Butterflies in Heat (59 page)

It was two minutes before midnight.

The wind was blowing the rain against the panes of the Lincoln, water splashing all around her. She could see nothing. Numie had cut off the lights. Was she already buried in a watery grave? Was the car her coffin? She felt cold now. The perspiration had miraculously dried up. Her heart was beating so loudly its sound was like the grandfather clock she kept in her parlor. Was she just going to sit there? Let death find her? Put up no resistance?

It was now one minute to midnight.

Opening the rear door, she raced across the graveyard in the blinding rain. She must find her tombstone. Destroy it! Scratch the lettering off with her bare fingernails if it would save her life. By having the tombstone engraved, she might have set off the forces of her own doom.

In the darkness, all the tombstones were the same. Each and every one was emblazoned with her name and the day of her death!

Stumbling over a fallen wreath of flowers, she fell forward, tumbling onto a mound of dirt. She screamed at the top of her voice. Her breath came in gasps. The rain whipped her face, stinging.

Hands were on her, reaching for her and pulling up her mud-soaked, soggy body.

"You're going to live, Leonora," Numie shouted. "It's after midnight. But you'll catch pneumonia
if
you don't get out of this damn rain!"

The morning after the storm, the sky was strangely still. Nothing seemed to be stirring, not even a bird in flight. From an upstairs window at Sacre-Coeur; the patio spread before Numie. Empty. Except for a broken-legged pelican hobbling across the fallen palm fronds.

"The sun's out," he said out loud. The house itself had been spared.

In the hallway, he paused at Leonora's door, but didn't knock.

He was searching for Anne. But she was nowhere to be found. Had she made it through the storm? She couldn't be found last night when he brought Leonora back from the graveyard.

The parlor was in shambles.

In the garden, he turned and looked back at Sacre-Coeur. Then he left the house avoiding the fallen branch of a ceiba tree.

The sun had fully emerged in the sky. Shivering in the morning breezes, he made his way down the main street.

The townspeople's faces were drawn; they were moving about quietly, surveying the damage. Already the sun was turning the fallen green vegetation yellow.

In a doorway, an old woman sat, weeping softly at her smashed frontporch swing.

In the presence of all these people and all this activity, he felt lonely and abandoned. He wanted to escape the island. The world here was too strangely disturbing to give him peace.

If
only he could get an answer to his letter. Such a long time to wait. Maybe when the mail was shipped down from the mainland today, he'd have a reply.

At Tangerine's battered house, he stopped. The rickety stairway had been ripped from the building. The roof was smashed; and the house sagged dangerously on its foundation.

He stood here silently for a while, as the sun jabbed its way through the cracks in the broken shutters. Then he went through the gate and never looked back.

The hotel was still standing. He wondered if Lola were inside. He didn't care enough to check.

A fly buzzed in and lit on his nose. He struck at it so furiously he hurt himself.

Then he went on his way.

At the hospital, there was a flurry of activity: No one noticed him. Everybody was too busy. Passing long lines of people waiting for typhoid shots, he continued on. Other lines were forming for Red Cross soup.

Apprehensive about Tangerine's condition, he hurried into her ward. In the emergency, men had been wheeled in with the women. A shriveled old man, toothless and sunken-eyed, his head bandaged, lay in his own waste. Nobody had time to change him. He just lay here, whimpering.

Tangerine heaved herself up to greet him. "Thank God you're here," she said, a look of grave concern on her pale face. He'd never seen her completely without makeup before. A ponderous weariness covered her face. The irises of her once-vibrant green eyes seemed diluted. A frail, tender hand—the veins purple—was reaching for him.

He put his hand in hers.

She was shaking. "I think someone on the staff is trying to poison me," she whispered confidentially.

"What a charge," he said, leaning over and kissing her cheek. "Who?"

"The nurse," she said. "I've got no big hospital insurance. None at all. A charity patient they call me." She faltered for a moment, as if losing her ability to speak. "I think they have a way of bumping you off here
if
you can't pay their highway robbery prices. They need the beds. Look at that poor slob over there."

"I did." Nausea swept over Numie. He fought
it
back. "Don't worry." He patted her hand. "Your bill's going to be taken care of. I've already talked to the doctor."

"You mean Leonora is going to help?" Her eyes brightened momentarily.

"Not exactly," he said, "but everything's going to be okay." He was telling a lie. The look on her face told him she knew it.

"Why hasn't Leonora been to see me?" Her grip was tightening on his hand.

"Leonora's a bit crazy right now." The painful memory of the graveyard scene came back to him. "The commodore's death has left her in a state. She can't go out, but she asks about you all the time."

"That's good," she sighed. Her voice was a mixture of anger and resignation. "What about Lola? She hasn't been in either."

"Lola's been busy," he explained in a rushed whisper. Did Tangerine really expect Lola to show up? "Again, the commodore's death. You know Lola. She gets completely caught up in what she's doing."

