“So you add excitement to this dreary life of yours by seducing my husband?”
“Yes. Is that what you want me to say? Yes, yes, YES!”
“Revenge?”
“No. I really don’t think so.”
Cig calmed down. “A reasonable person would not sleep with her sister’s husband. It’s too close to home, forgive the old saw.”
“Cig, you didn’t want him anymore. Be honest.”
“I wanted him. I didn’t love him anymore. I couldn’t trust him. I can’t love someone I can’t trust.”
Grace burst into tears again. “And now you’ll never trust me.”
“Not around a man, no, I won’t trust you. Of course, what have you got to worry about? I’m not going out with anyone. I probably never will.”
“Everyone recently widowed says that.”
“Thank you, Psychology 101.” She threw a pillow at Grace’s head who ducked. “What are you, some kind of nymphomaniac?”
“No. I like men. I don’t sleep with every one of them.”
“Grace, has it ever occurred to you that actions have consequences?”
“Yes—usually after the fact. I never have learned, ‘Look before you leap,’” she ruefully confessed. “You know when Blackie and I started flirting, only flirting mind you, I didn’t think it would lead anywhere. And when it did, I don’t know, I didn’t worry about it. Like I said, it seemed so innocent.”
‘You knew you were anything but innocent. You tell me everything. You lied about this.”
“I didn’t lie. I—withheld the truth.”
“Liar.”
“Oh, have it your way, Cig. You’re always right! What would you have had me do—rush up and blab, ‘Cig, Blackie and I kind of tumbled into it. Hope you don’t mind. Really, it doesn’t mean a thing.’”
“You could have stopped after the first time.”
“I suppose I could—but I didn’t. And Blackie had enough for everyone. You weren’t cheated.”
“That’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my entire life! Because he has enough energy to have sex with me, it’s okay? What are we, stuffed olives? He just went around jamming in the pimento?”
“How do I know what he thought?”
“Did he say he loved you?”
Grace stalled. “He did but it wasn’t romantic.”
“I am going to throw up. Better, I’ll throw up and rub your face in it.”
Woodrow jumped off the bed upstairs. They could hear him.
‘You’ve got to put that cat on a diet.”
“Jesus, fuck my husband, lie to me, come into my house and complain that my cat is too fat. You’re a real piece of work. The coup de grace.”
“Touché.” Grace put her head in her hands. “What we were doing didn’t seem so awful at the time. I told you that. I didn’t feel like I was sticking a knife in your back. Now, well, now I don’t feel so good.”
“Good. If I’m going to be miserable I’d like you to be positively rotten.”
Grace lifted her head. “I don’t think we’re the first sisters to share a man.”
“Great. You want to go on Oprah Winfrey with other siblings?”
“Thought you threw out your TV.”
“How’d you know?”
“Laura called. She wanted to know if you should see a therapist.”
“Because I threw away a goddamned television set?” Cig snorted.
“She also said you said goddamned a lot.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Cig rose and rooted around in the big rosewood box on the coffee table. She fetched a pack of Lucky Strike unfiltered cigarettes.
“You gave those up!”
“I’m reviving the habit.” She walked into the kitchen, lit the little white tobacco stick off the gas stove, clicked off the flame and leaned against the stove, inhaling that first soothing hit of nicotine. “God bless the Indians who first cultivated this weed.”
“Thank God our family made its fortune in peanuts.” Grace sniffed, having followed her into the kitchen. “I’d feel guilty if we’d made money in tobacco. ‘Course we lost everything in 1865 so I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“We started out in tobacco like everyone else in the seventeenth century.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m reading the Deyhle papers.”
“I don’t remember anything about tobacco.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You know, it’s bad for your lungs, it’s bad for the kids’ lungs, and you look like a 1940s movie star in drag.”
“Tough. I need this cigarette. And since when have you become a health fascist?”
Grace barked, “I suppose I need to feel morally superior about something.”
