Guests on Earth: A Novel

by Lee Smith

  “Nope.” He shook his head.

  “Good,” I said, for I do love surprises, if they are good ones, and I had had precious few good ones over the years. Also I loved it that Freddy had gone to so much trouble. But what in the world would I wear?

  Sworn to secrecy, my chums came to the rescue. Ruth snuck out an armful of cocktail dresses from the exclusive downtown shop where she worked, then tossed them out on the bed, a rainbow of colors, as Amanda and Myra crowded into my room to look, too.

  “I like the pink,” Amanda said immediately, holding up a ruffly chiffon dress that looked like a valentine itself.

  I knew I’d feel silly in it, but I held my tongue.

  “No, no, the blue—it looks more like Evalina,” pronounced Myra, choosing a three-quarter-length royal blue sheath with a jeweled V neckline and a matching cape. “See, it’s sort of demure, but really sophisticated.”

  But I’m not, I was thinking hopelessly, I’m not sophisticated at all, when suddenly Jinx blew into the room and grabbed up a silver lame gown with a low, scooped neck and a swirly circular skirt. She held the dress up to herself, posing dramatically before the mirror, then started dancing with it, one arm out-thrust as if she led an imaginary partner up and down the hall. Jinx looked like such a waif—a little outcast, a tramp—yet every move she made had style, you had to hand it to her.

  “But what about this one?” Ruth held up a dress with a white silk top and a layered black chiffon skirt. “Black and white is in, honey. It’s the cat’s meow.”

  “Nope.” I smiled at everybody. “I’m going to choose—” I paused dramatically, then grabbed the silver dress from Jinx as she glided back into the room. “Ooooh, goody!” she squealed.

  “Really?” Myra looked aghast. “You’d really wear something like that?”

  “Absolutely,” I announced, as surprised at myself as they were, and wondering whether I’d actually have the nerve to do it.

  BUT FREDDY’S REACTION was worth the risk, seeing his eyes grow round as plates behind his glasses when he came to pick me up that Saturday afternoon. “Say, honey, you look swell! Just gorgeous—like a real movie star.” I imagined my chums all laughing behind their closed doors. Of course I had to cover up my fancy dress with the old loden coat when we left, but nothing could spoil that initial effect.

  Luckily there’d been a bit of a thaw during the past two days, so the road was clear as we drove down our mountain and headed east, out of town, which surprised me. “How far away is this?” I asked, and he said, “Fifteen miles,” so I put my sunglasses on and settled back to enjoy the view of snowy peaks shining in the sun. “Now you really look like a movie star,” Freddy said. I felt like one, too.

  Big heaps of old snow had been pushed to the edge of the road all along, forming a wall of gray ice that would not melt until spring. But the highway was okay as we drove down past Black Mountain and headed off onto a secondary route. Freddy was holding my hand across the seat. “Now can you guess?” he asked.

  I shook my head, still wondering a half hour later as the road began to climb, turning first tortuous and then downright scary. Freddy had to put both hands on the steering wheel. We crept along.

  “Chimney Rock.” I read the sign aloud. “Is that where we’re going?”

  Freddy shook his head no, still pleased with himself.

  At length our road entered a dark forest that opened suddenly upon a large lake glistening in the sunshine. “Oh, my goodness!” I was completely surprised.

  “Lake Lure,” Freddy announced as if he had invented it. Then I remembered hearing the nurses mention this place where they sometimes came on picnics and dates. Past shuttered lodges and summer houses we drove around the edge of the lake until we came to the big white hotel that we could see shimmering across the water like a mirage, its arched balconies and terraces extending down to the water’s edge. LAKE LURE INN 1927, announced the script emblazoned high up on its arched stucco façade—the height of elegance. This time, Freddy relinquished his station wagon to a valet without fear that he’d never see it again, and we had time for a walk along the balustrade at the lake’s edge. A cold brisk wind blew off the water and destroyed Brenda Ray’s attempt to style my fly-away hair.

  “But this is just lovely,” I said. “It looks so much like Switzerland.”

