"Well I'll be damned," he said and please excuse my French. And he asked if she too were an artist of some kind like her husband. She nodded serenely and smiled with a little doubt.
"I'll be damned," he said in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water, listening to the agreeable young woman go on talking about the house and their life in it. It was cool in the kitchen and dark and somehow remote from the world, and he could faintly smell the woman's body and her clothing when she crossed her arms or moved her hips against the remodeled counter. He found himself recalling the sight of her earlier nakedness and wishing that he could see it again, now, up close. And from deep in his aged loins an ancient and nearly forgotten message stirred his imagination. What if, he kept thinking, what if? So his imagination sent back a message to his loins as a scene of the young woman naked and smiling for him lodged itself in his mind. This went on until he was actually leaning forward, about to put out his lips to kiss her, when he realized she had stopped talking and was looking at him now in a curious way.
"So it's a fact then. You're not at the college anymore?"
She shook her head no and smiled and he said, because he couldn't think of anything else: "I'll be damned."
Then there was a long silence and he knew what it meant.
On the porch he told her he was awful sorry about her daddy and to let him know if there was anything he could do. She walked him to his truck and said thank you again in the nicest possible way and patted his arm through the window and told him like a sister to look after himself. They were going to be neighbors for a long time to come after all, and maybe it was time they got to know each other better. Why sure, he said and fumbled to start the truck. Then she waved goodbye to him in big sweeping strokes and stood out front watching him drive away, watching till he was out of sight as if perhaps she really did care for him.
About halfway home he stopped the truck at a turnout with a particularly pretty view. It was a place he used to bring his wife when they were first married and still sparking over each other, and he hadn't stopped here in many years. You could see the town below and the desert shimmering beautifully around it and beyond it forever. He sat there smelling his flowers, thinking of the young woman in her time of trouble and then thinking of the young woman sleeping alone in the old house in her narrow bed, and for just a moment he had the feeling he had fallen in love with her. Something in his narrow chest swelled and surged without his control; his lips moved as if trying to form a word, and he had to blink his eyes several times. Who's to say it couldn't happen? Who would deny two lonely people their time together if they needed each other? Here she is now without any family to speak of and with a husband who keeps himself apart like that. It's not right, he thought and absently sniffed his flowers. Soon a cloud passed below the sun and its shadow dulled the beautiful scene before him and the feeling in his chest inexplicably faded. He saw with fresh eyes what was out there, nothing but a harsh desert, an arid howling empty place upon the earth.
"You old fool," he said to himself and then tossed the flowers out the window.
At the house Hardcastle immediately called his sister to let her know that he had sold Mama's house for cash money and to let her know also what all he had found out about those people that everybody had thought so strange since they came to Alpine. His sister Abilene Jones, who had buried three husbands and lived in an apartment down in town, said she'd believe it about the house when he had the money in his hands. Then Abilene called her cousin Odessa and told her all about it and Odessa called Sister Grace from the Church of Christ and told her about it. And then other calls were made and before nightfall everybody in town who mattered knew that those people up in the hills near Beamus went around the house naked and even outside in plain view . . . but . . . and now get this! Beamus says they don't sleep together.
2
Being a Wednesday it was James's turn to prepare supper. He still was not much of a cook but he did the best he could that evening and put together two plates of enchiladas verdes with beans and rice and corn tortillas and then placed them on the kitchen table in his studio. From his little refrigerator he took the gallon bottle of Chablis that he had been drinking from for a week and set it on the table too next to the vase of Indian blankets which Alice had returned to pick when Hardcastle left that afternoon. The flowers and the wine bottle and the steaming plates of food atop the red-checked place mats created a festive air. He moved the flowers so they were squarely in the center of the table and then wiped his sweating face with a dishtowel.
The kiln had been down for several hours now; still it was an incredibly warm spring evening, especially for April, though very dry and breezy. In defense against it he was wearing only sandals and a pair of long white boxer shorts which Alice had bought for him at the Army surplus store in Alpine. He considered changing into something else or at least putting on a shirt but he knew Alice wouldn't care, wouldn't even notice and he would just have to strip it off later.
James scrutinized the table; everything was ready, it appeared, so he went to the door, stepped outside and rang the rusty cowbell that hung by a chain from the eaves.
Presently Alice and Wolf appeared on the back porch of the house fifty yards away and started up the narrow path toward him. His place was slightly higher than the house, and he looked down on them, watching them as they passed through the opening in the picket fence and then as they walked among the prickly pear and the cholla and underneath their only palo verde, blooming yellow. They were pretty to watch (Wolf sprang at her side, teasing her hand) in the gentle dusk light that follows the glorious sunsets in that part of the country. And he noticed again how her body had filled out with its own blooming grace, more womanly and more forgiving. She moved with a fluid and languid sort of grace which she had never exhibited in the early years when they were trying to make careers in the city . . . and a family. And then there was the accident on that distant island in that distant lake that caused her to lose the child and caused them to lose forever the chance to have another. It had changed her in ways neither could understand, ways mysterious and monumental. And it had changed him of course. Looking at her, seeing Wolf, always reminded him of how the simple travesties are usually the ones that lead to the greatest and most terrible deviations of human life. Tonight the stars themselves seemed to be condemning him.
