Painted Dresses

by Patricia Hickman

  “Those are cakes,” I said.

  She stared at me, put out with me like always.

  “Petit fours are cakes. Smallish. They serve them at receptions.”

  The driver grunted what may have been either a laugh or a guarded reaction.

  Delia blushed.

  “Pedophile. Is that what you meant?” I asked.

  “Whatever. The thing of it is that he could do anything to us. Like, drag us off into a gang situation or who knows what?” She was getting excited. “We’re going to need some muscle in case we got to go to Fist City.”

  “Let’s get a hotel first. Then we’ll work on getting clearance through Truman’s counselor. While we’re waiting, we’ll go to the courthouse for his trial records.”

  “Do they just hand them over?” she asked. “No questions asked?”

  “It’s a matter of public record,” said the taxi driver.

  Surprised, I looked at him through the rearview mirror.

  “My brother is a lawyer,” he said. “He’s my partner in this taxi service and practices law on the side.”

  “Maybe he could be our lawyer,” said Delia. “If we have to put the clamps on Truman, we’ll know who to call.”

  The cab driver was suddenly very lawyerly. “If he was incarcerated in Orleans Parish, he was probably transferred to Angola. The records are still being sorted through since the hurricane.” The driver pulled down his visor. “When Orleans got flooded, they even moved women into Angola. Prison system’s been a mess to unjumble ever since.” He handed Delia his brother’s business card. It was one of those make-it-at-home, computer-generated cards, a photo of the dark-skinned brother fitted into the left side, a slogan under his name. “Fast legal help. Same day bonding.”

  “Looks like we got us a lawyer, Gaylen.” Delia was thrilled. Then she asked, “You’re not from Iraq, are you?”

  “India,” he said, as if he had been asked often.

  I called Truman’s counselor, Buddy Fortune. He answered right away and said Truman had been anxious to hear from us. “Visiting hours are tomorrow starting at 8:00 a.m. Be at the front gate, and I’ll be sure Truman has you signed in.”

  The taxi driver stopped at a hotel not far from the airport, the Windsor Court. “This hotel’s offering a special tourist rate, but you have to ask for it,” he told us. He put our luggage out on the walk and drove away. I checked us into a guest room and left our luggage with the hotel concierge. Then we walked out into the streets. Down one neighborhood street, it was as if the hurricane had hit only yesterday.

  Delia emptied herself of all of the gloom of facing Truman when she set eyes on her first outdoor café. Café Du Monde in the French Market was lit up with some outdoor lights and was full of people who had ventured back for the holiday. I ordered beignets and two coffees with chicory. We took them to an outdoor table under the covering of the open market coffee stand where we could watch people venturing in and out of Jackson Square. The last place I expected to find solace was in an outdoor café, but there we laughed, and Delia talked about Avery and the art gallery by night. She had never seen one by day, but she talked about it as if she owned it and as if Avery might call at any minute.

  The phone rang. It was Meredith. I asked her about Tim, and I knew from her tone that she was sick with worry. Tim had deployed, as Delia had told me, to Kuwait in order to cross over into Iraq. He was in a place where he could not phone home and she could not know his exact location. We could send him a box of snacks but nothing chocolate because it would melt into water. I wrote down the address for deployed servicemen.

  Delia talked about the beignets when I got off the phone. But I sat thinking about Tim in a sand-swept desert, a place with no deer stand or forest lookout. But he would have his gun, the one thing about Kuwait that he would understand. He knew how to take care of himself. Meredith ought not to worry.

  “Let’s find the courthouse and then go and buy Tim a gift: from New Orleans.” We stopped to talk to a cop. He was a black policeman, Creole and guarded. Braden once told me the cops in New Orleans were laid back. I asked him where court records were kept.

  “You take a taxi to 2700 Tulane Avenue, Orleans Parish Clerk of Criminal Courts office. Tell the clerk at the front desk what you need, and she will tell you where to go.”

