Liberating Paris

by Linda Bloodworth Thomason

  After that, Mavis came in, carrying her humongous purse and Paris. Jeter asked her to hold the baby up to his face so he could kiss her. And then he wanted to kiss her hands. So Mavis pressed each tiny palm to his lips, which made Paris and Jeter both laugh a little. Mavis laughed, too, and in the middle of it all, noticed that Jeter’s face was now contorted and that he was no longer laughing, but was actually weeping, which caused his words for Mavis to sound choked and harsh. “Damn you. I’ve been ready to go for years. Then you had to go and do somethin’ like this.”

  Now Mavis was crying. She lay Paris on the bed and began digging in her purse. When she came up with several photographs, she held them up toward Jeter. “You have to pick. It’s for her dresser.”

  Jeter studied them for a moment. “The one in my football uniform.” He laughed a little. “That way you can tell her her old man was a big stud.”

  Mavis stared at him as tears continued rolling off her fat cheeks and onto her blouse. “Don’t ever laugh at that.” She gestured toward Paris. “Look what you did there. Her old man is a stud. And Mary Paige and I get on our knees every night and thank God for that.”

  “Come on.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re the biggest fucking stud in this entire town.”

  He gazed lovingly at the daughter lying next to him and said to Mavis, “You’re crazy.”

  “You know anyone else around here who’s knocked up a two-hundred and fifty pound lesbian?”

  Jeter had to admit that he didn’t. And even though he knew it was silly, he rolled the idea around in his head now, taking it in like an unexpected, last minute windfall.

  Then it was Milan’s turn. She came in just as a sliver of moon appeared in his tiny window. She crossed and opened the curtains wide, the same ones she had made for him because there was a snow scene of a small town on the fabric that she had known he would like. When she turned to face him, they smiled, the way people who have loved each other for a long time can smile, knowing that this will be enough. Then she crawled into bed with him and held him in her arms, like he belonged to her. And they stayed that way until Jeter fell asleep.

  When he woke up, she was gone. He wanted to know the score of the local football game. Wood turned on the radio and they listened to the last quarter together. After a while, Jeter saw an old look settle on Wood’s face. Finally, he spoke. “It doesn’t matter whether you should’ve thrown that ball or not.”

  “We don’t need to talk about that.”

  “Listen to me. All that matters is, I tried to catch it. Because that’s the way we played. You and me. And if I could get out of this bed and be eighteen, I’d do it again. Do you understand?”

  Wood shook his head that he did, as each one realized this would never be resolved. After that, Jeter laughed a little to himself.

  “Man, that was some serious whup-ass yesterday. Did you see the surprised look on that son of a bitch’s face when he saw me coming?”

  “Yeah. It’s not every day you get attacked by a quadriplegic.”

  “That was almost worth dyin’ for.”

  They laughed together. Then Wood said, “God, I’m gonna miss you.”

  Jeter met his gaze. “I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t for my little girl…I wanted to see what color her eyes are gonna be. You know, they keep changin’.”

  Wood smiled.

  “Don’t let her go with the boys who drive fast, okay?”

  “I won’t.”

  Around 4 A.M., Jeter woke up and stared at Wood, who was sleeping in a chair, illuminated by the light from the nurses’ station. Then he said, “Woodrow?”

  Wood opened his eyes. He got up and crossed to the bed and put his hand next to his old friend’s cheek. The same one that Cherry Smoke had once placed herself so lovingly against and that Hank and Pauline, in search of a sensory route to their son, had kissed hundreds of times. After enjoying the warmth of it for a moment or two, Jeter died. Wood stayed alone with him for a while, thinking that his eyes looked peaceful and innocent, not unlike those of a deer they had shot when they were thirteen. He remembered how they both cried afterward, admitting that neither had wanted to do it and vowing never to do it again.

  Then he rang Milan and said, “It’s over.”

