The Last Girls (28 page)

“Let's get out of here.” Catherine pulls Harriet down the stairs and out into the windy, changeable day. This courthouse gives her the creeps anyway, sitting up here on its hill in some kind of judgment, looking out—for what? You can't see the worst things come. Catherine carries her breast down the hill like a chalice, and though they eat a fine lunch together, fried oyster po'boys and potato salad and wine
at a little restaurant called the Biscuit, and though they talk about all kinds of things, she does not tell Harriet about the lump in her breast. She can't tell Russell yet either. For it seems to Catherine, after her second glass of wine, that she has given her body nearly away already, to her children and her husbands, and now she wants to hold on to what she can.

Mile 437.2
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Monday 5/10/99
1600 hours

F
OR THE LONGEST TIME
Harriet has been debating whether to attend the afternoon Riverlorian Chat or not. On the one hand, she wants to take the opportunity to learn everything she can about the river; on the other hand, it's a good chance for a nap, since she hasn't been sleeping—but then, she can always sleep when she's dead, and the Riverlorian really is such an attractive man, she might as well admit it to herself, and his lecture starts in five minutes … Almost before she knows it, Harriet has taken a seat near the back in the Grand Saloon. She's the only one of their party in attendance. There are plenty of empty chairs, she sees. Many of the passengers are still out sightseeing, while a surprising number of others are going back and forth onto the casino boat. Harriet can see them out the windows. She thinks she might try a little gambling herself, maybe in Natchez. Finally Pete Jones comes in wearing clean creased khaki shorts with a lot of pockets in them and a white shirt with still more pockets (a man like that shouldn't have to do his own ironing). He looks like he's on safari. His knees are square and cute.

Harriet takes notes as he tells them about the Natchez Trace which
she has never thought of before as actually having anything to do with Natchez, oddly enough. But the Natchez Trace turns out to have been the land route north through the wilderness taken by flat-boatmen after trading their cargo in Natchez, or even down in New Orleans. They sold their boats for lumber and walked home. And since they were known to be carrying cash, land piracy was a big problem. Harriet wonders why Pete says “land piracy” instead of “robbery.” Suddenly she glances up to find him staring straight at her as he talks. The rest of her notes are a mess, but she troops out dutifully with the group as they follow him up to the Observation Deck for a tour of the Pilot House. Pete introduces them to the pilot at the wheel, Rupert Middleton, who looks like a professor. Then Pete begins to speak. The boards on the big red paddle wheel are called bucket boards, Harriet learns.

“We use pine boards because if we hit anything, the boards will break and absorb the shock. This is a whole lot easier than replacing the Pittman bearing,” Pete says. All the old men on the Pilot House tour nod sagely, as if they know what a Pittman bearing is! Honestly!

“All boats show up on the radar, which sees for a mile and a half, allowing us to continue in rain, fog, or at night. The radar also picks up buoys. Then we can hit the buoy with our six-million-candlepower spotlight, which picks up the buoy's fluorescent tape. One time we saw two white-tailed deer, swimming across right here.” Pete smiles directly at Harriet. Next he explains the sonar or depth finder. “We're sitting nine feet down right now, with four feet of water under that.” This doesn't sound like
much,
to Harriet. In fact, it doesn't even sound safe. Pete explains how they used to have a system on the river involving puffs of steam and whistles to signal to oncoming ships which way they'd pass them; one whistle or puff of steam meant port to port, two meant starboard to starboard. Now they do it all with radio. “Any questions?” he asks. To her own horror, Harriet finds herself raising her hand. “But how do they decide?” she asks. “Who has right of way?”

“The boat coming downriver, of course.” He grins at her, showing the square yellow teeth under his snowy moustache. “It can't stop.”

“Oh, of course.” Harriet's response is lost in the general laughter.

