Kissing the Beehive

by Jonathan Carroll

and cannot escape your grasp.

  Job or no Job, we had to talk. I left another message on her machine, saying I'd be at Hawthorne's bar in the city at a certain time and would she please meet me. All other things aside, I missed her. She had more secrets than the Turkish ambassador, and what little I knew now of her past gave me the willies. Still, I missed her. I sincerely hoped by talking we could find both common ground and reason to connect again.

  The day I was to go into the city, Cass and Ivan showed up, both of them looking serious. When I asked what was up, Cass made a sign to Ivan. He handed her some papers and walked back outside.

  "Dad, don't get mad, but I asked Ivan to do this." She held out the papers to me.

  "What's this?"

  "Have a look and then you can ask anything you want. If you want."

  Veronica's name was at the top of the papers. Ignoring Cass, I read quickly. I had been chewing gum but my mouth stopped moving halfway down the first page.

  "Why did you do this? Where did Ivan get it?"

  She cringed, but her voice was defiant. "It's my fault, Dad. I asked him to find out whatever he could. Ivan's a good hacker – he can get into a lot of places."

  "You're not answering my question: Why did you do it, Cassandra? It's none of your business."

  "I don't care about her, Dad. I care about you, I've never, ever messed in your life. But . . ." Tears came to her eyes. Her face softened and for a moment she looked seven years old. "I don't like her, Dad. The minute I met her, I thought something was really wrong. Something was really off. You know me. I like most people. I don't care what they do. I don't care what they are. But I just really didn't like her, so I –"

  "So you did this? What if I didn't like Ivan and did this to him after the first time we met? Would you have been angry? Would you have thought I was out of line? It's very wrong, Cass. If you don't like her, fine, we could have talked about it. But this is absolutely wrong."

  I walked past her and out to the car. I opened the door and got in. Before starting it, I looked back at the house. She was standing in the doorway, hands clasped tightly against her sides. I could tell by her expression she was crying. She looked so alone and helpless, but she had gone way over the line this time. Way over. But what her boyfriend had discovered made me feel even more uneasy about my appointment with Veronica.

  It is common practice for authors to create characters and then fall in love with them. It makes sense though, because we live so intimately and so long together that it's difficult to keep them at arm's length. Part of the joy of being a writer is creating people and situations we long for but know will probably never happen to us.

  When we were on the book tour, Veronica asked which characters were my favorites and why. Georgia Brandt. Only dear Georgia. I fell in love with her about five pages into her existence and it got worse as time went on. I created her when I was still young enough to have the hope someone like her existed in the world and one day we would meet.

  What is important to know now is what she looked like. Tall and thin, she had very short black hair that she washed every morning in the sink and then never thought about again. Her skin was preternaturally white, eyes large and green. People mistook her for Irish. Her mouth was long and thin, set in a kind of perpetually bemused smile. If she had used makeup she would have been stunning. But her skin was allergic to it – an important part of the story – and that didn't bother her a bit.

  When I walked into Hawthorne's that day, Georgia Brandt was sitting at the bar. I thought I'd died and gone to literature. I honestly thought, Mother of God, there she is, she really does exist. Even wearing one of the same outfits I'd described in the story: a dark blue sleeveless linen dress and white tennis sneakers. What's more, on the table in front of her was the book Georgia was always carrying around: Russian Verbs of Motion for Intermediate Students. A black-haired wonder in a linen dress, reading that nutty book – how could a man not love her?

  But what do you do when someone you have created on paper is sitting ten feet away? You swallow the toaster that is suddenly in your throat, go over and say, "I think I know you."

  Veronica/Georgia patted the seat next to her. "Is that so? Why don't you sit down?"

  "Is this your new fall look?"

  "Veronica couldn't come, so she sent me instead. I'm her union negotiator."

  "This is beyond strange." I asked the bartender for a whiskey.

