Her eyes, trained by years of housekeeping, moved along the hall. The wide cypress boards—ones she’d found in an old plantation house, lovely old boards—were sprinkled with bits of wedding cake, their shiny polished surface dulled with a film of sugar. The Tabriz rug glistened with bits of broken glass, tiny bits like grains of sand, sparkling in puddles of spilled champagne.
In the morning the cleaning crews would come.
It had been a wonderful party, she thought, everything a wedding celebration should be—joyous and lively, floating on oceans of champagne. There had been only a single bad moment, when the youngest Mitchell girl passed out in the bathroom. Her friends quickly revived her with ice packs and hot towels and great whiffs of pure oxygen. (A tank stood ready in the bedroom; Barbara Eagleton thought of everything.) She had come round very nicely with such treatment. When she said a polite good-bye some time later, Barbara noticed that she walked quite steadily, though her Nipon was hitched crookedly at the waist and her eyes had an empty cancelled look to them.
Noisy in the damp night air, a caterer’s van backed down the driveway. And a large tree roach swooped on crackling wings through the open front door to begin delicately eating bits of spilled food.
Barbara stood up, shuddering, took one step toward the insect, then changed her mind and went to the pantry instead. A waiter was packing away glasses. “There’s a huge roach in the front hall. Could you get rid of it—I can’t stand the things. Just wait until I’m out of the room.”
She hurried back across the hall, not looking at the shiny black shape nibbling the sugary grains, and closed the living room door firmly behind her.
“Whatever is chasing you, Barbara?” Her mother was sitting alone in the Queen Anne chair by the window. “I’m just finishing supper”—she smiled at her empty plate—“which is the worst thing I could possibly be doing. My diet will be ruined for a week.” She got up slowly, majestically; the stays of her corset creaked audibly. “I’ve been looking at that picture,” nodding toward the painting of HMS Courageous Liverpool 1879. “I mean really looking. It’s absolutely hideous.”
“You gave it to us,” Barbara said.
“Yes,” her mother said, “that’s why it bothers me.”
From the front hall, partly muffled by the closed door, came sudden running and stamping, and muffled giggles. “Whatever is that?” Her mother yanked the door open. “My, that roach is giving you quite a chase, isn’t it? No, no, don’t do that. Don’t squash it on the rug.”
Barbara fled hastily to the terrace. After the air-conditioned house, the summer night was stifling, the fog a heavy pressure against her body. Its astringent wetness filled her lungs and she coughed, feeling almost panicky. Then the feeling was gone and the night was no more than a usual summer night and the fog only a soft mist that blurred everything pleasantly.
In the corner of the terrace two waiters were searching for glasses in the flower beds; they moved slowly, laughing softly to each other, voices distant and muffled. The lighted swimming pool gleamed a clear turquoise blue in the night. On its surface the guttered remains of a hundred flower candles bobbed and turned gently. And in the center of the pool, in a floating chair, was Justin Williams. His silk tuxedo lapels glistened, his boutonniere was a sharp crisp dot, his sodden trousers and black shoes trailed over the edge of the float. He lay back, totally relaxed, contemplating the glow on the tip of his cigar.
“Justin,” she said.
He lifted his cigar to her in greeting, silently.
“I’ll get one of the young men to help you out.”
“No, my dear, I am perfectly comfortable.” He paddled his feet gently. “If you see a waiter, though, you might ask him to bring me a drink.”
“Do you really want another drink? Are you sure you’re all right? Really?”
“It has been a wonderful party, my dear. And, until the fog came in, the stars were as soft as the ones in Jamaica. Do you remember them?”
“Yes,” she said.
They’d met in Kingston years ago—she and her mother on vacation. Barbara was overwhelmed by the physical beauty and the languor of the place; she spent drowsy uncounted days doing nothing. Her mother seemed to come more alive in the heat; she went everywhere, saw everything. She visited ruined sugar houses and thriving coffee plantations, a convent school, an experimental agricultural station, and a bauxite plant. She went to native craft shops and she visited museums. And she met Justin Williams at an exhibition of Haitian paintings. He was some sort of magistrate, Barbara remembered, and a businessman. They had tea, he drove her back to the hotel, he took them both to dinner. Thereafter he became a part of their days, as guide and storyteller, even once taking them home to meet his wife, a beautiful half-Indian woman who was childless.
