Hetty’s face muscles weren’t strong enough to blink back the tears any longer. They trickled down her cheeks until she was sobbing into her scarf. “Oh, Mother! I hate you! I hate you!” she sobbed over and over, but even as she did so, she knew which tip of the star she had to follow. The one that pointed back to the Heights. She had no choice. She had chosen Mac because he was the man she wanted. He had that itch in his soul, the grit and growl in his voice that made him a fighter. And now she needed him to fight for her in a way Lamar never could. She needed him to take a steel bit in his big hands and use it to drill through layer after layer of limestone, to go down to the heart of the earth where treasure lay, to wrest out of rock a kingdom of her own where she would never need her mother and father and sister again. Then let them come begging for her affections! Yes, as she dried her tears and choked down her sorrows, she knew only one direction was possible now. It was clearly there, in the earth. Auspicious and plain. A point, a ray. She had to follow the star whether she wanted to or not. Because as of today, it was no longer just a state emblem. She had made it her own.
And now she knew why it always flew alone.
Hetty moved in and out of the constant stream of walkers flowing in both directions downtown. She had no idea where to catch the Heights streetcar. She glanced about, hoping to find someone to ask.
Then, almost a block away, through a blur of shadowy figures, her eye was caught by a cloud of pastels glowing in the evening light. Three young women seemed to float out of an elegant gray car drawn up at the curb. It took a moment for all three of them to alight on the sidewalk, then they turned and started down the block, coming toward her, unmistakable. They fluttered along in a tight little flock, trailing wisps of silk, parting pedestrians as they passed. Hetty recognized their gait—long sleek legs clicking along on the same beat, as in a dance. Belinda Welch, Doris Verne Hargraves, and Winifred Ilse Neuhaus. She debated whether to face them or flee. She’d been crying and probably looked a mess. On the other hand, she was the first among her friends to wed and that should win her a certain status. These girls would appear naive standing next to her—a wife, a seasoned woman who could be blasé about such dreaded rites of passage as the wedding night and the honeymoon. She decided to stand there and let her friends discover her.
Doris Verne was the first to come running up. “My crazy pal. Did you go and get married on us?”
“So you’ve heard?”
“Of course. Everybody knows. We’re all in awe.”
“A week ago.”
“Congratulations!” She gave her a warm hug. “I can’t believe it.”
“Sure you can,” Winifred said. “In case people don’t know she’s an elopist. She’s carrying suitcases.” She kissed Hetty on each cheek.
Lockett’s daughter Belinda hung back and watched with eyes the color of ice at dawn. Winifred noticed her gazing at Hetty’s waistline. “Put those nine fingers down, Bel. We promise not to count the months, Het.”
“Why does everyone think I’m pregnant?” Hetty flung her suitcases to the sidewalk.
“You should hear what people are saying.”
“I don’t really care what people are saying. My friends know the truth and that’s all that matters to me.”
“That’s right, honey child,” said Doris Verne. “And we’re happy for you. How was your honeymoon?”
“We stayed in the bridal suite at the Galvez.”
“How swanky,” said Doris Verne.
“I played roulette at the Hollywood Dinner Club. Guest of the Maceos.”
“You know the Maceos?” Belinda asked.
“Yeah. My husband introduced me.”
“Aren’t they . . . you know . . . on the lam?” said Winifred.
“Heavens no! They run everything down there.”
The three girls just stared at her.
Belinda checked a dainty watch on her wrist. “Aren’t we going to be late for our motion picture?”
“Now I’m jealous—what are you going to see?” said Hetty.
“That thing about slave days in old New Orleans,” she answered. “The Love Mart with Billie Dove.”
“The most beautiful woman on the screen!” Winifred said with mock breathiness. “I wanted to catch The Jazz Singer in Vitaphone, but these two pooh-poohed it.”
“It’s just a gimmick, Wini,” Belinda insisted.
