Nobody showed up Ermel Railer, especially not the likes of Vera Snyder. The next day, when the chauffeur once again knocked upon her door, Ermel locked Gurty, who wasn’t fit for company, in her bedroom and went out to invite the duchess in to see the babies. She said they were sleeping and couldn’t be brought to the motorcar. The duchess politely declined and drove off. Still determined, Ermel went out that very day and bought teacups and a lace table cloth and pastries from the fancy bakery on Center Street. This finery proved to be no temptation whatsoever to the duchess. After the third try, when Ermel pushed too hard, the duchess stopped coming altogether.
Ermel knew envy. She knew the choking kind that turns its victim into a big talker who bristles and puffs but still goes to bed feeling small. She had no taste for hope or contentment or thankfulness, so she slurped a resentful gruel that numbed her heart and leached her soul. Yes, Ermel knew envy like a prisoner knows handcuffs, but for a few blessed days she’d felt the freedom of handcuffs removed when she, Ermel Railer, had been the big somebody; when the fawning, licking eyes had been glued to her instead of the other way around. She’d been the one with the duchess, and the dress, dishing out jealousy and serving up discontent like a flashy soda jerk. And she liked it, loved it, and now that it was gone, she felt devastated. Ermel fell hard off her pedestal and landed right back where she’d started: envious and small.
Fortunately, she’d married into a family that had been producing champion enviers for a century. In her hour of need, when she had the bile, but not the throat to deliver it, her husband stepped in to pick up the slack.
“You know what’s the difference between them hoity-toitys up on the hill and us down here? I’m asking you! Do you know?” hollered Jeb. “They’re better cheaters and liars! That’s it. And that duchess lady is worse than most ‘cause she went out and got herself an extra coat of paint to cover up her cheatin’ and lyin’. That’s what her title is, a cover up!”
And then he howled about the Newfields, calling them the biggest cheaters and liars of all.
“And if she’s a real duchess then I’m the King of Siam and my ass is Prince Charming! Anybody can get a title—it ain’t no harder than puttin’ down your name on a legal document—but most people don’t do it ‘cause they know it ain’t right. Why do you think nobody ain’t never seen the duke? ‘Cause he don’t exist, that’s why!”
And then he wailed about the hatchet job done to his family name and how no royal title on earth could repair it.
“And that motorcar ain’t hers neither. My friend up at the tannery told me so. It belongs to a motorcar salesman in Santa Marcela. She drives it during the day and he drives her at night, if you know what I mean.”
And then he drove himself crazy talking about the Newfields.
Jeb did a proper job on the duchess and made Ermel proud. Of course he got something out of the deal too. Up at the Wagon Wheel Tavern nobody listened to his stories anymore, unless he bought them a drink. Now he had someone who did it for free. As long as he took a break every now and then to commiserate with Ermel and complain about the stuck up duchess, she let him pontificate as he pleased. For a while she even laughed in the right spots, thought of cuss words when he ran low, and clucked her tongue when the shame of the Newfields called for it. That’s how it went for three days running, like it used to be before they got married, almost blissful.
Too bad Ermel’s hour of need didn’t last a week, maybe the bliss could’ve taken root, but she had a house full of babies and needed to figure things out, like how to pile as much work as possible onto Gurty without killing her. Besides, what good ever came out of Jeb’s tired old stories? They sounded daring, but he never got anything out of them, and now, after three days, all Ermel got was a headache. So she stopped listening, and Jeb went searching for an audience back up at the Wagon Wheel Tavern. Ermel could live with that. It was a routine she knew—even though they’d only been married seven months. He’d drink and argue and try to make loud speeches. He might get kicked out and have to try his luck at the bar across the street, or he might make it to closing time. After midnight he’d stagger home, barge in like a hurricane, and make another speech. And then the next day he’d do it all over again, unless the money ran out, in which case he’d go to his uncle’s in Santa Marcela to make a few bucks.
But this time it didn’t happen like that. This time Jeb came home earlier than usual and slipped through the front door like a cool summer breeze. Humming a happy tune, he moseyed up to the table where Ermel and Gurty had just started dinner, reached into his overall pocket, and pulled out a bottle of store-bought gin. He put it on the table with a wink. Ermel liked store-bought gin but usually got stuck with the rotgut sour mash from Jeb’s uncle.
