felt as the backyard. How angry people were when the U-boats dared come, like trespassers spoiling something precious. But this was very early September, like a glass door we couldn’t see through; the war was so close, but we couldn’t see it, and there was Teddy stepping out of the waves.

  He liked to swim, said Jean, and reached across for a piece of crab, just a small one.

  He couldn’t swim! That was the joke. Our father went mad, nearly beating him, did beat him once. Here Doris dropped her head.

  Jean nodded and said, But Teddy ran away. He was nimble and Pop was stiff in every joint.

  That’s right. Pop couldn’t catch him so he picked up a chair and threw it. My mother wouldn’t forgive him the divot in her wall. Easily fixed, even so.

  So Teddy went down to the beach. He would prove a thing or two.

  That’s right, you know this story better than I do.

  Jean bit into the crab belly, ran a hand under her chin to catch the imagined grease, fumbled around for a paper napkin from the Dutch-girl holder. I hate this thing, she said.

  It’s for the picnic table.

  Then why is it always right here.

  Doris straightened a pleat on her blouse.

  But what did Teddy do? said Jean. I can’t remember.

  He went right down to the ocean and dove right in, waves crashing right on top of his head, because he didn’t know how to dive under them. He was always stubborn.

  Not always.

  He was when it came to Pop. No one would win those fights. He let the waves crash on his head, and poor Kay Sheehan must have finally realized that with all that water in his ey
es she could pose as much as she wanted; he would never notice her.

  Doris, Ruby’s knitting. I can see her.

  Sweetheart, I know.

  You pay her to knit?

  I don’t pay her much. So Kay Sheehan leapt up off that bench. Marched down to the water, arranged her madras two-piece to her best advantage when standing, and yelled, Don’t you know a real elemental beauty when you see one?

  That was the Deb, Doris Elemental Beauty. I forgot that. Very funny.

  Yes, it is funny . . .

  Teddy called you that. I always think it was Daddy.

  Well, Daddy, too, but he got it from Teddy.

  It was a joke.

  A kind of joke, yes.

  Because you’re not, really. Jean looked at her stepmother as if just clarifying the facts and Doris smiled, but not showing her teeth, just the broad slender mouth pulled wide, her aquiline nose stretched lower, her gray eyes narrowed into a nest of wrinkles. All salt and pepper in the hair now, and pulled up away from her long face in a French twist, and pearls on her ears, dangled from slim gold wires. Gold beads at her throat half concealing the white scar, her hands curled now with arthritis, she’d lost an inch of height in the last two years alone. No, her stepmother wasn’t a beauty, really, so why did everyone think she was?

  That would be you, my love, said Doris, reaching the curled fingers out straight toward Jean.

  But why didn’t Teddy marry Kay Sheehan? Jean would have just one more small piece of crab and that was it. If Kay was so eager and so sexy?

  No time. And that’s what the story is about really.

  How so?

  Oh, said Doris and she laughed, sat back in the deep chair. I’ll miss your daddy. He knew all my stories. I forget them halfway through. He would know where I was going with all this.

  I wish that were true. But you can’t even say it with a straight face. Jean put the crab back down on the plate and grabbed a handful of napkins and rubbed at her fingers as if they were stained. Don’t try that on me for one minute, but she was laughing now.

  Doris could feel the relief. It was in the air, in the bright sharp sunlight like a change of season. Jean dancing around her now, soft with forgiveness. What could anything matter anymore; there was to be an ocean between them. Jean would sail all the way across and when she reached the other side, she’d call she promised, more often than Doris could imagine. It would be so easy. Jean was breathless with the ease awaiting her, as if she’d already entered that new time and could be lightened by it. She smiled at Doris fondly as though she were a distant great aunt, odd and cantankerous even, but only the snag of an afternoon. It was the new smile, pretty and bright, eye-catching and deflective. It was safe to look at Jean now; no one would be heartbroken. It was safe.

  If only they’d stay right here, thought Doris. Yes, she’d let Lily sleep; she’d probably come in very late last night. A final dance at the golf club. Stupid place, she caught herself thinking, and then forgot about it. What did it matter anymore what she thought of the clubs that Jean had joined so readily. What could it matter. She had a terrible theory, and she thought about it now, finding her grip on the banister, taking the steps one at a time, butter just past melting, its scent curling up the stair. She thought how slow and tiny love was, not sky and ocean vast, but tiny like an envelope. Small and stiff and holding only a scrap or two for a very long time. So that Teddy stepping out of the waves and silly, endearing Kay Sheehan trying to get her madras straps back in place, her siren’s smile turned a wide o of consternation and Teddy reaching her and finding the ends of the straps in the wind and tying them at the nape of her neck like bib strings, and that was the whole story. Kay knew it, and Doris knew it, and in the tiny envelope that was her theory, Doris had collected this scrap of knowledge and held it in front of her eyes for the next thirty years or more. And then sometime in the midst a second scrap of paper had arrived and that was Lily. What a sad and sorry business she was, then she called out to Ruby in the kitchen, when she knew she was audible, when she was almost on the first landing and could hear the eggy bread drop sizzling into the pan. Divine, Ruby, she said. Just divine.

