“They always make this cake for me,” he said. “They make lemon meringue pie and upside-down cake. All my mother’s sisters make the same things for me. My brothers were away at the war when I was little. I was the only boy they had.”
“How many sisters does she have?”
“Just two now. There used to be five of them, counting my mother. They lived in Rome, where I went to school. Their daddy was a doctor.”
“What are we going to tell her about the smell?”
“I don’t know.” He laughed. “We can say your friend spilled it. How about that?” He cut us another piece of cake. I poured us each another glass of milk. Then the phone began to ring.
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Answer it.”
“You answer it.”
“I’m not supposed to be here. You answer it.”
“Okay.” I picked up the receiver. A woman’s voice was on the other end. Very frazzled, very frantic, very high and musical and terrible. “Miss Manning, is this you? This is Mrs. Martin, Malcolm’s mother. I hate to bother you so early in the morning. Do you know where Malcolm is? There’s been an accident. Is your friend there? Perhaps you should wake her up.”
“What is it? What happened?” There was a sob on the other end, a sound like crying. Then a man’s voice was on the line. “This is Mr. Martin, my dear. Malcolm’s father. There’s been an accident. Aunt Gaye died. Do you know where Malcolm is?”
“He’s right here. He came to take me out to breakfast. Wait a minute. Here he is.” I handed him the phone.
“They’re coming here,” he said, when he hung up the phone. “They’ll be here in two hours. We have to clean up this place.”
“She’s dead? Your aunt is dead? How could she die?”
“She had a heart attack. Come on, let’s get dressed. They’re coming here.”
“We have to clean up that bathroom. We have to get that smell out of here.”
“Where’s the cat?” he asked. “Have you seen that goddamn cat this morning?”
Two hours later we were dressed and standing by the door. We had made up the bed, packed my bags, mopped the bathroom floor a dozen times, thrown the stained towels in the outdoor shed, emptied the wastebaskets, and fed the cat. We were very quiet as we did these things. Even I could not think of anything to say in the face of this enigma. One minute she was standing in the hallway telling us goodbye, the next minute we were making love in her bed. A moment later I had spilled her douche stuff all over the bathroom floor. I had stuck the nozzle of her douche bag up in my body at the moment of her death perhaps. Maybe she knew what we were doing and it killed her. No, she wouldn’t care. She just died to keep from being lonely. And I was going to be lonely too when Malcolm left. This weekend would be over and I would be alone again. Not the whole Chi Omega sorority or my momma or daddy or brothers or Charles William or anyone at all would do now. Only one touch could save me. This tall cold boy whose body had entered mine. This boy I had to have.
“Malcolm.” I looked up at him. I had been putting water in the bowl for the cat. “I have to be where you are. I’m coming here this summer and go to Emory. I really am. Say you want me to. Say you want me here.”
“I want you here. I said I did.”
“Say it again. I have to hear it every fifteen minutes. I’m scared of death, Malcolm. When someone dies, it’s like it happens to me. I’ve been scared of it all my life. It’s too horrible. How can people disappear? We were talking to her. She could have died while we were in her bed making love. Think of that.” I moved near to him. I touched his sleeve.
“Let’s wait outside for them,” he said. “I think we ought to wait outside.”
“I feel like we’ve been in this house a month. Oh, Malcolm.” I put my arms around him. Tried to pull his body into mine.
“Not now. Don’t mess up my shirt. We have to go to the funeral home. We have to go see about the body.”
“I’m going too?”
“You don’t have to go. You can stay here. My cousins will be here.”
“I’ll go with you. I want to help you. I want to do anything I can.” I touched his arm again, ran my hand up and down his sleeve. He looked down at me, a strange puzzled look, a look I would never penetrate or understand. All the years I would sleep with him and breed with him and eat and drink and fight with him were yet to come. All the painful days and nights when we would struggle to grow up beside each other, all the cigarettes and whiskey and feigned gaiety and feigned remorse and jealousy and passion would not teach me who he was, would not tell me what he was thinking or what he dreamed or feared. I would never know this man.
