by Lisa Howorth
Startled by this salvo, Mary Byrd said, “Mann! Don’t.”
“You’d feel a little differently if that baboon had given your candy ass a turkey stride,” Wiggs said through his hankie. “Give me a smoke.”
“I need one, too,” said Mary Byrd. “And another drink. Or three or four.”
Wiggs wanted to go straight back to the Holiday Inn to nurse his patrician nose and medicate himself with vodka. He wouldn’t eat anyway, but they stopped and got him a chicken-on-a-stick and tater logs at the Chevron. Mann cautiously negotiated the downtown traffic; students were beginning to come out and were careening around in their big, fat death chariots on their way to the first parties of the night.
When Mann and Mary Byrd returned to the house, the sitter had Emergency 911 on and didn’t want to stop watching long enough to be walked home. “Some guys were scuba diving and a pipe fell on one guy’s air hose. His girlfriend saved him. He has a cool Rolex,” she said.
“That’s why she wanted to save him,” said Mann. “Gold diggers, all of you.” The sitter eyed him suspiciously for a second and turned back to the TV.
“Let me cook something quick, M’Byrd. I’m vanquished,” Mann said.
Mary Byrd looked around the counter for the science unfair proposals that of course weren’t there. She called the Pink Palace looking for Charles but he hadn’t come in yet. She asked the Palace to give him the message that they couldn’t make it and were home, then she went upstairs to check on the children. Charles wasn’t going to be happy with her.
William was asleep in his bed, hair still damp from his shower. She sniffed it and didn’t smell shampoo, so he’d just faked a hair-washing. He’d better not get the damn cooties again.
Mouth slightly open, he lay on his back with a few of his favorite gadgets and models arranged by his head: pocket knife, binoculars, and a small model war plane still in his hand. Beside him, open, was Jane’s Guide to Fighting Aircraft. Mary Byrd knew he had conked out—no one conked out like little boys—midflight, on some dangerous, epic bombing mission to Nagasaki or Dresden or Pearl Harbor. He didn’t favor Japs or Germans, of course, but he loved their planes and tanks. His favorite, the one in his hand, was a little Russian Seagull, a plane so primitive that at Stalingrad it had flown so low and slow that Messerschmitts couldn’t hit them. Peeking from under his pillow were his tanks: a German Mark VI Tiger, and a Shturmovik that William could tell you had destroyed the Third, Ninth, and Seventeenth Panzer divisions at the Battle of Kursk. Where the hell was Kursk? William could go straight to the huge world map on his wall and show you.
For a minute Mary Byrd imagined William dead, and shuddered. She kissed him, and, knowing he would knock his stuff to the floor in the night, she moved it all to the bedside table, picking up some empty Skittles boxes and throwing them in his Ninja Turtles trash can.
Eliza was still awake reading a trashy teenage novel that no doubt involved dope in lockers, heinous, clueless parents, and lots of near-sex. Mary Byrd lay down beside her. Her bed was so comfortable and poofy. There were about six inches of down underneath the sheets and comforter, and two feet of down on top, and several big, squishy pillows piled at the head.
“Mom.” Eliza protested. “Why are you home?”
“Don’t read that junk, please,” said Mary Byrd. “Read something classic or uplifting.” She wound a piece of Eliza’s damp blonde hair around her finger.
Eliza jerked her head away. “Like what? The Weekly World News that you always look at at the JFC?”
“I have to keep up with what’s going on in the world, don’t I?”
“Yeah,” said Eliza, “Like what Bat Boy and Misbehavin and that guy Nostrildamus are up to?”
“Exactly. Let’s see your hands.” Mary Byrd put her daughter’s hand against her own, remembering Eliza as a new baby and her hands that had looked like tiny stars when she was full and happy, and when she was hungry—practically always—had been knotty little fists pressed up against her cheeks, those huge chipmunk pouches and that precious potato head, like Charles’s. She was surprised that Eliza had prettied up so much.
“My nails are clean,” Eliza protested.
Mary Byrd ignored her. “Wow. Your fingers are as long as mine already. That means you’re creative. You’ll be a pianist or a painter, I’ll bet.”
“A surgeon. Like Big William. Who cares about creative?” she sniffed. “Mom, get up.”
“I care. Dad cares,” said Mary Byrd. From downstairs came the smell of hot olive oil and garlic. “You go to sleep.”