Pete explains that the phrase “get the lead out” meant to drop the lead overboard on its hemp line to measure the depth. The line had one-and-one-half-foot marks on it. Twelve feet, or two fathoms, was safe water. “Mark Twain,” the boy would cry, meaning okay. Captain John Dulaney of the
Belle of Natchez
started out on the river twenty years ago, literally “learning the ropes” (
Oh!
thinks Harriet), eventually working his way up from pilot to master's license, and now he's a captain. He's a good example, Pete says: “If you work hard and study and leave the girlie books at home, you can make something of yourself.” Then Pete actually winks at her! “Captain Dulaney has been on the river for thirty years, since he was seventeen years old. By the way, to get your first-class captain's license, you have to be able to draw the river from memory, all of it, every bend and town and island. You have to know it like the back of your hand.” He doesn't say, You also have to be picturesque and able to carry a tune. Harriet remembers old Captain Cartwright sitting at the wheel in his rocking chair under the red umbrella, pointing out the sights along the way.

Pete says, “That's about it, folks. Go ahead, take your time, look around at everything, Rupert here will enjoy the company. But don't touch these instruments.” His lecture done, Pete crosses the Pilot House, heading straight for (oh no) Harriet. “I didn't mean to single you out or make fun of you,” he says to her. He's really a very nice man.

“Oh, I didn't think so, not for a minute. I just blush so easily, I'm afraid. It doesn't mean a thing, though.”

“Hey, I like a woman who can still blush,” Pete says. “Hey!”—again, startling her—“How would you like to eat lunch with me tomorrow in Natchez? There's a pretty good restaurant right by the dock named the Magnolia Grille.”

“Oh no, I couldn't do that,” Harriet says immediately. Her eyes come up to the V in his open shirt. His chest hair is white, too.

“Well, another time then,” Pete says easily, turning away to leave, then stopping to listen to a question from the dapper elderly man with the dog-headed cane.

“Are you sure you saw those deer swimming across this river, young man? I would tend to doubt that.”

“Well, sir, all I can say is, they did it, and I saw it with my own eyes. Of course you know that every hair on a deer is hollow, so that might account for it. And now, if you will excuse me—” Pete's gone. He must be making that up, Harriet has never heard of such a thing. Isn't it irresponsible for a Riverlorian to make things up?

Harriet is perspiring so; she reaches in her purse and gets out a Kleenex, then shreds it to bits. She pushes her way past a little clot of ladies flirting with Rupert. They all wear those flowered short sets. “Pete!” she calls into the wind on the deck. “Pete!” But he's gone. Harriet runs into the passageway, then starts down the metal stairs. She rushes out onto the Observation Deck, where several people are playing shuffleboard and others are sunning themselves on deck chairs or observing the shore through binoculars. Some instinct tells her to head down the forward stairs. She's just in time to see one foot—his foot, in the black shoe—disappear. “Pete!” she races down the stair steps.

“Harriet?” Suddenly he pokes his head back around the divider, scaring her to death.

“Yes,” she says breathlessly. “I mean yes.”

He just keeps grinning at her in the most uncomprehending way.

“Lunch,”
she has to say. “Yes I will have lunch with you tomorrow.”

“Twelve o'clock then,” he says. “Meet you at the landing.” He doesn't seem to be a bit surprised that she followed him. And then he's gone again.

Mile 435.7
I-20 Highway Bridge
Monday 5/10/99
1920 hours

D
URING DINNER THE
Belle
moves out of the Yazoo cut and back into the Mississippi, steaming down the setting sun's red path in the river. It's turned into a clear, beautiful evening with a nice breeze—a little cooler than it was. A momentary hush has fallen over the table, each face enlivened, for a minute, by the dying sun. Then while Maurice pours coffee all around, old Leonard and his pretty wife, Bridget, describe the casino boat where they have apparently spent the better part of the day. Bridget hit the jackpot on the Wheel of Fortune quarter slot machine. “So then I moved over to the next one, I think it was Wild Cherry, but nothing happened. I just lost quarter after quarter, while the guy who had taken over my machine won again. I never should have left, I knew it. Don't quit when you're ahead, there's a lot of truth in that. But then
he
wouldn't leave, so I couldn't get it back. I tried Elvis, and Jeopardy, but I never got another run like that one.” Leonard whispers in her ear. “Oh yes,” she says, “I won seventy-two dollars, in case you're curious.”

“That's a lot of quarters.” Catherine smiles at her. Actually, Bridget
reminds Catherine of her daughter Page, it's the same haircut, the same bright willing expression on her face.

