True Fires (17 page)

34

This is probably a mistake,
Lila reckons, as she wheels past the overblown stone entrance of the new subdivision—“Welcome home to Fon du Lac”—onto a street so freshly asphalted the stink of tar still taints the air.

“Fon du what?” she’d asked.

“
Fon du Lac,
Lila!” Ginger had chuckled. “Charlie says it’s French for Passion Point, where we all used to go ‘to watch the submarine races’? ‘A whole lotta fondlin’ went on at this
Lac,
’ Charlie says.”

Why the hell did I say I’d come?
Lila searches for the street name and number among the modern, low-slung houses, too wide and too white for their narrow lots, bright green lawns still showing the tight grid of fresh sod, not yet grown in. She remembered Charlie Jackson, the class clown who’d apparently followed his father into real-estate development, and Ginger’s eager phone call:

“C’mon, Lila, you’ve been a hermit ever since you got home! It’s Wednesday night, just a few of the old gang. I’m mixin’ cocktails; Charlie’s burnin’ meat. Get yourself out of Lady Violet’s lair. Come have some laughs with us!”

Laughs.
All things considered—Lila had just received General J. P. Atkinson’s formal assent to her formal request for extended leave—it seemed like a good idea at the time. But now?
Hooah!
She parks at the bare curb, two houses past the Jacksons’ place.
If I don’t like it, I’ll just leave,
she decides, stepping around the neighbors’ small mountain of moving boxes, a forgotten tricycle, a spindly soon-to-be-planted chestnut tree.

The double black doors reek of fresh paint. Ginger—flaming red hair, red lips, billowing red polka dots—engulfs her in a big-bosomed hug. “
There
you are, lookin’ gorgeous as usual! Your perfume is divine. Helen, come smell Lila’s perfume, it’s simply
divine
!”

Helen Morton, the same pudgy pink face amid blond pin curls that had secretaried their senior class, wrinkles her pug nose and sniffs the air just left of Lila’s neck. “Delicious, Lila! French? I
knew
it!” She takes Lila’s hand and tugs her off the landing into the living room. “Everyone, come smell Lila’s delicious French perfume!”

Lila cringes. There appear to be four, no, five couples here, plus her and—
Oh, God
—at the bar across the room, offering up a quickly poured glass of Jack Daniel’s, Hamp Berry.

This is going to be awful. One quick drink and I’ll excuse myself,
she resolves as Hamp hands her a glass, and interrupts the cicada chorus of cooing women with, “You must see their boat dock,”—he cups her elbow, ushers her toward the big sliding-glass door facing the lake—“it’s Charlie’s pride and joy.” And thus they escape, past Charlie Jackson and Brady Morton poking the smoking barbecue pit, across the Bermuda-grass lawn to the wooden dock and its brand-new Chris-Craft runabout, hoisted up above the water, like a prize or a pig on a spit. The acrid smell of fresh sealant and Charlie’s recent overuse of lighter fluid assaults the more fecund scents of wet weeds, dark mud, and stagnant lake water.

“For the record . . .”—Hamp eyes her intently—“I didn’t know
you
were invited, either.”

Lila swigs her drink, thanks him for the rescue. “I don’t know why I agreed to come.”

“Well, Ginger’s a force of nature, to be sure. But, when she promised entertainment, it never occurred to me that you and I were the floor show.”

“What if we just left, Hamp? Jumped in the boat and got the hell outta here?”
Jesus,
Lila thinks,
the Jack’s gone straight to
my head.

Hamp, suddenly dead serious, says, “And go where, Lila? And do what?”

Lila instantly regrets the awkward pause, the discomfort that’s dropped like a stone between them. “Oh, Hamp, I’m sorry. I feel like a raving lunatic . . .”

He laughs nervously. “And you sound like one, too.” He’s let her off the hook, again, switched to concern. “Too much time with Our Lady of the Purple Shadows?”

Lila shudders. “Mamma’s even worse than I remember. And, as you well know, my memories aren’t pleasant.” Solid, unflappable Hamp had been the only friend she’d ever brought home, exposed to Violet in all her screeching, slurring, stumbling-down-the-stairs glory.

Hamp shakes his head, calls up memories of his own. “After you left, there was only Sissy, and Kyle, and occasionally me, to run interference between the two of them. Of course, your daddy blamed her for the fact that both of you were gone.”

“Turns out he was right.”

He lets her comment pass. “At a certain point, two, three years ago, he didn’t bother to hide the fact that there were other women. Though, he did have the phone lines in the bedrooms and the kitchen removed, everywhere except his office, so she couldn’t eavesdrop or interrupt his calls.”

“So Mamma became the spitting recluse she is today?”

