by Marlene Lee
“I’m a little tired, anyway,” Rebecca said, trying to yawn. “I think I’ll go to bed early.”
“Nonsense. I want you to meet him. He’s an old friend. It’s just that he gets these moods where he wants to talk all night.”
“Who is he?”
“John Grove, the Governor of Missouri. He used to be Mother’s and my lawyer.” Mimi frowned. “I hope he waits a few minutes and gives us time to eat our dinner.”
Rebecca’s stomach growled. “I’m not hungry,” she said quickly.
Mimi laughed and took her hand. “Nonsense. Follow me.”
As soon as they reached the kitchen, the side door opened and the Governor of Missouri walked in carrying a large flat pizza box in front of him.
“How did you get here so fast?” Mimi didn’t bother to hide her annoyance. “I haven’t even fed my guest.”
“I called at the pay phone this side of the bridge.” He quick-stepped across the kitchen and set the box on the counter—“Pepperoni”—then pivoted and gave Mimi a loud kiss on the cheek.
“Becky,” Mimi said matter-of-factly, “this is my old friend John. John, meet my first friend, Rebecca.”
First friend. To be first, first in anything, even if it was just chronology, excited Rebecca. John approached her. Full of sudden self-esteem she shook his extended hand. He looked up at her without flinching at her height.
“Where did you say you’re from?” he said, returning to Mimi’s side, pivoting again, sniffing the fumes coming off the flat box, jingling his keys, and checking his watch, all at the same time.
“I’m from California.”
“Of course. Los Angeles, isn’t it?”
“No. North of Sacramento. Orchard country.”
“North. Of course. Do you like pepperoni, Rebecca?” He wheeled, glanced out the kitchen window at what remained of twilight, and said, “Why don’t we eat outside?”
On his way back to the pizza box he hugged Mimi quickly, fiercely. Rebecca could not imagine him giving a dignified speech under the dome of the Capitol. She couldn’t imagine him saying anything serious, or concentrating on just one thing at a time. He didn’t even look like a Governor. He was short and stocky, with a large head and bulbous nose.
Out on the patio, oncoming night was fragrant. Three redbud trees in the side yard tried to hold their color in the draining-away light. The Governor set the flat box on a table and laid back the lid.
“Help yourselves,” he said with a flourish, and accepted. Dinner in one hand, he threw himself into a patio chair beside Rebecca and struggled to break a string of cheese that tied him to his pizza.
“Tell me, Rebecca,” he said through his teeth, “what kind of girl was Mimi?”
It felt like a test question. The man had no continuity or manners. Rebecca looked over at Mimi by the pizza box.
“I can’t describe her.”
“What do you mean, you can’t describe her?” The redbud trees, illuminated by floodlights on a timer, suddenly blazed into color. Rebecca wished she were on a timer, too, for quick, bright conversation. She searched desperately for a characterization.
“Mimi was never afraid of anything.”
The Governor snapped off the string of cheese. “Such as?”
“Once she ran off a dog that attacked me.”
Mimi pulled a chair across the patio and sat down beside them. She reached over and touched the scar above Rebecca’s elbow.
“You screamed in his face,” Rebecca said, beginning to breathe rapidly, “and he ran off.” The bulldog’s breath, hot and foul, its shovel head and black, rubbery rectum-of-a-mouth and nose pushed up through forty years of memory and cast her onto the front lawn of Mimi’s childhood home, crying for the only thing that kept her from nothingness: Mother.
Mimi’s touch and the reality of the raised scar, color of buttermilk, brought Rebecca back to the present, while the Missouri night, mild and large-hearted, absorbed her panic as if it were nothing more than a brief disturbance in the air. John leaned back, rested his hand on Mimi’s shoulder, and looked up at the stars. Cricket sounds in the brush at the foot of the bluff swelled and receded. Overhead, an airplane droned faintly, its tiny red lights blinking on a northwest course to—Montana, perhaps, and Raymond. Rebecca let her arms fall to the sides of her chair. Shaking them gently didn’t diminish the tiny stabs in her fingertips, lively sensations both sweet and painful, as if she, like the Governor, wanted to touch something.
