Lightning Strikes

by Virginia Andrews

  “Sloshed? You mean, drunk?”

  “Call it whatever yer want, the end’s the same. You look like you turned yerself inside out and in again.”

  “No, I didn’t get sloshed,” I said sharply. “I don’t get sloshed.”

  “Well, one gander at you tells me yer candle was burned on both ends, dearie,” she insisted.

  She could be so infuriating, making my stomach feel like I had swallowed a handful of straight pins. I decided to ignore her and do my work. Mary Margaret came in from the dining room where she had been setting the table. She looked pale, her eyes foggy. She threw a quick glance at me and then turned away. I could see Mrs. Chester watching her out of the corner of her eyes.

  “Get a move on,” she ordered. “They’ll be down in a minute,” she said.

  I was surprised Great-aunt Leonora came to the dining room after the way she had been late yesterday. She said she had to get up and get presentable because she had an important social affair, a luncheon, that she insisted she had to attend. The proceeds were marked for a charity. However, she let us all know how much of a sacrifice it was for her. She complained about her nose and her throat and how heavy her head felt.

  “I just hope I can manage all right. So many people are depending on me,” she claimed.

  Great-uncle Richard said nothing. He read his paper and except for one look he gave me when I first entered the dining room, he didn’t so much as glance at me while I worked. However, that one look was enough to turn my heart into a drum with a skin too taut. Every beat sent a heavy thump to my head and seized my breath as if a great and powerful hand was squeezing at my throat. Great-uncle Richard’s look was strange and haunted and then, just as quickly as it had come, the look was gone and he was back to being his formal, stiff self with certainly no mention made of the cottage or what he had done.

  Great-aunt Leonora hated long silences and talked incessantly as she nibbled on her toast. In my mind her words bounced off the back of Great-uncle Richard’s newspaper, which he held up like a shield. If she asked a question, she had to do so twice and then he would lower his paper to growl his reply, which was usually something like “If you don’t know what you’re talking about, Leonora, it’s better to remain silent.”

  “Well, I’m just saying,” she’d reply, but then grow quiet until another topic came to mind.

  After they had left, I helped Mary Margaret clear the table. All through breakfast, she had been very quiet. She barely answered me when I asked her how she felt and she kept her eyes down as if she thought I could see the truth in them. I thought she looked more afraid and fragile than ever, and I was working up the courage to tell Mrs. Chester I thought there was something seriously wrong with Mary Margaret. But Mary Margaret did it for me in a most dramatic fashion.

  She had just handed a bowl to Mrs. Chester at the sink when she looked up as if something had flown by her head, turned and then folded to the floor like a body whose bones had turned to jelly. Neither Mrs. Chester nor I moved or spoke for a moment, both of us thrown into utter shock.

  “Mary Margaret!” she finally screamed. She looked up and yelled for Boggs.

  I thought Boggs must have been standing right outside the kitchen door to come in as quickly as he did. I always felt he was nearby, eavesdropping on our conversations. For once, I was grateful. Mary Margaret still hadn’t moved a muscle and her face looked as pasty and white as a faded lily.

  Boggs stared down at her.

  “What happened?” he demanded gruffly.

  “She’s upped and fainted,” Mrs. Chester told him.

  He glanced at her, at me, and then charged forward, kneeling at Mary Margaret’s side.

  “We’d better get the doc,” Mrs. Chester said.

  “I’ll take care of ’er,” Boggs replied, slipped his arms under Mary Margaret and lifted her as he stood up. He held her with little effort and walked out of the kitchen, her head against his chest. At the door he turned to us.

  “Jist finish up in ’ere,” he ordered and was gone.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

  Mrs. Chester shook her head and returned to her work.

  “What did he mean, he’ll take care of her? What’s he going to do? He’s not a doctor, is he?”

  “ ’E’ll take care of it,” she replied stoically.

  “I’ll bet,” I muttered. “He’ll probably slap her awake and make her dust die piano.”

