All the Finest Girls

by Alexandra Styron

  “It’s really pretty, this place.”

  “Dis was Lulu’s spot,” she said matter-of-factly. “Got to where I’m setting her here in de morning, retrieving her when de sun go down.”

  “What was wrong with her?”

  Taking a dish towel off her shoulder, Marva smacked roughly at the chairs, scaring up a small cloud of reddish dust. She sucked her cheeks as though only a fool would ask such a question.

  “Well, she lost her head enough to fall in de ocean, didn’t she?” Turning her gaze out to the horizon, Marva lowered herself into a seat. I followed suit. “I don’t know,” she continued. “Cancer took at her a few years back. Dem saying dey ridded her of it. But me never trusted dem.”

  I didn’t know how my mother had gotten the idea Lou had heart trouble.

  “You think it had spread?”

  Just at the cliff’s edge a donkey strained on a short rope, twitching his lips to nip at the leaves on a flowering bush. Marva picked up a clump of dirt and tossed it at him, and the animal lazily backed off the red petals.

  “Me not saying dat,” she answered, annoyed. I nodded quickly. Marva looked at me. “Anyway, she wasn’t right past dat time.”

  Below us, the town had gone silent in the midday sun. I felt the closeness of Marva’s grief, and the peculiar distance of my own. Taking a seat, I slowly rolled the cuffs of my pants.

  “I should have tried to stay in touch,” I said. “When my parents divorced, I went away to school. Everything changed a lot.”

  Getting no response from Marva, I continued.

  “After college I moved to New York. I’m an art conservator. I fix up old paintings.”

  “Dat’s nice,” she said, nodding slowly, uninterested. “Paintings.”

  “Not as nice as this,” I prattled on, gesturing out at the view. “Time hasn’t changed anything here, I bet.”

  Marva gave an unfocused look at the crooked hillside.

  “Well. I guess not,” she said hazily. And then she pointed east. “Except de plantation. Used to have de Buxton Plantation, dere past Billy Point. Bananas used to make money for people here.”

  Grainy black-and-white photos from a high school history book came suddenly to mind. Women in long skirts spread out in a field, bent over their work. A mule and a wooden cart standing by. Plantations, I thought, were a ghost of some other era entirely.

  “Shut down?” I asked.

  Marva laughed and sat back in her chair. “Blew down. De day Lulu arrive. September the fifth. Nineteen forty-tree. Lawd, dat girl would have to arrive in a storm.”

  Marva’s brow lifted, revealing a more youthful face, as an intricate yarn unwound. Any trace of reticence disappeared in the focused light of her memory. Her West Indian accent bloomed as she spoke.

  “Me six but gwan grow big already. Hurricane coming like noting we seen before.” She leaned in and made a broad sweeping motion with her hands. “We was watching it for two days already. Nineteen forty-tree. You cyan even see it now inna history books. Lawd! Went right tru here, tore up St. Vincent, St. Lucia, clear tru Martinique. It dead a lotta people, you know. Right here in Pville two men dem friends of Papa’s went under wit deir nets just off dat beach dere. Papa was away working onna freighter and nevah home but maybe once a month. Seems de baby weren’t due fi two weeks. But just when de storm gwan heading for us? Mumma started getting pains.” Marva shook her head and I got another spectacular flash of Lou. “Jes’ me and Mumma, Auntie May, and me brother, Michael. What a piece a rain! Me trew every pot and bowl onna floor but still cyaant catch all de water coming tru de ceiling.”

  “May sent Michael to fetch de doctor, but it weren’t no use. De doors dey banging like a drum and de trees pulling down till everyting was darkness. May was lighting lanterns and putting water on fi boiling. Me cyan still hear Mumma screaming same like de wind outside. Den May made me go inna back room. Back dere where Cyril is now. I lay onna floor watching May’s feet and de light coming from de fire and de sheets dropping fresh wit blood. Me cyan still cry tinking about dat night!”

  Marva smacked her cheek and let out a deep, rolling laugh.

  “Well, she lived, yah know. We all lived. Inna morning we look out and weren’t but a few houses still standing in Pville. Water come up and boom — everyting washed away. De houses, de old church, mules. And de Buxton Plantation where me grandpappy and uncles worked. Big boats, for transport, yah know, lying down inna street like lazy horses. Up here was different. Here we arright. And Lulu, her quiet like a mud crab. Always was.”

