News of the Spirit

by Lee Smith

  “Thank you, this is a delicious cocktail,” I said.

  “It is, huh!” And suddenly Red is there, too, the other bartender, hands on substantial hips, fiery Medusa hair standing out all around her head, bosom heaving furiously. “Jenny, you get your ass out of here right now!” she yells, and I run out the door, straight into Tom Burlington. He grabs my shoulders and shakes me until my teeth rattle, then hugs me, then shakes me again.

  “You little bitch!” he says.

  What a relief! I have been recognized at last. I am a little bitch, and I will never be an angel, and it’s okay. I start laughing, and Tom starts laughing, too.

  This is the moment when the street photographer snapped our picture, and Tom paid him for it, and gave it to me, and I have it still. I blew it up. I tend to move around a lot, but I always take this picture with me, and keep it right here on my desk.

  In the picture, Tom Burlington and I cling together in the jostling crowd, our arms wound tightly around each other. We look like lovers, which we never were. Behind us is the Havana Madrid sign with the winking lady’s face on it. There is something she knows that I don’t know yet. But I will learn. And I will get my period, and some breasts. I will also do it plenty, thereby falling into numerous messy situations too awful to mention here. I will never be really good again. I am not good. I am as ornery and difficult and inconsolable as Carroll Byrd.

  I don’t know whatever happened to her, or to Tom Burlington, who left my sister for another woman, an English teacher at his school, when Tom-Tom was still small. Caroline is happily remarried now, to a lawyer in Charleston, South Carolina, where she has raised four children and is the head of the Historical Society. Our lives are very different, Caroline’s and mine, and I regret that I don’t see much of her now, except for her children’s graduations and weddings. My oldest sister Beth is still married and still living out west; I don’t see much of her, either. Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh are long divorced. He’s an artist now. Cary Grant is dead. Grandmother and Aunt Chloë and Aunt Judy are dead. Mama is dead, too, of ovarian cancer in 1979. After she died, Daddy turned the mill into a co-op and gave it to his employees; Mr. Kinney’s son is running it today. Then Daddy surprised everybody by moving to Boca Raton, Florida, where he “up and married” (as Mama would have said) the real estate woman who sold him his condo. This woman has a black spiky hairdo, and everybody calls her “The Shark.” Daddy takes Elderhostel courses and seems very happy; his current personality bears no relation, that I can see, to his former self, to the person who is in this story. Cousin Glenda ran a rest home for many years after Raymond’s death; now she is in the rest home, and Rayette and her husband are running it. Rayette sends me a long chatty Christmas letter every year, even though I never did get a grip. I don’t know what happened to Harlan Boyd. Jinx is still my friend, and we keep in touch by phone, and meet at a spa in Sedona once a year.

  For some reason, I can’t quit writing this story, or looking at this picture, in which the sun is so bright, and Tom Burlington and I are smiling like crazy. I guess it reminds me of Mama and Daddy in love, of the day when Mama and Daddy and I walked down to the docks to be in the movie, and cheered when the pink submarine came in, and waved hello.

  The

  SOUTHERN CROSS

  Mama always said, “Talk real sweet and you can have whatever you want.” This is true, though it does not hurt to have a nice bust either. Since I was blessed early on in both the voice and bosom departments, I got the hell out of eastern Kentucky at the first opportunity and never looked back. That’s how Mama raised us, not to get stuck like she did. Mama grew up hard and married young and worked her fingers to the bone and wanted us to have a better life. “Be nice,” she always said. “Please people. Marry rich.”

  After several tries, I am finally on the verge of this. But it has been a lot of work, believe me. I’m a very high-maintenance woman. It is not easy to look the way I do. Some surgery has been involved. But I’ll tell you, what with the miracles of modern medicine available to our fingertips, I do not know why more women don’t go for it. Just go for it! This is my motto.

  Out of Mama’s three daughters, I am the only one that has gotten ahead in the world. The only one that really listened to her, the only one that has gone places and done things. And everywhere I go, I always remember to send Mama a postcard. She saves them in a big old green pocket-book which she keeps right by her bed for this very purpose. She’s got postcards from Las Vegas and Disney World and Los Angeles and the Indianapolis 500 in there. From the Super Bowl and New York City and Puerto Vallarta. Just this morning, I mailed her one from Miami. I’ve been everywhere.

