by Alison Lurie
“Really!” Molly remarked, this time not troubling to keep her tone neutral. “And do you feel you have an obligation to Oklahoma?”
“I d’know.” Barbie’s voice trembled between a whisper and a wail. “I guess I do in a way. I mean, I’m not much use for anything else.”
Molly did not contradict her guest; her response had shifted from sympathy to a weary impatience. Barbie was what her husband used to call an Eeyore, someone who deliberately chose to be helpless and depressed. Why should I feel sorry for you? she thought. You have everything I’ve lost: youth, health, beauty—at least a plump blonde all-American prettiness—and a future. “I’m going to lie down for a little while now,” she said. “If you want anything else to eat, help yourself.”
Later the same day Jacko parked his truck in front of Molly’s house in Old Town. He had spent most of the morning buying a bed for his cousin Barbie, hauling it home, and wrestling it into Alvin’s pool house. Then he had grabbed some lunch and gone on to one of his regular gardening jobs, while his mother napped.
“Hi,” he said when Molly opened the door. “Barbie here?”
“Not now. She went on the Conch Train.”
“Oh, for shit’s sake.” Jacko made a face. The Conch Train was a gasoline-powered imitation old-fashioned locomotive, trailed by four open cars painted yellow. Actually there were several nearly identical trains, which all day took tourists round the island while the driver, through a loudspeaker system, described local sights.
“Come on in,” Molly said soothingly. “She should be back soon. Would you like some iced tea?”
“No,” Jacko nearly growled. “Oh, all right, why not? Sorry, I’m in a foul mood. It was great of you to let Barbie stay here last night, I don’t even remember if I thanked you.”
“Of course you thanked me. Here you are. Let’s sit outside.”
“The Conch Train,” Jacko repeated, following Molly through the house and onto her side deck. “That’s the sort of idiot thing Barbie would do.”
“She was very eager to go,” said Molly, who had never been on the train, though it passed her house continually. The day she and her husband first moved in, the loudspeaker had called the tourists’ attention to a large tropical tree with loose, flaky bark that grew in their yard. “On your left, just ahead, you will see a fine specimen of one of Key West’s native trees. It is a gumbo limbo, but natives call it the tourist tree, because it is always red and peeling.”
The first time Molly and her husband heard this joke they laughed. They heard it again soon afterward, and then at regular intervals until sunset. It did no good to shut the windows; the loudspeaker was clearly audible through the uninsulated walls of the house. Polite calls to the Conch Train office over the next few weeks accomplished nothing; the woman who answered the phone appeared to think that Molly should feel honored to have her tree noticed.
After hearing the joke approximately every twenty minutes for two weeks, Molly and her husband discussed having the tree removed. But it turned out that the gumbo limbo was a protected species; any tree service that destroyed it would lose its license and be liable for heavy damages, as would the Hopkinses. An acquaintance suggested pouring bleach into the roots, but the gumbo limbo appeared to like bleach.
Finally, after getting permission from the Historical Preservation Society (a lengthy process), Molly and her husband put up a fence which cut off their view and darkened the yard, but concealed the trunk of the tree. On one memorable day at the end of the season, the Conch Train passed in silence.
“I got a room in the pool house fixed up for Barbie,” Jacko said. “She’ll be out of your hair soon.” He set his glass down. “And in mine.”
“Maybe she can entertain your mother while you’re at work—take her to the tourist attractions.”
Jacko shook his head. “Mumsie wouldn’t like that. What she wants, as soon as she’s rested, is to go round gardening with me. She’s great with plants: most of what I know I learned from her.”
“Will Cousin Barbie go too?”
“Not if I can help it. She’ll have to take care of herself.”
“It sounds like that’s just what she can’t do,” Molly said.
“Yeah, really?” He laughed. “You know I warned you she’d have some sob story. So what’s the problem now?”
“Well.” Molly paused, wondering if she should repeat Barbie’s confidences to this unsympathetic audience. But no doubt he would hear soon enough. “You have to feel kind of sorry for her,” she began.
“Says who?” Jacko rejected the imperative.