“Let’s go outside,” he said. “They ought to be here any minute.”
They drove up in a blue Ford. His mother, Rose, was riding shotgun, her hands clutching her purse. The worries of the world were always on her head and now she had a full-blown tragedy. Behind the wheel Malcolm’s father held down his corner of western civilization. He was the oldest son of an old Georgia family and in true aristocratic fashion he had lost the plantation in the Depression. It was the assailing metaphor of Mrs. Martin’s life. Mr. Martin didn’t care. He had rented an empty mansion on the main street of the little town of Martinsville and he liked the rented one as much as the one he left behind. He got a job in the hardware store and became adept at helping his fellow citizens repair screen doors and small appliances and choose shutters or paint for their houses. Every morning he put on a white shirt and a bow tie and left his rented mansion and walked down to the store. At noon he walked back home and Mrs. Martin fed him vegetables and cornbread and tea. Then he walked back to the store and worked all afternoon. On weekends he and Mrs. Martin drove to other small towns to visit people they had gone to school with or their wealthier relatives in Monroe and Madison and Griffin and Forsythe. Some Sundays they drove out to Martinsrest and sat in the car, looking at the lost plantation. Wealthy Yankees had turned it into a showplace. Mrs. Martin began to believe it had always been that way, but Mr. Martin remembered the leaking roof and rotting timbers and how hard he had had to work when he had owned it. “This is where you were born,” Mrs. Martin would say to little Malcolm, when he was a child. “By rights this should be yours. Your great-grandfather built it.”
“It was in disrepair,” Mr. Martin would add. “It was a great deal of trouble to keep up.”
They got out of the car. Mr. Martin smiled at me and took my hands. “My dear, we are so concerned about the shock to you. We want you to call your parents.”
“A terrible thing happened,” I answered. “There was a black widow spider in the bathroom and I tried to kill it with some medicine and I broke the bottle. The smell is everywhere. Some medicine Aunt Gaye had.”
He had my hands in his. “That’s not important. Don’t worry about that now. Are you all right?”
“We’ll get a maid over here,” Mrs. Martin put in. “Malcolm’s cousin Minx is coming. I’ll have her bring a maid.” She turned to Malcolm. “Oh, son, they’re bringing her body up this morning. We need to go to the funeral home. Oh son.” She tried to put her arms around him. She clasped his waist, but he didn’t hug her back. His arms stayed at his sides. The impenetrable expression did not leave his face.
“Let’s go in,” Mr. Martin said. “Let’s go inside.” We walked into the house. I could smell the Betadine from the front hall. The smell was everywhere.
“Can you smell it?” I asked. “I’m so embarrassed. I’m sorry I broke the bottle.”
“Don’t worry about anything,” Mr. Martin answered. “You’re a fine brave girl. A fine brave girl.”
“I have to stay another day,” I told my mother, when I got her on the phone. “I’ve already called the college. They said I could stay. I have to stay and help them, Mother. His aunt died in her sleep. She was this gorgeous woman. They’re really nice people, Mother. Wait a minute. They want to talk to you.” I put Mr. Martin on the phone and he introduced himself
and they talked awhile. Then Mrs. Martin took the phone from him. The doorbell was ringing. It was Malcolm’s first cousin, Henry, and his wife, Minx. Henry and Minx were very chic, very popular young Atlantans who were dedicated to reliving the lives of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. They came sweeping in carrying flowers and wiping tears with ironed handkerchiefs and immediately took me to their bosom. “We heard all about you,” they said. “We heard you had a column in a newspaper when you were only a child.”
“It’s true,” I said. “I am a prodigy, I guess you’d call it.”
“This is terrible,” Minx said. “This is the worst tragedy I’ve ever seen. Henry’s mother just died last year. There are only two sisters left, out of five. Malcolm’s mother and Aunt Lily in Monroe. Imagine that. Oh, it’s steeped in tragedy.”
“We’re going to the funeral home with you,” Henry said. “We came to see the body.”
“What is that smell?” Minx asked. “What is that terrible smell?”
