Taltos lotmw-3

by Anne Rice

  Mary Jane lifted one of the curtains in the dining room. “Lace,” she said in a whisper. “Just the finest, isn’t it? Everything here is the best of its kind.”

  “Well, I guess that’s true,” said Mona.

  “And you, too,” said Mary Jane, “you look like some kind of princess, all dressed in lace. Why, we’re both dressed in lace. I just love it.”

  “Thanks,” said Mona, a little flustered. “But why would somebody as pretty as you notice somebody like me?”

  “Don’t be crazy,” said Mary Jane, sweeping past her into the kitchen, hips swinging gracefully, high heels clicking grandly. “You’re just a gorgeous girl. I’m pretty. I know I am. But I like to look at other girls who are pretty, always have.”

  They sat together at the glass table. Mary Jane examined the plates that Eugenia set out for them, holding hers up to the light.

  “Now this is real bone china,” she said. “We got some of this at Fontevrault.”

  “Really, you still have those sorts of things down there?”

  “Darlin’, you’d be amazed what’s in that attic. Why, there’s silver and china and old curtains and boxes of photographs. You should see all that. That attic’s real dry and warm too. Sealed tight up there. Barbara Ann used to live up there. You know who she was?”

  “Yeah, Ancient Evelyn’s mother. And my great-great-grandmother.”

  “Mine too!” declared Mary Jane triumphantly. “Isn’t that something.”

  “Yep, sure is. Part of the entire Mayfair experience. And you should look at the family trees where it gets all crisscrossed, like if I were to marry Pierce for instance, with whom I share not only that great-great-grandmother, but also a great-grandfather, who also pops up … damn, it’s the hardest thing to keep track of. There comes a point in the life of every Mayfair when you spend about a year drawing family trees everywhere, trying just to keep it clear in your mind who is sitting next to you at the family picnic, know what I mean?”

  Mary Jane nodded, eyebrows raised, lips curled in a smile. She wore a kind of smoky violet lipstick, to die for. My God, I am a woman now, Mona thought. I can wear all that junk, if I want to.

  “Oh, you can borry all my things, if you want,” said Mary Jane. “I’ve got an overnight case??? You know??? Just full of cosmetics that Aunt Bea bought for me, and all of them from Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bergdorf Goodman in New York.”

  “Well, that’s very sweet of you.” Mind reader, be careful.

  Eugenia had taken some veal out of the refrigerator, little tender cuts for scallopini, which Michael had set aside for Rowan. She was frying these now, the way Michael had taught her, with sliced mushrooms and onions, already prepared, from a little plastic sack.

  “God, that smells good, doesn’t it?” said Mary Jane. “I didn’t mean to read your mind, just happens.”

  “I don’t care about that, it doesn’t matter. As long as we both know it’s very hit-and-miss, and easy to misunderstand.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” said Mary Jane.

  Then she looked at Mona again, the way she had looked at her upstairs. They were sitting opposite each other, just the way that Mona and Rowan sat, only Mona was in Rowan’s place now, and Mary Jane was in Mona’s. Mary Jane had been looking at her silver fork, and suddenly she just stopped moving and narrowed her eyes again and looked at Mona.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Mona. “You’re looking at me like something’s the matter.”

  “Everybody just looks at you when you’re pregnant, they always do, soon as they know.”

  “I know that,” said Mona. “But there’s something different in the way you’re looking at me. Other people are giving me swoony, loving looks, and looks of approbation, but you-”

  “What’s approbation?”

  “Approval,” said Mona.

  “I got to get an education,” said Mary Jane, shaking her head. She set the fork down. “What is this silver pattern?”

  “Sir Christopher,” said Mona.

  “You think it’s too late for me to ever be a truly educated person?”

  “No,” said Mona, “you’re too smart to let a late start discourage you. Besides, you’re already educated. You’re just educated in a different way. I’ve never been the places you’ve been. I’ve never had the responsibility.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t always want that myself. You know, I killed a man? I pushed him off a fire escape in San Francisco and he fell four stories into an alley and cracked open his head.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “He was trying to hurt me. He’d shot me up with heroin and he was giving it to me and telling me that him and me were going to be lovers together. He was a goddamned pimp. I pushed him off the fire escape.”

