“Actually, she’s the one,” Steve said in a low muffled voice, no doubt with his hand cupped to the phone. “She’s begging us to help her. She thinks she’s dying.”
“Steve! She always says that!” God, he was gullible; after all these years, still falling for the same lines.
“No. I can tell. This is different.” It was unbelievable, she thought, but he almost sounded excited.
“What’s different is she’s got Jan there to feed her lines to.” She paused, but he didn’t say anything. “Look, Steve, why don’t you do yourself and Jan a favor and just … just let her be. You know as well as I do what’s going to happen. The two of you are going to spend the whole night—what?—calling this one and that one, and then you’re going to drive all the way out there, and she’ll change her mind. You know she will. She always does.”
He didn’t say anything. Poor Steve, all knotted up in his daughters’ selfishness; sometimes he just needed some hard plain talk to get himself back on track. “It’s Jan, Steve. She just feels guilty, I think, because she’s been away all this time. Anita’s no fool. She’ll play this to the hilt. And poor Jan—I mean, as if she doesn’t have enough problems. Look, Steve, have Jan stay there with her. That way, you can make a decision in the morn … Steve? Steve, are you there?”
The background rumbled with the aftershock of Anita’s croupy voice, her words falling like bricks into rubble. “… help this son of a … I had some … he talkin’ to?”
“Yes, Jan,” he said away from the phone. “Yes, Jan. Yes.”
Jan was telling him about blood. Her mother was passing blood. Frances’s stomach turned. The woman had destroyed herself. And, as always, who picked up the pieces? Steve.
“Tell them I think there’s some real bad kidney damage.…”
“It’s not the hospital, Jan,” Steve interrupted his daughter.
“Is it Dr. Warren? Did you get him?”
“Jan, I’ll be right with you,” he said.
“Oh,” Jan said coldly. “It didn’t occur to me you’d call HER in the middle of this.”
“I said I’ll be right there,” he repeated.
“Steve!” Frances shouted. She looked toward the warm glow of the living room, where everyone sat, then caught herself. “Call me in the morning,” she said before she hung up. Bitch. Little bitch. God, after all these years. After all she’d done, not just for him, but for all of them.
From here she could see Martha in the kitchen. With a fork, she mashed bouillon cubes into a mug of boiled water, then began to whip them furiously. Pausing, she peered into the mug, and her glasses fogged with steam. She set down the mug and bit by bit crumbled a cracker into it with an intensity that hunched her entire body round the cup.
Frances gripped the arms of the chair. It took all of her willpower not to run in there and grab the mug and dump it into the sink. It was unnerving, the way Martha could become the task itself, focusing until there was only that compulsive stirring, a blur beyond anything human. How does she do that, she wondered. To so totally obliterate one’s self, it gave her the chills.
Just then she saw Heidi Pierce pause in the kitchen doorway on her way to the bathroom. “Well, look at you,” she called in to Martha. “Just as busy as a bee around here, aren’t you?”
Head bent, mouth pinched, Martha fused her concentration on the clinking fork.
Heidi shrugged and continued down the hallway.
“Just as busy as a bee,” Martha mimicked Heidi’s childish voice. “Just as busy, busy, busy as a stupid little bee!”
Is it me? Is it me? Frances thought with a surge of terror. The thick wiry hair. The same broad shoulders. The heavy white breasts bobbing in the bathwater. “Stop that!” she cried, charging out from the study. “You’ll chip the mug,” she added weakly. Not a sound came from the living room.
They were finishing their drinks now that she had told them Steve wouldn’t be coming. Heidi and Bill Pierce perched in the pale-yellow chairs opposite the down sofa where Julia Prine sat with a dour-faced young woman named Tyler Spaulding, whom Frances had just met tonight. Tyler Spaulding’s head was a crown of skinny blonde braids, and the bodice of her shapeless brown dress had been worked in colorful Indian beads. Julia was a people collector—the more offbeat, the better.
“This is the worst one yet,” Frances explained, conscious of everyone’s rapt attention. Anita Bell was always a gripping subject. “She checked herself out of the hospital yesterday and Steve just found her.”
