CHAPTER 20
Charlotte and Brundidge and the girls were the first to arrive at the Champanelle River. Once there, they set up a cabana, Brundidge’s state-of-the-art grill, and every modern amenity known to campers. Charlotte had never been camping or spent a day in the wilderness and seemed alternately put off and fascinated by all of it. On the way there, they had passed a yard full of tombstones with a sign advertising “Fresh Walnuts and Monuments.” Charlotte simply could not grasp a reason why these two commodities would be sold together. Brundidge said it was common practice for country people to sell unrelated items. But Charlotte couldn’t let it go. “How does that work? I mean, is it, like, a couple is out driving somewhere and the wife says, ‘Oh, by the way, honey, on the way home, let’s stop and get some nuts and some headstones for our graves.’”
Brundidge finally said, “I really couldn’t tell you.”
Later, she declined to spray mosquito repellent on him or his daughters, claiming that both the aerosol button and the liquid were harmful. When they went fishing, though she was excited to catch a bass, she refused to handle something called a crawdad. And Brundidge had to bait her hook for her, wondering out loud how she could eat raw fish if she couldn’t even pick it up. Then, when he informed her that they would be staying after dark, she had something akin to a nervous breakdown. A picnic was one thing, but she was not about to stay in these woods at night. Now he was getting impatient.
“There’s hardly anybody who lives around here and the ones who do are good people.”
He got up and crossed to her, rocking the pontoon, and then bent down, nuzzling her neck. “Come on, can’t you open up your heart to just one special hick? For only a few kisses a day, you’ll receive a picture of him and his entire illegitimate family and the knowledge that you helped to change their lives forever.”
Charlotte pushed him in the river. When he came to the surface, she and his daughters were laughing. That afternoon, after most of the others had arrived, they were treated to something called the Cypress Gardens Water Show. Charlie had come around the bend of the river in Dr. Mac’s old speedboat, pulling three “skiers.” Jeter, in his wheelchair, was fastened to a custom-made disc, designed by Brundidge, which was connected by a rope to the rear of the boat. He looked deliriously happy and drenched from the spray created by his two best friends, who flanked him, each wearing one ski. As they passed in front of the group, Wood and Brundidge performed a series of elaborate maneuvers, using sweeping feminine gestures like synchronized swimmers, making graceful arches over Jeter’s head and then lifting their legs behind them in perfect unison. Most of the others seemed nonplussed by this, but Charlotte and Mary Paige were impressed. Milan explained that Wood’s parents had taken him and Jeter and Brundidge to a waterskiing show in Cypress Gardens, Florida, when they were ten, and that they had perfected this routine and been doing it ever since.
Mavis added that it was ridiculous, they’d had thirty years to work on some new moves, but instead they just kept doing the same old things. It was that way with music, too. They dragged out the same old songs over and over, singing them unrelentingly and unmercifully. Because it was tradition, carrying on about stepping on pop-tops and blowing out their flip-flops and searching for their lost shaker of salt. Really, they just drove everyone crazy. She hoped Charlotte and Mary Paige would not encourage them. Mavis was setting the table, wearing a humongous yellow maternity swimsuit with a pleated skirt and sun hat when she said this and Mary Paige was watching her, dazzled.
Milan and Mavis, who were still estranged, had now settled into a kind of banal cordiality when they were all together. This had happened without any prior discussion, and though such an arrangement paled in comparison to their old friendship, each woman was grateful for it.
No sooner had Milan begun spraying for mosquitoes than Luke and Elizabeth pulled up in the Mustang convertible with Duff in the backseat. When Duff emerged, she immediately spotted Wood and the others and started yelling, “Oh my God! Cypress Gardens! I love it! I haven’t seen Cypress Gardens in years!”
She was wearing sandals with little heels, camouflage short shorts and a crisp white linen blouse with the sleeves rolled up, cinched with a leather belt.
Charlotte said, staring, “Didn’t those breasts used to be real?”
Mavis was also staring. “My God, she’s had them done. How did you know?”
“It’s a curse. I’m like a narcotics dog for fake boobs.”
