What is it I want? I asked myself as I sat down on the sofa and pulled a fur throw over my legs. Will today be breakdown time? Where’s my concern for my grandfather hiding? Was all this evening’s mess just deflection, avoidance of having to deal with that greater reality? Is my heart trouble a way to keep from dealing with Ham’s, with the real thing, or have I been too numb all week, too closed to any feelings except anger? I still feel plenty of that. I spotted two crystal decanters filled with clear liquid on the small hunt board across the room. Maybe one more. I arose to refill my glass. Removing the crystal stopper from one, I inhaled the sharp spirits and shook my head. “Still too early for gin,” I laughed and poured from the second carafe.
After a few sips, I went to sleep on the couch until Jigger’s plaintive cry woke me. Once inside, he snuggled up beside me on the couch, and we both went back to sleep.
It’s as if I expect an epiphany, some key moment of insight that will result in my ceasing to care. Why was Michael more in my thoughts now that he had rejected me than he was before? Aunt Elizabeth would say thwarted goal, lack of attainment—fuck Aunt Elizabeth. But it was lack of something—loss of hope. The end of possibility. Being stuck with only myself again, my miserable, loathsome childish self. Not until yesterday had other people’s pain made me feel good. I have no character, I am devoid of any sense of humor about myself or anything else. Here I am at thirty, stuck in the stupid suspension of my own animated adolescence! As long as I’m with my crazy family and their muddled messes, I’ll never grow up. Passive aggressive victim. An internal bitch--afraid until last week to set myself free. A woman of sanguine heart—just like the killer. Anger and hurt, that’s all I feel. No, don’t forget hopelessness—buckets of hopelessness and nameless guilt. Mustn’t forget to wallow in the guilt.
Robert will have a mother who understands him—all that damned child psychology. The playing field has never been equal. I have a law degree and have never tried a case. Aunt Elizabeth had two Ph.D.’s—one in life experience and another in interpreting that experience. Hell, the fox was in my bosom, and I was too stupid to know it. I thought she was my best friend.
AT 10:00 A.M. I poured myself a third glass of mystery juice. Holly Scott, J.D. Now I know why I hated to come back to Delta Ridge. My father killed himself here and left my mother crazy. My dead uncle’s estate is being contested by his boyfriend’s brother, and I’ve inherited my dead uncle’s job as prosecutor—once I run for it and win, a minor problem. “My legacy from you, old Uncle Garland in the urn.” I raised my glass in toast as I tilted sideways through the wide doorway to study the large pedestal and vase in the hall.
“Thou still unravished bride of solitude and slow time,” I toasted again, laughing at my botching of Keats, and said, “Actually, that’s me,” laughed again and drank. “Yes, my legacy, dear Uncle is to try the most popular man in town for the murder of the most unpopular woman, with, of course, the man I love who, next week or next month or when the hell ever, will become my new uncle.
“Even now as I speak,” and I had been speaking for quite some time, the liquor having given me voice, I continued, “even now. After all, it’s Saturday morning—’even now they leap to dexterous sheets.’ ‘The heyday in her blood’ ought to be tame and ‘wait upon the judgment.’ The lustful, old bitch! ‘Frailty thy name is woman!’” Now speaking very loudly, and realizing that I was drunk, I arose from the couch, my stage, and wove my way through the hall, patted the urn, said “Goodnight, Sweet Prince,” and gingerly climbed the stairs to find my bed.
But I couldn’t sleep. I turned slowly from my back to my left side where nausea found me. “Jesus,” I said, staring at the clock on the bedside table. Running carefully to the bathroom, I fell on my knees, and embraced the commode. Fifteen minutes later, when all the clear fluids appeared to have been flushed both from my body and from the house, the dry heaves began. I continued to hug my porcelain lover for another fifteen minutes, resting my head on its plastic rim. Finally, I released my anchor and reached for a towel. Staggering to my feet for another fifteen minutes, I stood under the pulsating showerhead soaking hair and body and praying for death. Then, downing two crushed Tylenol in a teaspoon of water I hoped stayed down, I fell prone across my bed with arms extended like wings and fingers like talons embedded in the sides of the mattress to hold both it and myself steady. When I opened my eyes again, it was 5:00 o’clock.
