Venus Envy, page 11
“Isn’t she a card?” Laura trilled to Angie. “Always cutting up.”
“Well, you’re always cutting down,” Frazier trilled back as Angie left them.
Laura, returning to a whisper, assumed an air of urgency. “What is the matter with you? Isn’t it bad enough you’ve plunged your mother, that sweet soul, into the depths of despair and heartbreak? You’ve attacked my husband. I mean, can’t you behave?”
“Oh, and what has Carter told you?”
“Just that you raked his entire life over the coals, as if you have room to criticize,” she growled.
“I did not rake Carter over the coals. I told him to stand up for himself and to stop drinking.”
“He’s a social drinker. You make entirely too much of it because you hardly ever drink at all. You people see someone else enjoying their libations and you assume they belong in Alcoholics Anonymous.”
“He does.”
Angie returned with both their orders, and sure enough, a small tin of rat poison was on a separate plate. She whirled on her heel and winked at Frazier as she left.
“Is this funny? Ha. Ha. Did you pay her off? Sophomoric You are so sophomoric and don’t think I’ve forgotten that you were the one who filled all the footballs with water. Just about ruined Homecoming. You’ll never grow up, Frazier. That’s really why you aren’t married. You can’t make a mature commitment to another human being. Then, too, your kind of relationships never last.”
“Aha, now you’re an expert on lesbian relationships.”
Laura shifted in her seat so she didn’t have to speak over her own shoulder. “Will you lower your voice? I am hoping—no, let me amend that. I am praying that the family can keep this under wraps until you get some help. I can only pray that those other people to whom you wrote your little bombshells have the sense to shut up about your ill-mannered confessions.” Laura lied through her teeth.
“Sugar, you didn’t read the letter I wrote Carter? No, I guess not.”
“He said it would put me right over the edge. Said you must have been half out of your head.” She reduced her whisper some more. “I really don’t want to discuss this in a public place.”
“The only other person here is Kyle Everly and he’s been deaf since 1952, so they tell me. The mob has come and gone, so, honey, it’s just us chickens.”
Laura shifted back to her original position. “I have nothing more to say on the subject or to you. You’re being entirely too flippant and I am going to chalk it up to your recent fright. When you are quite yourself again we can work this out.”
Frazier jabbed, lightly, Laura’s shoulder with her fork. “I am more myself than I have ever been.”
“Stop that. You’re not normal.” Laura surprised herself with her volume.
“Normal is the average of deviance.” Frazier stood up, reached over and dropped the rat poison in Laura’s cottage cheese. She trotted out the door before Laura could scream bloody murder.
22
A SLENDER SAILBOAT, LARGE ENOUGH FOR TWO PEOPLE, SAT in the driveway like an emaciated banana. Ruru’s pride and joy, christened Zaca after her hero Errol Flynn’s yacht, did not add to the luster of the neighborhood. She trimmed her yard and mowed her lawn but a few of the neighbors winced every time they drove by the Zaca. Libby didn’t drive by at all. She swore the reason was not that Ruru lived in a modest section of town but rather that Ru fell down on the housekeeping tasks. A maid five days a week contributed to the dazzling appearance of Libby’s country club mansion, and when this was brought to her august attention she proclaimed that when she and Frank were married she had been the maid.
It was true that Ruru and her vacuum cleaner rarely saw each other and yes, there were crumbs on the kitchen counter, but what really drove Libby around the bend was the dogs. Two Jack Russells and two Dalmatians, one liver-spotted, controlled the house. They slept on the sofa, the chairs, the bed. One had chewed the carpet when it was a puppy but not at the ends. Instead, small holes dotted the surface of the carpet as though a huge moth had feasted on the threads. The cats, four of them, posed no difficulty other than tearing the arms off one chair. They cleaned themselves, were fastidious in the use of their dirt box, and they terrorized the dogs.
Libby would swoon and decry the commotion. To Ruru the sounds of her brood pleased her as much as Bach pleased Pablo Casals.
Frazier motored over after her strained lunch and found Ruru on her knees beside the bathtub, washing her Dalmatians. The tub water was the color of red brick.
