“That’s the whole idea, Mama,” Truely explained. “It’s an integrated living space.”
“Well, I like to know where I am in a house,” she insisted. “I don’t like to be everywhere at once.”
She never would spend the night with them because she said she did not want to look at them lying in bed, man and wife, every time she opened her eyes — and she did not want them looking at her either in her hairnet, Pond’s cold cream and pink sleeveless nylon nightgown. Even if they hung sheets to create a private space for her she would have none of it. They always had to drive his mother back to Saratoga after supper so she could sleep in Courtney’s well-appointed guesthouse with curtains she could draw closed and doors she could lock.
She died less than two years later — suddenly and quietly. When Courtney found her she was lying in bed with her eyes wide open and a smile on her face. Courtney and Hastings both swore his mother was smiling. He’d loved hearing that. He’d needed to hear it. Her funeral wasn’t nearly as hard as his daddy’s since they all believed she was happy to go, glad to be reunited with their daddy and not made to suffer any long-drawn-out illness.
SOMEWHERE AT THE BEGINNING of all this death and dying Hastings and Courtney had dedicated their lives to Christ. Well, actually Courtney had rededicated hers since she had walked the aisle for Jesus several times in Jackson back when she was in high school. She could never resist the call to witness. So getting born again was sort of born again-again for her. The difference was she took Hastings with her this time. He took to religion like a duck to water. It surprised everybody. He had never seemed the type. As sick as their daddy was when Hastings got saved Truely didn’t think he’d ever quite believed it. “Daddy,” Courtney would whisper to him, “Hastings has turned his life over to Christ. He has accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Isn’t that wonderful?”
About all their daddy could do at the time was shift his gaze to Hastings and blink at him in a way that Truely thought meant he didn’t believe it for a minute. Hastings just nodded yes, yes, like he was a truly happy man now that, along with everything else, he could lay claim to everlasting life.
Truely was a Mississippi boy still. He didn’t have a thing against religion, especially in the gentle hands of somebody like his daddy — or his mother either. But he wasn’t too much persuaded when salvation was fired out of a double-barrel shotgun aimed point-blank at his skull. Courtney and Hastings were formidable enough as sinners, but as born-again Christians they were hell on wheels. No lie.
Add to that the fact that Courtney had taken Truely’s divorce personally, which as far as he was concerned, she had no right to do. She had aimed the Bible at him like a machine gun and then just proceeded to mow him down with scripture. She called it loving him. It was a collision of catastrophic events leaving them both seriously altered, Courtney feeling significantly empowered by Jesus’ love and Truely feeling significantly diminished by loss of Jesse’s.
He’d never explained to Courtney what happened between Jesse and him — and he never would. For one thing Courtney assumed she knew and he had never bothered to correct her. Besides, technically speaking, it was none of her business. He had resolved never to discuss it with anyone. Period. It was his fault. He had made the personal decision to operate on that premise. It was what any gentleman would do.
Besides Courtney pretty much operated on that premise too on instinct alone. She’d sent him daily Bible messages about cleaving—and warnings about living a godless life. It wasn’t much comfort. He hadn’t been shy about pointing that out. Afterward he’d kept his distance. For one thing he was pretty torn up about Jesse. For another, he didn’t like to have his tormented and resistant soul put on conspicuous display like that, like a target hung in the zealous line of fire of his exuberant born again-again sister and her husband and earthly personal savior.
SO A WEEKEND alone with his sister was not Truely’s idea of a great time. Courtney always meant well — even when she was driving him crazy. Hastings could be a jerk sometimes, but what the hell. His sister loved him. She was happy and Hastings was good to her. No kids, which was tough on them, he thought. But they lived a clean life. A big clean life. Hastings was a real estate genius — flipping houses, developing strip malls over in San Jose, building planned communities that were pretty damn nice, even if theoretically maybe Truely was not totally sold on that concept.