“I wish I could go with you,” Hetty sighed. “I’ve got to find the trolley to the Heights. Do you know where it stops?”
“Sorry, kid,” said Winifred. “I’ve never ridden on a streetcar.”
“I do feel so sorry for you—married and all,” Belinda said, planting a quick peck on Hetty’s cheek.
“Don’t bother, Bel. She’s already somebody’s love slave, and we’re just seeing a movie about it,” Winifred said.
As they moved off, Doris Verne squeezed Hetty’s hands and murmured, “Let’s have luncheon at the club. Call me.”
Hetty turned on the lights in the living room of the garage apartment. She called Garret’s name, but he wasn’t home. Nothing had been tidied up, and the kitchen door was still closed. She set her suitcases down and walked cautiously in that direction. Opening the door a crack, she reached inside and flicked the light switch. A frantic scurrying ensued as the palmetto bugs retreated back into their nests. She left the light on, like a fire to keep wild animals at bay, and slammed the door. She placed a dirty towel from the bathroom across the crack so none of them could shimmy through. In the bedroom, she found a blanket to cover herself on the couch, where she lay down exhausted to wait for Garret. Maybe I had to come back, she told herself. But I don’t have to sleep in his bed.
She left the lights on in the living room, too.
Garret finally arrives home and tells her to pack. Before she knows it, he’s driving them around and around the plaza of a desolate town. Wild dogs follow in the dust and yip at them. The land is as brown and mangy as the dogs, yielding only the thorns of prickly pear cactus. Hetty doesn’t understand why they’ve come here. As Garret circles, she glances into the plaza. Old men sit on massive stone benches talking in Spanish. She knows it’s Spanish because they have the heads of gargoyles and their words float out like smoke rings. They are talking about her. Her name floats in the air: Esther de las Ardras. Her ancestors are there, with stone dust on their hands, watching from the quarry.
Church bells toll. Out of the stoneworks, white as marble, a bride walks into the plaza. Her face is covered by a silk shawl caught in her hair with a Spanish comb. The gargoyles lift it to reveal her dusky face: It is Hetty’s grandmother, Liliana Ardra y de la Herrera, who has just become Señora Beckman. Liliana goes to the fountain and washes the stone dust off her hands. The water trickling out turns bloodred. The wedding guests all hold their glasses under the spigot and fill them with wine. Hetty looks everywhere for Garret but can’t find him.
On the sofa in the garage apartment, aching and alone, Hetty turned over to make sure it was day. She pushed herself up and set her bare feet on the floor. Dust motes swam by the thousands into the sunrays leaking through the drooping venetian blinds, but she didn’t care. She was so glad to see that the wild dogs running through her dreams had found the dawn at last.
She dressed and cautiously opened the door into the kitchen. No palmetto bugs in sight. She found a tin of Folgers and set the percolator going. After unpacking, she wandered from room to room, picking up clothes and drinking too much coffee. As mugginess mushroomed in the air, the reek of gasoline drifted up from the garage below.
A pile of dusty books lay on an old shelf littered with pencil stubs, cuff links, and empty cigar jars. She perused the stack, wondering if it had been left by the previous tenant: The Outline of History by H. G. Wells, Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, If Winter Comes by A. S. M. Hutchinson. Her fingers were drawn to an exotic-looking book called White Shadows of the South Seas, but when she opened it, some of the pages fell out in her hands. The glue holding the bindi
ng together had been eaten away. She dropped the book and ran out into the sun shuddering. The roaches were eating the books!
When Garret walked in the next night, Hetty was ready for him. She lounged across crisp white sheets on the sofa, freshly bathed, in a pair of satin pajamas. A soft light pervaded the rooms, thrown by new table lamps with silk scarves draped around the shades. Stalks of red gladiolas towered over the coffee table. The furniture gleamed. He stood at the door, a look of pleasant surprise spreading over his face.
“You’ve been busy,” he said.
“I’ve been in class for two days.”
“Class?”