“I learned about something today I'd never heard of before.” Russell stirs cream into his coffee. “All of our associations with Vicksburg have to do with the siege, right? But come to find out, one of the biggest naval disasters in the entire history of the United States has an association with Vicksburg, too. Right after the end of the war, the steamboat
Sultana
put in at Vicksburg to get its boiler patched because they were having trouble with it, and no wonder. The
Sultana
was carrying 2,400 men on a boat designed to carry about 450. It was taking Union soldiers home from Andersonville. The captain got paid by the head—that's why there were so many on board. But his greed killed him. The patched boiler blew up north of here, killing 1,900 men—why, that's more than the 1,600 killed on the
Titanic
. Amazing.”

“That
is
amazing. If I ever knew about it, I don't remember it either.” Anna slides her chair back from the table.

Courtney stands up. “I'll see all of you later,” she says pointedly, “at the dance.” She's talked them into going, though Catherine is still trying to get out of it for some reason, and Harriet seems panicked at the idea of dancing.

But Bridget clears her throat. “Ahem,” she says in the stagiest way. “Leonard wants me to tell you something.” She leans forward. Leonard nods vigorously, with his sly grin. Courtney struggles to hide her annoyance. Who
are
these people? Harriet sits back down.

“Well”—Bridget surveys her audience—“Leonard likes to share our story with others; he feels it is his duty to spread the word. He and I were married in Hawaii nine years ago and only four months after the wedding, he developed prostate cancer.” Perky as can be, Bridget acts like she's conducting a board meeting.

“Oh my God!” Russell can't help it.

“Wait.” Bridget holds up her hand like a traffic cop. “Of course it
was a terrible tragedy all around, since he had to have the entire prostate taken out immediately. I just couldn't imagine doing without him—I mean, we were virtually
newlyweds
after all, so luckily we ran into a surgeon who suggested a penis pump, and Leonard decided to go for it.” Leonard smiles his lizardy smile at them all. “It was quite expensive, but let me tell you, it was worth every penny, every hour of surgery.”

“You mean the thing works?”

“Russell, don't
yelp,
” Catherine says sharply.

“It works great,” Bridget assures them, “but it takes a while. The first step is that when you go home to recuperate, you have to leave it pumped up for the first three weeks so that it will heal in such a way you can get an erection later. So you do have to maintain an erection for the first three weeks.”

“Jesus,” whispers Maurice, who has joined the rapt circle.

Leonard says something in Bridget's ear.

“Oh yes!” She nods brightly. “The biggest problem we had during the entire time was when Leonard got this terrible abscessed tooth and had to go to the dentist for a root canal. Well, we didn't know what to do, because of course he'd just been staying at home ever since he got out of the hospital. But he was in awful pain.” Leonard puts his hand up to his face and grimaces, to demonstrate. “Well, I thought to myself, now how can we do this? Without attracting undue attention or even getting arrested, I mean. I knew we had to walk across a huge parking lot and into an office building and then of course we might have to wait in the dentist's office … Finally I got creative and made him this little harness contraption out of an old Kotex belt and one of those orange juice concentrate cans with the ends cut off.”

Leonard whispers again.

“A
large
orange juice concentrate can,” Bridget adds. “He wore some of his baggiest old sweatpants and then I had a real inspiration;
I tied his matching sweatshirt around his waist and let the ends just droop down, you know, like this, to cover his erection, sort of casual California style, and off we went. Nobody even noticed. And at the end of those three weeks, we tried it out, and it worked like a charm.” Bridget is radiant. Leonard nods slowly and constantly, eyes nearly closed, like a gator on a log. “Leonard thinks we should tell as many people as we can, so they won't give up hope if this happens to them.” Bridget beams at Russell, who squirms in his seat. She reaches for Leonard's spotty old hand and squeezes it. “Now I call him Ready Freddy,” she announces.

“My goodness!” Courtney jumps up from the table. “That certainly was interesting. And now, if you'll excuse me—” She's gone, Anna following, but Harriet, secretly hysterical, can't even get up from her seat, oh, she's going to wet her pants, she's going to
die,
but of course she can't laugh out loud. Catherine looks amused, too, biting her full bottom lip as if she can't trust herself to speak. Leonard whispers again to Bridget; finally they stand up.