He heard her sandals slapping against her heels; otherwise she was wearing only underwear again and her breasts swayed in her rhythm as if they were the engines that powered it all. When she got close enough for the weak lantern light inside the studio to reach her he saw that she had adorned herself simply this night: a single eagle's feather hung from her hair, brushing her bare shoulder, and, yes, she had painted up her eyes. The scar on her belly showed hardly at all. She cocked her head and smiled.
"Come in," he said.
He turned off the kerosene lantern and lit a candle for the table. The place had electricity but it was used only for the refrigerators
and to heat the kiln. As usual Alice awaited her invitation; quickly James pulled out her chair and motioned for her to sit in her usual place at the small unpainted table. There was a moment of silence and of probing looks meant to ask if all was well. The faces, hers light and clean, his dark and bearded, to each said yes, said as well as can be expected and thanks for asking, said also please let's move beyond that now.
"Welcome," said James, raising a toast.
They ate eagerly and quickly, sipping wine, saying very little beyond a few teasing comments on the tastiness of the food and how much better James was getting as a cook. He gave all the credit to the Mexican cookbook she had given him for his birthday. The wine bottle sat mute and empty by the time the last forkful of rice was lifted to Alice's mouth and their glassy eyes were blazing and lively in the candlelight. For dessert they had peach ice cream which James had cranked himself in an old wooden bucket. Then he smoked his pipe as she tried to teach Wolf to respond to the command "speak, speak.
" She gave up when all he did was cock his head in confusion.
"Care for some stargazing?" she said.
Outside in the hammock they lay side by side picking out constellations and marveling as usual at the number of shooting stars in the West Texas sky. Not a sound could be heard but the remote racket of the insects. They talked briefly about some new pieces she had uncrated that morning at the art gallery down in Alpine where she worked part-time with the title "assistant manager." James displayed his pottery there and Alice had sold a few pieces of jewelry. Her weaving wasn't mature enough yet to sell though often the wee hours found her bent into the lantern light in her front-room workshop as she labored to improve.
They did not talk about the death of her father. That had all been consigned to the realm of old business long ago, and Alice had settled in her conscience the remaining details while working at her loom that afternoon. Her brother Bobby, a career soldier stationed at that time in Georgia, would call again in a few days, and if she chose to call him back she would try to sooth and pacify him. They would finish up whatever arrangements needed finishing up and then she would more than likely never speak to him again. Checks for her share of the inheritance would arrive in time at the post office and that would be that. She felt somehow free for the first time in her life.
She had no intention of going to the funeral. Her family had for years been a part of someone else's life, not hers. She had attended her mother's funeral after driving a long hard day in the truck with one idea in mind: to see her father and brother one last time. She had refused to look at her pasty-skinned mother in her casket and sat without emotion through the graveside service. Humid Houston was so lush and green compared to arid Alpine that she had passed the ordeal staring first at one and then another of the many beds of enormous pink azaleas which were blooming hotly in the cemetery at that time.
On that last visit her brother had nothing to say to her and her father had told Alice all about his money and his will, where certain keys and important papers were hidden. He said that for years, without mentioning it to her mother, he had been putting away some each month in savings accounts and investing in insurance policies so that when he died she and James, and Bobby and his wife, would not have to struggle the way their parents had. He figured it was all worth about fifty thousand each, and of course there was the house which they could sell. That night she slept in her white-painted childhood bed for the last time, and in the morning she couldn't wait to get on the road home.
Now, at home, the mosquitoes began to pester and the night chilled and Alice said, "Why don't we go inside tonight . . . my place." James followed her down the path.
In her new freedom she made love with even more zeal than usual of late. The narrow bed under the huge painting of the wolf creaked and strained beneath them in the eerie light of a gibbous moon, a light that seemed to emanate from the room itself. She enjoyed James's constant efforts to find new approaches to their love-making, and at one point they broke into friendly laughter, finding themselves sprawled upon the hard wooden floor. They scrambled back onto the bed like otters at play in a stream.
It thrilled her when they were like this. Everything about it was more profound on such nights, the likes of which they had enjoyed only in the past few months, once she had healed completely and their mourning had subsided somewhat. There was nothing to fear anymore, nothing to lose, nothing tangible to hope for in their coupling now and therefore none of the old despair that used to well up afterwards. It was the ultimate act of creation made joyful with abandon by the knowledge that they would never again bring forth the ultimate creation itself.
They lay still and soaked on the soaked sheets, touching along the sides of their bodies, staring at the high ceiling in the large open and eerily white room. The cool breeze from the large windows licked at them. On the verge of sleep they were quiet, breathing quietly now, and they lay this way for a long time until she roused herself and whispered, "Is there anything else I may do for you, my friend?" She saw him smile in the moonlight and shake his head no, and they touched hands, palm to palm, which was their signal. He kissed her hair, lingered a moment and then he slipped on his boxer shorts and his sandals and quietly left the room, muttering only: "Night, Wolf."