Milan, who was now busy putting out Mavis’s lamb lollypops, cold couscous salad, and grilled pita bread, turned toward Duff. It was true. Her breasts were larger and riding higher than they had been on her last visit. There was no question she’d had something done. And the way she was striding, confident, with each expertly rounded plastic sphere causing tight folds in her blouse, you could tell she was proud of the effect they were having. Milan was thinking, well, so much for the girl who took her name off the homecoming ballot because she didn’t believe in competition.
Oddly, the men didn’t seem to notice anything different, except you could tell that they all thought Duff looked good. Milan figured that was typical—men getting the big picture and the women zeroing in immediately on what was really going on here.
Everyone exchanged greetings. Milan hugged Luke and Elizabeth, while Duff continued carrying on about the Cypress Gardens water show, explaining its origin to Luke and acting like she had gone to Florida with the boys herself, until Mavis mumbled that if Duff said just the words “Cypress Gardens Water Show” one more time, she would go into labor.
Charlotte got a beer and handed it to Milan. “Here. I think we may have to get drunk.”
Milan smiled, appreciative of the unexpected camaraderie. After lunch, when almost everyone was floating on their inner tubes, Duff was lying straight across hers and not partially curled inside, the way a person who wasn’t concerned with showing off her new breast augmentation might do. Mavis looked like a giant kernel of corn in her tentsize yellow suit, which covered almost every inch of her inner tube as the little pleats from the skirt hung off to the side and her swollen abdomen stuck out about two feet in the air. She and Jeter made a strange pair of would-be parents, as he lay next to her with his eyes closed, his skinny alabaster body stretched across his own tube like a stringless marionette, while Mary Paige swam around happily towing the two of them. After a while, Jeter opened his eyes. Mavis said, “It must’ve been a good dream. You were smiling.”
Jeter, feeling impish, said, “I was swimming the river with the baby on my shoulders. I was going faster and faster and then all of a sudden…oh, forget it.”
Mavis was suddenly touched. “What, tell me. Your legs wouldn’t move?”
“No, I won the Olympics. But I was disqualified for having a kid on my back.”
Mavis and Mary Paige splashed him. Not far away, Brundidge and Charlotte were floating together. Charlotte had never been on an inner tube and could not get over the fact that one could just drift along on one of these old tires and end up in, say, Tennessee. Brundidge was now in the middle of an old sports story, which Duff had encouraged him to tell, acting as though she had missed hearing it. “…So Alabama’s beating Vanderbilt 14–2, and old Puddy Horton says [here Brundidge lowers his voice], ‘Damnit, I’m gonna steal that son of a bitch’s hat.’ He stole the Bear’s hat! Moonpie Wilson and his friends see him. These are not normal guys. These guys are superhormone enhanced. Puddy jumps on Moonpie’s back. Moonpie peels him off and coldcocks him right there.”
Duff laughed. Charlotte said with her eyes closed, “That’s an incredible story. You really should get that down on paper before you forget it.”
Mavis snickered, appreciating this new addition to their ensemble. “That’s good, Charlotte. I like that.”
Brundidge said to Wood, “That used to be a good story, didn’t it?”
Wood mumbled, “I wasn’t listening.”
Jeter kept his eyes closed, thinking that nothi
ng was what it used to be.
A long metal boat drifted by with loud music coming from a boom box. Charlie was in the rear, casting his fishing line. Luke was seated in the front watching as Elizabeth, looking glorious in her chartreuse bikini, was dancing on top of the center seat. Milan, who was ensconced on the sandbar, watched her daughter go by, wondering if she needed more sunscreen. Wood watched Elizabeth, too, and shook his head, laughing. Brundidge said, “Here comes Cleopatra on her barge with her pubescent male slaves. Now there’s a girl with zest. You never see zesty people anymore.” Then he trailed off to himself, “Everybody’s gotta be cool now…” He noticed Milan looking prim and dry, sitting next to her giant stack of bridal magazines. “Looking good over there, Miss Milano.” Then he said to the others, “Look at her with all that wedding stuff, would you? The ol’ Milano’s always got ever’thing under control.” She lowered her sunglasses and acknowledged Brundidge, then returned to her magazine, pretending to read.
