by Lila Shaara
“No. He didn’t get the chance, fortunately.”
Maggie changed clothes while Josie made the call. When her niece came back into the living room, she kneeled down next to the man on the floor and looked through his pockets until she found his keys. She went outside with them and came back in a few minutes later. “There’s a clipboard in his truck with his assignments for the day. We’re not on it.”
“Thank God,” said Josie. She looked down. “How are we going to get him in the truck?”
“We have to hoist him.”
Their first effort was a failure. “We need a third set of hands,” Maggie said, and Josie could read her thoughts as clearly as if they were printed in the air above her head.
“No,” Josie said. “We’re not calling him. I think you and I can do it if we put our minds to it. But if not, we’ll call Baby. She’s strong.”
Maggie was the stronger of the two of them, so she lifted from under his arms while Josie took the legs. Josie grimaced when the dirty soles of his work boots knocked against her dress. I’ll never wear it again, she thought. They got him out to the porch; Josie lost her grip on his ankles only once, dropping them with a loud, one-two thud on the porch floor.
The storm started again as they rode back from a parking garage off Shively Street, having left Darcy Murphy lying behind the front seat in the extended cab of his truck. Maggie drove the Celica slowly since the rain was coming down so thickly against the windshield that light was having difficulty penetrating the glass.
Josie said, “Do you think they’ll check for fingerprints?”
“Only if he reports it, and they take him seriously.”
“Will they?”
“I have no idea, Josie. But since he tried to attack you, he’s not very likely to want the cops involved. I doubt he’ll remember much. I wiped down the steering wheel. We can’t do better than that.”
“God, that man is terrible. You should have seen what was coming off him. A shade of black with purple streaks in it that were so sickly it made me ill to look at him. He hates me something awful.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It seems to really stick in his craw that we don’t pay his company anything. Hope he’s not a racist, or he’ll be worse at the Thorpes’.”
There was silence as Maggie had to slow down even further, the rain coating the car in an almost opaque bubble of silver. Josie studied her, looking around her and through her, and said, “You were on a walk when the rain started?”
“Yes.”
“By yourself?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
Maggie sighed. Josie knew that Maggie would have liked to keep more to herself. It wasn’t so much that Maggie was secretive, Josie thought, as that she didn’t want anyone worrying about her. She’d rather no one thought about her at all.
“I’m not sure. It rained. I got a little out of control, like I do sometimes. He kissed me. Then he didn’t want to come near me, all of a sudden.” Maggie swallowed, peered hard through the windshield. “I haven’t been able to read him for a few weeks now.”
“You know what that means.”
“I know. But after today, I don’t expect to see him for a while. Maybe ever.”
Josie waited for Maggie to start crying like a normal girl in love, but she didn’t; she just blinked and drove and then said, “I’m so stupid sometimes.”
And Josie knew that was the closest Maggie would come to admitting that she’d come to care for him. She felt a pain stabbing through her, a pain of love and pity so sharp and strong she squirmed in the seat with it. Poor girl, poor doomed girl, she thought as a craving for a tall glass of Southern Comfort hit her. Then to her surprise, Maggie added, “Better to lay low, anyway.” The rain had eased, and Maggie risked a quick look at Josie. “Is Calvin staying away long enough for us to get you to a meeting?”
26
THE LOVERS
REVERSED
Mistakes in love
Harry had planned a trip to the beach house with Dusty for the coming weekend, but Ann called him on Tuesday night; her father had suffered a heart attack and Dusty wanted to stay in Orlando and make sure the old man was all right. “I told him he didn’t need to, but you know how attached he is to my parents.”
He asked for details; he’d never been close to his former in-laws but harbored no hostility toward them. Ann assured him that the heart attack had been a mild one. Nevertheless, Dusty wanted to stay close.
“Do you want me to come?” he said.
“No, it’s not necessary. But thanks anyway. Maybe next weekend, if you’re free.”
Dusty got on the phone while Harry was processing the unusual invitation. After his son’s brief greeting, Harry said, “How are you, pal?”