  She turned in her seat so she faced me square on. "Not at all. You're having a drink with your favorite woman. You said so yourself. Tell her what's bothering you. She loves you too, so you can say anything."

  "Good. All right. Okay, I've been going out with someone for the last few months. Until recently it's been great. I thought I was beginning to know her, but I discovered things about her that make me really uneasy. I don't know what to think anymore. Veronica, were you really in the Malda Vale?"

  She nodded casually. "For two years. How did you know?"

  "My daughter. She looked you up on the Internet."

  She sighed, then gave a very slow shrug. "I knew she didn't like me after we met. It's my fault. I was so upset that day. That's why she wanted to know more. It's sweet, Sam. She was worried for you." She smiled.

  "There, see! I suddenly discover this great woman was a bisexual, acted in porno films, and was in the Malda Vale, the most famous suicidal religious cult of our age!"

  Her voice was calm and reasonable. "But is she good to you? Have you been happy together? What else matters?"

  "Come on, it's not that simple. You were in the Malda Vale! That group was right up there with the Branch Davidians and Jim Jones! Add it to the other things: What kind of person does these things?"

  She reached up and pulled off the black wig. Her blond hair was tightly pinned to her head and it was a while before she had it undone. "What kind of person? After Donald threw me out, I was suicidal. That's when I met Zane and we were together. I wasn't with Zane – I just needed to be around someone. She was there, turned out to be a terrible person and life got even worse. That's when I met some people from the Malda Vale. The truth of the matter is, they saved me. I'll always be grateful to them for that. I was in the group for two years. That's why I made the film about them afterward – I wanted people to see they weren't all just a bunch of crazies. I left when things became frightening and dangerous. None of them tried to stop me. They wished me well. That's the whole story.

  "I need to believe in things, Sam. Whether it's a person or a group, that's the way I function. I never dreamed that you and I would get this close. I hoped you might be nice and let me make a film about you, but then all this happened. It's unbelievable and I'm devoted to you. But I'm not promiscuous about that devotion. You're the first person I've slept with in three years."

  "Three years?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Why did you dress up like Georgia?"

  "Because besides your daughter, she's your number one. I know a lot of artists. The greatest loves of all their lives are their creations. Unfortunately most of us don't have that kind of talent, so we have to make do with falling in love with real people."

  At Veronica's place later while we were still thrashing things out, her phone rang. She ignored it and the answering machine came on. "My name is Francis McCabe and I'm looking for Sam Bayer. He gave me this number. If you know where he is, please tell him to call me because it's urgent."

  I picked up the phone. "Hi, Frannie."

  "Bingo! I've been calling all over for you. Johnny Petangles's mother died and we had to go into his house to get her. Guess what I found there? Pauline's notebooks from school."

  Veronica asked if she could come with me and I was glad for the company. We got to Crane's View in an hour and drove straight to the police station. There was no time for the Bayer guided tour, but I pointed out some things along the way.

  At the station there was only one cop on duty. With a tired wave he directed us to Frannie's office. That big empty ro
om was even gloomier at night with only two lights battling the shadows.

  The chief of police was sitting with his feet up on his desk. Club Soda Johnny was facing him and the two of them were laughing. On the bare desk were two white notebooks with SWARTHMORE COLLEGE printed on the covers.

  Frannie got up and straightened his tie as soon as he saw Veronica. After I introduced them, he went to get more chairs.

  "Hi, Johnny."

  "Hello. I don't know you."

  "Well, I used to know you. This is my friend Veronica."

  "Hello, Veronica. You have hair like the woman in the Clairol ad."

  She smiled and moved to shake his hand. His first reaction was to pull back. Then, like a frightened but interested animal, he slowly put his big one out and they shook.

  She spoke to him in a gentle voice. "Sam told me you know all the commercials."

  Frannie came back in with two chairs. "Johnny's the King of Commercial. That's what we wete doing when you came in – he was doing the old 'Call for Phillllip Mor-ris!' ad. So sit down, join the festivities."