  Delia finished her café au lait. “I heard about the French Quarter. We got to come back tonight so I can buy some wine, just so I can tell Avery that I have a bottle waiting for him.”

  I hailed a cab. When Delia climbed in ahead of me, I said, “Delia, Avery is over so stop talking about him. You’ll drive yourself silly with worry.”

  “I know love when I see it. He’ll call,” she said, confident she had power over him.

  Delia’s head, I thought, was a playland of men and first kisses and one escapade after another where she was perpetually right and never scorned. I was actually jealous.

  I gave the driver the address.

  “I’m going to buy a Mardi Gras shirt and beads and a T-shirt for Avery too.”

  “You believe that Avery is going to call?” I asked.

  “He said he would. You never believe anyone, Gaylen.” She reached into my handbag and pulled out a lipstick. She lifted up off the seat and used the driver’s rearview mirror to color her lips. He winked at her. She giggled.

  “When we see Truman, let me do the talking,” I said.

  “I’m not going to say anything stupid,” she said, defensive.

  “I want to see what he is willing to say.” I pulled out the checkbook and began adding up our receipts. The money was holding tight, but we needed to watch out for expensive hotels and room service.

  “I need some clothes,” said Delia. “Let’s buy out New Orleans.”

  The historical buildings whizzed past. The driver buzzed around a horse and carriage carting a couple dressed in navy and white. They looked as if they never worried about money. Like Delia.

  Before I paid the cab driver, Delia ran wildly to the street corner of Tulane. By wildly, I mean that she was pointing and leaping. “A band, a parade!” she yelled.

  I followed her to the curb. The music was dark and mournful. The band Delia saw was a funeral procession. The mourners were dressed in various patterns of black, some silk and some taffeta, little black laces sewn into the hems of the women’s dresses. A man in a top hat led the processional. An older man standing on the opposite corner took off his hat and bowed his head.

  “When I die, Gaylen, will you hire me a band like that?”

  “What if I die first?”

  “Is that what you want, a band at your funeral?” she asked.

  “I think, bagpipes.” My great-grandfather was Scotch-Irish, and I had imagined bagpipes as a fitting end to me.

  The mourners turned the corner.

  I climbed the steps to the Clerk of Criminal Court’s office. The sun came out for a moment, and the air was heavy and balmy. In the distance was the dark cloud bank moving up from the Gulf.

  The black clerk inside asked me, “When did the trial take place?”

  I didn’t know.

  “How long has the inmate been in prison?” she asked.

  “I think eleven years. He was sentenced for twenty-four years,” I told her.

  “Do you have a case number?”

  “Only a name. Truman Savage.”

  She got up and disappeared into an office.

  Delia said, “Hah!”

  The clerk returned and said, “We can have it tomorrow afternoon. There’s a charge of fifteen cents a page. It’s a hundred twenty-two pages long. Can you pay now?”

  “Of course, no problem,” said Delia.

  I waited as if Delia might actually pay. Then I pulled out a twenty and took care of the bill.

  The hotel desk clerk recommended K-Paul’s for the tas
te of local fare. When we arrived on foot, the walk was filling up with patrons. The store windows were suddenly freckled by the early arrival of rain. “I’ll buy an umbrella,” I told Delia. I ran into a tourist shop. Food was sold in cans and bottles, cans of mix and bottles of Tabasco, with a hundred or more types of sauces with names that sent Delia laughing. She kept picking up the sauces and saying the names out loud. “Slap Your Mama,” she said, giggling.

  I bought a tin of pralines, some sort of crunchy mix for Tim, and an umbrella the color of irises. Delia came up to the counter wearing Mardi Gras beads. The woman, accustomed to tourists, reached across the counter to count the bead strands. I paid for all of it, and we left and crossed the street to K-Paul’s.

