"No, please. Go back to bed. Just let me sit here in your house." Her lower lip trembled.
Arm still around her shoulder, Cora got her on her feet, "Come on. You come on to bed with me. You look ready to drop."
"I couldn't possibly."
"You got a little case of nightsickness. Come on."
"Nightsickness?"
"Sure. Can't sleep. Dreams get you. Dragons growl under your bed."
"Something like that." Celeste obediently followed her upstairs.
"I get that, too. Had it terrible after Aimes died."
"What did you do?"
"Got up and worked and when I was too tired to work I laid in bed and tried to picture the sunrise."
Cora led Celeste into her small room, A bright quilt covered the bed. As she pulled down the covers, the full force of the fact that Celeste made love to women hit her. I'll chance it, she thought. Anyway, I love Celeste even if I don't feel that way about her. "You want a nightgown? Juts has an extra. I never sleep in them. Get tangled."
Sheepishly, Celeste declined. "I can't sleep in them, either."
Celeste threw her sable coat over the ladder-back chair and hurriedly stripped. It was so cold she wanted to get under the covers as fast as she could. Cora admired her beautiful body.
"I'll wake up tomorrow and laugh about being so silly."
"Getting scared's not silly. Sometimes it creeps up on you."
"Tonight mine galloped."
Cora laughed. "Isn't it funny how people are like snowflakes? No two alike and yet we are so common."
"Yes." Celeste kept her body still. She was afraid she'd touch Cora by accident and scare her.
"It occurred to me this evening that I'm forty-three. I'm not ancient but I'm not young. I'll never be young again." She fought back her anguish.
"Like everything else in the world. You don't know how good it is until it's gone."
"Do you worry about getting old?"
"Once in a blue moon, I'm thirty-seven. Hell, I'm thankful I got this far."
This made Celeste giggle. She inadvertently touched Cora's breast. "I'm sorry. I..."
"Lord, darling, you are wound up tighter than a drum. It's cold enough outside; don't freeze up on me. Come here." Cora pulled Celeste to her and hugged her. The divine Miss Chalfonte didn't know whether to shit, run or go blind.
"Celeste, relax. I'm not going to bite you. Ill hold you and you get to sleep."
Celeste rested her head underneath Cora's and let Cora smooth her hair. She could feel her heart pounding.
"Cora, are you afraid to die?"
This amused Cora no end. "The seasons pass. Why shouldn't I?"
Exhausted, Celeste fell asleep listening to the gentle rumble of laughter inside Cora. Cora kissed her like a sleeping child and dropped into a peaceful sleep as well.
May 22, 1980
Ev Most burst through the kitchen door, head still covered with little curls, only now they were white.
"Juts. Did you hear the news?"
"What?"
"Evel Knievel announced he's going to jump over Orrie's mouth."
"Ha!" Julia enjoyed that one.
"Got a plan yet?" Ev leaned over and whispered.
"Partly. We need to dope it out."
"You bet." Ev rubbed her hands together. "By the way, what is it all about?"
"Money. Money's green because Louise picks it before it gets ripe."
"Hell, Juts, that's no news. You just now getting mad about it?" Ev smirked.
"That's right, isn't it? I didn't tell you what Louise is up to on the phone. Well, the wires might be tapped. You never can tell about Louise, and if it ain't Louise it might be the FBI. They kept files on Nickel, you know."
Ev's mouth fell open. "What'd she do?"
"Pissed Nixon off, I guess. She sent for 'em. Saw them herself. 'Nicole Smith,' right on the page. Maybe Louise tied in with them to torment us."
"I doubt it. The FBI would never get a word in edgewise. Her and Orrie invented the original no-energy-loss system—their mouths."
"And she thinks her shit don't stink."
"Well... tell me. What's she up to?"
"Now wait a minute. Let me make sure Nickel's out there cutting the grass." Julia walked over to the back screen door. Her daughter was pushing away, whistling to beat the band. Juts lowered her voice. "Louise is sticking Nickel for sixty thousand dollars, so she thinks."
"What!"
"Sis is trying to sell Momma's farm for sixty thousand dollars. Now that's the God's honest truth."
"You can't mean it. Nickel knows the tenants moved out and she offered to buy Momma's place. You know Wheeze and I own it jointly. It ain't good enough for Louise to live in, but she won't sell her half out to my daughter. My daughter, the only damn one in the lot that made good."
"She'll sell it. Louise says one thing and does another."
"She says two things and does nothing, you mean."
"She'll come down."
"Greedyguts? If she was in the middle of a race track and someone dropped a dime, she'd hear it and pick it up. I think we got a real battle on our hands."
"You could be right. There's got to be some way to drum sense in her head. You got a price you think is fair?"