  As opposed to Mama herself, who still cooks in the elementary school cafeteria in Paradise, Kentucky, where she has cooked for thirty years, mostly soup beans. Soup beans! I wouldn’t eat another soup bean if my life depended on it, if it was the last thing to eat on the earth. Give me caviar. Which I admit I did not take to at first as it is so salty, but now have acquired a taste for, like scotch. There are some things you just have to like if you want to rise up in the world.

  I myself am upwardly mobile and proud of it, and Mama is proud of me, too. No matter what kind of lies Darnell tries to tell her about me. Darnell is my oldest sister, who goes to church in a mall where she plays tambourines and dances all around. This is just as bad as being one of those old Holiness people up in the hollers handling snakes, in my opinion. Darnell tells everybody I am going to hell. One time she chased me down in a car to lay hands on me and pray out loud. I happened to have a new boyfriend with me at the time and I got so embarrassed I almost died.

  My other sister, Luanne, is just as bad as Darnell but in a different way. Luanne runs a ceramics business at home, which has allowed her to let herself go to a truly awful degree, despite the fact that she used to be the prettiest one of us all, with smooth creamy skin, a natural widow’s peak, and Elizabeth Taylor eyes. Now she weighs over two hundred pounds and those eyes are just slits in her face. Furthermore, she is living with a younger man who does not appear to work and does not look American at all. Luanne claims he has Cherokee blood. His name is Roscoe Ridley and he seems nice enough, otherwise I never would let my little Leon stay with them, of course it is just temporary until I can get Larry nailed down. I feel that Larry is finally making a real commitment by bringing me along this weekend, and I have cleared the decks for action. Larry has already left his marriage psychologically, so the rest is just a matter of time.

  But speaking of decks, this yacht is not exactly like the Love Boat or the one on Fantasy Island, which is more what I had in mind. Of course, I am not old enough to remember those shows, but I have seen the reruns. I never liked that weird little dwarf guy, I believe he has died now of some unusual disease. I hope so. Anyway thank goodness there is nobody like that on this boat. We have three Negroes who are nice as you please. They smile and say yes ma’am and will sing calypso songs upon request, although they have not done this yet. I am looking forward to it, having been an entertainer myself. These island Negroes do not seem to have a chip on their shoulder like so many in the U.S., especially in Atlanta, where I live. My own relationship with black people has always been very good. I know how to talk to them, I know where to draw the line, and they respect me for it.

  “Well, baby, whaddaya think? Paradise, huh?” This is my fiancé and employer Larry Marcum who certainly deserves a little trip to paradise if anybody does. I have never known anybody to work so hard. Larry started off as a paving contractor and still thinks you can never have too much concrete.

  This is also true of gold, in my opinion, as well as shoes.

  Now Larry is doing real well in commercial real estate and property management, in fact we are here on this yacht for the weekend thanks to his business associate Bruce Ware, one of the biggest developers in Atlanta, though you’d never know it by looking at him. When he met us at the dock in Barbados wearing those hundred-year-old blue jeans, I was so surpri
sed. I believe that in general, people should look as good as they can. Larry and I had an interesting discussion about this in which he said that from his own observation, really rich people like Bruce Ware will often dress down, and even drive junk cars. Bruce Ware drives an old jeep, Larry says! I cannot imagine.

  And I can’t wait to see what Bruce Ware’s wife will have on, though I can imagine this, as I know plenty of women just like her—“bowheads” is what I call them, all those Susans and Ashleys and Elizabeths, though I would never say this aloud, not even to Larry. I have made a study of these women’s lives which I aspire to, not that I will ever be able to wear all those dumb little bows without embarrassment.

  “Honey, this is fabulous!” I tell Larry, and it is. Turquoise-blue water so clear you can see right down to the bottom where weird fish are swimming around, big old birds, strange jagged picturesque mountains popping up behind the beaches on several of the islands we’re passing.

