Windchill Summer

by Norris Church Mailer

  It is going to be our first big battle, and I don’t have to tell you I am scared. If you don’t hear from me again, Carlene, let these be my last words to you: I love you, and if I make it out of here alive and back home, we will be together and try to make some kind of a life together, I promise you. You have been through your own war, too, I can see it now, and you are a braver soldier than I am. Take care of that boy. I pray that I can be a daddy to him after all.

  All my love forever,

  Jerry

  44.Cherry

  In all the excitement of following Lucille out to the Water Witch, not to mention me getting practically scalped and the upsetting news about Baby and those pictures, I completely forgot to go to work. I was supposed to be there at four and work until eight, but it didn’t even enter my head until I pulled into our yard after dropping Lucille off and heard the phone ringing. It turned out to be Rainy Day, wanting to know where I was.

  “Omigosh! I’ll be right over. I’ll explain when I get there.”

  Rainy Day was waiting at the door when I came in.

  “Are you all right? I was worried when you didn’t show up and nobody answered at your house, and . . .” She stopped in midsentence. “Wow, you cut your hair! It looks really cute!”

  “Thank you. I’m so sorry, Rainy Day. Lucille gave me an accidental haircut, and then I had to go someplace kind of unexpectedly, and to tell you the truth, I just plain forgot that I was coming in today. I hope I didn’t mess anything up for you.”

  “You seem a little strung out. Your aura is kind of jagged around the edges. What’s the matter?”

  Rainy Day was into psychic stuff. She read tarot cards for people, did astrological charts, and could see auras. I should have known I couldn’t hide anything from her.

  “Come on upstairs and I’ll mix you a juice cocktail. You can tell me all about it.”

  She put the CLOSED sign on the door and locked it, even though it was still more than an hour until closing time.

  We went into the black-light room, sank down into the beanbag chairs, and drank our carrot/beet/honey drinks—a beautiful Persian melon color—while I poured out my heart to her. I didn’t mean to say anything to her about any of it, but somehow she got it out of me.

  “It just seems like everything is getting out of control, Rainy Day. What really freaks me out is that Franco character coming to Carlene’s funeral with that rose and kissing her on the mouth. It makes you feel like he is somehow involved in her death. I wish we could find out what happened to her. It seems like the police aren’t going to.”

  “Why don’t we ask her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are ways. I sometimes have this knack of speaking to people who have crossed over.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Oh yes I am. Even when I was a child, I saw people that nobody else could. We had this elderly neighbor named Goldie, who used to give me sticks of horehound candy, and I would help her dig in her garden. She passed on when I was about five, but every afternoon after she died, she’d still be out there working in the backyard, and I’d go out and we’d talk, just like we always did.”

  A cold chill ran down my spine. “Rainy Day, don’t take this the wrong way, but is this witchcraft or anything?”

  “No, Cherry. It is not black magick, if that’s what you’re worried about. I only practice white magick. You can only use it for good, for protection, not to do evil against anybody. Satan, if he even exists, has absolutely nothing to do with it.

  “And I’m not sure the power I have has anything to do with magick anyhow. My great-grandma came from Wales, and she was tuned into things not of this world too. She was always seeing little people everywhere. I think it is just a Jones thing. Aunt Frannie has a bit of it.”

  “Aunt Frannie?”

  “Frannie Moore. Used to be Frannie Jones. Carlene’s mother.”

  “Carlene was your cousin?”

  “Didn’t you know that? My daddy is Frannie’s big brother.”

  “Well, I’ll be dog. Did Carlene ever, well, how do you say it? Appear to you after she died?”

  “No, she didn’t. There is no telling which plane she is on or what she is doing. It’s a big place over there. You don’t always see everyone you want to, and sometimes ones you don’t even know at all will barge in, trying to take over. You have to be tough with them. All kinds of low-life trashy spirits try to come through from the lower plane. It’s like a stadium full of fans at a Rolling Stones concert over there.”