Alone then she watched from her bed as his shadow walked the path through the fence and then disappeared within the deeper shadow beneath the eaves of the other house. His screen door banged and then everything was silent again and she was truly alone. Utterly, absolutely alone in the immensity of the night.
Outside the old moon shone down on the earth like a great torch against darkness and it shone on her too, a solitary part of the earth, and its light, finding her, made her happy. Soon after a little sleep perhaps she would rise and go to her loom where she would pass the lonely hours with hands made busy by the demanding shuttle, the quarrelsome yarn, the ill-tempered and biting needle . . . but not just yet. There was this happiness, this quiet and this stillness to revel in, the real warp and woof of her life, and who would deny her such a simple indulgence? Who indeed would not encourage her to seize what was rightfully hers?
Burn on, old moon, she thought, burn on; I'll be only a short while without you.
Her Name Was Sheila Wells
The widow called on a Friday afternoon while Sheila and I were in the kitchen sharing some of her butter rolls and grind-your-own coffee.
"Is your offer still good?" she asked over a bad connection.
"Yes ma'am," I said. "As far as I know."
"Two fifty?"
"Is that what I offered?"
I looked at Sheila and shrugged my shoulders and she smiled at me with her round cheeks as she took up a quarter and started scratching at the five dollars worth of lottery tickets she'd picked up at the Stop 'N Go.
"Yes. That was your bid," said the woman on the phone, and I could tell by her voice that it was a disappointment to her to have to take so little and that she was trying hard to sound firm so I wouldn't put a move on to gyp her down even more, as she was in a bind. And she sounded a little anxious too, as anyone might. So she said again, "You offered two hundred and fifty dollars for everything in my shed."
"Well ma'am," I said, "if that's what I offered then that's what it'll be."
"Two fifty?"
"Two fifty."
"It's agreed?"
"On this end it is."
"Good," she said and let out a sigh. Then she gave me a little laugh full of relief. "I've been so worried about this," she said. "It's been almost three months, you know."
"Well you can quit worrying now," I said. "Don't worry about anything. We'll come tomorrow and clear everything out."
"But when?" she wanted to know.
"When do you get up?"
"Oh I'll be up," she said.
"Well ma'am. . . ." I said, but then I caught myself. "Ma'am," I said, "what was your name again? I'm sorry but I'm not very good with names."
She gave another laugh and apologized two or three times saying how rude it was of her that she hadn't given me her name and to please excuse her but she wasn't her old self these days. I said not to worry, I understood, and I laughed some myself.
So the first tension was gone then.
"Mulhollen's my name," she said. "Mrs. John H. Mulhollen. Margaret, if you'd like."
"Mulhollen," I said and wrote it down on my pad.
"That's right."
"Margaret," I said and wrote that down too.
"That's right."
"I'm not very good with names, you see."
"I understand."
"And what was the address again?"
"Two-sixty-two First Archer Lane," she said, and it was then for the first time that I fully remembered the widow and her shed and the bid I had given her to buy the junk inside.
"Well ma'am, as I was saying, you get up in the morning and have yourself a nice breakfast and read the newspaper and by the time you're finished we'll be there with the truck and a ch
eck."
"Two fifty, right?"
"That's right."
"Doesn't hardly seem enough," she said. "It was everything he cherished, you know. His tools and his hobbies and . . . and just everything. His whole life, you could say, at least toward the end. It was all left behind in that shed out there. It just doesn't seem enough, but no one else would offer even what you offered. I've been advertising off and on for three months."
"Yes ma'am."
I looked at Sheila again while the widow was talking, and she grinned and shrugged, holding up the lottery tickets, shaking them as if they were some worthless dead thing that now had a smell and then I watched as she threw them in the trash can. She tried to make me laugh by mouthing talk, talk, talk and pointing at the phone, so I turned away and went back to business.
"I just don't understand it," the widow was saying. "You would think it was worth more than two hundred and fifty dollars. A man's whole life, I mean. You know."
"Yes ma'am," I said. "I can see your point, I sure can. But times are bad just now. Not much money to spread around."
"I guess you're right, Mr. Wells," she said. "Texas is suffering, I know."
"Yes ma'am."
"Well . . ." she said but she didn't go on.
"Like I said now, don't worry. Get up, take it easy, we'll be there early. We'll take care of everything."
"All right, Mr. Wells."
"Goodbye now."
There was a silence on the line that said more was coming.
"Mr. Wells?"
"Yes ma'am?"
"Will it take you long?"
"We'll be in and out by lunchtime," I said optimistically. "Two, maybe three trips, I figure."
"That's fine."
"Okay?"
"Yes that's fine."
"Goodbye now, Mrs. Mulhollen."
"Mr. Wells?" the widow asked again.
"Yes ma'am?"
She hesitated for a moment and sighed heavily and then she said, "Mr. Wells, would you mind calling me Margaret?"
Memorial Day Page 6