Net of Jewels

by Ellen Gilchrist

all things are timeless.

  Did my ladies know the honey

  dripping on the floor?

  The white necessity of love?

  Or only bear its burdens.

  I am caught forever in those summer mornings,

  reading their books,

  smelling their coffee and their powder,

  hating their warnings.

  GUEST

  Tied to memory’s plumbline the night

  like a long dark road leads on

  and on into the silent spaces of the heart

  The days lengthen

  This is the season the surveyor

  doubles his team to take readings

  it is dawn go on

  February 10, 1956

  Dear Rhoda,

  They are the best poems I have ever read. I don’t know what they mean exactly but I know I want to read the letters too and I want to make love to you more than anything in the world. You can have my goddamn pin and throw it in the river. Here it is. Either wear it or throw it away.

  Love,

  Malcolm

  February 13, 1956

  Dearest Malcolm,

  I took it out and then I cried. Then I pinned it on the inside of my bra and wore it there awhile. Then I pinned it on the outside of my bra. After supper I pinned it to my sweater. I walked around the house but no one even noticed it. I’m glad. I can’t talk about this yet. I love you. I could never love anyone this much again if I lived a thousand years. You angel.

  Love,

  Rhoda

  February 14, 1956

  Dear Malcolm,

  Happy Valentine’s Day. HERE is the letter I wrote to you in January.

  Dear Malcolm,

  It was the worst Christmas I ever spent. All I did all day was drink sherry and walk back and forth from our house to Charles William’s house to Irise’s house. Their wedding was so beautiful. I had a red velvet bridesmaid’s dress and the church was full of candles and I cried like a baby when they pronounced them man and wife. I got your letters but I can’t seem to answer them. Do you mean it that you love me? I have never stopped loving you a second. No matter where I was, I was thinking about you dancing that first night I went to Homecoming with you.

  I don’t know what else to say.

  I love you,

  Rhoda

  Dear Rhoda,

  I have to see you. Can you come here at Easter? I know that seems like a long way away but if I could look forward to that, it would change things for me. I could come to where you are if you can’t come here.

  Love,

  Malcolm

  Dear Malcolm,

  I will come at Easter and I will write to you every day until then. What difference does time make anyway? Time is just a way we measure eternity. We don’t even know if time is true. I love you,

  Me

  Dear Rhoda,

  Errington and I are going to keep Phinias tied to the bed until you get here. I told my folks I had to stay in Atlanta to study. My aunt is going to be out of town and she said you could stay in her apartment if you wanted to. It’s a nice house out in Ansley Park and we wouldn’t have to be with Charles William and Irise all the time. Don’t take that to mean anything. I like Charles William and I am really sorry I said that about him to you. You better call me when you get this letter so we can make plans. She is my mother’s sister and she lives by herself. She’s my favorite aunt. I told her I was in love with you and she wants to meet you.

  Love always,

  Malcolm

  Dear Malcolm,

  I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than stay at your aunt’s apartment. I want to be in a place where someone in your family has lived. I want there to be ions and atoms of your gene pool everywhere. I want there to be artifacts and pictures and clothes and furniture and memories of all the life you had before me. I am jealous of every day on the earth you spent and I wasn’t there to watch you and love you. I love you, did I remember to tell you that? I want to reach down into your mother’s womb and caress you in your beginnings. I was conceived in a tent on the banks of the Mississippi River when my father worked for the Corps of Engineers. Where were you conceived? I want to visit the room and bless it and be blessed by being there. See, this is what you get if you let a poet love you.

  I love you,

  Rhoda

  Chapter

  14

  It wasn’t easy to get permission to go to Atlanta alone to see a boy. But it was possible. First his aunt wrote the Chi Omega housemother and asked if I could stay with her. Then the housemother called my mother. Then my mother called me.

  “You can trust me, Mother,” I told her. “You can trust me. You can trust me.”

  “You’re flying to Atlanta all alone? Why don’t you stay with Irise? Why do you want to stay with some aunt of his you don’t even know? We’ve never even met this boy, Rhoda. Your father isn’t going to like this.”

