Mermaids in the Basement

by Michael Lee West

  She picked up her fork and made a jabbing motion. “Oh, hell,” Nigel said, “can’t you take a joke? Come over here and give me a kiss.”

  She put down the fork and pecked his cheek; but the damage was done. Na-Na’s face swelled and turned red. Then Nigel started to introduce Shelby, but she wasn’t paying attention, she was looking at the double doors, where Kip had just appeared, his violet eyes lit up from within, like tea candles burned inside them. Even in his rumpled tuxedo jacket, he looked unbearably handsome.

  As he walked to his table, he passed right by us. He smelled good, too, of bay rum and whiskey. I held my breath, waiting to see if Shelby would look at him. She didn’t, but he gave her a long glance. Uh-oh, I thought.

  My oblivious son sat across from me. He shook out his napkin, and started making small talk with Aunt Na-Na. He had forgotten to comb his hair, and it was sticking up like a hedgehog. At the other end of the table, Ida chattered about the food she’d special-ordered for the dinner. The men relived their golf games, talking about birdies and eagles.

  Ida’s maid, Loretta, snorted. “Why, you’d think they’d gone hunting, not hitting a little white ball with a stick.”

  I tried to engage Na-Na in polite conversation, then gave up in frustration and listened to the men. I put my chin in my hand and smiled over at Chaz, listening to him tell about his hobby—Civil War reenactments. Two seats down, Shelby busied herself with Renata, cutting up her veal and feeding her tiny pieces. Chaz ordered whiskey sours for Gladys and Loretta, then brought me a martini.

  After the dessert, there was dancing. Right in front of our table was a marble dance floor, although I hadn’t noticed it earlier. The orchestra was playing “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You.”

  A half hour passed. Shelby danced with Chaz, Nigel, and Chauncey. Louie sat off to the side, talking to his uncle James. Kip came over to Shelby and touched her shoulder. He bent down and whispered something in her ear. I couldn’t believe his gall, and I prayed she’d shoo him away. But she smiled, then nodded. He helped her up from her chair and they walked toward the orchestra. I glanced toward Louie. His head swiveled as his wife and the hairdresser stepped out onto the dance floor and put their arms around each other—not too close, but not too far apart. Kip was tall, broad-shouldered, and her head barely reached his chin, but anybody with eyes could see how they’d be a good fit. He touched her gently as if he was handling a delicate weave and not a woman.

  The music changed to “All the Way.” Shelby clutched Kip, and he kept holding on to her. I liked that song, and I am a fool for Frank Sinatra, but if you ask me, the Duke played it better. Louie gazed at the dance floor, his face calm and amused, as if this dance meant nothing. Na-Na watched, too, and two lines creased her forehead. Beside her, Ida opened a diamond pillbox and put a white tablet on her tongue. “Gladys,” she said, “that’s the second dessert you’ve let Renata eat. Every tooth in her little head will rot out.”

  I poured a glass of wine, then glanced back at the dance floor. Shelby looked up dreamily into Kip’s eyes and smiled. All night long, they danced without stopping. Spinning around that floor, moving their feet to “Moon River” and “Secret Love.” One song after the other. This music was written way back when I was a young girl, and it still applied today. If people didn’t care about romance, why would there be all these songs?

  The orchestra started playing “Summer Samba,” one of my favorites. It was so snappy, I couldn’t stop my foot from tapping. Even Renata was tapping away. “Don’t scuff your patten leather shoes,” Gladys said, and Aunt Na-Na leaned across the table, her heavy crucifix banging into her wineglass.

  “It’s patent leather,” she snapped, spittle flying out of her tight lips. “Patent. Not patten!”

  “Don’t be rude, Na-Na,” I said, and she flipped her hand and scowled. I turned my chair away from her, toward the dance floor. Shelby and Kip were dancing to a slow song. People flowed around them, smiling and looking amused. Nobody at our table looked particularly happy. I leaned across Gladys and pulled Renata into my lap. The baby put her sticky fingers all over my silk gown. Ida leaned across the table and in a slurry, drugged voice said, “Why, I never knew Kip could dance.” Then she winked. “You ought to nip that in the bud, Honora.”