  “What’s the name of these islands again?” I ask, and Larry tells me, “The Grenadines.” “There is a drink called that,” I say, and Larry says, “Is there?” and kisses me. He is such a hard worker that he has missed out on everything cultural.

  Kissing Larry is not really great but okay.

  “Honey, you need some sunscreen,” I tell him when he’s through. He has got that kind of redheaded complexion that will burn like mad in spite of his stupid hat. “You need to put it everywhere, all over you, on your feet and all. Here, put your foot up on the chair,” I tell him, and he does, and I rub sunscreen all over his fat white feet one after the other and his ankles and his calves right up to those baggy plaid shorts. This is something I will not do after we’re married.

  “Hey, Larry, how’d you rate that kind of service?” It’s Bruce Ware, now in cutoffs, and followed not by his wife but by some young heavy country-club guy. I can feel their eyes on my cleavage.

  “I’m Chanel Keen, Larry’s fiancée.” I straighten up and shake their hands. One of the things Larry does not know about me is that my name used to be Mayruth, back in the Dark Ages. Mayruth! Can you imagine?

  Bruce introduces the guy, who turns out to be his associate Mack Durant, and then they both stand there grinning at me. I can tell they are surprised that Larry would have such a classy fiancée as myself.

  “I thought your wife was coming,” I say to Bruce Ware, looking at Larry.

  “She certainly intended to, Chanel,” Bruce says, “but something came up at the very last minute. I know she would have enjoyed being here with you and Larry.” One thing I have noticed about very successful people is that they say your name all the time and look right at you. Bruce Ware does this.

  He and Mack sit down in the deck chairs. I imagine their little bowhead wives back in Atlanta shopping or getting their legs waxed or fucking the kids’ soccer coach.

  Actually I am relieved that the wives stayed home. It is less competition for me, and I have never liked women much anyway. I never know what to say to them, though I am very good at drawing a man out conversationally, any man. And actually a fiancée such as myself can be a big asset to Larry on a business trip, which is what this is anyway, face it, involving a huge mall and a sports complex. It’s a big deal. So I make myself useful, and by the time I get Bruce and Mack all settled down with rum and tonic and sunscreen, they’re showing Larry more respect already.

  Bruce Ware points out interesting sights to us, such as a real volcano, as we cruise toward Saint-Philippe, the little island where we’ll be anchoring. It takes three rum and tonics to get there. We go into a half-moon bay which looks exactly like a postcard, with palm trees like Gilligan’s Island. The Negroes anchor the yacht and then take off for the island in the dinghy, singing a calypso song. It is really foreign here! Birds of the sort you find in pet stores, yachts and sailboats of every kind flying flags of every nationality, many I have never seen before. “This is just not American at all, is it?” I remark, and Bruce Ware says, “No, Chanel, that’s the point.” Then he identifies all the flags for Larry and me. Larry acts real interested in everything, but I can tell he’s out of his league. I bet he wishes he’d stayed in Atlanta to make this deal. Not me! I have always envisioned myself on a yacht, and am capable of learning from every experience.

  For example, I am interested to hear Bruce Ware use a term I have not heard before, “Eurotrash,” to describe some of the girls on the other yachts. Nobody mentions that about half the women on the beach are topless, though the men keep looking that way with the binoculars. I myself can see enough from here—and most of those women would do a lot better to keep their tops on, in my opinion. I could show them a thing or two. But going topless is not something which any self-respective fiancée such as myself would ever do.

  The Negroes come back with shrimp and limes and crackers, etc. I’m so relieved to learn that there’s a store someplace on this island, as I foresee running out of sunscreen before this is all over. While the Negroes are serving hors d’oeuvres, I go down to put on my suit, which is a little white bikini with gold trim that shows off my tan to advantage. I can’t even remember what we did before tanning salons! (But then I do remember, all of a sudden, laying out in the sun on a towel with Darnell and Luanne, we had painted our boyfriends’ initials in fingernail polish on our stomachs so we could get a tan around them. CB, I had painted on my stomach for Clive Baldwin who was the cutest thing, the quarterback at the high school our senior year, he gave me a pearl ring that Christmas, but then after the wreck I ran off to Nashville with Mike Jenkins. I didn’t care what I did. I didn’t care about anything for a long, long time.)

