by Mary Robison
“I’ll bet it blew the dust from that blanket,” Virginia said.
Lola stood on a chair, took a little hammer and tacks from her smock, and rehung the quilt.
“That’s perfect. What a lovely thing. It must be two hundred years old,” Virginia said.
“My age exactly,” Lola said.
“Isn’t this nice?” Virginia said. She had picked up a ceramic tiger from a table beside the love seat. “So many fine things here.”
Lola’s radio—a purse-sized plastic box with an antenna, a padded handle, and an eight-track cassette-player—was tuned to a jazz station. Someone was bluntly chording on a piano. The music was staccato, disruptive, repetitious. Lola winced and rolled the tuner knob. She settled on a news report long enough to hear an interview with a woman who had seen the roof of her house blasted off by the tornado. The woman’s television set had attacked her, she said, jumped across the room to get her. “The cat blowed all around in circles. Things come flying from every which where. My husband grabs me. Our Janet flies in from the kitchen and rams the wall and she’s only seventeen! Broke her arm, it did. Sounds just like we got a great big train going over. I can’t even hear you yet, my ears is dead-like.”
Virginia was counting the electrical outlets. “I never understood what they expect you to do when weather’s on the way. But listening to her, I couldn’t help wondering how any thinking person can deny the existence of God.”
“She was lucky. That’s true,” Lola said.
“It just stops you in your tracks. Something had to be watching her.”
“I hope it’s watching us,” Lola said.
“Well, it’s out of our hands. I find that comforting in a way, don’t you?” Virginia said.
“I guess,” Lola said.
“Are there only two outlets in this room?”
“That’s it,” Lola said. “The boss put in new everything when he renovated the place and added the garage and new wings and all. But one thing he didn’t do is add outlets up here.”
“As often as they let you down,” Virginia said, “men are still capable of doing thrilling things—the right men.”
Lola leaned her back against the mantelpiece. She said, “The boss got it for his wife—Howdy’s and Mo’s mom. She was from the British Isles and homesick as hell, so this place was supposed to fix that for her. He’s said he doesn’t think she’d have married him or stayed ten minutes if it weren’t for this place. She could pretend she was Lady La-Di-Da and mistress of the manor and that he wasn’t a hillbilly boy but a bluenose, too. The boss told me he used to go around in riding pants and a smoking jacket, chewing on a pipe.”
“God bless him. Can’t you see it?” Virginia said. “I understand she was a very distraught woman. Perhaps an alcoholic or deranged.”
“That makes sense,” Lola said. “But if you want to keep your good looks, don’t ever say it around Howdy or Maureen.”
Virginia focused on a standing lamp with a parchment shade. She didn’t seem to have heard.
22
Chris had talked Maureen onto the brick veranda. She stretched in a vinyl and aluminum chaise. He sat backwards on a cast-iron chair, and ran his finger around the tracery of the chair’s leafy pattern. “I’ve done this all wrong,” he said. “I shouldn’t have groveled. It’s unappealing. I’ve had no pride.”
“How eerie,” Maureen said, looking up. The wind had died and, in the calm, the light was beige. “I can’t locate the sun.” Sooty clouds swarmed, billowed, tore apart, but without the sound track of the wind. Brilliant splinters of lightning ignited from cloud to cloud, yet there was no report. “Whew! It’s like the overture’s finished and the curtain’s about to go up.”
“You know what I think?” Chris said, his face caught in a stare. “I think when I won that lottery I used up all the luck I’ll ever have.”
“That’s occurred to me,” Maureen said. “You also used up your twenty minutes.”
“Give me two more minutes,” Chris said.
“I knew it. Got a light?”
He said, “Maureen? Who gave you so much liquor? You know when you get squashed you throw up.”
“I used to be that way. I’m not that way anymore. I’m this way. But here’s Chris, everybody, dragging a tornado with him. We’re all so happy to see you.”
“Could I have my lighter back, please? Guilt? Is that what I inspire in you?”