“Why are you home? Where’s Dad?” Eliza asked.
“Ed had to take some pictures, and we decided not to eat out, so I guess Dad is on his way home.”
“Why do you and Daddy hang around with him anyway? He’s always drunk and creepy and says mean things to Mann.”
“Drunk and creepy? Ed? You can’t mean that.” They both laughed.
“No, for real,” said Eliza.
“You know why. He’s a really great photographer, one of the most famous in the world, and Dad sells a lot of his work.”
“Yeah, but what good is being famous if you don’t know how to act?” asked Eliza.
“That’s a good question. But when Ed’s not drunk and acting up, he is really, really smart and interesting and, I swear, charming.”
“Huh.”
“Maybe brilliant people should get cut a little slack, do you think?”
“Nope. Liddie wouldn’t have liked him.”
“Probably not. But Liddie would have tolerated him and been polite to him anyway, right?”
“Maybe. But she wouldn’t hang around with him. And she would have said something like, ‘He is such a bore. Have you evah?’” Eliza was great at imitating her grandmother. They laughed again.
“But I bet he would straighten up around someone like Liddie and be the perfect gentleman. She had that effect on people.”
“Why don’t you have that effect on people, Mom?”
“Not cut from the same cloth, I guess. Liddie’s silk, and I’m …”
“Polyester,” said Eliza.
“Thanks, pal. I was going to say denim, at least.”
“Whatever.”
Mary Byrd wondered if she should tell Eliza about Evagreen—she might hear about it at school in the morning—but decided against it. She reluctantly got off the bed and bent and kissed Eliza’s face seven times, all over. Eliza narrowed her eyes and scrutinized her mother.
“Madison said her mom saw you kissing someone.”
Mary Byrd stiffened a little. “Oh yeah? Who was that?”
“Some old man. One of those guys of Dad’s.”
“Pfft. I kiss those guys all the time. Is there a law against kissing? Is that the eleventh commandment or something? Thou shalt not kiss?”
“A gross kiss.”
“If it was one of Dad’s guys, I was probably giving him CPR. And besides, the Durthes are Church of God or Church of Christ or one of those religions that believe that dancing is a sin, for god’s sake.”
Eliza was silent.
Mary Byrd said, “Look, sometimes you just have to kiss people. Some people are needy.”
“On the lips?”
“Oh, jeez, Eliza. Yes, on the lips. Lots of people kiss on the lips. Liddie and Evelyn and Big William kissed on the lips. Europeans kiss on the lips. Big deal. Dad kisses people all the time.”
Eliza said, “Yeah, Dad kisses Mann.”
This gave Mary Byrd pause and she tried to read her daughter’s face. Kidding? Charles and Mann often joked that they were a couple, and that it took both of them to be a husband to Mary Byrd. Then she said lightly, “Exactly. Ha ha. Be sure to tell Madison that. Stop making things up to worry about.”
“Well, stop doing embarrassing things!” Eliza practically shouted. “Stop wearing that stupid FUPA skirt!””
“God, you’re insane!” She couldn’t help but laugh. “What’s wrong with this skirt? What’s FUPA mean?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Eliza said. “Why don’t you ask one of your supposedly cool friends?”
“Okay, I will. Now go to sleep before I call Whitfield to come get you.”
“Hmph. They need to come get you.”
“Fine. At least then I might find some people down there who’ll be nice to me for a change.”
“Yeah,” said Eliza viciously. “You might find some slobbery retards and head-banger psychos you can kiss all the time, too.”
“O-kay!” Mary Byrd turned to go, saying cheerfully, “Don’t say ‘retards.’ Night-night, Miss Mean. Seepy-seep!” She turned off the light and closed the door. “Love you!” she called.
Eliza yelled back, “Yeah, right!”
Mary Byrd understood that possibly her most important function as a mother was to be a punching bag. Fine. Who else would Eliza take her hormone-driven insecurities and rage out on? Well, William, of course. Poor little guy.
When Mary Byrd got to the stairs, Eliza jerked open her door and said, “I already know about Evagreen. Roderick’s sister works in Mr. Barksdales’s office and the twins told me.” Her lovely face looked vulnerable now.