“Okay. Granddad isn’t doing so hot, though. I’d rather be at the beach, you know, but, like, I think Grandma needs me, you know?”
“Sure. Your mom says I shouldn’t come. Is that all right with you?”
“It’s okay. Mom says you’ll be around more this summer anyway.”
Harry thought, She did? He said, “I may take a trip up to Pennsylvania in a few weeks to do a little research. You were a big help to me on the last book when we went to the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress. I was hoping you’d come with me again, be my assistant. We could go fishing, maybe. What do you think?”
“That sounds okay, I guess. I gotta go.”
Harry had a dream that night about Maggie. It was the first one of its kind that he’d had, and the fact that it was erotic didn’t help him get back to sleep after he’d woken up at three a.m., sweating and calling out as he kicked the sheets. He got up, made a cup of warm milk, which he’d been told by a pharmacist friend back in Washington really did have soporific qualities. It didn’t work, so he sat up and read a book about the politics of academia that he’d gotten from the university library till the sun came up.
He didn’t go to Crane’s that Wednesday for lunch, nor did he go south of town to meet Maggie for a walk in the cemetery. Instead, he took a walk around the campus. There wasn’t enough shade, so after one long circuit, he was afraid he’d pass out from heatstroke. He went into the university gym. It had a weight room and an indoor track, both of which he used. The track was elevated, and as he trotted along he could see tall young men and a few women playing basketball below him. The sounds of the balls and the soles of their athletic shoes hitting the shiny wooden floor were echoey and dreamlike, and he missed the woodpeckers and the buzzing grasshoppers, but he didn’t go back to the cemetery.
· · ·
The only good thing to come out of Tuesday’s rainstorm, as far as Darcy Murphy was concerned, was the fact that his hemorrhoids seemed to have been cured. He figured it was some witchy side effect of whatever hoodoo the Dupree woman had put on him. He’d woken up in his car in the middle of downtown, the rain screaming so loud on the roof of his truck that it amazed him he’d slept through any of it. If it was sleep, which wasn’t likely. She’d done something to him, although he couldn’t remember what. He’d never been so confused in his life, and when he got home that night and his wife asked him about his day, he opened his mouth and couldn’t speak for a full five minutes till she asked him if he was drunk. The woman had no idea how lucky she was that he didn’t take a swing at her, he thought. If she’d looked at all like Josie Dupree, he might have killed her where she stood. He was never to pester her for sex again, although at that point, neither of them knew it.
He called in sick to work the next day. He felt awful, like he had a terrible hangover, although he’d quit drinking months before, as his wife well knew. But she still hovered over him and worried that he might fall off the wagon and become a useless bum like her useless bum of a father. He knew that a psychiatrist might say she’d married him because he was just such a useless bum himself, but he had a good job and had quit drinking, neither of which could be said of her father.
Harry w
as angry and discombobulated, looking at the screen of his laptop and not seeing it, reading and rereading his notes, forgetting what he’d read the moment he was done with a page. His whole body ached, partly because he’d punished it at the gym the day before. On Thursday afternoon, he gave up and called Maggie. “Where is she?” he asked Josie.
“What do you care?”
“Josie, I’m getting tired of this. You’re not her social secretary.”
“She’s not here. What do you want with her, anyway?”
Harry sighed. “I don’t suppose you’d give her a message, would you?”
“Maybe.”
“I have a beach house. It’s not much, but it’s only an hour and a half from here. It’s empty this weekend, and I thought that if she wanted, she could spend a day or two there.” Silence. Harry sighed again, although silently. “You could go, too. If you wanted.”
“On the beach? Not back behind where you sit on the porch and stare at other people’s trash cans?”
“On the beach. You can sit on the porch and stare at the Atlantic Ocean. It’s small, but the beach itself isn’t too built up yet. It’s still pretty private.”
“You’re not going?”
