by Lee Smith
Sybill sits in the striped armchair in her mother’s parlor, having a hot flash. Or something. Something like a hot flash, not that she’d mention it to anybody in her family since they’re treating her so mean. Well, they’ll see! When the contractor comes to grade the hillside, then they’ll see. But Sybill sighs. She doesn’t really believe it any longer herself. She stares out the window, down the hill toward the town which lies flickering in a haze of heat and then she remembers, unbidden, playing hopscotch in summer, so many summers ago, and how the heat would rise that way, above the concrete in the schoolyard. She was not good at hopscotch, or any other games. She disliked them. And now she dislikes this game, too, the one they are assembled here to play, and can’t imagine what in the world her mother was thinking of, to leave such instructions in that envelope.
In these four days since the funeral, Sybill has come to think of Miss Elizabeth in two completely different ways: as the overly careful, sensitive, sweet mother of her childhood, leaning down to kiss her goodnight, smelling always of lilac—and also as that mythic figure in the streaming rain, with ax upraised. Actually this second mother is more like an oil painting done in thick brilliant strokes by some crazy foreign artist, and doesn’t have a thing to do with the first one. It just pops up from time to time. The space between these images is filled with hot flashes, with upset stomachs, chronic now, with sudden heavy poundings of the heart, with palpable doubt that rises to Sybill’s tongue and tastes metallic, the way it used to taste when you licked a scab.
Ugh! These horrible things from childhood keep coming to mind now, she can’t stop them—but worst of all are the dreams, which Sybill can’t control at all, obviously, and which often feature Mr. Edward Bing in a variety of postures she’d never consider in real life. Nor would he, she’s sure! These sexy, seedy dreams leave Sybill exhausted. Sometimes she wakes up weeping in her room at the Holiday Inn, and can’t even remember who she is, Ms. Sybill Hess the head of Language Arts at the Roanoke Technical Institute, manager of The Oaks, and not some lowdown hussy running from the law, some woman who lives in motels and washes out her underwear in countless bathroom sinks. She longs for her true self, her own life. She longs to watch Dialing for Dollars with Betty again, and to fill out the little condominium order forms calling for more gravel, or woodwork repair. She’d rather, on balance, have headaches. The pursuit of truth is worse than headaches in the long run, being more painful, and bringing its bearer no sympathy whatsoever, none. Period!
You’d think they’d feel sorry for her, and appreciate what she’s had to go through, but oh no. “I’m all for leaving the skeletons in the closet—” Myrtle actually said that. “You mean in the well,” said Sybill. “Now Sybill—” Don had the nerve to grin at her, just grin at her, exactly like she was a small child they were humoring. It’s humiliating. Nobody believes her, and Sybill isn’t even sure that she believes herself. What she remembered wasn’t clear anyway, not even the first time when she told it to Bob, and now the more she thinks about it, the more confusing it seems. Maybe she did make it up, after all. Maybe it was just a dream.
Sybill cranes her neck to look out the side window now, past the cedars and up at the pretty hillside with the lilac and hollyhocks by the fence, at the smooth green waving grass where the well used to be. Certainly, there’s no well now. It seems crazy to imagine that a well was ever there, that anything was ever there at all except what she sees now—the long soft grass, the apple trees, the mountain, sky. Family legend goes that Verner Hess had the well cemented over when Candy started to walk, since she was such a “lively baby,” as Mother said. They liked Candy better than me. But Mother hadn’t liked Candy finally, in the end. Candy was too wild, and Mother had loved Sybill more. And now Sybill is only trying to be responsible, but it’s so confusing. Her whole family just ignores her whenever she brings up anything about Mother and Jewell Rife, or the well . . . Sybill wishes she’d never gone to the hypnotist at all, period.