Gingerly, I raised my nude body from the bed, touching myself to see if I were dead. I wanted a gallon of water but dared not drink. “Water, water, everywhere,” I said to my pale face in the mirror as I studied eyes that looked terminal. Thinking I had no time to treat their blackness nor their puffiness, I asked aloud, “Why don’t I stay home? So what if the lovers think I’m not able to appear? I’m not.” With pencils, brushes, and an unsteady hand I attempted to draw a living face.
On my bed I discarded first the black dress: too appropriate, the red dress: almost as appropriate, the gray dress: the color of my face; they’ll think they’ve killed me, finally settling on a jade green silk suit: strong enough to compete with my hair and overshadow my face.
“A LITTLE CLUB soda,” I responded to Jack’s drink request as I studied Uncle Garland’s flower-filled living room which reminded me of Russell’s Funeral Home. “I should have brought Uncle Garland home for a visit,” I said to myself, only half amused.
“Holly, I’m so glad Dr. Sullivan’s here. We haven’t visited in years.” Like a palomino stallion, Victoria, swathed in tawny suede, pranced toward me with Dr. Sullivan and Binky walking in tandem beside her.
“Have you missed anyone today, Holly?” Dr. Sullivan’s eyes twinkled. “He was asleep in my living room when I left”
“Who? Oh, Jigger. I took a nap. I guess I forgot about him. Thank you, Dr. Sullivan.” I felt the first color of the day rush to my cheeks.
“You needed the rest, Honey,” was Victoria’s predictable motherly response. Even my supporters are making jokes at my expense, I thought.
“How’s the murder investigation coming, Holly?” Donna Brooks’ shrill voice filled the room. Why did she have to ask from a mile away? I wondered.
“The prosecutor is here tonight. Have you checked with him?” I glanced toward Michael, who was standing between Aunt Elizabeth and Marshall Brooks at the fireplace.
“He’s not very forthcoming,” Donna shook her head as Jack returned with the club soda that I was afraid to drink.
“I was sorry the Balls couldn’t come,” Donna continued, always first with the news.
“Why not?” I felt the need to respond as we stood in the center of the room, Victoria, Binky, and Dr. Sullivan having drifted back into their previous conversation about Ham’s health, which Jack Walker had joined.
I seem to be the only Carter woman not a magnet to the men, I thought, as I tried to appear interested in Donna’s response.
“Bootsy and the baby have been sick all week with the flu, and Billy had a meeting in Little Rock today. I called Bootsy to see if she wanted to come with us, but she said the baby’s still sick, and she was afraid to leave her. You’d think Billy could come up with some medicine to help the situation. Or maybe his stocks are low at the pharmacy.” Bella Donna laughed loudly at her own joke.
I heard the doorbell and wondered who else could be joining this menagerie. All I could think about was avoiding Michael and Aunt Elizabeth and getting home early without too much conversation. At least Donna liked to do the talking. I glanced at the door as Queen Esther showed a young dark-haired, dark-skinned girl into the room. She looks familiar, I thought.
“Hello, Holly,” the girl caught my eye. “When I met Mr. Martin yesterday, he asked me to join you for dinner.”
“How nice,” I recovered quickly. “Donna, this is C. G. Anderson, Dr. Anderson. She’s returning to Delta Ridge this summer to take over her sister’s practice. You remember… Dr. Avon Wallace.”
Seeing the pained look on Donna’s face is wor
th all my suffering, I thought. I do enjoy others’ misery. I watched as Donna attempted to overcome her abhorrence and find words.
“How nice,” she said as if my last words were the only ones she could remember and repeat.