  “Is it time for another pill?” I said, and started playing patty-cake with Renata.

  From another table, someone called out, “Play ‘Jailhouse Rock,’” but this was a five-star restaurant, not a honky tonk. They would play what they wanted. Nigel kept ordering bourbon, adding ice and water from everybody’s glasses. Ida was drinking something that had floating cherries and orange slices. Loretta tapped my shoulder and whispered, “See Dr. Nigel over there, sitting kind of lopsided? Any minute now, he going to keel over and hit the floor.”

  “Ida doesn’t look good, either,” I said.

  “She’ll pass out next,” said Loretta. “Miss Ida can’t take the pain of being unappreciated.”

  A woman with a voice like Peggy Lee was singing “Come Rain or Come Shine.”

  An older couple was dancing with their hands locked high over their heads. They sauntered over to Shelby and Kip. “Are you newlyweds?” the old woman asked in a loud voice. I could hear it from here. Every head at our table turned. Even Renata sat up on her knees and stared.

  “No, ma’am,” said Kip, and in his voice there was a hint of something sad. He stared into Shelby’s eyes. It was the look of a man who was captivated, maybe not for long, but certainly for the evening.

  The band started playing “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” That song struck a nerve, and Louie stood up, all stiff and evil-eyed. Then he walked over to Gladys. “It’s past Renata’s bedtime.”

  “She’s doing fine,” I said.

  “No, she’s not,” he said. “Gladys, get the baby and leave, please.”

  “But she’s being so good.” I wrapped my arms around the child. Renata was his spitting image. She was watching the dancers, her head swinging from side to side, trying to snap her fingers.

  “See?” I pointed to the baby. “She’s having a fine time. She—”

  “I don’t want her to see what I’m going to do to her mother,” he said.

  I turned my head, gazed toward the dance floor. Shelby and Kip were fast-dancing to “Don’t Be Cruel.” Her hair spilled over his arm, gleaming under the strobe light.

  “Please go now, Gladys,” he said. “Take my daughter and go.”

  “Oh, really, Louie,” I said. “This is Uncle Nigel’s party. Don’t ruin it.”

  “Some party.” Louie shoved his hands into his tuxedo pants.

  “Why don’t you just cut in and dance with her yourself?” I suggested.

  His jaw twitched, and I wondered if he was going to make a scene. The DeChavanneses just hated scenes of any kind. I had to admit that Shelby looked fetching in that pretty green sequined dress. Louie pursed his lips and blew out air. He had dark eyes, his daddy’s eyes, and they shifted back and forth, as if trying to decide whether to punch Kip in the face or to ask a strange woman to dance. The band started playing a Judy Garland song, “More Than You Know,” which was a good song for husbands and wives. So much is unsaid in a marriage. Kindness gets lost in the day-to-day worries and squabbles.

  Finally, he said, “Well, all right. I’ll give it a try.”

  “Good.” I smiled. “A new song is starting. Don’t wait too long, or the moment will pass you by.”

  I gave him a little shove, and he tottered forward, the strobe light whirling around him on the floor, little splintered pieces flowing over his face.

  Chapter 21

  HUNT SCENE

  A rusted paperclip held together an old wrinkled newspaper article and a photograph of my mother and father. They held shotguns, and spread out on the ground between them were seven dead quail. Behind them, sunlight glinted through tall loblolly pines. I smoothed the clipping with my hands.

  * * *

  ST. TAMMANY Citizenr />
  November 24, 1972

  PROMINENT ST. TAMMANY JUDGE WOUNDED

  IN HUNTING ACCIDENT

  The first accident of quail season occurred last Saturday near Independence, Louisiana, when Judge Thaddeus Stevens was accidentally shot at his hunting lodge by his son-in-law, Dr. Louis C. DeChavannes. Also present at the camp was the judge’s daughter, Shelby DeChavannes, and a friend, Mr. Kip Quattlebaum. Judge Stevens was rushed to Parish Memorial Hospital, where he was treated and released. No charges have been filed.

  * * *

  Later that morning I found Gladys and Honora sitting in the den, watching the Weather Channel. “There you are,” said Honora. “A storm’s on the way.”

