Quickly, I cut her off: “Mrs Davidow says there wasn’t any identification, nothing to tell who she was, not even in her handbag.” I blurted this out fast to get her off the subject of the cotton dress, possibly “flowered.”
“Hmm. I don’t remember—oh, here it is. That’s right, it says, ‘No clues as to identification were offered by the white vinyl handbag—’ ”
I breathed more easily. The Girl would never have been carrying a white vinyl handbag.
“ ‘—found some distance from the body. Sheriff DeGheyn—’ What’s he know?” Maud made a face—“ ‘speculated that it might not even have belonged to the dead woman.’ ”
What? The purse not belong to the victim? The presence of that handbag was the only thing that had made me certain it wasn’t the Girl, for she hadn’t been carrying anything like a white handbag. I became so agitated, I grabbed the newspaper and started reading. That was what he had said about the white handbag, true. Then I started at the beginning—even taking in the blurred picture of a facedown figure who no one could possibly have recognized from the photo—and read it straight through.
And learned nothing at all new, except that “inquiries” had been made of “all of the residents in the immediate area, without result.” This had been done in case the person had been looking for someone who lived there. The dress itself was described as a “flower-print dress.” But after I thought about it, I realized that covered the clothes of every woman in La Porte who wasn’t wearing a solid color, like Helene Baum, who always wore yellow. All of the other details were exactly what I’d picked up by listening to people. And there really weren’t any details to speak of.
I sat back feeling betrayed. It was possible to read this three-column account and come away from it knowing no more than if it had never been written. Here I had been playing cat-and-mouse with the newspaper, padding quietly around it, careful not to show too much interest or look it directly in the face. I had spent hours trying to avoid it.
I had gone to all of this trouble to keep from knowing and then found out there was nothing to be known. I should have been disappointed. Instead, I was strangely relieved, for I felt a weight lifting. People babble; they babble just to hear themselves, as if it proved they were really there. They even go along with other people’s babble.
Maud had risen to go to the counter when someone there called her, and I sat staring out of the window for a moment, watching the trees on the other side of the street perform their magic trick of separating from the building they shielded. Then, suddenly I realized it was five-fifteen and I’d better get a move on or the salads wouldn’t be ready.
TWENTY-SIX
Ree-Jane was in the kitchen, pinch-hitting for Vera, who was sick. That made me laugh, the notion that Ree-Jane could take over for the be-all and end-all of waitresses. No one ever insisted Ree-Jane wear a waitress uniform like the rest of us; she was permitted to wear her own clothes, just as long as she wore one of the small organdy aprons. I hated those uniforms; they were starched white with short sleeves and flat mother-of-pearl buttons. We all looked like nurses with aprons. Vera, naturally, wore long-sleeved black, for she was the head waitress and had to be different. Ree-Jane let it be known that, as she was substituting for the head waitress, that meant she was in charge of who each of us would wait on. Since each of us had our regulars, and Vera had most of them, that meant Ree-Jane was going to be doing a lot of work, which was fine by me.
Whenever Ree-Jane works in the dining room, she’s always dressed up and made up, since she considers these stints to be public appearances. She doesn’t exactly carry the food in; she models it in and through the dining room. The path between the tables becomes her runway. She puts on that model walk of hers, the toe going down just a fraction before the heel, which results in an affected gliding motion. She will set down a salad or the little condiment tray with one hand on her hip and then do a quarter-turn with some shoulder action, as if she were showing the diners the back of her designer dress. All of this sort of kills two birds with one stone, given Ree-Jane’s list of will-be-famous-fors, since she plans on being both a model and a dress designer. Put that together with the photojournalism and the stint in Hollywood, and you can see Ree-Jane’s going to have a busy life. All of these careers would, of course, come before she married either the English count or the Russian prince (or, I suggested to her, Mr. Nasalwhite, and then she could be Queen of Bohemia). But dining-room modeling was going to get her into a New York City stable of models, and from there it was but a hop, skip, and jump to the silver screen.