  The service was a little slow, but we sipped red wine and Delia grinned. Outside the rain let loose, and we were glad to have gotten seated. The rain swept the remaining tourists into the lobby. The air was muggy and the smell of damp humans potent, but the restaurant was lively and loud. There was no music, odd for a restaurant in New Orleans. The tense wave of people put pressure on the wait staff, and we were served quickly. Delia ordered pork chops while I ordered the dusted crawfish tails.

  I peeled off my sweater. A man at the bar was staring and smiling. It was the first time I felt checked out because of the daisy tattoo. I hung the sweater on the chair back, though, feeling a part of New Orleans. “We’ll visit Angola in the morning and then come back to shop,” I said, as if Truman was an insignificant part of tomorrow.

  Delia filled her glass again. The rain was pounding, and we heard the sound of a whoop as more people packed into the lobby. She relaxed, while the tension of the restaurant caused me to feel unsteady. It was the same unsteady feeling I had gotten when the Embraer took off out of Dallas.

  “Are you mad at God?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “Truman, for one thing. Braden too.”

  “What would it help to say that I was?” Everyone said that when things went bad. Being mad at God was a cliche, like there was nothing else to do but that when your life got shredded. But I lay awake of late, asking questions and hearing nothing back. I went from quiet prayers to pity on nights when sleep evaded me.

  Delia offered me more wine, but I declined and set aside my glass. “I’m not feeling well.”

  The food came, and Delia stared at the bright red crawfish in front of me.

  “You can have some,” I offered. I peeled one for her and laid it on the edge of her plate. She considered it first and then finally cautiously put it to her lips. She sniffed it and then, finding it pleasant, popped the tail into her mouth. “It tastes like shrimp, but not entirely,” she said.

  Finally, the music was turned on, holiday music, though, instead of Cajun.

  “We’ll buy you some new clothes tomorrow,” I said, not remembering if I had already said it.

  “You look pale,” she said.

  “My nerves haven’t settled since the flight.”

  “The last time you flew in that plane, you was taken to the hospital.”

  She was right, of course, but thinking about it only made the rising tension sour. The crawfish were hot on my tongue and acid in my stomach. I sipped water and asked the waiter to bring a bowl of soup.

  “When I get home, I’m going to get a job that lets me travel like we been doing,” she said. Of course, she was not considering her education.

  “If you want, you can go back to school,” I said.

  “I hate school.”

  “It’s better if you study what you like.” There was that pale fragment of tension that occurred whenever I gave her advice. I leaned back to allow the chowder to be placed in front of me. “I feel faint,” I said.

  “You’re the absolute color of lilies, Gaylen.”

  The room was spinning.

  Delia called for the check.

  I slept until three in the morning. Delia left the television on. There was an old movie on, the actress, someone my mother liked, I thought. I slipped out of the sheets. Delia lay across the other bed still wearing her day clothes. I pulled a blanket out of the closet and tucked it around her.

  My cell phone was blinking. I’d missed a call while sleeping.

  Through the window, the moon was covered over but still trying hard to illuminate. The rain was subsiding. The streets were black and wet, a few people still running in and out with umbrellas.

  I had gotten a headache. I went for water and pain medication in the bathroom. I listened to the message. Meredith said that Tim’s unit was attacked while trying to rescue a maintenance unit. He was in critical condition. She was flying to Germany to see him. She would try to call once more before the flight left.

  I wanted to call her right then. But it was in the wee hours of the morning in Colorado too. I set the alarm clock. I would awaken before her and call.

  After that, I wrapped in a blanket, settled into a chair, and looked out over the city. There was a cemetery across the square. The cemeteries were all numbered, and the locals had a grasp of the cemetery numbers, but I had not paid enough attention to recall it. People are buried aboveground in New Orleans; in other Louisiana cities, the same was true. In times of flood, the caskets rose, so it was best to bury the dead in tombs. Even from the storm that had rolled in that night, water rose in the streets, so the land did not perk well. But the locals adapted in order to keep their lives. They lived life rebuilding and elevating and burying loved ones aboveground.