In fact Sybill has tried to call Bob several times, long distance, to give him a piece of her mind. It seems like it’s all his fault. But what she gets is Bob’s machine, and his soft recorded voice which says, “This telephone is being answered by a recording device. I am out of town at the moment. At the sound of the tone, please leave your name and number so that I may return your call. Thank you.” Thank you, my foot! Sybill left her name and number, all right. You’d better believe it. She also called his home number, where she talked to some man—or some nearly grown boy, sometimes it’s hard to tell—who said that Mr. Diamond and Mrs. Diamond have gone to Hawaii for a ten-day vacation. Hawaii! Sybill could have screamed. “Thank you very much,” she said, hanging up. It was heaping insult upon injury, for Bob to go to Hawaii. What business did he have there, that pudgy little man, on those wide white beaches, under palm trees? She could just see him, surrounded by big pink shells and dancing girls with fat brown bellies, wearing a tacky purple Hawaiian shirt and an orchid lei. What a ridiculous person! Sybill can’t believe that she has allowed such a figure of fun to go down in her subconscious. She has left her name and number with the houseboy, or houseman, or son—whatever he is. She said it was an emergency. And it is an emergency, too, of a sort which Sybill even now can’t quite grasp—she feels this literally—there’s nothing for her to hold on to, sleeping out at the Holiday Inn, and slipping each day into this murky messy space which opened up when her headaches left.
At least no one can tell. She’s careful to dress appropriately, and do her nails. Sybill looks at her nails. Sybill looks around her mother’s parlor, at them all. They have all dressed appropriately, in fact, or as appropriately as they ever will, even Lacy, although her skirt is a jeans skirt, and Candy, who wears a spanking-white uniform, and even Arthur, whose short-sleeved wash-’n’-wear shirt is more worn than washed. They all sit quietly, all dressed up. It’s ten o’clock in the morning. But this is an emergency! Sybill wants to scream. On the other hand, she wants to say, Oh, don’t mind me, let’s just forget the whole thing, I must have made a mistake, and let them all come to her then, and hug her. Which they would never do, of course; and Sybill probably couldn’t stand it if they did, in fact. The only one who ever really hugged her, Sybill thinks suddenly, was Daddy. But Mother always approved of her, and would approve of her now, of the way she’s dressed and the way she sits in this striped wing chair, caddycorner to the window, wearing stockings and Nine West heels, her feet crossed demurely at the ankle. Mother would never ignore her, the way the rest of them do.
Well, that’s not quite accurate. Actually they’re perfectly pleasant to Sybill except when she brings up what they don’t want to hear. Then they just turn a deaf ear, and change the subject. Maybe they’re right. Maybe she is crazy, nutty as a fruitcake, after all. At any rate, they’ll all see before long. They’ll see for sure as soon as the contractor comes to grade the hillside, but nobody except Sybill herself (and undoubtedly, Don) seems to have grasped the significance of it. Secretly Sybill is sure that Don is having all this remodeling done in a rush to satisfy her, to shut her up, to solve the mystery once and for all, and Sybill would like to share a significant glance with him right now to let him know that she appreciates it. But she can’t catch his eye.
Myrtle and Don sit like figurines, on the loveseat. Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful. Myrtle wears a green linen suit, and pearls which are probably real. She doesn’t look a day over thirty-five, although Sybill hates to admit it. Don, on the other hand, could easily be fifty. He looks older every day, on purpose; he’s decided to be the one in charge here, and looks that way. Don wears a tan summer suit. It’s irritating the way they just sit there, on Mother’s fleur-de-lis loveseat—but fitting, too. Even Sybill has to admit it.
Because Miss Elizabeth, in that second envelope, left the house to Myrtle! It came as a huge shock to everyone except Dr. Don. It seems like he was all ready for it. But here’s what Miss Elizabeth did: she left her money to be divided up amo
ng them all, as they expected, and there’s a lot less of it than they thought. And then she left the house to Myrtle, Myrtle of all people, who has a perfectly lovely home of her own in Argonne Hills, with wall-to-wall carpeting. What could Miss Elizabeth have been thinking of? Here’s poor Candy, who’s raised two kids in three rooms over her beauty shop and never complained, and Lacy, who’ll have to sell her own house in Chapel Hill any day now, and go homeless in the world, and Arthur, although anybody with any sense would never leave Arthur a thing. Not to mention Sybill—Sybill who’s been the good one, all these years. When the will was read, Sybill was most astonished, and most hurt. But then they all assumed that Myrtle and Don would sell the house.