“No.” Even as Harry said it, he thought that maybe he was lying, that he’d been hoping they’d go on Friday, and he’d find his way to the house a little later, saying he’d been in the mood for a drive and he thought he’d just check on them. He wouldn’t even need to stay the night; he could drive back in the dark, after having spent just a little time in the familiar old house. With Maggie. And probably Josie. This made it less appealing, but still worth the trip. Maybe he could get Josie to drive back early. He knew it wasn’t likely.
“Maggie works on Saturday.”
“Oh. That’s right.” His mind tried to rearrange his plans. “But she’s done by one. You could be there by midafternoon.”
“Why are you doing this? She’s not going to sleep with you for it.”
“God, Josie. I know you don’t think much of me, but come on.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You have to ask her. It’s not up to you.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to her tonight.”
Harry hung up, feeling uncomfortable and conflicted. He wasn’t sure why he felt he owed Maggie anything. He hadn’t walked with her for two days, but it wasn’t as though she needed him in any way, on the walks or anywhere else. He wasn’t entirely sure that she even liked him. He felt guilty for ditching her without a word, even though she probably wasn’t concerned at all. She’d kissed him back, but he’d half convinced himself that she was just being passive. But he had to face the fact of his physical desire for her, a burning, rolling, sloppy ache in his belly and in his groin. He wasn’t sure which filled him with more guilt, the desire itself or his denial of it.
“Mr. Radley’s oven isn’t working,” said Josie over her cards as Maggie walked in. “I told him you’d probably have time today.”
“Okay,” Maggie said. “I guess I could do it now and shower afterward. You think he’ll mind that I’m all sweaty?”
“Since you’re not charging him, I think he wouldn’t mind if you smelled like a squashed skunk.” She turned over another card. “Harry called.”
Maggie looked up from the bill she was examining. “What did he want?”
“He offered us his beach house this weekend.”
“What? He wants us to go with him?”
“No. He said since he’s not going, we could use it if we wanted.” Josie felt bad about the feathers of brown disappointment that plumed around Maggie, but she knew she’d better kill that little hope in the girl’s heart before the hope ate a hole in it.
“Why’s he doing that?” said Maggie, still clutching the forgotten bill.
“Guilt, I imagine.”
“Because he hasn’t been around, you mean.”
“Yes. He was dripping with it so thick I could almost smell it over the phone.”
Maggie’s eyes were wide and blue and hurt. “What should I do?”
Josie shrugged. “It’s up to you. But I don’t see why we can’t take him up on it. We won’t trash the place. We could even leave it cleaner than we find it or do something else nice for him, if it would make you feel better. You could bake him a pie.”
After leaving to brush her teeth, Maggie came back into the living room. Josie was at the small table, reading cards. Maggie glanced at the cards but then deliberately moved her eyes to Josie’s face, avoiding seeing which cards were lying there. “Will you call him, Josie? You know I’d make a mess of it.”
Josie heaved a heavy sigh. “No, you wouldn’t. But of course I’ll talk to him, honey. I’ll do anything you want. Always.”
After Maggie left to go fix Mr. Radley’s oven, Josie called Harry. He said he’d bring the key and directions to them the next day. Josie knew that he planned to come in the afternoon, hoping to see Maggie, and she was equally certain that Maggie wouldn’t be at home. She went back to the table and spent a long time on the reading, shaking her head at the outcome. This beach trip wasn’t going to be a disaster; no one would die, no terrible injuries or horrible sunburns. But it wasn’t going to be the break that Maggie needed, and Josie thought Maggie needed a break more than anything in the world. She wasn’t surprised that the King of Swords and the Queen of Cups appeared, both reversed and emerging as influences in the near future. Bad news, she thought; a hostile woman and a man you can’t trust. That had to be Harry. She wondered if he’d renege on the offer of the beach house at the last minute.
She put the cards away in the wooden box and put it in the cupboard under the window nearest the table. She walked into the kitchen and pulled a small bottle out of the cabinet over the refrigerator, tucked so far back behind the rubber bowls and mismatched wineglasses that she had to use the step stool to reach it. She left the stool in place so that she could return the bottle in a hurry if she needed to. She didn’t bother with a glass.