“That’s a riveting insight.”
“Oh, shut up, Cig, and sit down. Just don’t blow that garbage in my face.”
Cig circled her sister, ducked down, putting her face right in front of Grace’s, letting out a mouthful of blue smoke. “Love you, baby Sis.”
Grace coughed, put her hand to her throat, and sputtered, “You’re such a bully. You always were a bully.”
Cig hit the chair with a grunt. “I was bigger than the boys until tenth grade.”
“You’re still bigger than half of them. That’s why you married Blackie. He was taller than you.”
“I did not.”
“Did so. You swore you’d never marry a man shorter than you were.”
“I did not.” Cig leaned back in her chair and put her boots on the table, which also disgusted Grace.
“You most certainly did. We were in your bedroom. It was your senior year in high school and John Root asked you to the prom. You said you wouldn’t go with him because he was shorter than you.”
“That’s not why I didn’t go with him. Georgette DeRosa broke up with him that weekend and he asked me as a second choice. I wasn’t going to be his reserve date.”
Grace twirled her fingers. “I don’t remember it that way.”
“Of course not. You don’t remember the Ten Commandments either.”
Grace clenched her fists. “You’re so clever. You rarely let slip, an opportunity to make me feel stupid.”
“Yeah, well, you rarely let slip an opportunity to make me feel clumsy and plain.”
“That is just not true.”
“Grace, get real.”
“When we were in high school the female model was petite and terminally cute. Every family sitcom had Miss Adorable in it. I’m smaller than you. Is that my fault? You grew into a statuesque woman. You’re very good looking. I think Harleyetta West has had a crush on you for years.” A gleeful glint of malice shone in Grace’s eyes.
Cig laughed. She couldn’t help it. She wanted to hate Grace, but that emotion fluctuated with the sheer enjoyment of her sister’s company.
“Grace, Harleyetta does not have a crush on me and if she did she’d be barking up the wrong tree. I’ve got enough on my hands right now. In fact”—a flash of delicious malice crossed her face—“you probably slept with Blackie because of unresolved sexual conflicts over me.”
Grace’s mouth dropped open. “You have been watching those talk shows.”
They both laughed so hard that Cig almost fell off her chair, the anger dissipating in the ritual of their relationship, the give and take of sisters.
Grace continued, “Lesbian incest. Oh I love it—but I didn’t sleep with Blackie because of some unresolved sexual conflict. He just hit me that way.”
“You went to bed with Frances Atkins though.”
“How did you know that!”
“I’m not entirely stupid. You were spending too much time at the Kappa Kappa Gamma house way back when.”
“Well…” Grace’s voice trailed off. “I’m going to be dead a long time so I can’t see denying myself any pleasure.”
“Obviously. No wonder you’re encouraging my daughter to have a jolly old time.” Cig took a deep drag and
rolled her eyes heavenward. “What’d you think?”
“About what?”
“About Frances Atkins.”
“Oh, she was fabulous.”
“She was drop-dead gorgeous, that’s for sure.”
“No one even had a clue. I mean if Frances thought anyone suspected for a single second she would have detonated. How’d you know?”
“I’m your sister. I know you.”
“Then,” Grace replied triumphantly, “you did know about Blackie and me.”
“Did not.”
“Did, too!”
Cig stubbed out the Lucky. “Okay, maybe I felt something, but that’s not something you want to feel. I’m not immune to tension or hot looks. But you two covered your tracks, and since he screwed around all the time I’d stopped worrying about the latest. I didn’t think it would be you, but you’re right. If I had thought about it, if I had wanted to know, I’d have known.”
“Feeling is knowing.”
“Not in America it isn’t. Everything has to be spoken before it’s considered real. Spoken, hell, it’s got to be shouted, advertised, picked over, and analyzed until there isn’t a drop of surprise or originality left. Analysis is paralysis.”
“Don’t get cultural. I don’t need a lecture. This is you and me. And I say feeling is knowing.”