“I didn’t want to say anything,” Heidi confided, picking her cuticles excitedly. “But a few months ago I heard she was out at the lake.” She leaned forward, her hand at her sternum, as if to contain some horror. “You know, in one of those cabins the kids rent. With some, well, some bum, and I guess it was pretty dis …”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that for a minute,” interrupted Julia, her lofty tone obviously meant to impress her young friend.
Frances wondered what cause would be championed tonight, which endangered species. She envied Julia’s intellect and natural goodness. Good bloodlines, she thought. All the bitterness and fear had been bred right out of her.
“I’m only telling you what someone told me, Julia.” Heidi sniffed. “Someone who should know!”
“Steve’s a saint,” Bill Pierce said, so quickly it was obvious he had been his wife’s source. Bill was Steve’s law partner, the poor boy who had managed to become the bulwark of the Bell family’s firm. “I tell you—what that man goes through,” he sighed with a long sad look at Frances.
“Where did they find her?” Julia asked.
“In the Moonbeam Motel,” Frances said. “Out cold. And alone,” she added with an icy glance at Heidi, bristling with her peculiar proprietorship if not of Anita Bell, then of the woman who was Steve’s wife. Any discussion of Anita Bell had to be carefully orchestrated through Frances. In a strange convolution of jealousy and pride, she had become the keeper of Anita’s reputation, present as well as past. She was fond of relating Anita’s lineage and even knew the name of an ancestor who had been among the first elected officials in Plymouth Colony: Jeb Sitwell—one son, three daughters, two cows, and a wife, his inventory began. “In that order,” she would always add, sensitive to the irony that she knew more about Anita Bell’s ancestors than she knew about her own, or wanted to.
“How long has this been going on?” Tyler Spaulding asked of Anita Bell’s condition, and Frances’s mouth fell open. The nerve. Imagine, asking a question like that of someone you had just met. But look, they were answering her.
Ever since they were married, Heidi thought, but Bill disagreed. No. No, he thought sometime after: maybe even after the children. Yes. Heidi nodded, frowning, troubled by her recollection of Anita as a devoted young wife and mother.
“You know what you often find in these situations,” Tyler Spaulding said. “You find out the perfect spouse is not so perfect after all.”
They glanced anxiously at Frances, their voices crossing in a nervous defense of Steve.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that man raise his voice,” Heidi said. “Bill, have you?”
“God no. Not Steve.” Bill looked to Frances for approval.
“Steve’s a … Well, he’s just a dear,” Julia said. “But maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s just been too dear.”
Frances couldn’t believe this. Who had authorized this analysis? They were talking as if she weren’t even here, as if Anita Bell were just some common drunk. She gathered up the empty glasses.
“Well, he’s done her no favors, from the sound of it,” Tyler Spaulding said. “It’s like a disease. I mean, it infects the whole family. They’re all perpetuators.”
Perpetuators. Frances paused in the doorway, glasses dangling from her fingertips.
“There has to be a sick member,” the young woman continued. “Everyone has their role to play, the caretaker, the patient, the attendants. It’s amazing how comfortable everyone gets in their ro
les, and how entrenched—no matter how miserable they are. Families are probably the sickest, most brutalizing unit in our society.”
“That’s fascinating!” Heidi sighed, twisting the pearl-and-emerald cocktail ring on her pudgy finger; Heidi, who had no children, no family beyond Bill, Frances thought smugly. “You know, I always wondered what kept them together.”
“He’s obviously part of the illness. They feed off each other. She needs a caretaker and he needs a patient, a ward to justify his …”
“That’s sick!” Frances exploded. Still holding the glasses, she stood in front of the startled young woman. “That’s the biggest and sickest load of shit I’ve ever heard.”
“But you’d be amazed how common it is,” Tyler observed, so coolly Frances had all she could do to keep from dumping the melting ice cubes in her lap.
“When you think of it, it makes sense,” Heidi said in her baby voice. She looked at Frances as if this really deserved credence.