“Home economics with Professor Pearlie. She really knows her mops.”
“I’ll bet she does.” He came into the center of the room, glancing around and sniffing the air.
Hetty impersonated Pearl’s East Texas twang: “ ‘A house without a woman runs wild.’ I learned all about Octagon Super Suds, Sani-Flush, Fuller Brush furniture polish, and spray cans of Flit for the roaches.”
He smiled faintly. “I take it you’re going to stay for a while.”
“Not for long. I just couldn’t sleep in this rat hole another night without cleaning it.”
He loosened his tie, slipped off his chauffeur’s coat, and slung it over a hook. He nosed around for a few minutes, used the bathroom, then came back in and stretched out in his old club chair. He ran his hands over the fresh ticking on the arms. “This chair feels different.”
“Slipcovers. Another one of Professor Pearlie’s tricks.”
“You wanted to be back with me, admit it.” He came over and squatted on the edge of the sofa.
Hetty could smell his cologne, that manly limy smell she usually liked. Now it just soured her nose, like too much lemon squeezed into tonic. She pulled the sheet closer around her body and pushed him off the couch with her feet. He fell to the floor.
“Why’d you do that?”
“For one thing, I’m beat. I’ve never worked so hard in my life. Pearl is a slave driver. Today we ran into Munn’s to buy lamps and linens and had to carry all the packages home on the streetcar. I just want to go to sleep.”
“How can you push me away?” He stood up, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a thick wad of bills. He tossed it onto the coffee table, where it uncurled like a peony in the last stages of bloom. “Look at all this money I brought you.”
“Good. I owe Pearl sixty-six dollars and ninety-nine cents.”
“I’ll pay her.”
“Thanks.” Hetty poked at the cash, trying to estimate how much it was. “This is peanuts compared to what you could be making in the oil business.”
Her words made him bristle. “Sorry if it’s not good enough for you, goddammit. Maybe you should go back to Lamar.”
“Maybe I will.”
He went into the bedroom and slammed the door. She got up and turned off all the lamps, falling back onto the sofa bone weary. She could hear him slamming around. He paced the floor, unbuckled his belt, kicked off his shoes, and then brushed his teeth in the bathroom with the new tube of Ipana she’d gotten. She heard the old bedsprings squeaking and decided they should use part of his wad of money to buy a new mattress. She kept drifting off in the dark and quiet, but waking up and wondering if Garret was asleep. The bedsprings squeaked again. Good, she thought, he’s tossing and turning, too.
Through heavy eyelids, she saw him slip back into the room in his undershirt and shorts, pour himself a drink from a silver flask, and light the little beeswax candles she’d arranged in a candelabra on the coffee table. As a warm haze began to mingle with the scent of lemon oil, she heard him light a cigarette. He sat in the flickering light smoking, and began to talk quietly and earnestly. She could hardly stay awake to concentrate on what he was saying, but found his deep voice oddly soothing.
He talked about his wanderings around Texas to visit the big oil strikes since Spindletop—places like Saratoga, Electra, and Desdemona. He went on spreading his dreams out before her until they crowded the room and pushed the walls out into the far reaches of the night. His deep voice kept pulling her down until she finally went under and didn’t wake again until the candles had burned out and all was quiet. A blue haze sifted in from the streetlamps.
She heard the floor creak and saw him come back into the living room and stand over her, this time without his undershirt and boxer shorts. His white body looked so pure and tempting in the pale light.
“You’re naked.”
“I have a confession to make. You’re the only person I would tell this to.”
Hetty knew not to say anything. She waited. I’m watching a deer venture out of deep woods into a meadow. The slightest movement on my part . . . and it’s gone.
He knelt down in front of her. “I don’t know how to drill an oil well. I don’t know the first thing about it.”
“So all those stories about oil towns aren’t true?”
“Oh, they’re true. I did visit those places. But I always felt like a tourist. I didn’t know how to get on the inside so I could learn the secrets of the old wildcatters.”