  “He’s from a nice family, Momma. He used to go with Pepper Allen who went to camp with me. He used to be Charles William’s roommate. My God.”

  “Why can’t you find someone to go out with in Tuscaloosa? Why do you always have to be running all over the country? I thought you had all that work to do for the newspaper there. You told me you couldn’t come home for the weekend because you had all that work.”

  “Momma, it’s for Easter. They have all these dogwood trees I want to see.”

  “Rhoda.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t chase men, Rhoda. Let him come to see you.”

  “I don’t want him to come here. I want to go to Atlanta.”

  “All right. All right. I give up. If your father says it’s okay. How much money do you need?”

  “A hundred dollars will be enough. The airplane ticket cost twenty-six.”

  “I’m trusting you, Rhoda. Remember that.”

  “I will. You can. Well, thanks, goodbye.”

  So the money was sent and I packed a bag and flew to Atlanta. Malcolm came and got me at the airport. I hadn’t seen him in five months, but the chemistry was still working. As soon as I saw him I started thinking about finding a bed. “I have to go by the laundry and pick up some shirts,” he said. We were leaning up against the rickety supports of the walkway. He ran his hand up and down my back. I ran my hand up and down his back. He touched my waist. I touched his waist. He kissed me on the mouth. November, December, January, February, March disappeared like wild geese into the stars.

  “Okay. That’s okay.”

  “I forgot to take them until yesterday. If I don’t pick them up I won’t have anything to wear.”

  “That’s fine. I want to get your shirts. That’s great.” We walked out through the airport and collected my luggage and got into his car and started driving into town.

  “Where’d you get the car? I thought you wrecked your car. Charles William said you wrecked your car.”

  “I ran it into a brick wall.” He laughed out loud. “This is Aunt Gaye’s. It’s her apartment you’re going to.” He turned off an exit that led down into the neighborhoods near Georgia Tech. We went past the KA house and the engineering school and parked in the shopping center with the record store Charles William had introduced me to.

  “I wish we had time to go to that record store,” I said. “They have stuff no one else ever has.”

  “I have to get those shirts before the place closes and we have to get over to Aunt Gaye’s. She wants to meet you before she leaves for the weekend.”

  “Oh, God. I look terrible. I’m so wrinkled. I wish I could change clothes before I meet her.”

  “She doesn’t care. She just wants to show you how to feed her cat.” He turned off the ignition key and pulled me into his arms again. He put his hands on my breasts. I put my hands on his chest, then on his arms, then on his back, then on his legs. It was devastating. It was divine. It was crazy.

  “Not now,” he said. “We have to wait.”

  “I can’t. How
long. Let’s stay here. Hold on to me. Never let me go.”

  “She’s leaving this afternoon. We’ll have her place to ourselves. Let’s get my shirts. It won’t be long. We have to go on over there.”

  “Kiss me again. Say you love me. I can’t get close enough to you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “How much. Say how much. Say you’ll always love me. Forever and ever and ever. Say you’ll always love me and you’ll never die.”

  “Come on, Rhoda. I have to get out of the car. Let go of me a minute.”

  Malcolm pushed me away and got out of the car and stood beside it with a terrible expression on his face and wouldn’t look at me. I took a lipstick out of my pocketbook and began to put on lipstick in the rearview mirror. “Wait a second,” I said. “I’ll go in the cleaners with you.”

  We collected the shirts and drove down into Ansley Park and stopped before a brick and stucco duplex. We got out of the car and started up the walk. Before we could ring the bell, the door opened and a beautiful tall woman came out and drew us in. “Oh, Malcolm, you angel,” she said. “Oh, this is Rhoda. Oh, I’m so glad to have you here. Is your friend with you? I thought you were bringing a friend.”

  “She’s coming later,” Malcolm said. “She had to do some shopping.”

  “Well, come on in. Look around. I’m not settled yet. Everything is still in disarray.” I looked around me. Everything in the apartment was very old. Old furniture and old paintings in gilt frames and dark Turkish rugs on the floor. A huge cat the color of faded gold sat on top of an upright piano. “I love your apartment,” I said. “It’s so nice of you to let us stay here.”

