Liberating Paris

by Linda Bloodworth Thomason

  Right away, Mavis felt the pinch. There were a lot of First Baptists in town, and their boycott cut her business almost in half. But what Harlan hadn’t counted on was that many Baptists themselves did not agree with the ban on women ministers. They hadn’t really said anything because no one had ever challenged it before. Most of these people had been on friendly terms with Mavis for years and, even more important, they had a sweet tooth. After only about a week, there was complaining in the ranks, fueled by what some said was plain ol’ withdrawal from the best supply of sugar in town. Pretty soon, parishoners began arriving at the back door of Doe’s, wearing sunglasses and darting furtively to and from their cars, clutching their profiteroles and baba au rhums and peaches-and-cream turnovers. Mavis and Mary Paige, who was now helping out, took to calling their back entrance “The Baptist Door.” And some days, there was even a line that formed outside of it. Inside, Mavis had become emboldened by her ability to use food as a powerful tool. And she now decided to use it to deal with something that had annoyed her for a long time. A man from out of town was standing at her counter. Brundidge was next in line.

  Mavis said, “Okay, it’ll be a few minutes. What’s your name?”

  “Booger.”

  “No, what’s your real name?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I’m sorry. We don’t serve people named Booger. Mainly, because I would have to call it out and I’m not willing to do that.”

  Brundidge let out a long sigh. There were at least three other men in Paris with this same moniker and Mavis had wanted to say this for years. The man seemed confused. “I thought you didn’t serve Baptists.”

  “No. That’s not true. There’s a door right back there that they can come through.”

  He asked sincerely, “Well, is there a Booger door?”

  Mavis gave up. She waved her pencil. “Just gimme your last name.”

  Brundidge rolled his eyes. Late that afternoon, Mavis was adding up receipts when Brundidge returned with Wood, Jeter, and Sheriff Marcus West in tow. She had never seen them looking more somber. Sheriff West spoke first. “Mavis, I’m sorry to tell you this, but we’ve had a complaint that you’re violating federal law here by refusing to serve certain customers.”

  Brundidge shook his head, disgusted. “I told you. That Booger thing. You can’t discriminate against somebody just because they’re a redneck.”

  Sheriff West removed a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “That’s right. And now I’m afraid I’m gonna have to take you into custody. Would you put your hands out, please?”

  Rudy and Mary Paige gasped. Mavis began sputtering and cussing. Sheriff West, undeterred, pretended to examine the handcuffs. “No, these are not the right size.” He dug in his pocket and came up with a large teething ring, handing it to her. “Here, see if that fits you better.”

  Mavis stared at the strange new object, then slowly took it in her hand and looked quizzically at Wood.

  He said, “By the end of summer, you should have yourself a little somethin’ to go with that.” Then he grabbed her, hugging her. “Merry Christmas!”

  Brundidge clapped his hands, laughing. “We got you good! You little mother, you!”

  Mavis covered her face with her hands. Suddenly Doe’s erupted with shouts of relief and joy, so excessive they almost drowned out the dead quiet that lingered over the rest of the street. Jeter looked dazed and Mavis couldn’t stop scolding them all and thanking them at the same time. And Mary Paige shook Wood’s hand as though he were the father and Brundidge reminded everyone that he had been the driver until Rudy tried to clear it all up by telling a customer, “We are all the daddy!”

  Later, as Mavis was hanging her closed sign in the window, Milan was already up in her attic, hunting for Elizabeth and Charlie’s old crib. By the time Mavis and her Oldsmobile arrived at Fast Deer Farm, Milan was standing in the middle of the gravel road. Mavis screeched to a halt, got out, and walked straight into her old friend’s arms. After a while, Milan said softly, “If it’s a girl, I get to dress her.”

  Wood and Jeter and Brundidge were sitting on the side patio of the Pleasant Valley Retirement Villa. It was twenty-eight degrees and they were shivering in their winter coats and smoking cigars. Wood periodically gave Jeter, who was complaining about Mavis, a puff of his.