“The problem is her husband, mainly. He’s been having an affair with some Las Vegas showgirl. Barbie wants to leave him, but if she gets a divorce the scandal will hurt his political career.”
“Why should she give a damn about that?”
Molly shrugged. “I don’t know that she does, but her mother seems to.”
“Yeah. She would.” Jacko scowled. “Aunt Myra has an obsession about politics. Her grandfather was a senator, and she thinks every man in the family should carry on the great tradition. She practically railroaded me into law school, and she was furious when I quit. And when it came out that I was gay she wanted to send me to a shrink so I could get cured, and nobody would ever know. Then I could be a senator too.”
Molly stifled a little sigh. Though it was not yet teatime she already felt tired. All these stories, all this emotion, she thought, as she had often thought before. When Howard was alive it had seemed natural; she had been part of it. Now she sometimes felt as if she were living in the epilogue of her own life, watching things happen to other people.
“I can’t quite see you as a senator,” she remarked, glancing at Jacko’s purple T-shirt and frayed denim cutoffs.
“Damn right.” He laughed. “Listen, I better be getting home; Mumsie’s nap should be over by now. Tell Cousin Boobie to call when she gets back.”
7
ABOUT A WEEK LATER, in the front room of Artemis Lodge, Jenny Walker sat behind the glass-topped desk with its hotel register, stack of brochures, and vase of orange lilies. This was her third day as Lee’s temporary morning guest clerk, and also her first paying job in twenty-five years. She would have been happy to help out for free, but Lee had insisted on the going rate. “Hell no. I’d feel like a cheapskate otherwise. Anyhow you’re not doing me a favor, you’re doing one for Polly Alter. She was wiped out, trying to work here and get ready for her show next month.”
But really, Jenny had explained, Lee was doing her a favor. If she weren’t here she’d be at home brooding. The day after the party Wilkie had frozen up again. He remained shut in his room every day, and when he came out it was as if he were there still. He was keeping the last chapter of his book back for more revisions, so there was nothing for her to check or comment on or type. When she’d asked again if she couldn’t help somehow, he said that there would be plenty for her to do soon enough. His thin, distant tone made Jenny wonder, not for the first time, if he were angry with her about something. But when she diffidently suggested this her husband denied it. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he had said, in a way that seemed to contradict the denial.
There was something wrong, Jenny told Lee; something serious. Wilkie had never brooded over a book like this before, never shut himself away from her like this. His new editor had inquired about the progress of the manuscript again only yesterday, addressing his note to Jenny rather than her husband—of whom, she suspected, he was a bit afraid, as many people were.
Jenny, who knew now what it was like to be slightly afraid of Wilkie Walker, had tactfully delayed passing on this query until after supper, when he was usually in a more relaxed mood. But her tact had not been successful. A deep crease had appeared between his eyebrows, and he had used the phrase “damned interference.” The interference referred to, nominally, was that of the editor; but as Wilkie growled the words out, the dark thought came to Jenny that they were meant for her. Somehow, her presen
ce had become unpleasant to him, her speech unwelcome. Maybe it was because she’d suggested that they come to Key West, she told Lee. Maybe he hated it here, and blamed her.
Or perhaps it was something else she’d done, something she couldn’t even remember. Or something that she was, that she couldn’t help. And now the little fear that had haunted Jenny years ago returned: the fear that she was not worthy of a man like Wilkie Walker. Like his first wife, she was not really an intelligent person: she had never been more than a B+ student in college. Dishonestly, knowing it was wrong, giving herself the false excuse that it didn’t matter, because Wilkie Walker would soon disappear from her life as magically as he had come into it, Jenny had concealed the weakness of her mind and her grades from him. And then he had asked her to marry him, and it was too late.
During their engagement, and for a while after the wedding, Jenny had dreaded that somehow Wilkie would realize how ordinary she really was. Now, in this ugly expensive house in Florida, this ugly fear had returned. In her anxiety, two days ago, Jenny had confided it to Lee. Suppose Wilkie had somehow discovered belatedly how ordinary and unworthy of him she was, she said. Because they had been together so long, he would probably say nothing about it. He would just slowly withdraw from her, as he had in fact done over the past few months. Perhaps also, in his deep disappointment, he might withdraw from their children, and even, eventually, from other people.
