Wood and Jeter were in Fort Belvedere Christmas shopping. This was something they did together every year, since most of the good stores in Paris were gone and also because they refused to frequent the Paris County Fed-Mart Superstore. Brundidge had, at one time, been invited to go with them but had since been eliminated because of his incessant scorning of their selections and because he took too much time with his own. Wood and Jeter knew what they wanted from almost the moment they entered a store. They did not wander around aimlessly looking at merchandise.
Wood was already in a bad mood, in anticipation of the coming weekend’s Christmas party for the Laniers. Sometimes he just sat in awe and wonderment that his wife could’ve sprung from such people. Milan seemed as out of place in their presence as Snow White standing in the middle of a bunch of chimps. He particularly dreaded how the Laniers spoke endlessly of celebrities, as though they were on intimate terms with them. And how they would interrupt dinner just to watch something like the Celine Dion Christmas Special, during which one of Milan’s sisters might say to Wood, “You know, they say her dressing room is an exact replica of her house. And I think that’s wonderful. I’m all for that, aren’t you?” And then, horribly, he would have to answer.
Now Wood and Jeter were at a jewelry counter. Wood was holding a long mesh chain with a pendant that had an emerald in the middle.
“What do you think?”
Jeter said, pointedly, “For who?”
Wood was annoyed. “Who do you think?”
Jeter looked at the emerald. “I don’t think it’s enough.”
Wood rolled his eyes and bought it anyway. His cell phone went off as he was paying. He answered it. On the other end was the one who wasn’t getting an emerald. She was crying. Something about Dennis Childs, who, after being served with divorce papers, had come over and beaten her up. Excelsior Springs was closer to Fort Belvedere than to Paris and they made it in less than an hour. Jeter waited in the van while Wood went inside.
It wasn’t long before a good-looking man pulled up in an old Corvette and got out. He stared at Jeter and then went inside. In a little while, the man came back out. The pocket on his jacket was torn and he was holding his side. He fished for some keys and then sort of staggered to his car and left. After that, Wood came out, too. When he opened the door, Jeter saw that his eye was swollen and there was blood on his shirt. Wood reached across the car seat and picked up the box with the emerald pendant in it. Jeter looked straight at him.
Wood let out a long sigh. “Nothing’s changed. I’m the same person I’ve always been. Except that I’m insane.” Then he closed the door and limped back inside.
On the way home, after they had gone about a hundred miles, Jeter said, almost to himself, “See, here’s the thing. It’s not just you having an affair. Now we’re all having an affair…only you’re the only one gettin’ laid.”
Wood looked at him in the rearview mirror but pretended not to hear.
A few days before Christmas, Ione Falkoff died, adding more sadness to the upcoming holiday. Milan was especially devastated by this news, because the ninety-year-old former owner of Falkoff’s Drugstore had, like Pauline Jeter and Sidney Garfinkel, helped her survive adolescence. Many mornings before attending high school and always before special occasions, Milan would stop by Falkoff’s makeup counter and use all the available free samples. Long before she was rendered obsolete by Fed-mart, Ione, who understood Milan’s dire situation, acted as though she was a real customer, showing her new beauty products and pretending like she might actually buy something someday. Because Milan had loved a particular perfume named “Lilac,” Ione made sure that a bottle was always left sitting out. And that’s why on Christmas morning, Milan got up early, drove to the newest grave in Whispering Pines, and left, amid all the poinsettias and holly wreaths, a splendid array of that very flower.
The rest of the day came and went with less fanfare than usual. The McIlmore house was lit up like Milan’s old fire baton, as though light might be an antidote to uncertainty. But inside, the two adults who lived there hardly spoke. Even the Laniers seemed more subdued than normal. Frank didn’t even bother to entertain the children by pulling cigarettes out of his ears. Elizabeth and Luke went to Florida to visit the Duffers and Charlie stayed mostly in his room. Wood told everyone that his black eye was the result of having run into a door. But Milan never even asked about it. It was as though he could come home now with a spear stuck clean through him and she would only regard him a little curiously and then move on. Even when he had given her a lovely sapphire ring, which was much more expensive than the emerald pendant, she had pushed it back across the breakfast table and said, “Thank you. But I really can’t accept this now. Maybe you can return it.”