Hastings and Courtney had just built their third showplace house, this one the nicest so far, smaller, less pretentious, and probably three times as expensive. Courtney had a real knack for it — making a house a home. Truely had always thought she would have been a great mother to some damn lucky kids. But it wasn’t in the stars, he guessed. His sister was a big part of the secret to Hastings’ success though. Everybody who knew them thought so. She had an artist’s eye and great taste. He didn’t know where she got it either. It was fair to say their parents never had any style — and Lord knows, he didn’t think he had much.
Lately, Truely’s idea of a good weekend was to call somebody — well, usually it was to call Shauna — on Friday night and grab something to eat, some sort of ethnic takeout. He had a virtual United Nations at his doorstep, food from the far corners. Maybe put in a DVD at home. A feel-good chick flick if that was what Shauna wanted. Just chill. Saturday they could sleep in, take her dogs for a run, catch a ballgame on the tube — the San Jose State Spartans were hard to find on TV so he would have to settle for Cal or Stanford, one of the local pretty-boy teams, although he still preferred Ole Miss whenever he could get a Rebels game. Then they could get a good workout at the gym, maybe a nap.
Shauna prided herself on being fit. She worked at it — even when she wasn’t in the mood. That inspired Truely to do the same. Jesse had never been much of an athlete. She had never devoted herself to fitness and exercise, and had been even less interested in beauty and fashion. Jesse was just naturally great-looking — at least Truely, for one, used to think so. But Shauna was different. She took a lot of pride in her appearance, taking care of her naturally tan complexion with what she called a skin regime. She got facials and massages and all manner of exotic wraps and scrubs and peels and waxes regularly. She kept her thick straight dark hair well trimmed and glossy. She displayed her muscular arms and legs in sleeveless tops and short skirts. She soaked and moisturized and tweezed and exfoliated and steamed and who knows what else. Truely had never seen anything quite like it — not up close. But when Shauna dressed in her simple tight-fitting clothes she left no doubt about the fact that all the effort she put into herself was well worth it.
Truely thought their arrangement was nearly perfect. Shauna was high-maintenance — okay — but only to herself, not to him. All the time and energy Shauna required for her intense self-preservation and upkeep freed up lots of time where Truely was left to his own lazy devices. He appreciated that too.
It was actually Shauna who had taught Truely that the best plan for a weekend was no plan. She had made a believer out of him.
Another thing. Shauna was the kind of woman who didn’t pressure him for a lot of jumping through hoops. She didn’t wish Truely could read her mind the way so many women did — the way Jesse used to — and then punish him because he didn’t always know what she was thinking. “I guess I was absent the day they taught mind reading,” he used to say to Jesse. “Or maybe I just flat-out flunked it.” But Shauna didn’t test him that way. She never said, “Guess what I’m thinking.” She didn’t try to read his mind either, which was more than a little relief to him. If Shauna wanted to know something, she asked. If she had something she wanted to do, she went and did it, left him out of it. Like lately on lots of Friday nights or Sunday mornings she went alone to mass to light a candle and pray for Gordo. She didn’t insist that Truely come along, although he would have been willing. Sometimes on Saturday nights they might cook something. Well, she sort of cooked it. He sort of cleaned up afterward. It sounded like nothing, he knew. But he prized his week
ends. He prized a couple of days without having to try hard to please anybody. But this was his sister calling. She’d never asked much of him — especially not since Jesse’d left him.
“Okay,” he said. “Leave the porch light on. I’ll drive over Friday after work.” That was what their mother used to say when she knew they were coming home to Mississippi, I’ll leave the porch light on.
“Perfect,” Courtney said.
Truely had no idea what this was really about, but he knew his sister’s voice. She always kicked up the good cheer in her voice when she was upset. She tried to kill with kindness. It was a Mississippi thing. Just because a woman was grinning ear to ear and had sing-song music in her voice didn’t mean she was happy. Usually it meant she wasn’t.
TRUELY THREW A SPORT COAT and a tie into his bag. He was thinking Courtney would want him to go to church with her on Sunday before he drove back to the city. She’d made it clear she liked to display her sporadically churchgoing single brother, just in case there were any women “who would be perfect” for him scouting the pews for eligible men. He used to sort of like going to church, a bunch of people getting together wishing they were better people than they were, vowing to try harder, himself included. It made him remember their mother, the way she had clutched a tissue throughout the service ready for whatever sentence the preacher might speak, or lyric the choir might sing, that would bring on the tears and cleanse her for the coming week. For all he knew church might even do him some good.