  Mrs. Chester said nothing more. I completed my work as quickly as I could. When I stepped out of the kitchen, the house was quiet. I went down the corridor, looking into rooms to see if Mary Margaret was resting on a sofa. Neither she nor Boggs was anywhere to be found.

  “Where did he take her?” I muttered to myself.

  I hurried back to my own room and went to his door to see if he had taken her to his room, but it was deadly quiet there, too. There was nothing else for me to do but get ready for school. With all that had happened, it was nearly impossible for me to concentrate on anything when I got there. I know I performed poorly in speech class and was so bad in dance, I could have been dancing with two left feet. I was probably the only uninspired student, too, because there was a great deal of excitement about the upcoming auditions for the school’s production of The Taming of the Shrew.

  There had been a rumor that one of London’s most prestigious theater directors, Taylor Harrison, was going to do our production. Every year a prestigious director produced one of the school’s shows. It was a clever way to give the school respect and draw attention to die production. Before the end of the day, Mr. MacWaine came around to announce that the rumor was indeed true.

  “Auditions,” he declared, “will be held this coming weekend. Anyone interested should stop by the office for cut sheets to prepare,” he said.

  Anyone interested? Who wasn’t going to be interested?

  The school quickly turned into a beehive. The excitement carried into drama class where Mrs. Winecoup asked us to perform some improvisations. Randall was in this class with me. Although we hadn’t spoken since I’d found him with Leslie, I did stop glaring back at him with disgust. I think he took that for my forgiveness. In the scene we were to do, he ended up playing opposite me and suddenly turned it into a love scene. Before I could object, he rushed at me in front of the others and embraced me so tightly and so fervently kissed me that I pulled away, overwhelmed with his emotions.

  “I can’t live without you,” he cried.

  I saw Catherine and Leslie laughing.

  “Well,” Mrs. Winecoup said, “that was somewhat over-the-top, as we say. Drama is about restraint. I thought that was a lesson well understood, but apparently not.”

  “Sorry,” Randall said. He looked at me. “Sorry.”

  “Stick to singing,” I told him. That brought laughter and relieved the moment. Even Mrs. Winecoup looked grateful and continued the lesson about subtlety and dramatics.

  After class Randall tried to start a conversation.

  “You’re going to the auditions this weekend, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. I really didn’t. It was a major commitment and I wasn’t sure I was ready for it yet.

  “You should. You’d be a great Katherina.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, I’m a shrew?”

  “No, no,” he said quickly. “You’d just be great because you can act better than any of the girls here. Sorry about what I did in there. I guess I made a fool of myself.”

  “You made a fool of both of us,” I replied coolly.

  “There’s no winning you back, huh?” he asked.

  “I’m not anyone’s prize, Randall.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know,” I said, a little tired of being nasty myself. “Look, a great deal has happened and I’m very occupied at the moment.”

  “You’ve seen your father, haven’t you?” he asked with a smile. “I know you have. I can see it in your face.�
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  “I’ve seen the man who was responsible for my being born. I haven’t yet seen my father,” I told him. “I’ve got to go,” I said and started away.

  “Wait.” He drew to my side. “Can’t we meet and just talk? We had such great times together. I really don’t like Leslie, not like I like you. She was just a distraction, a game. I can’t take her seriously. I’ve said more serious things to you than I have to anyone,” he declared. He looked so sincere, I had to smile.

  “Maybe you are a good actor after all, Randall.”

  “I’m not. This is me, not some part I’m playing!” he insisted.

  “I’ll see,” I said. “I have to get my head together by myself first.”

  “I want to be there for you, Rain. I mean it,” he promised.

  “Okay,” I said. I started away.

  “Don’t be stupid. Go to the audition,” he called after me. “You’re the best in the school!”

  I smiled to myself and continued on.

  When I arrived at Endfield Place that afternoon, I went first to the kitchen to look for Mrs. Chester. She was preparing guinea hens for dinner.

