Charming Grace

by Deborah Smith

  “Nothing ruins a funeral more than a bloated corpse with a fishy smell.”

  “Please, be serious.” Abbie threw out her arms. “Embrace your emotions! Help me overcome the negatives in Stone’s script! If I can identify and portray your essence then Stone’s terrible dialogue won’t matter!” She scooped her arms dramatically. Behind her, the river rumbled like a freight train. She teetered.

  “Abbie!” Grace called. “Abbie, stand still!”

  “Stop scooping,” I yelled.

  Abbie didn’t hear us. “Embrace your emotions and be free!” She scooped her arms again, caught up in her own make-believe world, imploring Grace. “Help me find your essence and embrace your emotions! Eeeeeeee!”

  Embracing the emotion of falling backwards into a six-foot-deep mountain river trying to take the express lane all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, she disappeared into the muddy water.

  “Sssh, Boone. Slowly. Don’t move too much. Sssh. It’ll hurt if you move too fast.” Grace whispered to me as I fumbled for a hold on her. I kept my eyes shut but still tried to wrap one hand around her arm or any other good Grace part. She guided my hands back to my side then stroked my face. “Boone. Wake up. You cracked a rib and gashed your head in the river. Remember?”

  Hmmm. I remembered only what really mattered to me. That Grace wasn’t hurt. That Abbie wasn’t hurt, either—no thanks to Grace, who took a swat at her after I pulled her out of the river.

  Now I pretended to keep dozing, so Grace would keep touching me. Nice. Touching the old bullet scar on my left side, tracing a knife scar beneath one collarbone, then another knife scar below my navel, then dabbing cool fingers around the stitched up spot on my forehead. She pulled a cool sheet and soft blanket back up my bare chest. I reached for her, again. Dull, not-quite-drugged-enough pain went through my right side.

  I squinted up into the shadowy light of a pretty hospital room in Dahlonega’s Chestatee Regional. Grace was sitting on the bed next to me, one damp, mud-splattered leg drawn up under the other. Her hair was a red-brown mat of drying waves. River trash speckled her face. She looked down at me with agonized eyes and gently stroked my hair away from my forehead. “You never give up,” she said. “What am I going to do about you?”

  I refused to screw up the moment by answering that. I was no fool. This was heaven. I groaned for sympathy. “What hit me?”

  “The river.”

  “I know, but did it sneak back in here after I went to sleep and hit me again?”

  “Ssssh. Rest. Stone and Diamond are downstairs holding a press conference hawking the authentic dangers involved in making their authentic movie. When they’re done Stone plans to tromp up here and personally sit with you until you’re released in the morning. Or at least he’ll come up and say goodnight then personally order Tex and Mojo to sit with you. They’re covering for me while I visit you. I can only stay a few more minutes. It’s my job to stop this movie.” She stroked the back of her fingers along my jaw. “It’s your job to stay safe and stay out of my way.”

  “If you’re all right, I’m all right.”

  She studied me a long time. “I’m fine,” she whispered.

  “You didn’t try to smack Abbie again after I passed out, did you?”

  “I controlled myself. She’s in a private room conferring with her publicist and her manager about the press release they plan to write about her artistic acting exercise.”

  “Her what?”

  She believes she nearly died for her art. I pointed out that you nearly died for it, too.”

  “Promise me something—don’t ever jump in a river and try to save me, again.”

  “I couldn’t help myself. How could I let you die for Abbie’s art? That would be like sacrificing you for the cinematic equivalent of an Elvis portrait painted on velveteen.”

  I reached for her again. This time I got lucky and snagged her by one arm. “I’ll make you a deal. Just give me a kiss. The one I didn’t get at Chestatee Ridge. The one I barely got at my motel room the other day.”

  “Boone. I don’t want to go, but I have to.”

  I pulled her toward me. “Just kiss me, Gracie, and then I promise you, you’ll be right here inside me, all night.”

  She made a soft, lost sound, took my face between her hands, and melted her mouth onto mine. The kiss was gentle and wild and deep and wet and everything else you can say that’s wonderful between two people who slip through each other’s skin as easy as we did. I shifted from the sensations, and my side ached like a bastard. When I made a that-hurts-but-don’t-stop noise she whispered, “Don’t move so much,” then moved downward, to my throat. “Does that feel better?”

