In the letter, Mr. Albertson expressed his surprise and pleasure that Clarice had contacted him after all these years. He also thanked her for the “wonderful recordings” that had accompanied her letter to him.
“What letter? What recordings?” she asked Richmond.
He said, “Well, the letter is what you might call a ‘loving forgery,’ but the recordings are yours. I took the tapes from your recitals over to the audio lab at the university and they made them into disks for me. And I sent the disks to Albertson.” He leaned back and sank even further into the couch with a self-satisfied smile on his face.
Clarice shook her head. “Oh Richmond, I know you meant well, but you really shouldn’t have done this. Those tapes are ancient. I don’t play like that anymore.”
“No, you play better than you did,” he said. “I’ve been listening. Every time I come by here I sit outside on the porch before I knock, or sometimes after I say goodbye, and I listen to you. You play better than ever, sweetheart, you really do.”
The last part of the letter from Wendell Albertson discussed possible dates for Clarice to come play for him in New York. Assuming that went well, they would talk recording dates and discuss his idea of marketing her as a resurrected prodigy.
She put the sheet of paper down on the coffee table in front of her and said, “I honestly don’t know whether to kiss you or spank you.”
Now was the time for Richmond to test the waters by saying “You could do both,” or something along those lines. Because he didn’t, she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. Then she gave him another kiss because, even though what he’d done was crazy, it was also the kindest thing he had ever done for her. She picked up the letter and read it again just to make sure she hadn’t imagined it.
“So, do you like your birthday present?” he asked.
“You know, I think I do like it. It’ll probably blow up in my face. But I like it. Thank you, Richmond.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad to see I can still make you happy.”
Clarice kissed him once more, on the cheek this time. Then she thanked him again.
Richmond said, “Well, I’d better get out while I’m ahead.” He scooted forward on the couch, beginning the process of extricating himself from the cushions. He stood, grunting as he put weight on his bad ankle.
Clarice walked a few steps toward the door with him, but then stopped him with a hand on his arm. “You don’t have to go. Stay for dinner. I’m making a frittata.”
“That sounds nice. You know how I love fri-tta-ta.” He pronounced it “free tah-tah,” drawing it out so that it sounded both silly and dirty. She gave his arm a playful punch and he accompanied her into the kitchen.
After dinner, they sat on stools at the kitchen counter and talked. Clarice described her afternoon at Veronica’s house to him. He filled her in on the latest about the football team and how their prospects looked for the upcoming season. She told him that Odette was getting worse and that it scared her. He bragged that he was on schedule with his diabetes medication nearly every day now and was becoming a champion clothes ironer. She told him about going to the Unitarian church and how she thought maybe it was just right for her. Clarice even related to him the tale of finding his girlfriend Cherokee in the gazebo with Clifton Abrams.
Richmond laughed until tears came to his eyes at her description of Clifton hopping around naked, trying to get back into his underpants. But he took exception to her calling Cherokee his girlfriend, insisting that he had given up all of his women in an effort to become a better man. This included, he claimed, the girls at the Pink Slipper Gentlemen’s Club. He said that his only recent visit to the club had been for purely theological purposes.
In response to her laughter, Richmond raised his right hand as if he were taking the Boy Scout Oath. “No, really. Tammi, the girl who showed up at the last revival meeting, has been doing biblically themed pole dances on Monday nights at the club. Last week she danced the tale of Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden and gave every cent she made to the New Roof Fund at church. What kind of Christian would I be if I didn’t show up and support a young convert preaching the Word?” He swore that he had left the club, alone, the second the dancer and her python exited the stage. He said, “You told me to evolve, remember?”
“I remember. But please don’t change everything. You’ve still got your good points,” Clarice said. She wondered if she was flirting with him now from force of habit or because she actually sensed something was different about him.
She thought back to her conversation with Veronica then. She said, “Richmond, tell me something. Do you feel like I neglected you or made you a low priority in my life because of Odette and Barbara Jean?”