Cig threw up her hands. “You win. You’re right.”
“Jeez, you make me work hard.”
“Tell me. Did you love him?”
“Not as much as I love you.”
“It’s not the same. We’re blood. So you did love him? Tell me the rock-bottom truth.”
Grace nodded, her eyes watery. “He liked champagne or trouble, whichever came first. He was irresistible.” Cig nodded so Grace went on. “I knew he’d get tired of me eventually, and I sometimes think part of his attraction for me was the thrill of playing with fire. It’s one thing to sleep with women other than your wife. It’s another to sleep with your wife’s sister. I knew all that—and I didn’t care.”
Cig again rubbed her temples. She stopped and was quiet for a bit. “He didn’t give a damn about the rules. That was what made him so sexy, but it’s what made living with him hell I could never be with a man like that again no matter how exciting he was; but as a young woman, well—” She shrugged.
Grace sighed. “I should have known better but…” She trailed off then got a second wind. “I figured I’d get away with it or you’d overlook it. I never meant to hurt you. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”
“You did though.” Cig sat up straight. “And you know what, Grace? It doesn’t matter. People are tangled up with one another because of blood, love, money, wars. We can’t unhook ourselves. We’ve got lessons to learn and we learn them on one another. I suppose everybody rips somebody even if they don’t mean to do it. And I suppose my lesson is to let it go.”
Grace pondered this. “You’re talking Christian forgiveness.”
“Call it what you like. If we don’t learn to do it, I think we shrivel up into these little crisps of remembered wrongs, people hanging on to their tragedies, their angers, because it’s all they have. Or they drink, take drugs, blot it out. I don’t want to live that way. You hurt me. You know you hurt me. Nothing much we can do about it now. Done is done.”
Grace stared at her sister. “Cig, you’re a good woman, but I don’t think I would have expected you to—”
“I had to grow up sometime, Grace—and so do you.”
“What happened to you in the woods on Saturday?” Grace knew Cig as well as Cig knew Grace.
“If I told you, you’d never believe me. You’d have me committed.”
“Try me.”
She dragged deeply on her cigarette. She wanted to unburden herself but she was afraid. She finally decided that given what she and her sister had been through, if she couldn’t talk to her she couldn’t talk to anybody. “Got lost in the fog. I mean, I didn’t know my butt from a banana. Fattail stayed right in front of me.”
“That devil,” Grace said, interrupting.
“He’s a familiar to Pan, I swear it. Every now and then something would loom out of the fog. Like a party at Paynie Tyler’s house.”
“Down in Tidewater?” Grace’s eyes widened.
“Except the cars were from the 1920s. And then I passed a Confederate sentry and, well, it sounds stark raving mad, but I rode back in time. All the way back to 1699. I canst tell you anything other than that, and that I believe I really was there. So put me away.” She threw up her hands.
Grace’s eyebrows knitted together. “That’s not looney enough to warrant incarceration. Odd, yes, but not completely nuts. Movie stars write books about past lives and grow even richer.”
“They’re supposed to be nuts.” Cig paused. “I learned a lot.”
“Obviously. It doesn’t matter if you were really there or not, does it? What matters is that something happened inside, something good.”
“That’s the truth.” Cig reached for her sister’s impeccably manicured hand. “Cut the crap. Leave will… or make it work. You’re traveling in circles, and time runs out faster than we can ever realize. Do the decent thing and set him free if you aren’t going to love him. He can’t be happy, not really.”
“He doesn’t even notice.” Grace airily dismissed that thought.
“He does, too. Men aren’t as stupid as women like to think. They just go about these problems differently.”
“They retreat into work. They get ever so logical and controlling.”
“So?” Cig arched an eyebrow. “He’s not happy. You’re not happy. You don’t talk to one another.”
“Can’t.”
“Won’t.”
“He’s a block of wood.”