  “Did anyone come after you?”

  “No,” said Mary Jane, shaking her head. “I never told that story to anybody else in this family.”

  “I won’t either,” said Mona. “But that kind of strength isn’t unusual in this family. How many girls, do you think, had been turned out by this pimp? That’s the phrase for it, isn’t it?”

  Eugenia was serving them and ignoring them. The veal did look OK, well browned and juicy, with a light wine sauce.

  Mary Jane nodded. “Lots of girls. Idiots,” she said.

  Eugenia had set down a cold salad of potatoes and peas, another Michael Curry gentleman’s special, tossed in oil and garlic. Eugenia plopped a big spoon of it on Mary Jane’s plate.

  “Do we have any more milk?” asked Mona. “What are you drinking, Mary Jane?”

  “Coca-Cola, please, Eugenia, if you don’t mind, but then I can certainly get up and get it myself.”

  Eugenia was outraged at the suggestion, especially coming from an unknown cousin who was obviously a perfect rube. She brought the can and the glass of ice.

  “Eat, Mona Mayfair!” Eugenia said. She poured the milk from the carton. “Come on now.”

  The meat tasted awful to Mona. She couldn’t figure why. She loved this kind of food. As soon as it had been set before her, it had begun to disgust her. Probably just the usual bout of sickness, she thought, and that proves I’m on schedule. Annelle had said it would happen at just about six weeks. That is, before she’d declared the baby was a three-month-old monster.

  Mona bowed her head. Little wisps of that last dream were catching hold of her, very tenacious and full of associations that were just moving away from her at jet speed as soon as she tried to catch them, and hold them, and open up the dream itself.

  She sat back. She drank the milk slowly. “Just leave the carton,” she said to Eugenia, who hovered over her, wrinkled and solemn, glaring at her, and at her untouched plate.

  “She’ll eat what she needs to eat, won’t she?” asked Mary Jane, helpfully. Sweet kid. She was already gobbling her veal, and noisily stabbing every bit of mushroom and onion she could find with her fork.

  Eugenia finally ambled off.

  “Here, you want this?” said Mona. “Take it.” She pushed the plate towards Mary Jane. “I never touched it.”

  “You sure you don’t want it?”

  “It’s making me sick.” She poured herself another glass of milk. “Well, I was never much of a milk lover, you know, probably because the refrigerator in our house never kept it cold. But that’s changing. Everything’s changing.”

  “Oh yeah, like what?” Mary Jane asked, rather wide-eyed. She chugalugged her entire Coke. “Can I get up and get another one?”

  “Yes,” said Mona.

  She watched Mary Jane as she bounced towards the refrigerator. Her dress had just enough flare to remind you of a little girl’s. Her legs looked beautifully muscled, thanks to the high heels, though they had looked beautifully muscled the other day when she’d been wearing flat shoes.

  She flopped back down and started devouring Mona’s offering.

  Eugenia poked her head in the door from the butler’s pantry.

  “Mona Mayfair, you didn’t eat nothin�
�. You live on potato chips and junk!”

  “Get out of here!” Mona said firmly. Eugenia vanished.

  “But she’s trying to be maternal and all,” said Mary Jane. “Why did you yell at her?”

  “I don’t want anybody to be maternal with me. And besides, she’s not. She’s a pest. She thinks … she thinks I’m a bad person. It’s too long to explain. She’s always scolding me about something.”

  “Yeah, well, when the father of the baby is Michael Curry’s age, you know, people are either going to blame him or you.”

  “How did you know that?”

  Mary Jane stopped gobbling, and looked at Mona.

  “Well, it is him, isn’t it? I kinda figured you were sweet on him, first time I come here. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I thought you were happy about it. I keep getting this vibe that you’re really happy that he’s the father.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Oh, it’s him,” said Mary Jane. She jabbed the fork through the last piece of veal, picked it up, and stuffed it in her mouth and chewed it lustily, her smooth brown cheeks working furiously without so much as a line or a wrinkle or any real distortion. This was one beautiful girl. “I know,” she said, as soon as she had swallowed a wad of chewed meat big enough to catch in her windpipe and choke her to death.