  “The cat won’t bother you, will she?” She threw back her head as if to clear her mind, then fixed me with a harassed worried smile. “All you have to do is make sure she has food and water. She knocks the water over. Well, let me take you upstairs. Malcolm, bring her bags. I made you a pineapple upside-down cake. It’s his favorite cake.” She turned back to me, took my arm. “I always make it for him. I never forget to make his cake.”

  We followed her up the narrow stairs. Malcolm left my bag at the door of the guest room, then disappeared. The room was small and every inch of it was stuffed with furniture. In the center of the room, with barely enough room to walk around it, was a four-poster bed with a pink canopy. The walls were covered with flowered wallpaper. Roses seemed to leap from the walls. Hanging from the center of the room and threatening to tear the canopy was a hand-painted wrought-iron chandelier with pink roses around each teardrop light bulb. The windows were closed and the blinds were drawn. What oxygen there was in the room seemed to be concentrated around the bed. The rest was buried in furniture, snuffed out by furniture, overpowered by furniture.

  I lugged my suitcase into the room and put it down on a luggage rack, which was squeezed in between two huge dressers. The drawers of the dressers were stuffed full of sweaters and jewelry boxes and table linens. The closets were stuffed full of wool suits and cocktail dresses. The closet shelf was stuffed full of hatboxes and leather handbags. The floor of the closet was stuffed full of shoeboxes. “I’m sorry everything’s so crowded,” Aunt Gaye said. “When Marvin was alive we had a big house in Buckhead. I couldn’t live there after he passed away.” She was behind me in the doorway. She put one hand against the door frame and the other to her brow. “We had a wonderful marriage.”

  “How did he die?”

  “He had a heart attack. At his office.” She sat down on the bed. Looked down at her hands, then up at me as if to beg forgiveness. “I didn’t get to say goodbye. He died before they got him to the hospital. It’s been three years. I should throw all this away.” She pulled open a drawer of one of the dressers and began to take out stacks of table napkins and put them on the dresser top, which was already crowded with framed photographs and shepherdess lamps and china powder boxes. The photographs were of Aunt Gaye and a man, at the races, on a sailboat, under a tree, in a studio dressed in dark city clothes, holding hands.

  “Is that Marvin?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have any children?”

  “No. Thank goodness for Rose’s boys. They’re so dear to me, especially Malcolm. Are you in love with him, Rhoda?”

  “Yes, I am. I broke up with him and we didn’t see each other for a long time but I never stopped loving him. I guess he loves me too. He asked me to come here. I guess we’re made up now.”

  “What did you get mad about?”

  “I can’t remember now. I think it was my fault. I don’t remember. We got drunk and had a fight. That’s what really happened.”

  “He told me he was in love with you.” She put the stack of napkins on the bed and turned and took my arm. She was so beautiful, I had never seen a woman that old who was that beautiful. It was frightening almost. A frightening, hesitant beauty. She was so gentle and so worried and so beautiful.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the Carpegian gardens with a Mr. Day. A man I play duplicate with. We’re going to a tournament with some other couples. I haven’t been out of town with a man since Marvin died. We’re going to be chaperoned, of course.” She sighed, sat back on the bed. “I don’t think Malcolm’s mother, Rose, approves. I think Rose is worried about it. Don’t say anything if you talk to her.”

  “I’ve never met her.”

  “We’re going to play in a tournament. He has so many master points. He’s within a hundred points of being a life master. Oh, dear.” She put her hand up to her head. For a moment I thought she was going to change her mind and stay in Atlanta with Malcolm and me.

  “Go on and have a good time,” I said. “You know what Dorothy Parker said, don’t you? ‘Drink and dance and laugh and lie. Love the reeling midnight through. For tomorrow we shall die! But, alas, we never do.’ It’s called ‘The Flaw in Paganism.’ Well, anyway, go on and have some fun. You need to get out and have fun.”

  “Oh, you’re right, I guess.” She hung her head.