Mimi laid the last of the pizza crust on her plate and twisted out from under John’s hand. “It’s that time,” she said abruptly, stood, brushed past Rebecca, and walked into the house.
“What is ‘that time’?” Rebecca asked. “Time for what?”
“Every evening Mimi stops whatever she’s doing and remembers her mother.”
Rebecca took in a sharp breath. “I think I know where she’s gone.”
“To Heaven,” John said irritably.
“I’m talking about Mimi. I think she’s gone to her mother’s room. She’ll turn the lights off and look at the Capitol across the river.”
John fixed her with his heavy-lidded eyes. “How many years have you known Mimi?”
“Kindergarten through twelfth grade.”
“Tell me: did she ever have a boyfriend?”
“She had friends who were boys.”
“Did she go to parties and dances?”
Rebecca cracked a knuckle. “I don’t remember.”
“Did either of you ever have a date?”
“I didn’t. I don’t know about Mimi.”
The Governor flung himself against the back of the chair and looked up at the night sky. “She doesn’t need men.”
Rebecca considered several replies and finally settled on one that had no point. “Mimi is a wonderful person,” she said.
When the Governor sat forward again, the floodlights under the three redbud trees shone through the bristles of his outdated crew-cut.
“I could help her in so many ways,” he said.
“Does she need help?”
“Everyone can use the Governor’s help.” He massaged his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “In all the years we’ve been friends, Mimi has never asked me for anything. Over the years she’s given me indispensable political advice, but . . .”
“She told me you’re an old friend.”
“Old friend!” He opened his eyes. The hairs of his crew cut nearly curled with scorn. “Nothing more than an old friend?”
“Aren’t you married?”
“Oh, that.” John flicked his hand, as if marriage were a mosquito in the Missouri night. “My wife and I aren’t close.”
Rebecca began the deep-breathing exercises recommended by her doctor for agitation. She was in territory that she knew nothing about.
“Are you short of breath?”
“I’m breathing for my health.”
“I breathe for my health, too,” said the Governor. “I’m not making you anxious, am I?”
“Oh, no. No, no.”
He eyed the lip of pizza crust on Mimi’s plate. “Mimi said your mother died recently.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
The sound of a truck with engine trouble carried up to them as it started across the bridge.
“What is this thing you and Mimi have about your mothers?”
Rebecca looked up, shocked.
“I mean, Mrs. Davenport was a wonderful lady, and I’m sure your mother was, too, but Mimi takes it too far.”
“Mother almost died when I was born. She gave up an acting career and happiness for me.” If she were a verbal person she could tell the Governor that he reminded her of Father right now, asking rapid questions she couldn’t answer. A gust of wind lifted her red bangs and scooted the pizza box down the table. The Governor got up, helped himself to another slice, and anchored the box with a plate.
Rebecca jumped to her feet. “I’m tired,” she said. “I have t
o go to bed.”
“Stay with me a little longer.”
“I don’t know what to talk about.”
With his free hand he pulled her empty chair around to face his. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll do all the talking.” Rebecca sank back down. The Governor sat, too. When his leg brushed hers, she quickly turned her large feet sideways so that, though she faced him, her knees pointed to Jefferson City.
“What are you and Mimi afraid of?” he asked almost kindly.
“Mimi’s not afraid of anything.”
His dark, exhausted eyes roamed Rebecca’s face; her lank, dyed hair; the brass buttons on the blouse Mother had bought for her. “I can tell you that Mimi has never once reached for my hand. She’s never touched me of her own free will.”
“Doesn’t your wife touch you? I thought that’s what wives do.”
“Mine doesn’t.” The Governor looked across the river at the Capitol’s bright dome. When he turned back, Rebecca was hyperventilating. “Rebecca, you look like a woman in labor.” When she tried to answer, he held up his hand like a policeman stopping traffic. “No, don’t say a word. I insist. Not until you get your breath back.” But though his hand was still up and he had just ordered a silence, he was talking again. “What I really want to know is why you and Mimi are afraid of men.”