IN THE WEE hours of the morning, I ignored the implacable telephone until its third set of rings. Michael sounded stricken as he told me of the latest murder: Bootsy Ball, stabbed scores of times –but fewer than Avon Wallace – and posed on the bed, naked. Even her eyes were naked. She had clearly not expected visitors, or she would have been wearing some mascara.
20 Jack Calls
JACK WALKER CALLED me twice during the week, and each time I stalled on the dinner date he kept pressuring me to schedule while I proclaimed too much work and too much pressure in a town under siege. Friday when I arrived at home after work, the phone was ringing. “I’m coming over and bringing pizza,” he said. “You need a break, and so do I.” He hung up before I could respond. Irritated, I tried to call him back but realized I didn’t know his phone number or where he lived. I called directory assistance, but found he had no listed number. Then I tried the hospital and was told he had gone for the day: “No, his home number could not be released.” He could live in a cardboard box or in the back of the shoe store for all I know. I called the Hall thinking I might go there for dinner and avoid him and his rudeness all together.
Lee answered the phone and told me that Victoria and Charlotte had made a quick trip to the farm to look after the horses but would be back tomorrow. Ham had had a restless night and was already asleep. Felicia had other plans for the evening.
Felicia had become my new comrade in arms. She was as mad about the new alliance as I was and was showing it, at least to me. “How can I ever have a normal relationship with a mother who flits from one man to another? She eats them up quicker than you can devour a box of popcorn. When the romance goes out the door, she’s out the window.” I didn’t know about the logistics of that nor did I care. Commiserating with Felicia helped to relieve some of my own hurt and anger without claiming any personal involvement in the situation. I could play older, wiser sister or cousin pretty well, I thought, but Felicia might have thought otherwise, since she had not yet returned to Vine Street.
I suspected that at the Hall, Felicia was getting all the sympathy she needed from Charlotte and Victoria; and that, because of his heart, Ham was being kept in the dark. Sara Lee told me that Aunt Elizabeth had been visiting Ham on her lunch hour; and I grimly supposed she thought that was a way she could avoid running into me at the Hall and still have her evenings free for Michael. I was so paranoid that I placed myself in every imagined scenario; and I was pretty sure that I belonged in one of them. I certainly didn’t want to see Aunt Elizabeth either. I wasn’t talking regularly to anyone except Felicia, and no one else was talking to me. I suspected it was because my mother and grandmother still saw me as a child, not to be brought into such matters.
Supplying plenty of comfort and love for Felicia was another story, and while I could have used a chapter from that playbook,
I knew it wasn’t forthcoming. Why should it? In everyone else’s eyes, I was merely a bystander in the whole Michael and Aunt Elizabeth husband-of-the-day play. The new duo had become the Delta Ridge version of the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton conflagration and with a few spottings at restaurant back tables the talk of the town.
But, of course, I was still the central character in all the plays my mind staged and in the novels I creatively read. In the words of Zelda Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby’s femme fatale, “I only know how I feel.” Surely, Aunt Elizabeth knew I was the one most in need of comfort. She also knew that, rationalize however she might, she was the betrayer, the villainess of the piece, and therefore, the last person who could offer me succor. She also had to know that it was to me she must atone to for her trashy behavior. In my mind Aunt Elizabeth had committed the unpardonable sin against innocence, my innocence, and I hoped that my presence was a constant reminder of that betrayal—the irritating sand scratching against her sweet pearl shell. I knew that I was the one impediment to her thinking super well of herself as she so liked to do. She had to be living in avoidance mode. Seeing wretched Holly would be a real downer. Snide Felicia was already giving her hell enough. She certainly didn’t want the rest of the family to know the truth and depth of her betrayal.
Suffering in silence was becoming far more than a cliché to me, and the only panacea was work, doing it and thinking about it. That and the luxury of being at home in the Vine Street house were getting me through my ditch of despair. My brain overworked itself finding new ways to pity me. Seen in Delta Ridge as the girl envied for her large supportive family, I was the “little match girl” in my mind, alone on the cold street—anonymous in my pain with no one to confide in, no defender or supporter, and no one other than the villain and villainess to know that I needed any sustenance at all.
