“Is that how you measure a whole life? Then I sure as hell must be a failure.”
She could ask it then. “You’re divorced?”
“Twice.” He waved away the questions he saw in her face. “You don’t want to hear it. All you need to know is that I’ve discovered that we have a lot in common, you and I, a lot.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means I don’t need anybody, either. Been living with my dog Buster the past two years. I see my son on weekends. The happiest two years of my life.”
“I’m not you, Will.”
“But yes, you are, my darling. Very close.” He pulled her around to face him, touched her on the cheek. “You are a conundrum, Emma. You are a piece of work. A hey-diddle-diddle. A kiss-my-ass. In some ways you don’t give a flying fuck. You do what you want to do—probably because you have to. Otherwise you couldn’t breathe. You aren’t put together exactly the same as other people. That’s the beauty of you—and the puzzle, the enigma. You’re a contradiction. That same independence that draws them to you is what pushes them away, ’cause you don’t need them.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She whirled away from him, and he pulled her back.
“Oh yes you do. You know that you can walk away from Jesse just as easily as you’ve walked away from everybody else in your life.”
“Then why am I having such a hard time doing it?”
“Because you married him, which makes a difference, and…” and then he grinned his slow grin, “because he’s black. You hate to give that one up.”
“That is not true! Jesus, Will, I never thought you were a racist. You didn’t used to be.”
“And I’m not now. There was nothing racist about what I just said. What I mean is that he fits. It’s absolutely typical of you to marry someone who would stand other people on their ear, sure because he’s talented, sure because he’s intelligent, and great, and funny, and probably has a big dick—Jesus, I don’t know what all. But God Almighty, Emma, wasn’t it just the frosting on the cake that he was black too? Because that made it more exciting? And it was the goddamned absolute last thing a girl from West Cypress would do?”
“No!” she shouted. A couple passing turned and stared.
“I’m not saying that you didn’t love him. I’m sure you did. The way you love anybody. Maybe even more. But you didn’t need him, Emma. And there’s nothing wrong with that!”
“What do you mean, nothing wrong?” She knew Will. She remembered this kind of argument from their past. He was up to some trick. He was going to lead her down a path where she’d agree to what he was saying, and then he’d cut her legs out from under her.
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with not needing someone. It’s that need, don’t you see, that dependency, that keeps most people together. Not because they love each other so goddamned much. It’s because they just can’t imagine what it would be like to go on without someone, even if that someone is causing them an incredible amount of pain. Or when they do leave, they jump right back into another pot. You don’t need that, Emma.”
There was pain in her voice. “But I don’t want to be alone.”
“You never are alone. You weren’t before Jesse, remember? You have friends. You’ll always have lovers—if you want them. And you have work. I don’t mean your teaching; you did that ’cause you thought you ought to. But cooking abroad, becoming a chef! That’s it, Emma. You always were the hungriest woman I’d ever seen in my life. And with your persnickityness, which I know must extend to your palate, you can’t help but be great. You’ll find an Italian lover. A French lover. Oh, Emma, you’re not going to be alone. All that matters anyway is sex and work. That’s what Freud said.”
“He said love and work, dodo.”
“Well, he got that part wrong. What did he know? He was a repressed homosexual.”
“I love your logic, Will.”
“And that ain’t all.” He winked at her and gave her a friendly pat on the behind. “So, we’ve settled the Jesse question.”
“What do you mean, settled?”
“Have you been listening? You’re divorcing him, of course.”
“Explain to me exactly why I’m doing that.”
Will sat down on a bench and ran his hands across the top of his lowered head. “Because you don’t love him anymore, Emma. At least not enough to make you stay with him. You’ve done that thing. Now you’re antsy. You want to move on. Now deny that.” She opened her mouth, then closed it. He was right, she couldn’t.
“You don’t need him at all. What you need is to get on about your business and get your sweet butt over to Europe and start cooking.”