“Word was her ‘breakdowns’ became longer and more frequent, if that’s what you’re asking. In the beginning, the Judge carted her off to several different high-powered doctors, hoping for help. Each one came up with something different— passive-aggressive, manic-depressive, paranoid-schizophrenic. But all of them recommended he commit her to some high-priced sanitarium.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“He couldn’t. Or wouldn’t, I suppose. The last diagnosis was acute alcoholism and an enlarged liver. She came home, as usual, swearing she was off the sauce forever.”

“God, what a mess.”

“Yes, but—well, Lila, aren’t you leaving soon? ‘End of the month,’ you said.”

“Well, no, not exactly—” she begins.

“Hey, you two!” Ginger hollers from the sliding door. “The calf is cooked, and the carnivores are getting restless!”

At the long table, the men have congregated at one end around the fragrant, steaming slabs of barbecued beef. The women at the other end busy themselves with the passing of roasted potatoes, baked beans, cole slaw, and dinner rolls. Lila and Hamp take the empty seats in the middle, opposite each other.

Talk at the women’s end spins and tilts like a top toward their unseen children, stashed with sitters for the evening: Halloween costumes, this weekend’s school carnival, kids’ preferences for candied apples versus caramel popcorn, concerns about tooth decay, and pin-curled Helen who’s announced she’s expecting their fourth—“Brady just looks at me and another rabbit bites the dust!” Seated beside Hamp, she flushes pink, from apparent happiness, but, Lila notes, Helen’s eyes are lined and shadowed, and her shoulders slump with an older woman’s weariness.

Between Helen and Ginger at the end, Mary Kaye Wilson, as puny and timid as ever, nods readily, drinks steadily— “Another touch of sherry, anyone?” While on Lila’s left, pert, ponytailed Trudy Stokes and greatly pregnant Nancy Roberts discuss the merits of Tidee-Rite Diaper Service versus a brand-new Maytag. Each of the wives, Lila sees, keeps a sly eye on her husband, with the same wary watchfulness as a G.I. on his General.

At the men’s end, the topic is commerce: price of land, price of housing, price of citrus, fertilizer, pesticides, and the new frozen-fruit-concentrate plant going up outside of town. It seems odd to Lila that politics—which dominates talk in Washington—isn’t mentioned until she brings it up.

“So, which way’s the election goin’ next Tuesday?” she asks, in a tone brazen enough to gain the attention of both ends.

Helen, listening in on the Tidee-Rite discussion, turns a shining pink face toward Lila, looks blank. Beside her, Mary Kaye tosses a wavering grin toward the man on Lila’s right. “Jimbo’s the political one in our family.”

“Why, Mary Kaye, shame on you,” Ginger, their hostess, chides her with a playful tap of red nails. “A woman’s got to have a mind of her own!”

“Yeah, Mary Kaye, you should do what Ginger does,” Charlie, their host, calls from his end.

“What’s that?” Mary Kaye, wide-eyed, asks.

“Well, it’s simple, really,” Ginger, now the center of the table’s attention, preens. “I was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat until Truman—all his talk about integrating the Armed Forces—turned me Republican. Now, anything with an ‘R’ by it gets my vote!”

Next to Ginger, Nancy Roberts cups her belly like a beach ball, nods in eager agreement. There’s low laughter from the men’s end.

“Including Kyle DeLuth?” Lila’s trying to keep the edge off her voice.

“Now, Lila.” Charlie’s tone exudes patient reason. His pale blue Banlon shirt emphasizes the hot red of today’s sunburn. His aqua eyes glitter in a perpetual joker’s squint. “We all know there’s no love lost between you and Kyle. He’s more brawn than brain. Always was. But, you weren’t here when the Nigger war veterans came home, struttin’ up and down Main Street like they owned the damn place.”

“Lounging ’round the bus stops bold as could be,” Ginger says, “whistling at white girls, winking at grown women.”

“Ol’ Kyle got ’em off the streets, though,” Ken Roberts, Nancy’s gangly, hawk-eyed husband, drawls, “with his vagrancy law.”

“They stopped whistling once they found themselves on the chain-gang,” Ginger says. Up and down the table, except for Hamp, heads bob.

“And, you missed out on that New Jersey union organizer, too,” Charlie continues. “Eatin’ pigs’ feet with the Nigger pickers, filling their sorry heads with the promise of
union
wages. Can you imagine what union wages would do to the citrus business?”

“Kyle ran that boy’s Yankee butt straight outta town,” Jimbo adds. Mary Kaye sends a blurry beam in his direction. The other men murmur agreement. “Kick Ass kicked his ass.” “You bet!”

