The Angry Woman Suite (13 page)

I led Elena behind the pavilion, and her voice shook as I bent my head, “Are you going to kiss me, Francis?”

Of course I was going to kiss her. I kissed her several times, savoring lipstick—but when a starry-eyed Elena left East Chester to catch the midnight bus back to the city, telling me she’d write, I let her go, forgetting the forgettable.

***

I spied Mother and Aidan, and emboldened by Elena, her words and the victory over her, joined them at their table.

“You did well, smarty-pants,” was all Aidan said. But I’d never felt such an intense look.

I leaned back. “Look, Aidan, I couldn’t help—” He put his hand up.

“Go home. Your mother’s staying a while.”

I’d no intention of walking home. It had been a long day, and I was suddenly bushed. Mother was supposed to give me a ride. There was no point to her staying, and I said so.

But Aidan, eyes steely, said, “Go.”

And I caved. I owed him.

I was hardly inside the door of Grayson House, setting my trumpet case and duffel bag down on the floor, when I felt fingers encircle my wrist. She dug her nails in hard.

“Shit, Lothian!” I cried, flinging her off.

“Shut up!
You’ll wake the dead.” She stepped back from me. She wore a wrapper, and her hair was a tangled mess, as if she’d been pulling at it. She folded her arms across her chest. “You know why, Francis.”

I didn’t have to take her crap anymore. “I
never
knew why,” I retorted. I headed for the staircase. “I’ve never understood anything about you, Lothian.” She moved quickly, practically skidding to a stop in front of me. “Move it,” I ordered. A liquid mask had slipped down over her hardness, softening her features. I’d have none of it. She leaned in way too close.

“Where’s your mother?”

I bit the words out: “At Aidan’s. Cleaning up.”

She stared. “You do fill that suit out nicely, Francis.” She turned and tilted her buttocks up at me, making it so I couldn’t get around her, retrieving Chesterfields from the foyer table. She lit a cigarette, then turned back around. The hard face was back. Her body matched it, a slab of stone I’d have to climb over to get to my room.

“Move it,” I said again. I
was
beat.

As if she’d missed the scorn in my voice, she said conversationally, “Aren’t we the family, Francis? Aren’t we just the family? We’ve got an idiot, a loser, a jailor, a whore, and an escapee. Earl was the smart one, though, making the clean break. Who’d have ever figured Earl for being smart? And then there’s you. Just like your father. Did I put
pawn
on that list? She’ll never let
you
get away, you know. Never.”

I wanted to shake her, to rattle those little teeth of hers loose in her head. She looked pointedly at my hands, amused. I’d curled them into tight fists. She arched a brow, took a step closer.

“He had hands like yours.” She put a hand on my face, the one that held the cigarette, then laid her cheek against my coat lapel. God, she was tiny. Her smoke was acrid, it burned my nostrils. “Beautiful hands,” she murmured, her voice catching. “Beautiful everything.” She ran her hands up and down my arms. “Just like him. He was a musician, too. I can hear your heartbeat. It’s fast.” She taunted me: “You’re not afraid, are you, Francis?”

“Lothian, I don’t think—”

“Everything … like him. Hold me.
I’m
afraid. Hold me, Jamie. Please hold me.”

“No!”
Now my voice was deep, rough—a stranger’s voice. I pushed her and she stumbled almost all the way back into the parlor—and then I made my move for the staircase, even making it up two steps before her words cut the air, sharp and incisive:

“But what about your father? Don’t you want to know about him? You know, you really
are
the bastard. You’ve figured that out by now, haven’t you? That your mother’s a whore and you’re our bastard? And that’s why everyone treats us like garbage?”

I turned around. Lothian was lighting yet another cigarette. She smiled over the burning match, then blew it out and tossed it on the floor. She wasn’t supposed to smoke in the house. She counted on her fingers.

“Eenie, meenie, miney … let’s see, who could your father have been, Francis? Was it Matthew Waterston? Did you know he painted music before he painted your mother? But, wait—what about Jamie? You do know about our Jamie, don’t you?” Her poisonous smile widened. “But wait again—what about your precious Aidan Madsen? Madsen’s been in love with your mother for years. Oh yes, your mother’s had them all, Francis. And any one of them could’ve been your—”

“I know who my father is!”