“But not Steve,” Bill said with a motion to take the glasses from Frances. She stalked into the kitchen then, with Julia at her heels, laughing quietly.
“Where do you find these people?” Frances asked, so tense her mouth felt numb.
“I don’t know. I think they find me, thank God,” Julia mused, looking toward the living room, where Tyler Spaulding’s voice rose in some fierce condemnation of love.
“My God! Listen to her, an answer to everything. Isn’t it wonderful that life is so goddamn simple for some people.”
“She’s the new director of Harmony House.”
“She’s obnoxious!”
Julia paused, looking at her. “Frances, honestly now, don’t you get tired of it?” she asked, lowering her voice. “Bill’s old car and his Golden Oldies and—God—Heidi! After a while you don’t even hear the words. You need a break. Come on, Fran, you know what I mean. It’s always the same thing. We meet here. Bill puts the top down; he turns on his tapes, we hold our glasses over the side so they don’t spill, and then, when Roy Orbison comes on, Steve and Bill sing ‘Pretty Woman.’ We not only eat in the same three or four restaurants. But we say all the same things. We even order the same food.”
If she weren’t so stunned, she might have been amused that Julia’s captious dismissal was of the very estate she had spent her lifetime tending—respectability, harmony, constancy. There had been enough bizarre and violent nights growing up in her cousin’s cramped house to see her to the end of her days. A woman like Julia had no idea how tenuous it all was, how fragile; and, once toppled, how deep the wreckage, and how insidiously pervasive.
Her hand trembled as she splashed gin into the plastic tumblers. She added tonic water, then squeezed a plastic lime over each one, counting one, two, three drops. Her hair slipped across her face and her heart pounded and her breath whistled in her ears like wind through a chasm.
In spite of Steve’s not being here; in spite of this house’s falling so vindictively apart, springing leaks and shedding roof tiles, dropping its drainspouts and rupturing its plumbing lines as if it could not sustain itself without Horace, without Floyd, and knew her for the intruder she was; in spite of Martha—she would have a good time tonight. She could do that, could raise the sluice gates so hard and fast that nothing hurt. She looked up and smiled.
Relieved, Julia patted her arm. “The truth is, I really wanted Tyler to meet Martha. I think she can help her.”
“Help her? What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“She was doing so well in town,” Julia said. “And now up here she’s totally isolated again.”
“Isolated? I’d hardly call being home isolated!”
“Frannie, there she was busy, going places.…”
“And being taunted,” interrupted Frances, “and laughed at and completely obsessed with those … those people she worked with! At least here I know she’s safe.”
Julia stared at her. “She’s no more safe here than she is in town! At least there she’s got some purpose, a life of her own,” she said, her voice rising.
Frances put her arms around Julia. “Happy Birthday, dear,” she whispered, “and, for once, mind your own goddamn business!”
Martha was glad they were finally leaving. She wanted to call Jane Martin, the telephone supervisor, and see if she could find out if she had talked to Birdy. At the end of the hallway, Frances and Julia and Heidi Pierce lingered in the wide foyer by the open door. The headlights from Bill Pierce’s old Cadillac bounced off the women’s faces as the shark fins of the long white car turned in the circle. A song blared outside: Elvis Presley singing “Jailhouse Rock.” Laughing, the three women sang together as Frances swiveled back and forth in an exaggerated version of the Twist.
Just then the bathroom door opened a crack and Julia’s friend Tyler Spaulding peeked out and waved her over, the very person Martha had been avoiding. She remembered her coming into the Cleaners right after she had torn the pocket off Mr. Gately’s jacket.
“Excuse me, but I’m so embarrassed,” she said, gesturing behind her. “It won’t flush.” She grimaced. “I hate to just leave it.”
“Oh. It was the Herebondes,” Martha muttered, her eyes avoiding this young woman’s keen blue stare.
“Hair? I don’t know.… I …”
“The Herebondes,” she said, rubbing her arm up and down, up and down, staring past Tyler Spaulding at the bathroom window. “The Herebondes!”