Lila leans in, turns toward Charlie. “But, surely, you see he’s completely outta bounds with these Dare children.”

“Awww, Lila, probably.” Charlie smiles amiably. “Everybody makes mistakes. Look at those fool Senators up your way tryin’ to censure Joe McCarthy. But, hell—an occasional fumble ain’t reason enough to yank your best player outta the game, especially if he’s a bona fide All-American!”

Good God!
Lila feels fit to explode. Angry arguments assemble on her tongue. But a sudden heavy foot covers hers under the table. Hamp’s expression urges control, reminds her that she’s a guest at the Jacksons’ table. Beside him, Helen’s flushed face pleads patience. Beside her, Mary Kaye tenses, sensing a fight.

Lila takes a long drink from her glass, regroups. “Well, Charlie,” she says, trying to match his amiable tone, “I couldn’t agree with you less. And, from a purely business perspective, Fred Sykes has the better game plan.”

Trudy Stokes brightens, chuckles. “Well, Sykes’s is a sight better looking than Kyle, that’s for sure.”

Buddy Stokes glares at his wife. “Looks got nothing to do with sheriffin’. It’s all about upholdin’ the law, ain’t it, Hamp?”

Like everyone else, Lila turns her eyes on Hamp, who shifts thoughtfully in his seat. “Well, strictly speakin’,” he drawls, “there’s upholdin’ and there’s holdin’ up. Seems to me, over the years, Sheriff DeLuth may have lost track of the difference.”

“And I’ve lost track of Helen’s scrumptious potatoes,” Ginger says smoothly, surveying the tabletop. “You guys hoardin’ ’em down there, Charlie?”

“Well done, Counselor,” Lila says softly.

“Why, thank you, Judge,” Hamp replies, with a slow smile.

PALE SUNLIGHT through strange striped curtains, the sound of a garbage truck clanking tin, breaking glass close by, a heavy arm flung across hers in hairy familiarity—Lila knows with a sudden, startling certainty:
I’m awake. This is not a
dream.

This strange room, round walls converging in a high point above the bed, is real. This strange young man, smelling of Scotch, cigarettes, sweat, is—She turns her head, slightly.
Don’t panic. For God’s sake, don’t wake him.
She shifts her shoulder, adjusts her hip, rolls slowly out from under his embrace. And holds her breath as he folds in, turning, groaning, toward the wall.

She stands, takes stock—
Nothing like this has ever
—stoops to pick up twisted panties—
never before
—strewn bra—
and
never
—draped blouse—
ever
—folded slacks—
again!
She steps into the tiny bathroom with its own small, slanted window, avoids the mirror, forgoes the light, and dresses hastily. She washes her face, rinses her mouth at the sink, spits carefully to avoid his shaving kit balanced on its rim, and wonders, sticking to specifics,
Comb, keys, shoes?

In the half-light of the room with the sleeping stranger, she locates her purse and shoes beneath the room’s only chair, steps across the trail of men’s clothes that leads to his side of the disheveled bed, and glances back at the burrowed chin, its small, handsome cleft the only clear memory she has of the night before. Her head aches. Her hand on the door shakes. Like a swimmer straining toward the surface after a too-deep dive, she emerges, gasping for air.

Outside, sunlight, memory, explanations rush cruelly in. Her brain, addled from who-knows-how-much alcohol last night, reels and, at the same time, records the facts: The room’s strange slanting walls, its high convergent ceiling are common to the units at the WigWam Motel. The garbage must have been collected from the adjacent ThunderCloud Cocktail Lounge, where a green truck—“Hightower Groves, Lake Esther, Florida”—sits alone in the side parking lot.

Inside the truck, fumbling key into ignition, she remembers,
His name began with a “T,” something short. Ted? Todd?
Tom? Yes, that’s it. “TomTom in a WigWam,” she’d joked. Oh,
God!

She heads north in the early-morning traffic, recognizes the road (
South Trail,
South Hylandia’s Orange Blossom Trail, forty minutes from Lake Esther), recalls the moment when, after the Jacksons’ disastrous dinner, after Charlie suggested “we all take a walk around the lake, to the Point, where we used to park. Relight the old fires, huh?” (he’d added a wicked wink at Hamp), she’d fled.

Her intention, if she had one, was to head south, as far as she could go. Miami maybe, or, if she felt like it, Key West. But the Wig Wams caught her eye, and the ThunderCloud Lounge next door held it. She’d stopped, feeling clouded all right, by the thunderclap insight that marriage—in the five forms she’d seen it that night, in the many guises she’d observed at Officers’ Clubs on three continents, in the way it might have been with Hamp, or she’d hoped it would be with Jazz—was not for her.