  “Look,” said Mona. “This is something I haven’t told anybody yet, and …”

  “Everybody knows it,” said Mary Jane. “Bea knows it. Bea told me. You know what’s going to save Bea? That woman is going to get over her grief for Aaron on account of one simple reason. She never stops worrying about everybody else. She’s real worried about you and Michael Curry, because he’s got the genes, as everybody knows, and he’s Rowan’s husband. But she says that gypsy you fell in love with is just all wrong for you. He belongs with another kind of woman, somebody wild and homeless and without a family, like himself.”

  “She said all that?”

  Mary Jane nodded. Suddenly she spied the plate of bread which Eugenia had set out for them, slices of plain white bread.

  Mona didn’t consider bread like that fit for consumption. She only ate French bread, or rolls, or something properly prepared to accompany a meal. Sliced bread! Sliced white bread!

  Mary Jane grabbed the top slice, mushed it together, and started sopping up veal juice.

  “Yeah, she said all that,” said Mary Jane. “She told Aunt Viv and she told Polly and Anne Marie. Didn’t seem to know that I was listening. But I mean, this is what is going to save her, that she’s got so much on her mind about the family, like coming down to Fontevrault and making me leave.”

  “How could they all know this about me and Michael?”

  Mary Jane shrugged. “You’re asking me? Darlin’, this is a family of witches, you’re supposed to know that better than I do. Any number of ways they could have found out. But, come to think of it, Ancient Evelyn spilled the beans to Viv, if I am not mistaken. Something about you and Michael being here alone?”

  “Yeah,” said Mona with a sigh. “So big deal. I don’t have to tell them. So much for that.” But if they started being mean to Michael, if they started treating him any differently, if they started …

  “Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about that, like I said, when it’s a man that age and a girl your age, they blame one or the other, and I think they blame you. I mean, not in a mean way or anything, they just say things like, ‘Whatever Mona wants, Mona gets,’ and ‘Poor Michael,’ and you know, stuff like, ‘Well, if it got him up off that bed and to feeling better, maybe Mona’s got the healing gift.’ ”

  “Terrific,” said Mona. “Actually, that’s exactly the way I feel myself.”

  “You know, you’re tough,” said Mary Jane.

  The veal juice was gone. Mary Jane ate the next slice of bread plain. She closed her eyes in a deliberate smile of satiation. Her lashes were all smoky and slightly violet, rather like her lipstick actually, very subtle however, and glamorous and beautiful. She had a damned near perfect face.

  “Now I know who you look like!” cried Mona. “You look like Ancient Evelyn, I mean in her pictures when she was a girl.”

  “Well, that makes sense, now doesn’t it?” said Mary Jane, “being’s we’re come down from Barbara Ann.” Mona poured the last of the milk into her glass. It was still wonderfully cold. Maybe she and this baby could live on milk alone, she wasn’t sure.

  “What do you mean, I’m tough?” asked Mona. “What did you mean by that?”

  “I mean you don’t get insulted easily. Most of the time, if I talk like this, you know, completely open-like, with no secrets, like really trying to get to know somebody??? You know??? I offend that person.”

  “Small wonder,” said Mona, “but you don’t offend me.”

  Mary Jane stared hungrily at the last thin, forlorn slice of white bread.

  “You can have it,” said Mona.

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Mary Jane grabbed it, tore the middle out of it, and started rolling the soft bread into a ball. “Boy, I love it this way,” she said. “When I was little??? You know??? I used to take a whole loaf, and roll it all into balls!”

  “What about the crust?”

  “Rolled it into balls,” she said, shaking her head with nostalgic wonder. “Everything into balls.”

  “Wow,” said Mona flatly. “You know, you really are fascinating, you’re the most challenging combination of the mundane and mysterious that I’ve ever run across.”