“What’s the occasion?” she asked.
Jeb stared at her, started to say something, stared some more, and then said, “We’re celebrating our good fortune.” He swung his leg over a chair and sat down.
“If you’re talking about the money in the envelopes, there ain’t nothing to celebrate ‘cause you’ve spent every last dollar of it.”
“I ain’t talking about that. I’m talking about true good fortune, the good fortune of powerful friends in powerful places.”
“And what friend might that be?” asked Ermel suspiciously.
With raised eyebrows and a knowing smile, Jeb said, “We shall see.” He put a big piece of cornbread on a plate, covered it with sausage gravy, and picked up a fork.
“We shall see is right,” said Ermel, as she snatched away his plate. “What friend are you talking about?”
“The one that got me a job that pays ten dollars a day.”
“Ten dollars? For doin’ what?”
“Drivin’ a truck half day.”
“Some drunk in a bar says he’ll pay ten dollars for a half day’s work and you believe him?” snorted Ermel, followed by a bigger snort from Gurty.
Jeb tossed an envelope onto the table and said, “That’s for the first two weeks. Paid in advance. Cash.” He grabbed the plate from Ermel and dug in.
Gurty reached for the envelope, but Ermel beat her to it. After a quick count, she said, “There’s a hundred dollars in here!”
“Just like I told you.”
“What are you gonna to do with it?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. You’re goin’ up town tomorrow and spend every penny on yourself. You’re gonna buy jewelry and perfume and all the other whatnots. And when you run out of things to buy in Prospect Park, I’m takin’ you over to Santa Marcela.”
“Really?”
“It’s a celebration, ain’t it?”
With brown gravy dribbling down his chin, he smiled and chewed enthusiastically.
After dinner, Gurty ran from one fussy baby to another while Jeb and Ermel sat at the kitchen table and downed big glasses of gin-lemonade. When that ran out, they poured rotgut whisky and talked loudly about the big motorcar they’d buy, and the big house—maybe even a big house at the base of the hill. Why not? It’d been done before. After all, they were the famous Railers who owned the newest set of identical triplets in the country, maybe even the world.
While Ermel might’ve been a simple, dirt-poor sixteen year-old, she possessed the suspicious nature of a purse-clutching old lady. Gin-lemonade and rotgut whisky applied to an unsuspicious mind can smooth the jagged edges of apprehension down to harmless nubs. On a mind like Ermel’s, it didn’t work. Even at the height of their boisterous revelry, when numb lips impaired speech and floating brains turned rational thoughts into bobbing apples, those jagged edges called out to her. Why had Jeb forked over the money? He never did that. The rent got paid only when the landlord parked his motorcar outside their front door and caught Jeb off guard. Ermel kept food on the table only because she foraged his overalls for loose change and the odd dollar. Now he was tossing around packets of money and telling her to spend it all on herself. And who was this powerful friend that passed out high paying job
s to the likes of Jeb Railer? Too many jagged edges.
In her quest against these suspicious happenings, Ermel had a secret weapon: Jeb’s big mouth. He knew how to talk, and more often than not, talked himself into trouble. She just needed to wait.
And sure enough, after a while his head tipped to the side, and the words started running wild. He raised his glass and hollered, “Here’s to the duchess! I take back half the stuff I never said about her!”
Ermel put the brakes on her spinning head.
“It just goes to show you can’t judge a cook by its cover…a cook by its…a…you know what I mean,” he said.
“What are you saying, Jeb?”
“I’m…er…saying what I’m saying. What do you think I’m saying?”
“Jeb, what are you saying about the duchess?”
“Oh yeah, the duchess. She must want kids real bad.”
Ermel sat up straight and said, “You better not be talking about my kids, Jeb Railer.”
He tried to likewise straighten himself up and meet her glare. “Well maybe I am, and maybe I ain’t.” He leaned forward and studied her face. “Your mouth is wadded up like a horse’s butthole. That means you’re mad. But I got a secret that will make you happy…and then the horse’s butt will go away. Come here and I’ll tell you…but you can’t tell no one ‘cause the man said so. Come here.” She leaned in close and he said, “We’re gettin’ three thousand dollars for ‘em.” And then he sat back and beamed like a man with a gold mine.