The day passed as if in a dream. We drank sherry and Mrs. Martin cried. We stood in the dining room and talked about the paintings. We went to see the body. We talked about what the body should wear. We decided on a pale blue suit. We dug it out of the crowded closet. The smell of Betadine was everywhere.
Later, Malcolm and I went off with Minx and Henry to their apartment in Buckhead. Henry put on a velvet smoking jacket and mixed martinis and we drank them. Malcolm fucked me in the guest room with his cousins in the next room and I let him. We drank more martinis. We cried and listened to phonograph records and I told Minx and Henry the story of my life. We went back over to Aunt Gaye’s. We smoked and smoked and smoked. We cried and talked and touched each other’s arms. We were engaged in timeless ritual. We were burying our dead.
About twelve Malcolm took me back to Minx and Henry’s to spend the night. He left me at the door. For the first time I realized the inconvenience of not being married. Here I was, with a dead body in my brain, and I was going to have to sleep alone in a dark room. “You aren’t going, are you?” I asked. “You aren’t going to leave me?”
“I have to go back over there,” he answered. “I have to spend the night with them.”
“With your momma and daddy?”
“I have to. I told them I’d come back. I’ll see you in the morning.” He was standing in the door. He was leaving.
“Jesus Christ. I can’t believe you’re going to leave me here.”
“I have to. They wouldn’t like it. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay. Go on. Who cares? Who gives a damn?” I walked away and he didn’t move to follow me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t stay.”
“It doesn’t matter. Go on and leave. Get out of here.” I walked across the room and turned and looked at him. He shook his head and left me there. I went into the bedroom and tore off my clothes and got into the bed and rolled up in a ball. Who gives a damn, I told myself to lull myself to sleep. He’s not even very cute. I don’t really even like him.
The funeral was the following morning. Malcolm came over at nine and we drove to the funeral home with Minx and Henry. “The story in the papers made it sound like she’d been in bed with him,” Minx said. “Has Miss Rose seen it yet?”
“If she did she didn’t talk about it. All she’s been doing all morning is crying.” Malcolm paused. “She’s been crying all her life,” he added and turned and looked out the window of the car. It was an amazing confession from him, the only time I ever heard him criticize his parents. “She cried the whole time my brothers were in Europe. Then she cried when they came home.”
“They’re jittery people, those Tucker women,” Minx began, then changed her mind. “I mean, they’re very sensitive people, extremely sensitive and bright. They’re lovely women. Henry’s mother was an angel. I adored her.”
“They’re jittery.” Henry laughed out loud and laid his hand on Minx’s leg. “My mother was a nervous wreck.”
“I wonder if Aunt Gaye was in bed with him,” Minx said. “I’d like to think she had some happiness before she died. She was a slave to her husband. He bossed her around like a slave.”
“Don’t talk about it.” Malcolm had recovered his demeanor. “What difference does it make? She’s dead. Let’s talk about something else.”
“What’s his name? What is this man’s name that she was with?” Minx was pressing it. She had had two glasses of sherry with breakfast and she was on.
“His name is Tom. I don’t think we should talk about it anymore.” Malcolm was getting mad. He moved away from me.
“Oh, God. Like in Gatsby. Wouldn’t you know it, Henry.”
“Fitzgerald,” I said. “You know Scott Fitzgerald.”
“We worship him,” in unison.
“Oh, I do too. I worship him.”
“Have you read ‘A Diamond As Big As the Ritz’? It’s Henry’s favorite story.”
“No. What’s it about? Tell me about it.”
“It’s about this man who has a diamond as big as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and he builds a castle on top of it and mounts antiaircraft guns on the roof so he can shoot down anyone who tries to take it. It’s this fantastic story.”
I leaned up into the front seat. Minx and Henry and I began to all talk at once, about Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, the Algonquin Round Table, going to New York, going to live in Paris. We lit cigarettes. Smoke filled the car. We drove and talked. We pulled into the driveway of the funeral home and got out of the car, still smoking.