"I think between forty-five and fifty thousand is fair. The house leans a little. The barns lists like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Land's good, though. And she can pay me my half month by month. No down payment on my half. lf I was to die I'd will it to her anyway."
"Can't you will her your half now?"
"I thought of that, but what have I got to live on? That little rent each month put food on the table. My ironing business won't keep body and soul together. And I get tired standing on my feet those long hours."
"Aren't your new Adidas helping?"
"They're a darn sight better than those nurse's shoes, but if I wear them out of the house Louise calls the fire department 'cause they're red."
"Gotta be something we can get on Louise Trumbull. Maybe we could get Ernst Cutworth to rezone her house,"
"Huh?"
"All those Day-Glo Jesuses she has. We'll declare her house a plastics factory and a health hazard. Plastic causes cancer, you know."
This delighted Julia. 'Think he'd do it?"
"If you squeeze his knee and a little higher up he would."
"Ev!"
"Heh, heh. Ernst's been sweet on you for many a year."
"Yeah, well, he can just eat Fannie Farmer. I wish Chessy was here. He'd reason with her."
"Chessy's been dead for nineteen years."
"I know, I know. He was my husband, wasn't he? I still wish he was here. He was the only one could calm her down or get an idea out of her head."
"Pearlie was next to no help." Ev sighed.
"She ran him like she tried to run everyone else. You couldn't find a nicer fella, but why he put up with Blowhard, I’ll never know."
"Some folks like their life lived for them. Louise's specialty. Hey, maybe we could go to Father Scola. She listens to him."
"I'm not Catholic, remember? He'll side with her 'fore he sides with a Lutheran,"
"Got a point there."
"Maybe I could bribe her."
"You could give her part of your share."
"Never. That farm's half mine. Giving her nothing. I was thinking more along the lines of my crystal candlesticks I inherited from Celeste. Louise slobbers for anything that belonged to a Chalfonte."
Ev opened the refrigerator door. "Eating some of your ice cream. Gonna stop me?"
"Ice cream? At this hour?"
"It's my stomach."
"I can see that."
Ev poured a ton of Hershey's chocolate over her ice cream.
"You know, I must be getting old, but things that used to rile me don't lift a feather now. I just want to be left in peace. As long as someone is nice to me I can be nice to them."
Julia eyed the gargantuan spoonful Ev had poised in front of her mouth. "A
men."
"Julia, I know that look. What are you thinking?"
"I swear that in the 1930s my sister gave herself up to the thrill of infidelity."
"No!" Ev's spoon stopped in midair, a lump of goo falling back into the bowl.
"I never said nothing because I couldn't prove it But I could feel it."
"Who?" Ev relished this tidbit.
"Remember when she used to make buying trips to Philadelphia and New York for her job at the Bon-Ton?"
"You bet. How I envied her working for Bon-Ton. Then they found out old Shindel swindled the whole company. Dirt for days!"
"I swear to you, Ev, she had a fella in New York. She'd come back from those trips all moony and silent."
"Silent? Maybe she had typhoid." Ev now scraped the bowl with her spoon to get the last drops of chocolate.
"If we can just find some proof, we got her."
"Julia, I knew you'd find a way."
"You know what Momma used to say: ‘If you can't find a way, make one.' I'll get my hands on love letters or something. Xerox 'em and threaten to go to the Clarion or Trumpet with the evidence."
"Julia, you're soft as a grape. They won't print love letters that are near fifty years old."
"They did for Eisenhower, And Louise thinks she's as important. We'll catch her on her high opinion of herself!"
"Hmm."
"Tomorrow at 8 A.M., when she's at mass, you go through her bedroom. Ransack it but put everything back when you're done."
"Why me? You do it. You two go in and out of each other's homes all the time."
"No, I don't want anyone to see me. Shell get suspicious."
"And she won't if the neighbors see me?"
"Put on a red wig. Everyone will think it's Orrie."
"I am not nearly as fat as Orrie. She's big as a house."
"I didn't mean that."
Ev wiggled in her chair. "Besides, what if she comes home early? Then I'm up Shit's Creek without a paddle."
"I'll sit by the phone booth two blocks away and ring you twice if she's coming."
"Julia, she'll see you. She's bound to know something is up."
"I'll disguise myself as old Patience Horney—you remember, Fatty Screwloose down by the railroad station?"
"Julia, Patience died in the twenties."
"I know, but Louise lives in the past. She'll drive by, see Patience and tell everyone she had a vision."
"I don't know." Ev's eyebrows squirmed as much as her body. "This is awful risky. I still think you should go in there and root around yourself."
"Ev, who fills her Valium prescription each month and gives it to you?"
"Now, Juts, you know I need that to calm my nerves. I'm a very high-strung woman."
"So why doesn't your doctor give 'em to you?"
"Well..."
