Starr Bright Will Be With You Soon

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Lily was speaking quickly, pleadingly; never had she spoken at such length to her sister; but Sharon, pacing about, smoking her cigarette and giving off a hectic, perfumy heat, hadn’t been listening closely. Strands of dry, ashy hair had escaped from her chignon; creases bracketed her mouth. She said, “God, I despise myself for not coming back in time! And now Daddy is gone forever. And Momma. I loved them so.” Tears flashed in her eyes, glittering like the gold chain around her neck, and the cruel silver clamp in her ear. “It’s just—my life is so complicated. Not like yours, Lily: I envy you! I had to take my chances when they came. You can’t let personal life get in the way. It’s like a—cruise ship casting off, and you’re in danger of being left behind. A minute too late and you’re on the dock staring after. Oh, Lily, you can’t know how easy it is not to exist.” Sharon spoke excitedly, bitterly. Yet glancing at Lily to see how Lily was affected. She said, “Now God has run me to earth, Lily. I’m burnt out, exhausted. But God has His plans for me, He has determined not to allow me to rest but to make of ‘Starr Bright’ a scourge of sin, evil—emissaries of Satan. To repay Him for my wickedness when I was young.”

  Lily was perplexed, troubled. There was something in her sister’s vehement words that struck her. “What do you mean, ‘Starr Bright’? Why do you speak of her?”

  Sharon frowned, and stared into a corner of the room as if into the distance.

  “Did I say ‘Starr Bright’? I didn’t.”

  “‘To make of myself a scourge of sin, emissaries of Satan’—? How? I don’t understand.”

  Sharon changed the subject abruptly. She said, smiling sadly, “I used to be so young, Lily! Both of us—so young! Remember, you played the organ, and I sang at the front of the church and everyone stared at me, I was an ‘angel’ in their eyes. I could see myself in your eyes—all of you. Remember—” And Sharon began suddenly to sing, turning her eyes upward in a gesture of innocence too unstudied to be mocking or ironic, these familiar words:

  “Rock of Ages, cleft for me!

  Let me hide myself in Thee!

  Let the water and the blood

  That from Thy wounded side doth flow …”

  Her voice trailed off, husky and cracked as if it had been unused for years. Lily was shocked at her sister’s coarsened voice. Why, she can’t be a singer any longer. Her voice is gone.

  Sharon said, as if reading Lily’s thoughts, “Lily, I’m run to earth. That’s why I’ve come to you. God has run me to earth.” Lily stood, and gripped Sharon by the shoulders. In her stocking feet, Sharon was Lily’s height exactly. Yet how frail, how defeated she looked; how tired, ravaged; hiding her face in her hands. Lily said gently, “You can stay with me, Sharon. You can rest. You do seem tired—exhausted. You’re welcome here, as long as you want.”

  “It isn’t just that,” Sharon said, shivering, “—but—also—someone is after me. Stalking me.”

  “Someone is after you—? My God, Sharon, who?”

  “He won’t find me here with you, maybe. He thinks I’m a thousand miles away.”

  “But—who is it?”

  Sharon shrugged weakly, as if it would do no good to name the man; as if his presence were ubiquitous, yet invisible. She lowered her voice. “A man. Death.”

  Lily said, frightened, “But—what do you mean? ‘Death’?”

  In a faint childlike voice Sharon said almost inaudibly, “Lily, you’re all I have left in the world. Don’t turn me away.”

  “Sharon! Of course not.”

  Lily embraced Sharon, hard. Her heart was pounding with certainty, elation. She held her weeping sister thinking Yes, you’re safe with me, I am strong enough, I will show you.

  4

  “Starr Bright”

  Not on the first evening of her visit but on the second, when she was feeling stronger, Sharon joined the Merricks for dinner.

  When Lily returned home that day from a hurried afternoon of appointments, with groceries for the evening meal, there, to her surprise, was her sister in the kitchen. Smiling nervously at her, almost shyly.

