Beautiful Boys (16 page)

“I thought about the stranger. Could he have been the devil? If he was the devil I would have gone with him anyway. I wished he would come back.”

“How could she say those things to you?” Dirk
asked. “What happened? Did you have your baby?”

“Yes. She told me we would put it up for adoption when it was born. And she locked me in my room so the women who came over for fittings wouldn’t see me. She only opened the door to give me food and the material to sew. I wanted to die. I might have killed myself with the sewing shears except for three things—the baby inside of me, the magical dress hidden in mothballs and tissue in my closet and the words I heard purring through my head. ‘You must not be afraid.’

“Then just before my baby was born my aunt fell ill. She let me out of my room, and I sat at her bedside pressing damp lavender-soaked rags to her forehead and feeding her soft food.”

“You should have strangled her,” Dirk said. “Sorry. But I think she deserved it.”

“She was a damaged woman. I would have been too if the stranger hadn’t come. Someone had seen her touch herself, maybe even seen her dance, and told her those horrible lies.”

Dirk said, “You’re kinder than I am,” and she answered, “No, not really. I was just trying to protect my baby, you know. I remembered all the fairy tales
about the evil witch cursing the child. She’d almost destroyed me, and I wasn’t going to let her hurt the baby.”

“Did she?”

“No. She died rather peacefully with my hands on her temples. Poor thing, I think I might have been the first one to touch her in all those years.”

“Then what happened?”

“I gave birth to the most beautiful little girl! The most perfect little girl. She had tiny naturally turned-out feet and fluttering pink hands like wings and she danced everywhere. From the moment she came out of me she was dancing.”

Dirk saw the phantom parlor again, although this time the walls were freshly painted white; the floral friezes along the ceiling were pale pink and blue. Lace curtains like bridal veils hung at the open windows. He thought he heard the piano music again.

“I painted the inside of the house and kept the windows open all day,” Gazelle said. “I sewed large floral tapestry cloth pillows, pink, blue and gold, and stuffed them with dried lavender and rose petals. I recovered the brown sofa in jade-green velvet. I made a
chiffon canopy over the bed and lit long tapers so that through the draperies the house looked full of stars. I built fires in the fireplace that my aunt never used, and the house smelled of cedar smoke. I read poetry aloud—Shelley and Keats. ‘The silver lamp—the ravishment—the wonder. The darkness—loneliness—the fearful thunder,’ only it was a golden lamp and there was no more darkness.

“My daughter, who loved to draw, made a picture of a lovely face and put it on the mannequin under a big hat covered with birds’ nests full of pale blue eggs.

“‘Now you won’t be afraid of her anymore,’ she said, child-wise.

“No longer prisoners, we went out into the city that had been forbidden to me for so long. We walked up and down the hills until our legs ached, then rode the trolley car to feel rushes of salty, misty air. We had picnics and fed the swans on the lake under the flowering terra-cotta arches, drank tea and ate pastries in rooms with cupids and rosebuds painted on the walls, strolled through the park, green-dazzled, fragrance-drunk, gasped at treasures gleaming gold in the half-lit glass cases of the museum. Then we’d return with
spices, fruits and vegetables from Chinatown, seafood and baguettes from the wharf.

“The piano music began again—coming through the walls every evening—and I watched my child dance. It was almost as if I were dancing myself. She danced among the spools of thread, the ribbons and laces, the silk flowers.

“After a while I took her for ballet lessons from Madame Joy. I brought her to the studio four times a week. She was the littlest in class but the very best; everyone thought so. I made her a garland of silk blossoms and some tiny pink net wings. She always played sprites or pixies in the dance recitals. I sat and watched her with such pride.

“Sometimes, though, she wouldn’t stick to the choreography. She couldn’t help it, she’d just start doing her own dances. Madame Joy hated that.

“‘What are you doing, idiot-child!’ she screamed.

“She took her cane and hooked it around my baby’s waist; she hit it against her backside. I was mortified when I found bruises on her.

“‘I don’t want you going back there,’ I said. ‘You can dance at home.’

“But I knew she missed performing. I sat and watched her for hours, shining a light on her, but it wasn’t the same.