“I’m not afraid of men,” Rebecca wheezed. “In fact, I have someone in Montana—”
“A boyfriend?”
She studied her hands clasped around her knees that had somehow swiveled back toward the Governor. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m inexperienced. I like him. That’s all I can say.”
A minute, two minutes passed. Rebecca sat, winded. The Governor had grown quiet, perhaps even uneasy, as if he wanted to say what was on his mind and, for once, couldn’t. The crickets momentarily stopped their dry friction in the brush, and in the sudden silence, Rebecca heard him swallow. Although he’d said he would do all the talking, it wasn’t true. When Mimi returned, looking refreshed, the two of them were sitting silently, nearly touching.
The Governor looked up. “How was your séance?”
Mimi didn’t answer. She’d changed from Levis to green velvet slacks and a chiffon blouse. Her green satin high heels clicked on the patio slab. With her face and hair still plain, unmade up, unstyled, she looked a little—mixed, Rebecca thought, and admired her individuality.
“Lord, you’re lovely,” said the Governor, and reached up for her hand. He almost managed to pull her onto his lap, but at the last minute Mimi pivoted on her shiny green pumps and landed in the chair next to him. She seemed cool and aloof, but before long he was holding her hand, studying it, playing with it, compelling her attention while he talked about the State’s new tax structure.
“John,” Mimi said, “the boys from Kansas City will be out to get you this time . . .” Their voices washed over Rebecca. She looked across the river at the lighted dome, solid as a body, immaterial as breath, floating above Jefferson City, and found she couldn’t settle her thoughts on Mother as she usually did.
***
“Does he visit you every night?” Rebecca asked later as she was climbing into the guest room bed.
“No,” Mimi said from the doorway. “Only when he wants to talk.”
“What does he talk about?”
“Politics. He pretends it’s me he loves, but what he actually loves is politics. He’s in love with the people of the State of Missouri.”
Rebecca propped herself up against the pillows. “What about his wife? Isn’t he in love with his wife?”
Mimi crossed the room and sat on the foot of the bed. In the moonlight her green velvet slacks shone vividly against the white bedspread. “Yes, I think he is, but she’s been having an affair for years.”
Rebecca drew in her breath. “And he doesn’t mind?”
“Oh, he minds. But she’s a good campaigner, and her lover is discreet, so John made his choice. He’d rather be Governor than happily married.” Mimi leaned back on one elbow. Her chiffon blouse draped gracefully over her small, high breasts, then narrowed and disappeared into the velvet waistband. “The truth is that John expects to succeed in politics and fail in love.”
“Maybe some day he’ll leave his wife for you.”
“I wouldn’t let him. I don’t want him in that way. We’re more like brother and sister.”
Rebecca slid down into a sleeping position. The dome of the Capitol was perfectly centered in the window. Mimi stood and kissed Rebecca on the cheek. In the lighted doorway she made a sensuous little movement of her slim body and ran one hand through her plain gray hair.
“I’m expecting a late visitor this evening. I hope we don’t wake you.”
Rebecca turned her head toward the window. She would have liked to tell Mimi about Raymond. Mimi, though, had someone to see. Maybe a lover. Everyone loved someone, or wanted to.
“You certainly have an interesting life,” Rebecca said, but Mimi had already slipped through the doorway and was half way down the hall. Rebecca turned on her side and fell asleep looking at the dome.
***
She was wakened by crying. She got out of bed, opened the door, and padded down the dark hallway toward the stairs.
“Mimi?”
She wasn’t heard. She rested her hand on the varnished rail and slowly descended the staircase. At the bottom step she felt with her foot for the cold marble floor of the entry hall.
“Mimi?”
Mimi was in the corner of the master bedroom, stretched out on a chaise longue, talking on the telephone. When she lifted her head, Rebecca saw tears and—what looked like someone else’s face: lipstick, rouge, mascara, vivid color on the eyelids as green as the green satin shoes. The two old friends stared at each other, face to mask.