“That’s how he protects himself, and he learned it before he married you. If you can’t talk to him or he won’t talk to you then release him. You are never going to be happy living as you’re living. Taking that risk with Blackie ought to have told you that. So either work it out with will or set him free.”
“I’m scared.” Grace started to cry.
“Oh hell, Grace, what do you have to lose?”
Her head jerked up. “My house. My car. My social standing. I put in good time for that shit.”
“That’s what it is. Shit. You sold yourself cheap.”
“I don’t know if I’ve got the guts.”
“You do.”
“Men get vengeful when a woman leaves. If I could get him to leave I’d get a better deal. I could put a detective on him. Maybe he’s fooling around.” Grace was suddenly hopeful.
“Just go. Don’t do that. We’re talking about the inside of your life and you’re hanging on to the outside. The outside isn’t making you happy.”
Grace wiped her eyes. “I’m a superficial slut, you know.” She half-laughed. “Hell, I’ll have to give up my membership at the country club.”
“No, you won’t. That’ll be a negotiating point in the divorce. Grace, stop stalling. You know what I’m talking about.”
“You want to know something really bizarre?” Grace’s eyes filled again. “And it’s ironic that you would mention Frances. I think I loved her, Cig. She couldn’t give me social standing. She couldn’t solve my problems and say, ‘Honey, don’t you worry about a thing.’ You know, like men do. She could only give me herself. It frightened me so bad, I mean, just think about it.”
“Doesn’t frighten me.”
“It’s not the lesbian part of it.” Grace raised her voice. “It’s being with someone and not making a deal. Life with men is a deal.”
“It doesn’t have to be. That’s how we were raised but it doesn’t have to be that way. You know—I’ll cook, honey, and you take out the garbage. We’re raised to look at men as cash cows, beasts of burden.”
“Yeah, I guess we are.”
“Frances could only be what she was, a person in love with you. At least, I guess she was in love with you.”
“Yeah. But her fear of being found out would have shot that relationship down in flames eventually. And I don’t think Mother would have thrown me a bouquet either. So I was scared, too. God, I’ve been stupid.” Grace got up and grabbed the Kleenex box off the shelf over the desk and rejoined Cig. “I really did sell myself short.”
“We both did. I didn’t think I had a right to happiness. Oh, I did when I first got married, but then when things went wrong I figured I was being punished for something. I deserved pain. It would make me a better person. I don’t think it did. It shut me down is what it did.”
“We both shut down, didn’t we?” Grace blew her nose. “I was the party girl, you were the virtuous wife, but neither one of us was true.” She stopped herself and blurted out, “You know, Cig, sex is like a drug, just like cocaine and bourbon.”
“I’ll have to try it sometime,” Cig dryly replied.
“It’s not worth it. I would give anything to feel love and lust instead of lust and a vague pull of attraction.”
“You did for Blackie.”
“Up to a point, but I saw what he did to you. I knew his pattern. I wasn’t going to really let myself go. Kinda like a canter instead of a flat-out go-for-broke run. I want that feeling I have when we’re on a scorching scent and I drop the reins on Kodiak. Oh, fly like the wind.” Her eyes shone. “I feel so alive. I want to feel that with another human being.”
“You have to give up the golden calf first.”
Grace, like a drunk suddenly sober, folded her hands together. “I know. Now that it’s out in the open I can’t hide it anymore.”
“Well, I can’t either.”
Wistfully Grace asked, “Do you think there’s someone out there, someone real?”
“Yes—you. You’re the real person. Once you get square with yourself you’ll find someone else who’s solid.”
“If will throws me out can I stay here?”
“Of course, you can.”
“That is, if Harleyetta doesn’t take the spare bedroom first.” Grace grinned.
“She’ll wind up with one of her AA buddies. And that’s probably a good idea, too. Just think, you only have to deal with divorce, she’s got to deal with divorce and alcoholism.”
Riding Shotgun Page 30