Truely was still living downtown in the same loft where he and Jesse had started out. He had great views of the bay. The loft was a great investment too. If he moved today he would double — maybe triple — his money. Sometimes he toyed with the idea of moving to Santa Cruz, living on the beach, working out of home. He could do it. He didn’t know what stopped him.
He called Shauna to tell her that he’d be away for the weekend. If she minded she didn’t let on. He loved that about Shauna. Her best quality was that she could take him or leave him. She didn’t waste any time trying to make sure he loved her — and maybe that was why he wasn’t sure he did. But he did love that she didn’t seem to overneed him either and didn’t pretend to. “Truely,” she said once when he drank himself into some sort of stupid confessional mode, “your issues belong to you. I’m not really interested.” Pretty damn hard to find a woman who thought like that. Jesse had been so high maintenance she’d left him skittish and worn out. So he felt lucky to have an easygoing woman like Shauna. Had no intention to mess things up.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON he waited out the traffic a little while, then left the office and took 280 over to Saratoga. He always liked the drive. It was a good route for thinking — green, peaceful, not exactly the Mississippi landscape, but beautiful still in that semirural way he used to love as a kid.
He wouldn’t say he was uneasy exactly — but he had that feeling like lightning bugs were loose in his gut. It’s when you sensed that something was going to happen — but you didn’t have any idea what. His mother used to say, “Oh, Truely, baby, something is fixing to happen. I got a belly full of lightning bugs.”
He thought about his mother and daddy, buried a million miles away down in Hinds County, but still sort of alive out here in California, a place they’d never had much use for. It crossed his mind that he ought to make a trip back down to Mississippi and put some flowers on their graves, make sure people were keeping things nice out at the cemetery. Some cemeteries would let things go if the families didn’t stay after them.
TRUELY TOOK THE SARATOGA EXIT off 280 and made his way through the Friday traffic out to the village and then wound through the hills, past upscale homes tucked into the hillsides, until he came to the stone gate to Courtney’s house. It was designed to look like it’d been there forever. He punched in the code. It was Courtney’s birth date, easy to remember. Through the thick of trees he could see the porch light on up the drive. So he took the winding road toward the light.
Courtney was waiting for him. He saw her shadow through the open door as he pulled around in the circular drive. She waved. Courtney knew how to make you feel welcome. She’d learned that from their mother too. You didn’t ever have to wonder whether or not Courtney was glad to see you. He grabbed his overnight bag out of the backseat and a bottle of good wine he’d brought. He was nearly to the front steps before he got a good look at Courtney, her arms open wide, ready to call out, “Hey, baby brother!” and give him her trademark welcome home kiss. When he saw her face in the dim light he stopped dead in his tracks. Both her eyes were puffed and purple and protruded like somebody had stitched golf balls under her skin. Her face was ballooned to twice its normal size and she had a gooey-looking gauze bandage wrapped around her head. “Damn, Court,” he said. “What the hell?”
“It’s okay,” she said.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Come give your big sister a big hug.” She stepped toward him. He dropped his bag, swung his arms around her, slamming the bottle of wine into the small of her back.
“My God, Court.” She felt breakable in his arms, like when he was a kid and caught a bird with a broken wing and feared crushing it in his clumsy effort to keep it safe. It was the same exuberant sister-hug she always gave him, only prolonged this time, her thin arms tight around his neck for a few extra heartbeats. When she pulled away she managed her lightning-strike smile. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Either Hastings beat the fool out of you or you’ve been run over by a truck.”
“Wrong,” she said. “Get your bag. Come in. I’ll get you a drink.”
He followed her inside. She looped her arm through his and led him toward the kitchen. “I had work done,” she whispered. “A face-lift.” She spoke quietly, as if there might be somebody in her house that she wouldn’t want to overhear her. “Three days ago. You are witnessing my recovery here.”