  “Now she wants me to go to Lamaze class. I knew this would happen. I’m supposed to be her breathing coach. Hell, I can barely breathe on my own. I can’t even keep that little plastic ball in the air anymore.”

  Wood said, “Oh, just go on and go. You can be moral support.”

  “She doesn’t want moral support. She wants my family history, photo albums, the names of all my ancestors—”

  Brundidge shook his head. “Man, she’s got her hooks in you now. You know what’s gonna happen next, don’t you? She’s gonna start buying your clothes and signing you up for stuff. Hell, you’ll probably have to start wearing a damn cardigan.”

  Jeter glared at them. “This is all your fault, both of you.”

  Wood grinned as his phone went off. “Me? I’m just an innocent bystander.” Then he lifted the receiver to his ear and heard Luke Childs’s voice.

  Wood was back on the road to Excelsior Springs. Only this time, he had good reason. Luke had called him from school to say that his mother had the flu and could Wood please phone in a prescription? Evidently, Luke had accepted his mother’s assurance that her relationship with Wood had been nothing more than a little high school thing and certainly not something that he need trouble himself about. Certainly anyone could see that Duff was still fond of his future fatherin-law, but as Luke knew all too well, being friendly and open was his mother’s nature.

  As a rule, Wood didn’t like to phone in prescriptions without checking out the patient first. That was why he was now on his way to see Duff. Because it was the professional, not to mention decent, thing to do. An old friend who’s sick, with no money or health insurance. And him a doctor. What choice did he have really? He was going to deliver medical attention and then maybe they would sit and talk. The idea was to experience her in some way that would satisfy him, even just a little, but not put either of them in jeopardy. Certainly, to attempt anything more would be insane. Having an affair with his old girlfriend, his wife’s lifelong nemesis, his daughter’s future mother-in-law—how destructive can a man be? Anyway, he had already proven that in spite of a now disappointing marriage, he could be faithful to Milan. This, in the face of overwhelming temptation and a growing awareness of his own mortality.

  His most formidable test to date was a nurse at the hospital, a strikingly beautiful married woman, with plush breasts and hips, who didn’t waste a moment of her time on foreplay—who just came right out and said, “I have a wonderfully thick bush. If you’re ever in the mood, I’d love to show you.” Had said some version of it on a number of occasions, and every time she did, Wood had smiled and answered something like, “I’m afraid my wife might think you were spoiling me.” But in his head, his pants were already around his ankles and he was on his knees humping her like some big-dicked, red-assed monkey.

  And she wasn’t the only one, either. They were everywhere: the little pouty-mouthed girl at the pharmacy who held his hand too long when she gave him back his credit card; Brundidge’s ex-wife, Darlene, who called Wood regularly and invited him to come hear her sing at the Tap Room, maybe they could have a drink afterward, and he could give an expert’s opinion on her new boob reduction job; and a number of his patients, too, who in the middle of his examining them, had made all kinds of inappropriate remarks.

  “I can’t explain it, but for some reason, I’m real comfortable with you down there.”

  “Oh, how embarrassing. You can skip the lubricant, Wood. I’m ready.”

  “You know something? You feel me up better than my husband does.”

  Yeah, he’d had that happen more times than you’d think. Of course, it was always said as a joke, because a nurse was usually
present, but they got their points across. Nobody ever talked about what doctors have to put up with. It was always doctors taking advantage of their female patients. Nobody ever said how women in labor could sometimes get sexually aroused. Or how certain ones let themselves go, with their poor hygiene, garlicky breath, and cheap cologne. Or how some of them acted, once they got undressed and slipped their heels into his footrests—opening their legs wider than they needed to, scooting down unnecessarily, trying to shove it all in his face, “Seriously, what do you think of my new Mohawk?” Once, in the middle of a breast exam, one of his older patients had even tried to unzip his pants. Wood had referred the woman to his dad, who said her hormones were out of whack and that she had waited for him, wearing only a slip, in his truck.