For a while she seemed to withdraw from him, her eyes closed. Then she sat up a bit.
"I'll
be well soon."

"I know you will," he said with all the conviction he could muster. His earlier optimism about her condition had given way to doubt.

"Before you go, you've got to talk to the doctor again," she said, reaching out.

He tenderly touched her face. "He's pretty busy this morning."

She lay back, becoming completely limp. "The entire staff's got it in for me. The other day, the head nurse came in and said, "With all your demands, you'd think you'd been living in the Taj Mahal. Miss Blanchard, I happen to know you live in a rundown hovel. ". Hateful thoughts seemed to stir her back to life. "Well, my place may not be the Taj Mahal, but it's a hell of a lot better than this stinking hole."

He covered her body with a blanket.

"Anyway," she went on, "I've worn out my welcome here." She slung the blanket carelessly from her. "When they start giving you prunes three times a day—my daddy always said—it's time to pack up and get moving down the road."

"I don't want to get into an argument with you," he said, "but your doctor has you on a diet for a very specific reason." Her resentment at his saying this was clear. Was she now considering him one of the conspirators against her?

"Besides," she said, "everybody makes me feel like a slob." Once again she tried to sit up wearily.

"What do you mean?" he asked, automatically taking her wrist and rubbing her arm.

"They don't let me tend to my private business—in private, the way they should." Her eyes drifted to some dead roses on the nearby table. "They stand around watching me. A lady should do some things in private."

The odor of rubbing alcohol assailed his nostrils. He couldn't stand it. "I'm sure they're not looking at you because it turns them on."

"No, naturally." She was getting more and more impatient with him. "It's their way of humiliating me."

He poured a glass of water into the flowers, though it was clear they were dead. "Really, they're just doing their job."

"Now you're taking up for them." Her frail, trembling hand gained renewed strength to push herself farther away from him.

"No, I'm not," he protested. He seemed frightened all of a sudden. Tangerine was dying, he just knew it.

"Go on," she said, "if that's the way you feel, you don't have to come around no more." She rolled over, turning her back to him.

"That's not the way I feel," he said, thinking Tangerine was becoming more and more a stranger. "But you must be reasonable. "

"Now I'm being unreasonable," she said, sulking. "Before I got sick, you always thought I made sense."

"I still do," he said, looking at her pale orange hair, never realizing how thin it was. On the crown was a bald spot.

A nurse was now in the room. "These aren't visiting hours," she snapped at Numie. "Get out! Can't you see there's an emergency this morning?"

"I can see that poor man over there needs your help," he answered angrily.

"That's not my job," the nurse said. "We have volunteers for that kind of duty."

"She hates me," Tangerine whispered suddenly, confidential with him again.

"She's just a bitch, but I don't think she really hates you," he said, finding some hope in her new mood. As long as she's fighting, there's spirit left in her, he thought.

"Sure, she does," Tangerine said. "I got so mad at her the other day I told her her vaginal cavity was too puckered up to accommodate a real man."

"I believe you did!" He bent over and kissed her goodbye.

"I'd really appreciate it if you could slip me a little booze tomorrow," she said. "I'm so dry I'm spitting cotton."

"We'll see." He Was at the door when she called him back.

"I'm going to be able to get around?" she asked, her eyes wide but vacant. "Just like before?"

"Of course," he said, smiling falsely. "There's nothing in the world like a Georgia gal. They can drop two kids in the morning, and be out plowing com in the afternoon."

"I know that," she said, perking up. "I just wanted to hear you say it."

On the roof deck at Sacre-Coeur, the September sun was making Numie drowsy. Taking some suntan lotion, he rubbed his nude body, covering himself with the oil. His skin seemed extremely white and tender today—vulnerable somehow. He poured the oil on thick, rubbing it in well. Just playing, he filled his belly-button, taking his little finger and tracing patterns on his chest. An aimless act, aimless as the day itself.

After his oiling, he collapsed on the rubber matting, spreading his body out like a starfish. He whistled softly, as if to make up for the lack of birds in the sky. Then he lit a cigarette. After a few puffs, he flicked the ashes between the redwood boards of the deck.

Unlike the blue sky, his future was cloudy. Patience, that's what he must have now. He'd have to wait for an answer to his letter. Everything depended on his getting that answer. He prayed that the recipient would reply.
It
had been so many years since they'd been in touch.

Half-formulated thoughts raced through his mind, only to be rubbed out by the darkness of last night. The rain, the graveyard. His dreams had been unsettling. He was fleeing. But from what? Who were the unknown assassins?

Now, he remembered more clearly. In his dream he'd been fleeing across a meadow somewhere.
It
was in the spring, but the vegetation was gray, as if covered with moth dust. A harsh wind was blowing, stirring up the powdery substance, blinding him at times.