“You are the past,” she said. “I hate it. I don’t even want one. My past is a joke. Violet—there’s one joke. She gets under everyone’s feet and she reminds them that I, Maureen, am a twenty-four-year-old failure. What are you looking at?” Her legs opened as she twisted in the chair.
Chris’s eyes went back and forth, from the high, sun-tanned insides of her thighs to a white shape in the sky that was revolving and reaching for the ground. The funnel was half a mile up, rumbling enormously. Hailstones flew crossways, like pellets shot from a gun.
23
The storm was quick and spectacular. It passed them violently on the east, but no funnel cloud touched down, no damage was done. A heavy, friendly rain followed, from clouds so thickly massed they made a false twilight.
Maureen had taken Violet down to the cellar and snuggled with her under a pedestal table. They had dug into a steamer trunk that had ten years’ worth of family stuff. They had played a few hands of a simple card game Violet knew. Howdy and Chris had gone out into the yard and gotten soaked watching. Stephanie, Lola, and Virginia had lined up on the couch and more or less ignored a daytime TV drama. Cleveland had slept through it all.
“Could we turn down the damn air conditioning now?” Howdy said. “I can see everybody’s breath.” He was shivering in his seat on a blue and burgundy runner at the front of the living room. Rain dripped from his flattened hair, from his ears and nose, shirt and pants.
“Your father gave me strict orders that I wouldn’t let that be done,” Virginia said.
“Mr. Cleveland says it’s healthy to be chilled when you’re drunk,” Lola said. “He told me it stabilizes all the heat your body makes from the liquor.” She had left the couch and slumped into a Sheraton chair by the hearth, drinking stout from a frosted bottle.
“It is healthy,” said Chris, as he got down on the floor next to Howdy. “Pneumonia’s the best thing in the summer months to combat any dangerous urges to exercise or eat well or be sober.” Chris drank his third straight whiskey. “Hey, come on,” he said to the silent room. “That was just trying to be funny.” He elbowed Howdy. “An attempt at humor.”
“I’ve got a tongue twister,” Virginia said, “that I made up. Super-zipper-duffel-bag.”
Maureen said, “Super-zipper-duffel-bag, super-zipper-duffel-bag, super-zipper-duffel-bag. Big deal.” She said, “Tell us, Virginia. Should we be grateful to God for sparing us, for not having us thrown around and killed by the tornado, or should we be annoyed at him for sending it down in the first place?”
“If you’re serious and not teasing, I’ll tell you what I think,” Virginia said. She had borrowed a cardigan from Lola and was hugging herself with it. “I think that how you feel is your business, and you—I mean, one—should probably try to feel whatever makes you most happy.”
“No argument in that,” Lola said.
Maureen said, “But according to you, Virginia, why does God test us all the time with fires and floods and famines and diseases? If a god made us and loves us, then why does he give us grief with stuff like cancer and deformed children?”
“The profundity of the soused,” Howdy said.
“I’m not soused yet,” Maureen said. “I was just thinking that if Violet treated her gerbil the way God treats us—like cutting off its arms and blinding it just to test if the thing had faith or not—then we’d be furious. And I just wonder what the fuck we did that we deserve to have our brains screwed out by a tornado.”
“I think Violet did indeed kill that gerbil,” Howdy said. “But that’s immaterial. I alwa
ys believed the junk about living by the sword, then dying by the sword. And if your life is like a tornado in many ways, Maureen, then there you go. That’s what you get. Just based on what I know of your life, I’d’ve been terrified of that storm.”
“That is superstitious assholeness,” Maureen said.
“Take it or leave it,” Howdy said.
Maureen fetched herself a fresh drink.
“We’re all weary,” Virginia said. “It’s making us say foolish things. Something about the sameness of the summer days is fatiguing us.”
Lola said, “I put it in a poem for Professor Riley’s class. I wrote: ‘I awaken to the scorching heat and wonder where the days are going. But oh how blue is that August sky.’”
“Bravo!” Chris said.
“What’s the matter with all of you?” Maureen said. “You’re talking about sameness? We were just nearly stamped out by a merciless act of nature.”