  "My mother died. Frannie came to my house."

  We nodded and waited for him to go on. "He was nice, but he went into my room and took my books. They're my books, Frannie. They're not yours."

  "Take it easy, big guy. I got a friend of mine to come over and talk to Johnny. He's a clinical psychologist over at the state hospital." Frannie sat back in his chair, put his arms over his head and stretched. "Tried every trick he knew, but Johnny isn't so good at remembering. Says Pauline gave him the books."

  "Pauline gave me the books and then she died."

  "Says he didn't kill her."

  "Nope. I never killed anybody. I saw a dead dog once but that's not a person."

  I gestured toward the door. Frannie got up and we left the room. Out in the hall I asked if he had found anything else at the Petangles house.

  "Yeah, a lotta crucifixes and pictures of Dean Martin. Those houses down on Olive Street are like a fuckin' fifties time capsule, you go inside. It's strange he had the books, Sam, but I don't think he's involved. Maybe Pauline did give them to him for some cockeyed reason."

  "Where did you find them?"

  "On a bookshelf in his room. He asked me to come in and look at it. Place was as spick-and-span as a Marine barracks. Showed me all his comics and there they were, right up next to Little Lulu and Yosemite Sam."

  "Did you look at them yet?"

  "There's nothing there. Just scribbles and blah blah. I'll tell you one thing: It's an odd feeling seeing her handwriting all these years later. I'm going to copy them and give the originals to her mother. I'll give you a set too. You haven't talked to her mom yet, have you?"

  "No, but this will give me a good excuse."

  Back inside, Johnny was standing far across the room, glaring accusingly at Veronica. "She's not nice! I don't like her."

  Frannie and I looked at her.

  "He wanted to touch my hair. I said no."

  "That's not true! You liar! That's not true!"

  I wondered if she was telling the truth. Despite the warm, close afternoon we'd spent together and everything we had talked about, I realized I still didn't trust her.

  Jitka Ostrova's house was a shrine to her dead daughter. The walls were crammed with framed awards, pictures of the girl at all ages, high school and Swarthmore pennants. Pauline's room, which we were shown almost immediately, was kept exactly as it had been thirty years before. Everything was dusted, all the figurines on the shelves arranged just so. On the wall above the bed was a giant yellowing poster of Gertrude Stein looking like a fire hydrant in a wig.

  No shoes tossed left and right, no underwear draped over a chair or flung haphazardly onto the bed. I knew how it should look because I lived with a teenager. Kids and order rarely agree on anything. But no kid lived here, only ghosts and an old woman.

  Outside that odd room, the rest of the Ostrova house was a cozy clutter. You liked being there, liked looking around and seeing this sweet woman's life in every nook and cranny. It was almost grandma's house from a fairy tale but that was impossible: Two of the people she loved most who had lived here were dead. They left an emptiness that was palpable, despite all the gemьtlichkeit.

  Mrs. Ostrova was a gem. She was one of those people who had come to the United States early in life but had never really left Europe behind. She spoke with an accent, peppered her sentences with what I assumed were Czech words and phrases ("I took my five plums and left"), and rowed her little boat above a sea of bad fortune and pessimism a thousand feet deep. In everything she said, it was clear she loved her surviving daughter, Magda, but adored the dead Pavlina.

  Magda was also there that day. She was a tough, attractive, tightly wound woman who looked to be in her early forties. She had the bad habit of watching you with the eyes of a museum guard who's convinced you're going to steal something. Very protective of her mother, she surprised me by speaking as reverently of Pauline as the old woman did. If there was any residual filial jealousy, I didn't see it.

  When we handed over the notebooks, Jitka's face took on the expression of someone touching the Holy Grail. Until then very effervescent and chatty, she went silent for minutes while slowly turning the pages and sounding out some of the words her lost daughter had written so long ago.

  When she was finished, she gave us a million-dollar smile and said, "Pavlina. A new part of Pavlina is back in our house. Thank you, Frannie."