“What did they get into?”
“Ruru grimaced as a dog-shake spritzed water over her face. “The usual.”
“Mud’s still better than skunks. Remember last year when Toby and Lulu got tangled up with one?” Toby and Lulu were the Jack Russells.
“How many gallons of tomato juice did I go through? Goddammit, Chief, sit down!” The liver-spotted dog obeyed for an instant and then stood right back up.
“About two, and those are little dogs. I ought to help you, Ru, but no reason for both of us to get filthy.” Frazier reached over for a towel. “But I’ll dry Chief while you work on Marco. That way I only get half-dirty.”
“A bleeding saint, you are. Sit down, Marco!”
Marco, being more obedient than his sister, sat down and stayed down but he rolled his eyes heavenward and implored the god of dogs to release him from this suffering. Odd, because if there was a puddle he’d sit in it; a river, he’d leap in it. Why was a bath such torture? Probably because it wasn’t his idea.
Auntie Ruru rinsed Marco. His black spots glistened. “Here’s another one.”
“How come Toby and Lulu aren’t mudballs?”
Toby and Lulu stayed in the living room as though distance would save them from the fate worse than death, a bath.
“They were in the cab of the truck. These two were in the bed. There now, that ought to do it except that I need a shower.”
“You’ve been dirtier.”
“That’s a compliment.” Ru bent over and patted Marco’s head. He totally ignored her.
The two humans sat down in the living room. The Dalmatians ran back to the kitchen.
“I’ve got to give them a bone. Be right back.” Ruru rewarded Chief and Marco with large Milk Bones. She passed out little ones to the Jack Russells, who, although unbathed, couldn’t bear to see another dog get a bone. Ruru thought of the unearned treat as a bribe toward future good behavior.
She brought in a bowl of potato chips.
“Not me, thanks.”
“Good. More for me.” Ru’s weatherbeaten hand darted into the yellow pile.
“I ate a big salad at the club. Actually, I didn’t finish it because Laura flounced in, plopped at the next table, alone, mind you, and talked with her back to me. Bitch. I put rat poison in her cottage cheese.”
“You what?”
“No, no, it wasn’t that bad. Angie brought out a tin as a joke and I’d finally had it with her so I dropped the tin in Laura’s lunch. She deserved it.” Frazier sighed. “And it felt so good.”
“I’ve no doubt of that,” Ruru mumbled with her mouth full. “You’re not holding back, girl, are you?”
“Uh—no. If I keep this up no one will ever talk to me again but I feel so good.”
“Laura still hot on the tendril school of coiffure?” Ruru darted into the kitchen and grabbed herself a Coke. The salt from the chips was making her thirsty. She came back and plopped down with her feet hanging over the arm of the chair.
“If she were Jewish I’d swear she was Hasidic.”
“If she were Jewish she’d be more intelligent.” Ruru reached in for a gargantuan handful. She slipped some chips to the J.R.’s. Chief and Marco began to look interested in joining the party as the little dogs merrily crunched. “’Course, I suppose even a smart girl could fall in love with Carter. He’s damnably attractive.”
“You know, Mandy told me to put a tail on her and I did.”
“Huh?”
“A detective.”
“That kind of tail.” Ruru knitted her eyebrows together. “Whatever for? Laura would never have an affair. She’d lose her whip hand over your brother. I mean, she has to be a martyr, a sinned-against woman. La-dee-dah and crapola. But hey, you get points for that in this town. Maybe Laura should be Catholic.”
“You’re awful.”
“I’m awful? I didn’t salt my sister-in-law’s lunch with rat poison. Mary Frazier, do you think you’re going through a phase? You grew out of this stuff at puberty. Of course, I liked you better before.” Her eyes twinkled.
Frazier played with the signet ring on her left hand. “I’m going through something.”
“Now, let’s get back to this detective business.”
By now Chief and Marco had crept into the living room and lay next to Ruru’s chair.
“Mandy suggested I take a closer look. Well, I can’t recall exactly how she put it but it was one of her brainstorms, or hunches. She said the guilty dog barks first. Actually, Terese said that the other day when I got a haircut. Well, no matter.”