“You better watch out, Will. They’re going to arrest you for practicing psychiatry without a license.”
“Psychiatry, hell. I think you left the South, girl, and you lost your common sense. Got your head full of all that Commie pinko propaganda. Don’t know which way to turn, like a coon up a tree.”
“If you’re through talking all that trash, Dr. Tucker, you might as well solve my next problem. I’m sure you must have an opinion about what I ought to do about Rosalie and Jake.”
“What’s to do? Except to go back and have a decent visit with them. What’s the problem?”
“What about the lies they told me all these years? First she, and now he? No, I guess he was first, from the very beginning. He always lied to me about being my daddy.”
And then, all of a sudden, right in the middle of her joking, her tears began to fall. A ball of pain had wadded itself up in her chest, then her throat, and out it came, bouncing. She was crying hard, gasping, shoulders shaking. These weren’t like the tears she sometimes shed with Jesse, tears of show, of ought to, obligation. She hadn’t cried like this since she was a little girl. This sorrow was the real thing, a sense of loss that laid her waste.
Will stood and watched. Her sobs continued, deeper and louder. Her shoulders shivered. When she choked, he patted her on the back and handed her his handkerchief, but he didn’t say a word.
“They lied to me. Rosalie lied to me. Jake lied to me. Aunt Ruth and Uncle George, all of them knew. I know they knew. And they never told me the truth. I don’t even know my daddy’s name,” she cried.
“And why do you want to know it?” Will finally said. “Was he such a saint?”
Emma’s head jerked up. Mascara ran in black gutters down her face.
“Who the fuck do you think he was, Emma? A playboy millionaire? The president of Harvard? Was he someone just incredibly wonderful, this father of yours who knocked your mother up?”
“Don’t!”
“Don’t what? Don’t speak the truth? You used to tell me about this years ago when we were together, about your mother, your real mother, as if she was so great. You never knew her, Emma. You don’t know who the hell she was. And all you’ve learned from Jake is that he loved her enough to go along with it even after he found out that she tricked him into marrying her when she was carrying some other guy’s kid. That doesn’t make her such a wonderful person, Emma. That’s not a nice trick.”
“But she…”
“But she what? She died? People die every day. There’s nothing particularly noble about it. It’s not as if she did it on purpose for you, like Jesus, that she gave her life so that you could live. It didn’t exactly work that way. If she knew that she shouldn’t get pregnant because she had a weak heart, then she oughtn’t to have been screwing around without being careful enough to keep from getting knocked up.”
“Will!” Emma cried. She was going to throw up.
“If you ask me, what was noble was that your father hung in there after he got tricked in the first place, and then whammo! double-tricked because she was dead, and he had you, a two- week-old, on his hands. That wasn’t exactly what the man bargained for. What was noble was that Rosalie took you both in.”
“Stop!”
“No, I’m not going to stop, because
I really think you need to hear this. I absolutely refuse to have you go around like millions of other people, because you’re not like millions of other people in so many ways, copping out on everything that goes wrong in your life by blaming it all on your parents. ‘If only my parents had loved me enough, I wouldn’t….’ Fuck that. Do you know how much your parents loved you, Emma? Your parents, Rosalie and Jake? They went through a lot of shit together. From what you’ve told me, they didn’t even love each other, probably never had sex. They did it for something, Emma. I mean, like everybody else, they probably in some ways need one another, but mostly they did it for you, Emma. They stuck because of you.”
“I never asked them to.” She’d used the same tone at six, with her bottom lip stuck out.
“It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see that? It doesn’t matter what you wanted. What they wanted was to provide a home for you. And they did. They loved you, girl.”
“They sure have weird ways of showing it.” Emma still wasn’t convinced. And if she let herself be so, she was going to have to give up a lot.