  She was talking in this calm voice, like what she said made perfect sense, and I tried to listen in the same way. Who’s to say that what she was saying wasn’t real? We believe in angels, and they aren’t so easy to prove, either. I decided to keep an open mind.

  “Okay. If we were going to, how would we call up Carlene?”

  “Well, ideally, we could have a séance, but since it’s just you and me, we could try to reach her on the Ouija board.”

  “You mean those things really work? I thought they were toys.”

  “If you know what you’re doing. Are you game?”

  I swallowed hard. I only half believed in that stuff, but the half that believed, really believed.

  “What do we have to do?”

  “The first thing is to get some salt.”

  She went to the juice bar and came back with a box of Morton’s.

  “Sea salt is better, but this will work.” She started sprinkling it in a circle around a little table in the black-light room. “You need to sprinkle the salt in the deasil—that’s sun-wise, east to south to west to north. If you were going to do something bad, you’d sprinkle it in the widdershins, which is the opposite direction.”

  “I thought you couldn’t do bad stuff.”

  “Not couldn’t. Wouldn’t.”

  She laid down a light circle of salt around the low table, then lit a candle in the middle of it. “This is a white candle, which represents purity and the life force. Here, sit down by the table and I’ll get the Ouija board.”

  I sat down cross-legged on the floor. The candle took away most of the effects of the black light, but not entirely. It seemed like the air was vibrating neon outside the circle of salt. I was beginning to get a little nervous.

  Rainy Day came back in with the board and put it on the table. “Okay. Here it is. Now, what we have to do is say a little prayer to my spirit guide, so he will not let any evil spirits in, and see if he can find Carlene for us. Then it would be helpful if we sang a song. Spirits like that.”

  I nodded, ready to strip off naked if she said to. She had tied a crystal on a black velvet ribbon around her head, and it hung right between her eyes and sparkled in the light. It was a Hot Springs diamond. We had some of those for sale out front. I thought I might get one, now that I saw how pretty it looked. I think I was half hypnotized by the reflected sparks of the candle flame. She raised her arms, closed her eyes, and prayed:

  “Oh, Abilar, my most dedicated spirit guide, please hear our reverent pleas in this hour of time on earth. Protect us from evil spirits. Do not allow them to enter the sacred circle of salt. We come to you, Abilar, because we seek Carlene Ida Moore, recently murdered, in order to shed some light on the events that caused her death. Help us speak to her, Abilar, and we will be now and for eternity most grateful.” She opened her eyes. They had never looked bluer. “Now it helps if we sing a song. Do you know the words to ‘Hey, Jude’?”

  “Spirits like the Beatles?”

  “A lot.”

  We sang the whole song of “Hey, Jude,” and really got down on the part that goes, “Da, da, da, dadadada—dadadada.” Rainy Day had a really nice, mellow voice. Her cat, Florentine, a long-haired smoky blue with amber-colored eyes, came in to see what was going on and climbed right up into my lap.

  “Is it okay for Florentine to be here?”

  “It’s a good sign. Cats are sensitive to spirits. They like to be in the middle of whatever i
s going on. It means we are making contact. I think it’s time.” I jumped as her voice changed—boomed out, full of authority.

  “Carlene, if you hear us, give us a sign.”

  Florentine arched up and yowled at that point, a hair-raising sound, and dug her claws into my leg. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

  “That is a good enough sign. Thanks, Carlene.” I said out loud, then I leaned down and whispered to Rainy Day, “Do you think it’s her?”

  “There is something at your left shoulder. I can’t tell if it is her or not.”

  I turned around but didn’t see or feel anybody there. I guess I am just not sensitive to spirits.

  “She is trying to say something, but I can’t understand. Maybe she will speak through the board.”

  Rainy Day put her fingers on the pointer, as if she were touching a fragile flower.

  “Now, you put your fingers on the other side of the planchette. Lightly.”

  I did.

  “Carlene, who killed you? Tell us, please.”

  The planchette didn’t move at all. It was like she either didn’t hear us or didn’t want to tell us. The silence made a ringing noise in my ears.

  “Maybe she doesn’t know. Ask her again, Rainy Day.”

