She put an arm around my shoulders and said—as if it would he a real comfort to me—“Sam just walked in.”
What? I looked up to see him nodding to friends along the counter as he passed it. Then I grabbed up the glass of un-drunk water and tossed half of it on my eyes, and, no longer caring about the new handkerchief. I wiped it all over my face. I yanked out a menu and was studying it hard when the Sheriff came up to the booth and said hello. I did not return this greeting, as I had to begin not speaking to him sometime and it might as well be now. I read the menu.
He sat down opposite me. “Emma,” was all he said and he said it very nicely.
With my eyes still on the menu and aware that my T-shirt was sopping wet, and also aware that it was nearly six-thirty and Miss Bertha might be banging her cane on the dining room floor at any minute, I said, “I believe I’ll have a bowl of chili.”
“Sure,” said Maud, who got up before I could stop her. The chili hadn’t been a good idea, as it would mean I’d be left alone with the Sheriff. I looked up at the slow-circling ceiling fan.
“I’m sorry, Emma, sorry I hurt your feelings.”
My feelings? I just sat looking at him, mouth agape. He thought all that I had said was nothing at all; his concern was not for what I’d told him, but only for my feelings about what I’d told him. He didn’t care about what I knew (for he probably didn’t think I knew anything), but for what I felt. Unused to having my feelings considered. I suppose I should have been grateful. Only I wasn’t.
“It’s not my feelings,” I finally said. “My feelings were only because you didn’t even take in what I was telling you.” I pulled my gym bag up from the seat beside me and set it on the table. “You didn’t give a thought to this.”
“Look, Emma—”
I heard him dismissing it all over again.
“Look: this half-a-century-old Devereau business that for some reason you’re hell-bent on solving surely can’t have anything to do with the murder of Fern Queen.”
It was just too much. “How do you know that? You haven’t talked to people like I have.”
“This is important, Emma. This isn’t a game. Where did you see Ben Queen?”
I just stared. He was doing exactly the same thing again. On top of that, he was accusing me of thinking it was all a game. A game! If Ben Queen had been the shadow on the wall behind him, I wouldn’t have pointed it out.
Maud returned with my chili. “Good Lord but you two look grim. What’s going on?”
I would not be so babyish as to “tell” on the Sheriff. I was not even going to produce the doll, which Maud had held and would remember, for what good would it do unless I produced one of the police photos to show her it was the same dress? Even then, what conclusions would she draw from it, knowing as little as she did about the Devereaus and Mary-Evelyn. No, it was my story and I was stuck with it. “Is it six-thirty yet?” I asked.
“Not quite. Have you got dinner guests?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but I won’t have time to eat the chili.”
“Don’t worry about it. You go on. What’s in the gym bag?”
I didn’t answer; I looked at the Sheriff.
He said, “This child is hell-bent on getting into big trouble. You might even call it obstruction of justice.”
I slid across the seat of the booth, hauling my bag with me. “Obstruction of something, maybe, but not justice.”
I was enormously pleased that this was my exit line. My head up, I walked out of the Rainbow, haughty and hell-bent.
50
She’s Medea
I apologized to Walter, who was set to take in Miss Bertha’s V8 cocktail (into which I usually shook a few drops of Tabasco sauce because I liked the way her mouth pursed up when it hit). Tonight was meat loaf again, and I couldn’t think of anything I could do to Miss Bertha’s portion. I had overworked my mind today and I guess it balked. Standing at the serving counter, looking at the harmless meat loaf and pan of gravy, I asked Walter could he come up with anything?
He was silent, thinking. Most people have no patience with Walter but I do, as I think he makes a good accomplice. Also, he can share the blame, or even take the whole of it. He never rats on a person.
“Well,” he finally said, “there’s them mushrooms still. You could put them in that gravy. Miss Bertha hates mushrooms.”
“Except I used the mushrooms once, don’t you remember?”
“How about I make her an omelette and you use some of that Spanish sauce (tomato sauce with diced up vegetables) and cut up one of them hot peppers—” Walter had left his dishwashing station to root in the refrigerator. He drew out a small can. “These is hot as blazes. I know because Will tricked Paul into eating one. Paul run around like a house on fire.”