“You will. Every weevil has to learn the business. We’ll do it together—okay?”
“So you’re not going to leave me and go back to Lamar?”
She shook her head. He rose off the floor. Hetty thought he was going to crush her as he wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. He started to climb on top of her, his confidence renewed. She pushed him back.
“Now I have a confession to make.”
“Okay. Your turn.” He laughed with relief.
“Shall I get naked?”
“I’d like that.”
“Can you help me?”
He slipped her pajama bottoms off first, then unbuttoned her top and helped her slip it off. She covered her breasts with her arms because she knew he would look at them. But she wanted to be completely vulnerable, so she overcame her modesty and lowered her arms to her sides. He looked. Her nipples went hard in spite of herself.
“I didn’t come back here because of our wedding vows. I don’t believe in keeping vows just for the sake of keeping vows. I came back because I had no place else to go. Mamá kicked me out.”
“I knew she would.”
Hetty described it all to him: her empty room, the piles of stuff in the back hall, the news about Henry Picktown Waller.
“What a—” Garret stopped himself.
“Go ahead and say it—Mamá’s a bitch. She’ll never forgive me for marrying you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I want you here with me, Hetty.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about. We can’t abandon Pick, Garret. I’ve worked too hard to rescue that family from the Ward.”
She pulled him up onto the sofa with her, then slid her hands up his arms and around his shoulders. “Promise me one thing. When you drill your first well, I want you to put Pick on the crew.”
“So I am drilling a well.”
“No. We’re drilling a well.”
He hugged her again. She loved the way her breasts felt so warm against his bare skin. “I really love you,” he whispered into her ear.
“Why do you love me?”
“Because you’re kind. Because you want to help Pick and his kin.”
“It’s not kindness.”
“What is it, then?”
“Survival. I’m their only hope. If I drop the ball, those kids will die.”
“Here’s to survival, then.”
“Amen.”
He kissed her tenderly on the mouth. She couldn’t stop him and couldn’t break away. She promised herself she wouldn’t sleep with him tonight, but when he took her by the hand and led her into the bedroom, she followed, telling herself that she was half-asleep and didn’t know what she was doing. The silver cord of pleasure that had tied them together in the ocean was still too tightly wound. It wrapped them together invisibly so she could barely breathe.
He sat down on the bed, and
she knelt in front of him. He opened his legs. She kissed his thighs, his stomach. Then she buried her face in his fragrant genitals. She began kissing and licking, hungry for his salt taste. When he grew hard, she drove her mouth farther down on his cock, swallowing the whole thing. He sat back on the bed, paralyzed with pleasure. She sucked on it feverishly, up and down, like she imagined a prostitute would do. That’s what she was now—Mac’s whore. He moaned, and Hetty felt herself, again, simultaneously captivated and alarmed at how deeply his passion fed on the sincerity and disgrace of her submission.
Then they were in bed, rustling through the cool new sheets she’d just bought. His mouth was right at her ear, nibbling, kissing, talking so low she could hardly understand him at times. Whispering so no one can hear me, like the song said. This is what it means to be a love slave, she thought. This was the real thing. This was what her friends could only dream about, what Wini read about in marriage manuals. Hearing a man’s most secret thoughts expressed in these passionate whispers, here in the middle of the night when you can’t see his face but can only feel his body wrapped tightly around yours.
The wind picked up and stirred the leaves of the post oak tree that was the only covering for the windows in the bedroom. They seemed to whisper Nella, as if she were spying on them. Hetty knotted up, feeling her mother’s disapproval like a cold hiss. Then Garret’s hand slid down between her legs. She yielded slowly into what was alive and richly warm inside her—more insistent even than the bare lightbulbs and the windows with no curtains and the cockroaches. His tongue worked her until he had stroked Nella and memory right out of her mind, and she went flowing in his heat and was nothing now but a warm liquidlike stream, eddying in the drift of his love.
Magnolia City Page 15