  “No, it ain’t,” said Gladys. “I won’t let it. I got too much gardening to do.”

  From the television, a man in a black suit said a tropical depression was brewing off the coast of Cuba, then the picture changed, showing rain falling into the streets of Havana. In the background, the weatherman said, “It’s three months early for hurricane season, but this system looks wicked.”

  The French doors blew open, banging against the wall. Zap jumped off my grandmother’s lap and ran out to the terrace. A breeze ruffled his fur, stirring the potted lemons and sweeping over the glass table. The striped umbrella tilted sideways, and Zap lifted his right paw and sniffed the air. I wondered if the wind had traveled all the way from Cuba, bringing with it smells from every city it had touched. Havana, Miami, Tampa, Panama City, Destin, Pensacola, Mobile. I breathed in a mélange of scents: orange peels, coffee grounds, conch fritters, key lime pie.

  Honora got up to shut the doors, snapping her fingers at the dog. He ran inside, over to Gladys, and plopped his head on her foot. I walked over to her chair, handing her the photograph and clipping. She reached for her glasses. “What’s this?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.” I sat on the floor, scratching Zap’s ears. Honora crossed the room and leaned over the back of the chair.

  “I didn’t know Louie could hunt,” she said. “Much less that he’d shot Judge Stevens.”

  “Me, neither,” said Gladys.

  “My mother could have worked for the CIA.” I sighed.

  “Why don’t you call your father?” Gladys suggested.

  I rolled my eyes. “We aren’t speaking, remember?”

  “Call him anyway,” said Honora. “I’m dying to know what happened. Here, let me pour you a strong cup of coffee.”

  “Humph, she’ll need something stronger than Community Coffee.”

  “You can do it,” said Honora, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Just practice breathing.”

  It took two hours and four cups of coffee before I worked up my nerve. I was more frightened of my father than anyone. We talked so rarely that I always cut and measured my words, striving to keep them small and precise, all the while worried that I might say something that would alienate him forever. With Ferg, I could say or do anything. I could even wear mismatched shoes to the Academy Awards and he didn’t judge. Well, at least he’d been that way. Maybe all relationships were more fragile than anyone knew, and the slightest things could swerve them off course.

  Honora opened a Godiva box and parked it beside my elbow. “Here, have a few chocolate truffles,” she said.

  I bit into the candy, then dialed my father’s cell phone. He answered on the third ring.

  “Daddy, it’s Renata.”

  “What?” he said. I glanced over at Honora for help, but she made the okay sign with her thumb and finger.

  “I was just calling to check on Joie. How’s she doing?”

  “Comatose. Any other questions?”

  “Will she come out of it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Daddy, I know you think I had something to do with her accident, but I didn’t.”

  “Well, whatever.” He exhaled. “Thanks for calling.”

  “Wait—don’t hang up. I want to talk to you.”

  “Why? So you can run back to Honora? Her gossip cuts two ways. She told me that Caliban Films fired you.”

  I glanced at my grandmother and rolled my eyes. Honora Tells All, I thought, but I said, “Yes, I’m unemployed.”

  “Didn’t your stepfather leave you his millions?”

  I didn’t respond. My grief was still too raw to discuss Mama and Andy, much less share the details of my inheritance. Finally I said, “Reason I’m calling is, I found an old picture of you and Mama. Y’all had been hunting. It was attached to a newspaper article. Something about you accidentally shooting Grandfather Stevens.”

  “Where’d you find that?”

  “It was…” I paused, afraid to tell the truth. I didn’t want to implicate Honora. “It was with some of my mama’s things.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “The things that weren’t in that article.”

  “Like?”

  “Kip.”

  “Do not speak that name to me.”

  “But Daddy, I know about him and Mama. And I want to hear your side.”

  “She told you? Before she died, I mean?”

  “No.”

  “Who the hell have you been talking to? Don’t tell me—Honora and the witches.”

  My right hand began shaking so violently I had trouble holding on to the phone. Honora reached out and steadied it. “Daddy, I didn’t mean to upset you—”

  “No, you’re an angel. A real, head-bashing sweetheart. My fiancée is in the ICU with God knows how much brain damage, and you want to dredge up the past? You want me to tell you about Shelby’s lace-drawered boyfriend? I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

  “Did Kip—I mean, did he have anything to do with the shooting?”