As there was only one source I knew of for information about Ben Queen, I had to work out how to tackle Aurora Paradise that evening. I didn’t want to wait another whole day for the mid-afternoon doldrums. In between designing salads (my claim to fame) and slapping napkins in hot roll baskets, I managed to get a tall glass and pack it with ice that I chipped off the huge block in one side of the icebox. I filled this a quarter-way up with orange juice, dropped in a teaspoon of sugar, and buried a couple of maraschino cherries in it. Naturally, in the course of this operation someone asked me what I was fixing, and I just mumbled something unintelligible. I had learned long ago that people ask questions or make comments and don’t care if the other person really answers as long as the other person makes an answering noise. So, if anyone saw this glass next to the block of ice, I’d mumble something else about it, such as wanting it for my dinner.
I would have to wait for a lull when my customers would all be chomping away and not in need of more water or butter, and this would have to coincide with Lola Davidow’s filet mignon dinner, which I hoped she’d eat in the dining room instead of the office. I had seen her rooting through the freezer for her personal food stock—grapefruit and filet mignon, which she salts away like diamonds in a safe.
I could see her over in the office now, as I was loading salads on my tray. The window in the side of the office faces the kitchen’s screen door, so that people can, if necessary, call back and forth, though it’s quite a distance. From over in the kitchen, I could see she was trying to call to us, first waving, and then cupping her hands around her mouth. I went to investigate. What came across the blowing, uncut grass was the shouted message that the dumbwaiter was broken!
A stroke of luck!
At least it started out to be. The dumbwaiter occasionally breaks down, and no wonder, what with all the passing up and down of bottles of gin and pitchers of old fashioneds and cocktail nuts, and of shirred eggs and chicken dinners and dirty laundry. When this happens, it’s Vera who has the honor of carrying dinner up to Aurora Paradise, Vera being the only one pleased enough with herself that if Aurora decides to lob some insults her way, well, Vera doesn’t even notice. I remember hearing her say that Great-Aunt Paradise was “such a kidder.” I could just imagine. My mother can’t leave the kitchen at dinnertime to take up her tray, and Lola Davidow isn’t about to walk up three flights of stairs, and certainly not after her pitcher of martinis.
Anyway, there being no Vera present, I quickly offered my services. My mother was busily fluting some whipped cream around the edge of an Angel Pie and said all right, but I should be sure to see that everything was on the tray.
And then Ree-Jane stuck her nose in. She was, after all, taking Vera’s place, and she assumed that she should be the one to perform this task. I knew she didn’t really want to; it was enough for her that I did want to—that would make her jump right in and offer to do it herself. My mother looked up and quickly let her eyes slide between me and Ree-Jane and then, with a tiny, tight smile, told Ree-Jane she could do it. Over my protests, my strong protests. But my mother refused to argue about such trivial things and told me to see to “Jane’s” guests in case they needed anything while she was gone.
I fumed inwardly. Outwardly, I yawned and shrugged and picked up a Parker House roll.
Aurora’s dinner tray was ready. Ree-Jane raised it up like a flag of victory with its load of fried (whit
e meat of) chicken, shining mashed potatoes, peas as green as the Emerald City, a steaming carafe of coffee, and a slice of Angel Pie. Pleased with winning, she sailed off.
I sailed right behind her with the Pyrex coffee pot to refill the guests’ cups and after doing that, put it back on the hot plate and did a quick step through the dining room that was nearly a run. Since Ree-Jane had gone through the music room to the staircase in front, I skipped up the back staircase and ran down the upstairs hall. She had had just enough head start to get up to Aurora’s rooms about two minutes before me.
The caterwauling had already started by the time I reached the second floor, and by the time I got to the third floor, Aurora was shrieking as if she’d been set on by thieves wearing stocking masks. There were little animal-like, weepy cries coming from Ree-Jane.
“. . . the hell are you doing, you bleached-out . . . ?”
A mumbled, whining answer from Ree-Jane.
“. . . salt and pepper, you blond idiot?”
Another whined reply.
Then came a crash and sobs—I surely hoped they were sobs—and Ree-Jane protesting in a reedy voice.