Lee had listened to all this attentively, seriously, as she always did. But when Jenny finished, instead of making some mild or reassuring comment, as usual, she had exploded.
“You’re out of your mind,” she said. “What the hell do you mean, you’re not worthy of Wilkie Walker? If you want to know what I think, I think he’s damned lucky to have you, and if he doesn’t realize that, he’s a—” Lee paused, swallowing something stronger, and finished, “a complete booby. And you’re not ordinary. You’re one of the least ordinary people I’ve ever known.”
Remembering Lee’s warm, indignant expression as she had said this, Jenny smiled in spite of her confused unhappiness.
It was wonderful to know someone like Lee, even if she might not be right. That was what a real friend was, she thought: somebody who thought better of you than you did of yourself. Somebody you really liked; no, loved. Who loved you too, when the people who should love you didn’t. “I feel as if I can tell you anything,” she’d said to Lee two days ago, “and you’ll never say Bad Girl.”
“Same here,” Lee had replied, grinning—though it was already clear to Jenny that if anyone said Bad Girl to Lee, she wouldn’t give a damn.
Outside it was raining again, for the fifth day in a row, and the air was saturated with damp. It had been too cold and wet for a week to swim; and Jenny had left the house this morning in a heavy misty drizzle that blurred the palms along the street. Her hair, which she had washed before breakfast, still wasn’t dry. She pulled the white elastic band off her ponytail and fanned it out over her white T-shirt, where it lay loose and pale and slightly wavy from the humidity.
Three hours times three mornings times twelve: a hundred and eight dollars a week, the first money Jenny had earned since she was twenty-two. She didn’t need it: the Walkers had a joint account, and Wilkie never questioned her spending. But the idea of those hundred and eight dollars pleased her. And it was so easy—just sitting here and answering the phone, taking reservations, dealing with any minor problems the guests might have, and handing out maps and information on tours and shops and restaurants.
According to Lee, Key West was in the midst of what she called “our regular ten-day winter.” “Hell, I don’t mind,” she had told Jenny this morning. “It might chase some of the tourists away, but it gives me time to catch my breath before the first wave of college students hits town for spring break.”
Only two of Lee’s guests had been driven off by the weather, but those who remained were cross and disappointed. Pretending to be joking, they blamed Jenny for the rain. (“Will you look at it outside! How could you do this to us?”)
All morning she had done her best to suggest alternate activities: a tour of the perfume factory or the aquarium; or, if it stopped raining, a visit to the dolphin sanctuary, or a kayak excursion among the mangrove swamps like the one Jacko’s mother and cousin were going on today. But nothing seemed to interest Lee’s guests. This disturbed Jenny, and when Lee returned at noon she said so.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Lee reassured her, smiling and tossing a sparkle of rain from her dense, dark hair. She was wearing a tangerine-orange nylon poncho that would have been garish on anyone else. “Who was grousing today? Was it Bitsy and her Oriental friend in Room Four?” She opened the screen door, pulled off her poncho, and shook it out onto the porch. How wonderful she looks, Jenny thought, how she lights up the room!
“Yes, them. And those two nice schoolteachers from Connecticut. They didn’t want to do any of the things I suggested.”
“That figures. Aw, don’t look like that, it’s not your fault, really. You have to understand that what some people come to Key West for is to do nothing. They could goof off back home, of course, but their superegos won’t let them. Especially the New England types.”
“Oh, Lee.” Jenny looked up, almost blushed. “That’s not why I came, honestly.”
Lee gave her wonderful, deep laugh. “I know that. I’m not talking about snowbirds like you. There it’s mostly fear of winter, I suppose.”
“I did rather fear the winter,” Jenny said, and paused, recalling that what she had feared most was the effect the darkening days and falling temperatures might have on Wilkie’s state of mind. But she had resolved not to mention her husband today: she didn’t want to become a one-note whine.
