Six of One

by Rita Mae Brown

  Fairy Thatcher arrived first with her violin. Cora had declared everyone had to make her own music. Idabelle trundled up the hill with her trusty accordion. Juts produced a tambourine and Cora had the uneasy sensation that she had clipped it. Cora'd been practicing her hambone for weeks. Slapping yourself didn't look elegant, but it made up for a drum and Cora did it with such flourish. Fannie Jump parked her Bugatti by the barn, bringing with her a harmonica. Louise zoomed around the house like Buffalo Bill with the lid off. Her mother had said she could invite Pearlie Trumbull and she was close to conniptions over the prospect of Pearlie amid all these people. She wasn't embarrassed about him, but my God, what a crew! Celeste and Ramelle were lovers. Ramelle had just had Curtis's baby. Fairy Thatcher read strange books and quoted them incessantly. Fannie Jump Creighton had a hollow leg, as the saying goes, and Idabelle was so fat, if she tripped coming up the hill she'd roll all the way to the bottom. Louise wrung her hands. How had she, graduate of Immaculata Academy, pet of Carlotta Van Dusen, got in the middle of all this? To put the cherry on the sundae, Julia Ellen, the brat, tormented her relentlessly about Pearlie Trumbull. Worse, Louise thought Julia was better-looking than she was. Here Louise prayed daily, went to mass regularly, thought elevated thoughts, and God went and made that hellraiser pretty. My cross to bear, she thought.

  Knowing well Fannie's weakness, Cora made sure to have a vat of gin.

  "Cora, honey, where'd you get this divine juice?"

  "I'm not telling you all my secrets." As she was speaking, a flock of blackbirds dove on the field across from the front porch. "My party!" Cora clapped her hands..

  "What?"

  "Whenever you see blackbirds you say 'My party,' and that's how many people will come to your party," Cora explained.

  "Quaint! Where are the guests of honor—the mother, the father and Celeste herself?"

  "Now, you know Celeste must make her entrance."

  "On an ass. Say, Cora, you got any palm fronds?"

  Walking up the road, wearing a boater and seersucker trousers, came a dapper Pearlie Trumbull, carrying his fiddle.

  "Who's that?" Fannie asked.

  "That's Louise's beau." Cora waved to him. "Louise, your fella's here."

  Louise tore out of the house like a cat pursued by a German shepherd. Suddenly realizing her behavior, she stopped and began to walk very demurely toward a smiling Pearlie.

  "Carry a torch and you'll get cinders in your eye." Julia giggled.

  Fairy, hearing this, gently said, "Now, Julia Ellen, love is wonderful. It will happen to you someday."

  "Ha!" Julia stirred the punch.

  Louise properly introduced Pearlie to the folks. Idabelle made a big fuss over him. She missed Rob, who had stayed down in North Carolina at the towel mills. Louise led him over to the punch and pushed Juts away when neither Pearlie nor anyone else was looking. Julia, lovely in her latest outfit, prepared to smear jam on Louise's behind, but a rumble down the road distracted her. A huge truck chugged up the hill.

  "What the Sam Hill?" Cora leaned over the banister. "'Zat Curtis driving?"

  "Hell, yes." Fannie peered.

  Curtis and Ramelle, holding the baby, sat in the cab of the pickup truck. On the back was that goddamned upright piano, with Celeste, dressed to the teeth, playing "Dixie." Pretending to ignore the gathering, she pounded away in a Confederate fervor while Curtis backed the truck around so the piano was right at the porch steps.

  Celeste stopped. "Darlings, a little culture."

  Hands on hips, Cora grinned. "I'll be damned."

  "Pearlie Trumbull, you look strong. Lend a hand here," Celeste ordered him.

  "Yes, m'am."

  Curtis hopped out of the truck, dressed in white and looking better than a movie star. Julia experienced a faint flutter and decided it must be the punch; she'd put enough gin in it to punch, for certain. It couldn't be that Curtis was a handsome man. No, not Julia. She smiled at her inward strength.