  Anyway, that’s how it was sometimes for a doctor who’s around women all day—lonely, troubled women, whose husbands and boyfriends neglected them, but also bold, happy, healthy women who just wanted to get laid. And he had resisted them all. He wasn’t about to change his plan now. Not even for one night of lovemaking with someone he’d had on his mind for twenty years.

  The moon looked hard and cold when Wood pulled up in front of Duff’s house. The exterior was ordinary, except that someone, probably Duff, had taken the trouble to paint it red. Inside, the rooms were cramped and unkempt, pretty much what he had expected. There were a lot of throw pillows and books everywhere, and the walls were covered with what appeared to be the works of local artists. Wood was now admiring one in particular, a watercolor of a giant pear.

  He did this while running his hand down the long, naked curve of the woman who was lying next to him. When he got to her legs, he noticed that they hadn’t been shaved recently and he was thinking how much he liked the imperfection of that—the unstudied sensuality of this small intimacy that they were both now in on. He pressed his mouth to the back of her knee and then lingered there.

  The thing Wood had underestimated was the power of longing. People always talked about the power of love or hate or healing, but not enough had been said about longing. And if it had been, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten into trouble. Because longing for someone you cannot see or have or hear is a powerful thing, indeed. Especially if you have been rolling it around in your head for half your natural life. That’s how long he had been thinking of Duff.

  And just being in her presence again had put him in mind of an old feeling that he was going to live forever. The same one he’d had while making love to her in the field behind his house, when they were still young, under a cluster of persimmon trees that always seemed to rustle softly as he came. That was the powerful longing that he could no longer turn his back on.

  When he had first arrived, she was already feeling better. But he dug in his doctor bag anyway and attempted to take her blood pressure. As soon as the air had run out of the plastic arm cuff, he knew with certainty that he was going to make love to her. He knew that it would destroy him and his family and Duff and her boy and any chance for a wedding and peace and happiness on Earth and even grandchildren who could’ve belonged to all of them. But he went ahead anyway, because the longing had become larger than Wood himself. He had smiled and looked straight into her eyes, like Miss Lena Farnham Stokes had warned him not to, and given away all his power.

  It had started with a simple kiss, but then he continued putting his lips on various parts of her, parts that were far away from one another and didn’t make any sense logistically, but this was his way of telling her that he was going to take his time. And he could see by her look that she wasn’t going to fight him, that she had already given every bit of herself to him and all that remained was for him to take it.

  He helped her get out of her jeans and T-shirt, noticing that she had finally made the concession to underwear. He took his own shirt off and then turned back to kissing her, subtle, sweet kisses on her face and hands and arms, finally running his mouth over the cotton fabric of her bra and panties, wetting it with his tongue, especially around her nipples and between her legs. After a while, Duff began to cry a little and he held her like he would an infant, for a good while, just stroking her hair and soothing her. Then she crawled in his lap and put her arms around his neck and used her tongue to open his mouth, and they drew this out, too, savoring each other’s lips like lovers who know that these things may not happen again. Wood then removed Duff’s panties, but not her bra (because she asked him not to), and buried his face in her pubic hair, grateful to smell the same perfume that he remembered. After that, he put his tongue deep between her legs, and then stood up and took his pants off, and lay back down on top of her, still supporting his own weight with his arms, the way he did during his daily push-ups, and finally, almost reverently, entered her, asking at every increment if she was all right. She responded by clasping her legs more tightly around him. And since they were still approximately the same size as they once were, they ecstatically felt the glove-perfect fit at the same time, revisited. Wood increased his pace, then slowed it again just in time, and so on, until he stretched out their lovemaking longer than any other Duff could remember. As soon as they were done, he slipped off her as gracefully as he had gotten on, and then, lying on his back, placed her lengthwise on his chest, the way he often did Milan. He knew that was wrong, too. Repeating such an important, private gesture with another woman, the very thing Milan always asked him for after they had sex, “Don’t go to sleep yet. Hold me over your heart.” But he was already violating every dust fleck of intimacy he shared with his wife. What difference did this one now-diminished gesture make?