“You mean you know who
Earl’s
father is. Oh, come on, Francis. Earl’s father died
years
before you were born.
Years.”

I flew off the step then—and, God help me, but my fist made contact with Lothian’s jaw. Her head snapped back, her body folded up, arms over her chest, knees buckling. I heard the dull thump of her head against the stretch of rug—and I jumped her, grabbing her skinny throat with my long fingers. My thumbs pushed against her soft flesh. She worked her throat, and, fascinated, detached, I watched the tendons bulge at her neck. It was what I’d always wanted to see, Lothian caught, cornered, helpless.

A trickle of drool escaped the side of her mouth, then blood. I tightened my grip. From the corner of my eye I saw the arm flail, saw the hand come up, heard her grunt, felt the searing pain; her lighted cigarette branded my jaw. I dropped Lothian’s head,
kerplunk.

The overhead light came on.
“Bitch!”
I swore, blinking into the light. I staggered to my feet.

Grandmother stood at the top of the stairs, Stella huddled behind her. Grandmother spoke with eerie calmness.

“Gentlemen do not use profanity in the presence of ladies, Francis. And, Lothian, no smoking. How many times do I have to tell you? Stella, go pick up the cigarette.” Stella scurried down the stairs and picked up the offending cigarette and ran for the kitchen.

“That was my mother’s rug,” Grandmother said, as if doing inventory. “And her mother’s before her.”

Lothian struggled to rise. She worked her jaw.
“Mama,”
she moaned.

Grandmother, staring at me, picked her way around Lothian. I couldn’t read those eyes, I couldn’t see
into
them. Like old mirrors, cracked and yellow, they reflected a broken image back onto me, and the reality of what I’d just done,
of what I’d
wanted to do,
hit home, hard.
I’d wanted
to
kill.
Stella hurried back into the room and helped Lothian to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Grandmother, meaning it. I was scared shitless. Still,
I
was the one who’d been hurt for years. If it hadn’t been for my noble silences, all the women would know how I’d worked to protect them, to fix them, and for how long.

I asked, “Is it true? Is what Lothian said true? Do Earl and I have different fathers?”

“Get out,” Grandmother said.

“Is it true?”

“Oh, Mama,” Lothian whined. I looked down. Lothian was puffy and mottled, like rotten fruit, and I suddenly wished I’d hit her harder. I wished I’d squashed her to a pulp. I wished I’d silenced her forever.

“Upstairs,” Grandmother said to her. “You sicken me. But you, boy, out of my house. Gentlemen do not strike women, no matter how provoked.” Grandmother’s mirrored eyes narrowed. “
Go.”

I took a step backward, scanning faces. Lothian’s was crumbling fast, and Stella’s mouth had turned into a big O.

“But, Mama!” Lothian wailed. “He has to stay! This time he has to stay! Please, Mama!
Don’t
let him get away again!”

“He’s not
him,
girl.” Grandmother’s frightening eyes held mine. Suddenly she shrieked at Lothian,
“Now
get upstairs!”

I saw my opening.

“Stella,”
I pleaded.

Head bowed, hands trembling, Stella approached me.

“Stella.”

She raised her head. Her eyes had darkened to slate.

“Stella, no.”
I laid my head inside the crook of her neck. Stella’s fawning over me and squealing at the other women had always been annoying as hell, sure, but I’d never have made Stella mad. I’d always stopped short of provoking Stella … I loved Stella. I needed her.

Stella moved her head to the side. “You’re an angry boy,” she said indignantly. “You get me in trouble.”

And that’s when I understood I’d
somehow
made Stella hate me, she who didn’t even like Lothian and shouldn’t have minded Lothian getting taken down a notch or two.

I picked up my horn case and opened the door and stumbled into the dark night. Then I ran, Stella’s howls following me all the way down Grayson Hill, pushing at my back like a hard wind.

It was early morning, and of course the cleanup crew had already finished with Washington’s Headquarters, and of course I was a babbling mess, falling all over myself, telling my story.

“Grandmother doesn’t mean it, does she? I mean, Mother, where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do? Grandmother can’t kick me out, can she? I’m only sixteen!”