  “If you can’t name the killer, is there anything else you want to tell us?”

  The pointer moved and formed the word B-A-B-Y-L-E-T-T-E-R-S.

  “What letters? Is it Baby Moreno or a baby? What is she talking about?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Carlene, is it the letters of a word or letters like you send to somebody? Is it something to do with Baby Moreno?”

  The planchette didn’t move.

  “She is getting fainter. Maybe she doesn’t want to tell about the letters.”

  “Maybe we should ask her something else, Rainy Day. Is it okay to ask personal things? Can they see into the future over there?”

  “Sometimes.” Rainy Day was whispering now. “They don’t always tell us, though. Most things that happen to us here on the earth plane are tests we have to pass before we can get to a higher plane. Spirits can get into trouble if they help us too much. But you can try.”

  “Carlene,” I said as loudly as I could, feeling really stupid. “I have a boyfriend named Tripp Barlow. Can you see into the future? Is he the one I ought to marry?”

  The planchette began to move. It spelled out A-S-K-F-A-Y-E.

  “‘Ask Faye.’ Do you know somebody named Faye, Cherry?”

  “There was Faye Dean Murphy, but she moved to Texas in the fourth grade. I don’t know any other Fayes.”

  “Maybe there’s one you can’t think of.”

  “Or maybe it isn’t Carlene at all who is talking to us but one of those low-rent spooks. It looks like she would have told us the name of the killer if it was her.”

  Just then Florentine jumped down out of my lap and skidded across the board, knocking over the candle. The room was bathed in black light again; the melted white candle wax glowed in a neon blue puddle on the table where the cat had knocked it over and spilled it.

  It came over me then we might have been talking to an actual dead person. The room seemed too close, like the walls were moving in.

  —

  Rainy Day walked me outside to the car. It had come a little shower, and the air felt clean, like it had been rinsed off. Somewhere, somebody was burning leaves. It was comforting, that smell; it brought you back to the world of moms cooking fried potatoes and dads raking leaves in the early fall.

  “Well, that was something, Rainy Day. Do you think it was really Carlene?”

  “Maybe. She was so faint I couldn’t be sure. We can have a real séance, if you want to—get some of the kids together and do it right: John Cool, Bean, Tripp, Baby. That is, if you and Baby get back on the same wavelength.”

  “I need to talk to her, I guess, but I don’t know what to say. What if it’s true that she posed for those pictures? Do you think she’d tell me the truth?”

  “What do you feel in your heart?”

  “She would never do anything like that.”

  “Then trust your heart. Our senses never lie to us. Like if you are hungry for some particular kind of food, it means your body needs the nutrients it provides. If you feel like something is the truth, or something is wrong, then it usually is.”

  I nodded. That went along with what Mama had said—if you have to ask yourself if you are in love, you’re not. Trouble was, my own senses had been going haywire ever since I met Tripp Barlow. Things that I would have once sworn on the Bible were wrong now didn’t seem so bad. Can we ever trust our own senses? I didn’t know anymore.

  “Maybe I’ll go see Baby right now. Should I say anything to her about the séance?”

  “If you want to. Ask her if she knows anything about any letters. I feel like Carlene wants to tell us something, if we can only make contact.”

  45.Cherry

  Baby wasn’t at home. Her car was there, but Manang said that Bean had picked her up and she didn’t know where they went. I should have called before I came out, but I didn’t trust my voice on the phone. Baby knows me too well.

  “Come in, Cherry. We haven’t seen you in a while.”

  The little girls were playing Barbie in the living room, tiny high heels and clothes scattered everywhere, and Pilar was right in the middle of it, down on the floor with them. She seemed embarrassed that I had seen her playing dolls, and got up. She didn’t have on her makeup, and looked a lot younger than she had at the party.

  “Hey, Pilar, how’s it going?”

  “Okay. I was just helping Sunnie and Connie. Some of those little zippers and buttons are hard for them to fix.”

