by Andy Schell
The crowd gives one of those pathetically sad, “Oh” mixed
with “Ah” sounds, as if the flashing signs now say, SYMPATHY
NOISE.
Donald continues. “But from what we understand, the damage was mild, and Grandmother Stone will be back to the horse races and her book club in no time. We must tell you, the Stones, with their kindest regards, have had their accountant send a blank check to cover the cost of this entire event.”
The crowd is silent, but awash with impressed and approving looks.
I look over at Amity, and she looks back with slight nervousness and shrugs.
“Which we cannot accept,” Donald adds.
Amity’s shoulders fall as she exhales, relieved.
The room is peppered with several agreements of, “Of course not. ‘
Donald takes a check from his pocket and tears it in hall then drops it to the floor. “Now, we want to do something special for these fine young people. Hart’y, Amity, will you please come up here?”
Amity sets her champagne glass down and dons that same look she wore when collecting her award at the airline ceremony. Pulling me up as she rises, she lets me take over, play the big man leading his fiancee to the forefront of people’s affections. As we make our way, the band plays a few bars of Chopin’s funeral march. The crowd laughs. My mother good-naturedly shakes her fist at the band, and they stop the music, then launch into “We’ve Only Just Begun.” More rehearsed laughs. It’s getting so trite that Rogers and Hammerstein are going to have to change the line to “I’m as corny as Kansas in September.”
“Harry and Amity,” my mother says, nervous to be speaking into a microphone, “I would like to present you with something that has been in our family for three generations.” She opens a small velvet box, revealing a diamond-and-emerald ring of exquisite
beauty. “Amity, this was my mother’s engagement ring, and her mother’s before that.”
I look to the side of the room, where Winston and his date sit far apart, When Winston sees me he scoots closer to her and takes her hand, almost frightening her. He looks at me, at the ring, then at Amity. If he had a gun, he’d shoot the diamonds out of my mother’s hands.
My mother continues. “Since I have no daughters…” I expect Winston to crack a joke, and obviously she does too because she barrels on. “I want you to have this ring and to become the fourth generation owner and, may I say, the most beautiful girl to wear it yet.” She hands me the ring while Amity mouths a tearful thank you to my mother the way a pageant winner does as she first walks the runway with her new crown. “Harry,” my mother finishes, “you may present the ring.”
When I was in college, I did a scene from King Lear in which I played the king himself. I assure you, I look nothing like anyone who’s ever played the character, nor do I have an accomplished voice or venerable manner. But I pulled it off, out of true commitment to the character. And that’s what I do now. Commit. I take the ring, while smiling at Amity, and hold the diamonds into the light, letting them sparkle across her face. My mother places the microphone in my free hand, and I begin. “Amity, I feel so honored to have met you. I don’t know what my life would be like today if we hadn’t been brought together on this earth.” By that other gold digger, Matthew, on the day he dumped me. Stop it, I tell myself. Concentrate. Look deep into her eyes. “I was lost, and you know it, until I met you. I didn’t know what direction to take in life. But when I was down, you were there.” Concentrate, Harry. “And now we’re here tonight, less than one month away from sealing our fates together.” Squeeze her hand. Kiss her on the cheek. Her eyes are misting up .. is it the cocaine? Is she going to
sneeze? Never mind. Get on your knees like those idiots in the movies.
“Amity,” I say on bended knee, “I present to you, my future bride, this ring. From my family. From my heart.”
She smiles and cries like Miss America, and as I rise to place it on her finger, the crowd contributes its tasteful applause while the band plays a jazz version of “Heart and Soul.” She nearly has to push her eyes back into their sockets when she flashes those diamonds and emeralds for the crowd. I remember how she told me that, if we ever got married, all she wanted was a thin gold band. My ass. I’d have to saw her finger off to take back this ring.