  “How’s Mary Margaret?” I quickly asked.

  “We’ve got a lot to do,” she replied instead. “It’s just the two of us tonight.”

  “But how is she? What was wrong with her?”

  She kept working as if I hadn’t asked the question. I stood, waiting.

  “Mrs. Chester? Answer me,” I demanded.

  She turned slowly. She looked like she had been crying.

  “Is she all right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But she won’t be back ’ere for a while; if ever,” she added.

  “Why not? What’s wrong with her? Is it a bad disease? It’s not cancer, is it?” I asked quickly, remembering Mama.

  “No,” she said, turning back to the food, “but for ’er it might just as well be.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s up the spout,” she slammed at me.

  “What? What’s that mean?”

  “It means ’er man, whoever ’e was, didn’t use a Johnny.”

  “A Johnny?” I thought a moment. “You mean, she’s pregnant?”

  “Well there you go. You ain’t a dumb Doris after all, are ya?”

  “Pregnant?”

  “It ’appens, yer know.” She turned back to her preparations. “She ’ad me fooled, she did. All this time I thought she’s like a girl in first school and needed someone to take ’er by the hand and show ’er where it’s at. Mopin’ about ’ere, ’er eyes explodin’ every time I mentioned a tumble or havin’ it off. Don’t I look like the dumb one, eh?”

  “Is that what bothers you? What you look like? What about her?”

  “We all make the beds we sleep in,” she muttered.

  “That’s not true. Sometimes, the beds are already made and we have no choice,” I retorted.

  She looked at me, eyebrows hoisted.

  “Well there ain’t much we can do about it then, is there? Mrs. Endfleld’s not goin’ to permit a tart in me ’ouse, is she?”

  “You know Mary Margaret is no tart, Mrs. Chester.”

  She turned away.

  “If we don’t help her, who will?”

  “There’s work ta be done and no sense in you and me workin’our jaws.”

  “No,” I said. “No sense at all.”

  I turned and went to my room to change. No one made mention of Mary Margaret at dinner. I didn’t hear Great-aunt Leonora say anything or Great-uncle Richard either. She was, as Mrs. Chester declared, persona non grata now. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, however, and after dinner chores, I left the house and headed for Mary Margaret’s home.

  I got her address from Mrs. Chester and knew that it was close to Cromwell Hospital. Mary Margaret and her sick “Mum,” as she called her, lived in a flat in what looked like the oldest building on the street. The doorway looked ready to fall off its rusted hinges, and the stairs were so narrow, I couldn’t imagine someone coming down while someone else was going up. Mary Margaret and her mother lived on the third floor. The creaky steps ascended in six short flights. I was afraid to put too much weight on the rickety banister. I could see it was cracked and loose even though the lighting streaming down from weak, naked bulbs was barely adequate.

  When I reached her door, I knocked and waited. I heard what sounded like a radio commentator and then some music. I knocked again, louder, harder, and then heard the radio turned down and what sounded like someone shuffling along on a wooden floor. A chain lock was undone and the door opened a few inches. A short woman with thinning gray hair curled wildly like broken piano wires poked her face through the crack at me. She seemed to be looking directly at my chest. Her forehead gathered in small rolls and deep lines. I imagined she had to be Mary Margaret’s mother.

  “What is it?” she asked. Her nose twitched like a rabbit’s. Was she trying to smell me, too? I wondered.

  “I’m here to see Mary Margaret. My name is Rain Arnold. I work with her at Endfield Place.”

  She didn’t respond. She continued to hold her head in the opening and twitch her nose at me as if she was deciding whether or not I was some sort of practical joker. Then she turned her head slightly so her ear was more visible.

  “Who’d you say you were?”

  “Rain Arnold. I work at Endfield Place with Mary Margaret,” I told her slowly.

  “Just a minute,” she said and closed the door sharply on me. I heard her footsteps behind the door and some mumbling. These walls aren’t very thick, I thought. If someone has a bellyache, the neighbors will know. Above me, I heard the sounds of laughter and to the right, just below, someone was playing rock music.