  “I remember. I have all my old Barbies. I still take them out once in a while and dress them. They sit on my dresser, kind of like a room decoration.” I said that because I didn’t want her to feel bad that I had caught her playing. In fact, it was true, but I normally wouldn’t have told anyone. She smiled like she appreciated it.

  “So, Pilar, are you excited about being in high school this year?”

  “I guess.”

  “Think you might try out for cheerleader? You should.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh yeah. You’d be great at splits and jumps. You have the body for it.”

  She did, too. She was built a lot like Baby, but was even more slender and graceful, if that was possible, and her legs were longer. I took a hard look at her and realized that she hadn’t stuffed Kleenex in her bra like I thought she did that night at the opening of the Family Hand. She had just sprouted a pair of really nice breasts in the last year. She must be nearly fifteen now. I couldn’t believe it. I still thought of her as a little girl.

  “I really like your haircut, Cherry. I’ve been thinking about cutting my own, but I’m scared I won’t like it. I’ve never cut my hair in my life.”

  Pilar’s hair was longer, even, than Baby’s.

  “You would look really cute with a pixie, Pilar, like Audrey Hepburn wears. You have that great long neck like she does. I wanted to cut my hair for a long time, too, and now I am so glad I did,” I lied. No sense in telling her how much I hated it if she was going to do the same thing.

  “Maybe I’ll do it, then.” She gave me a big smile. This was the first conversation the two of us had ever had without Baby being there. I could tell she was happy I was talking to her like an equal. The kid was growing up.

  “I can give you something to eat, Cherry?” Manang asked. “I have some nice egg rolls made tonight.”

  “Okay, sure. I’d love one, Manang.” Manang’s egg rolls were actually pretty tasty. In spite of the big meal I had eaten earlier, I scarfed down three almost without breathing. Pilar and Manang hung out around the kitchen table with me while I ate.

  “I think Baby is with Bean out at Woody’s,” Pilar said. “I would love to go with you, but they wouldn’t let me in. I’m not twenty-one.” She seemed a little wistful.


  I could go to Woody’s, though. I had been to a bar just this afternoon and drunk liquor. As long as I was at it, I might as well visit the gateway to hell, as Brother Wilkins called it, and add that to the growing list of sinful things I had done today.

  “Thanks, Pilar. Maybe I’ll run on out there right now before it gets too late. Let me know if you decide to cut your hair. I wouldn’t advise you to go to the beauty school to get it done, though.”

  She and the little girls stood in the yard waving as I left. I still didn’t know how I was going to bring up the subject of the pictures with Baby; I would have to play it by ear. I hoped we could talk without Bean being right there in the middle of it. He had gotten funny about leaving Baby alone, and between him and my job and school and Tripp, there was hardly any time for Baby and me to do anything together anymore, just the two of us. I guess that was part of growing up, but I felt farther from her than I ever had.

  46.Baby, Bean, and Nguyen

  In spite of the angry way Bean denied it, Baby knew down deep that he must have had something to do with other women while he was away. He was a young, healthy man, and she knew there probably were willing women all over the place in Vietnam.

  There was something about the way he had said that strange name, Nguyen, while he was making love to her, like he was in pain or something. When she asked him to tell her about the hootch maid in the picture, he pretended not to know who she was talking about. Then, when she showed him the picture, he just said that she had disappeared and he didn’t know what happened to her. Another girl came and took her place, he said, and then another, and he couldn’t really remember their names. Hootch maids came and went all the time.

  Baby finally had to let it drop. Bean got mad every time she brought it up. Whoever the girl was, Baby tried to tell herself, she was long gone now. Still, it hurt. That may not have been rational, in light of her affair with Jackie, but nobody said you had to be rational.

  —

  In fact, Baby’s instincts were right on the money. Nguyen had been more than just Bean’s hootch maid. She not only washed and ironed his clothes; she gave him baths and massaged his feet for hours. She knew all the fine points of acupressure: She could press a spot on his foot, and his neck would go limp. She could make him relax like no one else. It felt so good, after wearing the hot, heavy boots all day, to be fussed over by a pretty girl.