Mimi slowly hung up the phone. “Laura doesn’t want to see me tonight.” She covered her face and wept. Rebecca approached Mimi in the corner of the room, perched on the end of the chaise longue, and touched a green velvet leg. How odd. Mimi loved Laura, not the Governor, who loved her.
Mimi twisted forward, swung her legs to the floor, threw herself against Rebecca, and began shedding tears, make-up, and body warmth all over her first friend.
Rebecca understood loving a woman. She loved Mother, though she was becoming less a part of Mother every day. Now she liked Raymond. His body interested her.
“You look fancy,” she said tentatively after Mimi’s spasm of tears had passed. She pulled a clean handkerchief tucked into the sleeve of her flannel nightgown and offered it to Mimi. “It’s all right if you get lipstick on it,” she said. It occurred to Rebecca that tonight Mimi had lost her mother all over again; that even though you can never get your mother back, you can still lose her over and over again.
Gently she pulled away from Mimi. “It’s time to get undressed, Mimi, and go to bed,” she said. Like a sleepwalker, Mimi obeyed the rock-a-bye tone. She stumbled once on her way to the bathroom. When she returned she was wearing black silk pajamas and the plain face Rebecca knew.
“I miss Mother,” Mimi said, depleted, and lay down in her bed.
“Yes,” said Rebecca. “Our mothers.” She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked Mimi’s hair. “We don’t know what to do without our mothers.”
All that work to make up her face, and the woman on the other end of the telephone hadn’t even seen it.
“The Capitol dome is beautiful tonight,” Rebecca said, as much to herself as to Mimi.
Mimi turned her head slightly until the side of her face rested in Rebecca’s palm.
Rebecca tried to be verbal. “Outside, the crickets are making their sounds.” Mimi was listening, so she spoke again. “The Missouri flows by the foot of your house.”
“Mother loved the river,” Mimi whispered.
Rebecca liked these simple sentences and Mimi seemed to like them, too. “A truck travels across the bridge,” she said. “An airplane flies northwest toward Montana.”
Mimi fell
asleep long before Rebecca ran out of things to say, and so she talked silently and told herself about people who seem happy but are not. About how, although Mother was dead, she herself was alive. How she saw happiness walking toward her across the bridge, heard it flying over her toward Montana, and felt it dwelling already in her heart, waiting only to be illuminated, like the floodlit dome of the Capitol rising high into the night sky.
8
Passage
The crash of lightning and thunder felt personal; she wouldn’t have been surprised to smell sulfur or see a crack open up in the windshield.
Here under the giant oak it was dark, so dark that she couldn’t read the road map spread out next to her. In the thick storm-light she’d taken a wrong exit off the highway as it ran through the woods and mountains. Now she was parked at the end of a dead-end road, only feet, she was sure, from the edge of a cliff. If the ground shook, she would go right over the edge, down, down into the valley below. Another wrong exit. The local police would shake their heads over the tall, fifty-ish woman who died in a North Carolina rainstorm in a car with California plates and a paint job scratched by a moaning tree.
In half-blind maneuvers, forward and reverse, she gained the opposite direction. As the Lincoln rolled back along the wet road, the headlights brought a sign up and out of obscurity: The Inn and Conference Grounds of the South.
Rebecca parked in a lot across the road from a shuttered, two-story stone building partly hidden by woods, and stepped out of the car. The warm, humid wind pushed her toward the hotel porch lit by a single bulb swaying on a chain.
“Honey, all our rooms are booked,” said the tired-looking woman behind the reservation desk in shadows. Rebecca tried to fluff her hair away from her temples where the rainwater had stuck it.
“I need a place to stay,” she said, and was overcome by a fit of coughing.
“We have a conference this weekend that still has openings,” the receptionist said without interest. She watched Rebecca dig in a little crocheted purse that was at odds with the Birkenstocks on her large feet. “You can register and stay in one of the dormitories.” She pointed listlessly to the registration table.