Imagine their shock—right then, yesterday, in Mr. Constantine’s downtown office, when Dr. Don announced firmly, with no hesitation, in a calm voice like Dan Rather, that he and Myrtle planned to move into Miss Elizabeth’s house right away, as soon as they finished remodeling it, and that they would start remodeling it immediately. “Immediately,” he said in a very significant tone. Myrtle’s head had swiveled on her neck like a face on ball bearings, her eyelids fluttering. But she didn’t say a word. She isn’t saying a word now, either, as she sits on the loveseat, and waits for Mr. Constantine to get on with it.
Mr. Constantine fumbles with the third envelope, which reads, “Instructions for the Disposal of all my Worldly Goods: to be read to my assembled Offspring, following my Demise.” Actually they already know what the instructions are, Mr. Constantine having briefed them on it yesterday, and his reading them today being merely a necessary matter of form. So why does he have to act like Bert Parks announcing the first runner-up in the Miss America contest, why does he have to fumble and clear his throat and create suspense? A further question is where in the world Miss Elizabeth ever found Mr. Constantine anyway, since not even Dr. Don appears to know him. Mr. Constantine has recently moved to this area, he says, from God knows where. Sybill thinks it must be Miami, or at the very least Atlanta, he’s such a sleazeball. Look at his shiny, light gray suit, and the way his jowls drip over the collar. The only thing that makes sense—the only way to connect him to Miss Elizabeth at all—is Candy’s theory, which is that Mr. Constantine’s office is in the same spot, the same building, where old Eben Leaf’s office was, so many years ago, and he was first their father’s lawyer, and then Verner Hess’s. Years back. That’s probably it. But Mr. Eben Leaf wore fine dark suits and carried a pocket watch. Upon his death, his law firm, Leaf, Leaf and Manning, moved its offices to the mall. Probably Miss Elizabeth never realized this. Probably that’s why she went to Mr. Constantine, never knowing the difference . . . Mr. Constantine is a damp largish young man who reminds Sybill of the singing pigs in those Valleydale ads.
“ . . . so that there may be complete accord among my children,” he’s reading now, “and no bickering.” Mr. Constantine clears his throat. Any division of property is to take place right now, right here, with all living children present. Anything left in the house after today may be dealt with by Myrtle as she sees fit.
This is not fair, Sybill thinks, because Myrtle has always had everything. Still, maybe there won’t be so much left, for Myrtle to deal with. Sybill will try to see to it that there’s not. The last line is “ . . . that my children and their children may long enjoy whatever it is in my power to give them.” Candy starts crying softly into a Kleenex. Sybill sits up straight and takes a list out of her pocketbook. She made this list so she wouldn’t forget about some of the things that might come in most handy, such as sheets, you never remember sheets. And she fully intends to keep her mind on her business today, this business of dividing up Mother’s worldly goods, and not even act like she’s listening for the bulldozer down at the bottom of the hill, and not even act like this is such an emergency which it is. If Don Dotson wants to act like nothing is happening here, then that’s just fine. That’s just fine with Sybill, who can hold her tongue with the best of them, who can be as cool as a cucumber, as cool as Don. Sybill concentrates hard on the list in her hand, which is shaking. Some things that she wants but doesn’t really need, like for instance a set of bedroom furniture, especially the spool set, she can just store in a self-storage until the time comes. What this time will be, exactly, she’s not too sure about. In fact she feels so bad she wouldn’t mind putting herself in self-storage too, until all this is over with.
Mr. Constantine is folding up the instructions slowly, in eighths, placing them back in the envelope. He really does have a sense of drama, to be such a big lumpy person. He wipes his whole face with his white handkerchief. The air conditioner in the side window isn’t doing too well; Sybill wonders if Myrtle and Don will have central air put in now. Probably. If they’re putting in a pool and a patio and a wrap-around driveway, they’ll have central air at the very least. Sybill runs her finger down the list in her hand, unobtrusively, she thinks, and looks up to see Arthur watching her. He doesn’t even bother to look away. Arthur is just a ne’er-do-well, Sybill thinks, a living example of somebody who hasn’t lived up to his potential. Arthur makes Sybill so nervous, though, staring at her like this, like there’s something wrong with her instead of him, like she’s got a terrible disease instead of a memory, like she’s got herpes or AIDS.