“Jamaica was wonderful,” Barbara said, “especially that first time.”
After that her mother went to Jamaica three or four times a year and Justin visited them on all family occasions, like her wedding and the christening and marriage of her daughter. He did not like the United States. “I do not like the presence of so many white skins,” he told her once. And he remained her mother’s friend, year after year. At times Barbara found herself wishing he had indeed been her father.
“I’d never seen a country so beautiful,” Barbara said.
“Ah yes, Jamaica,” he said to his cigar. “Even these do not taste the same. Mr. Manley and his government ran me out, yes, and all the people like me. But I have not done so badly, little Barbara, not so badly.”
“So I hear,” Barbara laughed. He lived in Nassau now, was interested in Florida real estate development. “My mother says you’ve been very successful.”
“Ah.” Against the blue pool depths, his dark face hung suspended, motionless. His eyes scanned the terrace, saw no one. “Waiter,” he shouted, “waiter.” The ducks on the sloping lawn shifted and gabbled. A waiter came at a trot. “Young man, a Scotch and water, please. Water, not soda. My need is great.”
Justin Williams let the hand holding the empty glass slip to his side, touch the water. His fingers loosened and rose, flicking themselves dry delicately. The glass sank, wobbling slowly.
Barbara looked down. There were a dozen glasses on the bottom, as well as a bridesmaid’s bouquet, paper napkins, a very long orange scarf, and a single shoe with a glittering rhinestone heel.
“Barbara,” his soft voice floated through the layers of warm night, “I asked your mother to marry me.”
“What did she say?”
He waved his cigar back and forth, a comet against the night. “She said she would never marry any nigger from Jamaica.”
“Yes. Well”—Barbara shrugged—“that does sound like her.” But why, Barbara wondered, had the subject of marriage come up at all? Why now?
Justin kicked his feet lazily in the water. “A man should be married. It is the way of things. My wife has been dead for two years. I have honored her memory with a double period of mourning, because she was a good woman. But, you must know, I am a married man by nature. I have lived all my adult life as a married man. I intend to be a married man again.”
“I am sorry about my mother,” Barbara said. “I wish she would marry you.”
“There are many women in the world,” Justin said slowly, alcohol-numbed. “Many many women. Some of them are beautiful and young, but they are not the sort one marries, not a man like me. At my age blood does not rule the head. But an intelligent woman, a capable woman, a handsome woman, of suitable age, a friend. That is your mother. And she says no.”
The coatless waiter returned with his Scotch and water. Justin stretched out his arm—there was ten feet of pool between them.
Barbara got the pool skimmer and with its long pole pushed the floating chair to the side. Justin accepted the glass and slowly flutter-kicked himself back into the exact center.
He took a small sip. “Barbara, my dear, I have tried to be reasonable. I offered her a marriage contract. I am not a po
or man…”
“Neither is my mother,” Barbara laughed. “If you like, I’ll talk to her, but I don’t think it will do any good.”
“Your father was a Jamaican,” he said.
“That’s what my mother tells me.”
“Ah.” A gentle sigh and then silence. He seemed to have forgotten she was there.
A sudden burst of laughter from the kitchen—curious, she went to the open door. Three waiters and her husband, Henry, leaned against the polished steel counters, drinking cans of beer.
“Why, Barbara,” Henry said, “I had no idea you were outside.”
“Justin is floating in the pool.”
“Still? He’s been in there for a hell of a long time. Well, not to worry, Barbara. We four shall remove him. Without falling in ourselves, of course.” He toasted her with the can of beer. “What shall we do with him?”
“He certainly can’t go back to the hotel in that condition.”