Not “Why don’t you let your whore wear it while you’re screwing her?” Or “What’s wrong? Doesn’t your little hoochie like sapphires?” But simply “Maybe you can return it.”
It was so mature and decent. And he almost hated her for the way she was now killing him.
CHAPTER 18
Charlotte Rampling was returning to Arkansas. And not just for the purpose of fulfilling some forbidden Dogpatch sex fantasy either. Brundidge had already visited her in New York and it had gone better than she could’ve imagined. Her friends had been intrigued and amused by him, and he had taken her to several of his favorite spots, including a wonderful little restaurant named Erminia that she hadn’t even known about.
Now they were on the interstate between Little Rock and Paris and he was giving her instructions.
“Okay, when we get there, you’re gonna stay in Cake’s room. Cake’s gonna stay with Lily.”
“Why can’t I stay with you?”
“Because I’m a father, Charlotte. I don’t have women spend the night in front of my little girls.”
“Okay. All right.”
“Geez, it’s like you were raised by wolves. I can’t even believe you went to a good school.”
“I’m sorry, they don’t teach that at Smith.”
He put an arm around her. “It’s okay. You’re in Arkansas now. We’ll help you.”
Later Brundidge sat her suitcase down in the middle of a bedroom that was mostly pink, except for the huge mural on the wall. “Girls, this is Miss Rampling.”
She shook their hands. “I’m Charlotte.”
He corrected her. “No, you’re Miss Rampling. They don’t call adults by their first name.”
“Oh. Well, in that case, I’m Ms. Rampling.”
Brundidge shook his head. “I’m sorry. They don’t say Ms. either, because it sounds stupid. Cake, you need to straighten up all your animals on that bed.”
Cake said, “What’s wrong with them?”
“What’s wrong is they ain’t got no feng shui.”
Lily studied Charlotte. “How old are you?”
“I’m thirty-three. How old are you?”
“Seven. You want some gum?”
“What kind is it?”
“Sugarless. It’s the only kind he lets us have.”
Charlotte looked at Brundidge. “That’s mean.”
“There has to be rules, Charlotte, or the whole fabric of society breaks down.”
Cake and Lily were sitting on the bed, chewing their gum, watching Charlotte put on a little mascara.
Finally, Lily said, “Your eyes are pretty.”
“So are yours.”
Lily ran to her. “Do me.” She turned her face up toward Charlotte, who dabbed her lashes with the wand, “Okay, hold still. I like your braid.”
“Dad did it. He’s got a whole book just on knots.”
Now the girls were vying for her attention.
Cake said, “Are you interested in America, Miss Rampling?”
Charlotte thought for a minute. “Yes, I’d say I am.”
Cake gestured toward the mural. “Tommy Epps painted our bedroom walls. He’s a real artist.”
Charlotte went over and studied it. There were
no fairy tales or Winnie the Pooh characters here, but rather ten or fifteen significant historical events represented in some fashion. And Cake Brundidge was in the middle of all of them. And not just helping Betsy Ross sew a flag, either, but riding on the back of Paul Revere’s horse and serving as the engineer for the Underground Railroad and doing a cartwheel next to the marines as they planted the flag at Iwo Jima.
Cake explained, “I wasn’t really there. He just put me in it ’cause my daddy paid him to.”
Charlotte said, still taking it in, “Very impressive.”
Lily was lying on her back, with smudged mascara, playing with a gum wrapper. “I wish mine was all dogs.”
Cake shrugged to Charlotte. “She’s young. She doesn’t understand the meaning of history.”
