The Orange Blossom Express

by Marlena Evangeline

  “You were the one who always said it was so safe,” Maggie said angrily.

  “Well, it just used to be. I’m not sure that holds anymore.”

  “Great. I’m always the last to know,” she said, going over to the buffet and taking a plate and picking at the food. She felt tears rising in her eyes, and she fought them back, wanting them to go away, and not wanting to cry at Lucy’s wedding, although that too seemed cryable right now, but she wasn’t certain why, and the fact that Patrick was leaving made her unbearably sad and she couldn’t think happy things about Lucy or Gary or any of it. And she loved Patrick, she knew that, she loved him in a Patrick-way not a Hank-way but she loved him none-the-less and she would indeed miss him, but that was life wasn’t it, and this was loss as she was losing it.

  Hank was in a group of people standing near the greenhouse laughing and telling a story, and she overheard a snip of conversation, and it was about Monterey, and she was so sick of hearing the story she wanted to puke and wondered how he could tell it again, but the crowd of people were wide-eyed and spellbound like they always were around Hank, and it annoyed the shit out of her for some reason, and she wondered why that was and how awful and mean-spirited could she be and why wasn’t she just a nicer better person pleased with the world and how it was and happy that Hank brought money home and all that and was a big deal drug dealer that people loved and wanted around and sort of treated like some fucking hero or something because he was such an adventurer. Christ, they almost died. That’s what happened in Monterey. Near death. So what’s so great about that. That’s scary. Frightening. The worst thing. But look at him, she pouted, he was bragging about it. Bragging about near death. But that’s what people like: near death-like dramas to die for. Why for? What’s so fucking great about almost dying. I died a thousand times that night, she thought, dying about the thought of them dying, both Patrick and Hank, but that was my kind of dying. Worrying to death. Girl’s kind of dying. The thought of them dying. But what about me, she thought, certainly thinking she was the most selfish mean-spirited spirited girlfriend ever. Of course, she was more than a girlfriend. She was a wife. But why didn’t she feel wife-difey? She didn’t feel wifey. Not at all. Were all marriages like this, she wondered? But then they didn’t do this thing like Gary and Lucy were doing. Hank and Maggie had a quicky marriage. No pretty dresses. Just a little ceremony. Get it over and get on with it. That’s what he’d said. Did he say it or she say it? What about a pretty dress? Like Lucy. Wouldn’t that have been nicer? Sweeter. Better. And he was still yakking about the drug deal. God, how she hated drug deals. What the fuck about me, she thought. How does Maggie fit here? What should she be doing? Maybe she doesn’t fit, she thought, any more than Patrick seems to fit. If she doesn’t fit, she shouldn’t be there in that life not fitting because of it. But if she doesn’t fit there where does she? What shoe can she put on? Where is that glass slipper? Who has it? Where can she find it? Where is that fairy godmother? Must she always wear Hank’s cinder clothes? Her mother says so. What a jerk she is. Do what he does. If she only knew what he does. What dits mothers are, aren’t they. Advice. Best ask it from a tree stump or something. Oh these clothes are alright aren’t they? Hank bought them. It was nice of him, wasn’t it? But this is silly, isn’t it? All this thinking. Why bother, after all, this is a pretty dress she’s wearing and she’s very pretty isn’t she and Hank, look at him, he’s very handsome, almost gallant, certainly, they think him that, but why not Maggie? Why doesn’t she think that? What’s the matter with her thinking? Why does she feel badly when it all should be so good? Why can’t her thoughts fit those pretty clothes? Is this the wrong skin of thought? Do her thoughts need different clothes? Yes, her thoughts aren’t thinking these clothes she thought as she thought about them. But where does she find the right fit? She’d better go shopping, she thought, but she couldn’t shop in those clothes; she’d need new clothes to shop in; oh god, she thought, she’d have to make them, and she hated to sew. Where was that pattern she liked? She’d have to look for it carefully this time no hasty tasty testing without vesting something but what thing was that thing that something that she might be vesting or investing or vising and revising or disguising. Where might it be? She picked a cherry tomato from a blue bowl on the table and ate it.

  Lucy was inside the house with her baby, changing him; a little stream of pee squirted her pretty new wedding dress, but she laughed and made her husband, Gary, finish changing the baby while she went and soaked the sleeve of her dress with water, cleaning it. The bride and groom were happy to be married and living the little life they lived in Santa Cruz. They had a little house now and Lucy was out of jail, but she thought about jail a lot while she cleaned her nice little house that sat right beyond the redwoods and had a nice greenhouse where she planted flowers and worked in the garden with her new baby snuggled in blankets and stretched out in the sun while she dug in the dirt and planted flowers and things to make the new house pretty and nice. But she wasn’t thinking of jail today because she was washing her sleeve and having a party and marrying Gary and she was glad really glad to be doing all the normal things she thought some day she might do but then had been afraid she would never do but there she was doing them. And she didn’t mind the baby peeing on the dress because life was like that and babies peed and she’d already been in jail and lived this other harder life than the life that she was going to live now and by gosh and by golly this life was going to be less tough as she lived it even with babies peeing on dresses and she thought that was okay and appropriate and somehow fit with her idea about not living happily ever after because that wasn’t a real story, and Lucy knew about real stories because she’d been living one and so there, sweet baby, she thought we’ll be okay anyway yes she thought we will.