After dinner, the lights go off and the band strikes up the “Wil liam Tell Overture” and the waiters come out in a line, carrying silver trays of flaming baked Alaska over their heads. They turn and snake through the entire dining room to great applause. I look across the table to my grandmother. Her eyes are sparkling in awe as she claps like a happy little child while the flaming desserts streak by in the dark, and for the first time tonight, I’m content. It heals my confused heart to see her smiling and clapping, oblivious to the subterfuge that brought this night to fruition. When she looks across the table at me, she stops clapping and nudges my uncle and whispers to him. He reaches into his breast pocket and produces a pen, and she takes it from him and writes something on the linen napkin she’s pulled from her lap. Folding the pen into the napkin, she hands the napkin to my uncle and motions for him to discreetly pass it on in my direction.
It arrives from under the table on my right while Amity, to my left, applauds with the rest of the guests. I slowly unfold the napkin and look into my lap to read: “Are you happy?” I use the pen to scribble my response, given without hesitation. “No.” And then I pass it back as discreetly as it came to me.
When the lights come back up, Amity is gone. Probably to the ladies’ room to shove some more coca leaf powder up her nose.
But when I look over to Uncle Jack and Aunt Shirley’s table, where Winston and his date are sitting, I see that Winston is also missing. A doubtful coincidence. I stand to excuse myself, and before I leave the table I see that my grandmother is holding up another napkin, her message written in plain block letters: “TO THINE OWN SELF
BE TRUE.”
I look at her and shrug, as if it’s too late, then step away from the table. Before I leave the dining room, I walk toward the center of the room, letting people congratulate me as I pass by, and when I reach the speaking area where earlier I proposed on bended knee, I reach down and grab the torn check. When a few people notice, I make a joke. “She’ll want to tape it back together and head to Maxwell-Grey!” Ha ha ha.
Barbie Botter calls out to me. “Is is true you’ll be honeymooning in the Seychelles?”
“Of course!” I call over my shoulder. Where in the hell did she come up with that? I ascend the two steps to the top level of the dining room and wind my way out, piecing the check together. Kim Park is the account holder, and it’s definitely made out in Amity’s “Princess Modern” handwriting. She stole a check from Kim and forged it banking on the fact that my mother would never cash it. I stuff the pieces of the check into my pocket.
If Amity and Winston are together, I’m sure they’re in the TV room. I quietly approach the door and put my ear to it. Muted voices. A man and a woman. I slowly pull it open and peek inside. Children are frozen, two to a big cushy chair, staring at the flickering light of the TV screen while The A-Team thwarts a sabotage plot. The children, set free after dinner, are transfixed by the excitement of the small screen. They slurp their Shirley Temples with a frenetic pace that parallels the plot and root for Mr. T. If I weren’t on a mission, I’d be happy to stay here with the innocents, but I’ve got a sabotage plot of my own to thwart.
I leave the TV room and head back across the edge of the dining
room, through a hallway, and approach the men’s card room. Again I hear voices. But no woman’s voice. I stop at the doorway and steal a look inside. Fat cats my father’s age are murmuring to each other, shaking hands, making an illegal business deal, no doubt. One takes two cigars from his breast pocket, and they start to light up. I hate the smell of cigars. I leave.
Maybe Winston and Amity actually went to the bathroom at the same time. I enter the men’s and Bob Valent
ine is at the urinal. “Have you seen my brother?” I ask.
He laughs with contempt, shakes his dick clean, and goes to the mirror.
“How about my big sister?” I ask.
He fusses with his thinning hair. “Your sister’s in the coat room with her future brother-in-law, Nicolo.”
God, this is all getting confusing. “Thanks,” I tell him. “It’s too bad we both turned out to be jerks.”
I walk down the hall again, toward the coat-check room, where I notice the coat-check girl standing nervously in the hallway outside of her station. She starts to speak, but I put my finger to my lips, telling her to shush. I open her little Dutch door, soil conducting her to silence with my finger, and hear the two voices.
“Are you crazy?” I hear Winston ask. “I’m offering you your freedom and two million dollars. What more do you want?”