  “What about Michael?”

  Marva sucked her teeth.

  “Michael what. Him fine.”

  Looking exhausted again, she stood up. When something over my head caught her eye, I turned and saw Derek standing in the shadow of the doorway. The features of his face shrank from me, sewn up tight with scorn.

  “Cyril’s in back wit Floria,” he said to Marva. “I’m going down to see about de headstone.”

  Derek walked around the house, and I listened to the little car whine backward down the driveway. Regaining her composure, Marva looked down at me.

  “I have some work to do, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Can I help?” I asked, not, I hoped, too visibly relieved when she turned my offer down. I was feeling overwhelmed and found myself desperate for some distance from that house. “Maybe I’ll take a walk, then. I could use some exercise after the plane ride.”

  Marva pointed me toward a footpath that led to town along a sloping green bank. I walked away from the house, ignoring the heat and letting the steep grade propel me forward.

  4

  UNDERNEATH THE GRAND piano, in the corner of the living room of our house on Marbury Road, I lie with my face pressed between the brass bars of the piano’s pedals. I can see, from here, my mother, her long legs curled beneath her on the couch. She’s gesturing with her cigarette and laughing. The smooth gold bangles that she wears jingle as she waves her arm, and at her feet sit two men, their eyes fixed upon her like magnets. A sad, tipsy melody comes from the record player. Two more people, a lady and a man dressed all in black, stand against the French doors that lead out to the back porch. The man kisses the lady’s neck while she closes her eyes and tilts back her head.

  There’s a curly thread come loose in the rug just next to where I lie. It once made the border of a pale yellow rose. I like to pull at the yarn when I’m underneath the piano, though I know it’s naughty. The bald spot has grown over time, the flower spiraled down to a small dark bud.

  “Not that anyone’s actually read it. I did overhear Jacques Cassal say he was using it for a doorstop.”

  My father’s voice, coming from just above, sounds like a color to me. Silver, like the train we took when I was still practically a baby. Three years ago, when I was only five. I closed my eyes as the train arrived and stood so close I smelled the metal and heat. The silver roared in my ears till I was pulled back by the collar and the train clacked to a halt. All A-board! YAN-kee Clipper to WASHington. UN-ion Station!

  At the Capitol, I crushed up against the legs all around me until my father lifted me onto his shoulders. This way, Mr. Abraham, said the man with hair down his back who picked us up at the station. From the top of the white stairs that I thought might climb to heaven, beneath the huge white dome, I could see forever. Below us stood men and ladies, their bodies against one another as far as I could see. As far as the curve of the earth. A people lawn. American flags rippled in the breeze, and people waved cardboard signs with vivid letters I couldn’t read. I saw, below, every person in the world. Almost. They looked up toward where we were. Looked toward me on my father’s shoulders Let me now bring up here a personal hero of mine, one of America’s leading young minds. A philosopher, a peacemaker, and one seriously hep cat, Professor Henry Abraham until he put me down. Next to us, two men sat in wheelchairs, one leg where there ought to have been four. No knees, but instead rounded knobs, puckered and sore. One man, the col
or of chocolate in a jacket made all of patches, caught my eye and smiled. Mom squeezed my hand. Don’t stare, she mouthed as my father began to speak into a microphone.

  From where I stand, I’d say the world was upside down. Upside down because Daniel Berrigan, Father Daniel Berrigan, is in jail and J. Edgar Hoover is free

  All the people in the world cheered, and my father’s silver voice sounded like thunder I smelled in the air.

  Upside down because Dr. King is gone and the leaders of the free world are still here behind these marble facades, mocking the doctrine they are charged to uphold, that all men are created equal. I say, I say just who do they think they’re fooling?

  When the rain began, a lady in a tangerine-colored dress made a poncho for me from a garbage bag. Later, a butterfly landed on my arm, the very same color orange.

  “Anyway,” says Daddy, laughing now, “fuck ’em. Fascists. Fascists and imbeciles.”