Ru swung her legs over the chair arm and sat upright. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the detective discovered Laura has a secret life? If Terese was right? Let’s see what would be a deep, dark secret to Laura—abortion counseling.”
“Auntie Ru!” Frazier laughed.
“To change the subject, how is Mandy?”
“Breaking up with her boyfriend, Sean. She’s been breaking up with him for the last year. Not that I know the whole story. Snippets. Must be tough for a highly intelligent, beautiful black woman to find the right guy.”
“The difficulty is in the intelligence. The rest of the package is fine. ‘Course, it’s hard for a bright white girl too. Men seem to prefer dumb women. Maybe you have to be dumb to work for free, which is what most women do. Ironing for love. Think, if I wrote a book about it could I get on the talk shows?”
“Sure—but you don’t iron. You never did.”
“Don’t be literal, Frazier. It doesn’t become you. My husband survived.” She sank back into the chair. “Not a day goes by I don’t think about my Paul and not a day goes by without my wishing he was here with me but I bow to the will of the Lord. Maybe heaven needed plumbers. Shit, that’s what I hate about getting old. You fight the losing-of-your-looks part until somewhere in your fifties and then you give in. That’s not so bad. What I hate is the dying part. Everybody dies. The memories they take with them.”
“But you hold the memories.”
“Only the ones I know. What did Paul know that I didn’t? Did he remember when automobile makers created the semiautomatic?—a memory that would mean something to him—or maybe he was alone sailing one day and the light played across the water just so. Who knows what’s in another human head and then it’s lost. Forever lost.” She put the chips on the holey rug for the dogs. Ru was careful to divide the snacks first or an unpleasant fight would have erupted. “How did I get on this subject? Squawk, bleech, reep.” She sounded like changing radio stations. “And now back to Mary Frazier Armstrong and her life crisis.”
Frazier giggled, her green eyes brightening. “You’re nuts.”
“I hope so, because what passes for sane scares the bejesus out of me. But really, kiddo, what’s cooking?”
Frazier, palms up, gestured that she didn’t know. “I feel good.”
“You’ve established that. Feeling a bit impulsive, are we?”
“Yeah.” Her grin revealed those perfect teeth.
“That’s fine but remember that people aren’t accustomed to your behaving that way. They’re accustomed to me being spontaneous but not you. Add your recent revelation to the picture and you can understand that, well, things are dicey right now. I haven’t heard a peep, so it’s not around town just yet.”
“No one will ever see me as the same person, will they?”
“Probably not. If you continue to place rat poison in other people’s food, I would have to say their view of you will change forever.” Ru spoke kindly. “And, darlin’, some people will never get past it once the word’s out that you’re gay. You will be reduced to an object. It’s not fair but that’s the way it is. If you wear a purple skirt people will say it’s because you’re a lesbian. You own an art gallery. They’ll say that gay people are always artistic. You have a dog and a cat and live alone. Lesbians always have cats, don’t they? You’ll be shorn of your individuality. But to those people who are full people themselves you’ll be what you are and what you choose to share.”
“I think”—Frazier groped for words—“I know that. But I don’t feel it yet.”
“You’ve spent most of your adult life repressing your feelings. Give them time to catch up to you. You’re not used to you.”
“Auntie Ru, what would I do without you?”
“Stumble around in the dark and feel wretched,” Ru kidded.
23
MARCH 17, THAT LUCKY DAY, TURNED ICY AS A WITCH’S tit. The wind had teeth; the daffodils had croci bent to the ground. Saint Patrick’s Day provided climatic memories. One year the holiday would be deep in pure snow and the following year it might be sixty degrees with bright sunshine. Neither snow, nor sleet, nor driving rain could keep the Irish from their exuberant frolic.