  Idabelle helped Ramelle out of the truck and cooed over the baby. Ramelle shone more beautiful than ever, if that was humanly possible.

  "Many hands make light work." Cora got on the truck and began to help the men with the piano. Julia took up another end. Celeste sat on the bench, legs crossed.

  "Fancy pants, help your brother," Fannie called.

  'Twill if you will."

  Fannie and Celeste put their backs into it. Within five minutes the upright stood on the end of the porch. A round of punch refreshed the sweating laborers.

  "Louise, I believe you requested this." Celeste put her arm around Louise's shoulder.

  "Miss Chalfonte, thank you."

  Beaming, Cora was speechless. Such a condition never infected Fannie. "Come on, Louise, a song."

  Gliding to the piano for its effect on Pearlie, Louise could have saved herself the trouble; he was smitten anyway. Louise turned to her audience and announced in her stage voice, "I'm going to play the ballet Les Syphilis."

  Celeste dissolved in laughter, put her hands over her eyes. "Sylphides, Louise, Sylphides."

  "Wheezie Hunsenmeir has a dirty mind," Juts snidely said.

  "Shut—I mean desist, Julia Ellen. This is a christening party, not a rowdy gathering. Allow me to play 'Holy, Holy, Holy.'"

  Julia, stung, retorted, "Oh, stop cackling and lay the egg."

  Louise smoothed out her skirt, ever so ladylike, plopped on the bench and began her religious program.

  Fannie was in no mood to be saved. "Louise, faster."

  The hymn speeded up, but Louise still rolled her eyes heavenward and knitted her brow together in order to appear spiritual. Pearlie thought her a noble soul. Orrie whispered something to that effect in his ear. Ev, also invited to the party, threw another belt down her throat and began to feel marvelous.

  Cora put her hand on Louise's shoulder. "Hold up, sugar." She turned to the assembled guests. "We are here to celebrate Miss Spottiswood Chalfonte Bowman. Here's the rules. Everybody gets a turn to dance with the baby. The mother has the first dance and the father gets the last. The rest of us fit in between. So everyone get a noisemaker?"

  Pearlie put his fiddle under his chin and stood next to Fairy, who was rubbing her bow. They tuned up together. Fannie whipped out her harmonica. Julia rattled her tambourine. Ev had a flute and she was pretty good at it. Idabelle was all excited with her accordion. How she got it over that stomach was one of life's miracles. Orrie and Celeste lacked an instrument.

  "Celeste, Curtis got a zither. How about you?"

  "I'll hum."

  "No you won't. You and Orrie sit here by me and I'll teach you how to hambone."

  Celeste sat on Cora's right and Orrie on her left. She ran them through a few quick routines. The sight of Celeste hamboning was rare.

  "How about if I play 'By the Sea' just to see how we all do together?" Louise checked with her mother.

  "Sure."

  They ran through that pretty well.

  "New Momma, are you ready?" Cora called to Ramelle.

  "I'm ready."

  "Is Miss Spottiswood Bowman ready?" Cora smiled.

  Those little blue eyes popped wide open underneath the black curly hair. She had Chalfonte hair but her mother's chin and eyes. Some combination. Even at six weeks Miss Spotts was a knockout.

  "Miss Spottiswood is very ready." Ramelle stood up with the baby in her arms.

  "Ida, Wheezie, Pearlie and Fairy, do you know 'Shepherds Hey'?"

  They nodded yes. Cora tapped her foot and off they went, playing a song older than all of them put together.

  Ramelle danced slowly to the lively music. The baby laughed, its little arms reaching up in the air. Julia took off on her tambourine and Celeste roared all the way through her hamboning, A few turns around the porch and Ramelle handed the baby to Celeste. She adored the baby and held her up in the air for all to see. Celeste put the child in Cora's arms. Cora was thirty-seven, and the lines in her face had deepened, a few rust spots had appeared on her big
hands, but rather than diminish her special beauty, these signs of age enhanced her like badges from wars lost and won. Her bursting nature knew no fashion or year. She always said, "Speak of the sun and you see its rays," but that expression really applied to Cora herself. As she bounced around the porch, the baby nestled on her bosom, Ramelle wondered if she'd ever seen anything so joyful. Her turn over, Cora handed the baby to Pearlie, which was her way of saying, You're welcome in this home. A little shaky, Pearlie kept the baby away from his body. From the strain on his face you knew he was scared stiff he'd drop the precious bundle. A quick little step and he bent over to Louise. He placed the baby in her arms. Louise thought she might faint from emotion.

