The Problem with Murmur Lee

by Connie May Fowler

  “Look,” Edith said, “call me a pushover. Fine. But I feel sorry for him. I really do think he loved our Mur. And, like you say, Charlee, none of us is exactly behaving kindly toward him. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he didn’t show.” She looked over my shoulder, rested her fingers lightly upon her arched neck, sighed as if life was just too mean, and said, “Excusez-moi. I have to go entertain.”

  Charlee came in close, sweetly, like she was about to share a delicious secret, and said, “Really, Z, why does everyone—except for the magnanimous Edith—hate the guy?”

  I looked beyond her. Nothing could be gained from this conversation. I caught Lucinda’s eye and nodded at her. She was still glued to the corner, and this time it was she, not Hazel, who was giving Silas hell. She nodded back, not missing a beat in whatever it was she was saying. “Let’s change the subject, Charlee. How about something to eat?”

  “Sure, Z,” she said, but I could tell by the scowl threatening to creep across her pretty little nose that she would revisit the subject of the entirely dislikable Mr. Speare.

  With my rabbit head tucked under my arm and my hand against the small of her back, we made our way over to the buffet, where I slathered a piece of white bread with Brie. Charlee reached for a radish and said, “So, Z, I’m finished with men. That’s it. God and men. I’m done with both of them!”

  “Oh, don’t say that. You’re too wonderful and too pretty to give up that easily.”

  She smiled. She had a big smile. It moved planets, that smile. I sipped my drink. So did she.

  “Really, Charlee, how are you? Where’ve you been? Are you settling in okay? Are you glad to be back? Can I do anything for you?” I shot all five questions.

  She pulled on one of her strawberry curls. The tendril clung to her finger. She said she was doing fine, considering. I noticed that her green eyes were flecked with gold, and I tossed my rabbit head onto the couch.

  “Let me freshen up that drink.” I reached for her glass. Our hands touched. It felt good.

  “No, really, my drink is . . .”

  Too late. I had it firmly in hand and topped off before she could stop me.

  She giggled and said, “Oh Lord, I’m going to get into trouble tonight.”

  “Charlee, my dear, I certainly hope so. What do you say? Let’s go outside and get some fresh air. The gale wind be damned.”

  She was amused. I could tell by the way she cocked her head and squirreled her lips into a curvy line that wasn’t quite a smile. She looked around the room and then her gaze settled on me. “Yes,” she said, all perky, “let’s go.”

  Something had happened. I was on automatic male. I guided Charlee through the room, bantering about how if Edith wasn’t careful, her wig would collide with a candle and she’d go up in flames. But I wasn’t really thinking about Edith at all. I couldn’t get my mind off Charlee’s cleavage and the smattering of freckles on the sweet rise of her left breast.

  Charleston Rowena Mudd

  Well, good God Almighty!” I squealed, dry martini in hand, when a giant white rabbit—I mean a human being dressed like a rabbit—hopped into the blizzard otherwise known as Edith’s White Party.

  I was working on my second cocktail of the evening—I admit that I was downing them a tad fast—when the little hopper showed up and started throwing marshmallows everywhere. Lucinda caught two of them in midair and stuffed her cheeks with them.

  “Whaddya think?” she mumbled. “Do I look like an albino chipmunk?”

  “Please don’t do that,” I said. “It freaks me out.” I nodded toward the rabbit. “Who is that?”

  “Who the fuck do you think it is? Fucking Dr. Z.” She spit the marshmallows into a napkin. “Gross. Why did I do that?” She wadded up the spit-slick deflated things and tossed them on a side table.

  “That’s disgusting,” I said, and walked away.

  I bumped into Croley. If I had been a normal woman—you know, had married, birthed babies, that sort of thing—I would have tapped Croley to be my daughter’s husband. “Did you flunk your chemistry test, or what?” I asked.

  He grabbed his heart as if wounded. “Where is your confidence in me? I got a B!”

  “That’s fabulous. Congratulations. You’re not drinking. Why?”

  “I have a date tonight.” He looked at his watch. It always surprised me that he wore a watch. It seemed such an adult thing to do, and he struck me as such a blond sun-streaked surfer child. “In fact”—he searched the crowd as if scoping out his path—“I gotta go soon.”