The ballroom of the country club, a cavernous but well-proportioned space, was festooned with green and white. White silk parachutes hung from the ceiling, creating a cozy atmosphere, a triumph considering the architecture. Beautiful ceramic pots overflowing with shamrocks in bloom provided centerpieces on each table. Monumental green sashes topped with golden and green ribbons covered the walls, and the bandstand had been transformed into a corner of the Emerald Isle. The bandleader, trumpet in hand, stood on sod. Leprechauns served drinks.
The gentlemen were in white tie and many wore shamrocks as boutonnieres. The ladies, resplendent in jewels and gowns, glided across the dance floor like colorful moving sculptures.
Laura, a paradise of chinchilla, entered on Carter’s arm. Libby and Frank had arrived before them and were seated at a table some distance from the dance floor because Libby always complained that the band was too loud and she couldn’t hear herself think.
As Carter and Laura pushed through the crowd they waved at friends. Arriving a few minutes after her brother and sister-in-law came a solitary Frazier. Her low-cut dress, dramatically white, snapped heads around. She wore her emerald and diamond choker with matching earrings. The green was her nod to the Irish.
She’d debated whether to come or not. Billy Cicero was to have been her date but he never called, not even to cancel. She was determined not to call him. Coralling a date, an acceptable male, at such late notice was like the search for the Holy Grail. She could have stayed home and avoided the stares of those who knew, but the more she thought about it, the more determined she was to attend. If you hid away, then it looked as though you were ashamed of what you were. She was going to the ball and if people wanted to talk, let them. What had they done for the world lately?
She sat between her father and brother, wisely avoiding Scylla and Charybdis—Libby and Laura—who already glared at her like clashing rocks. Frazier smiled at the two women and talked to Frank.
“Where’s your date, honey?”
“I don’t know.”
Carter butted in. “I’m delighted not to have to sit with Billy Cicero.”
“Riding to cocktails, I see.” Frazier spoke acidly to Carter. He’d already had a few. “No, you don’t have to sit with Billy. Kenny called and left a message on my machine but the machine cut it off. So … who knows?”
“Guy could screw up a wet dream.” Carter failed to clarify which man he meant.
Frazier wrinkled her nose. The distinct scent of Sarah Saxe curled into her nostrils. She patted Carter’s broad shoulder. “Let’s dance, creep.”
Carter stood up and held his sister’s chair.
Laura pouted. “You’re supposed to dance with your wife first and last, Carter, darling.”
“Not this time … darling.” Carter smiled the smile of a man utterly disgusted and bored with his wife.
Out on the dance floor brother and sister synchronized their bodies. They had grown up practicing various dance steps with each other.
“Brudda, what are you doing running around town telling people I’m gay?”
He pressed the palm of his hand into the small of her back. “I got drunk at Buddy’s. Anyway, if you are, you are. Why should I hide it? Don’t tell people news if you want it kept a secret.”
“The circumstances were bizarre.”
Carter thought about that a few moments. “That’s the truth.” Then he added, “But once you’re out of the closet you can’t go back in again.”
“I can rattle off a few famous names who have tried.”
“Candyasses.”
Frazier considered Carter’s summary judgment, as well as his sentiments concerning her. “Look, you’re right. I am what I am but don’t use it against me as a weapon. My letter to you wasn’t ugly. I meant it. Cut the traces and run.”
Carter peered over his sister’s creamy shoulder and beheld his wife busy in conversation with Isabelle Harper, another Garden Club member. “I wish I could—but I’d lose every penny. She’s vindictive. She’d take me to the cleaners—and I don’t have much to take.”
“What if you had just cause?”
“That would simplify the process but Laura is perfect, you know—and as cold as a wedge.”
“Who knows? Something might turn up.” At that moment Frazier prayed the detective would dig up some dirt.
“Damn,” Carter exclaimed, then twirled Frazier around so she could see Billy Cicero lightly jump down the steps into the ballroom, then turn and hold his hand out to Ann Haviland. He was followed by Kenny Singer, escorting Courtney Wood.
“Billy and Ann—the Immaculate Deception,” Frazier blurted out.
“Fuck ’em,” Carter said.
“No, un-fuck him. Fucking’s too good for him.” She put her head on Carter’s shoulder. “I smell Sahara’s perfume on your neck.”