  Julia hit her tambourine and hopped on one foot Two circles around the porch and Louise passed the baby on to her sister, then raced back for the piano with a sweet glance for Pearlie, fiddling away. Julia shook the tambourine by the baby as she rocked her. Fearless, little Spotts grabbed for a shiny metal rattle. Everyone cheered as the baby touched the tambourine. Julia trotted around, in heaven, and gave the baby to Fannie. Mrs. Creighton lurched, the music faltered for a moment with her. "Keep playing, I'm not down yet." A twirl and she was close to it, so she wisely gave the child to Fairy. As Fairy tiptoed to the music, she wondered how come Marx never wrote about emotion or ways of feeling. Cora and her kind did things differently from her kind. As she danced with Spotts she couldn't help but feel a slight pang that she wasn't one of these people. They had such zest, such immediacy. Lost in her reverie, she was brought out of it by Idabelle, "Come on, girl, it's my turn with our honored guest." Unhinging herself from the accordion, Idabelle oohed and ahed over the infant something terrible. She relinquished her to Ev Most, who somehow didn't look at all maternal. Orrie was next and the baby silently stared at Orrie. Must have been her flaming red hair. Orrie handed the baby over to Curtis.

  At first Curtis was awkward. He turned, took a little dip and then began to feel the music. He could feel these people caring for him and his baby. He could feel his own heart opening to this new person. Curtis forgot himself and danced like an angel. Spottiswood grabbed his index finger and wrapped her tiny hand around it. Curtis laughed. Maybe there was joy in this confusing world. Maybe people's basic instinct was to love rather than to hate. He knew he'd never find the answer, but here, for this moment on Cora's simple porch filled with laughing people and with this dear baby in his arms, he wanted to live forever. He wanted to love unto eternity's echo. He didn't know he had tears in his eyes. Ramelle got up and wrapped her arms around him. Together they danced with Miss Spottiswood Chalfonte Bowman.

  February 14, 1921

  Ramelle agreed to spend the months of January through March of each year with Curtis in California. Celeste felt Spottiswood should spend time with her father and she rested secure in the knowledge that Ramelle would return. She made jokes to herself about Persephone climbing out of the underworld to bring spring. During the day she didn't miss Ramelle all that much. At night, however, she found herself growing lonesome. Her reading picked up, but so did her insomnia.

  Tonight a light, steady snowfall blanketed all sound. The world seemed muffled. Celeste propped herself up in bed and started reading the first volume of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Grace Pettibone had recommended it highly in a letter. Sigourny, Grace's lover, had completed another book, which Celeste had knocked off the night before and discounted as a fragile essay in autobiography. Spare me literary lesbians, she thought to herself, but then underneath that thought she had to admit she would always resent Sigourny for spiriting off her college romance. Ah, my youth, she mused.

  Within two hours she completed Swann's Way. All that French fogged her. She grabbed Aristophanes' The Frogs, in Greek, and howled all the way through it. That finished, she sat in her bed looking out the window. It was now 3 A.M. and she couldn't sleep.

  To sleep, perchance to dream. . . . Her mind wandered off. Maybe I'll call Fannie Jump Creighton. No. Fannie's in the sack with some wayward young man per usual. God, I can't possibly read another book. In the sack. I do miss Ramelle. Of course, I could always carry on some alfresco affair. Oh, but what eligible young ladies catch my fancy in Runnymede? Or eligible young men, for that matter. I'll leave the swooning to Louise and Pearlie.

  She fluffed up her pillow, then rested back on it, arms folded across her chest.

  Tonight's a wonderful night for making love. Snow possesses an astringent eroticism. I like that. I’ll write that down.