  She wasn't surprised when she heard where they'd been found. Johnny Petangles had told the truth: Throughout her senior year in high school and whenever she came home from college, Pauline had tried to teach him how to read.

  "Poor Johnny! He's so simple in the head but he tried so hard for Pavlina. He loved her too. He don't take those lessons so he can learn to read – he wanted to sit next to her all those afternoons!"

  Frannie said, "Tell about The Pirates of Penzance."

  Jitka stuck out her tongue and gave him a raspberry. "Yeah, that's the story you like just so you can laugh at me every time! Frannie, I wish you the black cheek!

  "You see, that was my lesson from Pavlina. She was teaching everyone sometimes. You understand, my terrible English always embarrassed her. She'd put her hands over her ears like this and scream, 'Ma, when are you gonna learn?' So she buys this nice record and makes me listen to it. This is Pirates of Penzance and after a while it is my lesson to try to sing along with it to make my English better. You know it?

  I am the very model of a modern major general;

  I've information vegetable, animal and mineral;

  She sang it so badly, so offkey and with pronunciations so horrendous that it could have made the whole of England shift on its axis. But she also looked so happy and proud remembering it that we all clapped. To my great surprise, Frannie picked it up where she stopped.

  I know the kings of England and I quote the

  fights historical,

  From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical.

  "Impressive! Where'd you learn that?"

  He pointed to Mrs. Ostrova. "Jitka gave me a copy for Christmas a few years ago. Now I'm a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan. You want to hear my favorite part?"

  I was about to say no when he stood up and started singing again.

  When the enterprising burglar's not a burgling –

  When the cutthroat isn't occupied in crime. He

  loves to hear the little brook a gurgling

  And listen to the merry village chime.

  Ah, take one consideration with another

  A policeman's lot is not a happy one.

  "Thanks, Fran." I cut him off. His voice was good, but a little Savoy Opera goes a long way. A look of great affection crossed Magda's face when she smiled at him. Were they lovers? Who did my friend, this sexy divorced man, sleep with? He never talked about it.

  There was so much I could have asked about Pauline, but thought it better to simply let the two Ostrova women
talk about her.

  "I was her mother, but still I never really knew her, you know? This is something I still cannot get over. She came from right here in my stomach, but I did not know her because she changed and changed and changed and sometimes it was good and sometimes it was crazy. There was this old movie, Man of a Thousand Faces? This was Pavlina. A thousand faces. I don't know which girl she was when she died."

  An hour later, Magda said, "My sister did her own thing and if you didn't like it, too bad. At the trial, it came out she had a lot of boyfriends. So? Big deal! A guy who has a lot of girls is a stud. A woman does the same thing and she's a slut. Know what I say to that? Bullshit! Pauline wasn't a slut – she was a individual and even I knew that when I was a kid. As a sister? She was okay, but mostly all I remember is her going in and out of our house in a hurry because she was always up to something, you know? She always had something going on."

  Jitka came into the room carrying a plate full of Czech pastries – buchty and kolace. "Pavlina was a bird. That's what I say. She flew around and never landed anywhere too long. Then poof! Off she flies again."

  "Nah, Ma, you're all wrong." Magda picked up one of the sweets and took a bite. Powdered sugar dropped over her hand and fell like snow onto the floor. "Birds are always jumping up and flying away 'cause they're scared of everything. Nothing scared Pauline. If she was curious, she'd charge it like a rhino. She wasn't any bird."

  They had given me permission to tape what they said. Not having to take notes enabled me to sit back and watch them interact. Sometimes they agreed, sometimes not. Once in a while they would compare notes about a shared Pauline experience. It gave me the feeling they had been going over these things for years. What else did they possess of the dead girl? What other things could they point to or remember and say that's who she was, that's what she did. Who else cared about their dead love? Worse, who else even remembered? I understood why they would cherish her notebooks.