“Well, the bad news is that they aren’t perfect. I know that’s hard for you to accept, but they just aren’t. Like everybody else, they have ravels and rough edges. They don’t always do the right thing. And they may not even be terribly smart, or feeling, or even loving all the time. Some mornings they probably have bad breath. The good news is that they did the best they could. What the fuck did you want from them? Did they abuse you? Did they beat you up? Tie you to the heater? Did they drink? Lock you in a dungeon? Keep you from going to school?”
“You know they didn’t.”
“Then what did they do that was so awful?”
She whispered, “They didn’t know who I was, Will. They still don’t. They don’t know a thing about me.”
“Well, Jesus mothering Christ, Emma. Why’s that such big news? When the hell’s the last time you ever tried to have a conversation with them? It’s not as if you haven’t been a little hard- assed secretive yourself.”
Emma stayed awake all night thinking about what he’d said.
* * *
The next morning Will asked, “So, today do you want me to help you track down Kaplan’s Dry Goods Store? Or do you want to do that alone?”
Emma thought for a long while. Then, “Nope,” she finally said.
“Nope what? No help?”
“Nope. I’m giving it up. I’m letting the Kaplans rest in peace, whoever, wherever they are. I thought all night about them, Will, about Rosalie and Jake. I hate to admit ever that you’re even the tiniest bit right, but I’m gonna head on back to West Cypress. I guess I need to do some visiting.”
* * *
“Give old Jake and Rosalie a hug for me,” he called as she backed out of his driveway.
“You never met them, Will.”
“So what? With you for a daughter, they need all the hugs they can get.” And then he raced over to the car and opened the door and gave her a big one. “Just kidding,” he whispered into her ear. “Another thirty years, Em, you’ll be great at it. Hell, you’re gonna be the perfect daughter, maybe even before they’re dead.”
They exchanged a long last embrace.
“Send me postcards from Europe.”
“What if I decide to come back to Atlanta to open up shop?” she called, pulling out for real now.
“Great idea! Love to have you back in town. And remember I’ll always be behind you, or right next door. But don’t start imagining things.” He shook a finger at her. “You don’t need me full time—any more than I need you. I know you, girl. I know you from before.”
“I never loved anybody but you, Will.”
“Yeah, sweetheart, and the check is in the mail.”
20
West Cypress
Emma took her time driving the six hundred miles to West Cypress, turned south past Meridian, out of her way, down to New Orleans. She spent a couple of days there eating and walking, walking and eating—stalling. She had crayfish étouffée at the Bon Ton, barbecued shrimp at Manale’s, oyster soup at Brennan’s, crabmeat Yvonne at Galatoire’s.
Might as well pork up, she told herself, before you get to Rosalie’s. ’Cause unless some miracle has transpired, there’ll be mystery meat and gizzard soup.
Now, Emma, she chided herself, that’s hardly the proper attitude for the returning prodigal daughter, which she was, she thought, sort of. Will’s words kept running through her head.
From the table next to her, an old man leaned over and tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me, if you’re through with it, could I borrow your paper?”
Emma started. Atop a frizz of white hair was perched a baseball cap. The man looked like Herman.
“Sure,” she said. “I’m finished.” She handed the Times-Picayune to him. “Take it.”
“Thanks.” And then he put the paper down. “You live around here?”
“Nope, just visiting.” Was the old geezer trying to pick her up?
“On vacation?”
“No. Yes. Well, kind of.”
He laughed. “Sounds like you don’t know what you’re doing.”
She laughed, too. “Does, doesn’t it? I’m making a big loop. Touring the Old South. When I finish this,” she pointed to the remains of her coffee, “I’m on my way up to West Cypress.”
He shook his head. “Heard of it, but don’t know it.” He wouldn’t, for he spoke in the Brooklyn-tinged accent of the New Orleans native. Northern Louisiana might as well be on another planet to him, the two halves of the state were so far apart in spirit.
“Why should you be going there?”
“It’s home.” She smiled. “Going to see my momma and daddy.”
She chatted with the old man another half an hour. He told her about how he used to be a sailor, shipping in and out of the New Orleans port, after his trips around the world always returning. Jake, she thought, Jake would have loved your life.