The expression on his face said that he thought she had thrown him a trick question or was laying a trap. “Why do you ask that?”
“Something Veronica said to me today made me wonder.”
He thought about it for a while and then said, “You know, if you’d asked me that question a few weeks ago, I’d have said yes. But that would have been to get you to feel guilty and maybe come back home. But, honestly, I was always glad you had the Supremes. I think it made me feel okay about running with Ramsey and all my other … well, activities, let’s say. When it came to you and me, I never felt anything but loved, and that’s the truth.”
“Thanks, Richmond. I appreciate you saying that. That was really sweet of you.”
“What can I say? I’m a sweet guy. That’s why you married me, isn’t it?”
Remembering the early years of their courtship and the fever that had swept over her whenever she looked at Richmond or even thought about him, Clarice said, “Not exactly.”
“No, I suppose it was having your mother on my side that sealed the deal for me.”
“Partly. But, to be honest about it, the thing that really made up my mind for me was something Big Earl said.”
“Big Earl?”
“Mm-hmm. I had already talked to Mother, Reverend Peterson, even that old fraud Minnie, and I was still wavering. So I went by the All-You-Can-Eat one night to talk to Big Earl. Odette and Barbara Jean both swore the man was a genius, and I had always liked him. So I figured, why not?”
“Big Earl stuck up for me, did he?”
“He said that when you grew up you’d be a fine man.”
Richmond swallowed hard and his mouth spread into a slightly sad smile. “Damn, I miss that old man.”
Clarice had done a little paraphrasing for the sake of the evening’s mood. What Big Earl had actually said was, “Clarice, honey, I truly believe that in about twenty-five years, Richmond Baker is likely to show himself to be as fine a man as this town ever turned out. Till then, you might be in for a rough ride.” With that fever in her blood, Clarice had decided to hear what Big Earl said as a glowing endorsement. It was years before she realized that she had ignored a warning in favor of an optimistic prediction. And that prediction had been quite optimistic. Big Earl had seen Richmond’s turnaround coming in twenty-five years. As usual, Richmond was dragging himself in late.
Neither of them said anything for a while. Then Richmond glanced at his watch. “I guess now I’ve really got to go.”
Clarice reached out and patted his cheek with her hand, allowing it to rest there for a few seconds to enjoy the familiar sensation of his beard stubble against her open palm. She thought for a moment and then said, “Don’t go. Stay over.”
His eyebrows rose and he asked, “You mean it?”
“Yeah, why not? We’re married, aren’t we?”
As he hopped off of his stool, he smiled that fun, nasty smile she had always loved. Then he hooked an arm around her and pulled her to him. They kissed through the kitchen, the hallway, the living room, and up the stairs.
Clarice had thought that it would be like old times, she and Richmond together enjoying that type of married folks’ lovemaking that was a mixture of passion and efficiency gained from familiarity. B
ut it was better than it had been before. Living alone for the first time in her life had changed her perspective. She didn’t have to see Richmond as a disappointing husband anymore. In her house he was her lover, there at her request, for her pleasure. In that department, Richmond never disappointed. And without the burden of having to play the wronged wife, Clarice could be his lover, too—a free woman who wore peasant skirts and comfortable shoes and gave as good as she got in bed.
She woke up in the morning to find Richmond already awake. He was lying on his side, his right elbow on the mattress, his head propped up by his hand. “G’morning,” he said.
She stretched and yawned. “Good morning to you, too.”
He pecked her lightly on the lips and whispered, “Glad you’re awake. I didn’t want to take off before you got up. I have to be at a meeting in a couple hours.”
Clarice nodded. “Sorry you have to go.”
“Me, too.” He slid out of the bed and went across the room retrieving his clothing, which they had flung from wall to wall in the heat of the moment the night before. Once he had gathered all of his clothes, he sat on the edge of the bed and started to dress. It was a reverse striptease Clarice had seen thousands of times. It was always done in the same order. Right sock. Left sock. Underwear. Pants. Belt. Shoes. Then, finally, the undershirt and shirt were slipped over his massive and still firm upper torso and arms. Richmond had a strong sense of what his best features were and he didn’t like to cover up the good stuff too quickly.