Brundidge was driving toward the McIlmores’ New Year’s Eve party when Charlotte said, “So, you were a teacher?”
“Yeah. I had to quit when my parents got sick so I could take over the business.” He said it nonchalantly, but the truth was it had almost killed him. Before his daughters, teaching had been Brundidge’s greatest passion. He was the first one to arrive at school each morning and the last one to leave. And he had raised legendary amounts of money for historical field trips. His only flaw was that he cared too much, annoying some parents by sending home letters that said things like, “Are you aware that your child, in a recent pop quiz, has indicated that she thinks the Gold Rush is the name of a jewelry store, does not know why 407,000 Americans died for her in World War II, and hasn’t a clue as to what continent she’s living on? If we do not act soon, the children of Paris, Arkansas, may become as ignorant as children all over the country. Sincerely, E. B. Brundidge.”
Charlotte was talking now. Something about his sweater. “I understand you only wear that one if you really like somebody. Is that right?”
“Is that what they told you?” She nodded. He laughed, shaking his head. “Well, that’s not good.”
For the first time ever, the McIlmores’ New Year’s Eve party was a bust. From the moment it began, you could sense the unease, as well as the disciplined hospitality. Duff had shown up unexpectedly with Luke and Elizabeth, looking more beautiful than Milan or Wood could ever remember. She said Luke had talked her into coming at the last minute, insisting that she needed to bring in the New Year with her son and future daughter-in-law and all her old friends. She told this story all night, each time throwing her arms around Luke and saying, “Isn’t he the most divine thing you’ve ever seen? If I wasn’t his mother, I’d date him myself.”
Charlotte, who had taken an immediate dislike to Duff, could almost picture Freud slobbering on her.
For her part, Milan holed up in Wood’s den for most of the night with Jeter. And Brundidge, for the first New Year’s ever, did not do his Elvis impression because the idiot kid at the Little Rock costume shop had forgotten to hold Black Leather Elvis, which Brundidge had always rented, leaving only fat Vegas Elvis, which Brundidge hated. Anyway, too many people had done Elvis now and ruined it for him. Not to mention, no one was in the mood. Sadly, there was not even a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “Here’s to the Winners,” because Wood had said he did not feel up to it.
Charlotte, being a fresh arrival, asked if Wood and Duff were having an affair. And Brundidge lied that he wouldn’t know, because romantic men do not talk about their affairs with women. That’s just a rule. And then Charlotte wanted to know if Brundidge was a romantic man. And he told her that he was. At midnight, he kissed her in a way that proved it.
Then he broke another twenty-year tradition by leaving the party early. A few miles later, he and Charlotte were standing in the middle of his warehouse. Thousands of bottles of wine and liquor and beer lined the shelves and walls. She was impressed.
“Wow! What are you? Some kind of moonshiner?”
“Yeah. That’s me. A moonshiner. Come here.” He held her, burying his face in her hair. Then he led her into his office, which was literally covered with hundreds of trophies and photographs and all sorts of civic plaques.
“You know why we’re here?”
“Yes. Because you’re trying to have sex with me, away from your house.”
“No. Because I’m trying to make love to you.” He nibbled her neck. “’Cause I can’t wait any longer. You’re just so damn pretty and smart and when I watch how you handle yourself and the way you talk to people, it turns me on.”
He was undressing her now and smiling. “I was gonna have a lot of candles here but I have twenty years of safety awards from the fire department.”
He continued folding her clothes neatly and putting them on his desk, stopping only occasionally to kiss her. “Anyway, I like you. I like you a lot.”
She stiffened a little. “I like you, too. But I don’t think I’m ready—”
He said good-naturedly, “Hey, shut up, okay? I didn’t say I love you. I said I like you. If and when I love you, I’ll let you know.”
When she was naked, he began removing his own pants and shorts and gingerly centered them across the arm of a chair.