“Hair buns,” said the young woman, recoiling. “Hair buns?” Her pale cheeks colored.
“It was all her flushing. Her, the Herebonde girl. She kept on flushing it,” Martha explained, mired in the futility of it all. “You don’t know her. So I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it. But you have to get out!”
“I’m sorry.” Tyler Spaulding fled down the hallway.
Martha lifted the cover off the tank and set it on the floor. The metal hook connecting the arm to the ballcock had broken off. One more thing Frances would blame her for.
She opened the medicine cabinet and broke off a strand of dental floss, which she threaded through the holes in the metal arm, then into the ring at the top of the slimy ballcock.
“Ty forgot her bag.”
Martha looked up to see Julia Prine slip a canvas purse off the doorknob. She stepped closer and peered into the toilet tank.
“What a good idea! Aren’t you clever! I’ll have to remember that!”
Martha pressed the lever, and smiled when the water flushed through the bowl.
“It works!” Julia laughed.
“I just thought of it!” she said, grinning.
“You’re a very clever woman, Martha!” Julia looked at her. “A lot more clever than you give yourself credit for!” she said with an embarrassing intensity. “Listen! How about dinner some night? Just the two of us,” Julia said, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. “We’ll have a great time. I’ll call you,” she said, and left before Martha could refuse. She had only gone out to dinner twice in her life, both times with Frances.
The minute the door closed, she dialed “0” and asked to speak with Jane Martin. The operator said Jane Martin was not on duty; would she like another supervisor? She hung up without answering and dialed Birdy’s number repeatedly, hanging up each time she heard, “I am sorry … I am sorry … I am sorry …”
“No, you’re not!” she screamed back. “No, you’re not!”
Seven
Sunday had been a long hot yellow day. Now, as the sun went down, the cicadas’ crackling intensified, and in the distance a bright haze clung to the mountaintops. The mud where the deck had been was cracked and gray, and its fine powdery dust had sifted through the open windows onto all the sills and tabletops.
Frances’s drive to Albany today with Steve had had to be canceled when he could not get Anita into Peaceview. The only other alternative was the state hospital, which his daughters wouldn’t even consider, so Steve had spent the day trying to hire three shifts of private nurses.
&
nbsp; “Well, let me know,” Frances had said into the phone, her eyes closed. “I know.… Of course, I understand.… Where? Oh yes. I’ve heard of that.… When? But, Steve, that’s your birthday! She’ll be better by then!”
After she hung up, she came into the kitchen, where she banged pans and slammed the cupboard doors as she made herself a cup of coffee. She turned and glared at Martha, who was eating a sandwich at the table.
“They want him to take her someplace out west. The same time as his birthday!” She shook her head. “This isn’t fair. It really isn’t.” She went to the door and looked down at the cavity of dry mud and groaned. “What does it matter, with this mess, anyway?”
Martha continued to chew as she read the Sunday paper. Turning the page, she saw an ad for the Cleaners. This week’s special was six shirts cleaned for the price of five. That was always a popular coupon special. They would be so busy they would keep forgetting to ask for the coupons. She never forgot. Never once. As she folded the paper, she felt like crying.
A car labored up the driveway, its loud engine racing. Frances shaded her eyes and peered through the sink window. A door creaked open, closed, and then the board to the door rattled.
“You Mrs. Beecham? My name’s Colin Mackey and I’m here about this ad.”
Martha looked up.
“Come in,” Frances was saying as she opened the door.
He was the same man who had come when the Herebondes had been here. This time he was clean-shaven and his pants were wrinkled but rolled down. He wore the same scarred shoes, still without socks but now tied. His hair looked as ragged as before. His hands trembled and he wet his cracked lips constantly.
“I figured you’d be an old lady,” he said, his eyes fixed on Frances, his smile a wince.
“I will be if this place gets much worse,” she said, glancing away from his urgent stare. “Do you do carpentry work?”
“That and some electrical and some plumbing. I’m very handy.” His smile widened. “And very desperate for work.”
Frances stiffened. “Do you have any references?”
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