Still, her afternoons were problematic. To pass the time, Helena began reading Nick’s books, although they eventually ran out, too. She walked around the grounds of the compound for hours, until she knew every inch of the fruit orchard, the conservatory, the pool house and all the other various outbuildings. Sometimes, she would catch a bus and ride it around until supper, but she didn’t like the way the men looked at her. She also wrote letters to Nick. Aside from her cousin, she didn’t have any close friends. Not anymore, anyway.
In the very beginning, she had written to Fen’s sister and some of his friends’ wives, but her letters went unanswered. It was as if her old life back east had ceased to exist. Then again, she told herself, the war had scattered people.
One morning, she woke up to find a bottle of pills on her nightstand, with a note attached. For my little mouse.
When Avery returned from work, Helena knocked on his office door.
“What are these?” she asked when he opened up a crack, his hazel eyes heavy from squinting in the darkness.
“A little gift,” Avery said. “I mentioned to Bill Fox that you were finding the days a little dreary here while I’m working so hard and he recommended these. He gives them to some of his biggest stars. For sleeping. And dreaming, too, my love.” He gave her a wink.
“Oh.” Helena turned the bottle around. The prescription was in her name, written by a Dr. Hofmann. “Nembutal. I don’t know, Avery. We’ve never taken pills in my family.”
“When you have a headache don’t you take an aspirin or a tonic?”
“I suppose.”
“It’s the same thing, only these aren’t for headaches. They’re for beautiful little mice who have hardworking husbands and who feel lonely. I know you feel lonely. I’m only trying to help. Of course, you don’t have to take them if you don’t want to.”
“I suppose I do feel a little, I don’t know, useless. I was thinking of joining that ladies’ reading group I told you about.”
Avery laughed. “I need you here. You aren’t useless; you help me more than you can know. I’ve worked harder since we were married than ever before. For the love of God, don’t abandon me now for the ladies of the reading group.”
Helena laughed, too. “All right, dearest. I promise I won’t abandon you.” But she put the pills in the back of the bathroom cabinet.
A week later, after she’d finished her chores, Helena found herself sitting alone at the kitchen table listening to the tick of the wall clock in the empty house. She considered writing to Nick, but hadn’t yet received a reply to her last letter. She had tried to play down her money troubles, but Nick’s silence still felt like a slap in the face. As she watched the second hand complete its circle, she began to get angry. She thought about the shadows under Avery’s eyes when he came home from work and all the effort he was putting into his project. And Nick, who had everything. She knew they couldn’t really afford the long-distance call, but she decided to phone her cousin anyway.
To her surprise, when she heard the sound of Nick’s voice, Helena felt all her resentment disappear. She had forgotten how much she loved her cousin’s laugh and Nick seemed genuinely glad to hear from her. She told Helena some crazy story about putting on a bathing suit and taunting her neighbors in the driveway, and for a while she forgot all about the clock and its revolutions. Finally, Helena screwed up her courage and asked about selling her cottage.
“Avery … well, actually both of us … we thought it might make sense.” It wasn’t fair to put it all on Avery. It had only been a suggestion, as he had pointed out. “It’s just, things are a bit tight. And it doesn’t really make sense to hold on to it when we really need the money now.”
“You want to sell the cottage?” Helena heard her cousin’s voice go cold.
“It is mine,” she said, quietly.
“Goddamn it, Helena. What are you thinking? My father built that cottage. And now what? Your husband thinks you should just sell it because you’re short of cash?”
“Nick, you don’t understand.” She could feel tears pricking her eyelids.
“Helena, it was your mother’s house. How could you?”
“Never mind,” Helena said, the receiver shaking in her hand. “Of course, you’re right. I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”
But after she hung up, she went into the bathroom and pulled out the prescription bottle. Filling a cup with water from the tap, she swallowed one of the small, yellow pills. Then she lay down on the bed and waited while a tingling, numbing sensation crept up her limbs. Just when she began to feel like a child’s eraser, everything went dark.
She woke that evening feeling heavy, and one martini at the Mocambo had her stumbling on Avery’s arm. He had been wrong about the dreams—there were none, only a kind of deep nothingness. Still, it whiled away the hours at the house on Blue Sky Road. Later, there were others, the heavy golden opiates, like sugar in the blood, and the amphetamines, with their bustling buzziness.
When Helena became pregnant, she finally met the Dr. Hofmann who filled the blank stretches of her day. He looked exactly as she had imagined him, which surprised her. Fine silver hair had receded halfway from his forehead to reveal a shiny pate sprinkled with liver spots. His eyebrows were jarringly dark and bushy. He had a kindly face and a distracted, avuncular manner.
“Now, Mrs. Lewis,” he began, looking over some papers in a folder, presumably hers. “Now, you’re expecting, yes? Well, you’ll have to stop with the Nembutal and the, uh …” Here he paused as he read. “Yes, the Demerol and the Dilaudid, too. Definitely the opioids. And the Benzedrine.”
He looked up at her. Helena sat quite still. She had worn gloves to the appointment, thinking that it was something Nick would do, but her palms itched a bit and she wondered if it would seem strange if she took them off now.