  “That’s better, but keep tryin’.”

  She eased the covers down my chest. Kissed me there. “Hurt?”

  “Twinges. Try a little further down.”

  She uncovered my stomach. Tested several spots in the center. “No pain?”

  “You’re getting there.”

  She eased the covers down another few inches. Kissed the skin just above the waist band of my white, cotton, practical-Catholic BVD’s. “No problem here?”

  “Only the obvious one.” My voice was hoarse by then.

  “That’s no problem.”

  A few seconds later the BVD’s no longer covered what God meant them to cover, and my problem stood up and said I love you, Gracie. She eased her hand into place, posed her mouth just so, then hesitated only long enough to burn me up with a tearful look through her wild tangle of river-drenched hair. She struggled with her voice for a second. Then, “Twenty-five years, when were just kids, I sat in a room in this same hospital with Harp, the day we found him at Ladyslipper Lost.”

  I’m not Harp, I started to say. I’m not going to get myself killed to prove I deserve you. The evidence said otherwise, but when she lowered her mouth on me, I put that thought out of my mind.

  I didn’t know how to tell Boone I loved him, because I was afraid I’d doom him, just as I’d doomed Harp. If I kept the love unspoken, Boone might survive. So I put something warm of mine around something hard of his, and hoped the universe wasn’t listening.

  Boone didn’t resist, but he didn’t look happy, either. I kissed him goodnight and left the room feeling as though I’d deceived him. In the hall outside, I collided with Abbie.

  She shrank back. “You’re not going to take a swipe at me again, are you?”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  “Grace, I’m—”

  “Pull another stunt like the river thing and I’ll drown you myself.”

  “Grace, I’m so sorry.”

  “Tell Boone, not me.”

  She floated after me as I continued down the hall. Her only injury was a demure scrape on one elbow. “Grace, please. I’m a serious actor. I’m trying to help you improve this movie. I never meant to fall in the river. I’m sorry Stone’s bodyguard got hurt.”

  I halted. She nearly ran into me, then backed off in fear. I thrust a finger into her face. “His name is Noleene. Boone Noleene. He has this obsession with little things like loyalty, duty, and rescuing women in distress. Don’t ever hurt him again.”

  “I swear, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Good night.”

  I headed for an outside door at the end of a long hallway. Every muscle in my body resisted. I wanted to go back up the hall, crawl into Boone’s hospital bed, and wrap my future around him. The fact that we were headed in opposite directions on the Stone Senterra highway of life made me want to scream. Abbie, clueless, followed me again. “Grace, tell me what Lowe and I have to do to do justice to Harp’s life on film. Please. You want us to confront Stone. But how?”

  I halted. “You and Lowe can stage a coup.”

  “A what?”

  “A takeover. A rebellion. A walk-out. A strike. If Stone loses his two lead actors at this point in the production, it will shut down the film. Maybe even cause it to be shelved permanently. He’ll compromise if you force him to.
He’d have to. Millions of dollars are at stake.”

  “Walk off the set?” Abbie looked horrified. “You want us to walk off the set?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Grace, please. Lowe and I are almost thirty years old! Look at this. Look!” She pointed to a faint line beside her mouth. “I only have a few more years to play ‘Girl With Breasts’ parts. And Lowe can only pretend to be the ‘new Mel Gibson’ a few more years before he becomes a has-been doing commercials in Australia. We need this movie, Grace. It’s a serious drama that could prove we’re serious actors. Okay, okay, even if it’s not a serious drama, even if it’s turning out to be a horrible, silly movie, at least it’s directed by the Stone Senterra. And Stone believes in us. He’s giving us this chance to play a legendary love duo—Grace and Harp Vance.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “I’m not kidding. You and Harp were like Tracy and Hepburn, Bogart and Bacall, Streisand and O’Neal.”

  “Streisand and O’Neal?”