Everything in my play was ironic. I had come home from obligation—yes, but also to be healed; and yes again—every day for three months the universe had sent me my own guardian angel, good mother, and private therapist in the living embodiment of Saint Elizabeth, who was eager to help me find again what the loss of my father and abandonment by my mother had taken away. Michael was a cipher here, just another double-dealing man. He was now only the latest spineless chump who had succumbed to her overused and tiresome seduction techniques. I followed the typical and trite female playbook in believing that only my Aunt Elizabeth was to blame, and only she had broken my heart.
Weekends were a major problem; they brought unbound time, filled with loneliness—feelings of isolation and desertion. It may sound dramatic, but it’s honest, and I’m learning I have to be honest with myself before I can deal with anyone else—those I love and my casualties of misplaced trust of love gone wrong.
DURING THE WEEK, I was the diligent hermit working alone in my closed-up office surrounded by stacks of case-files. Only Marie or Sara Lee would occasionally check to see if I were still breathing. Michael had perfected the male avoidance stance. Both he and Aunt Elizabeth had become invisible to me in the office building. When I visited Ham for his evening briefing, he acted as if he had been waiting all day for me to appear. Even his nagging (bull dog bites at my heels) seemed to have turned into puppy nibbles. I knew that my assessment wasn’t realistic, what with Charlotte and Victoria in the house, but my ego was so hungry that it feasted on whatever delusion I stumbled over.
Still no words could describe the relief I felt when I left work and made a quick visit to see Ham at the Hall. I was his foot soldier, his dough boy in the trenches, and every night he proposed another wild scheme or errand for me to do the following day. Mostly I said, “What a brilliant idea, Ham,” and dumped it in Lethe (the river of forgetfulness). I suspected that we both would swim awhile there. Ham was taking his sleeping potions, and me, the self-prescribed blood of the vineyard.
My favorite time of day was six o’clock, the time I filled Jigger’s food and water bowls and pulled the white wine bottle out of the freezer—so cold it frosted the thin-stemmed glass. After I filled my glass to the rim, I sat down by the fire in the dining room club chair with my loyal best friend, whom I decided had not snitched on me, by my side. I sipped and sipped my favorite sauvignon blanc as I conversed about our day. I asked Jigger what the weather had been like on Vine Street all day, and how many times he’d exited the house through the new doggy-door in the kitchen since I’d had it installed in a former closet with no window. Then I planned the night’s work while eating a solo take-out or a tasty Lean Cuisine. (Queen Esther was now cooking meals for the family at the Hall.) After ingesting my low-calorie meal and with no dishes to clean, time for my true purpose began.
Ever so cautiously I made my way down the cellar steps. The light was dim, but with the kitchen flashlight I could read the file headings in every drawer of my daddy’s four wooden file-cabinets—cabinets that contained his working life long before ev
erything was put entirely Online. The ease of computer technology probably wouldn’t have mattered to Dad. I could tell that like most of my family he was old school and would have preferred a hard copy in front of him. He made numerous notes to accompany each file on a yellow, legal pad. Reading his notes was a favored part of my underground detective work. For a few brief seconds, like the flickering of a weak candle flame before it dies out, Daddy was with me. When it vanished, he vanished, and I resumed the role of a robot, an automaton that skimmed file after file until she found the pertinent ones containing cases tried in the last years of his life. Time expired or task completed, I emerged from my subterranean file room to spread my nightly cache in luxury across the dining room table.
In a relatively short span I developed a system: I would bring up five files a night, review them, take my own notes if they seemed significant, and return them to the basement the next evening when I would begin anew. My routine, my rhythm, kept me working seven nights a week providing some relief from my self-absorption, self-pity, and chronic fatigue. Daddy, I told myself, is in purgatory in this house (never mind that he wasn’t Catholic) and only I can free him. I can atone for my years of neglect by unceasing labor.
Delta Ridge Page 20