  As if she feared trespassing in Lily’s territory, Sharon said, hesitantly, “Lily, remember that ‘Mexican’ chicken casserole Momma used to make? I saw you have some canned tomatoes in the cupboard, and rice, and chili powder—” Lily laughed, setting her bag of groceries on the counter. “And here’s the chicken, and lots of other things. Let’s get started.”

  It was as Lily had hoped but not as she’d expected.

  My sister, visiting for a few days. Yes, we have so much to catch up on. Yes, we’ve always been very close.

  Lily saw that, without makeup, Sharon’s face was startlingly pale and sallow. But the deep shadows beneath her eyes were less conspicuous; she’d been able, she said gratefully, to sleep through much of the night—“Such wonderful quiet here!” Her eyes were quick-darting and still finely netted with blood; enormous in her thin face. She wore casual clothes: a black jersey blouse, a red silk scarf tied tightly about her hair, slacks of some oddly shimmering silvery-beige fabric. In flat-heeled sandals, working in the familiar space of Lily’s kitchen, Sharon looked both sophisticated and almost ordinary.

  All that morning and afternoon Lily had been thinking of what Sharon had told her the previous evening. Someone is after me. Stalking me. A man. Death. She felt a sensation of dread, perplexity. Each time she’d tried to bring up the subject again, Sharon had managed to deflect it.

  And now Deedee was with them, a cheery, enlivening presence.

  Rare, Lily thought, bemused, for Deedee to be so enthusiastic about working in the kitchen, helping prepare a meal. Yet today, Deedee had volunteered to make dessert. She plied her aunt Sharon with questions—“I suppose you eat in restaurants all the time? When you’re dancing?”—“Do people bother you, asking for autographs after a performance?”—“What do you think about when you dance, or is your mind filled just with the music?”

  Deedee’s aunt Sharon was circumspect in replying. As if, here in Yewville, her other life was distant to her, not very real.

  In turn, Sharon drew Deedee out with questions about her life. Lily was surprised that Deedee answered so freely, and with such unexpected idealism. She told Sharon things she’d never told her parents: her hope of “traveling around the world someday, and keeping a photographic journal”—“making a contribution to society”—“writing poetry.” It was touching to see how, in her glamorous aunt’s presence, Deedee was so positive, vibrant, hopeful.

  Proudly Deedee reported that her classmates had been asking about “the blond woman in the taxi who looked like a model or an actress”—but she hadn’t identified Sharon except to say that Sharon was a friend of her mother’s visiting for a few days. That was all.

  Sharon leaned over to kiss Deedee’s cheek, in gratitude. “Thank you, Deirdre. How thoughtful of you.”

  Sharon had made Lily, too, promise not to tell anyone she was back. In a day or two, Sharon said, she might telephone some old friends, relatives … or maybe not.

  Of course Lily had agreed. She would have agreed to virtually anything Sharon requested, to please her, to allay her fears. Always there was something satisfying, even exciting, about a secret with someone both strong-willed and helpless-seeming like Sharon.

  Even when you didn’t quite know what the secret was, or might mean. What unknown obligations it might put you under.

  The evening before, Sharon had been too exhausted, she’d said, even to meet Wes. She hadn’t had any appetite for food but wanted only to soak in a hot bath, and go to bed early.

  Well, maybe she’d have just a little to eat, if Lily didn’t mind bringing her some fruit, cheese, bread. (Lily didn’t of course.) And the rest of the wine they’d opened?

  When Wes had come home, bringing a bouquet of long-stemmed white and red roses, he’d been surprised and disappointed to hear that his sister-in-law wasn’t going to have dinner with them that night. “Is she sick?” he asked.

  Lily bridled at the w
ord “sick.” It seemed somehow too blunt, vulgar; it could not suggest Sharon’s fragile emotional and psychological state. “Not ‘sick,’ Wes,” Lily said reprovingly. “Spiritually exhausted, I think.”

  Deedee explained that her aunt had traveled a long distance—from Seattle to Buffalo by plane, from Buffalo to Yewville by bus.

  “Strange,” Wes said, “she didn’t call first. To let us know.”