  “I always loved What’s Up Doc. I watched the movie as a little girl, with my mother. I wanted to be Barbra Streisand. I dreamed of being a Jewish girl from Brooklyn, not an Episcopalian from Milwaukee.”

  I had found her Achilles heel. Or her Streisand heel, you could say. “Would Streisand compromise her art? When she was making Funny Girl would she have said, ‘Oh, yes, Mr. Director, if you want to cut out that ‘People Who Need People’ song, it’s no big deal?’ In The Way We Were would she have said, ‘Oh, you’re right, Mr. Director, that bedroom scene with Robert Redford isn’t really worth filming?”

  “Never,” Abbie said in horror.

  “Then you have to be just as courageous as Barbra. Just as bold. Just as. . .just as Streisand-ish in your pursuit of true art. Tell Stone you and Lowe will walk out if he continues to turn the film into a live-action cartoon.”

  Abbie moaned. “I have to talk to Lowe about this. I can’t promise you anything, but maybe—”

  Tex poked his grizzled head around a corner of the hall. “Miss Abbie. Your manager’s lookin’ for you. Got an interview with Us Magazine lined up. They want a close-up photo of your elbow scrape.”

  Abbie looked at me sadly. “I have to go now, Grace. But I’ll think about what you said. And I will talk to Lowe. I promise you that much.”

  “Good enough. I have faith in you, Ms. Streisand.”

  She moaned and hurried down the hall.

  Outside in the muggy summer night, I looked wearily around the hospital’s parking lot. Chestatee Regional was built atop the abandoned gold mines of grand old Crown Mountain. There’s gold in them there hills, boys. So much hidden treasure, forgotten beneath the lives we lead. Satellite vans from the Atlanta TV stations crowded the hospital’s front spaces. In the valley below the fringe of shrubs and trees, Dahlonega’s lights glowed in friendly welcome, as if winking hello now that I was finally noticing them, again. The eyes of small, resilient souls, the ladyslipper moments of life. It was the loneliest sight in the world.

  “Oh, Harp,” I whispered. “Oh, Boone.”

  It’s hell when the woman you love gives you a blow job and you wonder if she’s doing it for her dead husband.

  Noleene, stop thinking this way.

  Late that night I lay on my back in the hospital bed in the dark, staring up at unlit ideas I didn’t like.

  Tex poked his head in the room and drawl-whispered “You asleep, boy?”

  Laying there in the dark in a bad mood, I said, “That a trick question?”

  “Huh. I thought lettin’ Grace sneak in here woulda cheered you up. Mojo had to jimmy one of the elevators to keep Diamond from catchin’ her.”

  “You guys stranded Diamond in an elevator?”

  “Only for a few minutes. She put a few dents in the walls, chewed the door panel. No big deal.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Lemme tell ya, looking at Grace’s granny down in the lobby tonight sure cheered me up. A great piece of fancy pony tail, that Helen. Except she reminds me of my ex. The one who took off part of my ear.”

  “This conversation have a point?”

  “Yep. The boss is still downstairs greasin’ the reporters. But he says to tell ya he’ll be up directly to hold your hand.” Tex paused. “He’s tellin’ the press you’re a hero, just like Harp Vance.”

  “Promoting his movie. That’s why.”

  “Yeah, I know, but what he said is true, boy. You and Vance are cut from the same cloth. That’s why Grace let you get a foot in her door from day one. She recognized what kind of material you’re made of.”

  “Let’s get something straight. I’m just an ex-con, I’m no hero, and I’m sure as hell not Harp Vance.”

  After a moment of silence in honor of my surly announcement, Tex said quietly, “You sure are determined to end up in the gutter with your brother, ain’t ya?”

  Slam.

  I was alone in the dark, again.

  Little beads of sweat began to puddle on my forehead.

  Noleene, Grace has made you a better man than you ever had any hope of being. You love her, and even if she hasn’t said she loves you back, you know you’d be happy to spend the next fifty years or so just hoping she might. So here’s your fantasy: Love Grace, quit working for Stone, stay in Dahlonega, build houses with Jack Roarke, and be as happy as a man can be, second only to Harp Vance, the man Grace will always love first and foremost, forever to infinity, mon dieu.