  Maybe in some perverse way, he was finally punishing Milan for growing happier each year, as she acquired more of the things he was sure she had married him for. Punishing her for all the sex she insisted upon as a way of proving that they did indeed exist as a couple. We fuck, therefore we are. With Milan, it was never about love or romance or even longing. It was about making it look like love and romance. Leaving little flirtatious notes around with calculated messages that she probably got out of a woman’s magazine, and getting herself all whored up in five-hundred-dollar negligees (Milan was incapable of understanding that seduction was vulgar), like it was a costume and he was the stupid animal who would have to respond to it, because the saleslady had said he would. Sometimes, he finished with her quickly, just because he hated that outfit so much. He was surprised she didn’t give him a dog treat afterward. Anyway, these were the things she did while she participated in his life as though it was a role she had won, and now she would play to the crowd and do whatever she must to keep her costar and benefactor happy.

  Duff, who was now folded along Wood’s edge, had fallen asleep. And he was growing tired of staring at the giant pear. Suddenly, he was filled with desire again. He woke her up with his petting and eventually she guided him to the side of the bed, where she got on her knees and took him in her mouth. After a while, he told her that he wanted to see her breasts. She had tried to explain that she was a middle-aged woman now, and no longer sure of her gifts. Well actually, what she said was, that she didn’t feel pretty anymore and something else about having nursed her son, but Wood had already turned her around while she was talking and pulled her backward into his lap and then unhooked her bra, and slipped each ample sagging tit out of its cup and into his own hands and held them there tenderly for a long time, like he was honored to do this, grateful for one more chance to rub the soft, fleshy talismans whose magical powers had so consumed and comforted his youth. And he stayed there like this, while resting his head against her back, until finally Duff could feel the wetness of his cheek. Then Duff turned and thanked him profusely with her mouth. Wood surprised her by switching on the little bedside lamp and then, holding her about a foot away from him, took a good long look, telling her how lovely she was, while kissing her nipples with the same intensity you would use to blow on a baby’s stomach. Duff put her hands over her face and groaned and fell back on the pillow. This made him laugh. She laughed a little,
too. Wood couldn’t remember when he had felt this happy. Suddenly, he couldn’t imagine ever leaving her. He was like a man who had broken into a house to steal some jewelry but was now going to get a truck and take the furniture, too. He wanted to be in her mouth again and to sleep in the sweetness between her legs and, right now, to turn her over on her stomach, which he did, a little too roughly (more like a teenage boy would’ve done it) and entered her vagina from behind, just a little at first until she got hold of the covers to balance herself, and then finally deeper, trying, as he would all night, to get to the middle of her. Outside, not long after Wood and Duff had come together again, most of the stars had faded away and the old, hippie wind chime on her front porch was as still as the trees.

  Milan was on her way back from Hayti where she had delivered early Santa Claus gifts for her nieces and nephews. In spite of the fact that she and Wood hosted an annual holiday party for all the Laniers, which Wood had to annually get drunk for, Milan also liked to provide gifts for the children of her siblings to be put out on Christmas morning.

  She shivered a little and turned up the car’s heater. The road between Paris and Hayti was so dark at night, it made her feel lonesome and small. She slowed the Mercedes as a mother possum and her babies crossed in front of her. The larger possum looked straight at Milan with eyes like green marbles that seemed to be on fire. Now the blacktop and the ominous look from the two eyes in the dark were adding to the uneasy feeling that she had been fighting all day. Especially since Elizabeth had told her that Luke had asked Wood to write a prescription for his mother. And then Wood had failed to come home after work. It was nine o’clock now and she’d called his cell phone several times, getting no answer.