  Wes was right, of course; yet Lily rather resented him passing judgment on her sister, about whom he knew nothing. That Sharon was desperate, fearing for her life—had no one to turn to, except Lily.

  Run to earth. God has run me to earth.

  Stalking me. A man. Death.

  No, Lily wouldn’t confide in Wes, about Sharon’s secret. Until such time, if ever, that Sharon gave her permission. It would be their secret, among others of old.

  Rose of Sharon, Lily of the Valley.

  They were to have dinner in the dining room, by candlelight. A ceremonial occasion after all. Lily felt exhilarated as a young girl thinking I miss a larger family, I have love enough for—more.

  When Lily introduced them, Wes and Sharon shook hands formally, rather shyly. Clearly, Wes was surprised at the woman he was meeting: judging by the glossy “Sherrill” photos he’d seen, and what he’d heard of Sharon over the years, he’d expected a glamorous, hard-edged person, and here was Sharon in her subdued, deferential, intensely feminine mode—her pale blond hair in a sleek chignon at the nape of her lovely neck, her clothes dark, sophisticated but conservative; a single gold chain glittering around her neck; small gold studs in her ears. Her face was pale, without makeup except for a light coral lipstick that gave her a youthful, vulnerable look, at least by candlelight.

  His face flushed, Wes told Sharon how good it was to meet her, at last—“I’ve been hearing lots of things about you.” And Sharon said, warmly, “And I’ve been hearing, from Lily and Deedee, lots of things, very nice things, about you, Wes.”

  A perfect answer. In Sharon’s throaty, sexy voice. His name intimate as a caress: “Wes.”

  Sharon presented Wes with a gift, a small box wrapped in bright tinselly paper. Self-consciously Wes opened it to discover, of all things—cuff links. Lily hoped that neither Wes nor Deedee would make an awkward joke about the fact that Wes Merrick had never owned a shirt with French cuffs in his life, but Wes managed to thank Sharon sincerely enough. As if no other gift would have pleased him quite as much.

  The cuff links were platinum gold with matching pearls on one side and the engraved initials W M on the other. Wes said, “‘W M’—that’s me, I guess,” and Sharon said, “I hope you like them, Wes. I had them especially engraved for you.”

  An odd remark, Lily would recall afterward. But so many of Sharon’s remarks were odd.

  Lily was more troubled that the cuff links were so expensive a gift: did her sister really have that kind of money? Many of her things, Lily couldn’t help but notice, were worn, frayed, even stained—though of high quality. And there was some ambiguity, about which Lily hadn’t wished to question her, about exactly where Sharon was living.

  Dinner went well, at least initially. The Mexican chicken was declared a great success. (Though Lily noticed that Sharon managed to eat only a portion of her serving.) Deedee took part in the adults’ conversation in a manner that made Lily proud of her; and she looked transformed—her hair neatly brushed; fingernails cleaned and filed; wearing not her usual shapeless jeans, but a wool skirt and a white turtleneck sweater, and the striking Navajo necklace Sharon had given her. (Which Wes admired, too.) In emulation of Sharon’s model posture, Deedee was even making an effort not to slouch as she usually did, sullenly self-conscious of her breasts; she smiled, not scowled, when Lily asked her how school had been that day. And Wes, though unaccustomed to guests at dinner, as to strangers in his household, was warm and engaged and welcoming to his mysterious sister-in-law.

  Of course, Sharon was deftly flattering, subtle in her seductiveness. Lily had to admire her, though they were such very different people.

  Fixing him with her somber eyes, Sharon said, “Tell me about your work, Wes. Your houses. It must be magical, building houses for people to live in.”

  Wes laughed, embarrassed. “It’s magical when people pay me on time. That I appreciate.”

  Sharon said, leaning forward earnestly, “Yes, but you are doing something real in the world. Your work isn’t just an idea—or shares in the stock market or—a performance. ‘All flesh is grass, and the goodliness thereof.’ But a house is real and human beings are affected by it and you are contributing to human happiness, Wes, and that’s why I believe it’s magical.”