The horse’s butt didn’t go away.
“You snivelin’ son of a bitch! You sold my babies to that...that two faced, stuck-up duchess!”
~~~
Nobody ever accused Jeb of having any sort of a military bearing, but on the night when Ermel figured out his little scheme, he would’ve made a terrific soldier. With his wife bearing down like a frothing charger, instead of indulging his appetite for drunken combat, he fortified his wobbly legs with sheer gumption and quickly affected a strategic retreat. He saved himself. He saved the day. He saved the cause. Then again, maybe it hadn’t been anything quite so noble. Maybe it had been the power of money. Like a rat following its nose to the dumpster, maybe the smell of money raised Jeb up and safely guided him through the alcoholic fog and away from his raging wife. It didn’t matter though because it ended with the same results: he had indeed saved the cause and would fight again.
And lose repeatedly.
First, when Ermel had calmed enough for Jeb to risk proximity, he attacked with love. With a bowed head and a lump in his throat, he offered up his own tender heart to be cracked like a melon. Didn’t his little girls deserve the best? Didn’t they deserve fancy dresses and shiny leather shoes and nannies and maids and…and…banjo lessons and all the other whatnots that went part and parcel with being rich? Yes they did, and he’d be a darned sorry father if he didn’t give it to them. Yes, it was true he’d never recover from the loss, but he had to do it because he loved them that much, and, he knew, Ermel loved them that much too. They had to let their babies go to the duchess.
This argument didn’t go anywhere, but it seemed like a good place to start.
Next he tried greed. Everyone is greedy. It’s like hair, everyone has it to some extent, and Ermel’s endowment fell on the bushy side of the scale. Besides the money from the new job, he’d agreed to a thousand dollars for each baby. Now the lawyer, a serious, frowning man named Mortimer Pugh, said buying and selling babies went against the law so the thousand dollars had to be what he called a “one time re-imbursement of expenses material to the birth and sustenance of each adoptee up to the point of adoption.” Let him call it what he wanted, it still added up to three thousand dollars. Jeb begged Ermel to think about all the things she might do with that kind of money. Responding with a hateful glare and the brevity of a corpse, she told him she’d never sell to the duchess. Jeb pressed on, dangling the dream house in her face, the dream house at the base of the hill that three thousand dollars might just buy, the dream house that might just turn her into a lady…unless, of course, she liked being white trash. Ermel threw a plate at his head.
Jeb threatened and screamed. He put a big dent in the wash tub and almost broke his foot. Each and every time Ermel stared him down and backed him out of the house, where he trudged up to the Wagon Wheel to convalesce, or sometimes strategize with Mortimer Pugh.
Only a few lousy signatures stood between Jeb Railer and more money than he’d seen in a lifetime. A few squiggles of ink. That’s it. It’s one thing when the money sits in a vault underground, or behind the cold stare of armed guards, but when your own spiteful wife is the one slamming the door in your face, that’s more than a man can take. He’d have been the first to admit the sinfulness of it, but murder even crossed his mind, or at least a sturdy coma. He also thought about forgery, but didn’t see a way past Pugh, who said things had to be done up proper.
But what about lying? Husbands lie to their wives on occasion. They have to, unless they like walking around in an apron. Wives think faster and scheme better, so husbands lie. It levels the playing field. So Jeb changed his strategy.
“It’s too bad,” he said one day, with a sigh, “‘cause I guess the duchess really did like you after all.” Maybe Ermel told him to shut up, maybe she didn’t. Jeb concentrated on dangling the worm and didn’t really care. The fish won’t bite if it doesn’t see the worm. “I’m to blame more than anyone I suppose, the way I turned you against her, but how was I to know she wasn’t a phony like all the rest?”
She ignored him.
“Yep. I done wrong and knew it for certain today when I give the lawyer your answer. Instead of getting mad, he said it was a shame things didn’t work out ‘cause the duchess missed her get-togethers with you and wanted to invite you up to her mansion for tea—after all the adoption business got settled.”
