The Last Girls

by Lee Smith

  But Leonard and Bridget were in fine form; they’d even imported some friends from another table to take Anna and Russell’s empty chairs. Harriet wondered if they knew about Leonard’s pump. The new guy, Phil, said he was a member of the Toastmasters Club of McMinnville, Tennessee, and told four awful jokes in a row to prove it. Luckily, conversation was kept to a minimum by the entire Syncopators band which had joined Little Bobby Blue tonight for the grand finale, playing loud zydeco music as costumed kitchen help and waiters danced between the tables. Maurice was particularly stunning, all decked out in whiteface as Pierrot. Now there’s somebody who can really dance! But it’s racist to think so, isn’t it? Oh dear. And Harriet still hasn’t told Pete definitely whether she’ll stay over in New Orleans or not, even though Courtney has given her that room in the Royal Orleans, and even though she wants to, she really wants to. She hasn’t told Pete about the room either. Then he’d really put the pressure on her. As it is, his kidding has been bad enough. “Laissez les bons temps roulez,” he’d said into her ear that afternoon, coming up behind her while she stood at the rail.

  “Oh my gosh!” She’d jumped a mile. His bristly moustache tickled her neck.

  “Hey, now, steady there, didn’t mean to scare you!” He put a hand on each shoulder to steady her, which had the opposite effect.

  “Listen, I’ll talk to you about it right after the—ceremony,” she’d said finally, for lack of a better word. “I just can’t get my mind around anything else until that’s over with.”

  “I understand.” His blue eyes behind his glasses looked like still water. His gaze held hers calmly. “Of course I understand.” He touched her hand. “And speaking of that, I wanted to tell you that I’ll be there too, tonight, if it’s all right with you. I thought I’d just stand guard by the top of the steps to keep any other passengers from wandering up there and interrupting you.”

  “Oh, that’s so nice.” Harriet had barely breathed then.

  “I am nice.” He grinned down at her. His gold eyetooth gleamed. “I’ll show you the time of your life in New Orleans. You ought to take me up on it. It’s hard to find an old bird like me, that’s why you see all these women going on tours with each other all the time—there’s no men left. I may not be much, but at least I’m alive,” Pete said.

  Then Harriet started laughing and she laughed so hard, he had to pat her on the back. She smiles now, in her stateroom, just thinking about it. And it’s true, he is so nice . . . So what’s wrong with her? Harriet sighs. She slips the Mardi Gras beads over her head and drops them in a shiny little heap on her bed. There’s a part of her that already knows what her answer will be.

  In any case, she has things to do now. It’s time. The open FedEx box is the only thing left in its dresser drawer; all her clothes have been packed in the bags which already stand outside in the corridor. She puts the FedEx box on the bed and takes everything out of it: the unopened white envelope, the black lacquered wooden box with its gold fittings and its gold key. It looks like an Oriental jewelry box. Chinoiserie. “To Harriet and the Girls, from Charlie, To Be Opened at Maggie’s Memorial” is written in black ink on the white envelope in a firm, flowing hand. She looks at her watch, then gets a glass of water from the carafe and takes it over to the chair by the window, along with the rest of the poems. There’s time yet. She settles down to read.

  BOURBON STREET

  The bride wears her ivory linen

  going-away dress

  in the Ladies.

  She says she’s never

  been in one of these places before.

  She thinks it’s awful

  that Bobby has actually dragged her

  into one of these places

  on her honeymoon.

  I don’t know.

  I could stay here—

  ride that pole, the velvet swing—

  or I could go to graduate school

  FOLK ART

  you’re so pretty

  they always said

  you’re so pretty

  aren’t you lucky

  you’re so pretty

  you’re so rich

  but I’m such a bitch

  deep inside

  where I hide

  it’s a godawful mess

  look like I done been hit

  with the ugly stick

  VESPERS

  The statue behind the cathedral

  is Christ or somebody

  I don’t know I’m drunk

  with some boy who goes to Tulane

  his father is a jeweler

  in Indianola, Mississippi

  his mother has cancer

  Oh Lord

  It’s always something with these boys

  He lays me down

  but not to sleep

  in the statue’s shadow

  enormous on the cathedral wall

  a giant Christ, a huge whoever

  I lie in his arms

  on the soft damp holy grass

  SALE AT THE HOUSE OF VOODOO

  un noir cadeau

  pour Marie Laveau

  The gift came from her mother.