  Truman was before me now, a few hours from me. He had established himself as a liar. The court transcripts might reveal other things about him. But what escaped me was how a boy could be sculpted into Truman’s shape. What sort of adapting had gone on in the Syler family that turned Truman dark and my mother silent? The Sylers had bought a life, establishing themselves in their own minds as the happy family, Sunday morning hymn singers, and creek-bank sitters. But all the while, things floated to the surface, and I kept noticing while my mother kept burying and covering over.

  I slept in the chair so that I could keep one eye on the city. It could storm again and someone needed to keep watch.

  17

  DELIA AND I DROVE the two and a half hours to Angola in a rental. I tried calling Meredith twice but finally left a voice message.

  Delia had picked up some new clothes in a boutique early after breakfast and talked in excess about the clothes until I was getting tired of the sound of her voice.

  “Have you decided what you will say?” I asked.

  “Say about what? Are you talking about Truman?”

  “If you don’t rehearse, you could blurt out something, and I’ve told you how that will go. He’s not our kind, you know.”

  “I’m not going to let you put words in my mouth,” she said. She woke up surly, and even though she had lightened for a while after slipping into the new clothes, the wall was coming back up between us.

  “Not words in your mouth, in your head.”

  She wanted a cigarette, and I told her, “You’ll spoil your new clothes, and there you are looking so nice, so give the tobacco a rest, why don’t you?” I pulled the folded up map from under me, the one the rental car associate had given me that he had printed off for our trip. I handed her the driving directions. “We’re about to pass through Baton Rouge. Read what comes next,” I said.

  She studied the paper, turning it over and back and forth. “Where would we be now?”

  “We’re on 1-10.”

  “It says merge onto 1-110. Look, exit 155B, that’s the one,” she said.

  “We should lunch in Baton Rouge. Who knows what’s ahead, and you can’t count on towns outside of the cities for good lunch spots anymore. They’ve all been given over to fast food.”

  She smelled a cigarette and then packed it away.

  I passed the exit and opted for one into Baton Rouge. Rig
ht off the exit, a Cajun kitchen advertised a lunch special. We pulled in and took our lunch in a room full of locals, some in suits, but most dressed casually and sipping beer with lunch. We finished a split plate of catfish and hush puppies, and Delia took a smoke before we paid and then headed north.

  Delia offered the last chocolate mint to me. “When you say that we need to rehearse what to say to Truman, what is it exactly you mean? Are we trying to catch him in another lie?”

  “We want him to confess what he did the day Mother made him leave, before he got on the bus to his daddy’s house in Texas.”

  “I’ll ask him if he’s been having any thoughts about us when we were girls and then get him confessing,” she said, as if her imagined magic over men would work on Truman.

  I felt lightheaded again. “Let’s don’t say anything at all about Boiling Waters. Let’s ask him about his life now so that he’ll get comfortable with us.” We were allowed a four hour visit. I imagined that Truman had been pent up for so long he might not be well practiced in the social graces of pretense.

  After driving another hour, we crossed the county line into West Feliciana Parish. According to the map, the Mississippi River was west of us and Angola straight ahead.

  The prison parking lot was well furnished with signage and visitor directions. “We’re supposed to park and catch a bus into the prison,” I said.

  Delia stared straight ahead at the massive stretch of land. The Louisiana penitentiary was built over time on plantation property. The surrounding land was green and pastoral. “Gaylen, I’ve never set foot inside a prison. You know I laid awake for a while last night thinking about the police back in Boiling Waters and how they might try and throw me into just such a place.”

  “We don’t know Sophie’s condition, Delia. Don’t borrow trouble.” It was the first time she had gotten a genuine pang of worry, while I had thought of almost nothing else since we left town. I killed the motor. “We’ve been spending cash, so you’d be hard to run down.”

  She opened the door and climbed out, smoothing her new blouse and straightening her hair. “Whoo-ee! It’s kind of exciting, facing a criminal mind like this. You think he’ll remember us?”