  “Ah,” I said, and saluted him with my drink as he drifted away. But I wasn’t alone for long, because right as I was about to lose sight of Croley, my elbow was grabbed by a certain rabbit, who no longer sported a furry little head. Dr. Z pecked me on the cheek.

  “Charlee, my God, it’s good so see you,” he said. Then, in a hyperfit, he Gatling-gunned about twenty questions, and for some reason—perhaps my sheer brilliance—I found myself foundering in the sudden recognition of his loss. Two women—one a lover, the other a friend—ripped from his orbit by what? God? Chance?

  I hugged him tightly, the white fur tickling my mouth. “We have so much to talk about, Zachary. It’s been way too long. That brief visit in January simply won’t do.”

  Seemingly at ease in his ridiculous costume, he said, “I agree.”

  I pulled back and diverted my eyes because I felt that telltale electrical current zip between us—you know, the split-second sexual-awakening jolt that gets us in deep, swamp-muck trouble? I was in no mood to get stuck in the quagmire of animal lust. Sex for the sake of sex was out of the question. Fuck Ahmed, I thought. Fuck him for jilting me and leaving me in such a mess. I would not, on any day a sane person could name, on any planet, in any universe, be attracted to Zachary Klein. It was not going to happen. No way. I silently lectured myself on that point at I stood there biting my lip, thinking, I never realized how darkly handsome Zachary is.

  So I don’t know why in heaven’s name I said, “That sounds delightful” when he asked, “How about I freshen up these martinis and we go on the porch and get caught up under the stars?”

  All I know is that I pulled on my blue overcoat—didn’t I stick out like an indigo dot in all the white—and we wandered outside and gazed up at the night, and I said that the wind was blowing so hard, it seemed to me that it might rearrange the constellations. And then I managed to make out the Big Dipper, which pleased me no end (my ability to identify constellations ranks right up there with my ability to have a successful relationship), and I told Zachary how sorry I had been to hear about Katrina’s death and that I hadn’t been a good friend (that is so true—I never even sent a card; I was so wrapped up in my new life at Cambridge, I lost all threads of active compassion for the people at home). He rubbed my shoulder with that rabbit-fur hand of his, which aroused a faint tingling in my nether regions, I’m sorry to say, and then he gazed out at the black sea and offered absolution in the way of some prattle about how he always knew I was thinking only the best for him and Katrina.

  And then, in the same breath, he whispered, “I don’t think it was an accident.”

  I didn’t get it at first. I thought we were talking about Katrina. How could cancer be an accident? Or, of course it was an accident. No one intentionally gets cancer. “Z, what are you talking about?”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk!” Edith floated onto the porch, bearing exactly what we did not need: more martinis. “Shame on you both for being so serious. For leaving the party. Here. Have another, you lushes, you!” She set the glasses on the rail, adjusted her wig with a firm tug, and then took our empties. She shot us a knowing look, the kind of glance that says, You don’t fool me. I get the sexual drift. As she spun in her white satin shoes—ever the lady—she said over her shoulder, “Don’t be too long, darlings. You’re starting to bore me.”

  Z pulled at the neck of his rabbit suit. “This thing is hot.”

  “It’s really, um, fetching,” I sai
d.

  “Hey, this is a great costume. And this shop I found on-line, it’s . . .”

  He started to detail the many different types of costumes one could order off the Internet. I put my hand on his. “Wait, wait, wait. Back up. I want to know what wasn’t an accident.”

  “Oh. We’re back to that.” His hypermode swung into a low glower. He took a very healthy swig.

  “That bad, eh?”

  He nodded and wiped his mouth on the back of his rabbit arm. He put both hands on the rail and pressed down. “Murmur Lee. It was no accident.”

  I stared at him really hard. He kept his dark-eyed gaze aimed at the ocean. I sipped my martini. Then I gulped it. The vodka tasted like ice and fire and poison.

  “I know,” I said.

  “How did you know?”