“One day when we were walking down the street she started to jump up and down, tugging my fingers and pointing. Two little boys in spangled blue costumes were taking turns balancing on each other’s shoulders in front of a crowd. She let go of my hand and before I could stop her she had jumped into the act, climbing up the tree of the boys to pose on top like a Christmas angel. They made her spin like a music box ballerina. The crowd cheered. I was so proud. After that Fifi joined the act.”

“Fifi!” Dirk said.

“Yes. Your grandmother.”

“I didn’t know all this about her childhood,” Dirk said. “Or about you.” He was embarrassed that he hadn’t even heard Gazelle’s name before.

“That’s because you never asked.”

Dirk knew that was true. He had just assumed that Fifi was always a spun-sugar-haired grandmother living in the cottage, alone.

“And she never asked about my life,” Gazelle
said. “And I never asked about my aunt’s. That’s the way children are sometimes. Until it’s too late. If I had asked my aunt about herself it might have helped her. It’s important to tell your story. It’s important to listen.”

“Tell me more,” Dirk said.

“The years went by. Fifi danced with Martin and Merlin, first on the street and then in cafés. Everyone thought that either Martin or Merlin was her beau so Fifi never had any gentleman callers. Sometimes I would find her crying into the tulle and silk of her dancing costume.

“‘What’s wrong?’ I would ask her. ‘Your dress will be so heavy with tears the boys won’t be able to lift you.’

“‘No man will like me,’ she said. ‘I’m such a cricket, an insect.’

“‘Don’t say those things,’ I scolded. I was afraid that somehow I had passed on to her the self-hatred my aunt had given me, although I was always telling her what a great beauty she was and that her size only added to it. Still, she did her stretches diligently, hoping they would make her taller. She wore the highest heels she could find, although I warned her about her
feet, and did exercises to increase her bustline.

“I told her that I thought people believed she was engaged to Martin or Merlin, that she might not encourage that so much, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She always held their arms when they walked down the street and let them introduce her as their fiancée sometimes. It was her way of protecting them, you see. In those days their feelings for each other weren’t something people talked about. Of course, it was quite obvious to me. When they performed they would hand her back and forth between them like a love letter.”

“Like a love letter,” Dirk said.

“Yes. They loved each other.”

“I know,” said Dirk. “What do you think about that?”

“Any love that is love is right,” Gazelle said. “It’s the same as me touching myself when I was a child. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Dirk said. “I understand.” Something in his body opened like a love letter. He wondered if Fifi would understand about him…. Maybe she had all along.

Gazelle went on.

“Fifi always played along with being engaged to Martin or Merlin, depending on whose relatives were at the show. But it enforced the feeling that no man would love her the way she dreamed of being loved. She became more shy, staying home all day drawing and painting in the parlor. Sometimes we went to the countryside where she set up an easel and painted the fields full of cows, the wildflowers and redwoods. She loved color. She used to say how she would paint everything if she could, eat orange or green porridge, cover the ceiling with flowers, make her hair pink or purple.”

“Fifi the original punk,” Dirk said. “She just needed a man as wild as she was.”

“Well, she found him. One night she was performing at a supper club. As she left the theater in her gold brocade coat, peach roses in her hair, she was stopped by a tall, dark, sad-eyed man. He tipped his hat to her and a hundred fireflies came swarming out, surrounding her and lighting her up as if she were still on stage.”

“‘How did you learn that?’ she gasped.

“‘I’m an entomologist,’ he said. “But magic like
this only happens when you meet your true love. My name is Derwood McDonald.’”

“McDonald,” Dirk said. “My grandfather. He was a bug guy?”

“That’s right,” said Gazelle. “I wouldn’t call him a bug guy. He was a magician really.”

“That’s what the bug ambulances are about, I guess,” Dirk said. “When Grandma Fifi finds an insect in the house she gets an old yogurt container or something and makes this siren noise. She puts the bug into it and takes it outside. She calls it a bug ambulance.”

“That’s my daughter,” Gazelle said. “Anyway, just then her partners appeared and took her arms.

“Derwood McDonald introduced himself to them and added, ‘I was going to ask you to dinner, Fifi, but you look as if you already have plans.’

“She told him she didn’t have plans, that she saw Martin and Merlin every day and every night.

“‘It’s true,’ they agreed, nodding in unison. From all their performances they had become accustomed to moving as one.