“Then you can say, ‘Well, hell, I was just using you for my exotic, hillbilly boy toy. I didn’t know you were gonna go and get all serious on me.’ And that’ll be okay, too. And you know why? ’Cause I’ll still be the one with the killer food and the comfortable chairs…who got to make love to the greatest woman in the world.”
She was thinking that he looked terribly appealing in his freshly starched shirt and Missoni sweater mixed with all the pastels of an impressionist picnic and no bottoms. She gave him a beautiful white smile, which, along with her bobbed hair, put him in mind of the last thing she would ever be, a naked cheerleader. They made serious love till dawn and then went home and fell into their respective beds, where Charlotte stared at the wall and worried that the father of the little girl jumping up and down on the moon was slowly reeling her in.
Milan was back at Doe’s, having lunch with Mavis.
“I can’t believe those eyebrows are already growing out. I’ve got some wax in my purse. I’ll heat it up in the microwave.”
“I don’t want you heating up wax here. Anyway, my eyebrows are not your business.”
“Yes, they are. Any woman I love who has hair on her face is my business.”
Mavis sighed. Milan shrugged. “Okay. Grow a unibrow. I don’t care.” She hesitated, then, “I wasn’t gonna say anything, but maybe I should.”
She waited. Mavis waited, too.
Then, “There’s a rumor going around town that you’re a lesbian.”
Rudy, who was passing by, let out a half a guffaw before he caught himself.
Milan flipped open her compact and reapplied her lipstick. “Of course, you probably have Harlan Pillow to thank for that one. And here’s the real kicker. I even heard,”—she pressed her lips together evening out the mocha color—“that I was your girlfriend.”
Mavis, genuinely shocked, started to laugh. “Stop!”
Milan laughed, too. “Can you believe it?”
Mavis shook her head, laughing harder. “You…and me?”
“That’s what they’re saying—”
“Oh my God. That’s just too—that’s the funniest thing I ever heard!” Now Mavis was pounding the table, gasping for air.
Suddenly, Milan stopped laughing. “Okay. Now you’re starting to hurt my feelings.”
Mavis collected herself. Then there was a long silence while her eyes filled up with all the hope that she had tried to keep in check for most of her life. Finally, her voice came loud and clear as though she was in a play and these were words that she was trying out for the first time. “Milan. I am a lesbian. And I’m in love with Mary Paige.” Mavis had thought she would feel like someone else once she said this, but strangely she still felt like herself.
Milan sat very still. Then she said, “That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is.”
Milan shifted in her chair a little, then, “I want you to
stop this. It’s not funny. You’re scaring me.”
Mavis took her hand. “I don’t mean to.”
They stayed like that without speaking, the fragility of what was at stake caught in their breath. After a while, Milan’s shoulders slumped and she began to weep a little. “Why does everyone keep changing on me? I just wish everyone would stop changing.”
Mavis got up and knelt down beside her. “I know it’s hard. But I’m still who I was.”
“Oh my God. How can you say that, when it was all a lie?” Her voice was suddenly cracked and tired. “How could I not have seen this? All these years of being best friends, you couldn’t have said, ‘Oh, by the way, I like girls?’”
Mavis said, “I wanted to tell you, so bad. At first, I was afraid that you would hate me. And then later, I was afraid because…”
“What?”
Mavis hesitated. “I don’t know. I guess because you taught Sunday school.”
Milan took this in. Then she stood up, shaking. “You know, I’m starting to think maybe I’m the one nobody knows around here.”
Mavis stood up, too. “It’s only a small part of who I am. It doesn’t have to change things.”
Milan looked into the plain, wide face that she had been telling her deepest secrets to since she was six years old. “No, it doesn’t have to, but I’m pretty sure it already has.” Then she covered her eyes with her sunglasses. “And it’s too bad, because you didn’t even give me a chance. I might have surprised you. Now you’ll never know.”
Liberating Paris Page 23