Mother stared at the top of the table, as if memorizing every striation of its grain. Neither she nor Aidan had uttered a word, not one word of commiseration.
Didn’t they realize I’d just been kicked out of Grayson House?
Newly confused, I came off defiant.

“Look at
me!
” I shouted. “Can you never look at me? All my life, Mother, you’ve looked at everyone and everything but me!”

So Mother looked at me. Her face was devoid of color, and her lips were bloodless where her lipstick had worn off. A dress sleeve had slipped down her shoulder, and her slip strap showed. I stared, suddenly comprehending her tawdriness, and Lothian’s taunts, and then I looked at Aidan, comprehending him as well. He didn’t flinch.

“Close your mouth,” Aidan ordered. “And pull up a chair and sit.”

“Wait—
is that why, Mother? What Lothian said about Matthew Waterston? About Aidan? Is that why people hate us? It’s not because of Stella or because Grayson House looks like crap, is it? It’s because you’re a whore, Mother! Right? And
you,”
I breathed, turning to Aidan. “Are you my—?”

“I said sit!”
Aidan roared.

I sat, glaring at them both.

“Now, where do you want to go?” Aidan asked.

“What? I don’t want to go anywhere! I want to know what’s going on! I want to know why I don’t know anything! And
now
—I’m dead tired!”

“No doubt you are. Do you want to go home to Grayson House?”

That stopped me. “No,” I answered sullenly.

“Well, you can’t stay here. There will be … repercussions. Always are with your family. So I’ll ask again. Where is it you want to go?” Aidan’s eyes traveled to the chair where I’d tossed my trumpet case. “There, Francis. That’s what you want to do. You want to blow a path clear through to the very top—something I wanted once, too. But I’m not the musician you are.” Aidan got up. “It’s New York then. Either that or the service. You’ll have to make yourself older. Still, service or street, same difference, you have to be older. But you can fool them—just don’t think you can razzle-dazzle them to death right off the bat. It doesn’t work that way. They’ve seen them all, ones as good as you are right now. Get yourself ready. I’m driving you into Media. You best know Lothian will swear out a complaint. But no one will be looking for you in Media. You can take the bus from Media.”

He was serious.

He left the room and reappeared two minutes later with clothing draped over his arm, in one hand the notebook he was always writing in, and in the other hand the small watercolor that had hung on the wall of the spare room, the one of a rustic house with a water mill behind it. He put everything but the notebook on the table, withdrew a wad of bills from his pocket and put that on the table, too. I stared at it all: the clothes, the painting, the money.

“The painting’s worth some money, so hang onto it best you can. And there’s $100, what you’ve paid me for the trumpet. Take it. Go on now, take it.”

Hadn’t they heard anything I’d said? The insinuations Lothian had made? Were they deaf?

I came out swinging. “Mother, remember how you’ve always told us that Earl has a different last name because you took your maiden name back
after
our father died? So that Grayson Investments would still be run by a Grayson? And that I got your name, the Grayson name, and not Earl’s last name, because our father already being dead by the time I showed up, you figured him for not minding my name being Grayson and not his?”

I felt every second of the long, silent minute that followed.

“Earl’s father,” Mother said, “died in 1918, Francis. Before … you. You have different fathers.”

Coming from Mother it sounded
real
.

“He was like you,” Mother said vaguely. “Your father was like you, Francis.”

I jumped to my feet, sending my chair crashing to the floor.
Had anybody ever played it straight with me? Ever?

“And I’ll bet he had hands like mine too, right?” I glared at Aidan. “
Jesus Christ!
Didn’t you once tell me Matthew Waterston had hands like mine, hands that could reach the moon and stars?” I swung my head back to Mother. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Mother? Are you trying to tell me
Matthew
Waterston’s
my father?”

“You will show respect!”
Aidan suddenly thundered. “Her heart is breaking!”

I stared at Aidan, newly incredulous. “
Her
heart is breaking?”

“He was a musician,” Mother stammered. Aidan groaned, fingering his stupid journal.

But I was merciless. “And he got away from you! And he took something of Lothian’s! Or
you
took something of Lothian’s! That’s what the two of you are always fighting about, right?
Him!
My father! Matthew Waterston! The one who painted pictures of music! Whatever the hell that means! Didn’t that make Matthew Waterston a musician, painting pictures of music? I know quite a lot, don’t I, Mother?”