  “Does it now?” Freddy smiled happily as we walked along. He was a big, hard-working, good-hearted boy, really, easy-going and easily pleased. “A girl could do a lot worse now, mark my words, lassie!” Mrs. Hodges seemed to be saying in my head. The cold, clean air filled my whole body, swelling my heart. We held hands like children, walking along, though I was glad we did not go too far, as I could not afford to ruin Ruth’s sling-back silver slippers. I knew I could never replace them.

  We stood on a promontory looking back at the Moroccan-style hotel beginning to bustle with activity now, arriving vehicles and people—Valentine’s Day sweethearts like ourselves. The water winked in the sun; the white mountain shone like a silver dome. Maybe I could really do this, really be “Freddy’s girl.” In a few months’ time I would no longer be a part-time patient but an official staff member, Phoebe’s assistant, Dr. Schwartz had confided.

  “Okay, let’s start back,” he said, checking his watch. “We don’t want to miss a thing.”

  Oh, how I loved him for that remark! I squeezed his hand.

  WE WERE GIVEN pink champagne cocktails in long-stemmed glasses in the elegant lobby, which I found disconcerting due to its mirrored walls: who was that girl in the silver dress? I found myself sneaking glances at her, as if I were spying. We made conversation with a man from Greensboro who said he was “in the tobacco business,” and his beautiful wife; I wondered, but did not ask, if they knew Charles Winston. An ancient couple, brittle and frail as insects, told me that they had met on Valentines Day sixty years earlier. “May you be so fortunate,” the bent-over wife whispered into my ear.

  When the French doors into the dining room were opened all at once, a collective gasp “Aaaah!” went up from the entire company. The semi-circular dining room had been specially decorated with pink linen, candles already glowing, and a long-stemmed rose on every table. We were given a choice location right in front of one of the huge windows facing the water. Though the sun was actually setting behind us, the surface of the entire lake turned red as we ate our lobster bisque and raw oysters, which Freddy politely declined, watching me down mine in amazement. “Chicken duxelles” were followed by “steamship” rounds of roast beef. Freddy ate his and mine, too, for I was overwhelmed by that point, though tickled to note that my date was getting his money’s worth. Dancing began as the orchestra played a medley of popular love songs: “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” “People Will Say We’re in Love,” “Embraceable You.”

  “It’s funny how many songs are love songs.” I said.

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Freddy said, “but I can name every bone in the human body, all two hundred and six of them. Come on, now!” he pulled me awkwardly to my feet, and I realized he must be a little drunk. “Let’s get those tibias and fibulas moving!” First came a slow dance, “In the Still of the Night,” on which I did fairly well, but became alarmed when it was followed by the livelier tune “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.” Freddy twirled me around then suddenly relinquished me on this one, apparently expecting me to improvise some steps on my own, which he seemed to be doing. I grabbed his hand, hard, and pulled him back to me. “Never do that again,” I said.

  “Why not?” he was grinning. “Give you a chance to shine.”

  “No. Please. I love to be led. I’m an accompanist, remember?”

  “You are many things, Evalina,” Freddy said, suddenly serious, into my ear, into my hair, which was all grown out now. “It may take me a lifetime to find them all out.” He led me around the polished floor that was thinning out now as couples sat down to the selection of fancy desserts on each table. More champagne arri
ved. Freddy really was a bit tipsy, overturning his first glass of it. Our unobtrusive waiter brought him another flute of champagne and another pink linen napkin, intricately folded—as they all were—into the shape of a swan. Little swan. Joey Nero rose before my eyes, smiling and swarthy, filled with so much dangerous life.

  “To you, Evalina!” Freddy raised his glass.

  “No, to you. No one has ever been so nice to me,” I said honestly.

  He turned redder than ever.

  I tipped his glass with mine, the crystal ringing. We drank.

  “Let’s get a room,” I said.

  Freddy stood right up and flung his napkin on the floor. We left our desserts untouched upon the table.

  LATER I REALIZED that I should not have been surprised to learn that Freddy, at thirty three, was still a virgin. He had worked so hard to put himself through medical school that he’d had no time for girls. And he was so kind by nature; of course he would have wanted to take care of girls, rather than taking advantage of them. He would have thought of his sisters.