  Born with a veil

  across her face,

  seventh child of a seventh child

  what chance did she have?

  always, second sight

  always knew too much

  little snake wrapped around her leg

  for company.

  I can cure

  high blood, low blood

  chills and fever

  High John the Conqueror

  is my familiar

  Gimme all you got:

  black candles

  beef brains

  red hot peppers

  (his fingernails, his underwear)

  cat bones, ashes

  chicken foot, feces

  I’ll make you a mojo hand

  Honey he ain’t got a chance

  We gonna make him

  Dance, dance, dance

  But once I said

  Mama, I don’t want to do it

  She said, Hush your mouth, child

  Get to it.

  Only thing to it

  is do it

  The snake grew as she grew.

  It killed her, finally.

  THE UNDEAD

  If they buried you underground

  in New Orleans,

  you’d float up,

  sail down the flooded street

  to the Quarter.

  So they put you in a concrete bunkbed

  in this vast dormitory

  of the dead

  instead.

  (After every funeral

  I fuck somebody)

  Harriet stirs in her chair and then jumps up, disoriented but calm somehow, and rested. Impossible as it seems, she must have fallen asleep, at least for a few minutes. Sometimes she sort of blanks out when she’s really stressed. She looks at her watch. Nine-forty-five. Thank goodness—at least she’s not late. She brushes her teeth and freshens her lipstick in the bathroom mirror, then fluffs up her hair which looks exactly the same when she’s done as it did before she started. That’s the story of Harriet, isn’t it? Stasis. Slice of life. The deep, world-weary voice of Lucian Delgado sounds in her ear: “Every story must contain the possibility of change, my lovelies. If there is no possibility of change, there’s no conflict, and if there’s no conflict, there’s no story.” The story of Harriet is no story at all.

  But it’s time, isn’t it? Isn’t it time? In the view from Harriet’s stateroom window the river looks busy now, almost congested, with boats and lights and the reflection of lights in the water. She puts Charlie Mahan’s letter into her purse. She slips the purse strap over her shoulder. She takes a deep breath and runs her damp hands down her body, over her thighs; she picks up the Chinese box and straightens her shoulders and opens the door and goes into the corridor, sidestepping bags, as she makes her way forward to the Grand Staircase leading up to the Promenade Deck. She n
ods to several people, shipboard acquaintances on their way down. She nods to Captain John Dulaney who stands on the landing ensconced in a bank of potted ferns: photo opportunity. Everyone is taking advantage of it, queuing up to pose with the captain. Flashbulbs go off like fireworks. “Good evening, sir . . . Good evening, ma’am . . . If you enjoyed your voyage, tell everybody; and if you didn’t, just keep your damn mouth shut!” What a character! He winks at Harriet. His eleven-year-old son is dying from cystic fibrosis. Harriet knows this from Pete. The captain never stops smiling.

  Finally Harriet slips through the knot of photographers and makes it to the final flight of stairs. She hates all the gaudy flowered carpeting everywhere, it’s making her dizzy. She rushes past the Steam-boatique with its huge LAST CHANCE SALE banner and greets the Syncopators, all decked out now in flashy Oriental silk saris, headed back toward the Upper Paddlewheel Lounge where they will perform as Chop Suey Huey and the Won Tons. Melinda and Suzette have pulled their long hair back and wound it into tight knots on top of their heads, anchored by chopsticks poking out in every direction. They look lethal, with bright red lipstick, rouged cheeks, and eyes ringed severely in black.