“Paul does that anyway. Walter, that’s a great idea. I’ll just dice one up if you make the omelette. I’ll take in their V8 juice and tell her.”
Walter reached in for the eggs and I went to the dining room, set down the juice, and said to Miss Bertha that as tonight was meat loaf and she didn’t like it, we were making her an omelette. Mrs. Fulbright heartily approved of this idea when Miss Bertha didn’t do anything but go “umpf.” Mrs. Fulbright, of course, preferred the meat loaf; it was a favorite of hers.
“I want a Spunish omelette,” said Miss Bertha.
Oh, how wonderful! I told her absolutely, she’d get a Spanish omelette.
Returning to the kitchen, I told Walter. He gave his choking kind of laugh and drew his spatula carefully through the eggs, just as my mother does. As the omelette cooked, I chopped up a hot pepper and tossed it in the sauce Walter had heated. Then I fixed Mrs. Fulbright’s plate, tossing a plump morsel of parsley on the meat loaf. Walter whisked the omelette onto a plate. I poured the doctored Spanish sauce over it.
“You make a beautiful omelette, Walter,” I said.
“I watched Miss Jen do it enough times I got it memorized. You ought to tell Miss Bertha not to drink any water to try and cool things down as that only makes it worse. I read that somewheres.”
So dinner went off without a hitch. I mean, from Walter’s and my point of view. Miss Bertha nearly fell out of her chair when she got her first taste of’ that jazzed up sauce and I enjoyed patting her back (or her hump, I guess) and saying I had no idea Spaniards liked things so hot. She was shouting she was on fire. I shoved her water glass closer to her.
There was nothing else I could do, so I let Mrs. Fulbright handle things. She was waving her lacy handkerchief uselessly in front of Miss Bertha’s mouth when I returned to the kitchen.
Because I was upset with the Sheriff, didn’t have much of an appetite and ate only one helping of everything, except of course the Spanish sauce. Dessert was Peach Blossom Pie, one of my mother’s cloudlike confections the color of the sun coming up over the Rony Plaza’s stretch of beach, just that first flush of rosy-gold fast disappearing. Tiny bits of peach and pecans were scattered through the meringue crust.
Walter, who’d been standing with an ear against the dining-room swinging door, now joined me at the kitchen table for the pie. “Um-umm!” he said, taking a bite of the pie.
“Unbelievable,” I said, taking one too.
There was another note under my door:Rehearsal after dinner
Not again! I groaned. Why did I need a rehearsal, anyway? I didn’t have words to say. All I was supposed to do after I got down to the stage was get off the swing and bop Medea with my silver wand. This sounded a lot more like Cinderella’s fairy godmother than a deus ex machina. I told Will. He replied that they were taking certain “liberties” with the original. I could imagine. I didn’t bother asking him if they’d even read it.
I had agreed I’d play a role. In return for them driving me to White’s Bridge, I had to do this. Considering how much I’d learned as a result of that first visit, I guess getting flour thrown on me wasn’t too much to ask. I tied a scarf around my head and pulled it forward a bit over my eyes to keep as
much off me as possible.
Tonight in the cave of the Big Garage, instead of blue and green lights slicing the darkness there were pink and gold cones passing back and forth across the garage, something like pictures you see of Hollywood premieres. There had to be someone making them move. “Who’s up there?”
“Chuck.”
Chuck was a boy maybe a year older than me and really dumb. He was good at following directions and that made him useful to Will and Mill, more useful than he ever was to his family. Will and Mill loved nothing more than giving directions.
“Hi, missus,” yelled Paul.
Will called up to Chuck: “Try the blue and green ... let’s put them all on just to see.” He turned to me. “Go up there and stand.” He gestured toward the stage.
“Why?”
“Do you have to question everything?”
“Yes, if it comes from you. And where’s Medea? If this is a rehearsal, why isn’t she here?”
“She’s coming. Go on.” He gave me a little shove.