  But I was not his sister.

  “I’m your tour guide, remember?” I announced, surprising myself, and was further surprised by Freddy’s quick open ardor and my own rising response, there in a complicated antique four-poster bed in a room that would surely put this debt-ridden young doctor in the poorhouse . . . if it didn’t get him fired first. From now on, we would have to be very careful.

  But we got our money’s worth, at any rate.

  AT SOME POINT during that night, I woke up and went to the window to look out at the moon hanging huge and low now over the water. It made a path straight to me.

  “Evalina?” Freddy got up and stumbled toward me.

  “Look,” I said. “When I move, the moon moves, too. It comes toward you wherever you are, doesn’t it? Why is that? Here, Doctor, you try it.”

  At first Freddy smiled indulgently, but then he tested out my theory, and it was true. “Oh Evalina,” he said. “Everything will come to you in time, honey. It will, I promise.”

  THOUGH LIFE INSIDE the snow globe continued as before, our closed world defined by the wintry landscape and us captive within it, I grew more and more anxious as the February days passed swiftly one after another and March drew nigh. Why, oh why had I ever thought of the Mardi Gras performance? As if it were not enough to help plan the dance itself! Why had I ever brought Mrs. Fitzgerald into it?

  For now she seemed more remote than ever, scribbling obsessively in the black notebook though reluctant to schedule any rehearsals. “Not yet, not yet,” she said, clutching the notebook to her chest. “There is a moment of completion, of fullest comprehension, which must arrive of its own accord, as if it were a messenger from another land, astride a horse.” She swept out the door and down the hall.

  “Oh brother,” Phoebe Dean said to me. “If they’re going to do it, they’ve got to start practicing, right? Especially since they’re all mentals. It’ll take a while—remember Miss Mary?”

  I certainly did. And I was already prepared, having obtained the sheet music of La Giaconda in its entirety through a mail-order company. I remembered now that Joey Nero had once sung the tenor role, Enzo Grimaldo, in Toronto. Yet this did not bother me at all but pleased me somehow, as if I were taking back that part of my life. And it is such fanciful, happy music—a joy to play. I felt that it would be good for the participants to dance to it—therapeutic, as Freddy would say. But who would the participants be? And when would we start?

  Just when Phoebe was on the verge of canceling the performance, Mrs. Fitzgerald appeared in our music room dressed in a black, flowing sort of jersey shift, with black tights and the pink ballet slippers. “Now,” she said, opening the notebook.

  Phoebe and I were speechless as we stared at the diagram before us, which I shall attempt to reproduce here.

  “I shall need eight dancers,” she said, “to comprise nine, along with myself, for nine is the powerful number, the number which is required for this dance. Three, you see—all multiples: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For He is life. Time is life, and He is time. Got it?”

  We nodded stupidly.

  “Excellent. We must begin immediately, this afternoon.” It was a transformation. Mrs. Fitzgerald looked calm yet purposeful, eyes snapping with an energy I had not seen since her return. Even her body looked different. Feet apart, weight evenly balanced on each, she stood lightly in the world now, ready for anything. Ready to dance.

  “It’s too soon,” Phoebe told her. “We have to round up your dancers. How about day after tomorrow? That’ll be Saturday afternoon, so they can probably all come.”

  “As you wish. But tell them they should come prepared to dance. Wear something comfortable.” With a dismissive wave, Mrs. Fitzgerald exited.

  Phoebe and I looked at each other.

  What had we done?

  YET THE FIRST practice went surprisingly well, though only seven dancers showed up. “Don’t worry, we’ve got another coming next time,” promised Dr. Schwartz, who was present, too. I was very glad to have her and Phoebe there, and Karen Quinn as well, who had asked to perform, as she loved modern dance herself. “Though it has been years,” she confessed ruefully, large and very strong-looking in her green leotard and tights. Her feet were huge, bare, and very white. The others included my housemates, Myra, Amanda, Ruth, and Jinx, of course, the most enthusiastic of all—plus a shy new girl named Pauletta, and Mrs. Morris’s oldest daughter Nancy, a high school girl who had been taking ballet lessons in town for several years.