“Tornadoes are pretty common, Mo,” Howdy said. “Aren’t you used to them by now?”
Virginia said, “It’s not a bad idea to be ever aware of the possibility of death.”
“I’m going back to bed,” Maureen said.
“I often ask myself,” Virginia went on, “what would I do right now if God spoke to me and told me I had only an hour left? The answer is, I’d sit still right where I am.”
“Then you’re a dope,” Lola said.
“I’d drink and smoke,” Chris said.
“I’d go to a doctor,” Stephanie said.
“No, it’s too late for a doctor,” Howdy said. “He can’t save you now.”
Stephanie shrugged and Chris grinned into his shirt front.
“Hey, please,” Howdy said to him.
“I’ve missed something,” Maureen said.
“Jesus loved a good joke,” Virginia said.
“Why does everyone say that?” Maureen said. “The only joke I ever heard of Jesus telling was that time when Paul or somebody said he was a fisherman by trade, and Jesus said, ‘I am, too. I fish for souls.’”
“A howl,” Howdy said.
“Shecky Jesus,” Chris said.
Violet appeared in the doorway. She wore still another clean suit of clothes, a Buddy Bear T-shirt and a pair of red jeans.
“Out!” Maureen said to her. “Stay the hell out! The conversation in here’s unfit for a kid.”
Violet ran away.
“Are you really going back to bed, Maureen?” Chris said. “Because I’m heading home if you’re just going back to bed.”
“Before anyone takes his leave,” Virginia said, “I’d like to announce something. All of you know that Mr. Cleveland and I have talked about a wedding. It’s now officially declared. We’ll be wed on the twentieth, here, upstairs in the piano room. That’s if everything goes right this month.”
“How about I head home with you?” Maureen said.
“Me?” Chris said.
“Yeah, you,” Maureen said.
“Good heavens,” Virginia said.
24
Well, well, a cleanish car.”
“Don’t look in the back,” Chris said.
“Aw, and your radio’s broken. When did that happen?” Maureen said.
“Just today,” Chris said. “There are some tapes under your seat, though. A few that aren’t bad.”
“These! You had these when I knew you.” Maureen had put her head nearly to the floor and was searching with both hands.
“Dig behind the front ones,” Chris said. “They’re old.” He pushed the sliding knobs for the heating system.
“Hey, I’m down here,” Maureen said as the heater blowers threw odor and dust.
Violet bustled purposefully out of the garage. She broke into a run—her legs pounding and her short arms churning. At the same moment, the blue front doors opened and Lola’s head showed.
“Wow!” Maureen was saying to Chris. “Every song Sam Cooke ever recorded.”
“Go back!” Chris shouted. “You’re not coming, Vi. Damn it, you’re supposed to stay with Howdy!” Chris put the car in reverse and let it roll backward on the drive. “Goddamn Howdy’s ass. He swore to me.”
“Hold it, hold it,” Maureen said. “Let’s find out what’s up.”
Violet shot past them on Maureen’s side, then whirled and palmed the window glass as Maureen was cranking it down.
“What, baby?” Maureen said.
“The lights went off,” Violet said. “Please don’t drive away.”
Maureen called to Lola, “Is the electricity off?”
Lola bobbed her chin, stepped onto the porch, and stood arms akimbo.
“What a drag,” Maureen said. She patted Violet’s hand. “I believed you. Well,” she said to Chris, “that’s it. There’s no point in me going to your hotel. Not in sheer blackness.”
“It’s still afternoon,” Chris said. “It won’t be dark for five hours.”
Maureen was nodding drunkenly at Violet. “What’s really the matter?” she was asking.
Chris exhaled impatience.
“Grandpa yelled at us,” Violet said. “Because the air conditioner went off.”
“He yelled?” Maureen said. “God! As if it was your fault.”
“There,” Chris said. The electricity had come back on, and the half-dozen porch lights that had been kept working for the storm brightened in an arch over Lola.
“Now we got it,” Lola called, pointing up at the lights.