  “It’s an ovary thing—like a gut feeling. Sometimes things just don’t set right.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Whoa!” The vodka helped spark my instant anger. “You’re the physician. You were the one who first ruled it an accident. And the autopsy bore you out. And now suddenly you’re saying it wasn’t an accident and asking why I didn’t say something. Well, this pisses me off six ways from Sunday!”

  “Oh, calm down, Charlee. You’ve always been too easy to make mad. You’ve got to understand: Determining foul play or suicide in cases of drowning is close to impossible through an autopsy alone. She didn’t have any bruising consistent with a struggle.”

  Oh Christ, that was too much information. I didn’t want to hear this after all. Why had I said anything? I wanted to go back inside and get very, very drunk. I turned away, but the big rabbit reached for me, spun me back around, and held me by my shoulders.

  “Listen, Charlee. The cops said it wasn’t a crime scene. And you and I both know Murmur Lee would never kill herself. Fuck! Accident. I had to say it was an accident!” Zachary let go of me and slammed the rail with his rabbit hand.

  I emptied my glass, one long shot right down my throat. I was raging angry and didn’t know why, so I yelled, “Fuck you, Z. This totally sucks. I mean it just sucks.” I started crying.

  “Don’t start with the tears. You think I don’t know it sucks?” He downed the rest of his drink, and as he did, a Volvo pulled up to the house.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  Z tossed his glass into the sand. “It’s the motherfucker. That’s who it is.” He marched off the porch, his rabbit tail bouncing, mumbling that he was glad he was drunk.

  Billy Speare got out of the car and headed toward us. “Don’t, Z! You ain’t big enough!” Vodka, fear, and anger had allowed my redneck soul to emerge.

  But Z either didn’t hear me or didn’t care to oblige. Billy Speare paused. He stood in the walkway, his face a mask of confusion as he watched a man in a rabbit suit barrel toward him.

  “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” announced the good doctor, slurring his words.

  Billy looked at the rabbit, then up at me, blinking, totally ignorant as to what was about to happen.

  “You no-good son of a bitch,” Z growled. He circled his rabbit arm and then—bam!—hauled off and sucker punched Speare. Yes, bam! I heard it. I heard the cartilage snap. I heard the nose break. I watched Speare go ass-down into the dunes.

  “Don’t get up on my account, motherfucker!” Z screamed over the sprawled body of Speare, who was groaning and holding his nose and moaning something akin to “You stupid asshole, you broke my fucking nose!”

  There I was, suddenly sober, the wind tangling my hair and stinging my eyes as I watched a man in a rabbit suit rub his hand as he waddled off into the night.

  “Z, get your ass back up here,” I screamed. He waved me off, rounded the corner of Edith’s drive, and was out of sight.

  For some sick reason, I began to laugh. Insanely. Why was I delighted by this violent and odd turn the evening had taken? “Are you okay?” I hollered, and then laughed some more.

  He didn’t respond. Nor did he get up. Shit, maybe he’s dead, I thought. So I staggered inside, vodka rumbling through my veins, even though I felt sober as ice.

  “Hey, everybody, listen up!” I clanked a spoon on the side of the martini pitcher. Faces turned toward me. Fuzzy. All of them.

  “Don’t make us play no fucking game,” Silas yelled.

  “This is serious, Silas. We’ve got one down. Let’s go!”

  In a gangly rush, we emptied into the yard, led by Edith, whose long strides and haunted, drawn face betrayed her other life, the masculine one, which haunted her soft edges. As I rushed toward Billy Speare, who was still on the ground, holding his nose and cursing, I realized we were lost, all of us, the whole damn bunch of us.

  Murmur Lee Harp

  I am a bullet shooting through what seems to be a thick wall of light. All around me my life—or at least the memories of that life—shatter into ash, sand, pollen, dust, leaving me to ruminate on the lessons I’ve learned since dying.

  My mother was raped.

  I was the seed of that rape.

  I was not my father’s daughter.

  I was not a product of love and longing.

  I was not a wanted child.

  I was the manifestation of torture.

  My husband never loved me.

  My husband’s abandonment of our child was a cowardly act by a man who refused to feel pain.

  My husband’s refusal to participate in the pain of Blossom’s death does not mean that he did not love her. He did.