  No one spoke like this in Yewville: nor in such a throaty, dramatic manner. Wes and Deedee gaped at Sharon, charmed. Lily smiled, thinking she hadn’t heard Sharon speak like this since the evening of the Starr Bright Youth Talent Search 1972 when, before singing, Rose of Sharon Donner had introduced herself to the audience, utterly captivating them with her sweet Christian-girl idealism.

  Wes was encouraged to talk about his work, his favorites among the area houses he’d been hired to restore; his ambitious plans for the future. Lily learned a few things she hadn’t known and Deedee, eager to be included in the conversation, said, with childlike enthusiasm, “Aunt Sharon, we can take a tour of Daddy’s houses while you’re here. There must be twenty really nice ones in town. And some new houses, too, on the River Road.”

  Wes said, dryly, “The money’s in new houses, I’m afraid, not restorations. And in government contracts—which are out of my league.”

  Sharon sympathized. It must be so unpredictable, frustrating, to be in the construction business—“You never know how the economy might change.” A Miami friend of hers, she said, had made millions of dollars building condominiums in the real estate boom in the 1980’s—at least $100 million—and then, virtually overnight, the condos stopped selling, there was a glut on the market and even today many buildings are partially empty. “Last I heard, he had to declare bankruptcy.”

  There was a moment’s startled silence. Deedee shifted in her chair and murmured, “Wow! One hundred million dollars.” Wes laughed wryly, pouring more wine into Sharon’s and his emptied glasses. “That’s out of Merrick, Inc.’s league, for sure.”

  Lily said quickly, to deflect the subject from such daunting sums of money, “I don’t really understand it but, in construction and real estate, doesn’t everything depend upon the interest rate? When it’s low, business is good; when it’s high—”

  Wes said, trying to be affable and not bitter-sounding, “You’re screwed.”

  Deedee giggled reprovingly. “Dad-dy.”

  “No other word for it: screw-ed.”

  They talked about the economy and Lily was uneasy, hearing Wes so vehement, sardonic; she hadn’t known the extent of his bitterness. He was telling Sharon that the Federal Reserve sets the interest rate—“As guided by the big American money-men. The men who don’t pay a penny in taxes. It isn’t God on his throne who sets the rates.”

  Inevitably then they spoke of real estate in the Eden Valley, and in western New York generally. The region had been in a recession for some time; many factories had been shut down in Buffalo, Tonawanda, Port Oriskany. As for farmland—

  Sharon said suddenly, to Lily, “And how is—the family farm?”

  Lily had never heard the property described in such a way. Never in her memory had her parents’ fifteen acres of rocky, partly wooded land adjacent to Reverend Donner’s church been tilled except for Mrs. Donner’s small vegetable garden. Awkwardly Lily said, “Well, you know, Sharon—it’s gone. Sold. After Daddy died.”

  “Sold?”

  Sharon stared at Lily. She did not appear to be acting, but utterly sincere. In the candlelight her eyes looked enormous, black with pupil as a cat’s. Lily explained that she’d told Sharon, certainly; after their mother’s illness, and then their father’s, there were so many medical bills, and taxe
s on the property—“We would have loved to keep it but we had no choice, really.”

  “Lily, it isn’t ours? It belongs to strangers? The Donner family farm?”

  Lily said, faltering, “Sharon, I’m sure I told you,” and Wes intervened, saying, “By the time your father died he was deeply in debt, Sharon. The land in Shaheen was sold for taxes and the old houses and outbuildings razed. I arranged for the sale, and I believe I got a good, fair price from a local farmer.”

  Sharon wiped tears from her eyes. Saying, to Lily, “But—it’s gone? The house we grew up in? I dream of it so often, it’s so real to me, I can’t believe this—”

  Lily apologized, guiltily, “Sharon, I’m so sorry. I thought I’d notified you, all along. It’s what Daddy wanted, at the end. We—Wes and I—didn’t feel we had any—”

  “What about the church?” Sharon asked, suddenly sarcastic as a hurt child. “Has the ‘First Church of Christ of Shaheen’ been sold and razed, too?”