  8

  There was a lot of nonproductive blame floating around, a lot of hassle from all sides. Billy Byron wouldn’t even come inside the house; he was that angry. Lionel rubbed at the black hole behind his right eye, like a black eye really, but inside, as if someone had punched him in the brain. He rubbed that temple gently, and didn’t like to think about the conversation with Billy Byron in his preposterous maroon stretch. Maroon? But that’s why Lionel was here, as a favor.

  Billy Byron had five houses, each uglier than the next and Lionel had agreed as a favor to oversee a nearly impossible renovation. What Billy wanted, and wanted on the cheap, was a re-creation of the house Lionel had kept for a short and glorious time on the Ile St. Louis in Paris. Billy Byron never got over that house, that dinner. He’d been funneled out of his suite at the Georges V into a limousine as if blindfolded; when he stepped into Lionel’s entry courtyard it was as if everything gorgeous in the world was right there, every sense amplified to the last limit of pleasure. In a single beat. A miracle, Billy said, a fucking miracle.

  And this before his first drink of anything. He never forgot it, and when the townhouse he bought on Sixty-Second Street refused to come to heel for the usual decorator (for the love of god, Williamsburg Blue?), Billy begged Lionel to come and work his magic. Begged. Remember?

  Billy didn’t remember. Lionel sat in the cigar-infused maroon leather bench seat in the back, one big cup of an imprint where Billy usually sat, but he moved over, made Lionel sit there instead, and there was something mildly revolting about that. He was made intimate with Billy Byron’s peculiar frame and its contours, as if his essence was being suffocated through his pores by the leather’s clammy embrace. Hallucinating, he reminded himself, and made a mental note about a plausible chemical remedy he could prepare once Billy had completed this little ceremony. You—Billy was pointing at him—you are going to speak to the adjuster.

  Of course, said Lionel, and his mood lightened because that really was the best way.

  Billy felt it, too, and let Clifford the driver unlock the doors.

  Now the insurance adjuster was pressing the electric buzzer, one of the few wires still intact after the fire. Let it go, yelled Lionel to no one who could hear him.

  Kitty snuggled down into the blankets, her blond baby hair tangled into a little rat’s nest near the crown; he put his hand there, then kissed her angled shoulder. A pretty thing, her skin nearly green it was so transparent. Kitty, he hummed, and sniffed the Pears soap and opiated hash scent in the tidy curve of her neck. She was a tiny string, a delicate instrument. His fingers quickened, and the black hole behind his eye receded; he touched with the softest part of his hand, the warm mound at the base of his thumb. She’d told him she could feel it from stem to stern when he did that—a first, she insisted—and it had made him laugh, scoff, but he kept it in the repertoire. He brushed the warm base of his hand against the tips of her shoulder blades, her back, and felt the downshift, the move into her coming on fast, her back arched in her sleep, then the buzzer shrieked again. Fuck off! he shouted. But Kitty murmured and turned deeper into the duvet. And Lionel grabbed his black kimono and located his black velvet slippers and closed the door gently behind him.

  Climbing down the inner stair, and it did have quite a stench, all the smoke had gathered there like a flue and caused the skylight, the best thing in the whole place, to go gray with grunge. Lionel wouldn’t look up, because his neck was precarious at the moment, some gymnastic feat with Kitty had given his spine a twist, and the thought of that made him laugh and doubly furious at the factotum with his thumb on the buzzer below. Lionel wasn’t getting paid for this he would remind Billy Byron; no money was passing hands. But if he played his cards right, the insurance would give him the kind of cash this place really required. So he folded the kimono higher on h
is chest. He’d play this straight. No fucking with the guy’s head by appearing nude at the door. Though, in other contexts, that worked quite well.

  He was expecting something dumpier. So when he opened the door on a svelte young man with a bow tie and a pink checkered shirt, a tight blazer with white piping, someone express from a Twiggy shoot, he let go of his flap, and said, Coffee?

  Roger McKintrick gave back a helpless grin, and Lionel amended the offer. No, no, he purred. Something sweeter.

  Lionel wouldn’t mention the jacket right away, though he was curious. Roger, Roger McKintrick, followed Lionel obligingly into the kitchen, the downstairs kitchen Lionel stipulated walking in; the upper one had already been dismantled. Who needs two full kitchens? Lionel threw up his arms to show he was with Roger when it came to stemming excess. His arms went up, the robe fell open, there was a short kabuki of the closure, something that friends reenacted with mixed accuracy at Lionel’s memorial. All those years later, it was this gesture that won the most tearful laughter. Now it didn’t fail to win the notice of Roger McKintrick, who sat back in the leather desk chair rolled to a red lacquer pedestal table and felt a kindred spirit reigned here. They would be able to talk sense. They would come to an equitable agreement, something in the open and close of the kimono assured this. He’d had temperamental housewives in New Jersey up to the eyebrows, weeping over shattered Lenox bowls and their mother’s cultured wedding pearls melted in flames. Though he’d never seen a kimono except in photographs and then on women entertaining American soldiers, cheering them up, Lionel’s folded silk was grounding, clarifying. Something he wouldn’t say later when forced to defend the exorbitant sum allocated and disbursed in a single payment to a case of minor smoke damage in an uptown double duplex.