I was hunkered down in a well of shadows at the bottom of the fourth-floor steps, rocking with silent laughter. Now there was scuffling. Maybe Aurora had finally gone berserk and was going at Ree-Jane with her cane or even her pocket knife, slashing the smooth, empty face. I had an image of Ree-Jane in later years, heavily veiled because everyone called her Scarface Davidow. As the ruckus continued, I looked up at the ceiling wanting to thank God for all this, but thinking Father Freeman wouldn’t approve. So I thanked something vague up there, my fist in my mouth to keep back the laughter, drowning in my own saliva and tears.
Finally, the feet came pounding down the stairs and I could see through the staircase dowels something sail through the air and hit Ree-Jane on the head. Aurora screamed that next time she’d throw a whole chicken if she ever saw her peroxide head again.
Weeping and cursing, Ree-Jane ran past my shadow hideout, clawing at her hair. “Bitch! Crazy old fucking bitch!” and she turned the corner and ran down the next flight and, I imagined, on to her room to repair the damage done to her person. I crept up to the landing to see what missile Aurora had thrown. A chicken wing. I left it there.
Naturally, I wanted to be right on hand when Ree-Jane reappeared in the dining room; I took the route this time down the front stairs and through the long reading room and the music room. Calmly, I walked in, whistling under my breath. The dozen-or-so diners were still eating their chicken or baked fish. I was refilling water glasses and trying to ignore Miss Bertha’s demands for hot rolls, when Ree-Jane came gliding into the dining room with her little toe-down-first walk. When she went through one swinging door to the kitchen, I went through the other, and heard Mrs. Davidow, who was readying the grill for her filet mignon, ask her if Aurora liked her dinner. My mother was piping another ring of whipped cream around another Angel Pie. We were always running out of that, for it was very popular, and people were known to ask for seconds.
Ree-Jane was casual, even breezy, as she assured everyone that Aurora thought the food looked delicious. “But she’s so clumsy, she dropped the tray all over the floor. I guess she’ll have to have some more, but I don’t have time to—oh! Filet mignon! I’ll have one, too, for my dinner.” She ran her index finger right through my mother’s bowl of whipping cream and licked it. My mother glared. Ree-Jane went on to say, “And she thinks I look just like Lana Turner.”
Oh, that was too much. I bent over, arms folded around my waist as if I had to pee. Ree-Jane asked me what was my story, and I straightened up and suggested I take Great-Aunt Aurora more chicken.
Ree-Jane flashed me a really mean smile and said, “Yes, why don’t you?”
“In a minute I will. Right now, I’m busy with Miss Bertha.” And I ran to the icebox, took out the ice-filled glass (only slightly melted), set it on a tray, and calmly entered the dining room, where I broke into my quick-step again, and again ignored Miss Bertha’s demand for hot rolls. I picked up speed as I went through the wide dining-room doors and broke into a run (holding the glass steady on the tray) in the music room and on through the reading room to the back office.
Here there was, of course, the usual cocktail-hour debris—a ruin of peanuts, pitcher, olives lolling by the pencil holder, lemon peels small as fingernail clippings on a plate. I scanned the shelves: Smirnoff, Early Times, Wild Turkey, a small bottle of fruit-flavored brandy . . . but no Southern Comfort, damn! I debated, shrugged, poured a little bit of the brandy on top of the orange juice, poured in some Early Times, filled it up with Wild Turkey, and floated the freshest of the lemon peels on top. I plucked up a cocktail napkin and ran up the two flights of stairs, depositing the glass and tray in the same shadowy place I’d been hiding in. Then, lickety-split, I retraced my steps right back into the dining room, where I attracted no attention at all, except from Miss Bertha, who was still yelling for hot rolls. It would have been too much to expect Ree-Jane to do any table waiting after seeing her mother preparing filet mignon. Mrs. Davidow was now sitting at the family table cutting it up and caring for nobody or nothing as long as she had her steak and her glass of whisky.