  With my hands on the piano’s brass bars, I’m nose to toe with my father’s scuffed brown shoes. His fingers are around a thick-bottomed glass. Fresh fat blocks of ice crowd in with the amber liquid, bleeding slowly. A woman’s legs, in shiny ankle boots, are next to his. Very close.

  “I’ve read it,” she says. Peeking, I can see her hand on his shoulder. “Well, started it, anyway. And I think it’s brilliant.”

  “Nice. You’re nice. Not to worry, though. At least I won’t go hungry.” Daddy raises his voice and the silver runs upward like the inside of a thermometer. “Will I?”

  His shoes turn out toward the rest of the room.

  “My wife, you know, is an heiress. Isn’t that what you’re called? Baby? Isn’t that right?”

  Mom looks up, her brows coming together in confusion. Heiress, whatever it is, sounds just right for my mother. Something light, spun like a spider’s web, blowing about on a breeze.

  “Isn’t Baby wonderful?” asks my father. The men at my mother’s feet nod enthusiastically, sip from their drinks. “Gorgeous, isn’t she?” Daddy’s brown shoes turn back to ankle boots. “Very high bangability quotient,” he whispers. Shoes point back out again. “Rich as Croesus. Pays for all that swell swill you’re imbibing.”

  Dad walks over to my mother’s side, his legs, body, head, coming into view, and sits on the arm of the couch. His hair, soft and brown, drops down over his glasses as he takes the cigarette from her hand and raises it to his lips. He scratches his back, showing the white underbelly of his arm and a lock of hair where it meets the sleeve of his T-shirt. Smoke curls around his face and through the haze he catches my eye. Only the music can be heard.

  “Look who’s there.” He unfolds his big arm and gestures toward me. “The wild child. That’s our daughter, Addy. Adelaide. Named after my mother, God rest her benighted soul. Hello, Adelaide.”

  I press my face further against the cool metal and hold my breath.

  “Adelaide Kane Abraham. Should have done it the other way around. Abraham Kane. Give her all the help she can get.”

  Mom rolls her eyes, laughs.

  “Oh please,” she says, and rubs my father’s knee.

  “Please what, Baby?” he asks, bending down to kiss the top of her head.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, “I know you hate it when I do that. No, listen now, here’s the thing. I don’t think it’s so terrific. Actually, actually, I’d like to talk about this.” Dad springs up and walks in a tight circle, rubbing his hands together. “This is interesting. OK. Fanny, let me ask you something. Do you think it’s possible to be a great artist as the progeny of one? I’ve been thinking about this. Because you know Baby, Baby’s a good actress. Well, you’ve seen her. You know. Very good. Committed. I’ve always thought that. But Christ, I don’t know.” The woman called Fanny watches Dad walk back and forth. When he is up close to the piano I can feel his nearness on my eyelashes. When he moves away I see my mother, looking down, picking at the polish on her nails.

  “You sort of feel like, well, I don’t, but you might say Kane was this very important painter, you know. Talented as hell. And made bucketloads, which is amazing. And he made it possible for Baby, his daughter, to live life free from those concerns. Baby never has to work. You know? She can do as she pleases. And she does! Of course that’s wonderful. We should all be so lucky. But I think the big question is this: Can Baby be an artist? Can she succeed? I’m not an artist myself, but I’ve given this some thought and I just wonder. Can you portray suffering if you haven’t really suffered? You know? All that privilege! All that moola!”

  Ankle boots has left the piano and is squeezing the shoulder of one of the men at my mother’s feet. She bends down and whispers something in his ear. Dad takes another drag off my mother’s cigarette and hands it back to her. She leans forward, her face bright and urgent.

  “No, don’t go. Please!” She reaches for a bottle of wine at her feet and points the neck in the couple’s direction. “Here. Stay. It’s all right. Hank’s just, he’s like that. We’ll talk about something else. Please stay.”

  “Yes. Stay! Baby’s right,” Daddy says, flinging his arms open wide. “I’m like that. I am. Forgive me.”

  He stops, rubs his jaw. “Anyway, Baby needs you to stay. She’s schooling Addy. In the fine arts of the leisure class.” Laughing, he bends over and squints at me. “Addy’s here as an observer. Isn’t that right, babe? That’s why she isn’t in bed. She’s on reconnaissance, as is her birthright.”