I clambered up to the stage and turned and saw watery reaches of pink and gold, blue and turquoise, their paths crossing and in combination creating even more color. It was probably very pretty from out there, but with these colors crossing and recrossing my face, I felt a little seasick. Will called up to douse the blue and green for a while. I wondered what I looked like in this eerie light.
June Sikes was, I guess, what you’d call hard-pretty, the kind of prettiness you’d find in a woman whose past was a little too full. She wore so much makeup it was difficult to tell just how much was her and how much was added color. She had walked in a moment ago and was stopped now by Will’s side.
“Where’s my costume?”
Changing her clothes (Marge Byrd once told me) was pretty much all June Sikes was good at.
Will had gone off and was back now with June’s “costume.” This Medea-gown looked familiar to me, though I couldn’t for the life of me think where I’d seen it. It was really pretty—a flow of dark blue tulle shot through with silver and a satin top.
Then, suddenly, I recognized it. It had belonged to one of the Waitresses and had been, when they’d worked here, my favorite article of clothing. They must have left it in a storage room over the kitchen, and I couldn’t understand why I’d never seen it. June Sikes wearing it! I wanted to fall on her and rip her eyes out, even though it hadn’t been her choice.
That the Waitresses had years ago left this gown behind and I hadn’t seen it, hadn’t known it was there in that storage room where I go far more often than Will and Mill-that this dance dress should hang now on the back of June Sikes—was too much after all of the disappointments of the day. No! June was not going to wear this particular memory! But I would have to pretend this wasn’t important to me. I thought for a moment and frowned at Will and said, “Medea wouldn’t wear that.”
Will, who was not as sure of things as he appeared to be, asked, “Why?”
“It’s too dark. The Greeks almost always wore white. You ought to know that if you’re putting on a Greek play.” My mind was outracing my words. I tried to be casual. “I know just the thing. Give me that dark dress and I’ll go get it.” I held out my arm.
“No,” said Will. “Get it first.”
How stupid! “Okay.” I walked out of the Big Garage and ran all the way to the Pink Elephant, pulled Ree-Jane’s white gown off the hanger, and ran back to the Big Garage. I slowed down for the last little way, not wanting to appear hurried.
Will looked at the white dress and shrugged. “It’s okay with me. But where’d you get it?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I answered, as I exchanged the white dress for the midnight blue one.
June went off to a dark corner and changed clothes. She came back. Ree-Jane’s white gown was too long for her and too tight across the top, making her look mummified. But I guess she was so pleased to have a fancy dress to wear on stage she didn’t much care. “Where’s a mirror? Have I got this on right?”
I assured her she did. There wasn’t a mirror.
She went traipsing around holding the skirt bunched so she wouldn’t trip. I did not make the point that she couldn’t do this the night of the performance because she might insist on having the blue dress back again. I decided to take the blue dress out of harm’s way and rushed back to the Pink Elephant, where I put it on the hanger and the hanger on a hook in the wall. I stood back and looked at it. Once, they had dressed me up in it and danced me around the room. The Waitresses. They Hashed in and out of memory like sunlight str-iking the turquoise ocean along the shore of the Rony Plaza, for what I recall mostly about them is their color: their bright clothes, their glossy red and blond and dark hair. I closed my eyes.
Once I had asked my mother whether they were good waitresses. “Oh, they were all good waitresses, I expect, but silly girls.”
Silly girls. I do remember they were always laughing. They put on records and danced me around. My mother didn’t know how much time I spent with them, since she would have stopped it. She did not care for our befriending the “help.”
If my days now are mostly black and white, the days of the Waitresses were technicolor. For before they left, everything, I sense, was different: my father was still alive, my mother did not have to work so hard, the Davidows were unknown. Imagine! Imagine a time without Ree-Jane. It was almost impossible to, for Ree-Jane is one of those people you must have around to test yourself on. I sometimes wonder: without her, would I have been up to a challenge?
June was up onstage, and Will was calling for Paul to come down and to be careful doing it. I could see him up there maneuvering from rafter to swing, the rope around his middle in case he fell. Thank goodness for that. I think his foot slipped once on the rafter. But he managed to get into the swing, and Mill told him to untie the rope so the swing could be lowered onto the stage.
Will said, “You go stand beside June.”