  Mary Pointer filled another bowl with fruit salad and took it outside to the picnic table and asked Jack to go to town and get some apple juice and even some coke or something because some people were drinking cokes even though most people were drinking apple juice but they needed more to drink none-the-less so would he please go and get something but bring her back some potato chips because she wanted something salty and trashy and less good than all this other good food and Mary liked the house Gary had bought for Lucy and thought that all the trouble was worth the trouble if everything was alright now and it seemed to be alright because the house was very big and there was room to grow in it she thought enough space for a family to make itself and Mary thought it would be nice if a family made itself in the big house with the big spacious rooms that needed to be filled and she liked visiting Lucy in Santa Cruz even though she had lots of work back at home it was nice to be there with Lucy because it had been months since they’d gotten home from Costa Rica and she’d had to work hard to catch up with business and had put a nursery at the factory for the women that worked there and she’d had to do a lot like remodel the building but Jack helped so that worked great and the women were happier and she was too because she’d done something unusual and forward thinking and she liked that very much that she’d done it and not just thought about it; then Jack went to the store because he was glad to be going away from these people getting ripped because he didn’t get ripped and thought he was uncomfortable which he was very uncomfortable even though his own sweet daughter was getting married but his friends weren’t there but he would get more beer to get him through the party and he was better at drinking than drugging not that he thought it was better but he did; he really thought it was better much better and he was certain he was right about it and whatever did those drugs do for him except get his daughter in trouble and they certainly did and he was still annoyed that there were drugs at this party but he was old-fashioned and he knew it and he thought that now as he left for cokes and things what else was he supposed to get oh yeah apple juice they wanted apple juice well by golly he’d just get some.

  Hank watched Jack climb into the Mercedes and jockey the car around in the driveway
trying to get out without scratching the car or trashing it or something it wouldn’t matter if he hit someone else of course cause no one would really give a shit and Hank sorta laughed watching Lucy’s dad do that really concerned about the car he could tell and getting the pretty Mercedes-Benz all fucked up by these trashy little Volkswagens and such and then he went and got more food cause he was so ripped and could just think about eating so he dug into the spinach lasagna that was so incredible and had all this great mozzarella cheese and ricotta he thought yeah Rebecca would do it the right way and put lots of ricotta in the lasagna too and there was Maggie talking to who who was that he didn’t know but he thought she looked spacey and tripped out but was it he or she or what oh fuck it he didn’t care he just wanted to eat this lasagna and wished for something else but what else was it he wanted God he thought things would really change now when Patrick left he and Maggie would have to be married like they were but it would be different and now that they didn’t talk so much what might they talk about when Patrick left he couldn’t quite imagine but he’d find out sooner or later alligator (will I see you later alligator?) he thought well he had the airplane and what the hell he didn’t have to be home much anyway everyone thinks the same thing probably he thought if he didn’t have to spend too much time at home it might be okay but would it if things weren’t really all that great anymore and it looked yeah it looked like she’d been crying again so what the fuck was he supposed to do and why the fuck was she crying he didn’t know it was beyond him and please let it stay that way away away for Christ’s sake he just really didn’t want to deal no way no way Jose.