  She thanked him for calling and went and sat in her favorite window, dry-eyed, imagining Jeter without his chair. After a while, she called Mavis, who picked Paris up and started a fire in the kitchen, even though it was warm out. And then Mavis and the baby had sat rocking, next to Chester, where they would stay for most of the morning.

  Brundidge had heard the phone, but didn’t answer. He already knew what it meant—this cruel middle-of-the-night ringing that nothing good ever came from. He lay there quiet till the sun was up. Then, when his little girls came and got in bed with him, he held them tight and wept.

  Slim was already in her kitchen, drinking coffee, when she got Wood’s call. Afterward, she went outside and worked in her garden till Sidney arrived. When she told him, he reached for his perfectly pressed handkerchief and walked away from her for a while. After he collected himself, he helped her move a climbing oleander to near the old tree house where her son and his friends had spent so much of their time.

  Back at the nursing home, Wood had removed all the tubular appendages that had for so long encumbered his greatest friend. And Rudy came and gave Jeter a bath. He did this while humming “Hernando’s Hideaway,” the song his parents had been dancing to when they became the national tango champions of Cuba. This was to keep his spirits up and also because Jeter had always liked it. Miss Delaney, who once taught that restraint is the most powerful emotion in all of literature, kept to herself for most of the day. She felt especially sorrowful when she realized, too late, that she had let several of Jeter’s plants die since falling in love with Serious. But it was Miss Phipps who was inconsolable, parking herself in a folding chair outside of Jeter’s room. When Cotrell’s came to collect the body, she wailed so loudly that one of the attendants asked if she was a relative to which she replied, “Yes, he was my husband.”

  That afternoon, Brundidge and Wood were going through Jeter’s meager possessions. They saw the letter on his computer that he had typed for Paris. But there were no final thoughts or a last will and testament as one might expect. Just a simple log of who had come to see him and what time they had done so. At the bottom of the page, he had put the day’s date and then this man, who had been so prolific and masterful with words, had written simply, “I died.”

  Brundidge and Wood sat looking at each other, absorbing the clarity of it. Then, Brundidge, who had been sifting through the cardboard box under Jeter’s bed, showed Wood that it was filled with old newspaper clippings and photographs, mostly to do with Wood. His years as the quarterback at Duke, articles about each game, the announcement of his marriage, his acceptance to and graduation from medical school and all the Dean’s list stories in between, his affiliation with his dad and the local hospital, stories about his practice, the birth of his children, and on and on. Wood couldn’t get over it. He had to go out in the hall and walk around for a while. It was as though, since nothing had happened to Jeter after his injury, he had begun to collect the things that happened to Wood. Things that Wood himself hadn’t even kept a record of. When he came back in, Brundidge said, without any unkindness, “Well, I guess somebody liked your life.”

  Wood, feeling his strength waning, said nothing.

  Then something even more shocking happened—something that could not have surprised him more if he had learned that Jeter was an alien. Rudy had produced the key to Jeter’s small filing cabinet, the one that contained all of his poems and short stories. Inside, there was an especially thick folder, which was labeled simply, “Her.” Wood hadn’t intended to read any of the contents now, but after he saw some of the titles, he became, for some reason, uneasy. And later, when he read a few of the passages, even though a name was never mentioned, he began to feel that he knew who these l
ines had been written about—knew her very well. And it had started to actually make him feel sick.

  There was “The Woman in the Window”—a poem about a young wife who mines solitude and comfort out of a loveless marriage. And “The Rose Maker”—a mythological tale about a poor girl who cannot stop making roses out of ribbon. And “A Painting of a House”—a touching vignette about a teenager who attempts to repaint her family’s house after her father’s suicide.

  Of course Jeter, like all writers, had utilized only what he needed, mixing up some facts and embellishing others. For example, Milan had painted the Laniers’ house long before Tom died. But it was clear that she had been the sole inspiration for all of these poems and stories. The same woman whose conversations and inquiries Wood regularly dismissed had apparently been nothing short of mesmerizing to someone else. Someone with far greater artistic gifts and sensibilities than Wood would ever be privy to.