  She scribbled on the note pad always by her bedside.

  Hmm. Not a woman in this town who has both beauty and wit. Ramelle returns in six weeks. That's not so terribly long. Ah, I've kissed tigers when the moon was high. I never minded men in bed, the few times I indulged my curiosity. I can understand why Ramelle loves my brother. In fact, men are fine in bed. It's out of bed that I get bored stiff. But not Curtis. He—nothing boring about him. We Chalfontes may drive one to utter distraction but we never bore. Not even goddamned Carlotta. She returned from her European tour with tears from the Virgin for her academy. Cat's piss, no doubt. I'm not jealous of Curtis. I simply miss Ramelle. Why is it that I keep hoping lightning will weld his zipper shut? That will pass. I'm above jealousy. After all, I'm forty-three years old. I should be entering my sexual decline. Seems to be going the other way. There's something about the heat rising off a woman's skin. Intoxicating. Loving a woman is touching the rim of heaven. Carlotta tells me in her low church whisper if I'd give up my peculiar vice—peculiar vice, that corrupt windbag!—if I'd give this pleasure up I'd go to her heaven. And be cursed by a God who has remarkably similar tastes to my sister. Thank you, no. I’ll make my heaven here on earth. Carlotta has a tapeworm in her imagination.

  I wonder if Fannie is still awake. I can't call her. It's too rude.

  Celeste was terrified. Of what she didn't know. It was three o'clock in the morning and she sat safe and warm in her large bed. A vulture swept in and out of her chest, tearing her with his rotted claw. How could this be? She was a perfectly reasonable, highly intelligent, splendid woman. Flashes of irrational terror are not taught in the best schools. Not only had she not been warned such moments exist for all humans; her character strongly opposed any notion of vulnerability, which Celeste equated with weakness. Scared in the middle of a snowy night with a fir& roaring in the fireplace? Lonesome. Nonsense. Of course, this refusal to embrace fear made it all the worse. She dialed Fannie, then hung up before it rang. Looking at the snow, she thought of all the poems, early writings of Western culture, associating winter with old age. Metaphors are a way to see the world, she thought. Whether or not they're related to reality is another matter. Besides, I'm not old. I'm hardly a pale lost lily at the end. I'm nowhere near death. God, I hate these nocturnal rhapsodies! Why can't I go to sleep? I'm turning out this blasted light and I'm going to sleep. Immediately.

  She switched off the light. The top of her scalp burned. Breathing came hard. A pain stabbed in her heart.

  A heart attack. She turned the light on and sat bolt upright. I'm too young. Her palms were wet. No, I'm not having a heart attack. Christ, I'm shaking. What's the matter with me?

  She picked up the phone again and once more placed it back on the receiver. Celeste walked over to her closet and put her clothes on. She bounded down the stairs and took her plush sable, her warmest coat, out of the closet. Then she slipped through the snow to the garage, started the car and headed for Bumblebee Hill. Runnymede rested in darkness.

  Cora never locked her door, so Celeste carefully opened it and walked in. She couldn't decide which was ruder: waking Cora up or coming into her house uninvited. A daughter of departed Lillian Russell, Mabel Normand by name, let out a yowl. This played on Celeste's nerves. She jumped and banged into a chair. She couldn't see a thing.

  "Who's that?" Julia called out.

  "Celeste."

  "Oh." Julia fell asleep in an instant.

  Cora, hearing the noise and Celeste's voic
e, wrapped on her old robe, lit the gas lamp and carried it to the front room.

  "Celeste?"

  "Yes, it's me. Cora, I'm terribly sorry. Please forgive me for—"

  "Is everything all right down at the house?"

  "Yes, it's fine."

  Cora placed the lamp on the table and noticed Celeste's worried face.

  "Let me fix you some hot milk."

  "No, no. Please, Cora, go back to sleep. Fm so ashamed that I came here and woke you like this."

  Cora put her arm around Celeste's sabled shoulder. "Celeste, honey, don't trouble yourself over that. Many's the night I got up with the children. Let me start a fire."