“Hi. missus,” Paul said to June. She didn’t answer.
I asked, “What’s he going to do?”
“Nothing. It’s not a speaking part.”
“Well, what’s he going to be, then?”
“He’s one of Medea’s kids.”
I looked around. “Where are the others? Because I’m not going—”
Will crinkled up his forehead in exasperation. “Oh, relax, will you? Since you were so testy about playing one of them, we rewrote. In our rewrite, the other kids are dead, she’s already bumped them off. Paul’s the only kid we can make do what we want.” Will’s head was bent over his “script,” chewing gum.
Mill was at the piano, standing before it, barking orders. “Okay, Medea, sing after me: ‘I’m Med-e-a—’ Go on.”
June, still holding up the white tulle, sang:“I’m Med-eee-ah.”
This, I thought, was crazy; it was crazy even for Will and Mill. “What is this?”
“Be quiet,” said Will.
Now Mill was pointing at Paul. “Now, after June sings that line, you’re supposed to echo it—”
“ ‘Echo it? I’ m sure that’s crystal clear to Paul. Echo—”
“Oh, be quiet,” said Will.
Mill went on: “Echo it and sing, ‘Sheee’s Med-e-ah.’ ” Mill brought his arm down, slicing up air and saying, “GO!”
“Hi, missus,” said Paul. He had the tune down right; it was just the words.
“No!”
Mill rarely yelled; he left that up to Will. “You’re supposed to sing, dammit!” Mill sang, “ ‘She’s Med-e-ah.’ Will, go up and take care of him. We’ll be here all night.”
Will marched up onstage and got behind Paul and placed both hands on Paul’s shoulders. He shook him. “Sing it right.”
Mill came down on the piano again, and sang, “She’s Med-e-ah.”
Paul nearly turned his head upside down to gather in Will’s face and got himself a good shaking. Then he sang—shouted, rather—“Sheee’s Mud-a-uh.”
Will shook him. �
�Med, Med, not Mud.”
Paul sang it again, correctly this time.
Mill ordered, “Okay, now from the top—first June, next Paul. Paul you just have to sing what June sings.”
You’d think he had the Gospel choir up there.
Mill played the chords and pointed. June sang (with feeling) “I-I-I’m Medea.”
Paul sang (as my brother’s thumbs dug into his shoulders) “Sheeee’s Mah-de-a.”
“Great!” Mill yelled. “Terrific!” Mill was a much more positive person than Will. Mill believed in getting people to do things by encouraging them. Will believed in hitting them. He left Paul to his singing and returned to stand beside me.
“Now!” Mill brought his hands down on the piano again. “Here’s the second line: ‘Mama mia!’ ”
June sang, “Mama mee-ah.”
Paul sang, “She’s Medea.”
Mill ordered him to stop. “No, no, Paul. You sing ‘Mama mia’ for the second line.”
I gaped. “That’s crazy! That’s Italian!”
Will was tapping his foot in time to what music there was and didn’t answer.
I grabbed Will by the arm. “You can’t have Greeks singing that. ‘Mama mia’—that’s an Italian saying!”
Will chewed his gum and thought. “It’s ... international.”
Mill was still playing and baton-ing the air like a symphony conductor and the two were still singing. Then I said to Will, “If you think God is going to come down in any machine to save this mess, forget it!” I turned and marched toward the door.
Will called after me, “God works in mysterious ways!”
“Not this mysterious!” I slammed the door behind me.
51
Goldengirl
Back in the Pink Elephant, I took everything out of my gym bag and lined it all up. From my Whitman’s candy box I took the Niece Rhoda tube Dwayne had found, and the snapshot of the sisters and Mary-Evelyn. I balanced the photo of Jamie Makepiece against one of the fat bottles that served as a candleholder, the hardened wax dripping down its side. My hands crossed on the table, my chin lowered to them, I ran my eyes over this little collection. I got down to eye level with Jamie Makepiece. Where was he now? He’d be in his seventies if he was still alive. How I’d love to talk to him! Not just for the things he could tell me about Iris and Isabel, but because he inhabited a period of time from which I was excluded.
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