“Whatever anxiety you’ve been feeling, Mrs. Lewis, may disappear with the birth of your child, making the medication unnecessary. We’ve seen that before. However, if, during the pregnancy, you feel the need to take something, take a half or quarter of a Nembutal. That should be sufficient.”
“All right,” Helena said, feeling unsure.
“Now, let’s have a look at you,” Dr. Hofmann said, patting the metal table with stirrups.
Helena did manage to stay off most of the pills. She had vomited quite a bit in the first few weeks, most likely morning sickness, and found it difficult to sleep, which she read was common during pregnancy. But she had plenty to do to prepare for the baby. She ordered several books of patterns from the Sears Roebuck catalogue, and sat all day sewing romper suits in all sizes and colors, remembering not to favor blue or pink too much.
She also began planning a trip east to see Nick and Hughes.
“I haven’t seen her in so long, dearest, and I won’t be able to go after the baby’s born,” she told Avery, trying to cajole the $140 for the round-trip ticket out of him.
“Well, Mouse-Face, I’m just not sure that it’s the best use of our money. We need it all for the project, you know that. Especially since you refuse to sell your house.”
“But maybe I could convince her, if I see her in person.”
“I’m still not sure why it’s necessary to convince her.”
“It’s complicated.” Helena put her hand on Avery’s arm. “It’s family.”
“Jesus,” he said, pushing her hand away. “I thought I was supposed to be your family.” He shook his head. “If you want to leave me, leave.”
“Dearest …,” Helena said, feeling desperate.
“Forget it. If you want that train ticket so badly, get your uptight bitch of a cousin to pay for it.”
When they returned from Shelley’s Salon an hour later, Helena’s right eye had begun to twitch.
“Aunt Helena, I’m sorry,” Daisy began, but Helena refused to look at her. In fact she hadn’t spoken one word to her niece on the whole car ride back.
She could hear the record player inside the
house. It was Sinatra, “Somethin’ Stupid.” Helena laughed. Her eye twitched back.
They followed the music to the blue sitting room, where they found Nick, wearing some silky white tunic, singing along and swaying, a glass of champagne in her hand. She was spilling little frothy drops onto the carpet as she moved.
Hughes was fixing a drink at the bar.
The twitch in Helena’s eye was going full throttle now and she pressed her index finger against it.
Nick turned, still mouthing the words to the song, her face caught in an expression of surprise when she saw them standing in the doorway.
“Oh my god,” she said, her hand flying up to her mouth, as she tried to hide her laughter. “What on earth did that crazy Shelley do to you, Helena?”
“Oh, Mummy,” Daisy said, breaking into nervous laughter herself. “That woman is a danger … poor Aunt Helena …”
“Poor Aunt Helena indeed.” Nick laughed out loud now, and Helena noticed how one smooth lock of her cousin’s dark hair fell over her eye, as if on cue. “For Christ’s sakes, Daisy, are you trying to do your aunt in?”
“I think it looks lovely,” Hughes said, smiling kindly at Helena.
Helena touched her hair. It was awful. She had known it the minute Shelley had finished with her. She looked like a poodle caught in an electrical storm. She wanted the floor to swallow her up. She wanted to take her sewing scissors and cut out the whole house and everyone in it.
“Well,” Nick said, “the good news is you can wash it out.”
Helena just stared at her cousin.
“Or not,” Nick said cheerfully. “Anyway, I think you ladies most definitely need a glass of champagne.”
“I,” Helena said, enunciating slowly, the way she had learned in the hospital, to keep the rage out of her voice, “don’t think I should.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Helena, it’s your birthday. Of course you can have one glass of champagne. Or ten if you want. You look like you might need them.”
“No, thank you,” Helena said, continuing to press her finger against her eye. “I could, however, use an aspirin.”
Nick looked at her a minute before answering. “Well, darling, I don’t think we have any.”
No one said anything. Helena could feel Daisy’s eyes on her, hear her niece’s little intake of breath. She continued to look straight at Nick. Finally, she nodded and, turning on her heel, walked back down the hall.
“Helena …,” she heard her cousin call after her.
“Just let her go, Nicky,” she heard Hughes saying.
“I was just trying to be festive, goddamn it. It’s been five years, for heaven’s sakes. When is she going to forgive me?”
Helena walked into the kitchen and opened the icebox. She pulled the bottle of champagne off the shelf and removed the silver spoon before taking a generous swig. After carefully replacing the bottle as silently as possible, she looked around her. The afternoon sun beat in through the windows, the yellow walls glowing smugly. In the corner next to the stove, under an aging tea towel printed with little Dutchmen, was the angel food cake. Helena went over and lifted the cloth. She stared at the golden, fluffy surface of the cake with its hole in the center. She smiled to herself. She pushed her finger into the soft, sugary surface, until the tip of her nail hit the plate underneath. She put her finger in her mouth and tasted the fleecy sweetness. She gritted her teeth.
Discarding the tea towel next to the stove, Helena picked up the plate and walked out the back door, guiding the screen until it rested noiselessly against the frame. She padded softly across the lawn, the plate pressed to her chest.
“Here, boy,” she cooed when she reached the white picket fence.