  On the other hand. . .

  Noleene, you selfish bastard. Armand raised you and protected you and did the best he could for you. You can’t throw your brother to the wolves just so you can play house with Grace. But that’s what you’re wishing you could do, admit it.

  Bingo. Guilty as charged.

  The pissy little devil of shame had started crawling up my back the day I met Grace at the gravel pile. Now he sat squarely on my shoulder, giving my conscience a big Up Yours.

  Feelin’ guilty because you wish Armand would just disappear like Papa did?

  I was never glad Papa just disappeared. I wanted to know him. But yeah, I feel guilty.

  Good. Guilt keeps people on the straight and narrow. Guilt keeps people from being shitty little thieves and liars all their lives.

  No. Love does that.

  The devil hooted. Love. Guilt. Two sides of the same nickel. What’s the difference?

  Someone knocked, then didn’t wait for me to say anything, then stepped into the room. “I hear you’re not asleep,” Jack Roarke said in the dark. I couldn’t mistake that deep been-everywhere-stay-nowhere voice.

  I sat up in bed, fighting the throbbing rib and aching head, the tension still pooling between my legs every time I thought of Grace, plus I was stoned on painkillers that didn’t work well enough, and so I was more than a little testy. I jerked the string on the wall light behind me. “Love and guilt are two sides of the same damned nickel,” I said in the light. “Does it make any difference which one makes a man do the right thing?”

  Bless his heart, Roarke didn’t back slowly out of the room and call a nurse to come check my head. Instead he said, “Hmmm,” as if I made sense. Then, “Helen and I’ve been on a bulldozer up at Chestatee Ridge all day. I told her I’d drop by here and keep you company for a while. Make sure your brain wasn’t seeping out. Hmm. Give me a minute to switch from shoveling dirt to shoveling existential bullshit.”

  Existential. Well, would you ever. He hooked his hands into the pockets of dusty jeans , squinting at the ceiling in thought and working one foot on the floor, leaving a trail of dried mud squiggles from the soles of his workboots. A man who knew his existential mud. He settled in an armchair by my bed.

  “Okay, here’s the difference,” he said. “Love makes you want to live.” He leveled a look at me that didn’t ask for mercy. “Guilt makes you want to die.”

  “Sounds like you’re a smart man.”

  “Not smart enough. I didn’t say everything I needed to say to you at Chestatee Ridge the other day.
Mainly this: Your brother has a job with me when he gets out. It’s a given. He’ll have a job. A good job. Maybe down in a ditch digging footings for foundations, maybe not glamorous, but a job. Your brother is a good man, I’m sure, but he needs to have his ass kicked. Maybe more than a decade in prison has kicked it enough, or maybe not. I’ll give him a job, and I’ll help you kick his ass.”

  My heart sank. “Thanks. But you don’t know Armand. He’ll install a slot machine in your construction trailer. And he’ll convince you to lend him the money to play it. And you’ll like him for giving you the opportunity to get in on the deal. He’s not cut out for hard —”

  “Oh, I know Armand. Looking for the easy road and charming every hick who gets in his way. Too proud to ask for help. Mad at the world and won’t play by its rules, out of spite. I’ve been there, done that. So I can tell you that you can’t save him if he won’t save himself. Whether he works for me or for Senterra—whether you spend the rest of your life trying to help him or not—you can’t save him if he doesn’t want to be saved.”

  “I have to try.”

  “I know you do. And I have to help you. The ones of us who know the score have to teach the others how to keep it.”

  I stared at him while goosebumps spread down my back. Call it ex-con intuition. The existential mud of truth, spoken in terms only a certain kind of man has learned. “Where did you do time?” I asked quietly.

  Roarke burned a hole to the back of my head. The trade-off between trust and secrecy ended, and I won. “You name the prison,” he said. “I’ve been there.”

  One, two, three. Breathe. “Including Angola?”

  He shook his head. “That was about the only big joint I missed.”

  “With a record like yours, you must’ve stole big or killed big.”

  “Armed robbery. I was good at it. I never shot anybody. Not that the courts gave me points for bein’ nice to the people I robbed.”