He was just about to pull on his pants when he said, “Listen, while you were sleeping I was thinking there’s no need for you to have to pack up all your things. We can hire somebody to box up your clothes and whatever else you brought over. And later in the week we can have the piano movers come. How’s that sound?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your move back home. We can hire someone to pack your things.”
“I’m not moving back home, Richmond.”
He’d had his back to her; now he stood and turned around. Richmond, clad in his boxer shorts and socks, stared at Clarice with an astonished look on his face. “What do you mean you’re not coming home? I thought—well, after last night and what happened …” He gestured back and forth from his bare chest to her naked body in the bed to illustrate his point.
She sat up in the bed. “Richmond, last night was a lot of fun, but I see no reason to come back home. I like it here. And this short amount of time we’ve been apart isn’t enough to fix forty years of both of us making foolish decisions. You know that.”
His eyes grew big and he raised his voice. “You knew that if we went to bed together I’d think you were coming home, and you went ahead and let me think that.”
“I’m sorry if that’s what you thought. But nothing’s changed, except we had a really good night.”
Richmond stood beside the bed with his mouth opening and shutting. He looked like a giant brown fish that had been thrown onto dry land. He clutched his pants against his chest as if he had suddenly grown modest and was trying to cover himself. With his empty hand, he pointed at Clarice and stammered out, “Y-y-you led me on and used me. That’s what you did. You made me think we were going to be together again and you used me.”
She thought about it for a few seconds and realized that he was right. She had known what he would think about the two of them after last night, and she had pushed that knowledge aside because she wanted him, the way she had always wanted him. Some other day, maybe she’d have felt guilty. But that morning, she was completely unable to keep herself from grinning, and then giggling at the thought that she had used Richmond.
Towering over her beside the bed, Richmond looked as indignant as Clarice could remember seeing him. But then she saw his face gradually break into a smile and he began to chuckle along with her. He laughed harder and harder until he wobbled on his feet and collapsed onto the bed next to her.
“You had me over for dinner, screwed my brains out, and now you’re getting rid of me at sunrise. I can’t believe this. You turned me into a one-night stand. No, it’s even worse. You actually had me believing we were going to be together. Holy shit. I’m not your one-night stand; I’m your mistress.” He whacked his forehead with his hand and shook his head. “Ramsey’s always telling me, ‘Man, Clarice is gonna turn you into a woman if you give her half the chance.’ And after forty years, it’s finally happened.”
Still snickering, Clarice put a leg over him and straddled his hips. “We don’t have to tell Ramsey about it. We can keep it our dirty little secret.” Then she kissed him hard.
He stayed for another hour.
On his way out later that morning, she told him she would call him about getting together for dinner soon. At the door, she swatted him on his firm, round ass and kissed him goodbye.
After she put the teakettle on and popped bread into the toaster, Clarice reread the letter Richmond had brought her the night before. She thought to herself that if this was what it was like to have a mistress—a night of thoughtful gifts and good sex, then your lover is out of your hair by breakfast time—Richmond’s behavior over the past few decades made a lot more sense to her.
Chapter 34
Sharon’s wedding took place on the hottest day southern Indiana had seen in decades. Spring had come early that year and the trend of record temperatures that had begun in February continued into the summer. The mercury registered right at one hundred and five degrees that afternoon and the humidity was just as awful. Only Richmond wasn’t panting from the exertion of climbing the slight incline that led to the Garden Hills Banquet Hall and Corporate Meetings Venue from its parking lot. The Supremes and James began gasping for air within yards of their cars. The journey from the parking lot to the banquet hall was made worse by the fact that the high temperature had caused the tar on the asphalt of the lot and driveway to become tacky so they had to work hard just to lift their feet from the ground.