  “You feel okay, honey?” Larry says when I get to the top of the stairs, where at first I can’t see a thing, the sun is so bright, it’s like coming out of a movie.

  “Sure I do.” I give Larry a wifely peck on the cheek.

  “Damn,” Mack Durant says. “You sure look okay.” Mack himself looks like Burt Reynolds but fatter. I choose to ignore that remark.

  “Can I get some of the Negroes to run me in to the beach?” I ask. “I need to make a few purchases.”

  “Why not swim in?” Bruce suggests. “That’s what everybody else is doing.” He motions to the other boats, and this is true. “Or you can paddle in on the kickboard.”

  “I can’t swim,” I say, which is not technically true, but I have no intention of messing up my makeup or getting my hair wet, plus also I have a basic theory that you should never do anything in front of people unless you are really good at it, this goes not just for swimming but for everything.

  Bruce claps his hands and a Negro gets the dinghy and I ride to the beach in style, then tell him to wait for me. I could get used to this! Also I figure that my departure will give the men a chance to talk business.

  There’s not actually much on the island that I can see, just a bunch of pathetic-looking Negroes begging, which I ignore, and selling their tacky native crafts along the beach. These natives look very unhealthy to me, with their nappy hair all matted up and their dark skin kind of dusty-looking, like they’ve got powder on. The ones back in Atlanta are much healthier, in my opinion, though they all carry guns.

  I buy some sunscreen in the little shack of a store which features very inferior products, paying with some big green bills that I don’t have a clue as to their value, I’m sure these natives are cheating me blind. Several Italian guys try to pick me up on the beach, wearing those nasty little stretch briefs. I don’t even bother to speak to them. I just wade out into the warm clear water to the dinghy and ride back and then Larry helps me up the ladder to the yacht, where I land flat on my butt on the deck, to my total dismay. “It certainly is hard to keep up your image in the tropics!” I make a little joke as Larry picks me up.

  “Easier to let it go,” Bruce Ware says. “Go native. Let it all hang out.”

  In my absence, the men have been swimming. Bruce Ware’s gray chest hair looks like a wet bath mat. He stands with his feet wide apart as our bo
at rocks in the wake of a monster sailboat. Bruce Ware looks perfectly comfortable, as if he grew up on a yacht. Maybe he did. Larry and I didn’t, that’s for sure! We are basically two of a kind, I just wish I’d run into him earlier in life, though better late than never as they say. This constant rocking is making me nauseous, something I didn’t notice before when we were moving. I am not about to mention it, but Bruce Ware must have noticed because he gives me some Dramamine.

  Larry and I go down below to dress up a little bit for dinner, but I won’t let Larry fool around at all as I am sure they could hear us. Larry puts on khaki pants and a nice shirt and I put on my new white linen slacks and a blue silk blouse with a scoop neck. The Negroes row us over to the island. I am disappointed to see that Bruce and Mack have not even bothered to change for dinner, simply throwing shirts on over their bathing trunks, and I am further disappointed by the restaurant, which we have to walk up a long steep path through the actual real jungle to get to. It’s at least a half a mile. I’m so glad I wore flats.

  “This better be worth it!” I joke, but then I am embarrassed when it’s not. The restaurant is nothing but a big old house with Christmas lights strung all around the porch and three mangy yellow dogs in the yard. Why I might just as well have stayed in eastern Kentucky! We climb up these steep steps onto the porch and sit at a table covered with oilcloth and it is a pretty view, I must admit, overlooking the harbor. There’s a nice breeze too. So I am just relaxing a little bit when a chicken runs over my foot, which causes me to jump a mile. “Good Lord!” I say to Larry, who says, “Shhh.” He won’t look at me.

  Bruce Ware slaps his hand on the table. “This is the real thing!” He goes on to say that there are two other places to eat, on the other side of the island, but this is the most authentic. He says it is run by two native women, sisters, who are famous island cooks, and most of the waitresses are their daughters. “So what do you think, Chanel?”