“Harry,” Amity says. Is she talking to me? I freeze. How am I going to confront them both at once? I’m not ready. “I want Harry,” she tells him. “We’re in love.” My heart is in my throat, but I realize she hasn’t seen me. I duck behind a fur coat, grabbing its hanger to mute any noise. The fur is soft on my face, but it smells like mothballs. I’d prefer the smell of the cigars. Slowly, one-sixteenth of an inch at a time, I slide the coat over the rod, until I have a tiny frame of the two of them.
“You’re more full of shit than that stupid horse of his. I know what you think you’re doing, having this little agreement with my nmm| my
brother. But I’m telling you, it’ll never happen. I know Harry. He won’t go through with it. He’s in love with Nicolo. You said so yourself to my mother, no doubt because you were worried he’d leave you. You should worry. We’re Fords. We know how to take care of ourselves. This little quest for money isn’t his style. If he thinks he’ll lose Nicolo, he’ll call off the wedding . I’m sure of it. And you’ll be left with nothing.” He holds out a business card.
“And you’ll be left with everything. And there would be no problems for you,” Amity points out, refusing the card. “So I don’t think you’re sure of it at all,” she claims, giving him her best John Belushi eyebrow. “Or you wouldn’t be offering me this little bribe.”
“Let’s just call it an insurance marker. Don’t be foolish. Take it. Even if you win the gamble and he marries you, by the time you divorce him. two months later, I presume our lawyers will be ready to destroy you, and you’ll walk away with far less than I’m offering you now. Why put yourself through it? Besides, shouldn’t he ride off into the sunset with his true love? If you love him, like I do, you should want to see him happy. Or are you more interested in your own happiness?”
“Scoundrels like you are horsewhipped in Texas,” she says, throwing her shoulders back.
“Cut the Southern crap, Amy.” Amity steps back, and she looks as if she’s been slapped on the face. Winston continues. “Amy Stubbs. Surely you didn’t think I wouldn’t investigate your cave clan, Amy. Your grandmother’s had a stroke, my ass. She’s a pig farmer from Waco. The Stubbses didn’t even know they were invited tonight. And even if they had, they probably wouldn’t have arrived in time, considering they probably travel by pack mule.”
“My name is Amity Stone,” Amity says, her voice shaking. “Legally.”
“You can change your name,” Winston snarls, “but you’ll always be Amy
Stubbs, trailer trash from Waco. Shoplifting misdemeanors, hot checks, and booked on possession. My mother will never find you suitable.”
Amity’s eyes are blurred with tears. “I’m in love with your brother and we’re going to have a wedding,” she states. But then she cautiously takes the card from my brother’s hand and tucks it into her cleavage.
“Good gift. Now go home and change the lines in your little script and call me when you’re ready to make a deal.”
I suck my stomach in and smash myself against the cloak room wall. Winston leaves first, and in a few seconds, after she composes herself, Amity glides out. I wait another minute before I exit myself, mothballs burning my nasal linings. I slip the coat room girl a twenty dollar bill probably her third bill in two minutes.
“What a grand evening!” my mother trumpets, walking through the front door of the house.
“What a grand evening,” Amity echoes. “Thank you, Susan and Donald. This evening was a fairy tale. I only wish you’d have let my parents pay for this.”
“You never told me about their offer,” I interrupt.
“I know you wouldn’t have allowed it, Harry,” she says. “No, he wouldn’t,” my mother says. “None of us would.”
“If only Winston and Patty were staying here with us,” Amity glows, “we’d all be together.”
“Yes. They were more comfortable in a hotel this time,” Donald says, greatly relieved.
Amity and I head out to our room and peel ourselves out of our smoke-infested party clothes. I keep my underwear on, but Amity is naked. I kiss her poison cheek and head into the bathroom to brush my teeth. She follows me, puts the lid down on the toilet, and pees. “Harry, I have to tell you something.”
“Yes?” I garble, my mouth full of spearmint toothpaste. “Winston came to me tonight.”
Did she see me hiding in the coat room? Is that why she’s
how she duped me to begin with. and probably all the other guys too by always being so painfully honest. I look angered, stop brushing, my teeth, and slam my toothbrush down. “What happened I ask, spitting the paste out of my mouth.