" 'Cause you are an addictive personality—isn't that what he said? If it weren't Valium, it'd be dope."
"All right, Julia. I don't need you to tell me my own shortcomings, but I'm not an addictive personality. I like getting high, that's all."
"High? I never saw you when we were in our twenties without your hip flask stuck in your garter belt."
"So you manufactured the stuff. You should talk."
"Supply and demand. That don't mean I drank it. That was all so long ago. Who cares?"
"Those marijuana plants in your garden aren't so long ago."
"What have you been doing in my garden!"
"I got eyes, Julia Ellen."
"Nickel put them there for a joke."
"Once a bootlegger, always a bootlegger. You're gonna sell that stuff." Ev closed her hands as if in prayer.
"You keep this up and I'm gonna smash a caterpillar on your head."
Ev shrieked because she knew Julia was perfectly capable of it and would enjoy it in the bargain. Julia started for the door to go get one, just to hear Ev scream some more.
"Juts, no-o-o."
"Valium or breaking and entering. The choice is yours."
"All right. I'll do it." Ev acted as though resigned, but she couldn't wait for the next morning. Part of her friendship with Julia depended on being convinced for each caper. "Julia?"
"What?"
"Will you give me some of that marijuana?"
Julia put her hands on her hips and stared at her. Ev remained still. Juts started to laugh. "Yes."
Even as they spoke, Louise and Orrie, a few blocks away, were making plans of their own.
May 2, 1925
"Hi, Mom." Julia Ellen kissed Cora.
"How'd the day go?"
"Fine. During lunch break I ran into Yashew Gregorivitch—he works down in loading—and he told me a funny story."
"What?"
"Remember Ollie Buxton, who used to rent out a room in old Mrs. Gregorivitch's house?"
"I knew him by sight."
"Well, he skipped out on the rent some months ago and ran off to York. In the middle of last night the Voice of God tells him to go pay his back rent. He gets up out of bed and drives all the way down to Runnymede and bangs on Mrs. Gregorivitch's door. 'Wake up, wake up. God told me to pay the rent,' he yells. Old Mrs. Gregorivitch comes to the window, pokes her head out and says, 'Veil, he didn't tell me you vas coming.' Some punkins, huh?"
Cora shook her head. "I declare."
"I'm saving up all my earnings. I'm gonna buy us a radio."
"We don't need a radio. We got the piano,"
"I can't play the piano."
"No, but your sister can."
"Mom, Wheezie comes by two or three times a week and she only plays on Sundays."
"Being married takes up a lot of time."
"She's been married three years. Don't you think she'd be used to it by now? Look at Fannie Jump and Fairy—they don't hang around their husbands much."
"They been married a lot longer than Louise."
"Uh-huh." Juts stared out the back door, gazing at the beautiful garden in the back of the mansion. Celeste, Ramelle and Spotts were playing croquet. The mallet was as big as Spotts. She squealed each time she hit the ball.
Julia worked at the Red Bird Silk Mill. She enjoyed all the ribbons, the colors, the dyes, the mixing with the other women. Efficient and good with people, she had been promoted to floor-walker. She trained new people as well as watched over the phases of ribbon production. She had even started reading business journals and newspapers. Ev Most worked in her department and they both had made many friends. Lunch hour with the girls was the best part of the day. On weekends the gang often ran around together.
Movies proved a favorite activity. She'd seen and memorized The Sheik, The Prisoner of Zenda, Safety Last, The Perfect Flapper, The Big Parade—in fact, Juts watched every movie that came to Runnymede. Ev grew wobbly thinking about Valentino, but Juts liked this new guy John Gilbert. Celeste had told her that along with real estate, Curtis had bought into a production company. Knowing of Julia's passion, he sent photos and posters to her. This made Juts the most popular person at the Red Bird mill.
Louise sniffed at Julia's "juvenile afflictions," she being a matron and a truly mature person. Louise had Victorian morality via Carlotta stamped permanently in her brain, although with coaxing she could be led to put it on the back burner. Juts, on the other hand, emerged a real flapper. The spirit of the twenties accorded perfectly with her own hell-raising bent. She kept Cora, Celeste and Ramelle in stitches. They never knew what would pop out of her mouth next or what she'd wear. One of her big trend-setting styles for the gang in Runnymede was to dress like "The Kid." In her bobbed hair she looked adorable in a big workman's cap and knickers. Girls in the high school strained to catch sight of her and would then copy her latest outfit. Louise prayed all the harder, seeking solace in the beyond. How Juts could be so favored shook her faith. Juts hadn't set foot in a church since her confirmation at Christ Lutheran. She had, however, set foot in every speakeasy within a twenty-mile radius of Runnymede. She won all the Charleston contests, too.
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"Mom, who's pulling in the back driveway?"
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