It was cruel and bizarre, having to socialize with the woman your husband was having an affair with. But in order to protect Elizabeth and Luke, she didn’t have any choice. These days Wood was sleeping on the sofa, in the sitting area of the master bedroom in order to keep Charlie from suspecting that anything was wrong. Wood and Milan had never been willing to let their children know that their marriage was anything but good. And for years, they had improbably pulled together a rather fun, raucous family life, filled with friends and good times, in spite of their differences. But now, with an affair mixed in, their façade was growing thin. And Milan didn’t yet know what she was going to do about it. Or if she was going to do anything. But she did have a vague idea that once the wedding was over, things were going to shake out one way or the other.
Milan noticed that Charlie had lost his hook on a snag. She watched, suddenly interested, as he began tying a new one to his fishing line. The movement of her son’s hands or the way the afternoon light was now on him put her in mind of Tom Lanier and how he had looked just before he killed himself. Only he had been sitting on the front porch, tying the end of an old piece of string to a trigger. When Milan came out, he had turned and looked at her, like he was going to really show her something, like, “Watch this!” Then he grabbed the shotgun that was leaning against his chair. He did this the way a gunslinger might do it, snapping the barrel under his chin and the handle between his knees and then yanking the string, hard.
It happened in less than two seconds and it seemed to Milan that he was showing off for her. That he wanted her to someday tell people, “Boy, you should’ve been there. It was the fastest thing I ever saw!” Then, later, when she had been hosing off the front of the house, she couldn’t get over how happy Tom had seemed just that morning. He had finally located a small snapshot of himself that he’d been trying to find for days. It had white scalloped edges and the picture itself had turned sort of brown. In it, he was wearing his old army uniform, which looked too big for him. His legs were apart and his hands were on his hips, as though he hoped this would make him look tough. Milan had never seen this photograph before and he told her, “Hold on to this, girlie! It could be worth a lot someday!”
She was jolted back to the present when she noticed that Duff’s inner tube was now drifting toward Wood’s. Eventually, when the tubes bumped together, Duff smiled at him and he returned it. Maybe it was because people who are lying on their backs, while floating around on something, often look smug, but Milan was thinking that Wood and Duff seemed especially pleased with themselves. Like they thought they knew everything. But she knew something they would never know. She knew, for example, that you cannot get brains off a house. Especially if the house is made of concrete. You can get the blood and the bone fragments off, but then weeks later, you’ll be sitting on your front porch and you’ll swear there’s still a little piece of human tissue in there, somewhere. And no matter how many times you wash it, some of it is still going to be there. Maybe you can’t see it. But it’s there. It’s just something you know.
That night, after the younger ones had gone back to town, the men put on Creedence Clearwater Revival and sang “Born on the Bayou.” Sang it until Mavis had taken the extension cord connected to Brundidge’s loudspeaker and thrown it in the river. The men had reacted with shock and dismay, eventually becoming depressed until Brundidge finally got the idea that they should all go skinny-dipping, the way they used to when they were kids. This was something he always suggested whenever they were on the sandbar at night, as though it was a completely new concept. Charlotte had given Brundidge an elbow, but he’d had too many beers to grasp the delicacy of his suggestion. And then Duff took up his cause, saying that she’d love to go and you could almost hear the unsung chorus of female voices saying, “Oh, what a surprise! We didn’t see that one coming! Any chance you’ll be lingering outside the water with your two new friends?” Now Wood was saying he wasn’t going, which left only Brundidge and Duff, forcing Charlotte to go, too. Then Brundidge pressed Mavis, who exclaimed, “My God, you’re drunker than I thought.”
“Come on, you and Jeet and Mary Paige come.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because I weigh six hundred pounds. She’s a missionary. And he’s crippled. Okay?”
Brundidge said he knew better than to ask Milan. He explained to Charlotte and Mary Paige that Milan was the only one who had always refused to skinny-dip. Mavis added that Milan never did anything daring or illegal. Mary Paige wanted to know what Mavis had done that was daring and Mavis said that she had written “Mrs. Stevie Wonder” all over her notebook in sixth grade, which was way ahead of its time.
A conversation then ensued about how Milan was the one person who always volunteered to stay after school and help clean erasers—how she had actually been a hall monitor for three consecutive years—and earned every available Girl Scout badge (a group of teachers paid for her uniform) including even one for sanitation. Everyone laughed and Wood laughed a little, too, but told her with his eyes that he didn’t like them picking on her, even though it was good-natured.