Mr. Tom Day was waiting on the steps. We introduced Minx and Henry. Then Mr. Martin appeared and took Tom’s arm and Mrs. Martin began to cry again and we went inside. A man in a dark suit greeted us and took us to a waiting room with brocade chairs in a line against a wall. The smell of gladiolus was everywhere. Huge sprays of pink and yellow glads were on every table. “The hairdresser is almost finished,” the undertaker said. “I hope it suits you. We did all we could. We’re so sorry for your sadness. So sorry for all this.” He took Mrs. Martin’s arm and led us into the chapel. Soft organ music was playing. A stained-glass window shone colored light down upon an empty platform. Two men in suits came out rolling a casket and lifted it and sat it on the platform. They raised the lid. One of the men reached inside and adjusted Aunt Gaye’s blouse. They stepped back. They bowed their heads. The music rose. “I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses. …” The undertaker motioned to Mrs. Martin and she left her seat and walked up to the coffin. Mr. Martin came next, then Tom, then Malcolm and I, then Minx and Henry. We stood in a circle around the coffin. Mr. and Mrs. Martin and Tom had the head. Minx and Henry, the midsection, Malcolm and I, the feet. The body was wearing the blue suit. There was a corsage of orchids pinned to the lapel. I tried to look at Malcolm, but he would not return my look.
“I hope that suit’s all right,” Mrs. Martin began. “She was so fastidious. She never had a hair out of place. Oh, my baby sister. Oh, I’m losing my little Gaye.” Mr. Martin put his arm around her and led her to a pew. The rest of us continued to stare at the body. Aunt Gaye’s beautiful cold face commanded the room. Her lovely high cheekbones, her ice-cold mouth, her forever-lidded eyes.
“Dust into dust,” Henry began.
“Into the grave, the lovely, the gentle, the brave,” quoted Minx from an elegy she was composing. We all started crying at that. Minx started it and I joined in. Even Malcolm had a few stingy little tears falling down his cheeks. Henry took out a handkerchief and began to weep into it. Tom burst into a paroxysm of grief. A pair of undertakers appeared and led us back to the parlor.
After the funeral we had lunch at a cafeteria in Buckhead. Then we went back to Aunt Gaye’s apartment and I collected my suitcases and Mrs. Martin made me a little supper of peanut butter sandwiches and carrot sticks and a boiled egg. She packed it in a tiny hatbox she found on a shelf. A very small hatbox that must have contained an elf’s hat or a veil for church. All the way to
Tuscaloosa from Atlanta, as the DC-8 bumped up and down through the clouds, I would look at the little box beside me and shudder, thinking of the crowded bedroom and the brooding presence of all those clothes. Occasionally I thought of what Malcolm and I had done on the bed, of the deep cavernous adventure. “Do it harder,” he kept saying. “Think about it. Try.” Where had he learned how to do it? I wondered. How did he know how to tell me what to do?
Once I slept for a while and when I woke, sweating and surprised, jolting up and down with the plane, I thought perhaps I had been doing it in my sleep. “Do you love me?” I had asked him at the airport. “Are you sure you love me?”
“Sure. Sure I do.”
“When can I see you again?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” We were standing with our backs against the rickety uprights that supported the canvas roof of the airport walkway. Minx and Henry were a few feet away, talking to the ticket agent.
‘I’m coming to Emory to summer school,” I said. “I really mean it.”
“I’ll be here.” He pulled my body into his. Fire, a black singer would later call it, and I would know what she meant. This was love, wasn’t it? Surely this was love.
“I hope we’ll see you again soon,” Minx said, coming to stand beside me. “The next time you’re in Atlanta, come and stay with us. You bring her to us, Malcolm. And make it soon. Don’t let this darling girl get away from you.”
“I won’t.” He smiled a dazzling happy smile. Unless he was drinking, he was stingy with smiles. I decided he was relieved that I was leaving.
“Come on,” Henry said. “He wants your ticket now.” I kissed them all goodbye and walked out onto the runway. When I was almost to the plane, I turned and waved to them again. “Goodbye,” I called. “Goodbye again. I’m going to miss you.”
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