27
THE SUN
REVERSED
Homelessness; plans disintegrate. Marital disharmony
Maggie was gone when Harry showed up at the double-wide on Friday afternoon. He wanted to see her but didn’t at the same time, and it made him feel young and stupid. So he’d waited until well after lunch, about the time he expected her to come home after her usual walk, and when he saw her Toyota in the driveway behind Josie’s Chevy, his stomach tightened up and he felt things moving through him that had been still a moment before. You’re thirty-seven years old, he told himself. Divorced. Seasoned. Well, perhaps more than that. Maybe overripe. In any case, you’re not sixteen. Even though she practically is, and that makes you a drooling, dirty old man.
He parked the car behind Maggie’s and got out with a great mental effort. He made sure the key and the folded paper on which he’d printed out directions to the beach house were both in his pocket and walked up the wooden steps to the front door. The vomit stain, he noticed with some relief, was now entirely gone.
· · ·
Josie said, “You can come in, but she’s not here.”
Harry walked in, so disappointed his stomach hurt. He fished the key ring and paper from his pocket and handed both to Josie, explaining unnecessarily what they were.
“I’m not an idiot,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “It’s okay to use anything that’s there. I don’t think that there’s much food, but there are towels and beach balls and all that sort of stuff. This is to the pantry.” He held up the smaller of the two keys. “You can eat anything you find in it, although I’d be careful. Those chickens have been in the freezer for years.”
“Good to know,” said Josie, showing him to the door.
There was a storm that night, but it had blown over by the next afternoon, so the drive to the beach was clear and easy on a rain-damp highway, dark clouds of mosquitoes hovering above puddles in the culverts. “Glad your air-conditioning works,”
said Josie. “We need to keep the windows closed.” They were in Maggie’s Toyota, Josie in the passenger’s seat and Tamara and Charlotte in the back. Miss Baby had been invited but was so grateful at the thought of having some time alone in her house she’d waved her arms to the heavens in gratitude. Her granddaughters were singing “Kung Fu Fighting,” and Josie had told them three times to be quiet. Maggie smiled and put a CD in the player in the car’s dashboard. It was a British singer named Robyn Hitchcock, and Maggie started singing along loudly to a song about trains. She asked Josie only once if Harry had said anything about joining them at his beach house.
“No, honey. Nothing at all,” Josie said, seeing Maggie’s happy, singing face fall into disappointment and wishing that she were going to have a better time. She couldn’t help adding, “You always did prefer Yankee boys to our homegrown variety. I remember you had a big crush on that Drew Stebbins in high school, the one who moved here from New Jersey.”
Maggie’s smile returned a little bit. “He never even knew my name.” She didn’t take her eyes off the road. “Do you think we’ll ever be together?”
Josie said, “You won’t let me do a reading for you, so I can’t say for sure. But between what he does and what you do, I don’t know, honey. I don’t see how it’s going to work. I’m sorry.”
There was a moment of silence before Maggie said, “You know, I would never abandon you, Josie. Even if I left.” Josie didn’t speak again for a long time, and when she did, it was to tell the girls not to sing so loud because it gave her a headache.
The house was old and rustic but didn’t sag the way Miss Tokay’s did, so it seemed all right to Josie, who’d been half afraid that it would either be so nice and shiny that they’d have to spend the whole two days worrying about getting sand or salt water on expensive rugs or furniture, or so run-down it might topple onto their heads if the storm returned. The door facing the driveway led to an enclosed porch that ran the length of the house, with a bathroom at one end and a kitchen off the other. Maggie brought in plastic bags of groceries and clothes along with a small Styrofoam cooler. Josie helped her unpack them and found that one of the keys on the silver ring Harry had given them opened a small, mostly empty room. “I found the pantry,” she said. There were shelves on the walls half filled with bags of chips and boxes of cereal. Inside was also a chest freezer, which contained two frozen chickens, three steaks, and a tub of chocolate ice cream. Maggie said, “We’d better leave all that alone.”