“He’s concerned that you still might be in love with Nicolo. Don’t ask me how he knows,” she says, winding the toilet paper around her hand about ten times rather than pulling off a few squares the way she usually does. “Your mother must have told him about
Nicolo, and now he’s afraid you might call off the wedding.” “Why would he care? He has everything to gain.”
She wipes herself and flushes the toilet. “But he does care, Bubba. Oh, he acts mean and nasty around you, but he tells me he loves you, and since he knows you want to receive your inheritance, he’s worried that you might forfeit the whole thing just for Nicolo.”
I can’t believe she’s saying this shit, twisting the conversation, substituting the wrong pronouns again, misrepresenting my brother misrepresentations. She’s worded that I might forfeit the whole thing for Nicolo. “I assure you, he hopes I give it all up for Nicolo,” I tell her, bringing the first amount of truth to this barren table. “He’s even tried to bribe me.”
She pulls her toothbrush from her toiletry kit. “Bribe you?” she asks calmly. “How?” She slowly puts some paste on her brush, but her hands are shaking.
I can see she’s blown out of the water. “Yes, he offered to buy Nicolo and me a house, a second car, even give me back my horse. And throw in some junk bonds on top of that. If I call off the wedding with you and flee with Nicolo.”
“G’yaw, Harry. What ” She stops.
“What am I going to do?” I wash my hands.
She shrugs and starts brushing her teeth.
“Of course I told him to fuck off. He thinks he can throw me a few crumbs while he walks away with the cake. Forget it. We
said we would be honest with each other, me and you, and play this thing out, and that’s what I intend to do. Besides, Nicolo doesn’t love me and you do.”
She brushes her teeth delicately, as if she’s in pain—which I know is impossible since the cocaine has probably numbed her entire mouth. Meaning, I’ve gotten through to her. She spits, rinses. I wait to see if she comes clean, admits that Winston is playing us both against each other. “Do you love Nicolo?” she asks.
I’m stunned. I didn’t think my feelings for Nicolo entered into her equation. “What does it matter?” I tell her, drying my hands.
“We’re getting married . you and I.”
“It matters,” she says.
“Yes,” I tell her, unable to lie about it. “I do. I love him. But the guy hates me. He doesn’t want to see me. So I
’m not going to chase him around like some pathetic puppy dog. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.” That’s one of her lines..I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. “We’ll be married and have lots of money so we can see whomever we want. What’s the problem?”
I watch the tension evaporate from her face as she relaxes, stands, and takes my hand. Then she squints, as if looking far off into the distance at something very beautiful. “He shouldn’t worry. None of us should. This is all going to turn out great.” Grite. Her hair is naturally as blond as the ripest wheat. Her breasts are perfect little margarine cups. Her stomach is as flat as a kitchen counter. Her waist is so narrow you can practically put your hands around it and have your fingertips touch. And it’s apparent that she has no intention of telling me about Winston’s two-million-dollar offer, which means her little bush of light brown pubic hair is waxed into a perfect little V for victory. Victory over Winston, and victory over me.
CHAPTEH
TWENTY-THREE
acqueline and I are driving in my car to the Highland Park Cafeteria. I check the rearview mirror often because my driver’ s side mirror was torn off when Amity borrowed the car two days ago to pick up her cleaning at the drive-through cleaners. Culture Club’s “Church of the Poison Mind” is playing on the radio, and I talk over Boy George as I drive, explaining the whole story to Jacqueline. My family, the will, my brother, Amity, Nicolo, all of it. I spare nothing because it’s only two weeks until the wedding and Nicolo still won’t see me, so I’ve come up with a plan. Actually, my friend Randy came up with it. Over a long phone conversation, as I described the cast of characters, he recommended I enlist Jacqueline to bail me out. “She’s clay, Harry. Just mold her into what you need.” It’s weak and not really a great plan, and it’s insulting to Jackie I’m sure, but it’s the best I can do.
“So you see,” I tell her as we snake down the line, past the wall of presidential photographs in the cafeteria, “I need you to marry me. Just for a month or something.”