“Barbara, I had absolutely no intention of depositing him on the Regency’s doorstep like a sack of wet laundry to be hauled inside by the doorman and dragged upstairs by bellboys.” A pause. His voice became serious. “Don’t worry, Barbara, I’ll take care of him.”
“Fine.” She opened the refrigerator, which was jammed with white boxes. “My lord, look at all this uneaten food. Such a waste.”
“Your mother gave away twice that much.”
“My mother … Yes … Henry, do you know Justin asked her to marry him?”
“In that case we’ll pull him out with extra care.”
“Mother said no.”
“Okay, we leave him in the pool.”
“Oh, really, Henry, don’t joke like that. He needs help. Where’s the beer? I didn’t know we had any.”
Henry grinned. “Will one of you gentlemen direct Mrs. Eagleton to the secret supply of beer.”
As soon as she left, their laughter began again, following her back through the house. In the dining room a thin stream of tiny ants marched across the buffet, down the wall, and into a baseboard crack.
For a brief moment she saw a vision of a house emptied, eviscerated by patient, neatly aligned ant armies, so that by morning the studs stood naked, a skeleton in the rising sun.
Foolishness. That would not do.
She put down the can of beer, took a deep breath, and went about her housekeeping again.
In the front drive, a single paper napkin was crumpled on the gravel. She picked it up, smoothed it to read Solange and Mike. I don’t like these, she thought, I wonder why I bought them when I think they’re tacky.
She crushed it in her fist and walked down the drive to the street, looking, noticing. A car must have backed into the ligustrum hedge, a great many branches were snapped off. And someone had walked through the low gardenia bed. The crushed flowers filled the night with their heavy sweet scent.
Behind her the house waited, perched between silent fog-shrouded bayou and fog-misted street, its lights going out one by one. It was folding into itself, slipping into a doze like all the silent houses around it. Soon the street would be completely empty, except for the patrolling police car, until Mrs. Talbot drove by on her way to early mass. After that, in its regular predictable order, the day would begin. After Mrs. Talbot, at 6:30 to the minute, Mr. Lejeundre would jog past. At 7:10 a small van from Camp Green Meadow would pick up the Henderson children. At five minutes to eight, Mr. Horton’s day nurse would drive slowly by, looking carefully all around the neighborhood, hoping to find little bits of gossip to amuse him during the day. (Poor half-blind diabetic, Barbara thought, the only healthy thing about him was his curiosity.) She would find nothing to tattle about in the Eagletons’ front yard, only the tiniest whispers of the night’s celebration.…
Barbara went inside. Her mother was standing in the hall, holding the can of beer and its sodden wrapper. “Yours?”
Barbara shrugged at the white ring on the polished wood table. “I didn’t know it would soak through so quickly. Or maybe I’ve been out longer than I thought.”
“You were out quite a while. Watching the moon or some such thing?”
“No moon,” Barbara said automatically. “Fog.”
“Whatever.” Her mother studied herself in the mirror, fingers automatically touching the invisible lines of plastic surgery.
“Don’t worry about that,” Barbara said. “It looks great. That man took off at least ten years.”
“He was expensive enough to be good. You’re sure it’s ten years, Barbara, not five?”
“Ten.” Barbara took a sip of her beer, shuddered. “I don’t like beer.”
“I wondered why you were drinking it. I thought it was some sort of mother-of-the-bride neurosis. You know, Barbara, I really must lose some weight.”
“Go to a fat farm.”
Her mother turned slowly, ringed fingers clasping her expensive new face. “Do you think?”
“You know, Mother, find a fat farm that takes elderly black ladies.”
Her mother turned back to her reflection. “I have spent quite enough on my appearance,” she told herself firmly. “By the way, while you were moon-watching or fog-gazing or whatever, Henry and his merry men got Justin out of the pool.”
“Oh dear, I’d forgotten about him.”
“Henry said you asked him to do the rescue.… Justin insists that he will not spend the night here—he says that it is not proper for a guest to crash at a wedding reception.”