  Harriet pushes the door to the deck. The air itself seems denser now, filled with the smell of oil and the heavy promise of rain later on. It’s so humid on deck that by the time Harriet makes it all the way forward and starts climbing the iron stairs, she feels damp all over, as if she’s been sprayed by one of those fern misters. She stops for a minute on the Observation Deck to get her breath before heading up the final, smaller flight of stairs to the Sun Deck where they will all be waiting. She hopes. She looks up the stairwell to see stars in the sky and a white blur at the top of the stairs. Her heart stops still. Then she remembers: it’s Pete, just Pete, dressed up in his Mark Twain suit for the last night’s photo opportunities. He extends his hard square hand which Harriet takes, allowing him to pull her up the few last steps onto the Sun Deck.

  “You made it,” he says from behind his moustache. “I was beginning to wonder.”

  “Well.” Harriet smiles up at him. “I’m here now.”

  He gives her a practiced bow, an old-fashioned, courtly gesture, and steps back. Harriet moves forward to where Courtney and Anna and Catherine and Russell have pulled four deck chairs into a semicircle. She pauses to get another one for herself, but Pete’s already there; he picks it up and puts it against the rail for her, facing the others. “Thanks,” she tells him. “Hi,” she says to them.

  “Hi yourself,” Courtney says tartly. “Where have you been? We were about to give up on you.”

  “Oh, they were taking pictures up on the landing, and I couldn’t get past. It always takes longer than you think it will to get anywhere on this boat.”

  “That’s the damn truth.” Russell nods, sipping a tall mixed drink with a lot of fruit in it, for the vitamins. He wears a wrinkled Hawaiian shirt with huge red tropical flowers on it. The shirt is buttoned up wrong. His hair sticks up in some places and lies flat in others. He needs a shave. But Russell and Catherine are holding hands now, publicly, solidly, their hands clasped on the little glass table between them.

  “Is that it?” Courtney points to the small black lacquered box which Harriet balances carefully on her knees. Harriet nods. Anna takes a deep breath, shudders, and looks away. Catherine squeezes Russell’s hand.

  “Let’s do it, then,” Courtney says through her teeth.

  But a boat’s horn sounds over the water from someplace ahead of them and is answered by the Belle, several short blasts of the steam whistle right above their heads, it’s deafening. Harriet’s ears are ringing when it’s over.

  “For God’s sake!” Anna cries. “Can’t we do this someplace else? Can’t we do it later?”

  Harriet looks up across their heads to Pete, who shakes his head no. He points to his wrist. “There isn’t time,” she says. “We’ll be coming into New Orleans soon, and then there’ll be too many people around. This is okay, Anna, really. It won’t take long, I promise. But I have to read you this letter first.”

  “What letter?” Courtney asks.

  “Charlie Mahan enclosed a letter, addressed to all of us, along with this.” Harriet touches the box on her lap, then puts it down on the deck beside her chair and gets Charlie’s letter and her reading glasses out of her purse. She’s settling back in her chair when the P.A. system crackles alarmingly above their heads and “Bobby’s Girl” blares out into the humid air.

  “Oh hell!” Anna jumps up in fright, then rearranges herself and settles back down. “This is just impossible.”

  “I want to be Bobby’s girl” comes across the deck at top volume.

  “Hang on there, folks, don’t move. Just a minute,” Pete yells, disappearing up the iron ladder to the top level, the Pilot House.

  “Who’s this, the Chipmunks?” Russell downs his drink.

  “What?” Courtney cups her ear with her hand.

  “I said, is this the fucking Chipmunks?”

  “I think it’s the Everly Brothers,” Anna calls out, surprising everybody.

  First Catherine starts laughing and then Harriet starts laughing too, what else can you do? Harriet thinks she’ll never stop laughing. Anna’s rocking, she’s gone someplace back in her head, but Courtney sits straight and prim in her deck chair, staring ahead. (At least, she knows how to act!) Harriet laughs and laughs while “Bobby’s Girl” fills the air and a hot little wind lifts her hair off the back of her neck. On shore, across the dark water, oil refineries lace the skies with strings of white lights; it looks like Christmas. Some of them move up and down like carnival rides. It’s really very beautiful up here. But it seems shockingly quiet when “Bobby’s Girl” cuts off suddenly with a scratchy noise that makes you grit your teeth, like nails on a blackboard.