  “First we shall limber up.” Mrs. Fitzgerald nodded to me and I began to play some little études as background music. “Just follow me.” She led them in a series of stretches, up, down, forward, side to side, in time to the music. It all looked surprisingly professional to me. But why not? Mrs. Fitzgerald had told me herself that she was once asked to join the San Carlo Ballet Company in Naples and offered a solo role in Aida, though she had refused, to her eternal regret. Down in the front row, I could see Dr. Schwartz begin to relax as well. Mrs. Fitzgerald sank gracefully to the floor, where the exercises continued, then ended with the girls all sitting cross-legged in a semicircle, Ruth and Myra breathing hard.

  “This don’t look like any ballet dance I ever saw,” Jinx announced. “When do we get to jump up and leap through the air?”

  Everybody laughed.

  Mrs. Fitzgerald rose to stand before us all. “This will not be, strictly speaking, a ballet, my dears.” She was still composed. “It is, rather, an interpretive dance, a very famous dance, about the nature of time. You will form a circle, for you shall be Time itself—the minutes, the hours—and the music will tell the passing of the day from morning till night, or of a human lifetime, by extrapolation.”

  “By what?” Jinx asked.

  “Extension,” Mrs. Fitzgerald said. “Imagination. Use your imagination. I know you’ve got one. Play it for us, Evalina”—which I did, noting their immediate smiles. I knew it would make them happy.

  “So. You will come in first and form a great circle, which will turn and turn . . .”

  “Ecclesiastes,” Jinx said.

  This remark stopped Mrs. Fitzgerald in her tracks. Then she smiled—that lovely and rare occurrence. “Exactly, my dear! Just exactly! Now let’s try it. Go offstage there, and come in like this, in a line, but see the step? Watch the step, you over there. Now you’re gliding, you’re gliding, now form the circle, now let’s go around—and around and around”—as I played.

  “Now I want you to split up into groups of three. You girls over there—and you three in the center, come forward a bit, please—and the rest come over here, that’s right. Now we shall learn a little routine, a sequence of steps and movements. Evalina!” I played. “Again.” I played again as she performed the routine three times, then made a turn. But now Mrs. Fitzgerald seemed short of breath, and for the first time, I realized that I could see her age—forty-eight—which she must have been feeling, too, bec
ause she stopped suddenly and pointed to Jinx, saying, “Here, dear, why don’t you come up and lead, while I help the others individually?

  Without a word, Jinx went forward and performed the steps flawlessly, as I played the spritely tune again and again while Mrs. Fitzgerald moved from group to group, instructing—reaching down to point Amanda’s toe, pulling Myra’s shoulders back so she would stand up straight, telling Ruth to be quiet. Jinx led them as if she’d been doing it for years, again and again, until Mrs. Fitzgerald clapped her hands three times and said, “Enough! Very, very good work, girls. Now you may go. Though I want you to practice, practice, practice on your own, the little routine which you have just learned. Practice before a mirror, if possible.” It would not be possible in most of the hospital. “If you get lost, ask that one,” pointing to Jinx, who nodded solemnly. “And I shall meet with you again on—” She looked out at her little audience.

  “Monday at five o’clock,” Phoebe Dean called out. “One hour before supper. Here.”

  The dancers came down off the stage and milled around, finding their belongings and putting on their coats; their chatter filled the auditorium. They had ceased to be patients; they could have been any young women, anywhere. I closed the piano, gathered up my music, and stepped off the stage to join the rest. Finally the girls began trooping up the aisle, followed by Mrs. Fitzgerald, who paused to address Phoebe and Dr. Schwartz. “So, what did you think of the rehearsal? Some promise here, I’d say, especially the little redhead.”

  “Oh yes,” we all gushed, and that fleeting smile appeared on Mrs. Fitzgerald’s face again.

  “You, Patricia,” she said, pointing at me now, “are fine. You are wasted upon us. And now, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost . . .” she murmured as she continued up the aisle alone.

  “Hey Zelda,” Jinx’s flat carrying voice came suddenly from the dark at the back of the auditorium, “you wanna smoke?”