They stopped at the front steps of Garden Hills to take in the enormity of the place. The pictures from Veronica’s wedding book hadn’t done it justice. The building was a half a block long. The huge white columns supporting the second-floor verandah that stretched across the width of the structure were far more massive than the photo had let on. Nothing else in town, aside from the larger buildings on the campus, approached this place in size.
The banquet hall was a part of “the other Plainview,” the Plainview that those who had grown up there didn’t recognize. This imposing tribute to Greek Revival belonged to the new town that was being built by the university and by Plainview’s newer residents, people who worked in Louisville and saw little of the town outside of the routes from their bloated homes to the pricey specialty shops of modern-day Leaning Tree. Every one of the people gathered in front of the building thought the same thing. They were becoming outsiders in their own town.
Barbara Jean said, “It looks like something straight out of Gone With the Wind.”
Clarice snapped her fingers. “That’s it. I’ve been trying to think what this place reminded me of, and that’s it. It’s Tara, caught in a fun-house mirror. What a sight.”
Odette said, “Would somebody please explain to me why any self-respecting black couple would want to get married in a giant plantation house? That’s messed up.”
Barbara Jean shook her head. “I tell you they’re asking for trouble not getting married in a church. Everybody knows that’s bad luck.”
“My words exactly,” Clarice said.
Two young men exited the building and gawked at Barbara Jean as they passed by. Clarice and Odette silently agreed with their judgment. Barbara Jean looked fantastic. She had toned down the color palette of her clothing over the previous few months. She hadn’t exactly turned into a wallflower, but the days of the wild outfits seemed to have come to an end. And it wasn’t just her clothes that were different. Sobriety seemed to be doing wonders for her. Who could have imagined that Barbara Jean could become
more beautiful? But a few months without liquor had managed the impossible. Odette and Clarice both told her all the time how proud they were of her, but in typical Barbara Jean fashion, she refused to take any credit for what she had accomplished. She would mutter some catchphrase like “One day at a time,” and then change the subject. But Barbara Jean had been resurrected and that was plain to see.
“Let’s get inside. It’s too hot out here,” James said, meaning that it was too hot for Odette to be outside. James was more vigilant than ever that summer—part nurse, part mother bear, part prison guard. He was also more aware than anyone that Odette had lost more weight and more strength. She fought on like a champion, though, refusing to acknowledge that anything had changed. Her husband and her friends admired her warrior spirit, but couldn’t help but feel like Odette was rubbing her legendary fearlessness in everyone’s faces. When they looked at Odette, they all knew it was time to feel scared. They battled with the urge to shake her until she came to her senses and was as frightened as they were.
The lobby welcomed the Supremes, James, and Richmond with a blast of frigid air that made each of them sigh with relief. A pretty young hostess with bright red hair and an exaggerated English accent greeted the wedding guests at the reception desk. She said, “Good afternoon. We are delighted to have you here at Garden Hills Banquet Hall and Corporate Meetings Venue. Please follow the corridor to the doors that lead out to the courtyard for the Swanson-Abrams nuptials,” and pointed out the way for them. Her instructions were accompanied by flamboyant arm waving. She wore a tight gray skirt and a very low-cut frilly white blouse. Her breasts jiggled with each of her grand movements. Richmond did an admirable job of staring at the ceiling instead of ogling the girl as his nature would surely have had him do. Clarice had to give the man an A for effort.
Unlike Richmond, who was going all out to prove that he was a changed man, Clarice wasn’t certain what degree of exertion on her part was appropriate where her marriage was concerned. The new Clarice enjoyed having Richmond as her secret lover—she hadn’t told her friends that he’d been spending nights with her. But the old Clarice, the one who knew all of the rules and yearned to follow them, had staged a reappearance. Somehow Clarice had gone from reveling in her newfound freedom and sensuality to feeling guilty about her vain pursuit of pleasure. She had even begun to take pride in sending Richmond away at the times she most wanted him to stay. Funny how easy it was to tap into all of that—the guilt, the shame, the anger. You can take the girl out of Calvary Baptist, but you can’t take Calvary Baptist out of the girl, she thought.
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat Page 27