  No wonder these works had never appeared anywhere. And had certainly never been shown to him. There was no attempt at subtlety. And no need to name the source of Jeter’s rapture. “The perpetual blush on her luminous cheek, fueled by simple candy.” Even Wood’s children would know who that was. Then there were references to the mystery of (Milan) and her unsettling contradictions.

  “The breathlessness of her soul, as though everything she did was being done for the first time.” And “The achingly beautiful eyes that did not let strangers in.” Wood felt sure Jeter wanted him to read these words, otherwise, he would’ve asked Rudy to destroy them. And he was certain he saw himself in “The horse lover who wipes his boots on his wife’s clean floor and brushes past her without speaking.” And there was also this: “The unremitting sadness of a man in a coma, lying next to treasure.”

  Brundidge had been reading them, too. Finally, Wood said, “My God, he was in love with her.”

  “I know.”

  “You knew?”

  “Yeah. I’ve always known. Didn’t you?”

  “No. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because. It’s not something you talk about. It’s just something you know.”

  Wood shook his head.

  That night, he and Milan had dinner alone. Neither of them spoke until toward the end when Wood said, “I brought a box of his things home. You know he saved every little scrap about us.”

  She corrected him. “About you.”

  “I, uh, read some of his stuff. Some poems and…stories. A lot of them seem to have you in them. Did you know that?”

  “I knew there were some.”

  “He let you read them?”

  “No. He never asked me to.”

  “But you knew that he was in love with you?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Well, he was. And I’m apparently the only one who didn’t know.”

  He looked at her, exhausted, not caring how it sounded. “What else don’t I know?”

  She got up and crossed to him. “He was your best friend. He had maybe six square inches of his face where he could actually feel. Are you really worried that while you’re off screwing someone else, he and I might have done something there.” She got closer to Wood. “Because if you are, I’m not sure I want to know you anymore.” Then she left, leaving Wood to feel the way she, until now, would never have wanted him to—small, mean, miserable.

  Since Jeter had not belonged to a church, there was a memorial at the high school gym. It happened a few days later and was brief, as he had requested. The Paris High School Choir sang the Lord’s Prayer because it had been Pauline Jeter’s favorite song. And Miss Delaney, on behalf of the Paris Literary Society, read some passages from his poetry. Brundidge and Wood both spoke, with Wood making a mess of it, periodically losing his place and his composure.

  Duff had ridden down for the service, along with Elizabeth and Luke. She wore an impossibly short red skirt and a body-hugging matching jacket that were too young for her years. She insisted she had worn this for Jeter, as opposed to something somber, because it was more in keeping with who he was. But Milan was pretty sure that the white silk camisole, which allowed glimpses of the lacy half-bra underneath, was for Wood. Duff topped it off with an unexpected embroidered clutch purse and little black T-strap heels. You could tell, just as she had once successfully contrived a see-through peasant blouse and riding pants, that considerable thought had been put into this ensemble. Milan imagined how Duff must have stood in front of her mirror and practiced different moves in order to see which ones showed her lace-framed cleavage to the best advantage. Men were so naive. They had no idea women like Duff did these things—women who liked to pretend that every ounce of their appeal had been born with them.

  She also saw that Duff, especially during the music portion of the service, had tried to visually engage Wood so that they might share a moment. But Wood seemed oblivious to it. Not that it mattered to Milan. She already felt so sad about almost everything. Today, Duff and Wood could make love in the center circle at half-court for all she cared.