* * *
A disease which has been, of late, on Arthur’s mind. It’s just hit the news, 1,641 victims as of last week, 644 deaths since it was first identified. Even Arthur has got to admit it is worse than despair, more quickly terminal, even though everything is terminal these days, finally. It makes him glad he’s not gay. Arthur used to wish he was gay, sometimes, anything to be delivered from total enthrallment to women, from following his cock to hell and back, a trip he’s often made. But he couldn’t stand the idea of fag clothes or going to antique shows, not to mention what else they do. Still, it’s serious. It’s a serious time in this country when sex will make you sick, AIDS or herpes, gay or straight, take your pick, both incurable.
Arthur is sure that Mrs. Palucci does not have AIDS, and doubts that she has herpes. He has not called her yet, not wishing to act with unseemly haste. But he has driven by her house five or six times, and approves of it. Mrs. Palucci’s house is neat but not too neat, a plain small brick house not far from his mother’s, in fact, in the old Pines subdivision off to the right at the bottom of the hill here, where the big pines used to be. Three times when he’s driven by, there’s been a five– or six-year-old kid out in the front yard, playing with the hose. Several times the kid has been standing in the driveway shooting the hose straight down into the gravelly dirt at his feet and making the water spew back enormously, a wonderful filthy fountain all over himself. Arthur likes his looks. He thinks it’s good that Mrs. Palucci has such a kid. Arthur’s assuming that Mrs. Palucci is a single woman, based on this instinct he has. Still, he’s happy that no Mr. Palucci has appeared in an undershirt on a lawn chair. Mrs. Palucci has a daughter too, or apparently; a pretty young thing with a low black ponytail comes and goes, driven around in cars by boys. Mrs. Palucci herself drives a big blue Buick convertible, proving her to be—as if Arthur ever doubted it—a woman of discernment and spunk. The only fly in this ointment at all is the presence of an apparent mother in the house, or at least Arthur thinks she’s a mother. He figures that Mrs. Palucci needs all the help she can get, taking care of her wild little son while she goes to work, but this mother is ridiculous, Arthur’s only seen her twice, and both times she was wearing a shower cap. The first time, she was standing in the front door wearing the shower cap, and a bathrobe, and yelling at her grandson in the driveway with the hose. The second time, she was sitting on the front steps wearing a different bathrobe, but the same shower cap, and eating a piece of pie. This was red pie, and looked like it might be strawberry pie from Shoney’s, one of Arthur’s favorites. Still, Arthur wishes he would be interested in a single woman with no children and no mother, a woman who lives in a little loft someplace with a skylight, wh
o eats breakfast at all hours of the day, exotic egg dishes, and wants to fuck at the drop of a hat. There are bound to be some women around like that, like the women in the Paco Rabanne ads. In fact, Arthur used to know some women like that, in Florida. But he has probably aged out of this group. And don’t forget they’ve all got herpes now, anyway.
Mrs. Palucci’s house is far too well-kept for her to have herpes, and besides, she’s a nurse. Nurses keep Lysol in every room, Arthur thinks, plus pretty little containers of it in their purses. Arthur is waiting until the time is ripe, to call upon Mrs. Palucci. Women like Sybill, he’s thinking, such women with no children and no boyfriends often have a gleam in their eye which means trouble, indicating an immense interest in being right. Sybill has such a gleam. Better to have mothers in shower caps and little boys with hoses than an immense interest in being right. Arthur stares at Sybill. As far as he’s concerned, she might as well be from Mars, he understands so little of what makes her tick. Still, she’s a lot like Mother. She’s starting to look a lot like Mother, too. Again he remembers Miss Elizabeth standing at the door in the pearly spring dawn, saying, “Arthur, where have you been?” She was so tired-looking, so pale, that her face in retrospect appears pale blue. Where had he been, anyway? Probably out with the Hot Licks, chasing girls.
“Come on, Arthur,” says Dr. Don. Apparently he’s been standing there awhile, by Arthur’s chair.