  “There you go, showing off,” said Mary Jane, “but I know you don’t mean any harm, you’re just teasing me, aren’t you? Did you know that if mundane started with a b, I’d know what it meant?”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because I’m up to b in my vocabulary studies,” said Mary Jane. “I’ve been working on my education in several different ways, I’d like to know what you think about it. See, what I do is, I get a big-print dictionary??? You know???? The kind for old ladies with bad eyes??? And I cut out the b words, which gives me some familiarity with them right there, you know, cutting out each one with the definition, and then I throw all the little balls of paper … oops, there we go again,” she laughed. “Balls, more balls.”

  “So I notice,” said Mona. “We little girls are just all obsessed with them, aren’t we?”

  Mary Jane positively howled with laughter.

  “This is better than I expected,” said Mona. “The girls at school appreciate my humor, but almost no one in the family laughs at my jokes.”

  “Your jokes are real funny,” said Mary Jane. “That’s because you’re a genius. I figure there are two kinds, ones with a sense of humor and those without it.”

  “But what about all the b words, cut out, and rolled into balls?”

  “Well, I put them in a hat, you know??? Just like names for a raffle.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then I pick them out one at a time. If it’s some word nobody ever uses, you know, like batrachian?? I just throw it away. But if it’s a good word like beatitude-‘a state of utmost bliss’???? Well, I memorize it right on the spot.”

  “Hmmm, that sounds like a fairly good method. Guess you’re more likely to remember words that you like.”

  “Oh yeah, but really, I remember almost everything, you know?? Being as smart as I am?” Mary Jane popped the bread ball into her mouth and started pulverizing the frame of crust.

  “Even the meaning of batrachian?” asked Mona.

  “ ‘A tailless leaping amphibian,’ ” Mary Jane answered. She nibbled on the crust ball.

  “Hey, listen, Mary Jane,” said Mona, “there’s plenty of bread in this house. You can have all you want. There’s a loaf right over there on the counter. I’ll get it for you.”

  “Sit down! You’re pregnant, I’ll git it!” Mary Jane declared. She jumped up, reached for the bread, caught it by its plastic wrapping, and brought it down on the table.

  “How abo
ut butter? You want some butter? It’s right here.”

  “No, I’ve conditioned myself to eat it without butter, to save money, and I don’t want to go back to butter, because then I’ll miss the butter and the bread won’t taste so good.” She tore a slice out of the plastic, and scrunched up the middle of it.

  “The thing is,” said Mary Jane, “I will forget batrachian if I don’t use it, but beatitude I will use, and not forget.”

  “Gotcha. Why were you looking at me in that way?”

  Mary Jane didn’t answer. She licked her lips, tore loose some fragments of soft bread, and ate them. “All this time, you remembered that we were talking about that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you think about your baby?” asked Mary Jane, and this time she looked worried and protective, sort of, or at least sensitive to what Mona felt.

  “Something might be wrong with it.”

  “Yeah.” Mary Jane nodded. “That’s what I figure.”

  “It’s not going to be some giant,” said Mona quickly, though with each word, she found it more difficult to continue. “It’s not some monster or whatever. But maybe there’s just something wrong with it, the genes make some combination and … something could be wrong.”

  She took a deep breath. This might be the worst mental pain she’d ever felt. All her life she’d worried about things-her mother, her father, Ancient Evelyn, people she loved. And she’d known grief aplenty, especially of late. But this worrying about the baby was wholly different; it aroused a fear so deep in her that it was agony. She found she’d put her hand on her belly again. “Morrigan,” she whispered.

  Something stirred inside her, and she looked down by moving her eyes instead of her head.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Mary Jane.

  “I’m worrying too much. Isn’t it normal to think that something’s wrong with your baby?”

  “Yeah, it’s normal,” said Mary Jane. “But this family has got lots of people with the giant helix, and they haven’t had horrible deformed little babies, have they? I mean, you know, what’s the track record of all this giant-helix breeding?”

  Mona hadn’t answered. She was thinking, What difference does it make? If this baby’s not right, if this baby’s … She realized she was looking off through the greenery outside. It was still early afternoon. She thought of Aaron in the drawerlike crypt at the mausoleum, lying one shelf up from Gifford. Wax dummies of people, pumped with fluid. Not Aaron, not Gifford. Why would Gifford be digging a hole in a dream?