“You’re a liar Jeb Railer,” said Ermel.
And then a faint smile crept across her mouth, and she tilted her head almost imperceptibly to the side. She’d seen the worm.
“That’s probably why she give you the dress…to get you started with all that fashion stuff—so’s you fit in with the ladies on the hill.”
No response.
“Wouldn’t that be somethin’? Picked up for tea with the duchess in that fancy motorcar and delivered up the hill in style? I can see the smoke comin’ outta Vera Snyder’s ears right now.”
“It ain’t gonna work, Jeb.”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“You know what I’m talkin’ about.”
“I’m just makin’ conversation. Last I heard that weren’t no sin.”
“Well you can just give it up.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Fine….But it ain’t a hard thing to prove. All you gotta do is ask the lawyer. Do you got somethin’ against that?”
No response.
“You should ask him. The duchess said every word I just told you, and he’ll tell you himself—and them fellas ain’t allowed to lie or they get what you call de-burred.”
“De-burred. You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.... What else did he say—not that I believe a word of it?”
“Nothin’. The duchess likes you and wants to invite you to a tea party. That’s it.”
“Jeb Railer you won’t get away with it if you’re lyin’ to me! You know that don’t you?”
Jeb did get away with it, at least long enough to get Mortimer Pugh into his house, up to his kitchen table, and sitting face to face with Ermel. And it turned out the lawyer knew a thing or two about lying himself, hard as it is to believe, given his noble profession and all.
A bad liar presses too hard and spit-shines the lie until it blinds. A good one throws it out like yesterday’s news and shrugs at the wonder of it. A bad liar hovers over a syrupy-sweet concoction of impossible dreams. A good one boils the dream in a sludge of boredom or contempt or, in Mortimer Pugh’s case, frustration. H
e bemoaned the time wasted by the duchess planning a tea party when she had important business matters to tend to. Then he asked forgiveness for speaking out of turn. When pressed on the issue by Jeb, on account of his wife’s unbelief, the lawyer made a show of irritation as he dug around in his leather bag and produced a personal invitation from the duchess. He handed it to Ermel and then drummed his fingers and looked impatiently at his pocket watch. Ermel tugged on the lavender ribbon that bound the folded, cream-colored card. Inside, she read:
The Duchess of Sarlione wishes to extend her cordial invitation to a tea party on Monday, the second of October at one o’clock in the afternoon at Toomington Hall. RSVP Toomington Hall.
“It ain’t no good. The second of October has come and gone,” said Ermel.
“Yes, it’s my understanding that the duchess had expected a speedy arrangement with you—based upon your friendship—after which I was to present this invitation. Unfortunately the arrangements have not been speedy.”
“Is she plannin’ another one?”
“It’s my understanding that she thinks of nothing else.”
Jeb watched the smile creep across Ermel’s face.
“Er…Mrs. Railer, may I have the invitation back please, as it is expired…and no doubt the duchess has a new one for you…provided there are no further delays.”
The next day a motorcar picked up Jeb and Ermel and drove them to Mortimer Pugh’s office in Santa Marcela where they sat in high-back leather chairs around a giant table and signed papers. A notary sat at the end, ramrod straight, and clicked his teeth twice each time he placed a new page on his stack of papers. He acted finicky and precise, like a champion librarian.
After two of the three sets of documents had been signed, Ermel excused herself to the powder room. The men stood as she left and then sat back down with smiles all around. Everything looked good. The lawyer had tamed the wild pony without her even knowing it; the notary proudly hovered over his parchment kingdom; and Jeb had a pile of money coming his way. One more little push and it would be over. They leaned back in their executive chairs and waited. But Ermel didn’t come back. Not after five minutes. Not after fifteen. Jeb went to investigate. Through a locked door she told him to go back and wait. “And keep your mouth shut,” she added. Not wanting to raise her ire at this critical juncture, he meekly followed orders. After thirty minutes the notary started processing the documents that had already been signed, which took about five minutes, and then said he had to go. Pugh talked him back into his seat with a promise of future business and a direct order for Jeb to go get his wife, even if he had to drag her back to the meeting. Jeb knew better than that, so he begged instead.
Tea Cups & Tiger Claws Page 2