  “Of course I am. If anybody doesn’t like it, they’re just jealous. Listen, Aunt Gaye, you’re the best-looking woman your age I ever saw in my life. You could be in the movies. You can’t just stay home with your cat. My great-grandmother had three husbands. As soon as one would die, she’d marry another one.”

  She seemed to brighten up at that. “You’re right, of course. Life goes on. Marvin would be distressed to see me shut up in this dismal place. Well, I’ll go freshen up before Mr. Day gets here.” She went into the adjoining room and sat down at her makeup table. I opened my suitcase and took out a dress and hung it over the chair. Then I took out my high-heel shoes to see if they were squashed from the plane ride. Then I opened a compact and began to put on lipstick. I looked at my watch. It was almost six o’clock. When was she going to leave? I walked to the door of the room. She was sitting at a dresser powdering her face. “I’m going downstairs and look for Malcolm,” I said. “I don’t want him to be alone.”

  I found him in the dining room looking at paintings of his ancestors. “I love your aunt,” I said. “I love meeting her.” I tried to put my arms around his waist but he pulled away.

  “Not now,” he said. “You’ll get lipstick on me. Let me get you a Coke. Let me cut you a piece of cake.”

  * * *

  The doorbell was ringing. We ran for the door. It was a tall uncomfortable man who looked as if he was full of secrets. I immediately took an intense dislike to him. He reminded me of my mother’s cousins in the Delta, bloodless, proper, scared.

  “I’m Tom,” he said. “I’ve come for Gaye.”

  She came down the stairs. She had changed into a pink wool suit. She was very elegant in white leather shoes and gloves. She was carrying a small suitcase in her hand and Malcolm ran up the stairs and took it from her. We made hasty embarrassed conversation for a minute. Then Tom and Aunt Gaye left the house and left us there. We closed the door. We went upstairs and lay down upon the bed and began to
heave and sigh against each other. Time passed. Darkness fell.

  “You’re supposed to do something about it,” he said at last. “You’re supposed to use some jelly or take a douche.”

  “I don’t have any. I forgot to get it.”

  “Look in the bathroom. Maybe Aunt Gaye has something.”

  “I will. In a minute. I don’t want to get up yet. I don’t want to let go of you.”

  “Okay. Come here. Get back on top of me. Like that. Oh, yes, just like that.”

  Much, much later, around three or four in the morning, I got out of bed and went into the bathroom and found a douche bag still in its cardboard box and read the directions. Beside the box was a bottle of dark green liquid called Betadine. I filled the douche bag with water, added the liquid, and lay down in the bathtub and tried to stick the plastic nozzle up my vagina. I held the nozzle in with one hand and the bag above it with another. It was awkward, but I managed. When most of the water had run out into my body, I stepped out of the tub. The bottle of Betadine was sitting on the edge of the small washstand. I knocked it off and it fell to the floor and broke and the antiseptic spread everywhere, a deadly green lake on the white tile floor. I grabbed a towel and threw it down upon the mess. I grabbed all the towels in the room and began to mop it up. The smell was suffocating. I stepped gingerly around the pile of towels and pushed open the window. Then I knelt down and began to pick up the glass.

  “What happened?” Malcolm said. He had come to stand in the door.

  “I broke the goddamn douche stuff. Go get a mop, will you? Help me clean this up.” He disappeared down the stairs and returned with a mop and a pail and we cleaned up the mess as well as we could and rinsed the towels in the bathtub. “I can’t believe it,” I kept saying. “I can’t believe I spilled this goddamn stuff all over the goddamn floor.”

  “You can still smell it,” he said. “We’ll never get this smell out of this room.”

  “I’m starving.” I had found a bathrobe on the back of the bathroom door and was tying it around my waist. “Let’s go downstairs and eat that cake. She wants us to eat that cake.”

  We went downstairs and found the cake and plates and forks and poured glasses of milk and began to eat. It was the first time since I had met him that I felt that Malcolm was even in the same species with me. He had seemed a dream or a field to cross or a mountain to conquer. Now he just seemed like my brother, cleaning up the house before my mother got home and eating all the cake as fast as we could eat it.