  “Hell, no. It was an accident.” He paused. “Anything else I can help you with, my darling daughter? Or can I get back to my brain-damaged fiancée?” He hung up with a decisive click, but I held the receiver to my ear for a moment longer, hoping it was a mistake, and I’d hear his voice saying, I’m sorry, baby girl, it’s just too painful to remember your mama. But I’ll try—for your sake, I’ll try. Just tell me where to begin.

  Chapter 22

  SPORTSMAN’S PARADISE

  After I hung up on Renata, I stopped by the ICU and checked on Joie. She lay there on the bed, bloody hair spread out on the pillow. Tiny bits of her scalp showed where the emergency room physician had shaved and sutured the wound. An endotrachial tube jutted out of her mouth, taped around her neck, and off to the side, the ventilator rhythmically whooshed. Joie’s eyes were taped shut, and a lumpy bandage covered her nose.

  The chart was hooked to her bed, and I picked it up, flipping pages. I’d pulled strings, gotten the best neurosurgeon in case she developed a subdural hematoma. The MRI and CAT scan had shown a slight amount of blood inside the cranium; the good news was, her brain had stopped swelling, and in the next day or two, they’d start weaning her off the respirator. Chances were good that she’d breathe on her own. Whoever had hit Joie had half killed her. If Renata hadn’t done it, who had? And why?

  Faye had freaked out after the toxicology screen was positive for a benzodiazepine. This could have been Valium or Xanax. “Joie doesn’t take nerve pills,” Faye had insisted. “I know everything she puts in her mouth.”

  Not everything, I’d thought, shifting uneasily in my chair. “Maybe she was nervous before the party,” I suggested.

  “Joie doesn’t get nervous. She was fine, perfectly fine.” She daintily blew her nose into a lace handkerchief monogrammed “FM.”

  “I’m not accusing your daughter of anything,” she continued, “but the circumstances are suspicious.”

  “We’ll get to the bottom of it,” I’d told her.

  Now I laid down the chart, thankful that Faye wasn’t in the room, so I could have a moment alone with Joie. I pulled up a chair and reached for her hand. Even in this condition, she had a look of Shelby, way back when she was young and tender. I didn’t know how that clippi
ng came into Renata’s possession, but I could guarantee you that Honora was behind it.

  Last October, when Shelby’s plane crashed, Honora had been after me to bond with Renata, to clear up all the misinformation that Shelby had disseminated over the years. I wouldn’t tell it right, and even if I could, it wouldn’t change anything. Hell, I didn’t want to dig up those years, much less annotate them for my daughter. Tough break, kid, I thought. Her favorite parent was dead, and she was left with me.

  After the divorce, those damn women had sided with Shelby. Blamed me for pushing her into Kip’s arms. What did that beautician have that I didn’t? Better scissors? The whole time we were at Uncle Nigel’s birthday party in Pinehurst, I didn’t suspect anything. Man, I was stupid.

  That night, after the party, I took her to our room and laid her on the bed. I pulled her dress over her hips, then I licked my finger and wrote I Shelby on her stomach. We rolled over, and she climbed up on top of me, her hair brushing against my face. I felt her heart thudding against my ribs. “Please, please, can we move away from Covington?” she whispered.

  “Anything you want,” I said, shutting my eyes. “Anything.”

  When we got back to Covington, I took a moonlighting job at a little hospital near St. Francisville. It was the quickest way to get money for a down payment, in case the Covington house didn’t sell right away. Shelby pitched a fit and wouldn’t talk to me. “I’m doing this for you,” I said. “I’m trying to save enough money so we can buy a house in New Orleans.”

  “We don’t need to buy anything. We can sell this cottage and rent something,” she said. Money wasn’t the only reason I’d taken that job. I just liked being inside a hospital. I liked how they smelled, and how the PA system crackled and a disembodied voice would page the doctors. I got a rush when I heard my name. I knew I was gone too much, but I thought Shelby would eventually understand, the same way my mother had come to accept my daddy’s absences.