“Okay,” Mary Byrd said tiredly, and sadly. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
Mary Byrd thought she knew about children, about taking care of them, anyway—the nuts and bolts. She’d taken care of her brothers since she was Eliza’s age. She’d certainly thought a lot about children all her life: about being one, about being a stepchild or a half-sibling, about having a child, and about losing it. But she did not know how to show her children how to be happy, or to give them happiness, which seemed to be the most important thing of all—certainly more important than piano lessons or Sunday School or SAT scores. Did any parents know? As Liddie used to say, “You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.” Eliza and William were good kids—intelligent, warm-hearted, stable. Except for Eliza’s preteen surliness, she thought they were fine. Mary Byrd hoped deeply that they’d stay that way, and she believed that with a little luck, because luck seemed to have everything to do with it, they would.
She and Mann sat in her kitchen and ate the fried egg and sautéed pepper sandwiches on stale French bread that Mann had constructed, and drank red wine. Mary Byrd wasn’t very hungry. She lit a Camel Light.
“Pretty good, if I do say so myself,” said Mann. “But I was kind of craving the pink center. And I think Wiggs was craving yours.”
“Shut up. He is not the least bit interested in me.” She sipped some wine. “And things are too screwed up for one of those conversations,” she said. “Anyway, he doesn’t even seem sexual, somehow. Like a lot of people who are, you know, interested mostly in themselves and what they do.” She didn’t really want the smoke and stubbed it out.
“Yeah, I guess,” said Mann, sopping olive oil with a hunk of bread. “This Chianti isn’t bad,” he said. “Even if it doesn’t have the black cock on the label.” He examined the bottle. “Hey, did you notice he was wearing the bulge exaggerator again? Dressed on the left this time, which I think is a signal.”
“I thought you didn’t like him, butt head.” She ate a few bites of fried egg. They were delicious. What would the world do without eggs?
“Of course I don’t.” He started singing sillily, “What’s like got to do, got to do with it?” Then, “He’s just so incredibly good-looking, all I’m saying. And you know what we say out at the coops: cock’s cock, even on livestock.” He picked up a box of matches. “I’m like these. A strike-anywhere kind of guy.”
She couldn’t help but give a little laugh. “You are so not that. You are more afraid of cooties than I am,” she said. “Now I am wondering where Charles is. If one more fucked-up thing happens today, I’ll kill myself.”
“You didn’t even get those prints or anything, did you,” said Mann, stating a fact.
“No,” sighed Mary Byrd. “Charles will be pissed. But I have the excuse about the Bons. Maybe Charles can get with Wiggs in the morning.” She bit off more sandwich. “Is it my idea that almost everything revolves around or happens because of sex? Either too much of it or too little of it or the wrong kind of it? Or did I read that somewhere?” she said. “I mean, Angie killed Rod because he had a girlfriend. My stepbrother got—”
Mann cut her off, waving his little hands. “We are not going there now. You might have bad dreams.”
“I’ve been feeling all day like I’m in a bad dream!” Mary Byrd sighed loudly. “This stupid trip, and now what are we going to do about Angie?”
“What can you do?” Mann said. “You don’t even know what’s really happened.”
“I bet Teever will know something, if I can scare him up.” She wondered if he’d seen his message at the JFC yet.
“Yeah, but will it be true?”
“I don’t know—his information is surprisingly reliable.”
“Okay, so you know the details, then what?” Mann shrugged his shoulders.
“God. What a mess.” Mary Byrd said, absently scraggling up her hair with both hands. “And what good is it going to do for me to hear new crap about my stepbrother?” she asked.
“Because duh—didn’t we already do this? There will be one less bad guy in the world,” Mann said.
“How am I going to get up there? I can’t be ready to go ’til Saturday, and the airport might close.”
“Hmm,” said Mann. “We’ve got a truck going up north on Saturday. Maybe that could work?” He laughed. “I’d love to see it!”
“Very funny.”
He cocked his head and said seriously, “Actually, why not? Foote Slay—you know him—we took some papers to his house that time. He’s our best driver.”
“Uh-huh. And what do you think Charles will say?”
“I’ll take care of Charles. Let me look into it.”
“You’re nuts. I can’t think any more about it right now.” She was so tired. “I’m sorry to drag you into all this, Mann. Thanks for coming over. I don’t know why you hang around with me—I’m depressed and depressing.”
“I know,” he said. “I guess I just always want to see what’s going to happen next.”