  “Sorry, folks.” Pete drops back down on their deck. “That wasn’t supposed to happen, obviously. Just a little cut from the ‘Times of Your Life’—it’s this oldies program they keep going up here on the Sun Deck all day long. People seem to like it. Okay, now. You may proceed.” He nods to Harriet across the others’ heads.

  Harriet rips open the envelope, unfolds the letter, and sits back. “Well, I won’t say anything first. I’ll just read you this letter, as it is really intended for all of us. Okay. Here goes.” They lean forward in their chairs to catch Harriet’s soft voice.

  May 5, 1999

  My dear Harriet,

  First I must offer you and the others my deepest gratitude for undertaking this journey and carrying out our beloved Maggie’s final wish. I hope it has been a pleasant trip for you as well as a duty. And now I must confess that Maggie’s request was not stated in our joint will, that document having been drawn up many years ago. No, it is my own idea, and I shall tell you exactly how it came to me. For several months preceding Maggie’s death, she had been thinking of her college years, especially the trip down the Mississippi River. She spoke of the trip, and of you, many times, regretting that she had never been one to attend reunions or “keep in touch,” at least not in close touch, taken up as she has always been with the demands produced by our family and the farm. At this point I made a suggestion. Why not call up “the girls,” I said, and suggest a return voyage down the river on one of those steamboats? She seized upon my idea with alacrity, planning to contact you all after Christmas. She was, I might say, thrilled by this prospect. The intervening tragedy put a stop to the plan, of course, and yet I could not get her excitement over it out of my mind. I resolved to help her make the trip, if at all possible. Hence my request to you, a request that I hope you do not now consider dishonest in light of these disclosures.

  Maggie’s college years were precious to her despite some times of unhappiness and those lifelong difficulties that you are aware of. In fact, as the intervening years passed, her time at Mary Scott seemed to become ever more dear to her. In a reflective moment last fall, she told me that she “just felt so alive then.” I was struck by th
is remark at the time, for I believed her life here at El Destino to be filled almost to bursting with passionate life: our five children (and now two grandchildren); our farm, where she has always been my “right-hand man”; and her active role in our little community, where she was known and revered by all. I realized even at the time that she meant, then, something else; and after thinking about this matter a great deal, as you must imagine I have done, I believe this memory of “aliveness” derived not only from the natural exuberance of youth—and oh, yes, she was exuberant, wasn’t she? So filled with “passionate intensity,” to borrow a line from W. B. Yeats whose volume of Collected Poems lies even now in its accustomed place on her bedside table—but also from the warm and true friendships she formed at Mary Scott with the other girls, and especially with you, Harriet.

  I have heard it said that the friends of our youth are the closest friends we will ever have, and I believe this to be true. Certainly it has been so for me. The boys of my childhood are the men I rely on now. For at no later time are we ever so open, so ready to offer up all that we have and all that we are, to allow others real access into our very souls. The friendships we make in later life are friendships of a different order, it seems to me. The Mississippi River trip came to symbolize Maggie’s whole college experience for her. I do realize, as well, that Maggie could have gone on to graduate school and who knows what further academic honors had she so chosen, and yet she chose to marry me rather than pursue that course, despite my pleas. It was not an either-or choice. Loving her as I did, I always wanted to give Maggie whatever she wanted. Indeed, it is true to say I have devoted my life to this purpose, and been richly rewarded for it. I had loved her since she was a child. I loved her simply, from the bottom of my heart, and she knew it, and knew that she could depend on me when times of trouble came, as they did periodically. We weathered them together. Perhaps our union was even strengthened by them. We were closer than ever at the time of her death.

  Her tragic accident last December was the shock and sorrow of my life, totally unexpected, of course; in fact, we had planned a trip together in January. The airline tickets had just arrived.