“A face-lift? You don’t need a face-lift! My God, Court, does Mona Lisa need a face-lift?” He was practically shouting. He didn’t know why.
“Shhhhhh …” She kissed his face.
In the kitchen light he studied his sister, her lean, soft build, white skin that used to freckle in the Mississippi sun but had turned porcelain over the years with the help of sunscreen and a couple of celebrity dermatologists. He had always liked the lines around Courtney’s eyes and mouth. Now she stood before him like the victim of some self-inflicted unnatural disaster.
“Why, Court?” he asked. “I don’t get it. Since when do you tamper with perfection?” His sister had always been an unconventional beauty, a self-conscious red-haired child who’d become a raven-haired woman. When all the other girls were slathering themselves in Crisco and heading for the beach at Gulfport, Courtney had kept herself covered, mostly out of embarrassment, not liking her freckles or her snow-white skin. But it had paid off. She had taken a cue from Elvis, discovered ebony hair dye, and become a striking woman. Not leathery-looking and bleached like so many of her friends.
“Beauty has its price.” She took the wine from his hand and fished through a drawer for the opener. He watched her uncork the bottle — an art fine-tuned when you lived at the edge of the wine country. He stared at her deft, capable hands, small square fingers, pale nail polish.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he said. “How about a little warning before you surprise somebody like that.”
“Sorry.” She smiled.
“I suppose you’ve been told you bear a striking resemblance to E.T.?”
She laughed a loud, hearty laugh. His sister had a great laugh. She’d saved many a stalled social occasion, many a near-death family moment, with that laugh. She poured the wine, which technically speaking he should have been doing. She walked over and opened one of the ovens, glanced in, and closed it. “Dinner in thirty minutes,” she said.
“Does it involve cream of mushroom soup, I hope?”
“Mother’s famous chicken supreme — your favorite — sherry a
nd mushroom soup. And green bean casserole — with more mushroom soup. Plus — just to round things out — macaroni and cheese with extra Velveeta. And for dessert, banana pudding with vanilla wafers.”
“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he said.
Courtney raised her wineglass as if to toast him. “To the good old days!”
“Lord, how in the world did we live to become adults,” he said.
“Oh, to hell with it all.” She raised the glass again. “Eat, drink, and be from Mississippi.”
“I know you didn’t just say hell, Court.” He laughed. “Wait a minute. You aren’t really Courtney, are you? Oh my God, E.T., what have you done with my sister?”
“New face, new vocabulary.” She winked, her swollen goose egg of an eye struggling to perform the task. “New is in, True. New is everything. Haven’t you heard?” Courtney took his hand and he followed her to the study at the back of the house, where she had a great push-button fire going and where from the wall of windows you overlooked downtown Saratoga in modest lights. He thought it was a perfect room. Dark green enamel walls, bookshelves full of books Courtney and Hastings had actually read, pictures of friends and family — some notable, some not — that they actually loved or at least liked. Including, he was happy to see, a few residual photos of the good old days, Jesse and him caught in assorted hugs, beaming like they really believed forever was a word meant for them. For some reason he was touched that Courtney had not gotten rid of those outdated photos. A lesser sister might have tried to keep the family tree amended and up-to-date. It was oddly comforting to Truely to look over and see Jesse holding on to him, smiling.
Courtney folded herself into the overstuffed sofa like a cat in a warm windowsill. Firelight flickered across her carved pumpkin of a face. It was unnerving to see her so raw and wounded. Truely sat in Hastings’ chair, put his feet up on the ottoman and took a big sip of wine. It occurred to him that he was glad to be here, alone with his surgically altered sister on this chilly night. He didn’t miss Hastings. He realized how rare were the occasions when he had Courtney all to himself — no superstar brother-in-law to accommodate. He realized that with Hastings gone this house seemed more like Courtney’s house. And Courtney’s house felt a little bit like his house too. It was as near to a real home as he had. And he loved his sister for always trying to make him feel that he belonged here.
Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi Page 9