“But I always came back,” he said. “New Orleans, best place on the earth to be.”
“Your family’s here?”
“Nawh.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “My wife threw me out years ago. Couldn’t take all my coming and going. Thought I had a girl in every port.” His blue eyes twinkled.
Damn, he looked like Herman.
“Did you?”
The old man, whose name was Oscar, just grinned.
“Kids?”
“Two. But they’ve been long gone. One in Houston, one in San Francisco. I never see them. Your folks are lucky that you’re such a good daughter, that you come back home.”
* * *
Emma paid her check and stood. Time to hit the road.
Around Baton Rouge she picked up a radio station that was playing jazz and rhythm and blues. Elvis crooned “One Night with You.” Lordy, lordy, didn’t he sound good? He didn’t look it, though, not in the pictures she’d seen of him lately. All that lean hungriness turned to puffy fat. J.D. had, too, right after he married Maylene. Southern men did that, got married and then took pride in growing bellies, patting them like blue-ribbon watermelons. Why, she’d hardly recognized J.D. in that last photograph with his obituary in the paper. And what about Ricardo Martinez, she wondered then, that sexy Mexican Elvis look-alike, that devil who pretended to be preaching for the Lord, who’d seduced her so at twelve that she’d thrown over her determination to be a Jew (whatever that was) to be baptized in his arms? Were those beautiful brown eyes now buried in fat?
Good God! It struck her as she thought about that: If Jake wasn’t really her daddy, not blood kin anyway, and that other nameless fast-talking, skeedaddling—go on, Emma, say it—worthless son-of-a-bitch was, the one who had left Helen in the lurch, then what if, what if—hell, maybe she was half a Jew again! But no, no, that wasn’t right. If her mother was, she was. Oh, hell, Emma, give it up. Just go ahead and be a Southern Baptist-Jew for the rest of your life. It has a certain ring anyway, doesn’t it? Then she thought of Will and lau
ghed. He’d say that she’d go out of her way to make something like that up. That she’d do it just to be different, just like…
Just like marrying Jesse. Oh, Jesse.
She was pulling into Natchez now, the best route from New Orleans, cutting through the southwest corner of Mississippi. Soon she’d cross over the Big Muddy and be back on the Louisiana side.
In a way she’d always wanted Jesse to see all this, the Old South, Natchez, this pretty riverbank town with its antebellum houses that were so gorgeous in the azaleaed springtime when they were filled with visitors taking the tour called the Pilgrimage. He would love the fine woodwork, the elaborate mantelpieces, the hand-carved furniture.
“Sure,” he’d say, though, “good work done by slaves’ hands.” And it was, of course, though some of the furniture was English or French; every brick was laid, every nail hammered by blacks before the Emancipation. And she could imagine what his reaction would be when the tour guide, a Daughter of the Confederacy whose accent would be so thick that even Emma could hardly understand her, pointed out the trapdoor in the master’s bedroom floor beneath which lived a slave who was always on call. Or the elaborate fans of peacock feathers she’d seen in many of these homes, suspended over the dining tables. The plantation owners wanted cool breezes when they dined, courtesy of the arm of the little black boy in livery who stood in a corner pulling a rope. He’d look very much like the statues that so many suburban Southern houses still planted on either side of the driveway, little colored boys in livery, sometimes holding a lamp.
She’d told Jesse about those statues.
“Let’s get us a couple for Skytop,” he’d said, “and I’ll paint their faces white.”
Nope, she’d never been able to convince Jesse that there was anything in the South that should have been saved from Sherman’s March. She could never explain to him that, even though she didn’t want to live there anymore, there was a great deal about the South that she loved.
“Unreconstructed,” he’d mumble, teasing her. Though every once in a while she didn’t think he was teasing.
Ah, Jesse. You never should have married a Southern girl.
Keeping Secrets Page 34