For the few minutes I’d been gone, Ree-Jane must have been talking about the Paradises. She leaned across the serving counter, her pointy chin in her hands, supervising my mother’s preparation of the lobster tails that she was apparently having instead of gruel. No ordinary fried chicken, no fish for her. Mrs. Davidow’s store of filet mignon must have gone dry; either that or she wasn’t sharing with Ree-Jane, who was now insisting on drawn butter as she put down the Paradises. Well, I had to hand it to her: a chicken wing in her hair and she was acting as if she’d been in total command of the Aurora situation. I felt something almost approaching admiration, which I quickly stomped on.
“She’s mental,” said Ree-Jane of Aurora, “but I guess the whole family must have been, and that’s really too bad—I mean, you marrying into a family like that—why, what you must have put up with!”
My mother gave her an evil look and plopped the lobster tails on a plate. “Nothing to what I put up with now,” she said, and I thought I saw dry ice coming out of her ears.
“Well, the guests are awful, that’s true. Where’s the drawn butter?” And she peered all around, as if maybe Walter had it back there by the dishwasher.
I myself had gone behind the serving counter to take down a warm plate from the ledge over the stove (as my mother would not be caught dead serving up hot food on cold plates), on which I first placed a napkin and then arranged a gorgeous piece of chicken breast on that—the napkin to soak up any little hint of oil—and beside this I set a small dish of mashed potatoes.
Ree-Jane was still insulting my mother’s intelligence by saying, “And the hotel’s still named for her. I mean, ‘Hotel Paradise’ is kind of silly at this point, isn’t it?”
I knew, of course, what name Ree-Jane favored: the Davidow Inn. But she didn’t dare say that, seeing how she and her mother have only been hanging around for five years and the Paradises for more like a hundred. I hummed as I made a little dent in Aurora’s mashed potatoes and poured melted butter into it.
“Something like, oh, ‘The Willows,’ that would be nice.”
My mother lit up a cigarette and tossed her a dangerous glancing look. “The last time I looked, they were oaks.”
“You know what I mean—where are you going with my drawn butter?”
I merely slipped away with Aurora’s fresh dinner, slapping through the swing door with the tray held high as Miss Bertha shouted for hot rolls.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Cold Turkey.” I told Aurora Paradise what I’d named it after she’d sipped the drink. “There wasn’t any Southern Comfort left.”
She took another sip and smacked her lips. “Pretty good. Not as good as the Cold Comfort, though. You left out the gin.”
“There wasn’t any gin left
, either.” Did she think I ran a liquor store?
“Who’re you kidding? Lola Davidow probably never ran out of gin in her entire life.”
“Well, she’s drinking vodka now. And the bottle was empty.”
“That stands to reason.” She settled back to drink her Cold Turkey and ignore her dinner.
The room was the same; I was beginning to think I’d dreamed it all. The Bible was still displayed, this time open to a page I bet she never read. The walnut shells were lined up (for suckers like me). The steamer trunks stood open, as well as a couple of suitcases, with clothes and scarves and jewelry strewn about as if Aurora had been rummaging in them. I hadn’t noticed before, but the dresses hanging in the steamer trunks were more like evening gowns or party things, quite fancy with lacework, embroidered with seed pearls, or strung about with dazzling black sequins. I wondered what sort of life Aurora Paradise had lived to have such clothes.
“Who’s that crazy blonde that sashayed up here pretty as you please with my dinner? Who gave her permission? What nerve!”
“You know her. That’s Mrs. Davidow’s daughter. It’s Jane Davidow.” I left off the “Ree.”
“Oh, lordy! Another one of them? Impostors! They’re after our money!”
I was surprised to hear her call it “our.” “Well, they’re out of luck, because my mother doesn’t have any.”
“Paradise money. Your mother ain’t a Paradise. Here, cut this up. I’ve got rheumatism.” As if to prove this, she slowly opened and closed her fingers.
I knew nothing was the matter with her hands; she just wanted to bark orders at me. But she sat there stretching out her fingers, rubbing them as if they pained her. Today they were dressed in black crocheted mittens decorated with the tiniest satin rosebuds imaginable. I picked up the knife and fork and pulled the white meat from the bone.
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