When they were done, Milan stood up and said, “Well, I think I’ll go in now.” After that she walked about a hundred feet away from them and climbed out on the large black rock that they had used to dive from since they were kids. Then, they all sat and watched as Milan, who even in PE had undressed in a bathroom stall, matter-of-factly shed her Capri pants and matching sweater with the little sailor collar and her under things, and then just stood for a brief moment in the moonlight.
Mavis said, in disbelief, “My God, she’s going to get her hair wet.”
Milan seemed like she was alone now and not even aware of them, which made it all the more compelling to watch. No one but her husband and daughter had ever seen her naked. And she was magnificent! Breathtaking—just the raw improbable beauty of her and no bad angle from which to view it. Wood was astonished and strangely proud and upset that she was doing this. And Duff was already thinking to herself that she was not going swimming after all. Jeter closed his eyes at first, because he was worried that there could be some new humiliation in this for Milan. Not that she wouldn’t be lovely, but that the act itself might seem pathetic. But he needn’t have worried. The fact that she had never done anything like it before lifted it from mere exhibitionism. And the fact that it was done in front of her husband and his lover was bold beyond words. Brundidge said, to lighten the moment, “Poor little old ugly thing. No wonder she was afraid to go in.”
And Charlotte was thinking to herself, “She’s standing on that rock, looking like that, for all the cuckolded wives everywhere, who’ve had to take a backseat to the other woman. This is the greatest fuck-you I’ve ever seen.”
But that wasn’t what was on Milan’s mind. She was thinking that it felt good and free to be naked in the moonlight. And that maybe she had been missing out on something. Then she pointed her arms toward the stars and dove in, a perfectly executed swan dive, wi
th her back slightly hollowed and her feet held together, forming a straight line from her curvaceous hips to her well-manicured toes, just the way Grand Scout Master Betty Barnes had taught her to, with Milan reminding herself as she landed, “the less splash the better.” When she resurfaced, all eyes were still on her, except for Jeter’s, which were now staring at Wood. He was wondering about an old football score that hadn’t seemed to be enough for Wood either.
Milan pounded a gavel on the thick oak table that had been commissioned by her great-grandfather-in-law, Charles Longchamps, as a gift to the town. She loved doing this, because it seemed like something she had always seen important men doing. Then she declared that the second emergency session of the Twentieth-Century Millennium Time Capsule Committee of Paris, Arkansas, was now in order.
The first such meeting had been called months ago, in order to include the American flag from Dr. Mac’s funeral. (Wood’s dad had declined to give the committee his war medals, saying they were nothing more than the result of “unbelievable good luck.”) After a unanimous vote, the capsule, which due to past vandalism now resided at a secret location, had been exhumed and the flag put in. Also included were Tommy Epps’s dog tags from Vietnam, which he was still wearing when he died. Brundidge, a Millennium Committee member, had proposed that these be added to the capsule so that the lowest-ranking soldier would be represented right alongside Paris’s most highly decorated veteran.
When Milan’s brother Frank read about all this in the paper, he went crazy. He, too, owned an object of great historical significance. It was his one claim to fame and the committee had already turned it down. And now Frank, having been emboldened by the knowledge that the capsule’s contents could indeed be revisited, had filed a lawsuit. He had done this after reading a book that a friend in prison had sent to him on how to become your own lawyer. And though he didn’t like to read, he had been mesmerized by all the legal maneuverings that he might use to get his own way. This was a great book with real tips in it—not like that Chicken Soup shit that Milan sent him. Brundidge had tried to talk him out of taking any legal action. But Frank was insistent that the committee reconsider what he felt sure was one of the most important items to ever be associated with the city of Paris. And right now it was sitting on a Kleenex box that Frank had covered in velvet. (This was something he hadn’t had last time.) It was a simple Coke can. Covered with all the signatures of the Rolling Stones. And Frank had something new to go with it, too. He passed out copies of the letter that he and his first-grade teacher, Miss Phipps, had recently worked on together. Actually, she had provided the big words and he the information. Here’s what it said:
Liberating Paris Page 25