  I fell for Billy Speare out of loneliness. And because I feared loneliness more than I feared pine rattlers, I ignored what I knew to be true: A man is not worth your time, your devotion, your effort if he doesn’t love his mother.

  Billy Speare was not as good a man as I deserved.

  Oster Harp should have never named his island in honor of a goddess who played nanny to the souls of dead women.

  I was a lousy dream interpreter.

  In death, life’s puzzles are beginning to make sense.

  No wonder women drop like flies on Iris Haven.

  No wonder my mother loved me so fearfully.

  No wonder my father remained forever on the other side of the room, watching me with the cautious gaze of a distant uncle.

  No wonder my mother disappeared into the rosary.

  No wonder she turned golden at the possibility that I was not a bastard product of violence, but holy.

  No wonder I never had a successful relationship with a man: I had no role models.

  No wonder I lost my ability to breathe when Blossom died.

  No wonder I fell for Billy Speare: I needed, wanted, craved a life partner.

  These are not forgivenesses.

  These are not excuses.

  These are not absolutions.

  These are not damnations.

  All I’m saying is, as I hurtle through this vast ocean of light—understanding what had been mysteries to me in life but clueless as to what is happening in death—there is, at least at this very moment, no wonder.

  Lucinda Smith

  I’m knocking back my fourth martini—Mennonites are Olympic fucking drinkers; that’s one of our best kept secrets—when I hear Charlee yell, “Hey, we’ve got one down!”

  Being an artist and a yoga instructor, I am more observant than most. Thirty minutes before Charlee’s call to arms, I watched her sashay out of Edith’s house with Z, who was dressed like a giant fucking white rabbit and following her like—well, what else do rabbits do? I looked up at the ceiling and batted the flour out of my eyes (I had powdered myself in self-rising, head to toe, a Mennon-fucking-ite in whiteface for Edith’s albino party) and thought about how sad it was that Z had nowhere to place his Murmur love, so as soon as he set eyes on Charlee, he transferred it to her. What a loser.

  Anyway, fast-forward: Charlee is yelling “we’ve got one down” and, of course, we all think it’s the white rabbit, because whom else is she out there with. We stumble like
some giant, spastic, drunken amoeba into the cold night, martinis held just so in an effort not to spill a single drop of what is essentially—at this point in the night—gasoline. Edith is waving her boa as if she’s fucking Isadora Duncan. Charlee breaks away from the amoeba pack, running as if she’s some fucking angel of mercy, and throws herself over someone who is writhing on the ground and sputtering truly disgusting obscenities. The white rabbit is nowhere to be seen. And then I, before anyone else except for Charlee, realize who the asshole on the ground is.

  “Why, you motherfucker!” I scream. (It’s the vodka fumes that make me do it. Being a Mennonite, I am nearly always in control of my anger. But not this time. Four vodka martinis have set me free.) I run down the steps, push Charlee out of the way, and start wailing on Billy Speare. These hands of mine, artist’s hands, which I protect even though they aren’t producing anything other than fucking seagull paintings, sting and crack as I punch the fucker over and over about his face, his chest, anywhere I can make contact.

  Charlee screams, “Stop! You’re gonna kill him!” People—I don’t know who and I don’t know how many—pull me off of him. Blood—the bastard’s blood—mixes with the Dixie Lily, forming dark beads in a shotgun scatter across my skin.

  “Goddamned motherfucker!” I scream. I kick him, but they have pulled me too far away for it to do any good.

  “Oh my God, you poor man!” Edith flutters over Billy as people help him up. “Take him to Dr. Z’s at once. He must be treated immediately. Oh dear, oh dear.”

  Charlee shoots Edith a cockeyed look, as if she, absurdly, is going to break into laughter. “No, not Z’s,” she says.

  Billy pushes everyone away. “Leave me the fuck alone, you stupid sons a bitches.” He stumbles toward the road.

  “No! You can’t leave in this condition!” Edith warbles.

  “Let him go. He’ll be fine. It’s just a broken schnoz.” Charlee puts her arm around Edith and pats the old hag’s back.

  “At least take your car!” Edith yells.