Mann left, walking the sitter out with him. Mary Byrd picked up the Spode plates, oily from the drippy peppers, and ate the rest of her egg with her fingers before putting the dish in the dishwasher. In went the silverware; she shouldn’t have used the sterling because the eggs and the stainless stuff would tarnish it, but she liked to use her nice things for Mann.
Charles should be home any minute, she thought. Where was he? Maybe he was up to no good, but she let the thought go. She was too exhausted and distracted. Besides, Charles was almost exclusively up to good. She just wanted him to get home and help her deal with Evagreen’s mess, and talk about going to Richmond, and she wanted to admit to her failure to secure what was needed from Wiggs and take her licks for that.
She wondered what Ernest had called for. Drunk again, she supposed. There was nothing to say. Still, it would be nice to hear him say nothing right now. Crazy thing.
Mary Byrd didn’t bother with the greasy pan and began making her nightly rounds turning off lights, locking up, making sure Mann had turned the stove off, situating Puppy Sal and the Pounder and making sure Iggy and Irene were inside for the night. She left the driveway floodlight on for Charles even though he deserved to come home to the reprimand of a dark house and fumble his way around the bikes and dog bowls and possible eviscerated voles and garden tools on the porch.
Passing though the hall on her way upstairs again, she paused, as she often did, at the engraved portrait of Charles’s ancestor and her crush, William Byrd, and the framed manuscript page from his amazing diary. Of all the lovely, heirloomy things Charles had, this was far and away her favorite. Using a seventeenth-century shorthand textbook called La Plume Volante, Byrd had written his entries in a cryptic scrawl that hadn’t been transcribed and published until 1941. But long before t
hat, some manuscript pages with horny entries had gone missing from the original text in the Virginia Historical Society. How Charles’s family had come by the manuscript page was sketchy. Charles suspected either his very prudish Victorian great aunt or her infamously lecherous husband—an uncle only by marriage—of having pilfered the pages, or at least this particular page. They really ought to give the page back to the VHS. But then, why? It belonged to the family, didn’t it? She would hate to give it up. The translation of the entry was penciled on the back—the children hadn’t discovered this, or didn’t give a rat’s ass. Mary Byrd knew it by heart, anyway.
[September 26, 1711] I rose about 6 o’clock and read a chapter in Hebrew and some Greek in Lucian. I said my prayers and ate milk and rhubarb for breakfast. I danced my dance. I settled several accounts and wrote some of my journal. It was fine warm weather but there was great want of rain for the grass. I ate roast pork for dinner. In the afternoon I rogered my wife on the billiard table. Captain H-n-t came and told me he had but 70 hogshead on board and the reason was because people gave notes for tobacco which was not ready. About 4 o’clock I took a walk with him to Mrs. Harrison’s to inquire when she would send her tobacco. She gave us apples and wine and told me that Colonel Harrison was very much indisposed and drooped without being sick and believed that he should never see Williamsburg again. In the evening we returned home where my family and people were well, thank God. At night I had several people whipped for being lazy in the morning. I said my prayers and had good health, good thoughts, and good humor, thank God Almighty.
In spite of his colonial cruelties, somehow Mary Byrd had long adored William Byrd—had known him longer than she’d known Charles, since her William and Mary days. In fact, she knew that some part of her initial attraction to Charles had to do with his being descended from Byrd, and that he and his ancestor, who had been born more than three hundred years earlier, seemed so much alike. Not the cruelty, but his stoic swashbucklingness, or something.
She knew Byrd intimately. At William and Mary she’d pored over Byrd’s insanely extensive and anal-retentive diaries—volumes and volumes he’d written detailing life on his James River plantation, participation in the House of Burgesses, laying out the cities of Richmond and Petersburg, acting as colonial agent and diplomat in London, commanding the militia for two counties, and surveying the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina. He wrote in it every fucking day about every fucking thing that was going on, from his bowels and his wife’s periods to the state of his tobacco crops. It was irresistible to Mary Byrd that she could get such an intimate glimpse into early eighteenth-century life; the diaries were practically a time machine and fed the voyeur in her. She’d read other early American diarists in American lit class, but the bloodless, spiritual ruminations of the chilly Yankee, Cotton Mather, couldn’t touch the earthy, sticky, and stinking humanity of Byrd’s diary.