  Gary carried the baby over his shoulder; the little head bobbed over his shoulder wide-eyed looking at one thing and another and now at Hank who smiled at the pretty baby and took him from Gary and held him making silly baby faces at the baby and gave him back to Gary who carried his son around the party and people cooed baby coos and the fog rolled away and the sun came out again and everyone was glad especially Gary who felt that things were incredibly great because Lucy was finally home and he was happy and so was she and they were both glad about this little bobby-headed baby looking over his shoulder now looking at the balsa airplane that scooted through the air the one Hank had brought that did a loop and landed on the grass and the Ullr nosed the airplane. Hank picked it up and shoved it in the air again and someone brought a frisbee around and threw it for one of the dogs but two dogs ran for it snarling to get it and three kids laid on one of the rugs tickling each other and one bumped into the Kingfish who was still snoring his whistling snore and he jerked and the kids scrambled because they didn’t want to wake him and the Kingfish was dreaming and in his dream he was sweating because he had three suitcases full of hash and he was taking them down the aisle of this train but someone was chasing him and he didn’t know who except that they wanted his suitcase and he ran faster and faster down this aisle and some old ladies were sitting primly in their train seats watching him run and a suitcase flipped open and the hash fell out and the blue-haired ladies got up and chased him too and everyone chased him down this aisle and he fell and another suitcase flipped open and a swarm of silver-haired powdery-faced ladies loomed over him and he kicked at them screaming and then woke with a start and jumped up from the pillow and realized he was at the party and had just been dreaming a scary dream so he went over to the picnic table and decided to eat and got some food and saw Maggie and went over to her because he really liked Maggie and was sorry she was married to Hank and noticed that Hank never spent much time with her and wondered why he had bothered to marry her anyway because he didn’t really seem to like her much but then maybe that was just wishful thinking thinking that Maggie might like him Kingfish and he’d like Maggie very much if she would just like him the tiniest bit he was sure of it but he was groggy from his nap and said so and thought he’d better eat really eat a great meal so he left to concentrate on food and Maggie sat down on a blue rug and a little blonde child came and sat on her lap and sunk into her like a little stone weight and Maggie liked the way the child felt leaning against her so she told the little girl a little story about a little girl with a little curl right in the middle of her forehead and when she was good she was very very good and when she was bad she was horrid and then Maggie picked some miners lettuce from the grass and ate it and picked some for the little girl and she ate it and they picked sour grass with a yellow flower and ate that too and after that they got up and went to the flower garden where they smelled the pretty roses while Maggie held the child against her liking the feel of holding this little child so she found Hank and showed Hank the cute little girl but Hank was talking to other people and said hi and stuff but didn’t want much to talk to Maggie because there were other people to talk to so he didn’t do it and Maggie wandered off with the little girl and went to the picnic table again and picked out a brownie with marijuana in it and took a bite and didn’t like it and threw it away and got the little girl a cup of apple juice that Lucy’s dad had just put on the table before the child wandered away to find her real mother so Maggie decided she needed to eat something too but a lot of the food was gone already and Jack said he’d just made a cheese sandwich and would she like half and yeah she said that would be great a sandwich sounded just fine so she ate that and saw Patrick talking to someone on the rugs and sat down beside him and relaxed then because she liked being next to him and the way he felt and she was glad he was there and she didn’t have to say anything because they just talked their own silent language and she knew what he was thinking and she was sorry that he was leaving very sorry but she decided not to think about it because he was there in that minute and it was no use to think about the absent minute that was coming but that wasn’t there yet so she didn’t do that and she liked the way he laughed and he was laughing and the guitar player came over and sat down and started playing the guitar and singing a soft song and Maggie put her head in Patrick’s lap and she was happy about that and the oak trees dappled light over her face and a little breeze gusted over her making goosepimples rise on her bare arms so she scooted a little closer now to Patrick because she felt a little cold and she saw Hank playing with the children and running across the grass with a kite that swept right up into the air and higher and higher and the wind tugged it very very high and Hank pulled on the string and the kite pulled one way and then he cleverly shifted the pressure and the kite skittered across the blue sky in another direction but a big gust of wind trembled against the kite and the string snapped and the kite jerked free and floated into the empty sky until it disappeared and Maggie squinted but couldn’t see it because of the bright sun and she closed her eyes and asked Patrick for a jacket and he took his sweat shirt off the faded blue zip up sweatshirt with the hood and she slipped it on so she wouldn’t get goosebumps anymore and she didn’t but she liked the light coming in through the trees hazing the way people looked like they looked almost like they glowed with this light shinning over them she thought like funny auras or rainbows kaliescoping over these perfectly ordinary extraordinary people that she loved right this very minute this extremely peaceful lovely minute and she felt like she was a part of them and it and the day and the leg her head rested on and the blue rug and the music and the sun and the tree and the dappling light that moved her into sunlight and shade and sunlight and shade and sunlight.

  Hallelujuh, I love her so …

  CHAPTER 27

  MARY SCOOTED THE BABY OVER on the bassinet, lifting the little butt, slightly, sliding the diaper underneath. She picked up the baby lotion and smoothed it over the baby’s legs and body and then sprinkled the sweet smelling talcum over the little scrotum and into the skin of baby fat, folding and scrunching the diaper the way diapers are supposed to be, and put large safety pins with duck heads on them through the cotton cloth and fitted it securely. She liked the comfort of doing these baby things, remembering how her life had been when Lucy was the age of the baby that Mary changed now. She had had the com
fort of need, not needing to create need; she had had need in babies, irrevocably, and absolutely because of the way babies needed things and she had, like her friends, liked the needing of it, the absolute certainly that was predictable of babies needing mommies. The mommie of the mommie picked up the baby and carried him to the crib and put him down and then wound the mobile that turned slowly, plunking a little lullaby as it turned.

  Lucy and Maggie came in from outside with dirty dishes and set them in the sink as Mary came into the kitchen. Maggie insisted Mary sit down with a cup of coffee and then scraped the dishes and filled the sink with soapy water and started washing the stack of dishes piled on the counter. Lucy went in to check the baby and he had fallen asleep and she was glad and tired and she sat down at the table with her mother and decided to drink coffee too. Lucy said that Maggie should have a baby because it was incredible, the baby thing, and that she wanted another, and after that another, because she thought babies were so amazing, addictive even, she said, like a drug; once you had a baby you wanted more soft sweet things to need, and need you, because babies truly did need. That kind of need was riveting, indelible, like a context, and guys were just guys and women were women and they needed other things, like babies, to need them, or drug them, or addict them. Whatever, she said, it was something inside that made her want more; she was certain of that need, that wanting to be needed. Certain she was addicted now to something greater than any drug, something fiercer, something monumental this addiction she felt addicted to—to provide and protect and renew in the form of another baby to add to the baby she had as if this helpless baby stage that made her want babies could be extended to infinity and she could be addicted to this incredible urge to create forever.