  Afterward, everyone went to Milan and Wood’s house. As usual, there were abundant flowers and food everywhere. And Brundidge played all of Jeter’s favorite songs over the sound system. But it wasn’t like Dr. Mac’s funeral, where people told funny stories and felt good about a life well lived. Jeter’s life had been cut short and at least half of that had been a continuous struggle for survival and whatever dignity can be gleaned from pretending that one doesn’t mind having one’s ass wiped by strangers. And baby Paris was passed around constantly, almost as reassurance that Jeter had indeed experienced some sense of normalcy and happiness. Milan had watched as Duff held the baby in her arms, in Milan’s opinion for too long. It was clear that Duff was becoming emboldened by her liaison with Wood—more sure of herself and her rightful place among them. Each visit now rendered new evidence of her growing sense of entitlement. And it almost seemed that today, if Wood wasn’t going to notice her, then she was going to make sure that everyone else did—and that her uncharacteristic loudness increased in direct proportion to his seeming indifference. And now it appeared that Duff was using Paris a prop in her one-woman show, prattling on about how she had known her daddy forever and how, when she got older, she had some stories to tell her. Then Duff had laughed and added, “Well, maybe a few that will have to be censored.”

  If Milan hadn’t felt so numb, it would’ve been galling. A woman who had barely seen the deceased for twenty years, proclaiming herself as the one with stories to tell. And then hinting that there might be something off-color in them, too. Milan knew for a fact that Jeter had been immune to Duff’s artifice. The acquired rebelliousness and affected soulful empathy that seemed to dazzle Wood had left Jeter cold. It was a response that he and Milan shared. They were people who had real things to go up against. Naturally, they resented the ones who had the luxury of inventing the drama of their own lives.

  But perhaps even more annoying, Duff was continuing to speak to Paris as though the infant were an adult. Unlike many of her peers, Milan believed that babies should be spoken to in baby talk. Unable to take anymore, she turned her back now and began talking with Miss Delaney.

  Then Duff, in a sort of final dramatic effort to distinguish her presence, had a little crying jag. She apologized profusely for being so emotional, saying it was what she hated most about herself, “this terrible inability to simply shake things off.” Blah. Blah. Blah. Finally, Mavis had had enough of this woman, who seemed so puffed up by her recent conquest that she could no longer judge the inappropriateness of going to a funeral and trying to steal attention from the corpse. She walked directly over to her and took Paris back. Then, in a quiet measured voice that only Duff could hear, she said, “You know, this is a real sad day. And you’ve got on a short red outfit and you’re making a whole lot of noise. And I’m just wondering, why is that?”

  Duff sat for a moment, surprised by this abruptness from one who had always been cordial. Then, she said, “You’
re right. I’m trying too hard, aren’t I?” She felt strangely relieved and grateful for Mavis’s candor. “That’s what I love about you. How you always tell it like it is. You know I’m like that, too.” She looked straight into her eyes now, seeking validation. “I’m sure you can imagine how stressed and alone I’m feeling.”

  Mavis was taken aback. “Wait a minute. I’m not your friend.” She turned and made sure Milan wasn’t paying attention. Then she leaned closer into Duff’s face and said evenly, “That’s my friend. Over there. Don’t ever be confused about that. I’m not.”

  Mavis turned and walked away. Duff decided to let it go. To tell the truth, she was almost glad it happened. The more people came forward with how they felt, the sooner she and Wood might just be compelled to do something about it.

  That same day, as the sun was going down, Wood, Milan, Brundidge, and Mavis, holding Paris, released Jeter’s ashes from the roof of his parents’ grocery. Wood said softly, without a hint of self-consciousness, “There you go, buddy, you’re free now. Go long. Go wide.”

  A breeze came up and for a moment Jeter was moving again. Wood had hoped the wind might carry these ashes to all the other rooftops, like Tillman’s Electric and Falkoff’s and even Doe’s at the end of the street. But they mostly just drifted near or around the old store. The quartet stood watching, as though they were waiting for something else to happen. But nothing did, except some crows appeared and circled above their heads, adding an even more somber note. Afterward, in Brundidge’s van, there didn’t seem to be any song that was right for this occasion—returning a man to a town that wasn’t there anymore. So his four best friends sat together, riding in silence, while his daughter fell asleep in her mother’s arms.