“‘Fifi might enjoy some new company.’ They
bowed and walked off, side by side.

“By the time Fifi and Derwood got to the restaurant there were so many ladybugs on Derwood’s jacket collar that they looked like red polka dots.

“‘You must have very good luck,’ she said.

“‘I am having it now,’ he answered.

“They ate pasta and drank red wine. She told him about her dancing, how she loved to draw and had started to take art classes.

“‘I won’t always be able to do those adagio tricks,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to plan for my future.’

“He told her, ‘You will probably dance when you are ninety years old. You remind me of the fairies I saw in the countryside when I was a boy. My father—he was a naturalist too—pointed them out to me as if they were just another form of insect so I never understood why people thought they were made up. They had wings like large honeysuckle blossoms and were finger-size, but otherwise you look just like one. After I grew up I thought I’d never see another fairy,’ he said. ‘Until I laid eyes on you. Are you a fairy, Fifi?’

“Fifi giggled. Derwood laughed too but his fairy-filled eyes remained sad.

“He walked her home. She came into the house flushed and happier than I had ever seen her. I thought of the night the stranger had come to my door.

“‘What is it, Fifi?’ I asked.

“She knew even then that she loved him, that she wanted to marry him.”

“On Sundays Derwood took Fifi to the countryside. They caught butterflies in a net, studied the beautiful paintings of their wings and set them free. When Derwood found dead butterflies he would take them home and make collages that he framed behind glass. He and Fifi looked for fairies too, but never found any.”

“‘It doesn’t matter,’ Derwood said as she came back with dirt on her hands and leaves in her hair from searching through grottos and barrows. ‘You are my fairy.’

“In the evenings Derwood came calling with honey from his bees. It tasted like nothing less than nectar made for the love of a golden queen by a hundred droning drones. We slathered it on homemade bread, drizzled it over rice pudding, let big shining drops fall into our teacups and blended it into sauces for the salmon
we ate on Fridays. I played the phonograph and Fifi danced. Sometimes Martin and Merlin came over too and they all performed for us. Derwood sat on the jade-green sofa among the rose-and lavender-stuffed pillows wringing his hands during the most precarious balances, clapping and stomping when a trick had been executed.”

“But as much as Fifi loved Derwood I could tell something was wrong.

“Finally, after Fifi had known him for a few months and he still hadn’t kissed her, she asked him what it was.

“‘I have a heart condition,’ he told her. ‘The doctors tell me I only have a few more years to live.’

“Fifi wanted to run away from him.

“Derwood said, ‘I will understand if you don’t want to see me anymore.’

“Fifi broke into tears but her sobs sounded like the flicker of crickets. Hundreds of ladybugs flew and landed on her hat. Cocoons opened and butterflies were released in a storm. She held on to Derwood in the forest of wings, and a golden powder covered their faces. Fifi was afraid they would be suffocated, but
the butterflies only seemed to be kissing their cheeks.

“‘I want to be with you, Derwood McDonald,’ Fifi said. ‘No matter what.’

“A golden ring slid down out of the air and moved across the picnic cloth toward Fifi. She gasped when she saw the two tiny ring bearers.

“‘These are my pet spiders, Charlotte and Webster,’ Derwood said. ‘They want to know if you will marry me.’

“Not wanting to waste a moment, Fifi and Derwood were married the next day. Fifi wore the dress I had made for the stranger. Hundreds of pink doves flew alongside Derwood’s car on the way home.

“Derwood and Fifi lived in a gingerbread house a few blocks away from me. It had two tall columns in front and cherubs bearing garlands over the windows. It was painted lavender but it was like a greenhouse full of flowering plants, butterflies, crickets, doves. Thin sheets of tin, pressed with the patterns of ribboned urns full of cascading leaves, covered the walls. Derwood studied his insects by the light of the Tiffany lamp. Fifi, who was still taking art classes, drew the insects Derwood loved, and made them
dance—balletic butterflies, tangoing tarantulas, waltzing caterpillars and tap-dancing bees.

“Fifi and Derwood hated to be separated, even for moments. Wherever they went they held hands. At night Fifi danced for him, swirling around in her glittery dresses, bringing tears of joy to Derwood’s eyes.