The black dog bounded across the lawn, trampling part of a flower bed he had been sniffing when she called. Helena reached across and scratched the delicate spot behind his ear. He wagged his tail. She leaned over the fence as far as she could, the pickets poking into the flesh of her belly, and placed the plate on the grass. Snuffling, the dog began to tear at the angel food cake, swallowing hunks of it whole.
Helena felt calm for the first time that day, serene even. She watched until he had finished.
“Good boy,” she said softly to his expectant, upturned face. “That’s a very good boy.”
1962: NOVEMBER
She could hear them outside the door. She hadn’t heard that voice in a long time, but it was definitely the Bitch. The Bitch and the Producer. First the Bitch said something, then the Producer. The Bitch, the Producer. Like a game of tennis. The Bitch and the Producer were playing tennis. Helena laughed, and then tried to muffle it with her pillow. They mustn’t hear her.
“What do you mean, you don’t have a key?”
“Well, well. Mrs.… ah … Mrs. Derringer, is it?”
“Yes, it is.” The Bitch did not sound pleased.
“Yes. Well, Mrs. Derringer, I don’t generally make a habit of keeping a key to someone else’s house.”
The knocking started again. “Goddamn it, Avery, open this door. Helena? Are you in there, darling?”
“Now, Mrs. Derringer. I don’t think Avery is in there.”
“What do you mean? Where the hell is that man?”
“As I said over the phone, I don’t keep tabs on my friends. But I can’t say that I’ve seen him lately.”
“Well, Mr. Fox. It is Mr. Fox, isn’t it?” She sounded very cool now. But she could do cool better than anyone. That’s why she was the Bitch; Avery had been right about that. “I don’t want to tax you, but if you could make a very big effort, just this once, and try to remember the last time you did see him.”
“Well, well. I’d have to say it’s been a couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks?”
“Maybe a month.”
“A month. You must be joking. Where the goddamn hell has he been for a month?”
“Well, now, Mrs. Derringer, I couldn’t rightly say.”
“You couldn’t rightly say.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“That’s just fine, Mr. Fox. You don’t have to say anything. Here’s what I say: I will find Avery Lewis by myself, and when I do, he will have been up to no good. And I will create the biggest scandal you’ve ever seen and everyone in your town will know that he was doing it on your property. Under your roof. Now, if you do not produce a key to this door right this instant, I will call the police and have them knock it down. I did not travel two thousand miles to be stopped by you or anyone else. Do we understand each other?”
Score one for the Bitch. Helena bit her pillow.
“Well, well, Mrs. Derringer.”
There was a silence, and Helena thought she might have dozed off, but then she heard the Producer start up again.
“Now, I think I did hear that he was auditioning actresses for his film project. I believe he rented a space somewhere for that purpose, that business purpose, you understand. And, well, that’s where he might be.”
“I want the address. And get me that goddamn key.”
“As I said, I don’t have one. But I’ll get the gardener. I think he might be able to help us out here.”
“That is a fine idea, Mr. Fox.”
Then Helena really did drift off. It was the Dilaudid. Or the Demerol. She couldn’t remember which one was on the nightstand. She heard a faint banging, somewhere in her dream, and then a very cool hand on her forehead.
“Darling, oh, Helena.”
Helena opened her eyes. It was her. Was she crying? No, because the Bitch didn’t cry. What did the Bitch ever have to cry about?
“Darling? Can you hear me? It’s Nick. Oh, my poor Helena. I’m getting you out of here.”
Helena was too sleepy to tell her that she didn’t want to go anywhere. Not with her.
“Avery.”
“Don’t worry about anything right now. Please. I’ll take care of everything.”
Helena nodded. She didn’t know why she nodded, she just want
ed the talking to stop so she could go back to sleep. She was so tired. She closed her eyes, but she could still hear the tennis.
“Jesus Christ. We need to get a doctor.”
“It’s just the pills, Mrs. Derringer.” The Producer was there, too. “She’ll be fine after she sleeps it off. But, if you’re worried I can call Dr. Hofmann. That’s Helena’s … uh … Mrs. Lewis’s doctor.”
“Are you out of your mind? Look at her. And you’re even crazier if you think I’m letting that quack anywhere near her. Where’s the telephone?”
Helena was back in Tiger House, it was summer and the linen curtains her grandmother had made were fluttering on the landing. Out the window, she could see her mother and father having tea on the lawn across the street with her aunt and uncle. A breeze had lifted her mother’s hat and she was trying to keep it pinned down while holding her teacup in her other hand.
Her shin hurt where Nick had kicked her. She didn’t know why she was the one who had gotten kicked. It was Nick who had been naughty. She had promised Helena a surprise, and then taken her to Main Street, where they were tarring the road. Helena had watched in horror as Nick reached down and pulled a strip of the warm tar off the road and popped it in her mouth. Then Nick had tried to make Helena put some in her own mouth. Helena had refused and Nick had called her a baby. She had thrown a piece of tar at her, staining Helena’s dress. Helena had cried, knowing her mother would be furious, and told Nick she was going to tell. That’s when Nick had kicked her in the shin as hard as she could.
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