  Mary Margaret’s mother opened the door just a little wider this time. She stood farther back and looked away, her head slightly tilted to the right. I could see she wore a light-blue housecoat and well-worn leather slippers. There were bright red blotches on her ankles. She was stout and heavy breasted with a short neck. It looked like her body had simply stopped growing and her head had been slapped on at the last possible moment. There was barely any light in the room and her face was covered in shadows, but I could still see that she had thin lips and small features like Mary Margaret.

  “She says go away,” she told me.

  “I have to see her. Please,” I said and stepped into the flat.

  The first thing that hit me was the oppressingly heavy, stale air. It was as if the door or windows hadn’t been opened for years. Everything in the flat looked old as well, but oddly the furniture was the ostentatious kind found in rich houses, expensive pieces like a royal-purple velvet lounging chaise with gold cording tarnished and falling off where it wasn’t fastened by fancy tassels. The blanket and pillow on it suggested it was being used as a bed. The rest of the furniture was just as eclectic, all of it looking like hand-me-downs. Most of the furniture looked like antiques, and all of the pieces were in some disrepair: cushions torn, springs hanging out from beneath settees, wooden tables dull and scratched. The one lit lamp had a torn shade and the small area rugs were worn so thin, the wooden floor peeked out beneath them.

  The two windows in the living room faced onto an alley and the building next door looked close enough to touch. Off to the right was a small kitchen with a table and chairs. The walls were painted pale yellow. The walls of the living room were dark green, which with the dim light, made it all me darker.

  “Where is she, please?” I asked.

  “She’s in the bedroom,” her mother said, “but she don’t want no visitors. She ain’t been well.”

  “I won’t be long. Thank you.”

  I crossed the living room to the one bedroom. Again, there was only a single small lamp ht. The large, heavy-beamed bed took up most of the room. A dresser from a different bedroom set had been squeezed in on the right and another smaller one on the left. There was only a single nightstand and on that the one lamp. Mary Margaret was lying on her bac
k, her head on a large pillow. She stared up at the ceiling and then turned when I entered. She was wearing only a slip.

  “What’cha doin’ here?” she asked me quickly.

  “I came to see how you were and to be sure Mrs. Chester was telling me the truth,” I replied.

  “So no one sent you?”

  “No.”

  “You’d better go,” she quickly concluded.

  “Maybe she’d like a cup of tea,” I heard behind me and looked back at Mary Margaret’s mother. She was standing in the middle of the room, her head tilted toward us. “I can make it, you know,” she added.

  “No,” Mary Margaret called back. “She’s not staying, Mum.”

  “What are you afraid of, Mary Margaret?” I asked, stepping farther into the bedroom.

  “I’m not afraid. You’d better go.”

  “That’s not very hospitable, Mary Margaret,” her mother called.

  “Mum, just be still.”

  “Is it true then, Mary Margaret?” I asked.

  “What’s true?” her mother asked. She was close to the doorway, but she still had her head tilted as though she wanted to hear us better.

  “Nothing, Mum, nothing. Go back to your radio.”

  I stood there staring and suddenly, Mary Margaret started to weep. I went to her and sat on the bed.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I came to help you.”

  “Are you crying in there, Mary Margaret?” her mother asked.

  “No, Mum. No. Please.”

  “I’ll make a pot of tea for you and your friend,” she said and shuffled away.

  “Is your mother all right?” I asked. “Should I go out there?”

  “No, she’s fine. She’s blind, but she manages,” she said.

  “Blind?”

  “She’s what’s known as legally blind. She can make out shapes and such, but she really doesn’t see,” Mary Margaret told me as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. She pulled herself up in the bed. “Why are you here?”

  “I told you. I was worried about you.”

  “Why do you care about me?” she asked.

  “We should all care about each other, don’t you think?” I replied.