  Dad rocks back on his heels, and when he looks at Mom again, he sees something in her face that makes his silver voice wind down to a gray trickle.

  “Oh,” he says, and scratches his cheek. “Oh dear.”

  One by one, each man and woman walks by the piano. The record ends, the arm returning, and begins again. Mom is still, looking out the glass of the French doors. She sighs. In the lighted reflection, her blond hair is on fire.

  I hear Cat. He’s dancing across the roof beams. I close my eyes.

  Hmm. Do you think it was something I said? Here. Where’s your glass? Oh come now, don’t pout. Baby? Please. I’m sorry

  Cat is turning into the hallway. I see him in my head. His back an exaggerated curve, he stops and flicks his tail. Licks something from his paw.

  Oh Baby, don’t cry here here I’m sorry. I’m a fucking asshole, right? Isn’t that what I am? I’m sorry

  Thirteen more steps down the worn floorboards, sidestepping the one that creaks. He sets his nasty yellow eyes on the door to my room and flip-flop goes his tail, to and fro. Back on his haunches, he makes a slow, deliberate decision. The bed? The desk? The closet?

  Why, Hank

  The closet. I know all this. I know where he is each second, upstairs making his move. He crawls to the back of the overhead shelf, pulls his claws through a sweater, plants himself, and settles in.

  Don’t, Baby

  His eyes are on my pillow, waiting for me to go to bed. The pillow where I will have to fight to keep myself awake, knowing he will strike, watching as the sky turns from black to blue, then pink for just an instant before day. Cat is cleverer than I. He’ll land on my chest, claws out, if I let myself drift off. Yawning, he stretches his wet tongue, waiting patiently for me to come to bed.

  I open my eyes again and look through the piano’s pedals. My father is on the couch. My mother is at his feet, her head in his lap. She is crying. He leans down and whispers something I cannot hear, lifts her head and kisses her mouth. The room is cold and big, and I can feel the winter air slipping around all the glass panes of the French doors. There is a circle of inky darkness between me and them. Only Cat can get through. Cat is waiting for me upstairs. I want to be nowhere. I close my eyes.

  I have dozed and the rug’s made a bumpy pattern on my cheek. My father, walking toward me, lets go of my mother’s hand. Bending slowly, he holds the piano for balance. His breath is warm and a funny kind of sweet.

  “Come on, peanut.” His mouth is a loose-lipped smile. “Your beautiful mother and I are going to be
d.”

  He reaches out and puts a hand around my ankle. Upstairs I hear Cat knock over a bottle on my dresser. I scream and try to pull away.

  “What?” says Dad.

  I continue to scream.

  “What the hell is it?!”

  My father is pulling me by the foot out from under the piano. He picks me up and I stiffen flat as a board so he has to struggle to keep hold. I see his eyes darken, go from gray to jet where no light gets in, but I can’t stop my hollering. I want him to hold me, but I know what waits in my room. I want a moment to think, but there isn’t time. Cat is slipping under the bed skirt, I’m certain of it. He howls and I howl too, kicking at my father’s side.

  “Ow. Damnit!” shouts my father, dropping me to the rug. “Fine. Stay there. Sleep on the fucking ground for all I care.”

  I stay where I am, with my face beneath my elbow.

  “Sweetheart,” says Mom, bending down to me.

  “Let her stay there.”

  “What is it, Snooks? What’s the matter?”

  “She’s OK. Just leave her.”

  My father pulls my mother to her feet and puts a hand beneath the hem of her dress. She steps away from him.

  “Fine,” he says.

  “Hank, I just need —”

  “No. That’s fine. Go to hell. Both of you.”

  “Don’t be like that. Please.”

  “Fuck. You.”

  A glass breaks against the wall and it’s like a kaleidoscope coming down, all icy shattering onto the floor. Mom’s shoulders stay pitched forward toward the door where Dad has exited.

  “Why must you ruin everything?” she says quietly. I don’t know which one of us she means.

  When the door upstairs has slammed, Mom sits down beside me. All her features turn down toward the ground. The shiny white fabric of her dress is flecked with wet brown droplets. She strokes my back, burnishing me with the heat from her hand till I feel a kind of glow along the length of me.