Virginia and Howdy, looking out from under the window shades, waved and gestured.
“Violet,” Maureen said, “how about settling down now, okay, hon? You can go back in, watch some programs, and read the funnies. You can be with Uncle Howdy and Steph and do something they’re doing.”
“Couldn’t I get in with you and Dad for a minute?” Violet said. “And get warm?”
“I hate to say this,” Chris said, “but I’m running out of gas.”
“All right,” Maureen said. “Listen, Vi, you just have to train yourself to ignore your grandpa. Refuse to hear what he says, okay? You want to snooze on my bed? You can play around with the stuff in my room, and set your hair on my hot curlers.”
“Yeah!” Violet said, and she charged back up the drive.
Chris let go of the brakes and drove off in reverse.
“Now let’s just think a second,” Maureen said.
“I can’t,” he said. “I’m nearly on empty.” He twisted in his seat to sight where he was driving. He backed clear of the entrance gates and careened down Charity Way. “Those tools back there were the first big purchase I made with my lottery dough. They’re really good.”
“Up until a day ago,” Maureen said, “you were a missing person who didn’t give a damn about Violet or me. You weren’t a bit interested.”
“Yes, I was. I was interested.”
“I was going to say, that you weren’t concerned about me or whatever I was enduring—good or bad. I could have gotten married and had two and a half more kids.”
Chris said, “I called you a hundred thousand times. In fact, if anybody ever wants to find out what happened to my fortune, that’s what—I plugged it into pay phones.”
“Yes? Why pay phones, Chris? I’ve always meant to ask. You mysteriously never called when—for however long it was—you were a guest of Quebec. And when you called from Montreal, you were usually in a phone booth in a restaurant. Maybe you didn’t count on me hearing the racket in the background. Anyway, you never called from where you were living. I wonder what that was about. Big riddle.” She had selected one of the cassettes. She shoved it into the tape deck. Over the music, Maureen said, “I have no idea why I suggested leaving the house with you. I think because of Howdy. But I don’t know why because of Howdy. This is pointless.”
“All I know is I’m running out of gas,” Chris said.
“Then get some or turn off the engine!”
25
The road was striped with reflections. Deep puddles stood on th
e asphalt. Chris boomed through the puddles and each time the noisy, soft collision of car with water startled Maureen. They moved beside a swelling river.
“Why did you come back here, I wonder,” she said.
“I wonder, too.”
“Like this was home base or something. Like it’s the safe tree in running bases.”
“Just a place,” Chris said. “And here’s something I’ll tell you. When you go away from here, the place disappears. Whoosh. Gone.”
“This town ought to be named Ground Zero,” she said. “Every few steps, something blows up in your face.”
“It’s not that interesting a town. You’re just a fish fascinated by the bowl. No one cares about this town. Only you.”
“It’s my town.”
The river out the window twinkled white in the premature twilight. The water got wider and turned into a reservoir backed up by a cement dam, which they drove across. They came to a village of shops. Maureen gasped. In the central parking court, blue emergency lights whipped the air from the tops of fire trucks and police cars. The front of a Burger Villa had been caved in by a felled tree. The sign for the Highlander Cleaners was splintered and knocked down. The Waffle Palace had lost all the plate glass on one side. The roof of a fabric shop lay in sections across the parking lot. Rubber trash cans were scattered around.
“Hot dog,” Chris said. “They really took it on the chin here.”
“I feel sorry for the waffle-place guy,” Maureen said.
Chris found a wine store still open among this and that destroyed edifice. He came out of the store hugging two cartons of Canadian ale and a sack of Cheez Doodles.
“I shouldn’t eat this filth,” Maureen said. “It’s no better than packing material. It’s a chemical invention, really. Not food in any sense of the word.”
“Actually, they’re good,” Chris said.
Maureen munched on the Cheez Doodles and used the buckle of her loose seat belt to pry off the cap on a bottle of ale. At a stoplight, Chris thumbed orange salt from the corners of her mouth. Maureen said, “Don’t overdo the gallantry, Chris. I see right through you.”