Barbara blinked. Her mother had a disconcerting habit of slipping teen slang into her usual precise and proper speech.
“His clothes are far too wet for him to go back to his hotel, though that is a funny thought. Just imagine a tall, very drunken Jamaican staggering through the lobby dripping pool water and reeking of chlorine and cologne …”
“Justin won’t.”
“No, he won’t.” Her mother’s short crisp laugh filled the hall. (It was, Barbara thought, completely without amusement.) “Justin insisted he could wear one of Henry’s suits. And he was so frustrated when he found there wasn’t a single one of Henry’s suits in this house.”
Barbara said, “My husband was very efficient in his packing.”
“After a good deal of arguing and shouting, all of them staggered down the stairs again. At this moment Justin is sitting in my car waiting for me. I’ll take him home. Then in the morning, I’ll send for dry clothes and return him to the hotel in proper condition.”
“Why don’t you want to marry him?”
Her mother adjusted the collar of her lavender dress. “This color is dreadful, but it did seem so suitable for the grandmother of the bride.”
“Why not marry him?”
Her mother’s fingers traced the long string of pearls, tapped the large square amethyst that held them together. “And lavender goes very well with this.… My dear, so many reasons. I don’t want to live in the Bahamas.… I am far too old to deal with any man.… If he got sick, I would be expected to take care of him.… And most of all, I prefer living alone.”
“I’m sorry,” Barbara said. “He’s a wonderful man.”
“Perhaps you’d like him? You’ll soon be looking for a husband.”
Barbara caught her breath with a gasp that was near a sob. Tears slowly accumulated in her eyes; she blinked them away.
“Now, don’t get upset,” her mother said. “You know not to pay any attention to me. Oh, never mind, at least I can take Justin away. With the other garbage.”
Barbara watched her walk briskly through the house, heavy body on thin rapid legs. Birdlike.
My mother, Barbara thought wearily, my goddamn mother. Tireless, determined, shrewd, calculating, self-contained—Barbara tried all the words and found that they weren’t accurate at all. Sometimes she hated her and sometimes she shivered with the strength of her love and her admiration. Her mother had fought her way from poverty to affluence, bringing her only child along with her, educating, planning, arranging. She had produced an accom
plished woman, the proper wife of a successful man. And Barbara knew (when she was being very honest with herself or when she was as tired as she was tonight) that it was precisely what she too had wanted for herself.
Now that the rapid clatter of her mother’s heels had vanished, now that her own weary housekeeping patrols had ended, Barbara went into the den, the smallest room in the house, dark-paneled, book-lined. She settled herself, smoothing her skirt carefully, into the largest brown leather chair, braced her elbows against the arms, steadied her head in her palms, and waited.
In a few moments Henry Eagleton sat directly across from her. He put his coat across his knees and loosened his tie.
She said, “You know, Henry, you’ve always reminded me of Woodrow Wilson.”
“So you’ve told me.”
“Especially in a tuxedo.”
“Unless Woodrow Wilson got to Georgia, I don’t think I can make any claim to his blood.”
“It’s funny…” There was nothing of Africa in his features, she thought; they were north European. Only the skin stretched across them was brown. “Henry, do you remember the paper bag society?” In college a girl was considered beautiful if her skin was the color of a brown paper bag, nothing darker. “The paper bag society would have loved this wedding, there wasn’t a single person in the bridal party who didn’t qualify.”
“Barbara—”
“That sea of brown, like chocolate candy. With a few white marshmallows here and there.”
“You’ve been drinking. I had no idea, absolutely no idea.”
“Absolutely no idea… no, I didn’t even finish the beer. I left it somewhere.”
“Mama picked it up.”
“So she did. Henry, are you going to go on calling her Mama when we’ve divorced?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” he said irritably. “You don’t think about your mother-in-law’s name when you think about a divorce.”
“Well,” she said, “I just did.”
“Listen … I’ve locked everything. I’ll leave by the front door so all you have to do is put on the burglar alarm.”
“Why don’t you do it?” she said.
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