“Well, you’re safe from winter in Key West,” Lee said in an odd, thick voice. “Luckily for me.” She leaned forward and for a moment rested her warm hand on Jenny’s bare shoulder and brushed Jenny’s face with her warm mouth.
“It’s lucky for me, too,” Jenny replied as the phone began to ring. The places on her shoulder and cheek that Lee had touched seemed to glow as if a match had been held to them.
Actually I don’t always feel safe in Key West, she thought as Lee spoke into the phone; but I do here. That’s odd, because the guest house is full of strangers. But they’re all women; that makes it safe. (“It was one of the best damn ideas I ever had in my life, only renting to women,” Lee had confided last week. “No serious violence, no piss stains on the bathroom floors, no high decibel beer parties, and if women do get drunk they usually don’t smash up the furniture.”)
“Okay, you keep track of the weather forecast and let me know.” Lee hung up and cleared her throat. “Another customer who wants me to guarantee sunshine,” she said, and laughed. “See, the problem is most people can’t admit that they want to do nothing on vacation. That’s because according to the moral system most Americans buy into, it’s sin: the sin of laziness and sloth. But at a resort the rules are changed. As long as it’s hot and sunny, especially if you’re near water, you can take off most of your clothes and lie around doing nothing for hours at a time, and it doesn’t count. Sloth is redefined as ‘sunbathing,’ even if you put a towel over your face and slather yourself with total sunblock. So naturally if it’s cloudy, they complain.”
“I guess that’s true.” Jenny laughed.
“Sure it is. Take a look next time you go to the beach, or pass a motel pool. Most people aren’t in the water, they’re flat out around it. They could save the airfare and room fees if they would stay home, turn off the phone and TV, and lie down in the bedroom, or out in the yard if it was warm enough. And in the evening they could go to expensive restaurants, just like they do here.”
“If you did that where I come from people would think you were sick,” Jenny said. “I mean, you know, mentally.”
“Oh, absolutely. And I’m all for it. If everyone realized how dumb and unnecessary sunbathing was, not to mention what it does t
o your skin, I’d probably go broke.” She laughed. “Hey, let’s have some lunch. There’s some pretty good fish stew left from last night, and I can make a salad.”
“Oh, I can’t, not today,” Jenny said. “I have to get back. Maybe next time.”
“Sure,” Lee said. “Well, see you Monday.”
I could have stayed for lunch, Jenny thought as she descended the steps of the guest house. The truth was that she had been afraid to stay for lunch; afraid that she would start complaining again about Wilkie, and boring Lee, who was already bored by him even though they hadn’t met. And afraid of showing how important Lee was to her, because what if she didn’t feel the same way? After all, Lee had lots of friends in Key West; she couldn’t possibly love and need Jenny the way Jenny loved and needed her.
It had been raining off and on for days, and the effect on the landscape was depressing. Key West needs sunshine to look its best, Lee had said, and she was right: in bad weather the island seemed drab and shabby and makeshift. Now the quaint little white-painted gingerbread houses were exposed as peeling and gray; most of the bright flowers had been beaten down into the earth, and the luxuriant tropical trees hung over the badly paved streets like clumps of heavy wet spinach.
Because Key West is built on coral rock, Lee had explained, rain drains off very slowly. This morning when Jenny walked to work there was water collected dirty-gray around clogged gutters everywhere, splashing pedestrians like her whenever a car passed. In some places, for instance at the corner of United and Simonton, the streets were two to three feet deep in muddy runoff, and filled with soggy floating debris and with stalled rental cars whose engines had flooded.
Instead of going home Jenny headed for the Key West library, a large pink stucco building surrounded by dripping exotic foliage. Usually it was more or less empty, but today the rooms were crowded with people who would otherwise be strolling past the shops on Duval Street or at the beach. There was also an identifiable population of homeless persons: men and a few women who, in order to avoid the police, normally slept during the warmth of the day on a bench or under a bush in some park, and stayed awake at night when it was cool. Half a dozen of these people, driven indoors by the rain, were slumped on library chairs, pretending to read newspapers or magazines, or blatantly dozing.